We Live In Interesting Times

[@venerable_vole]

One thing that struck me as funny is how closely MTG's "hats" have mirrored Hearthstone's, with a delay of a few months. MTG had a murder mystery (MKM), HS had a murder mystery (Murder at Castle Nathria). MTG had a Western (OTJ), HS had a western (Showdown in the Badlands). Earlier, each of them did a Hogwarts knock-off (MTG's Strixhaven, HS's Scholomance Academy) within a year of one another. And the most recent HS set - the Great Dark Beyond - is a space set, which MTG will be doing soon. I'm not accusing them of stealing ideas, the design cycles are likely too slow for that to make sense. But this kind of thing matches HS's tone, humor, and randomness *way* better than it matches MTG's, and MTG following suit so closely seems revealing of a loss of seriousness.

[@altromonte15]

they're just both chasing trends, and will inevitably end up in similar places.

[@DyneOnline]

@@altromonte15 Remember when we got Kamigawa Neon Dynasty almost exactly 2 years after hype for Cyberpunk 2077's release was at its peak?

[@altromonte15]

@@DyneOnline i'm looking forward to the oppenheimer/barbie inspired set that will come out next year

[@Damn_Cat]

It would surprise me if WotC were seeing themes from other companies products and deciding they will follow the same theme for their next set. Development of any set takes years. Turnover isn't that quick. That said, it wouldn't surprise me to find out both companies are hiring the same consultants.

[@joelowdon1615]

You'll not be surprised to learn there's quite a few former Blizzard employees working at WotC now

[@lucasash9992]

So, really quick. I want to clarify something very funny. In cannon, Kaladesh was NOT renamed to Avishkar after the Aether Revolt we saw in the set. It was renamed after a SECOND revolution that took place after the phyrexian invasion called the "Indigo Revolution". It's not made super clear in any direct marketing releases, and only gets a line or two in the planeswalkers guide to Aetherdrift. Kinda makes you wish they had done some kind of cohesive set that showed what happened to all the fan favorite planes after March of the Machines. A sort of... aftermath set, if you will. Would've been really cool to bring up something like a second entire revolution in a theoretical set like that.

[@dac314]

Wow, what an incredible idea. I'm sure there's all sorts of interesting stories that could have been told directly after an interdimensional conflict, shame we didn't get any of those.

[@olipod5470]

That second revolution was definitely a decision taken after Aftermath was designed, because Pia Nalaar, Consul of Revival is an Aftermath card and “consul” was her role before the Indigo Revolution. So even if Aftermath was actually telling all those post-invasion stories, the Indigo Revolution would still be missing from it unfortunately.

[@lucasash9992]

yeah, you're right. This was obviously a change made very recently. I just don't know if they had to write in an entire second revolution to justify changing the name of ONE city when they could have easily have said it was changed after the FIRST revolt like Vince and so many others believe. Also, I enjoy taking the piss out of Aftermath.

[@Ahouro]

@@lucasash9992 They rename the entire plane not a city.

[@Slightly.Lost.]

I'm still surprised no content creator talked about when Card Kingdom employees said they were being worked ridiculous hours and taken advantage of, then CK gave a statement with the strength of a wet paper bag.

[@PleasantKenobi]

I have completely missed this... 😶

[@worldkat1393]

To be fair unless you are American, you likely never even heard of this.

[@Surfer669]

@@worldkat1393 As an American, I didn't know about this until literally this comment. Although I'm not surprised. This practice is very common.

[@Soshikix]

First I've heard of this. Haven't seen my mention on socials either, which is odd.

[@Azeria]

That’s after they unionised as well, eek.

[@cameronlang6858]

My biggest issue with Dress Up is that it geneuinly makes no sense why so many of the characters are travelling. Like why is old rutstein in thunder junction?

[@altromonte15]

there was an obvious solution that I'm surprised they didn't take: thunder junction should have been causing problems in connected planes, thus giving people a reason to travel there and explore and investigate. If sand storms start battering innistrad and Fiora , suddenly you have a perfectly good explanation for why Rustein and Marchesa are here.

[@MandatoryHuman]

Rutstein's entire identity is being a (slightly dodgy) trader, and Thunder Junction is the new biggest trade hub in the multiverse, full of slightly dodgy people; there are other characters I'd agree are out of place, but TJ is the perfect place for Rutstein to travel to

[@markbrierley6367]

I'm on the opposite side. Perilous journeys to new lands when your current lands are difficult to live in? Where the hell are the mass migrations? Every single Innistradi human should be on a one way trip anywhere else. The Omenpaths are literally their best shake up to their own cannon in years and they have completely blown it between unrealistic circumstances and completely changing what they are multiple times with no explanation. Remember the story introduction to them in which a denizen of the Omenpaths faceplanted one of the most powerful story characters? And then a little while later a random vedalken from Ravnica just strolls over to Eldraine. Now apparently they're a race track.

