Power Creep by the Numbers | EDHRECast 148

[@boulderbas]

I wonder how the data would look when it's corrected for the influx of new commander players. The format has gotten more popular over the years, and it's logical that newer players would use cards they own and are familiar with, e.g. cards from newer sets.

[@fastydave]

Bingo

[@austinhatzenbeler8491]

This^^

[@jamesclare1858]

There is also the aspect that older cards are just more expensive to have the comparative newer versions. The idea of pushing old cards out is an issue for established players. Newer players may not have the older cards that are now being pushed out.

[@matteobagni1235]

This is very correct, many might be starting with a pre-con, which has staples quite often, then getting more staples to improve it...

[@petersteiman2443]

Don’t sleep on Swords to Plowshares, Demonic Tutor, Counterspell, or Wrath of God. There’s also Llanowar Elves, Birds of Paradise, and Animate Dead see a good amount of play. I also think more people would play Wheel of Fortune if not for budgetary reasons. As for 2002 not receiving a bump despite there being fetch lands released that year, without the fetches the average would be closer to zero. Torment has Cabal Coffers and Judgement has Mirari’s Wake, and Onslaught has the five fetches and you can say Enchantress’s Presence and Chain of Vapor. All three of those sets had cards that were more playable, but they’ve been outclassed quite some time ago. Not many people are winning with Insurrection or Kamahl, Fist of Krosa anymore, nor have they for probably close to a decade.

[@gadoo24]

Joey: "Lets bring DATA into the conversation" Me hearing something different: "But DANA is already in the conversation"

[@franciscojauregui3022]

Hey dudes! In Mexico, where I´m watching from, February 5 is National Constitution Day not as sweet as chocolate fondue day but still a national holiday. By the way happy birthday.

[@FrankChafe]

2019 and 2020 also saw a huge increase in the number of sets and products....therefore more cards.

[@Leivve]

Yeah, more people joined the hobby, so likely a lot of newer commander players are putting in cards they already have.

[@maplz9314]

that is still a form of power creep

[@mutant9137]

But there are still way more cards in magic history than in the past 2 years. The cards printed recently are just ridiculous

[@RobMedellin]

@@maplz9314 yes and no. That's power creep on a total basis, but not a per card basis and most people refer to power creep to be on individual cards.

[@jdavidaiken]

The fact that commander has more than doubled in popularity, magic itself has grown greatly in popularity, and the people want to play with new cards already should explain most (not all) of the past 3 years' over-representation. I re-started with Dominaria (natural disaster claimed my collection in 2006), and I just know the recent cards better, and have them lying around. Not all of us are Dana digging through the past to find edge-case (hilarious and awesome, no disrespect intended) cards. It would surprise me if this was not the case in the past. If EDHRec can go through it's historical data, I'm curious to see if that curve looks the same at year end of 2019, 2018, etc.

[@jaygiemtg7511]

The 5 cards from 1993: Plains Island Swamp Mountain Forest (EDIT: Always forget Sol Ring is in Alpha.) Joking aside, that first chart seems pretty accurate from my experience. Part of it could just be that older cards are harder to find, so less people are playing them in higher numbers, but I certainly feel like my decks are slowly trimming those beautiful old-bordered cards.

[@Governorrr]

I know there is definitely power creep but do also think there could be some recency bias? Like there's been an explosion of new players in recent years which also factor into these numbers as well? I could definitely see 2019 & 2020 averaging out lower at some point.

[@changhyon92]

also to point out the number of sets period per year dramatically increased in the last couple of years. and many of them have original printings of a lot of cards

[@pocmocpocmoc]

Another possible explanation: WotC prints more niche cards for certain strategies. So even if they are not generically powerful, they get played. (Dana mentioned this as the second type of power creep.)

[@MadMage86]

Something else to consider when looking at usage of newer cards: 2019-20 were years where WotC REALLY pushed into Commander, giving the format development spotlight in several sets and really pushing it in product placement. The format was already steadily growing, but I think the influx of newer players as a result of the product push cannot be ignored: and many of these newer players wouldn't have access to a lot of older cards, especially those on the reserved list or whose price tags are abnormally high. I'd be interested in looking at how we might see signs of the influx of new players, such as how many decks are added to the database by year or even month.

