Podcast 410: MTG Hot Takes

[@AdamKeeton]

LGS worker here: small sample size here in the Midwest, but Commander Nights are very successful for us. $5 table fee for the entire night, but we found that when people are in the store, they buy things. Sure, we get the occasional person who doesn't spend anything, but most of our commander players will come in and at least buy a pack or something. We also offer prize support for attendance as well. It gets people in the store, and we found when people are in the store, they naturally buy things without us pushing it on them.

[@dorianmcvaney9133]

I can confirm that commander players buy stuff at FNM. I buy stuff at commander night like every week and the commander events at my LGS are free

[@charliewright2667]

Our local store does something similar, but it's just buy a pack to join the event. My friends and I have probably bought more product then than any other time. Like I'll walk into the store and buy a box or a couple fatpacks once in a while, but we would just eat the fat packs like feral pigs when we would go together lolll.

[@thomasschlectic5675]

Our store charges 5$ but it goes towards store credit. It consistently has 30 people show up.

[@TheSpiritombsableye]

@@thomasschlectic5675 nice, over here we fluctuate between 20-50 people.

[@0urher0nik0]

As an old LGS employee, Open play events do make money. People like to crack packs together, there's usually a handful of people who will buy collector's packs that night and pack war with them. It also builds community interest in the store, making other events more likely to fire.

[@charliewright2667]

Hot take: Baldur's gate was a fantastic set and did a great job of adding new fun commander cards that aren't powercrept to all hell. I wish there were more reprints, and the retail price was a travesty, but with current prices I don't think that packs are actually that bad of a deal, and have lots of fun cards that slot into popular archetypes. Plus Commander Legends had some really cool commanders to build around that aren't overpowered but still very fun to play.

[@starmanda88]

Maybe if they stopped releasing a product per month people could appreciate these things. I 100% agree by the way.

[@charliewright2667]

@@starmanda88 fr fr feels like I'm getting product blasted all over me by the Hasbro profits jerk circle

[@thegreatestblood]

I will vouch especially for the commons and uncommons of the set as well. Great pick-ups in bulk bins

[@mrXBLplayer671]

To answer the unsanctioned LGS question I work at an LGS on Guam (bet you cant guess which one lmao) and we are WPN certified. Our Commander nights usually have the largest amount of participants and none of our LGSs charge for table usage. With my LGS in particular a lot of what comes in as revenue comes from snacks and players buying product while they are in the store. Given that we have a reasonable selection of card products and we live in an island in the middle of nowhere, players usually want to crack packs and trade since shipping is very much a hassle. Having players pay for table usage would be a huge deterrent, and actually having players come in whenever they want to brings in more traffic on our end. WPN premium status gives very little help to us in my opinion. We get special promos, even with our store stamp on it and guaranteed amounts of product but it’s incredibly minimal. WPN Premium status is very hard to get and is a privilege to have, but Wizard’s minimal support for the health of our local community makes it very hard to justify its worth. We cannot hold unsanctioned tournaments allowing proxies because as per our WPN premium, we cannot promote the use of proxies. Unfortunately locally our Modern and draft scene has been dying, with virtually no pioneer players. I’ve been playing this game for almost a decade and it breaks my heart to see my favorite formats dying, but it is what it is and I still love playing magic with my friends still ❤️ Hope this helps to shed some insight! Also keep up the good content! Grixis Gang for Life 👹

[@cmgo3134]

Dilbert (Corporate Shuffle) is a reskin of Garfield’s The Great Dalmuti. Both are simple games but pretty fun!

[@MahouShoujoAutumn]

I initially thought this meant the Dilbert game was a reskin of a game themed around Garfield, the cat

[@bernabes8424]

Please do a Richard Rates my favorite card series 🙏

[@WitherFang]

Thirded

[@thegreatestblood]

Fourthed

[@jaknels7628]

Fifthed

[@nicholaspenman8022]

They should do a Brothers War animated series. Go from young Urza and Mishra to the end. Seems like a decent story to me already. Then Urza could planeswalk to find other planeswalkers to fight the phyrexians or something.

[@gypsieking3280]

Per MaRo, Garfield has worked on: Limited Edition (Alpha/Beta), Arabian Nights, Tempest, Odyssey, Judgment, Ravnica, Innistrad, Dominaria. He is credited on Urza’s Saga and Torment as mechanics he made premiered in them.

[@ZackWind]

This is probably one of the better podcasts. Seriously quality. My hot take? MH2 kinda broke modern, and the only reason we don't complain more is because it's still fun. It's a different format.

[@jekanyika]

Tbf I'm sure most people would agree with that.

[@vinnythewebsurfer]

Is it really a hot take when I’ve had to hear modern players big and small in the community bitch and moan about how Modern horizon did them wrong for 4 years straight and how totally better the world was before 2019?

[@kaemonbonet4931]

Cold take imo.

[@charliewright2667]

@@vinnythewebsurfer I mean if wizards created an entirely new product line just to skullfuck your favorite format into the ground you'd probably be a little miffed too

[@btrwxhobbyist7296]

Almost nothing to do with mtg.

[@MrRayRockstar]

Your feelings about Garfield are the same feelings I have about Sheldon on EDH.

[@Xopher1222]

And Sheldon didn't even create EDH

[@Death_by_Tech]

“He’s never had one come close to magic” ok but like no one else has either

[@muddyboy999]

On Crims hot take, it was the D&D cards that brought me back to Magic. I'm quite sad we're not getting another D&D set next year.