[@jedrzejkraszewski816]

For me the worst thing of the past year is Wizards losing Donato Giancola, one of the greatest artists they ever hired, over a series of pitiful practices: printing artwork plagiarizing his; using his art without his permission in their style guide; not willing to include sensible contract changes; commissiong digital only artists for most of UB sets; not raising the payments for art for over 20 years, while limiting options for additional income. Seems like a huge blow to the game's legacy and community, feels bad that they don't seem to care that much about people who contributed so much to the game's appeal.

[@Ahouro]

The Donato Giancola situation around the style guide is much different as Donato had no legal ownership of the artwork that is claimed as plagiarized as the copyright of that work belong to Disney and the contract additions weren't sensible when it comes to contracts as Wotc and the artist isn´t the only party to the contract, it is also the IP-holders of the property.

[@rinmathews9337]

I think there were objectively more bad changes than good changes in 2024.

[@kurdist_baleer]

This. It's been a steady downturn, but 2024 felt particularly icky.

[@altromonte15]

the final fantasy + spiderman + spongebob announcements all at once obliterated my interest in the game. I've not bought any new product since, not even singles, and I don't know when I'll do. My ability to care about Magic just melted off.

[@PleasantKenobi]

Weirdly, I'm excited for just how fucking strange it's going to be.

[@rinmathews9337]

The start of Play Boosters with 13 cards and 1 land really made Sealed worse. They raised the prices of Play Boosters then slowly decreased the chance of rares per pack to 1.25, barely above the 1.15 of Draft Boosters and yet as expensive as Set Boosters which had a 1.40 rare rate. Foundations proved they can take themselves seriously and yet they choose to keep making shallow sets with genre tropes. A wild west set except the Native Americans are explorers too so there's no social commentary like in better sets (Tarkir). Printing broken cards like Nadu. Seriously making cards is your job how can you not see what every content creator could see about that card? Waiting too long to ban cards. Grief, Nadu, Boros Energy. Epilogue Boosters. Secret Lairs being for scalpers only with limited print runs. Also banning nothing in Standard and having 20 sets in standard next year. Seriously so many cards are broken that powercreep is increasing exponentially.

[@christopherb501]

And Magic stank too.

[@dyl0wned]

I was surprised UB becoming standard legal with no in-universe reprints, 6 standard sets per year, and pioneer getting removed from the competitive rotation weren’t mentioned in this video

[@seansolberg2907]

Gotta get extra mad about how a kids card game didn’t depict a genocide, no time

[@OlgaZuccati]

@@seansolberg2907 they could have completely avoided that by not basing their sets over the people who did it. This is like just making your "kids card game" based around Germans during 1920-1935. If you ain't going to touch on the more sensitive subjects then you should just make it about something else. Also, wtf are you talking about "mad about how a kids card game didn’t depict a genocide"? Urza, Mishra and Yawgmoth all have literally killed billions upon billions of people all around the multiverse, with Phyrexians just completely killing off entire races of people and consuming them to turn them into horrifying machinery, Magic has always been darker with its themes than other card games like yugioh

[@PleasantKenobi]

I'm glad someone gets it.

[@yuviaro3511]

​@@seansolberg2907technically it does already, however I wouldn't have minded another Wrath in my racism deck

[@seansolberg2907]

The searchers is considered by most to be the best western ever made, its entire story revolves around racism and the old west. Other movies considered among the contenders for best western of all time include “ unforgiven” “ high noon” “ once upon a time in the west” and “ the good the bad and the ugly” those movies barely even have Native American actors, much less themes about the genocide of native Americans, are those movies all bad examples of the genre? Also, I don’t disagree with most of your takes about social justice ideas in magic, but please just have the opinion, don’t pussy foot about for a minute talking about how you aren’t qualified to have the discussion. If you aren’t then don’t, I’d honestly rather hear your cite a real persons opinion and just say” this person is right and I agree”

[@ColourfulAnimals]

No slavery in magic lore? *House Orzhov has entered the chat*

[@jedrzejkraszewski816]

Also the Sultai zombies were originally shown as mutilated bodies in manacles, sometimes used as furniture. A lot of the black-aligned artworks got changed for the Khans of Tarkir Arena release, not only the Rakshasa ones, possibly also for the reason to get away further from the slave imagery. New artwork for Empty the Pits shows reanimated soldiers, Shambling Attendants now are undead servants, not chained bodies.

[@cherry9787]

Literally every zombie is technicaly a slave, I think. Unless they self-reanimated

[@thefluffymunchkin5430]

2024 felt weird. A lot of the things I was excited for like Outlaws of Thunder Junction ended up being pretty underwhelming, but things like Duskmourne and Bloomburrow that I wrote off as uninteresting when I first saw them ended up being great.

[@cablefeed3738]

That's funny cause I have the opposite opinion as you. I was very excited for outlaws, and for bloomberow and I liked both of them, whereas I knew I wasn't going to like duskmourn, and I didn't like duskmourn.