[@piralos1329]

Joey's laugh at the start of this episode fills me with such pure joy, I adore it! Also an excellent episode, really interesting insights!!

[@GizZm086]

Stoked that my Challenge the Stats (Mark of Sakiko) made it to the show! Awesome podcast as always!👍🏻

[@SWNJim]

I think there’s a lot of cards that are also forgotten since they are old and/or therefore assumed to be too expensive. Yes, there’s definitely power creep, but there’s no upgrade to something like Burnt Offering/Sacrifice for aristocrats/sacrifice decks. Neither of those cards see much play. There’s a lot of little gems like these. The set that I think is criminally underrated is Odyssey. Every time I look through it, I see effects I want to use in decks.

[@stephentaylor451]

I have a scroll ad for Marriott that says “Joy is closer than you think” and I felt a sense of dread as if Joey is somewhere skulking nearby

[@MrMalorian]

Why don't you upload those twitch games to youtube too?

[@pauldyson8098]

I appreciate the argument that Commander almost has a "rotation" (a la Standard) now, but it feels more like planned obsolescence.

[@fatrat92]

That's probably because there is.

[@charyou3167]

Eternal dragon is really good at triggering astral slide/drift and haven multiple times because you can go grab farmland or triome and guarantee you trigger them twice instead of just hoping to draw a second cycling card.

[@coreyroberson4550]

Yeah, it may not trigger "when you draw" cards, but it absolutely works with "when you cycle." I run it in my Zur the Enchanter Astral Slide deck, and it has the added bonus of being able to fix mana in a non-green deck.

[@andrewpeli9019]

I remember when I built my first commander deck back in 2007. I was playing Adun Oakenshield and that deck basically just played little creatures over and over for value until you could cast Insurrection and hopefully win. And it did win... I remember winning the majority of the games that I played with it back into 2007. A local sports cards shop started a commander event in 2018 and I brought my deck in with a 2007 mindset and got absolutely wrecked. I already was aware of power creep. It was a discussion way back in the early 2000s. But this was a "proof" of it. I remember way back in 2009 when they printed Baneslayer Angel. People were talking about power creep way back then concerning that card.

[@somersetbassett4580]

Syr Konrad, the uncommon!

[@chasewhite2223]

I have him in my 4 horsemen commander deck led by sidar kondo and vial amasher.

[@williamcarswell3012]

I love light up the stage absolutely underrated

[@ygaudreault]

Agree, I thinks it's the best red card draw printed in years.

[@sheldonadams2847]

And it's not draw, so it gets around Nekusa and Hullbreacher

[@Kazz1187]

It’s great! I agree

[@hiddenleaf414]

Something I would take into account is that Wotc is pushing that new 5 year profit business plan. They already have been printing out more product and for that product to sell the cards have to be good or in most cases better then what is currently out. Short term gains over long term values is how business’ go under...

[@NightOfCrystals]

This has been happening for a long time. Eventually, everyone is going to get sick of their eternal format rotating.

[@rowanmanning1464]

Island should be banned. So unfair

[@johanandersson8252]

Agreed 🤝

[@scottcampbell9515]

Forest has always been sus.

[@iceicejay9569]

Blue should be banned lets be honest its not real magic.

[@01MEGABOB]

@@iceicejay9569 says the mono white player. Lol. But no really blue is just awful.

[@iceicejay9569]

@@01MEGABOB nah I like Jund

[@NVRealDeal]

Not sure if anyone touched on this, but the sharp increase in cards could also just be brand new decks from all of the products made in the past couple years. Example: Jorn, God of Winter and the Snow lands/cards from Kaldheim creating tons of new cards and a new Snow Strategie. There's definitely replacement of cards from power creep without a doubt, but the sharp increase in new cards is also from new/improved tribes, strategies, etc like in Ixalan,: Dinos, more Merfolk, more Vampires in new Commander sets, etc, new Barbarians in Kaldheim, tons of new gods/enchantments in the second Theros set, flip cards in Zendikar, a plethora of walkers from War of the Spark, and more. Just a thought. Great show!

[@edhdeckbuilding]

love that you guys are covering this topic. opinions about power creep (like mine) are fine, but the data really shows what's actually happening. i often do deck techs where i name a card and then i briefly pause when i realize i don't see that card in games much anymore. and the numbers don't lie.