[@tyr_4941]

Heck, I am a Yugioh player, the first D&D set made me interested in Magic.

[@anblueboot5364]

I know that feeling, for me it was Throne of eldraine because I realy enjoy fairytales. Gave me fun nostalgic vibes and d&d let me Stuck with the game.

[@pikachugundam]

LGS that have free play nights, usually have snacks/drinks for sale and then players wanting to crack packs or buy supplies to upkeep decks, or get the new art sleeves or playmats.

[@IslandLimer]

Commander is already "sanctioned" in that stores can't allow proxies in commander events which are reported to wizards

[@jyomi7506]

At my LGS, Commander Night is an event, and we put a code in on the app. It's like $2 per person, winner gets a draft booster of their choice. Sometimes they hand out random promos and such. But I don't see it making a bunch of money for the event itself, probably more for the reputation and getting people into the store. I tend to buy at least a pack or two when I'm there which I wouldn't buy otherwise, so they're getting some money from me at least XD

[@rosavanopheusden5211]

I can see this being successful if there's no entry fee and promos for participation instead of prizes for winning

[@jonathandias3524]

It's the secret of LGSs. I know almost all of the owners of LGSs in my city, and all of them say the same thing. The most important stuff for them is not the events or whatever, is people on the store, just there. They will end up spending money on random things.

[@flylikehawkings]

Garfield is a professional games designer, his opinion on games is more informed than any of ours. Shaq doesn't play basketball anymore and we still respect his opinion (in general).

[@ianmiller8399]

Have you seen that Shaq will appear in an advertisement for literally anything? Ink/printers, insurance, pizza, and a million others

[@cablefeed3738]

​@ianmiller8399 I know this is over a year old, but still no one has replied to you, so I will. The point is respecting them on the field. In which they are skilled. Mentioning the things they did outside of the field, in which we respect their skill, is meaningless because we are talking about respecting their opinion in the field. They are skilled

[@RollTheBonez]

The biggest issue with innovating in Magic is how strongly integrated the rules system is and how deeply invested, monetarily speaking, people that play are. I've played countless games with far better mana systems, but Magic will never deviate from its core fundamentals. Things like MDFC lands and the like are attempts at evolving the mana system, but it will never truly change. Games like Mythgard or Spellweaver are fantastic examples of alternatives. Even class based systems with consistent mana generation are a step in the right direction, i.e. Hearthstone, Duelyst, etc. I've played a lot of card games, physical and digital, and I have much more invested in Magic than any other. I believe that investment is one of the strongest reasons why Magic has continued to do so well. What card games were available at the time of Magic's release? Next to nothing. Most people just had either 52-card traditional games or cards were viewed as strictly collectible. Magic blew people away and its status as effectively first of its kin is, in my opinion, possibly the largest contributing factor to its current standing as king TCG. If it were released today as a new game, I can guarantee that it would die within a couple years, if that. I mean hell, the only reason we see so many competing card games is because of Magic's popularity. If it wasn't for the long standing history that Magic has, I very much believe card games would be in the same boat as a genre like the RTS genre.

[@ryanmorfei6325]

I’ve yet to see a system that gives a good enough alternative to the color pie. The way that you can play any cards you want, but the more colors you play, the higher the risk you take on is a super cool dynamic and is a huge part of what makes draft interesting. I’m on board for eliminating mana screw/flood, but I need a good draft format.

[@charliewright2667]

Isn't being able to control your mana base and how many lands you run and stuff like that just another 'knob and slider' that makes magic so great. Like magic is such an excellent system that has lasted as long as it has imo because it has the maximum available deck customization, and commander becoming the most played format is the perfect example of this. The reason mtg deck customization is so much better than other systems is because of a) number of available cards, legacy/age, and b) What Mark Rosewater in his design podcast likes to call 'knobs and sliders' which is a phrase he uses to mean a way that the power level of a card can be turned up or down, often numerically (if a card deals 5 damage and draws 3 cards and was op in playtesting, 'turn down the knob' so it deals 5 and draws 2 or deals 3 and draws 3). Land Count is just an example of another adjustment to make to your deck that many other games and the consistent mana systems (hearthstone, for example) you mentioned lack. It's another knob that players can fiddle with to try and find the perfect mix for their deck/format etc. Lands and the mana base are also a super important concept for limited, and once you play a decent amount of it I feel like the concept becomes much more interesting. MDFC lands are fantastic, and I hope wizards does more (though I prefer utility lands that can also tap for mana). This all coming from someone without significant investment in magic (college student rn, parents were never super supportive of hobby when I was young). I just think that colors of mana and land count are much more interesting than people are giving them credit for, maybe just because many people either underestimate the effects of mana curve and land count, or maybe just because we grow used to the game we play all the time and others can feel like a breath of fresh air. I think mtg has staying power that no other game has because of the sheer complexity. It's the most complex game in the world, and while that can mean it's heady, hard to teach to new players, and mentally taxing to play, it's also a feature and not a bug.

[@davidmorales-dm7xm]

We need a monthly "Hot takes" episode, we don't care about the news, we want to hear outrageous statements!

