2024 Year in Review Part 2 || TTC Ep531

[@jackeea_]

"you ban-a my father from-a command-a!" is now going to occupy a significant amount of my brain for the rest of this year, thanks

[@ghostlygun2138]

Lucky you getting to have rest of the year brainrot that only lasts a week. I wish we all had such great timing.

[@Meklor]

Wizards brings up Beholders a lot because unlike many of the other iconic monsters Beholders are under their copyright.

[@estebanrodriguez5409]

And you would think they would remember to tell the artist to draw them with their central eye closed when they are shooting rays from their eyestalks

[@vivianboor14]

​@@estebanrodriguez5409they... don't need to close their central eye to shoot their stalks though?

[@jamescampbell2353]

@@vivianboor14depends on the beholder kin. If they have an anti-magic central eye, then yes, but every beholder should be unique

[@vivianboor14]

@jamescampbell2353 the antimagic cone can be turned on and off like any of the other eyes, like how the disintegration beam isn't always going off. Superman rules, not Cyclops. Plus even having the antimagic cone itself *active* doesn't stop the other eyes from shooting, just nullified if the effect enters the cone itself

[@estebanrodriguez5409]

@@vivianboor14 The Beholder can "turn off" the antimagic field, but that's closing the eye. From the FR wiki: "Probably the least understood aspect of beholder biology was the antimagic properties of their central eyes. A beholder's central eye emitted a continuous antimagic field. Although careful squinting could narrow the area of the field generated, it would not stop unless the central eye's eyelid was completely closed, or the eye itself was put out or diseased to the point of uselessness."

[@hypethos]

"give a rabbit a sword" should be on the next card kingdom button

[@onura46]

Need a supercut of Wheeler reacting to Secret Lairs XD

[@jkdeadite]

11:20 I'm so with Nelson - we could have used another set on Bloomborrow to flesh out that world. To me, the biggest shame about losing blocks was that they said they'd use them when it made sense for a world or story, but so far never have. If that's not the time to do it, nor any of the recent big plot moments, I don't believe they will.

[@Mordalon]

We had Midnight Hunt followed by Crimson Vow. We also had Dominaria United followed by Brothers War. So they have done that actually. They also had All Will be One, set entirely on New Phyrexia, followed by March of the Machine which, while depicting many planes, was focused on the invasion of and by New Phyrexia.

[@violetlazuli3998]

​@@MordalonMid/vow is the only one of those I'd consider close to a modern 2 set continuation/block, with some mechanical consistency and direct continuation, and it only exists because they decided late to change rotation and had minimal time for extra world building for an extra set. BRO and MOM are just so different mechanically and explore such different things creatively that they aren't what's meant here. Just being on Dominaria but 6000 years apart in a different location or also having phyrexia don't make them blocks

[@jkdeadite]

@@Mordalon Fair, I forgot about Midnight Hunt & Crimson Vow, for sure. I amend my complaint to "do it more, please."

[@Mordalon]

@@violetlazuli3998 I specifically focused on Dominaria United into Brothers War as a pseudo two-set block. I just mentioned MoM as it was also focused developing the plot of immediate preceding sets. And while they didn't have direct mechanic references (although power stone tokens were previewed with DMU's Karn), the sets still had multiple mechanical synergies.

[@tipulsar85]

Yes Wheeler, the Costco exclusive DID happen, and it happened TWICE. The second time the deck was from Tales of Middle Earth. While id didn't see the LoTR decks in person, I HAVE seen the MOM decks. They were $50 US a piece.

[@TeaGarrison]

I never saw the MOM decks but our Costco had multiple pallets stacked of the LOTR bundles. Edit: I think they were like 89$ CAD

[@Keyw]

I think 100k might be LRR's Christmas gift.

[@tahlialysse]

I feel like the way to get away with two bloomburrow sets would have been to have the second one come out beginning of 2025 (where aetherdrift is coming out). Do a bunch of setup in Bloomburrow 1, have a small story conclusion, but leave threads hanging that get wrapped up. Set 1 is summer into autumn, set 2 is winter into spring. Make set 2 draftable on its own, but also make it draftable with set 1. Idk, feels like a fairly obvious way to have had their cake and eat it too. Spacing out makes it less likely folks get tired of cute animals, the different season theming both fits into the northern hemisphere releases and means you can focus on more niche elements (snow lands for set 2? Basic deserts for set 1? Idk, lots of room to push mechanics that fit but aren't just "cute animals typal")

[@ComandoX-cd9hy]