[@changhyon92]

this graph isn't the entire picture, because there are other information you need to know to come to a better informed conclusion. for example the number of new players entering the format with the cards they have aka the new cards. another is the sheer amount of new sets with original printings of cards spiked really high from 2018 onward.

[@velkejkoren]

I get paid for sleeping! I am an emergency technician! I have naps all day when nothing breaks and I still get paid by my company.

[@kandjar]

9:10 It's easy Matt; playing Selesnya, you're a lot less affected by power creep since white doesn't really get many; so you don't feel the need to upgrade your deck.

[@DrukenReaps]

I think this feels more like a popularity contest rather than power creep to me but I understand that diving into the stats as much as I'd like to see would be a 5 hour episode and a month or more of work, lol. There are so many powerful cards from Magic's history that don't get played. You guys talked about some of them, one of the splashiest being Cradle which should be in 90% or more of green decks. It just costs too much money. There are a ton of cards just like it, they cost too much... I think it is also worth looking at the banned cards. A large number of those are older cards. Then Defense of the Heart. I don't know why it isn't in every green deck because it should literally be in 100% of them. Then there are things like Prime Speaker Vannifar a pretty recent and very powerful card but she only leads 812 decks and is only used in 3% of her possible 99. She seems like a good case for the power creep argument but she hardly sees play so she wouldn't have shown up in your graph. Still a fun episode! Something to think about. I don't know that I disagree, just more angels I want to look at. Looking forward to more episodes and I liked the updated website looks, hope that critical error gets fixed sooner rather than later.

[@chrislunde3698]

2019 and 2020, also just had huge growth in commander in general. Fierce Guardianship will obviously be a staple forever, but I think some of the cards are overrepresented because they were printed during a period of growth in the player base, like Sir Conrad.

[@christopherdonoyan3257]

2003 a 2 mana 2/2 is Grizzly Bears 2020 a 2 mana 2/2 is Kinnan Bonder Prodigy.

[@AndrewWoodford]

I play Of One Mind in my Urza Construct Bonder Deck. I love those 1 Mana Draw Two cards that they have been printing.

[@Iwoqvossik]

I feel like an important piece of context is missing from this data. I think if you were to look at snapshots of any given year you'd see similar numbers for standard cards.

[@jgmclellan]

Agreed, its just natural to build with the newest cards

[@huyvuminh1048]

it only maybe, edhrec only have data set of around 2-3 recent year exactly the same time the edh powercrept push start they also have decks from before the website launch but given the tim period it hardly accurate

[@TopLevelJiuJitsu]

Would be interesting to do it again in 3 years and see if the "spikes" are always within the most recent 18 to 24 mo time frame.

[@mat4039]

I would add that seems standard is including more made for commander cards in these set s.I think that's why there is a feeling of imbalance in color pie and power creep. Except white it remains terrible

[@breakingnews33]

Absolutely agree. Playing standard now and seeing a card, you can tell which are pushed just to set to EDH players. If WoTC didn’t, the secondary market would get most of the EDH buyers.

[@loekgenbu698]

White has lost its identity.

[@cameronbyers7335]

@@loekgenbu698 What was its identity?

[@jzkayakpnw]

Happy Birthday, Dana! We're birthday buddies! I'm also a cheesehead and a Packers fan!

[@FrankChafe]

Also core sets came back during 2019....core sets are typically responsible for more utility cards being created.

[@TheStephenation]

A confounding variable that I don't think was brought up in this discussion is that 2018 was the last year to use add any "small" set to Standard, a practice that had been normal for most of the game's history up to that point. 2019 and 2020 would have had more large Standard sets than previous years. Without crunching the numbers, I seem to remember that they had more new cards coming through non-Standard products than previous years as well. A greater sheer volume of new cards in those two years than in most of the prior years would naturally mean we'd expect to see more cards in EDH decks from those years as well. Now, I suspect that even once this increase is taken into account, the average number of cards from those years is still enough to cast doubt on the null hypothesis here, but surely it should factor into the discussion.

[@Arvensa]

how would you control for the explosion in popularity of the game and format, and all of those newer players who own mostly the newest cards discovering EDHrec? Especially for all of the side-grade role-players, utility cards, and even 'bombs'/splashy cards that aren't necessarily the top-end of value and price but are de-facto most-available best-in-slot when pulled from a less-established collection or without splurging? do we have any way to get stats on how likely newer format joiners are to order older or more expensive cards compared to veterans? How large is that effect likely to be?