[@Level_1_Frog]

Seth is absolutely right about the need to kill characters in the story. Death is meaningful, impactful. Lord of the Rings would not be the titanic work of fiction it is if major characters didn't die, and even minor characters dying can change the rest of the cast and give them depth- how does Aragorn react and change with the death of Boromir? How does Theoden change with the death of his son? How does Frodo change with the death of Gandalf? Sure Gandalf comes back but Frodo doesn't know that, so the weight of his death still affects him. I mean heck, almost every Disney film kills off someone important to the main character (which is actually a character that we can get invested in as well) and the main villain at the end. You don't have to do it in a Game of Thrones way where you don't know which of your favorite characters are going to die in every new set but WotC's aversions to permanently killing any characters makes the story stagnate. If you've played the FromSoft catalogue of games you know that stagnancy and an unwillingness to accept change will lead to ruin; because death leads to new life, and change leads to new characters and stories. And how meaningful would it be for a long running character in MTG to go out in a blaze of glory to defeat a praetor? Or to sacrifice themselves to save a dying world? If MTG wants to tell a mature story with real consequences they need to come to terms with death as a narrative tool. Because sure, you can have some fun adventures throughout the universe and have a good time, but none of it feels real. And it's very hard to be invested if everything is always going to be fine and dandy.

[@adamfiliatreault3393]

Agreed, and personally I'm so tired of seeing Teferi after Teferi that I would be more than happy to see him die off

[@Level_1_Frog]

@@adamfiliatreault3393 you could make it so so SO good too- have him use up his spark to bring Zhalfir back into temporal reality and undo his 'curse' on the place; or you could make it tragic and have him bring Zhalfir back to reality, only to discover his homeland had, in the decades/centuries/millennia of time passed in it's reality bubble, has become terrified of the outside world, equipped itself with magic and technology incomprehensible to the rest of the universe, and made it their mission to destroy planeswalkers/dominaria/Teferi specifically, so he could either die thinking he saved them but only ended up causing even more strife, or he could fight against Zhalfir and die trying to protect his home and the rest of the world. There's a lot you could do there and tell a really good story.

[@adamfiliatreault3393]

@@Level_1_Frog Can you please write for MTG? Thanks :)

[@Level_1_Frog]

@@adamfiliatreault3393 lol ty

[@idontknowlikemum2225]

That is assumed magic story wants to be meaningful and impactful, though. Magic story is anything but that. Crim was right when he said people detach from the story when their favourite characters die. When the story was just not good enough on its own to grab people's attention, people latch onto characters. Let's be real, the vast majority of magic players do not give a toss about magic's story, especially not in recent years. The war of spark was such a dumpster fire, those who did care stopped caring, and now literally no one knows what is going on. If they start killing off characters now it will just be tacky and tryhard, so might as well lean into the casualness of it all and have no major characters die so players who don't care about the story but latch onto the characters like Crim won't be even more detached than they already are.

[@alvanyakatori]

At my LGS, the commander event is $6 to play and you get a booster pack of the most recent standard set with your entry fee.

[@henrypendergast8108]

The whole time they were talking about a MTG anime I was thinking of “destroy all of humanity it can’t be regenerated.” Kinda popped off when they actually brought it up a few minutes later. It isn’t actually set in the mtg universe, so it may not have the pulling power of a show that is, but it was a fun read for me, since it is set in a time far before I started playing magic, and you just get to watch some teenagers develop their play styles in a meta I’ve heard of but was never alive to play.

[@NPelham]

The LGS I used to frequent (before moving) already ran Commander with no proxies allowed. Current promos were given to participants and everything was done through the DCI stuff. I always thought it was a sanctioned format. The same LGS ran a weekly unsanctioned 100% proxies allowed Legacy/Vintage/Oldschool rotating events. They had prize support for it, but it wasn't run through DCI. It's done really well for them. The store had a thriving community in general, massive commander player base specifically. It was pretty common for players to buy the real card of something they had proxied in their commander deck when they draw (or play) it in game. I remember one game an opponent asked us to hold priority for him as he ran to the counter with a card and bought Mana Drain. Which was around $100 at the time. The store recently changes locations to a larger space and bought two connecting stores. One as the store with enough tables for most casual play, and one as purely event space. I haven't been since the event space opened, but I see it advertised as "opening the War Room at X:00 for [event] night!" I assume the place is always filled when they do that.

[@skykur]

My LGS is awesome. Our FNM is commander only. There are 4 rounds (once every 2 hours). 8 dollars to sign up per round. Everyone gets a booster that signed up per round, and in the game you get a pack per kill, and a pack for being the last man standing. The game winner also gets a rare WotC promo. There’s regularly 50-70 people every Friday that show up for this.

[@timbombadil4046]

The biggest thing for making a successful animated show or movie is definitely paying for good writing. It's amazing how much it gets skimped on considering the returns of good writing gets compared to other aspects. Inelegant animation, a cliche premise or characters. Almost any of these issues can be overcome if the story, the interaction between characters, the way in which the story is revealed is excellently crafted.

[@wryguy5060]

The LGS might be something that Magic is outgrowing. My group plays at a bar that does Commander nights now. They make way more money when we buy drinks than when a shop sells us chips.

[@stevendefeo8424]

There are LGS’s now in my area that offer alcohol. LGS’s are seeing this trend

[@Spaced92]

I always preferred playing with friends rather than at an LGS, but I think the game is warping into something completely different that might not feel as big, because there's not a great pathway into MtG now ignoring digital.