[@Hemlocker]

Same, I was really looking forward to MKM but it mostly fell flat for me. I didn't hate it as much as a lot of people seemed to, but still. And on the flipside, I had no particular interest in DSK, but ended up enjoying it quite a lot.

[@scaredycat3146]

Aether Revolt wasn't actually the in-universe reason for the name change, apparently there was a second regime change offscreen after the Phyrexian Invasion called the Indigo Revolution.

[@PleasantKenobi]

🤯

[@cherry9787]

BrUh

[@OldWorldMicmac]

As a Native American, Thanks for bringing up that cowboy set and it's lack of Indigenous/Indians.

[@Stonehorn]

As a Native American (Cree) I think it’s nonsense and ridiculous. It’s a fantasy world, not America.

[@DorkmasterFlek]

The biggest thing with the Commander shitshow for me is just solidifying (if Magic 30 didn't already) that proxying really is the way to go for "normal" players who just want to play the fucking game. Between this and Magic 30, the money side of Magic has gotten to absurd extremes.

[@DerekScottBland]

The biggest thing with the Commander shitshow is that players finally admitted that it's monetary value, not stability of the format that is important to them.

[@cherry9787]

This scandel literally made me stop buying magic cards. Not worth it.

[@SendReinforcements]

I want to add the Monty Python secret lair to the Marvel secret lair debacle. Maybe it’s just because Monty Python isn’t as huge as Marvel, but when it sold out almost instantly there was lots of complaining, and sets were almost instantly popping up online for double the price from scalpers. I myself waited 2 hours and it was sold out by the time my spot came up in the cue…but boy did the try to push me all the other random secret pairs that hadn’t sold out!

[@themoops4006]

Universes Beyond will continue until ̶m̶o̶r̶a̶l̶e̶ revenue improves

[@Stonehorn]

Magic revenue is great. It’s the only thing keeping Hasbro from bankruptcy

[@themoops4006]

@@Stonehorn magic and hasbro's revenue MUST improve every fiscal year, we NEED more universes beyond

[@m.mulder8864]

God, there's so many I lost track of which ones only happened in 2024 and which ones are the "biggest" and which ones are minor.

[@CerbearusBane]

MH3 straight ruined Historic. You could take your MH3 draft deck into ladder and smash literally every other deck in the format. Even after multiple cards in RW Energy got changed, the deck is still crazy strong.

[@charyou3167]

This is very interesting because mh3 is incredibly good for timeless. Interesting see how it affects different formats.

[@Stonehorn]

MH3 is the best set release in years, but historic is a dead format anyway

[@SnackCakes]

I'm fine with Magic leaving aspects of of tropes for the sake of enjoying something without dragging up the dark side of it. I feel there would be few tropes left if you had to find one that was squeaky clean.

[@PleasantKenobi]

It's not that we need squeaky clean ones - its just that some genres are attached to some very heavy things - and in the case of the Western, its explictly implicated with the erasure of indigenous people. Continuing to do that with how you present that genre just feels pretty bad.

[@SnackCakes]

@PleasantKenobi We'll just agree to disagree. I think people are allowed to enjoy a genre without having to include dark sides of them. Opens the door to more of them anyway.

[@Hemlocker]

@@SnackCakes I don't think anyone's saying you're not _allowed_ to enjoy stuff. At least, nobody worth listening to.

[@SnackCakes]

@@Hemlocker This is why I don't have a problem with Magic doing a Western set without involving the ugliness behind it.

[@Hemlocker]

@@SnackCakes That's fair. I don't feel super-strongly one way or the other. But I do understand people who have their own reasons to be more strongly against it. To each their own.

[@JoshuaPantalleresco]

Agreed on Baldur's Gate. My opinion: Baldur's Gate and Capenna have secretly cool cards no one realizes. They'll be sets a lot of people will miss they didn't miss out on. Great stuff.

[@slowlylosingitaaaaaa]

fumbles will continue until moral improves

[@braxtonpatyk]

I think they should print a set that is basically an apocalypse chime for each set ever printed

[@cherry9787]

MH ones would instantly be $100

[@Ahayzo]

Credit where credit's due, Wizards didn't actually fumble on the Kaladesh name, we as a community did. There are two words that are spelled almost identically, one is a slur and one means "togetherness" or something similar if I remember right. They are pronounced similarly, but not the same. The correct pronunciation is to place the emphasis on "La", but the community immediately started with the emphasis on "Ka", which is the slur. Wizards' fumble was more in not correcting us (if they even knew at the time what the way we said it actually meant), rather than naming it what they did. The fix makes sense to me, but I don't think I'd call the original naming a fumble. They handled it well with making it a lore compatible change as well rather than just pretending the plane was always using the new name.

[@PleasantKenobi]

I agree. The fumble was some people being babies.

[@Ahayzo]

@PleasantKenobi Lol that is also a completely accurate assessment

[@JasonOshinko]

I've always wondered why it's called Cluedo. That's not a word. Is it because it sounds like pseudo? Or ludo? Is it for legal reasons because something else there is already named Clue?