[@benjamincarter6095]

2019 - 2020 saw a huge Spike in the number of EDH players, most of which do not have as much access to powerful cards from older sets. There is some power creep though. New powerful cards balancing out old powerful cards negates the reliance on reserved list cards, so I figured you all would be huge fans of power creep.

[@nicholasbower17]

So here's my other thought. More people are getting into Commander. When I first played Commander in 2016, I built a deck from my cards I had (Battle for Zendikar, Shadows over Innistrad...) that was what I had to build with. Even if I want to pick up a precon tomorrow, would I go buy a 2017 precon for $200? A 2014 for $80+? No I'm walking into my store and grabbing a deck off the shelf for $20 or $40. So new players probably aren't pigging out on old cards.

[@hansmelby5080]

One other factor that causes new cards to show up in decks: 1 new commander decks being printed, 2 new players entering the game starting with new sets

[@hansmelby5080]

Also older cards are expensive to obtain, and lower printing runs

[@slawless9665]

I would have liked to see the runner-up to Sasaya for Commander with the least old cards - Sasaya may not play many old cards with different names, but it plays a LOT of that one basic forest, more than most monogreen decks even.

[@TheStephenation]

Angus Mackenzie used to be the most expensive commander for a long time, but Gwendlyn di Corci has stolen that title with her wiles. I guess making people discard cards has become more popular?

[@happybrain2674]

my chalange the stats: Heirloom Blade its good for tribal decks but esp. good for teysa karlov Teysa himself can play a lot of different humans cause they fit the deathtrigger part so you have the carddraw part, but even better goes now: even if you have a few cards with the same "tribal" lets say for elementals you got 3: Reveillark, Cavalier of Night and Night Incarnate you can "tutor" the missing parts cause they are so few! for vampires i have viscera seer, Cruel Celebrant and Twilight Prophet again 3 really good vampires that you allways want to play on teysa and thanks to heirloom blade only one of them needs to die and you get the other two/one (depending on if your commander is out).

[@thealaskanknifeguy3883]

You also have to think that with the addition of Arena there are a lot of new players. I think that’s one of the reasons you see that card in the Gavi deck, these new players are just leaving it in because it says cycling and they haven’t been exposed to some of these older cards until they find them online or whatever but upload the deck they have anyways.

[@deathspawn54]

It's probably also that a lot of people started playing with precons more and the money block of older cards

[@yoshiman9521]

i wonder if its just that the newer cards are more readily available and also shiny new toys. if we go back in time to the year 2017 and do this episode then, would we still see that same spike of the two most recent years having a big jump in play rate?

[@TheOneAndOnlyCrawl]

I like powercreep if it is narrow and synergy based, where one deck wants it and others couldn't be bothered. My Grenzo Dungeon Warden deck loved Throne of Eldraine with murderous rider and Cauldron of eternity, while my other black decks couldn't care less about those cards. I don't like when 'goodstuff'(tm) becomes more powerful every year. I think it limits creativity in deckbuilding, if you have 10-15 auto include cards because they alone are better than any 2 card synergy you can think of.

[@Fogshaper]

In that screenshot of the commanders list, Kess has place 10. She's now Rank 46 :D

[@PawzBrownMTG]

I really enjoy hearing you guys it'll be like Grumppier Old Men 10 years from now lol. Keep staying Pawzitive guys. You all rock

[@ImBoredBuddies]

I feel like also a lot of the staple cards like cyclonic rift are starting to get a little too expensive for some peoples bloods who may be new or returning and that leaves a lot of the newer sets looking a lot better in terms of wallet for their more powerful cards

[@screwthisin]

This video topic should've been a series, to see any trends that popped up like as Joey/Matt were saying that newer cards will push the older cards out.

[@detatchedobserver7575]

How are you guys pulling the denominator? When I looked up the Fierce Guardianship entry on your website it said "in 22,981 decks of 120,977 decks" and Hullbreacher said "in 6,564 decks of 35,635." I noticed this in the video as well, but shouldn't both cards "out of 120,977 decks?" There isn't a deck in which you could play Fierce Guardianship, but not Hullbreacher...