[@kylechmielewski9972]

Hot Take: Serialized cards are going to have a very positive effect on the game. People want to chase that high roll. There's also a small group that collect rare cards. It adds that special feel to opening a pack

[@carloszarraga1990]

Richard Garfield is a great game designer. I believe he isn't trying to re capture mtg's success. I don't think he likes the idea of a game going for over 5 years. He likes making living card games, board games and things you can play by only buying once, yet with some expansions. I think he is the equivalent to video games designers that prefer making a well made single player experience and not an infinite live service game that never ends and has to be constantly updated. I've played key forge, netrunner and king of Tokyo and they are all really good games

[@RCCrisp]

This is why I really hate Richards take on Richard Garfield. I get where he is coming from since people are super annoying about equating their opinions with that of the creator but Richard Garfield isn't some one and done bum who got lucky with magic, he has a storied 30 year career as a top game designer and bringing up the man's only stumble is a low blow. He has a depth of knowledge of creating games that demands an audience.

[@carloszarraga1990]

@@RCCrisp I can agree on the fact that he's been so disconnected from the game that his opinions on specific details can't be taken as seriously, but more general opinions like the latest statement where he mentioned that the game should be a game first and a collectible second is actually a perspective we should indeed evaluate and appreciate. But I do think that they failed evaluating his expertise by trying to compare his work to MTG when they're not even the same genre of games and arguably not even the same media

[@cameronbell4371]

Small correction, Jyhad/Vampire: the Eternal Struggle and Netrunner/Android: Netrunner are still in print and available through their respective development organizations.

[@silverknight6831]

Yes I am on board with multiple animated MtG series. Brother war, weather light, and gate watch. Animated movies such has mirrodin falling, new phyrexia, Planeswalker origin stories.

[@zachrubin3322]

Just base WPN gets you all the pre release events, promos, and getting listed on WOTC’s “where can I buy magic stuff” search engine. Being premium WPN (which we are) gets higher allocations of promos, guaranteed allocation of product at releases, exclusive events, free branded advertisements and graphic media, and puts us on the top of that search thing

[@zotha]

The thing with Magic is the game is really good at making amazing fleshed out Planes but the actual characters are so generic and uninteresting. When the literal scenery outshines your story characters it speaks volumes as to how much outreach your brand can have.

[@WikiED]

I think Arena needs a better way to handle the clock, while i agree that on avg you need just a few seconds for a turn sometimes the clock is so annoying with combo that goes through the entire deck, when i'm not idle but doing actions as soon as possible with the animations going around hindering me why is the clock going down. Clock should be for idle/thinking time not action time. Cut the clock for idle time but halt it for a second or two when playing a card or activating ability or even better halt the clock for x time only when interacting with library/graveyard (so card draw, seek, search etc.) To make sure this can't be abused there would be a need to check for repeating actions and Arena has a detection for repeating actions (which is really poor) but it should be adjusted to detect useless actions (like two cards being able to tap to untap each other for no benefit) and adjust the repeating actions forced draw/tie so the player in control can forcefully stop it to prevent the draw/tie (sometimes you can have too many triggers and Arena will force a Draw before you can take action again)

[@muddyboy999]

I'd have bought into the astrology lands if you got more than 4 cards. I think the lands they put up should come with way more lands.

[@fernandotanigushi8310]

At least a set

[@ryanmorfei6325]

If you’re putting a basic land in a secret lair, you better be giving me 20 of it at least

[@jamesgratz4771]

5 of each basic land type is more than fair.

[@ryanmorfei6325]

@@jamesgratz4771 if you aren’t giving me enough lands to fill a 2 color deck with basics, your product is bad. That makes the minimum 12.

[@masterthnag105]

Garfield did not invent loot boxes. Baseball cards existed long before mtg.

[@kaemonbonet4931]

I like lands, the variance is good I think. They might be the most difficult part of the game. I used to play hearthstones precursor, the wow tcg, they solved the land problem by letting you play any card as a land but your actual lands were all utility lands. Imo it was less exciting because the variance encouraged you to only play the best utilities and those wouldn't really look different between decks. Idk I think the problems with magic are mostly outside the actual cards. The magic economy is hurting it more than anything.

[@Graatand]

As for the MTG speed chess thing: I wonder if a version of Magic could work where - When your opponent draws their (first) card in their draw step, you draw a card. - When your opponent makes their (first) land drop during their turn, you may put a land onto the battlefield. So everyone ramps out and digs through their deck a lot quicker, and presumably the game would be over faster?

[@makidiaz3894]

Seth knows his community. He respects and holds the line for his viewers that actually use mtggoldfish to buy hundred dollar + decks. Stay firm Saffron, you speak for many of us.

[@dawsondemars1092]

In my humble LGS Worker opinion, we are running 30+ people commander tournaments comsistently and they make us great money. No entry fee but the more people we get in the store, the more money we make. It’s just math. We make a lot of money on card lists also. We try to have a theme every week. Some people build decks just for the theme that week.

[@jamessheffield9091]

If we somehow had a full Discworld block, I would take back anything bad I've said about Universes Beyond.

[@Bongus_Bubogus]

I agree with Crim on the uptake of Universes Beyond. I mean, Magic’s own story has been pretty stale and much too fast. I feel that the inclusion of other IP’s would allow Magic’s own IP to move at a more steady pace by allowing story designers more time.

[@whatdothlife4660]

Yeah, it's hard to bash on WoTC for Universes Beyond when their own storyline has become so bland, and half the sets are Return to Return to Return to Returnvica.

[@jamesgratz4771]

@@whatdothlife4660 bland and with not Much spice

[@mth4456]

Two of my personal friends own a Game Store. Around 52 mins Seth asks if LGS' should sell proxies. I have some experience with this. One of the shops after Magic 30 put the original gold bordered cards in their case for the first time. Multiple shelves of it all sold within a few days. The other shop used to sell alters of popular commanders by a local artist and they would fire sell too. Small sample size but there seems to be a matket

[@anblueboot5364]

If I could have easy access to proxies from a local artist for my commander, Hella yes I would buy those. Supporting am artist and my local game Shop?! Would love to Do that.