Heck, I think an alternate 2024 could have been two Bloomburrow sets to start the year, MH3 in the summer, two Duskmourn sets in the fall, and Foundations rounding it out in the winter. Duskmourn could also have benefited from the breathing room of a two-set block. First set actually entrenches the elements of the house, second set brings in all these 80s-esque elements without them being so hamfisted. Perhaps tie those "techy" elements, for lack of a better word, more explicitly to Neo Kamigawa, by way of Nashi, Kaito and The Wanderer. (That also would help with the feeling Wheeler identified, of all these references being extremely American, with more Kamigawa characters fighting against more Japanese horror elements beyond just the Overlord cycle.) That means we also dodge the minefield that was Thunder Junction (or at least delay it to 2025 to give it time to be done in a much better way). What happens to Karlov Manor in this alternate timeline, I have no clue.

[@Mordalon]

@@ComandoX-cd9hy Duskmourne wasn't meant to be a conclusive story, and I rather 2 Thunder Junctions than Bloomburrows.

[@toxicgaming003]

As someone who bought the Karlach SL, I have come here to defend it! ....yeah, wheeler's right lol

[@Azeria]

ACR is so weird, because it was like “oh aftermath completely s**t the bed, so instead of 5 card boosters… let’s do… uh… 7??”

[@Mordalon]

You do know ACR didn't begin development right after Aftermath released.

[@violetlazuli3998]

​@@Mordalonthey did say that they changed aspects of the set and boosters after the failure of aftermath though

[@Mordalon]

@@violetlazuli3998 Sure, but to assume that ACR was made with the full knowledge of the reaction to Aftermath shows a severe lack of understanding in production times.

[@Azeria]

@@Mordalon yeah nah? nothing I said implied I didn’t know that, and a lot that WOTC has said implies the product was directly changed because of Aftermath. Hell, OTJ and Big Score released first… and we know that was changed directly because of Aftermath.

[@Mordalon]

@@Azeria I didn't deny that no changes were made, what you did imply was thinking that they would be able to more drastically change the product within that time frame, how the change from 5 to 7 cards was a direct reaction to "Aftermath shitting the bed".

[@DorkmasterFlek]

The entire Duskmourn discussion is such a mood. I'm 100% with Wheeler. Everything on the creepy horror half ruled and the 80s stuff just...didn't.

[@LadyLunarSatine]

A friend made a deck around the premise "If you give a mouse a chainsaw" which is just Miss Brisbee (I don't remember the actual Magic legend's name) wielding the Chainsaw from Duskmourne.

[@silentguy123]

Fun fact, my mystery booster 2 box from the festival in a box had EIGHT white-border cards with misplaced holostamps...

[@Xalyn937]

So close to 100k!

[@jgmweston]

Happy holidays everyone!

[@masterofskillz14]

Cackling at the boys being baffled by the costco kits because thats the random magic gift i got from the pops who is a big costco fan!

[@definitelynotlazav]

I recently went into a local shop that opened up two towns over to sell some cards, they specialize in legos and pokemon but their inventory is a bit wider. I say, on their one shelf of mtg products, one of those duluxe march of the machine commander kits, and I was just as baffled in that moment as you three.

[@dicedude1071]

There is one Shandalar card in mystery booster two, it just is a playtest card, Call from the Grave

[@dicedude1071]

I'm not sure why it is though, considering it works totally fine within the rules and there's a bunch of digital only cards being printed for the first time. Hopefully we'll see it in a regular border soon

[@Mordalon]

@@dicedude1071 As written, it deals damage equal to "casting cost", which is not the same as Mana Value. Notably the playtest card uses the exact wording as the original. That's the only explanation I have.

[@hangryherbivore]

Leyline of Resonance getting banned in BO1 is so funny. RED TOO STRONK.

[@ty_sylicus]

99.9K subscribers! Let's go LLR!

[@SingerOfW]

I may be repeating myself, but the thing about Duskmourn having two separate tones is that it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's perfectly reasonable to be a bit cautious with a novel concept for a plane, so you do want to mix it up with something a bit more recognizable (like they did with, say, Eldraine, since a world all about Arthurian legends would be a bit too obscure). But that means that the parts you make recognizable attract all the attention, making people believe there is little more to the set than the 80s references. I personally just learned to accept it as the "sales pitch", so to say, just something to draw your attention before you get to actually explore the world in all its creepy glory. But maybe it was worth pushing the deeper parts of it in the promotional materials too, even if a little bit. Maybe going for the videogame angle, since it does give me serious Castlevania vibes? Either way, I know the return to Duskmourn is going to be simply impeccable, since all the low-hanging fruit has already been picked.