[@EDHRECast]

Fierce Guardianship has been around longer and there have been more decks made/updated in the time FG has been around compared to Hullbreacher. In this case, there have been 120,977 eligible decks since FG was released in early/mid 2020 when Ikoria came out and only 35,635 decks that have been updated/created since Commander Legends. If a deck hasn't been updated since a card was released we don't' count it against the card and only consider decks that have been updated since it's release date.

[@detatchedobserver7575]

EDHRECast Got it. Cheers!

[@tonyrosetti2738]

Another interpretation of that graph: more new players = more new cards get played.

[@mangohub3252]

Tbf most new players aren’t up loading deck lists

[@jeanmarais337]

Eternal Dragon is a buget piece for people with "bad mana bases". An expensive mana base can easily support the 3 mana requirement and wouldn't need it. I bet the decks playing it are also playing evolving wilds and terrimorfic expance and the converse would be true.

[@Whitefero1]

I have heard in the 30 mins so far, the simpler observation that for every NEW card to go in, another OLDER card must go out. For as long as they print better cards, which they have for the past 15 years, the graph looked like this last year, and every year before it.

[@mycroftholmes2992]

I would wonder how much of this is due to new players format the last three years? We know this is growing faster than any others from wizards, that has to affect the numbers. Newer cards are more easily available, thus more likely to be played.

[@thumbwrestler12]

Cool video and 2020 was the year of the commander maybe 2021 will be lower but Kaldheim and the amount of commander products might have it go up with the power creep. Hope the power creep for commander goes down and fatlines so there can be a healthy community. Also hope standeered a d the other formats get balanced out and less broken cards cause that Ben a huge issue.

[@artemisfowl52]

If this data is being pulled from the last 2 years, there's a high chance the greater representation of 2019 and 2020 cards are due to how data is collected and presented on EDHRec rather than raw power of new spells. Like the precon effect, recently printed cards are going to have disproportionate representation because they are more accessible than older cards.

[@EDHRECast]

A good point, one we address at approximately 34:40

[@andrewp979]

Is this bias since when new cars come out, people are promoted to brew with them, so online lists will get made even if the deck never gets made in reality? Also, any be player, or draft/standard player is far more likely to play recent cards, power creep or not?

[@changhyon92]

it could be, in addition, the number of sets per year with new cards increased since you guessed it 2018

[@sirrslipp]

Does the cards per year graph include reprints?

[@vaporeonlvl1009]

Only originaly printed, but your point is interesting

[@psychozen7169]

Vanderbilt university did have a sleep study and they paid 200$ a night for 6 months. But no telling what they were giving you though in the pill placebo or not. You also had to sleep in their bedroom and bed at the University. Also Vanderbilt University were buying a testicle the pay was a prosthetic testicle and 30k before taxes.

[@nasaya77]

I'd like to see the first graph compared to another graph depicting the growth in number of players if that info is at all possible to gather. Perhaps the number register accounts on EDHrec has also gone up? But Idk how long the website has been running.

[@changhyon92]

number of sets per year as well.

[@jkattack2640]

I love eternal dragon in my gavi deck because its seismic swans so getting lands is often actually what I want

[@blindcommander]

Happy birthday!

[@krabquakes3978]

Would be interesting to see what the top cards are from each year.

[@templeoflove79]

Yes durring the last years some great and powerfull cards have been released. But couldn´t it be the case just looking to to statistical data leads to some misjudgment? Many new players startet playing EDH. Let´s assume they started with a precon they yet have quite a lot of cards from the year the precon has been released. Some precons,like the ones from Commander Legends and even more Zendikar Rising, are really great starting points to enter the game.

[@EZ2BCHEEZY36]

Imo Hullbreacher should have had the caviat of "If an opponent would draw a card from an effect you don't control....."

[@jasonholmes5714]

I totally agree. That’s a great idea. But then it wouldn’t be Legacy playable, and I think they wanted it to be, for whatever reason.

[@Zarbon000]

​@@jasonholmes5714 To sell product 🤔

[@jaytf310]

Power creep is DEFINITELY a thing but I think recency bias plays more apart in these numbers than anything. I'd be willing to bet that if you had eliminated the two most recent years and ran the numbers again you would have seen a similar trend.

[@jeanmarais337]

i'd love to see a graph showing how many new cards came out per year.