[@JonaxII]

Serra Ascendant is better in cEDH than in casual, because it's still a great beatstick backing up staxxpieces, while those pieces are better than what you can play in casual, and IT DOES NOT GET YOU KILLED because people don't hate you out based on lifetotal, instead understanding that it's a good thing you're beating down on the ad nauseam player. Or, if you are both the naus and serra Player somehow, they hate on you anyway and it gains back some of that lost life.

[@swimfast4]

RE universes beyond: The reason the Magic IP has never stuck is the player is the true character. Giving players the ability to further explore their personality on the tabletop is healthy and good for the game. It’s no different than the choice of older or newer boarder, foil non-foil, one card art over another. Players bring magic to life not the story. Which is unique and special to this game.

[@kingfuzzy2]

50:00 i just want more gold bordered cards since its my favorite border : D hopefully all borders are legal in most formats one day.

[@SilverAlex92]

"Richard/the crew evaluates your favorite trash cards" Would be an awesome podcast for the commander channel!

[@HeyApples]

Speaking from the LGS perspective. Free commander play night is easily the most profitable night of the week. Yes, there are some who spend actual nothing, but it is dwarfed in volume by the rest of everyone who is buying sleeves, singles, sealed product, etc. The issue of proxies and unsanctioned tournaments has been well-explored and it is flatly NOT worthy putting your WPN status at risk. The value of prerelease events, exclusive products, promos, and store reputation are all much higher than the revenue obtained from getting un-sanctioned to host a proxy legacy tournament for the random 10 people who are interested in such things.

[@Granted117]

Just in time for Tuesday

[@kupolotmtg]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the argument, but just because none of Richard Garfield's other games didn't reach the heights or longevity of MTG, doesn't mean they weren't good or successful. Netrunner was an incredible game, and was played a lot at my LGS.

[@joelmonteiro1419]

Vampire is still the CCG I play the most and it's almost as old as Magic. He also created King of Tokyo and Keyforge, both of which were hugely successful.

[@MrFraudL]

I have a local LGS in Austin who does a free Commander night that doesn't allow proxies and raffles out product/promos.

[@ianmiller8399]

I agree with Richard’s first take

[@maxrichard2244]

13:59 Seth's face reminds me of Olivia Gobert-Hicks during the 30th Anniversary announcement trailer

[@toofpyk3923]

I go to LGS's for commander nights, and they charge $6-$7 to participate, but you get a set booster. At the $7 admission LGS the winner of game 1 gets 2 packs (the other 3 get 1 set booster).

[@brningpyre]

Timestamps: 02:22 - Richard: Richard Garfield's Opinions Are Not Important * Just because someone's opinion validates yours does not make it true. 13:22 - Crim: Universes Beyond is Good, Actually * Also talk about secret lairs, etc. 19:44 - Seth: Magic Needs to Kill More Main Characters * How the crew feels about character deaths, GoT, The Office, etc. 24:33 - Richard: Ben Broad Is Where It's At For Card Game Design * Hearthstone, Marvel Snap. Also talk about MtG feeling "slow" in comparison (also mention Chess). 36:48 - Crim: Magic Needs a Popular Anime * Discuss success of LoL, Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh, Cyberpunk, and various tie-in movies. 44:50 - Seth: Proxies and Related Issues * LGS issues, Richard having evil ideas 54:15 - Fishmail Question * Serra Ascendant

[@andrewrockwell1282]

If anyone saw Gamers 3, they have a card game there where at a big championship the top players pit their decks against each other. In the top rounds of play legendary characters who die in a match are killed off in the story and the deck that wins the tournament wins in the story. So top competitive play writes the plot of the game and directs the flow of the story. I think that would be cool. Do you play that sweet legendary character? Do you risk their life? Do you make sure you pack recursion spells to bring them back from the graveyard before the end of the match so you don's really lose them?

[@Rosta720]

I'm gonna have so many comments on this video just cause I LOVE the idea, first tho. Richard Garfield has made at least 3 or 4 hits in the board game world (Bunny Kingdom being my favorite) and any game designer has produced something like Dilbert but few have more than one good game.

[@bugfi5h442]

My LGS is definitly making money with the commander nights. So many people (myself included) only go there to play commander. I buy my stuff online, but if I am already there I buy stuff there. Also there were many new people there and if I don't had a deck with me that fits for the pod, I would simply buy one of the 25€ decks

[@ebonezra8073]

My hot take is this: watch Richard in this podcast. He rarely, if ever, responds first. He thinks and listens and evaluates the other responses first before offering his own. Now watch this: Richard watches them play their possible threat; the table, minus Richard, go nuts with the politics; Richard silently opts not to get sucked in, even taking a hit if needed. When all the cacophony is over, Richard plays a clutch card and takes the win. There is value in holding an answer. There is value in watching the events around you with a silent, watchful eye. When AND if it becomes time to respond, do so with as much information ahead of time as possible.

[@aurabullet4128]

Sera Acendant is good as a turn 1 play and here is why: Its a big creature that has evasion and gains you life. This seems like a bad thing to Richard because it doesn't ramp or draw cards. It does make you arch enemy so I would agree you can't play this in just any deck. But it will give your life a buffer from people attacking you back. And other than Sol Ring and Utopia Sprawl what cards do you run at 1cmc that are ramping or drawing cards? The next problem is you do gain a pseudo type of card advantage in that an opponent has to remove it. Either with a board wipe or targeted removal you forced an opponent to use their resources on a 1 cmc creature or wait till they can block it profitably and have taken 12+ damage by then.

