Magic is dying like fuck

Good, I want fuckers to branch out into other TCGs, instead of there just being 3 that people mostly play in NA.

>Continue to have the online clients be an utter failure in comparison to Hearthstone: even when that game is shit

I think this is the smoking gun. There's a lot of people (myself included) that either don't have a local place to play or a good local to place to play, or are just too antisocial to go out to FNM, or whatever. They know this, if they didn't Magic Online, Magic Duels and Magic Arena wouldn't exist. But they're all either awful or hideously outdated. I got real into the pokemon TCG early this year and while I never played in some big event around town or something I did spend a decent amount of both time and to a lesser extent money on the online client for it because it is well designed and doesn't feel like as much of a moneysucking F2P shitpile as something like Duels did.

Sad to see, but not surprising. Standard has been pretty awful with regular bannings. Modern is in a constant state of flux due to bannings. Legacy got hit pretty badly when a store streamed a tournament that was using proxies and wizards started to enforce the no proxy rule for local legacy tournaments (if someone reported a store they would lose a lot of their support from wizards). They have no real online presence for mtg for newer players. The product for the non-standard formats has been greatly under-produced. EDH runs on singles so sealed product tends to be unneeded. They can probably recover to some degree, but time is definitely running out

I tuned out around Kaladesh so I'd believe it. Eldritch Moon was a riot, but everything after has been slow pickings.

In years past the new sets would fuel Modern decks as well so playing Standard would bleed into that, too. However from Origins onward there are only a few cards that have seen any play outside of their Standard rotation because most just aren't good enough anymore: most stuff is just toned down staples of Modern. Frontier could have helped because it would have been a Modern for newer players but most of the actual Modern players just shat all over it until it lost any chance of building steam. So now we're faced with Standard being dead just about everywhere, Frontier a crashed wreck at the gate, Modern losing steam and I don't even know of Legacy players anymore where I live.

It wasn't a big deal when Standard cost almost nothing. I just looked it up, and a competitive Standard deck costs $250-$400. And then they go to pennies on rotation, and are utterly useless in every other format with one or two exceptions (Fatal Push for instance). I can't imagine what lunatic would buy into that. Imagine how many people would play video games if they needed a fresh $400 console or PC every single year to keep up.

If they do it won't be physical CCGs, it'll be online ones like Hearthstone.

I'm pretty sure Wotc brought this upon themselves. I think BfZ contributed to it as well. The timing lines up. Bfz was released 2 years ago too.

Everyone was hyped as fuck about Battle for Zendikar when it was first announced. I know many of my friends ordered a case or two when they're the kind of people who rarely buys booster boxes.

We all remembered how good OG Zendikar was, the fetches, the ramped up power level, fast games, etc. But the set turns out to be an underpowered, sterile, unfun dud upon release.

I just quit cold turkey after that, so did most of my friends. Wotc dropped the ball hard on that. They raised your hopes and expectations so much, only to punch you in the gut and call you a sucker when the set was released.

Rin is hot.

Fucking gay, afaik all the Nip card games I'm interested in don't have online variants other than unofficial ones.
Shadowverse isn't that fun to me, although it's alright, I want something a bit more in depth.
>mfw

>Energy
It will be better after energy rotates out from standard in September

>Was watching some of ChannelFireball's old videos on YouTube
>There is a price ticker of cards in Standard along the bottom
>Some of the hottest cards from Scars of Mirrodin block were just five dollars or so

It's not that there's a lot less players.
It's that the 20 million number is some stupid business thing and it was 12 million all along.

>implying that's not damage control

>Buy these booster packs for £4 each and play the lottery for a good card
>"I'm a smart consumer, so I only buy singles."
>[Spends £250 on a top-tier Standard deck] (not even going to get into Modern, Legacy, Vintage, etc. prices.
>Spends £6 every time he wants to play Magic the Gathering in an official capcity
You'd have to be a retard that hates money to play this game. I just buy the art books because I like the planes and art.

Maro does not tell untruths.
He will word things in the most confusing way possible, it will make you think things despite not being what is said, but it is always, technically, correct. Stating actually false information publicly gets his ass fired from his job.
If there were a 40% decline in ALL players, then organized play would certainly have been harder hit than Urza's or Mirrodin.

Good. Magic had far to much of a monopoly on the card game genre (physical and digital).

Glad to see other games taking the limelight.