[@Ahayzo]

Cluedo is actually the original name of the game, it came as a reference to another popular game at the time called Ludo, mixed with "clue" for the theme of the game. Ludo wasn't really known in America though so it was changed because the reference didn't make any sense. Kind of a dumb reason, but eh.

[@bobwilson7464]

My favorite part with the commander ban was hearing the Alpha Investments guy pull the “you are taking this investment opportunity away from hard working Americans” speech which is absolutely fucking laughable when we are talking about a card game.

[@PleasantKenobi]

He's an idiot.

[@MorosSilverwing]

Also recaps/best of videos should factor in the whole year. If something bad happens dec 31st it should be included.

[@flarefangshadow]

My dissatisfaction with the commander bans wasn't due to a loss of equity, as I would of been happy seeing those cards be more accessible. What irritated me was the loss of irreplaceable crucial pieces that allowed my higher-cost commanders (namely Korvold) to compete, both in terms of acceleration and win conditions.

[@tcgdude]

Thanks for the video. Fingers crossed for 2025 and beyond!

[@screwthisin]

1 minute in, 2 that comes to mind is the Commander RC and the Marvel Secret Lair.

[@voodoo83]

For me the commander bans were less about the money but more that things like Crypt and Lotus felt like safe cards to buy for your deck as they were long lived in the format (crypt) and intrisictly tied to the format (Lotus). It was more of a breach of safety and trust and people felt like the card environment for commander was suddenly very volitile. One of the things that attracted me to commander was its less volitile market place.

[@adamdouce353]

Thanks Nadu I sold a playset of Shuko I picked for a buck forever ago and got 60 instore trade

[@Hashbrown1682]

I get the name change of kaladesh in universe revolts happens and usually cause some name changes

[@tragicthegarnering3619]

How I think secret lairs should have always worked is they do either a limited run or a print to order for stores then at the end of the year offer up a print to order directly for the people who missed out/ don't have a lgs.

[@MorosSilverwing]

my biggest fear w/ universe beyond rn is the thought that they mightn't be designed for standard. That Spider-Man, FF & the other marvel set were designed at the straight-to-modern, MH3 & lotr power level. But w/ the standard focus of Foundations (& just the fact they can retain/hook the newer fan more easily if the cards are legal everywhere) someone higher up the chain said make them standard legal even if they don't fit. I'm very worried that we're gonna get things like the one ring in standard & we're going to be stuck w/ them for 3 years, at best, a year & a half like the one ring because of contracts.

[@cherry9787]

That would be tragic and hilarious.

[@dragade101]

@5:53, we know WotC employees are not this cleaver. Slight curiosity if WotC has teams working on one set at a time, rotating to a new set every 24 or every 36 months? That if its every 36 months, does that mean Strix team also designed OTJ? These sets are 35.90 months apart (based on release dates from wikipedia). Yet even if these are the same designers, they would have thought about their last set’s names and how these would ‘interact’ with the next set this team would design for. I’m just highly sceptical of this being malicious.

[@Stonehorn]

Josh absolutely did not say they deserved it. He said they should have expected it, which was true. Jimmy doesn’t need to say anything. He doesn’t have to apologize for having an opinio.

[@mellifluoresce]

i haven’t really engaged with Magic for a couple of years now. Eventually just accepted the fact that theme-wise it’s just Weiß Schwarz now.

[@MCXL1140]

Talking about the bans and sol ring, I think that if they had banned sol ring there would have been a lot of controversy and discussion but no death threats, no pillorying of the rules counseling the same way. The money is where the vitriol came from, not the controversy

[@nrpbrown]

I mean honestly if people are gonna treat mtg like an investment, this is actually what can happen with all investments. Sometimes people aren't gonna be willing to pay what you want when you want, that's just how stonks go and if they can't handle it, then they shouldn't be investing. That's what made me realize i think the reserve list was a dumb idea because Wizards shouldn't be in charge of protecting people's investments especially at the cost of players.

[@Hemlocker]

I am still very on the fence with this one. Part of me thinks that you have to live in the real world where a single ban can erase hundreds of dollars from people's binders and decks, and that the people in charge of those decisions need to accept that responsibility. But another part of me thinks that the players/collectors should have the ultimate responsibility and not rely on a corporation for financial stability.

[@zacburgess5318]

I figured correct what you meant with your intro hint but to be a smart Alec I was going to say some of the UB and/or assassins creed boosters existing/ being bought and still made it on the list.