[@Amor13267]

My hot take is that, whilst absolutely a disaster from pricing and accessibility standpoints, mh2 has done fantastic things to modern gameplay by bringing more interactive tools to combat the "ships passing in the night"-mode of gameplay

[@Death_by_Tech]

Fuuuuuuuuuck, Richard talking about transformers made me realize something. What if secret lairs become like happy meal toys, where a movie coming out gets a secret lair as an ad

[@quantumlasagna4669]

Hot take: all colours should have counterspells that are thematic

[@MajraMangetsu]

Fucking yes.

[@iNCoMpeTeNtplAyS]

Definitely no. Each colors answer to counterspells is what makes them unique.

[@bryanleblanc5648]

I mean, they effectively do but not anymore. Withering Boon in black, mana tithe in white, red elemental blast in red, and veil of summer in green

[@rosavanopheusden5211]

this is a great hot take but a terrible idea lol edit: all colors already have soft counterspells, "counter target spell that targets a creature you control" is functionally the same as "target creature you control gains hexproof until end of turn," and all colors have ways to "counter" different kinds of spells in this way

[@LunaLasceria]

"Hey, you know one the most hated and complained about mechanics in the game? They should do five times as much of it," is, uhh, a very questionable take. This conversation comes up on MaRo's blog a lot, and the upshot is basically that WotC is pretty skeptical that more counterspells would improve the game for the average player.

[@PharaohofAtlantis]

Hot Take: Direct to Commander/Designed for Commander stuff is good and the power creep* in the format would be happening regardless.

[@rosavanopheusden5211]

tbh I think this might be the mainstream take, I think it's just an online contingent that hates on commander products

[@SilverAlex92]

@@rosavanopheusden5211 For the record, at least what I see, is that when people say "designed for commander" is bad, they dont mean "precons are bad", but rather "fierce guardianship and similar cards are bad for the format as a whole".

[@vulcanh254]

I think the proxy idea is terrible haha. It's just unrealistic to me and it's not just WotC who would be against it, the stores themselves would oppose it because 90% of the money they make is by selling singles + sealed (and snacks). But if we can just use proxies for tournaments that also means I stop buying singles. What's the reason to own the real card that is 10x more expensive? I'm asking seriously because to me it sounds like if proxies are legal for tournament play then I would sell everything I own and just have 200 fully proxy'd decks. If a lot of players do this it sounds to me like it would devastate the secondary market, kill the value of player and store collections and kill the game.

[@ulycious]

Try mindbug 😁 A great new Garfield Design ;) The interesting thing about Richard Garfield as a Game Designer is how he embraces Chaos 😄 Outside of the Magic Cloud he ist Just considered as one of the great Game Designers ;)

[@lachlank.8270]

The time and context of Garfield's design of MTG was when he had lots of free time and was surrounded by many other enthusiastic cardgame players and other maths geeks at his university. Incubator for ideas and probably very collaborative process. Also had so many people available to playtest and provide feedback for free! Compare this to who he is now, essentially. Not the same person or designer I do like using the meme though

[@T_Peazy]

My LGS just announced recently that you can only run proxies if you can prove you own a legitimate copy and have it with you (even in commander) because if they allow you to use proxies in the events they register with wizards to maintain their WPN premium status they can lose it. And they get so much more stuff from wizards than the other store that isn't wpn premium in my town.

[@joelmonteiro1419]

That defeats the whole purpose of proxies.

[@keithstolz1106]

I think Crim is right about an anime series. What if there was a 4 to 6 episode series about the lore of each set, instead of us having product fatigue of a million Secret Lairs. As for proxies at an LGS? If the LGS doesn’t have a card in stock, you can buy it for the price of the card and use a proxy of the card you bought until the store can get it in stock. And yes Seth, Wizards needs to kill of Teferi because he’s miserable to play against. Nice work on the hot takes guys.

[@Insaiyangod21]

Marvel comics are better than the movies any way Ps. I'm that guy bringing full proxy burn deck I printed out and brought to my local game store 👌 😎 👍

[@jasonkorf7700]

I guess this is a "hot" take: Current cards designed for Aggro decks are underpushed compared to what's been designed for Midrange decks and to an extent, Control and the only relevant Aggro decks, which are in Pioneer and Modern are White decks because Wotc has been trying to make White relevant. Case in point, look at Mono Red in Standard. Most of the new cards designed for the deck are either underperforming or disappointing. Yes it can steal some games, but I figure Wotc thought it was gonna be a top tier deck in Standard with Monastery Swiftspear and Lightning Strike and so far it's a tier 2 to tier 3 deck. Same with the Azorius Soldiers deck in Standard. So far the Midrange decks are slaughtering them in those formats. Fury kills most Aggro decks in Modern and yes Sheoldred dies to removal, but it's still been the bane of every Aggro deck in Standard and Pioneer.

[@BionMTG]

I found it somewhat amusing that magic. The gathering‘s intent with universe is beyond was to entice people from different games to try out magic. I have been playing magic since 1993 and after the Warhammer 40,000 universes beyond I have all been completely stopped buying magic and have started playing Warhammer. I appreciate the universes beyond because it showed me that there is more than one amazing game out there and although I believe it backfired from the perspective as wizards of the Coast. I feel it is a huge win for myself and my Warhammer LGS!