[@olvynchuru1663]

Manalith -> Arcane Signet isn't really a good example of power creep, as Manalith was already strictly worse than other mana rocks (e.g. Darksteel Ingot) at the time it was printed, and it was probably overall worse than the two-mana rocks that existed at the time (e.g. signets, allied color talismans) unless your deck had a ton of colors in it. Just because a new card is strictly better than some old limited fodder common doesn't automatically mean it's power creep. In any set, there is a big difference in power level between different cards, even holding time constant. The proper comparison isn't Questing Beast to some random vanilla creature from Alpha. Instead, compare Questing Beast to the BEST creatures from Alpha, like Llanowar Elves or Birds of Paradise. If I had choice between running Questing Beast or Birds of Paradise in a Commander deck, I'd probably still choose Birds of Paradise.

[@jwcrawley]

I've always been for lands being more accessible. It's infuriating to see tolarian academy, gaia's cradle, volraths stronghold to be sitting there at $X00... So when I see tap dual snow lands as commons, GOOD.

[@fastydave]

2020 was the year of commander so I'm curious what was expected?

[@matteobagni1235]

I expected more commander focused cards in standard sets, which happened...

[@stronggreenflame]

While I think there is some power creep, I see a lot of issues with how you are interpreting these stats. 1 in the last few years the amount of content coming out has doubled (or at least it feels like it). A more useful stat would be how many cards from each set is being played. 2 just because more cards are getting played doesnt mean they are stronger than things before. They can be unique effects. Or since its a singleton format it can be the exact same affect. You mentioned the talismans and other mana ramp. Those aren't power creep. We've had cards that fetch multiple lands for a very long time. 3 wizards have started to print cards directly for commander. So naturally the number of cards for that set have come up. You would need to do this for each eternal format and see how they compare. 4 some of the cards you mentioned are popular for budget reasons. Which is the opposite of power creep. Every new land cycle has a good chance of making it into a lot of commander decks.

[@stronggreenflame]

Also like you said older cards end up being priced out. So they stopped getting played. Not because the new cards are more powerful, but because they're cheaper. Id be interested what these stats looked like if you did the average expensive deck. Nothing here proves power creep and infact I say its pretty week evidence. But I do think there is powercreep but maybe differently than you think. Wizards continues to print cards that go in every deck that can play them. And yes they are good cards but not necessarily because of power. Command signet gets played in mono colored decks because they don't have many mana rocks for just 1 color. Smothering tithe is one of like 3 white mana ramp. And I think these cards will go down in popularity as more similar cards get printed. A cycle of 2 mana artifical that tap for one color and come into play untaped would help out a lot of decks. But they would be more powerful then guild signets.

[@jaredcrawford923]

Is there an episode where they discuss functional reprints?

[@audiophage0]

How much do you think the frequency of cards printed in 2019 and 2020 is affected by how EDHREC takes data from the last couple of years?

[@jeanmarais337]

light up the stage: worst case I flip two high emc cards that i need later in the game, can't pay their costs, and they get exiled forever...is it worth the risk?

[@jakeapplegate6642]

In that case you just dug past 2 cards that you couldn’t play that were on top of your deck. Totally worth it.

[@jeanmarais337]

@@jakeapplegate6642 unless they're combo pieces of my wincon

[@jakeapplegate6642]

@@jeanmarais337 you just have to be aware of that take it into consideration when you cast it. It’s best if you have a low curve and maybe it’s not great for combo decks.

[@Customerbuilder]

2006: Ravnica

[@kokujinbeeblebob]

Powercreep is def a thing, but for the past year at least, how much has covid also impacted the adoption rate of cards? With people being forced to stay home how many of those people also started working on decks and just by the nature of newer cards tending to be cheaper (for a majority of cards) those cards are more likely to be adopted.