[@lebreadbox]

Oh. Is it people threatening to murder folks over a card game ?? I wonder 😂

[@shmackydoo]

Absolutely agree that the biggest L of baldurs gate not having the goblin. Hard agree with your points Wizards taking over commander was really beat. The RC should've maintained control and just democratized their power (open up decisions to more stakeholders), and they *did* have power. Not anymore

[@MikhailHudon_ZerithFarron]

I still miss playing with my Jewled Lotusses... They were solid stand-ins for command spells for all my Fate/ roleplay decks

[@pancakeman1589]

We're watching the trend of catering to shareholder value annihilate the long-term... everything of our game in favor of fast return on investment. They're squeezing an orange, killing it and the people responsible will continue to fail upwards. In 5 years we'll be mourning the husk of this game, so that some people with more money than we can imagine have even more money.

[@derekcline950]

This has been happening for a while here. Ever since Hasbro bought WotC. It is happening elsewhere. The one thing we can do? Stop holding onto nostalgia and IPs when they start to monetize. Vote with your wallet but vote early and vote often

[@MrRtisch]

​.​@@derekcline950Hasbro has owned WotC since 1999. This has only started happening since WotC became the only profitable arm of the company.

[@charyou3167]

This has been said since unlimited. Magic continues to be sweet.

[@dragade101]

@14:43, I will believe that designer's transparent and clear apology. Nadu wasnt tested with this updated and powered up wording. Only being triggered twice a turn vs being triggered for each creature, twice per creature are two very different power levels. They claim Nadu in the ‘final form’ wasn’t tested and thus straight to Modern, it was a soft version of Hogaak (but still felt like you were forced to play solitaire to play Modern). Why couldn’t WotC cut Nadu or just printed it with ‘as tested’ cause it was not going to break Modern with this lesser power level. There are 81 rares with Nadu in MH3. No one but WotC would have known if only 80 rares were printed to MH3. Yet this is what greed looks like.

[@gorethrax8348]

i want to know just how many bad actors were bots. i would hope we dont have that many arseholes in the world mad at the wrong people but at the same time the thought of the power of bots and one event is crazy.

[@adderous]

The mess that was magic in 2024, especially the universes beyond becoming so common and part of standard pushed me back out of the game. I looked at the roadmap for next year, and downloaded balatro instead. No regrets.

[@Umnoss]

Taking the thoughs Kenobi gave about the RC thing, look what's happening with Pokemon TCG, that the mafia is using the cards to move money worldwile. It's a (expensive) game, but a game at the end. And I fully agree on which it shouldn't be an investment porfolio.

[@atalhlla]

I traded a Ragavan for a Dockside awhile back. Now that they’re both banned in one format they caused problems in they both fell to similar prices, which amuses me. Not sure where Dockside will go, but Ragavan will probably continue to sit in my unupdated Seismic Swans deck.

[@Governorrr]

MKM was way more impactful than people give it credit for. Almost every deck in every format that has fetchlands uses at least one surveil land. That may not be flashy but it certainly is impactful

[@AaronOneal-e7h]

It's Commander. It's always been Commander ever since 2011.

[@brendans1983]

They must never have Australian cultural consultants, because I'm telling you now that if i went into certain areas and tried to publicly say i play with Djinns i would probably get my head caved in.

[@OutOfOuts1]

I think... its kinda a problem that youre saying command zone said people deserve the threats when they definitely didnt

[@PleasantKenobi]

Their language was things like "if you kick a hornets nest" and it was icky and gross. I am glad Josh did what he did and acknowledged he was working from a place of emotion.

[@JD-tp2lj]

Yeah agreed. I thought Josh's original video was refereshingly honest and open. It's a contrast to some of the Prof's content, which sounds like it's been edited by a lawyer and corporate comms team.

[@JD-tp2lj]

@@PleasantKenobi - Josh started the video with "We can make the blanket statement that if you're making threats against people online, you're a jerk and you're a bad person... those people have no place in this game and in this community... get the hell out, we don't need you" (roughly 6 minutes into the video). Do you think that's an insufficient condemnation? Or do you think Josh shouldn't have been honest about the predictability of the community's reaction?

[@paracat4893]

Right, I thought I was hearing things. He definetly did not put it like that. The virtue signal is strong with this one

[@Ramman1995]

@@JD-tp2ljI agree, He said what we all thought.

[@arachnon4785]

I keep forgetting that assassin's creed is a magic set

[@Hemlocker]

You're so right about money rotting people's brains. I think it did the same to me.

[@MaliciousCricket]

You hate us double speed viewers huh?

[@shmackydoo]

He speaks so quickly already. I do 1.5x sometimes but that's so fast. Godspeed to you

[@camdenharper7244]

Legitimate question on the secret layers print policy. Would it be a reasonable compromise to have it be print to demand for a pre established limited time? As in. Wizards announces BEFORE the drop, this will be print on demand for 3 days, 7days, 30 days, whatever. Wizards can still get their FOMO, people still have their opportunity to order what they want. Could be a reasonable compromise.

[@joelowdon1615]

They used to do that

[@justinball9293]

They didn’t ban the one ring until lord of the rings was out of print. That’s the sad truth

[@maclenag91]

I really wish wizards would test these new cards and sets more its wild they let these broken, powerful cards run wild for so long. It's definatly an issue.