[@charcharmunr]

Yeah, you can sort of tell this set was 'sold' as the "80s horror movie set", so they had to make it look like an 80s horror movie to an extent, with some on-the-nose stuff. Theros was similarly VERY basic "not-Greek mythology" on the first go (albeit a bit more fleshed out due to being part of a block but that's neither here nor there), and then Beyond Death, while introducing more not-Greek myth stuff like the Titans, did make it feel a bit more distinctly its own thing. It at the very least felt like it was engaging with its own trope-space, unlike MKM which felt like it didn't know what trope space it was actually doing, and OTJ which just adamantly refused to do anything at all with western tropes.

[@Lucarioguild7]

​@@charcharmunrYeah as bad or good you think they handled the tropes in Duskmourn or Thunder Junction nothing beats the all time fumble they achieved on Ravnica by making the murder mystery set the worst mystery of all the times we've been to Ravnica, 10/10

[@gedtheflayer]

The Costco bundles were both real and a pretty decent value if you got in early. I bought one because I was looking to get a Nesting Dovehawk, and at the time it would have been about as much to buy the single and some boosters as it would have been to get the whole bundle. Got a lucky Cyclonic Rift from the Commander Masters pack, so by the time I sold all the singles I didn't need I effectively got a free commander deck.

[@12qwerty15]

They even did this for Lord of the Rings, my friend got the humans deck

[@LeBecBec]

With the Karlach secret lair art it pushed me to brew her now giving me a commander deck each for BG1, 2 and 3. (Alora, Merry Thief for 1, Mazzy, Truesword Paladin for 2)

[@KirbytronicWouldLiketoBattle]

I enjoyed a bunch of the sets this year, I liked the aesthetics and implications of Duskmourn, and I think we'll benefit from a second set at some point. I feel like the first time we go to a plane a lot of the time, particularly when it's top down design, the plane is very 'tropes! tropes! tropes!' shoving things in your face (see; Innistrad, Ixalan, as well), and then later visits/sets the plane gets to stretch more of its own identity and be more of a thing. Overall, I enjoyed this year in magic. It had some things that I had minor issue with, but mostly I had fun getting to do things and play with things. Wheeler, you're not allowed to read the rest of this comment. I know you're *meaning* But. Where's Alexandria? Where's Baghdad? Who's Kongming? How about Sun Quan? I know P3K and Arabian Nights were a long time ago, but.... Yeah, I dunno.

[@azninja888]

1:07:45 How did Jordan and Jordynne get on your Duskmourne cards Wheeler?

[@ty_sylicus]

I haven't played Buldar's Gate 3 but the Karlach Lair was full of cards I want to play.

[@marcushead9985]

"Gee Wheeler, why does Graham let you have two drinks?" "Because we're in the Luxury Suite." "...oh. R-right."

[@lorenfarque1571]

Outlaws of Thunder Junction was my last prerelease and tbh I didn't feel obliged to play any of the other sets. Year was fine otherwise lol happy holidays!!

[@narfidy444]

The costco packs were real and decent deal. 22$ US for all of that stuff. It actually made be buy a precon

[@kfunky209]

Wheeler is correct, Storm was an Avenger. I believe this was before she was the wife of the Black Panther

[@RBGolbat]

As a note, Storm is currently an Avenger, so all the heroes in the Marvel SL drop have been Avengers.

[@markbrierley6367]

So is Storm the only Marvel character to hit the trifecta (X-Men, Avengers, Fantastic Four)?

[@charcharmunr]

@@markbrierley6367 I wanna say Wolverine's been in all three at some point too, and Spider-Man's sometimes been considered vaguely associated with the X-Men, though he's probably the most distant from them of any major hero.

[@RBGolbat]

@@charcharmunr definitely Wolverine. Spider-Man feels like he’s been an honorary X-Man at times since he’s taught at their school

[@_ravanys]

No mention of the Secret Lair hatchet?

[@Hupfen]

As a rabbit I would like a sword yes

[@lightfut]

Give a rabbit a sword!

[@IRockThisCathouse]

Like to give a rabbit a sword

[@bondeulv]

Missed a Secret Lair: the commander precon with many alternative wincons

[@kyranthewalker9095]

On New York as a card/referenced in marvel sets... New New York is already a card in the doctor who "set" not to mention all the other plane cards set on earth. Between Doctor Who and Assassin's Creed we got a lot of real life places/references. Though I guess Wheeler already made his opinion known prior to that with the Leonardo Da Vinci bit.