I don't think other games are taking the spotlight.

>Glad to see other games taking the limelight.
Like who?

Not here in the US. But worldwide Yu-Gi-Oh has had significantly higher numbers than Magic for several years.

That's just 1st and 2nd place interchanging every now and then then. Something taking the limelight would be a low populace entrant like FoW, or CFV, becoming more widely known and gaining renown.

Hasbro's profit reports have shown growth in MtG for like 8 consecutive years.

It's not dying just because MaRo flubbed his lines.

Why do people take what he says as anything meaningful? Part of his job now is to give an illusion of insight into the development of magic for the public. He has to give good news or people will scream fire and panic. If he tells too much people will realize the creators are only human. Sometimes he will drop a gem of insight, but normally it's just PR in a Q/A blog form

That is why you play legacy my dude.

Honestly, good riddance as far as I'm considered. Magic is the game that started this physical lootbox scam known as "trading card games".

Sure, let me just casually drop the $5000 needed to have a tier 2 Legacy deck.

Honestly this is good. Magic is still a very good game at it's core, but the last several sets have been terrible. They just need to pull their heads out of their asses, and we'll be golden.

Wasn't the problem of Urza's Sage and Mirrodin was that it just had some cards that were way, way too powerful and just a single dominant deck emerged in both situations?

Its not anywhere near that much, but that's that really important. What is important, is that it is a one time buy in, then you are good to play forever. It is much cheaper then standard over time.

>Hasbro's profit reports have shown growth in MtG for like 8 consecutive years.

Sure, keep repeating that meme and suck more corporate dick.

World of Warcraft's subscription numbers have tanked yet they pull in record profit margins by cutting costs and using every money milking technique possible.

motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vv7bpd/a-labour-revolt-inside-magic-the-gathering-is-tearing-the-community-apart

I'm sure you're all familiar with the lawsuit that took place last year where a group of Magic judges decided to sue Wizards of the Coast over lost wages that was recently dismissed by a California Federal Judge. According to Rudy from Alpha Investments, Wizards of the Coast is now under threat of yet another lawsuit that could put the company out of business If they publicly acknowledge that they've been purposely manufacturing warped cards and faulty products.

One of my friends thinks this is more of a systemic problem within the company and their employees to the point where it could spiral out of control and ultimately discontinue Magic in the process. Card value would plummet to the point where nobody would want to touch a Magic card ever again let alone have any incentive to play the game anymore since there would be a mass exodus of players and collectors selling off their Magic cards on eBay and other venues.

Yes, and that's AFTER multiple bans, in both cases.
Artifact blocks always bite them in the ass. Even when one of them was supposed to be an enchantment block.

Why are you even here? /v/ is --> That way.

Well, that's what happens when standard is a garbage fire.
Also might be the whole appeal to casuals and new players thing backfiring.
May I suggest pauper as a decent alternative to legacy?
A lot of the core cards are there, and it's way cheaper. The trick is convincing people that commons can be powerful and fun.

Ya, and fuck RPGs! Rolling dice is a narrative lootbox, and rules are just DRM on your imagination!

Art went to shit after Lorwyn. Story went to shit after Dominaria.

I miss the Rebecca Guay block

It boggles my mind that YuGiOh is more popular than MTG.

you're still recommending people drop money that can be represented by double digit percentages of the average yearly salary on a deck that you might be able to play against two neckbeards locally because nobody else is going to drop four figures as an entry fee to get fisted to death by the engineer who shelled out to play Grixis Delver

and if you're suggesting tournaments then you were adding entry fees and travel costs to get skullfucked by 16 people playing Miracles until earlier this year

>YuGiOh is more popular than MTG.
Wait, really?

The story broadstrokes have been great. I agree with the art though.

What the fuck are you even trying to say you retard? Randomized booster packs are literally, LITERALLY the physical equivalent of a lootbox. If this game wasn't a scam, it would simply sell you every card in the expansion in one big non-randomized box. And playing it seriously would cost one hundredth of what it costs now.

RPGs on the other hand are like the cheapest fucking hobby in the world, you buy one rulebook once and it lasts you until you fucking die.

Yep, significantly. A lot of this is due to Japanese people being turbo-autists about YGO. A lot of the rest of it has to do with the TV show. Globally YGO has much higher numbers.

