I loved playing magic so much in the 90s. I quit and when I looked back at the mid 2010s the game was unrecognizable, so I never tried to come back. Thanks for the fun memories. People hated playing against my blue counterspell deck. I understand now.
I quit and when I looked back at the mid 2010s the game was unrecognizable
I have to say, I’ve played on and off for a long while - from the mid-90s until a few years ago - and I agree. But that was sort of the appeal of the game. Always evolving. Constantly trying new mechanics and styles of play. It was a kind-of laboratory for game design and implementation that kept me coming back to see what was new.
The thing that has turned me off more now than ever before is the way the game has fully stagnated. Every new release is just a reskinned iteration that calcified at the end of COVID. The mechanics have gotten cookie-cutter and have really divorced themselves from the different styles and themes between sets. The gulf between Common and Rare/Mythic, plus the way Common cards are totally interchangeable across editions, has made Pauper a lot less fun.
And now that AI art is popping up in all the new sets, I can’t even enjoy that much.
That’s before you get into the shameless cash-grab that was the 30th aniversery set. $999 for a box with four packs in it which, apparently, did so badly that the excess cards were dumped in a landfill rather than going into discount. Really painfully shameless overmarketing and underdeveloping. Heartbreaking to see Hasbro rip the beating heart out of the company, because they saw a golden goose and couldn’t be satisfied with just one golden egg a day.
The thing that has turned me off more now than ever before is the way the game has fully stagnated. Every new release is just a reskinned iteration that calcified at the end of COVID. The mechanics have gotten cookie-cutter and have really divorced themselves from the different styles and themes between sets.
fucking a-men.
The most blatant of this was when Android : Netrunner was licenced by Fantasy Flight Games and every set not only DIDN’T HAVE LOOTBOXES/RANDOM PACKS, but almost every card design was unique.
At the very least, until they started trying to get into cycling sets out and new ones in to build standard, and instead of cards being balanced by later cards, they just dumped new broken sweeper shit in there (unavoidable tags into resource sweepers)
And then you compared it to the state of MTG which started becoming :
Every fucking card is either bullshit removal, or “When you resolve this spell turn a land into a 0/0 creature and put a +1/+1 counter on each land that turned into a creature this turn and draw a card if your land creatures have five enchantments”.
(T)
I loved playing magic so much in the 90s. I quit and when I looked back at the mid 2010s the game was unrecognizable, so I never tried to come back. Thanks for the fun memories. People hated playing against my blue counterspell deck. I understand now.
I have to say, I’ve played on and off for a long while - from the mid-90s until a few years ago - and I agree. But that was sort of the appeal of the game. Always evolving. Constantly trying new mechanics and styles of play. It was a kind-of laboratory for game design and implementation that kept me coming back to see what was new.
The thing that has turned me off more now than ever before is the way the game has fully stagnated. Every new release is just a reskinned iteration that calcified at the end of COVID. The mechanics have gotten cookie-cutter and have really divorced themselves from the different styles and themes between sets. The gulf between Common and Rare/Mythic, plus the way Common cards are totally interchangeable across editions, has made Pauper a lot less fun.
And now that AI art is popping up in all the new sets, I can’t even enjoy that much.
That’s before you get into the shameless cash-grab that was the 30th aniversery set. $999 for a box with four packs in it which, apparently, did so badly that the excess cards were dumped in a landfill rather than going into discount. Really painfully shameless overmarketing and underdeveloping. Heartbreaking to see Hasbro rip the beating heart out of the company, because they saw a golden goose and couldn’t be satisfied with just one golden egg a day.
fucking a-men.
The most blatant of this was when Android : Netrunner was licenced by Fantasy Flight Games and every set not only DIDN’T HAVE LOOTBOXES/RANDOM PACKS, but almost every card design was unique.
At the very least, until they started trying to get into cycling sets out and new ones in to build standard, and instead of cards being balanced by later cards, they just dumped new broken sweeper shit in there (unavoidable tags into resource sweepers)
And then you compared it to the state of MTG which started becoming :