[@dragade101]

@19:17 I would be curious if the community could collectively estimate how much of their individual collections were ‘wiped out’ with these 3 cards for EDH being banned. If you are affording Dockside, Lotus, and Crypt, then you are probably affording other expensive cards. This is not a regulated market place. There are no securities or contractional agreements. Deal with it, maturely. I think the RC did their best when they pulled the plug. Yet probably could have communicated a bit more. Dockside should have been on people’s radar for a potential banning. Magic, especially single cards, Are Not Investments (PSA if you didn’t know). If someone wants to think otherwise, then this is lesson to not fuck around. (At most, Magic, with enough ‘portfolio diversity’ is not the most idiotic thing to ‘invest in’ yet don’t sink money into something so volatile.)

[@agentgrimm]

20:30 I stopped watching Command Zone after i heard some of these comments.

[@Optimator7]

The EDH bans were awesome, and I own all those cards

[@PleasantKenobi]

I'm with you in that one.

[@thomaskretz7888]

Outlaws *of Thunder* Junction

[@christiansmith49]

No I think it's called outlaws of dumpster junction

[@seandun7083]

It really surprised me how many people were upset that the Commander bans dropped the value of some of the cards given how many people are also against the reserve list. I guess it's important to remember that is hard to tell if the people with strong opinions on those topics are mostly the same people or not, but it seems like if you are against the reserve list then the bans shouldn't have warranted the response they got.

[@cherry9787]

The Dead Internet Theory is definitely strong with this one. Although, apparently someone actually physically confronted the Committe at a conference

[@seandun7083]

@cherry9787 yeah, I mean the uproar from Chronicles was real as far as I can tell so it's not too surprising. Vocal minorities are a thing I guess.

[@sangreiti]

I like a lot of the things you touched on.

[@xxthevampirate]

There was no problem with the RC for 20 years with Sheldon managing it, the very first ban they did after he was gone was all it needed to completely destroy the trust the community had in the small group of people they cared about. The problem is they acted recklessly and Josh was 100% right when he said they should have expected a hostile reaction (he did not say they should have gotten death threats).

[@tienkieu4806]

I hate what they did to Pioneer tho. It was fun untiil Annex runs rampant on Arena and my local.

[@vengerofthelight]

I didn't say squat to the RC (because I am not an asshole), but I was actually mildly upset that they didn't ban Sol Ring. They even acknowledged that Sol Ring meets the criteria. Their reasoning for not banning it didn't convince me. Ban Sol Ring.

[@ignition9076]

I can understand the reasoning both ways. Sol Ring has been made into a format staple with its multiple printings, and they wanted to keep some fast mana available. Lotus allows for 4cmc 2 colour commanders on turn 1, Crypt allows for 3 cmc mono colour commanders on turn 1. Ring allows for 4 cmc commanders on turn 2. Ring is technically the slowest of those 3 using just lands, because it has a mana cost in the first place. Yes, Lotus is a one time boost, and Crypt potentially damages you. I think, overall, they made the right decision, but I wouldn't have necessarily been mad if Ring got the boot too.

[@cablefeed3738]

I'm glad they didn't ban soul ring and mana crypt should be unbanned

[@seandun7083]

I think one of the biggest reasons is that Sol Ring is in every precon and they didn't want to make those all illegal out of the box. They could give it the Stoneforge Mystic treatment and say it's only legal if you play one of those exact decklists, but given how they didn't want to have a separate list for banned as Commander, I get that they didn't want to say "it's illegal unless you are playing one of these 100+ exact decklists".

[@AndyPrimeOne]

Sol ring has ruined more games of edh then any other card by causing insane starts that warp the whole game when they hit turn 1

[@Hemlocker]

There are good reasons to not ban Sol Ring, they just didn't say any of them. Which just added to the pile of shocking incompetence displayed by the RC as a body at that time (not that any of the disgusting backlash they received was deserved or justified in any way).

[@KeithCameRunning]

I finally got my Marvel Secret Lair.... Yesterday

[@Unknown-qj9sm]

Per goldfish stats the best modern deck right now is Dimir Murktide regent

[@captianbacon]

Kaladesh name change is dumb. Im not learning the new name kaladesh sounds kool and its actual meaning is really neat. Mkm was the best set of 2024. It was perfect and a amazing draft experience.

[@dragade101]

@23:20, do you really think people have learned that? Maybe 10%, maybe 25% players learned this (if they thought differently before the bans). But the hostility means people have not learned. And will continue ‘to invest’ in single cards.

[@MenaceLendil]

Wotc seems to very wary of depicting anything even remotely controversial. It's pretty interesting when comparing to 40k where everyone is absolutely hella racist, feels like there's a misunderstanding here that depicting something means condoning it. But i guess they are just afraid that someone will jump to conclusions so they don't want to get anywhere near those themes. Still funny they try to be more safe than actual childrens cartoons.