That's right, planeswalker. Links and pendulum creatures are part and parcel of any successful card game.

>tfw just found out today that Rebecca Guay's name is pronounced as Rebecca GAY

The 12 million number is measuring "active" players that play/buy multiple times a year, the 20 million is basically "#People who touched our product once in the last year." They're entirely different metrics.

>We were Greeks and stuff

This. The problem with Legacy isn't really the cost itself: it's that the cost to entertainment ratio is shit. Only comic books really are worse.

I'd imagine it has something to do with how much cheaper everything in YGO is. Constant reprints of every good card and insanely strong structure decks keep it that way.

I fucking wish Magic had event decks that are like YGO's structure decks. There was a case where some guy bought the Emperor of Darkness structure deck, took it to a national tournament, and won the whole fucking thing. Imagine that. Imagine being able to buy an Event deck off the shelf, take it to a Pro Tour with no changes, and win.

>/v/, as usual, fails to understand mockery, irony, humor, or anything else that doesn't involve being mad at EA

>Rudy is honestly blaming it on Modern staples getting reprinted

How can one man be so fucking brain dead?

Have Wizards done anything right in the last few years?
>Introduce the Gatewatch 'cause the kids love superheroes, everyone hates it
>The Gatewatch eats up multiple mythic slots, Nissa even got two different planeswalker cards in ONE FUCKING BLOCK
>Created super pushed Elddrazi, followed by claiming they couldn't test it and see the format warping coming, even though there was literally one fucking set that these cards could have synergised with
>Still doing limited prints which are mostly filled with useless chaff and actually further inflating the prices of cards people actually wanted
>Still printing useless vanilla creatures for limited formats, meaning people have to rely on the secondary market to get staples
>Still afraid to upset the secondary market even as it's strangling nearly every format with absurd prices

I'm sure there's other highlights I've missed.

Should I buy the new yugi and kaiba tins or any new precon products? I'm getting back in

Rudy is an investor and thus thinks everybody else is an investor too. That's the lens he views the world with. In his eyes $100 Magic cards are a business opportunity instead of a horrifying obstacle to actually playing the game.

you fleece noobs with standard and commander cards for fetchlands and trade fetchlands for legacy staples. note that this was a lot easier when ktk was in standard, but is by no means impossible.

you can also farm store credit and staples by drafting.

only retards pay retail for legacy.

>hire a black woman to create a truly unique and special black woman planeswalker
>except said planeswalker turns out to be your typical sassy black strong womyn who needs no men

I want them to fuck off with the planeswalkers. I liked having a planar native like Toshiro Umezawa getting the spotlight. Planeswalkers haven't been done right since Yawgmoth got away

>Product adjacency
>"Magic is played by an estimated 20 million people around the world"
>What the fuck is product adjacency?
So WotC/Hasbro counts people who buy only artbooks and novels as "players" in some contexts now? That sounds incredibly dumb.

He's a fucking idiot who thinks that MtG, and honestly card games in general (pic related) are about investing, not playing the game.

But how is he this fucking stupid? He should know shit like the Power Nine are expensive due to the very low supply. Meanwhile Modern staples are only in demand because they see play in Modern. No players playing Modern means no value in the cards. It's a necessary evil. You gotta get in while it's cheap and than sell before a reprint hits. You'd think he'd know this.

Who?

>a decade of bad storytelling has driven away the portion of the fanbase who followed the franchise for the setting, leaving only tourneyfags who are alienated by the deliberately shit sets, FNM monsters who have been repulsed by the deliberate worsening of their rewards, and the ultra-casuals who have been lured instead to Hearthstone and other eCGs

The question is how they've managed to retain the remaining 60%. Who are those people? What keeps them coming back?

I think that WB bitch in Conspiracy.

I think I would be more ok with YGO is the cards were actually readable.

>White and Black

What did the strong independent black lady mean by this?

...

B-BUT SHE'S A SPEEEEEEEEEEEEDSTER!

>mfw this card was unironically referred to as a 'speedster'

There's a capefag somewhere in Wizards and they're ruining everything.

>The story broadstrokes have been great.
t. nuPhyrexia brainlet

Name????