[@Mordalon]

He said something like that back with the Godzilla/Ikoria cards, specifically with Mothra depicting skyscrapers.

[@minecraftchickenmen]

Barrows and Beholders

[@theVtuberCh]

Did wheeler just verb Madoka magica? 45:12

[@mrmejia484]

Wait wait, there actually was a final Secret Lair! Secret Lair "Chaos Drop" which was just them reselling old stock like but also included a single new drop, the "Estrid Precon Bling Pack" which included Tuvasa the Sunlit, Estrid, Estrid's Invocation, and one other card I'm forgetting.

[@violetlazuli3998]

Of note the chaos drop has nothing to do with selling old stock, the stuff that's up there has been up since the superdrops they were in because they changed them to have no set end date. I do hope they will discuss the chaos drop lair when they do next episode though and it's awful shadow drop release model

[@Caseyuptobat]

Less than 200 subs until 100k!

[@darkesch9502]

This year in magic is very interesting, Foundations is good, Bloomburrow was good. Those are my two main highlights from the year.

[@markbrierley6367]

Your optimism is enviable.

[@Mordalon]

Bloomburrow was a terrible draft environment with a decent, promising world mostly supported by the cuteness and nostalgia. OTJ and Duskmourne had some of the most balanced limited environments of the year, despite claims that the bonus sheets warped OTJ.

[@corinelliott3596]

But where is the new season of Friday Nights? We've been dying here, ...for years.

[@lucasenraraujo]

No mention of the announcement that UB will become 50% of all Magic moving forward?? It just amplifies the issue with the lore and worldbuilding, worlds are becoming paper thin and characters becoming less and less consistent from being jammed into unlikely scenarios simply for the cool factor.

[@ty_sylicus]

I don't think Ben included a fake Secret Lair.

[@WiqidBritt]

I really like the creepy static effect in Duskmourn, actually.

[@violetlazuli3998]

I loved the static effect too and the ghosts. I just hated them actually having TV's and other 80s tech. The static on its own was such a cool way to reference the time period and still be its own thing

[@lucasenraraujo]

I doubt Explorer will ever become true Pioneer simply because they won't add every card legal in Pioneer. Yes, you'll probably be able to eventually play every meta deck, but I don't think we'll have the ability to brew and experiment with jank properly.

[@ericdundas9768]

They'll get there "eventually" by doing every set going backwards, but not for a really long time. Or they'll make a new online client before that happens, lol

[@mackenzierobinson7310]

Bold of Wheeler to say America is in Hell

[@SpiffyTrev]

I find myself agreeing with your comments on almost everything. It’s refreshing to hear honest opinions about a fairly underwhelming year.

[@Mordalon]

"honest" just because you agree with them.

[@SpiffyTrev]

@ no... I also find the things I disagree with honest (you may notice that they don't all agree with each other). LRR has been fairly consistent in calling out anti-customer and other dumb decisions by WotC. They even note creative misfires, despite people there working on creative text teams.

[@Mordalon]

@@SpiffyTrev The creative misfires they talk about are incredibly subjective, such as with OTJ and Duskmourn. There's also the recurring sentiment across all of them that there are "too many products", which is only a concern for content creators that need to follow everything and super-enfranchised that convince themselves they need to and not for the average player who doesn't.

[@lucasdiamond5058]

We don't need Jordons on our vampires. Just give a rabbit a sword. Lolol happy 2024. 🎉

[@Mordalon]

I went into Bloomburrow wanting to love it. Many of my friends who even normally pay passing attention to Magic wanted to do a Prerelease and bought booster boxes. But the Limited environment was really stale. Yes its simplicity made it approachable, but having whole colors be nearly unplayable and falling into the same Typal trap of design they did in Ixalan made it have little replay value. And while the lore has potential, very little else was going on beyond things looking cute. OTJ, despite the reputation of some of the bonus sheets, was very well balanced and had lots of interesting things going on. It was the, statistically, one of the less aggressive formats we had had in awhile. When people say it was bomb heavy, I have to question what bombs they are talking about, because other than a handful of powerful Green rares, the prevalence of gold legends and abundance of removal made that those not an issue.

[@ghostdragonzero]

Stay hating I love my braindead lands

[@pytawidmo]

UBey sets being standard legal was a monkey paw curling situation - according to MaRo, one of the reasons why they did it was players complaining about the straight-to-Modern sets, which happened to be mostly Universes Beyond.

[@Mordalon]

How? The only straight to modern UB set was Lord of the Rings. Modern Horizons have been the other straight to Modern sets and those are not UB.