[@MWImmortalking]

2024 was so bad for mtg with the exceptions being bloomburrow and foundations (ignoring the lack of supply) that, combined with the half universes beyond road map for 2025, I expect 2025 to have the lowest level of new product engagement since I started playing the game in 07. On the bright side, that means I'll likely have more money to save or spend on other things.

[@cax1175]

30th Anniversary Edition sweating atm

[@Hashbrown1682]

Here's a fun game if you don't care for consequences Take a shot every time wotc fumbles

[@AstraRandom]

I think the whole commander banlist fiasco was by far the biggest blunder of the year, wotc making bad sets, messing with standard and doing fomo stuff is nothing new sadly, but the commander bans that bought mtg twitter drama to new untold heights of pure shit. I agree with the bans the format is better without these cards, I do feel for the people who bought them I own a crypt and dockside (Lotus itself being printed caused drama and frankly should never have existed) and the rc should not have been sent death threats because thats just a shitty thing to do, but people online can just be terrible. Ultimate I think the blame originates at wotc because they let these cards reach the prices they did, and I don't think they've learnt from it one bit.

[@nickjoseph77]

Slave of Bolas being written off as not canon by Vince. Smh 😔 Also, 10 cards exist with enslave, slave, or enslaver in the name.

[@LuciannaRemis]

I inspected every aspect of the bag and everything from the stitching to the hardware looked top notch. The leather was soft, the logo embossed precisely, and even the lining felt luxurious. It was hard to believe that this wasn't a kislux LV Nano bag.

[@dragade101]

I dont know when contracts were signed for Ass in Creed vs when After Math flopped. WotC could have changed this direct to Standard and lowered the price significantly. Yes that means cutting profit / even paying Ubi fully. But it would make Ass in Creed openable and even less animosity for WotC/Ubi. WotC wants to die on their sword, so let them lol

[@tcsmagicbox]

"When Wizards of the Coast dropped the ball..." Is that a New Year's joke? 😂

[@DerekScottBland]

The claim of needing to get Secret Lairs into people's hands quicker was bullshit. I still remember the D&D Honor Among Thieves drop came out, got into people's hands in time for word to get out that Chonky Dragon was the bonus card, and people were still able to order a set. Hell, I was one of those people, and the release was STILL available when mine arrived.

[@impendio]

wait wait, we used to have slave dwarves back in the 90s, and random slaver/enslaved theme stuff from dominaria or grixis ...and lorwyn elves were pretty racist on their lore iirc...

[@cablefeed3738]

Neither Sol Ring or Mana Crypt should have ever been banned or should ever be banned. As for dockside extortionist and Nadu both are deserved bans. I have no opinions, one way or the other on Jeweled Lotus so I would lean on it shouldn't have been banned.

[@captainflapjax7240]

All cards mentioned definitely should be/remain banned

[@cablefeed3738]

@captainflapjax7240 nope just nope

[@AndyPrimeOne]

I will accept neither or both

[@BDCMatt]

​@@captainflapjax7240yeah, no.... im not a fan of bans in an eternal casual format.

[@stonepatberg]

Thank you for reminding me to eat Vince

[@CarmenCards]

Would you consider streets of new capenna the first of the dress up set

[@christopherb501]

Honestly, Strixhaven, Kaldheim, even Ixalan1 could be seen thru that lens.

[@Hemlocker]

"Dress-up set" has come to be used as a derogatory term, but it doesn't have to be. Dress-up sets, hat sets, whatever you wanna call them, can be either good or bad. SNC probably fits the definition, but it was actually done well.

[@borrowed_thyme]

Some pretty irresponsible language around what Josh said and apologized for.

[@impendio]

and then yes, LITERAL ASH WHITE SPANIARD BLOOD SUCKING VAMPIRE CONQUISTADORES, ixalan was great ngl.

[@alonsoboulevard]

ok, but middle earth industries

[@nkling02]

OMG the assassin's Creed shit was shit, after the EPILOGUE CRAP... and they have value boosters? Wtf

[@reddeckreallywins]

Just over two minutes in and now I’ll never watch another of your videos. Cool.

[@Rabid_Wombat]

Scandals!! Oh you really mean't to say "fumbles" ! I guess that's clickbait for yah 😂

[@PleasantKenobi]

I'm using a rather vague term to make a list of news stories from over the last year. If that offends you, that's probably your issue. Used Scandals in title. Fumble in thumb.

[@SwedeRacerDC]

What wasn't a scandal this year? Lol

[@fromzerotohero3561]

Stop trying to justify the Kaladesh thing. FFS. Literally NO ONE complained. Bunch of soft panzies that need to get picked on once in a while.

[@InvisiKid6]

Its wild to me that there’s a generation of Magic players that don’t see Universes Beyond being 50% of Magic and legal everywhere as not a fumble 😵‍💫

[@charyou3167]

I’ve been playing for 26 years. Never really cared too much about the pictures or names on the card. I love the game itself. That part isn’t changing so it’s not even worth thinking about much more a fumble.