[@stormblest]

This is my favorite episode you guys have done. Hot Takes monthly please!

[@Minervastouch]

My store already has sanctioned commander. Happens every sunday. Theres no placement or whatever but we do sign in and people get assigned randomly into pods.

[@DellogPlays]

MY "Hot Take" and a response to the universes beyond take: I think the game (not necessarily the company) would benefit from a new product. First off this product needs to have a yearly printing with a large print-run. It should not affect standard or card legality in any way. I would PREFER there to be no new cards ONLY reprints. However, I haven't actually touched on anything that makes this unique. What these should be are "Land Booster Packs". The "Set" would have an easy list to put together: Commons can consist of a whole variety of taplands: Guildgates, lifegains,, et cetera... Skipping Uncommons for the moment, Rares could have some combination of Fetchs, Triomes, Shocks, and the other miscellaneous powerful lands. For Uncommons, I think it may be toughest to categorize lands, but maybe the sort of middling power level stuff from Temples to Filter lands to Fast Lands. Obviously, you just reprint some of the lands in each YEARLY printing of the Land Booster Packs. Maybe to satisfy certain parties you rotate between some of the more powerful reprints from year to year, though I am not fond of the idea. I really do honestly think this would be very helpful for such a wide number of players. On this channel, we of course know how this would be so good for both Competitive 1v1 and Commander, but what about the kitchen table players that Wizards is always telling us about. Wellllllllllll, let's just say that I actually have a lot of family members who are in that kitchen table demographic, so I do know a thing or 2 about that demographic. So let me tell you, I don't think they know that this product is something they need, but were it printed and sold at LGS's and *shiver* Big Box Stores it would make its way to the casual crowd. There are mainly a couple large benefits in my view, though I think there are also several smaller benefits. First off, since I just mentioned the casual crowd let me just say it would warm my heart to see my casual family members not mana-screwed every third game. We can easily see how this would help with the prices of competitive decks. On a personal note though, I personally strongly dislike having a large amount of my decks price invested in the lands. I could ramble on about this for a while, but I will cut it here for now. Just realized I completely forgot about Mythic Rares... Maybe we have to put the Fetchs there or something. Regarding Universes Beyond, I am somewhat on board with Richards opinion on it. I DID hate it. Now I don't care about it very much, though I still think it was somewhat of a bad decision to abandon sticking to their IP. Here is the thing though, I think Richard was correct to describe it as "Hit or Miss." The problem for me is that I feel I have been missing out as all of these have been "Miss"s for me. Whenever I hear about a new Universes Beyond product now, I am happy for those people, but left wondering when I can be happy for me.

[@CapoDV]

Re: the commander promo discussion. What if the reward for sanctioned events was a point system and after obtaining a slightly obserd amount of point you can redeem then for a Secret Lair Drop. Interesting idea.

[@MrRayRockstar]

Crim (modern player) : I don't care about the CREATOR of mtg but ANIME CARDS!!!! WOOHOO!

[@fromadhdtodndtomtg]

Serra Ascendant played turn 1... My reply, "So, you have chosen death."

[@lunderdeamon]

To answer the question of "could Destroy all of humanity, it can't be regenerated" being turned into the magic anime the answer is, kind of but not really. DAoH is more of a romance manga with 90s magic nostalgia as the background/catalyst, but it isn't a part of the magic IP. There are no planeswalker characters (since in story its '99 before planeswalkers were even a thing). The benefit of a magic anime that Crim would be able to keep people mostly immersed in the magic IP itself.

[@chicharo629]

IMO DAoH couod work as the MTG anime since it showcases the part of the real world history and decks of one part of the games life, plus, it also has the gathering part of the game nailed down

[@michaelcollins4534]

Also my family business is an lgs and this is my take on the question about the unsanctioned play and commander nights. Commander nights are good for us because that means we get people in the store for a couple hours, having a good time, spending money, and socializing. If they have a good time there they talk to their friends about why our store is fun and then they come down too. And since they're magic players they can't kick the addiction and will buy singles from our case or packs off the shelves. Unsanctioned play and the complete normalization of proxy cards I fear would probably put us out of business real quick. The overwhelming majority of our sales are from mtg, and if the player base is willing to just print out any card to put it in their decks, and everyone is fine with them doing it, for what reason would they ever buy the cards we're selling? Once anything becomes mildly expensive, say ten dollars or more, why as a consumer would you get the official copy when you could just turn on your printer and go brrrrr. Why buy packs when you can just print the singles you want to pull in the first place?

[@CreateWorlds]

My lgs has a commander night for fnm now. 5 dollars for a couple rounds with prize support and a free pack for entry. They use the wizards companion app for it. Besides pre-release that’s the only magic events they have. There is no standard or modern scene at all. The other events they run are for different card games.

[@HomeCookinMTG]

I guess my hot take is that best of one ranked shouldn't exist. Ranked implies competitive and there's absolutely nothing competitive about a format where you might as well not even play the game if you have two tapped lands and your opponent is on mono red. Furthermore the cards are not designed for a best of one format they are designed for a multi-game match where you get to sideboard.

[@btrwxhobbyist7296]

I love best of one, because I can actually brew!