[@violetlazuli3998]

​@@MordalonACR was also modern legal. So it is at this point 3 vs 2(or 1.5ish with small ACR) I think the assumption was going forward, if FF and spiderman and the rest of the UB sets in future had not been made standard legal then they would have continued to be released as modern legal

[@aethertag1530]

Engagement for the Engagement God (I did not like this year of magic)

[@MookSam]

I completely disagree on the Assassins Creed set. I think it had some of the best designs of the year, it was just marketed very poorly. It had excellent reprints, and lots of great commander cards. Just not great cards for modern or legacy.

[@violetlazuli3998]

I think good cards, bad set/release model with usual UB price increase made it very easy for people to miss it. Should have just been 4 commander decks

[@MookSam]

@@violetlazuli3998 I completely disagree, I hate the 4 commander deck model. Its an extremely expensive way to distribute cards and pushes people to play the worst magic format.

[@firstlast446]

set most positively talked about for the year is the one 0.01% of players can actually play, mb2 lol

[@Lucarioguild7]

Shout out to 2024 for being the first time in the decade and half I've been playing that is making me consider quitting

[@theclassykarp3786]

I know it would be additional work, but could episodes like this have a timecode to them? Love to hear the lads opinions on sets which came out, but I really couldn't care less about secret lair

[@jamescampbell2353]

The most unsettling thing about duskmourn is that I have strong opinions despite never buying the cards.

[@terryodactyl]

The return of MSRP is going to result in higher prices. Now that WotC is telling stores what they *should* charge for packs, they will be able to charge those stores more for boxes. I don't understand how so many people are missing this. The per-pack price for Aetherdrift from distributors is higher than it has been in the past. This trend will continue, and the addition of multiple IP-based sets per year (FF, Marvel, etc.) is also going to significantly raise prices. Help me understand why people are cheering on higher prices... 🤯

[@markbrierley6367]

"If you like cards that look nice, these are not for you." This is what I've been saying for years!

[@Mordalon]

How? "This is not for you" doesn't just mean price and never has.

[@markbrierley6367]

​@Mordalon How? I opened my mouth and expelled words. To answer more seriously, there is a direct line from Secret Lair Walking Dead to now 50% of Magic next year literally isn't Magic and I am not OK with that. They used to make something they hoped was good so it would sell and now they make something so it will sell and hope it's good.

[@Mordalon]

@@markbrierley6367 You are acting like Magic used to be a some personal labor of love and not primarily a product designed to make money. They've always done some version of this, changing some aspect of the presentation of the game to appeal to what is popular. It was just easier for you to pretend there was a higher motivation. They made things they hoped were good so that they would sell. MaRo has talked about for many years about the consequences and lessons of decisions based more on their reckless desires than what appealed to players. Time Spiral was a financial failure because they were too focused on what the super-enfranchised wanted, so they learned to properly scale and apply that to supplemental sets like Modern Horizons. They don't just make things that look pretty now without considering their appeal. Their appeal is the whole point. Every single UB set has been praised for its attention to detail of those franchises. Now if you're using "good" to simply mean Balanced, that's a whole other issue, because many fans of the UB franchises do think they are "good" in terms of flavor, and while Balance in eternal formats might not always be stable, WotC has had that issue since the 90s.

[@BrowneePointz]

Rare Wheeler L on the Mana Crypt take

[@budz2355]

I wonder if more people started or stopped playing. I think im done for a while again. We'll check back in maybe another 10 years.

[@Mordalon]

The whole point of the increased products is to appeal to more people, and more people have started playing because of the wider reach of the game now.

[@sylvrstone]

[@ty_sylicus]

My favorite recent sets of Kamigawa and Bloomburrow came and went too quickly.

[@rmcdaniel2424]

FIRST!

[@Caseyuptobat]

Also once again asking the LRR crew to excise the word "degenerate" from y'all's vocabularies.

[@grimsqueaker9040]

@Caseyuptobat Genuinely curious- why?

[@meisterprakti6371]

@@grimsqueaker9040rightwingers use it alot to refer to the LGBTQ+ community

[@actiongeek1]

I'm just waiting for Wheeler to snap out of sheer frustration FOR the game itself, frustrated over all of these excessive, ridiculous Secret Lair cards and all of the cards that just DONT FEEL LIKE MAGIC... and I would totally support him trashing the studio out of absolute frustration...

[@Mordalon]

His perception of the game. This "feel" is very subjective, and some peoples' seem very narrow.

[@syntheticsylvie]

new prof vid and tap tap? fantastic day

[@Halinn]

Dau TV-oidwalker