[@Hemlocker]

Why would you assume a whole generation of players would all share the same opinions? Everyone cares about different things.

[@newdarkcloud]

I think it's worth pointing out that the reason WotC changed Daretti's look is to get away from the typical depictions of goblins. It's become more well known in recent years that "greedy long-nosed goblins" are a thinly-veiled antisemitic carry over from older times. They've been used for centuries as a metaphor for the Jewish people, and WotC is joining suit with a more commonly accepted adaptation of goblins to try to eliminate that stereotype.

[@BuddyJackstraw]

🤦‍♂️

[@cherry9787]

At least make them look like the Alara goblins. Those guys are badass!

[@Hemlocker]

I keep seeing people making this claim about goblins (in various different fantasy settings), but I've never once seen it actually substantiated that the trope really does exist in the present day, or that it actually affects Jewish people. It's always people claiming harm on behalf of others. Until I see a number of Jewish people sharing how the trope affects them, I'm pretty skeptical. Feel free to point me towards something like that if I've missed it.

[@dragade101]

@27:41, they didnt need to. WotC is already a gambling company lol

[@hpoz222]

My takeaway from this year is: capitalism still bad. Magic gets worse both design- and community-wise when money becomes the primary object. IMO no Magic card should cost more than like $10 for the "boring" version, but I hope most people would agree that *recently printed* cards going for multiple hundreds of dollars is a travesty and one that Wizards and Hasbro are benefiting from, to the detriment of the game and community. It feels like this goes all the way back to the Reserved List (which should be abolished, the cards it's supposed to "protect the value" of will be just as valuable now even if they're reprinted, it's unfair to lock powerful (and, notably, commander-legal) game pieces like the dual lands behind the "never reprint" sign, and as you said in the video, Magic cards shouldn't be treated as an investment), but in the last few years we're seeing more and more the friction between the profit motive and the desire (which I do still believe most of the people doing actual work at WotC have) to make a quality game. It's frustrating because it's a problem much bigger than Magic and one that doesn't have a simple solution. We can buy into the sets we think are good and not into the sets we think are lazy or badly designed, but ultimately our power as consumers of the game is very limited, and for every one of us Magic boomers who miss the depth of storytelling and WotC standing behind their own worldbuilding, there are plenty of people who think cowboy sets and their favorite pop culture characters being back in Magic card form are neat, and I can't in good faith say every one of those people is wrong for liking those things. Idk, it's a weird time when my solution to the problems with Magic is legitimately "tax the rich" but this is ultimately a single symptom of the systemic problem that's making everything suck more. I know I'm gonna get roasted by the reactionaries and edgelords in the replies, but fuck it. Reading the rant explains the rant.

[@Hemlocker]

I pretty much agree. The only thing I would question is whether Magic has actually gotten worse design-wise. To me the design team continues to do a frankly miraculous job.

[@tehsavage]

Just here to say, you're 100% correct and ignore the reactionary bootlickers. Capitalism makes this game objectively worse.

[@nfortin24]

Im sorry but the name was not a fumble IMO. The "issue" that is causing the change is a reach at best as it takes a specific context to be seen as racist(referring to a person rather than a place). It is what it is, but this is definitely a knee jerk reaction to a problem that didn't really exist.

[@metalsgarage]

I'd say with the Kaladesh thing, if they didn't go out of their way to point out why they changed the name and just let it be a story thing no one would have added an eye, The fact that they went for checkbox brownie points, transparent corporate pandering triggers people

[@PleasantKenobi]

I dont even see it as pandering. Its just an obvious thing to avoid. But everyone wants to clutch their pearls over a literal non issue and call it pandering. If people only think its bad when it's done to avoid some racist connotation, that says more about those people than it does about Wizards.

[@tragicthegarnering3619]

Commander needs to go to a points system like the other highlander formats have.

[@Theanthill216]

That would work well, but takes a lot of time. I have 12 edh decks; that would easily be a few hours of just figuring out a point value for each one. Also we all have to remember, most edh players aren’t as enfranchised in general to mtg; they dont consume online content and barely even look up cards on edhrec let alone scryfall (the real site to find cards). On top of that, precons would have to have assigned numbers to them. If we went by casual edh decks get 10 pts worth of cards, then precons need to be at a 5-7 with room for a few pts of upgrading. Make sol ring 2 pts; other fast mana 3 pts, all tutors 3 pts, and the rest mostly 1 pt with “toxic cards” like stax, mld, etc being 2 pts like sol ring.

[@tragicthegarnering3619]

@@Theanthill216 Yeah it would not be an easy transition if they did it.

[@jacobgober3875]

Someone has watched Spice's video on Thunder Junction lol

[@PleasantKenobi]

I actually haven't lol

[@christopherb501]

Um...it didn't make one. There's videos that bring it up, especially the "Death of the Future" one, but there is no TJ-specific video.