[@HomeCookinMTG]

@@btrwxhobbyist7296 I specifically said ranked Bo1. If you want to go brew and play an unranked that's fine, but I stand by my point that there's nothing competitive about a format where mono red or anything with counterspells is 90% to win because they went first. And also there are no competitive best of one standard tournaments in paper. Any competitive standard event you go to is going to be a best of three event. Which leads me to another point that I didn't actually bring up, but I think it's incredibly stupid that you can qualify for the mythic championship and have never seen a game 2 in your life.

[@Infernoman64]

MTGGoldfish crew - It's a slow week since there's no spoiler season... WotC Entered the chat - DOMINARIA REMASTERED SPOILERS BEGIN!

[@delathenleso5793]

Hey Richard... hate to tell you, but WotC already does "soft" sanction Commander. WPN stores must run events to keep their status. People logging in through the Magic Companion App is one of the primary ways WotC tracks attendance. Anything run through Event Linker is *technically* sanctioned, and one of our LGS lost their status when someone reported them for allowing Proxies during a Commander Night that used Event Linker. Proxies are the answer to WotC miserable reprint policy. WPN has very little to no upside outside of better access to promos... and promos are quickly losing their appeal due to Secret Lair and all the showcase cards.

[@kietngo5227]

A LGS could have a buy in of store credit. 5 or 10 bucks and that goes into your store credit account. That way the store makes money and gets people in the door. Players would then spend that credit on something eventually.

[@suNn.K.O]

"They're not comics, they Graphic Novels!" lmao

[@MakeVarahHappen]

I mean like Richard Garfield didn't just make the same 30 years ago and disappear. She's been on sets like ravnica and dominaria which are much beloved and was the one who designed Planeswalkers. You shouldn't just listen to him because he invented magic you should listen to him because he's a talented game designer. Edit: also I've never seen someone on ironically opinion based off of Richard Garfield's intentions.

[@_claymore]

Richard's "Marvel Snap (and similar) makes MTG look old and bad"-hot take is definitely a damn good *hot take* - one I find absolutely baffling and can't wrap my head around this train of thought.

[@Thunderkeg]

Also as to LGS play I basically never play anywhere else as most of my personal friends don't play magic but the LGS here has two commander nights a week and they regularly pop off with 20+ while modern and standard barely fire I think. I have no way of knowing but I think you would probably be surprised at how much play happens at LGSs because that's where people know they can find a game.

[@veganeconomist7453]

Commander nights are like baseball games, they want to get you in the store to sell you the $12 drink. Yea some games have people that buy no concession but overall it's still the business model.

[@travisholcomb8787]

The way Richard seems to feel about Richard Garfield is how I feel about Sheldon Menery.

[@OGNoNameNobody]

I posted earlier about my fave M:tG Hot Take(Sideboards are a crutch and should be removed from Constructed Formats), so I'll come up with a new one. Magic Cards should not be Banned. Take every formats current Ban list(as of RIGHT NOW) an put them on the LITERAL best feature of Vintage: the *Restricted List* . I still remember buying my last Fat Pack("bundle") ever(Throne of Eldrane) and being MAD as Fuk that my best card in the packs was banned: *Once Upon a Time*

[@TheNotSoMysteriousG]

“What’s MTG’s Speed Chess?” - Jumpstart.

[@chronicfatigue4392]

as for Richards first hot take with Richard Garfield , I feel the same way about Rudy , u guy put that guy on a Pedi stool and he talks the sky is falling stuff , and at the same time he buys all your cards

[@appalach7148]

My dream would be to make the Magic Anime; as an avid fan of the yugioh anime growing up without really understanding the game at the time really brought me into the fold of trading card games at an early age

[@Isabelle-ve9oq]

I’d like to push back against Richard’s ascendant hot take. I don’t know why we are asking “how does it win me the game, etc…” that logic was not used with any other card. It’s giving the card high expectations then rated lower because of unmet expectations. There was a lot of talk of Serra ascendant on turn 1 and the hate it brings. That’s an 8% chance of happening. It’s far more likely to be drawn late or tutored as Tomer suggested. Say this card is played on turn 4-5 with 30+ life. It’s an exceptional blocker. For a quick point of reference this card can block or trade with 90% of dragons on the Ur Dragon EDHREC page. With being 1 mana, you get this exceptional blocker (or attacker) plus any other mana you have to draw cards or other stuff. The card is super efficient at so many points in the game.

[@ikhbjhbkm5]

The social gathering and the secondary market has keep Magic alive for 30 years. Both of which are actively under attack now.

[@SuenteusPi]

Garfield did not "invent lootboxes"; trading cards had existed for decades before Magic.

[@rosavanopheusden5211]

trading card *games* did not exist *in europe and the us* before magic the gathering though

[@vinnythewebsurfer]

My hot take is that modern players are never happy with their format. Even before the new hotness of the last couple years being to hate on modern Horizons, I remember the years prior of people bitching about this and that combo and then when the cards got banned, everyone immediately flipping and saying “noooooooo, wotc is stupid, plz unban!” Every banning was wrong, every new card added to modern was either unplayable or needed to be banned. That’s the modern I remember before I just stuck with commander

[@pauldyson8098]

Crim is the savior of the broken, the beaten, and the damned.

[@CerbearusBane]

Any card that makes you archenemy is pretty good... Though I would only use it in lifegain decks to turn on your other "if you have X more life than your starting life total" cards ASAP.

[@thegreatestblood]

Also, you might be playing a commander that people will assume you are Archenemy starting out, such as an Oloro deck that wins with alt wincons (perhaps what you were thinking of) dropping Serra Ascendant turn one

[@marsrocks247]

You just flash forward to the end, and kill them there, so you can fill the gap later with content, like Logan :)