That was guest designed? That explains a lot.

wizardsmagic.tumblr.com/post/148459722916/if-you-read-yesterdays-magic-story-laid-to-rest

thenerdsofcolor.org/2016/08/16/the-creation-of-kaya-magic-the-gatherings-first-black-woman-planeswalker/

>they hired a 'consultant' to help design their black strong womyn planeswalker

Pls hire me too wotc. I'm a chinese guy living in SEA. I can be the most excellent consultant to help you design the perfect chinese plasneswalker.

wotc pls

Good luck, user. East Asians are only a single step below white people on the oppression ladder.

Most of R&D are capefags.

What abilities should she have for 5 mana?
>all of them

It's little wonder Magic has gone for convoluted stories while pushing the same five characters.

>In order to keep Kaya from being a stereotype, Digges and I talked about a lot of things. And I mean a lot.

>paid a small fortune to a random black lady to act as 'consultant' to stop themselves from making a stereotypical black lady planeswalker
>ends up making a stereoptypical black lady planeswalker

Thank you Eucliwood Hellscythe!!

To give an idea, for $500 a year you can buy and play eight to ten big ticket video games at full price until you're sick of them, which is gonna shake out to a couple hundred hours minimum. Are you gonna play that standard deck as your only hobby, for hundreds of hours in a year, as one of your major luxury expenses? Yes? Then the cost is worth it. Most people aren't gonna do that. A bunch of people straight up don't have the TIME to recoup the investment in a Standard deck. Legacy? Vintage? Are you really telling me you're going to play a single deck with no tweaks for five years? Ten years?

And shit, video games are an expensive hobby. Start comparing it to other hobbies and it starts to look way worse. Fuck, compare it to skirmish miniatures and it's still looking pretty grim, and in that case, you usually CAN just swap in old models for new rules.

And then there's digital card games. Hearthstone keeps getting shittier and shittier about being expensive, stingy, and generally a bad game but you compare that shit to Magic and it's like comparing speculating on real estate in Detroit to real estate in San Francisco. Eternal's designed by a bunch of ex-Magic pros and I've gotten nearly 200 hours out of it and a near complete collection of both current sets while spending ten bucks because if you're good at draft, you get a shit-ton of stuff.

Design issues, internal labor politics, boring standards, and the like may all be problems, but every single person I have ever spoken to who has stopped playing Magic said they stopped because they flat out could not afford to keep playing, or that they were paying too much for what they were getting out of it. Even the people still playing have started to just proxy unashamedly.

Look here That explains why the card is so bland as hell, more so if nigress from Ahmonkhet was also designed by a person like that one.

hmmmm

He sees what he's used to seeing. Keep in mind his background's at Wall Street. Thinking about money is his default stance.

Virtually all humans, even if they're otherwise intelligent, have enormous biases and blind spots because they unconsciously assume (almost) everyone thinks like they do. Like how a super political person assumes everything is about politics and genuinely cannot comprehend how some people don't give a fuck about the thing that's the most important thing in the world to him.

why are you pointing to MTG when there were trading cards games before? like baseball cards.
it's not Richard Garfield's fault you idiots keep shoveling money into these systems
hell it's more likely blizzards fault for getting away with lootboxes

>packs are literally, LITERALLY the physical equivalent of a lootbox.

Except they're not and you're retarded.

Cards you get from a pack can be traded with other players and you physically own the cards. If Konami or Wizards goes belly up, players can take their cards and still play (Like Naruto and DBZ have done for years).

Loot Boxes are digital cancer. You get nothing real from them.

>So WotC/Hasbro counts people who buy only artbooks and novels as "players" in some contexts now? That sounds incredibly dumb.
Not players, customers. Think about it this way: that's the number of people interested enough in the MtG brand to spend money on it, which is to say the number interested in MtG in the only way that matters from a business standpoint. It's a measure of how many potential customers you have without having to do anything to appeal to a new audience. I'm sure it's also a nice figure to throw around in front of bosses and shareholders when talking about their customer base.

There's a reason called it the Jacestice League ever since it was announced. WotC didn't exactly make a secret about what their intentions were.

But the article said "players," not "people willing to spend money on stupid shit concerning the game."

I honestly have no fucking idea what they were thinking with that shitty art. If they wanted people to actually like this angry negress, how about making her beautiful? Instead of the ugliest woman I have ever seen in my life in anything? You can totally make a negro woman hot enough that even white people like looking at her if you just try, but in this case it's like they intentionally made her as hideous as possible.

Explain further.

You realize articles are written by people and not infallible, omniscient machines, right?