[@damo9961]

EDH - Use cards only up until 2010. Commander - give Wizards $

[@GamingBear_Q_E_D]

Great episode guys, I have an Lgs and opened my first one back in 1996 and the feedback is that it's too much for most people with the escalating costs and more people are moving to Flesh and Blood as a fun and financially stable CCG platform (relatively). I was a Magic only store but I was forced by Wotc to also stock Flesh & Blood .. the overwhelming powerful sets where everything is amazing so the nothing is amazing is setting in .. and Ding Ding .. I hear the next more amazing set bus arriving in two minutes with the even more powerful bus of cards two minutes later .. and in the distance I see the next twenty busses appearing over the horizon. It's too much for most players and getting worse which has fuelled the move to flesh and blood .. people are getting really fed up and more and more are becoming extremely pissed off with Wotc. Them seeing us just as walking wallets to throw more & more shinnies at as each previous bunch of shiny becomes the next trash six months down the line and completely devaluing the secondary market and the foundational collectability of the game... Sadly this policy is destroying the game itself. Not because it is not an amazing game which we love, it's because of the 'not for everyone' attitude where the game is no-longer open for the average player, turning up to play EDH and being left always to lose unless they get lucky or people feel sorry for them and let them win sometimes out of pity, it's going to a very bad place where only the wealthy can afford to play a game to lose so much money month after month and year after year for new stuff rather than reserve list. A store used to be able to at least break even with secondary card sales but the power creep and speed of power creep has destroyed that, where they then insulted Lgs owners by saying we should sell something else to make money and not rely on Mtg .. well I did .. Wotc forced me to have to break my 'Magic Only' policy which I had from 1996 through to 2020 .. Now I have Flesh and Blood to save my store while Wotc tries to destroy my store .. even though without them helping me through my Uni Business degree I I would not have started a store while I studied.. lol. :( Wotc lose the Mc Duck Dollar signs & get back to being a relaxed and fun game like the new fun kid on the block is being. Please come back to us Wotc .. you left us and forced us to find someone else, we did not leave you .. but you changed and have undermined our relationship .. we will give you another chance, but you must change Wotc... come back and be fun again like in the old days before you sold your soul for shinnies which surprisingly will be worthless .. like those you try to force us to buy now!

[@jakeapplegate6642]

Wow, so many people in the comments that don’t understand what data that graph actually represents.

[@louie8649]

I think it's important to note the growth of magic's playerbase. I started playing 6 months ago. I bought a precon deck. I am part of the statistics for a player who plays more cards in 2019/2020, but that's because I'm a new player opening new packs and buying new precons. Your data is extremely skewed by this. I occasionally see players running extremely underpowered commanders and decks from the early 90s because they are legacy players that are running those cards for sentimental value. I'd never run a deck like that, because that sentimentality means nothing to me. Another factor in skewed data when it comes to new vs. old players.

[@pastelcia42]

Those 5 cards per year from 1993 have to be the basic lands, right?

[@dakillaklown715]

Feb 5 is my birthday too!

[@Cory-G-chan]

My Shrine Tribal deck uses Jegantha at the helm

[@kaszael]

How do you guys define "a deck that can play it"? Fierce Guardianship and Hullbreacher are both mono-blue decks yet The number of decks that can play Fierce Guardianship is just shy of 90K whereas the number of decks tha can play Hullbreacher is just under 20K? What makes such a discrepancy between the 2?

[@EDHRECast]

Fierce Guardianship has been around longer and there have been more decks made/updated in the time FG has been around compared to Hullbreacher. In this case, there have been 120,977 eligible decks since FG was released in early/mid 2020 when Ikoria came out and only 35,635 decks that have been updated/created since Commander Legends. If a deck hasn't been updated since a card was released we don't' count it against the card and only consider decks that have been updated since it's release date.

[@kaszael]

@@EDHRECast Thank you for the detailed answer! I hadn't considered the time of release to be a factor. Makes sense :)

[@feelsbad9812]

Please include silver boarderd cards on your site! 🙏

[@derekmccoy2799]

Thanks for that challenge Mark of sakiko is totally going in my togo and Ich-Tekik deck!

[@kandjar]

44:35 something old, something new, something blue?

[@elgentleman6259]

I'm not going to disagree with power-creep happening, has been for ages, and the newer pushed cards are going to be played. I think you've overlooked the immediate appeal of new cards being tested out and played with, along with newer players not having the knowledge base of the older cards and naturally pulling from their two year old collection. It wouldn't surprise me if you did have the data, that it would consistently show a spike at the end for any year.

[@dorsalfin22]

Not just that but magic in general exploded in popularity when war of the sparks came out so there has been more players in general

[@tommieboi707]

How else is wotc going to get people to buy the new stuff? They have to add more powerful cards. It just makes sense from a business standpoint. I added all the ancient dragons into my ur dragon deck as well as a timeless lotus. It just makes casting my dragons a whole lot easier. Ur dragon gets a ton of battlefield time now. I'm not complaining.

[@carloserausquinhoyos3298]

I thought there was a printing error in alpha that resulted in no mountains

[@breakingtide]

I haven't watched yet but I see "Power Creep" and I agree

[@sheahon1179]

So a couple concerns, this topic is sorta a sensitive one for many people. And could really do with a dedicated segment establishing the positives and negatives of power creep. Because it gets talked about as bad but is vitally important for the health and longevity of the game. And on the topic of healthy power creep, I wouldn't be playing magic if we were still dealing with 6 mana 4/4s if Serra Angel was the cutting edge then the game would be way too boring for me. So power creep has obviously happened but the better question is how much power creep is healthy. If the game changes so that ges only last 4 turns then that is gonna be lame and I'll stop caring, if the game still took 20 turns then I wouldn't be playing. Also cards like Smothering Tithe while technically power creep are also faster important for power parody. White needs to ramp and has always struggled so getting the ability to keep up is power creep but is vitally important for that color. You say you don't care about how people were building decks in 2012 or 2002 at 36:30. That is gonna massively screw your numbers if you aren't paying attention to that people play with the most recent cards because they are what we can get a hold of. A better question might be how many cards from each year were added to that average list each year?

[@changhyon92]

^this

[@flyingchimp5012]

I like my games long and invested. The recent powercreep actively works against this. Boardwipes are a poor bandaid for explosive creatures. I got the most out of my commander matches in 2018. I'm playing Commander since 2017 What I'm saying is: Your perspecitive is just as subjective as mine.

[@dorsalfin22]

Power creep is also needed for strategies that prior to said power creep did not transfer over well from 60 card, 20hp formats to commander. This includes mill and burn. I LOVE obosh and the damage multipliers from this past year

[@SamundraDarion]

Joey plays swamps - who hurt you?!

[@deathspawn54]

Power creeeep! Looks at the power 9, force of will, mana crypt, sol ring,vampiric tutor, etc. Sus

[@MTG69]

I am hoping for Return to Homelands this year.

[@MTG69]

Really want a updated Joven card, come on wizards, goth Chum Lee deserves better!

[@matteobagni1235]

I missed the best years of commander D:

[@MadMage86]

The old days of Rafiq and Kaalia being aggro powerhouses were fun and all, but I do enjoy games being a bit more interactive than big creature slugfests. I just wish it didn't come at the cost of slugfests being irrelevant. Back then we were *SO* hard on combo that anyone even coming close to an infinite would be chased from the table with pitchforks - I'm not sure if the format as a whole coming around to be more accepting is a good thing or not.

[@vasylpark2149]

Orzhov are the true necromancers, FIGHT ME!!! Edit: another way to measure power creep is to look at every card that had a better replacement either more text, lower cost, or alternate cost.

[@vincentwerts4724]

I'm still waiting for a good explanation as to why power creep is a bad thing.

[@zachevans2220]

Some people are competitive enough to feel that they need to tune up their decks when the power creeps, but they’re not so devoted to winning that they can ignore the expense of such an effort, especially given the increased pace of product release in recent years & the rising prices of cards that *aren’t* getting pushed out. Others are more concerned with the principle of Eternal formats, as the idea behind having such formats in the first place is to give you places to play older cards that aren’t in Standard anymore; if power creep means you end up playing primarily Standard-legal cards anyway, what’s the point in having these other formats? Still others are kind of a mix of these two: I finally saved up enough to make the deck I wanted, bought the cards, & then discovered they recently printed better versions of half of those cards, with the new ones costing as much as $40 each? Feels bad, man. Also, power creep tends to reduce interaction more often than increase it, & some people don’t like the gameplay patterns that leads to. If you can’t relate to any of these perspectives at all, I imagine you’re quite the whale of a combo player.

[@Governorrr]

Tibalts trickery is the best counter spell actually

[@timshuman7746]

Alpha had Dual Lands, sol ring, mana vault, basalt monolith, demonic tutor, timetwister, wheel of fortune, dark ritual, counterspell, swords to plowshares, regrowth, llanowar elves, wild growth, birds of paradise, copy artifact and red elemental blast. I think your charts are wrong!

[@01MEGABOB]

Questing beast has been a vindictively fun commander. Bring ALL your fogs. >:) and don’t forget your sunstone.