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[Hemingwayoffbase]

I just found out the new set is dinosaur themed and Wizards of the Coast is including Jurassic Park cards in it. Anybody else hyped?

Just when I think I’m out… they pull me back in!

 

[Scotty W]

 

[Atrus]

Should have used a double-sided card where Ian Malcolm, Chaotician evolves into the open shirted Ian Malcolm, Lord of Chaos. 2/2 indestructible Legendary Creature - God.

 

[WhatDidHeSay?]

WELL... I've just bought Jurassic Park - Top Trumps!!!

 

[Laieon]

As someone who has never played Magic, I'm not entirely sure what to think of it at this point because it just looks like they're the Funcopop of cards in that they're fishing for any license they can get and making cards out of them. Didn't they do a Dr. Who, LOTR, and Marvel set recently? The only time I hear about Magic these days is when they're doing cross promotional sets.

 

[Ikutachi]

 

[DevilMayFlyForAWhiteGuy]

Tbh WotC seems really slutty with how much they’re just banking on other IPs to sell their product. From what I hear the game is pretty pricey to get into now if you want to be even remotely competitive.

I’m more of Yugioh guy but I played Magic up until like Ixalan I think, which was a little while before they started getting all woke pandering. Though I stopped playing more because my friend group ended up disbanding, so I had no one to play with irl.

I did like the GuildGate/GateCrash stuff. Had a neat Gruhl deck and Simic deck. But there was always that one guy who bought $80 staples while the rest of us were scraping together structure decks, and wrecked everyone and made it less fun.

 

[nkarafo]

Are Elly and Lex race swapped? I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[Rran]

This whole thing feels a little...what's the word...

 

[Fbh]

As someone who has never played Magic, I'm not entirely sure what to think of it at this point because it just looks like they're the Funcopop of cards in that they're fishing for any license they can get and making cards out of them. Didn't they do a Dr. Who, LOTR, and Marvel set recently? The only time I hear about Magic these days is when they're doing cross promotional sets.

Yeah I'm not into it either (never really seen the appeal of these card games) but after hearing about the super expensive Black Lotus for many years it feels like the last few years you get headlines like

"Some rapper just bought the limited Colonel Sanders Magic Card for $5 million dollars, making it the biggest purchase in Magic only 1 year after some other celebrity bought the Michael Jordan X Bugs Bunny card from the Space Jam set for $3 million dollars"

or

"38 years old man tramples entire kindergarten class to death as he tries to be the first one in line to buy the entire stock of new Pokemon cards at a local store in the hopes of finding the mega rare Pikachu with male pattern baldness variant B card"

 

[kurisu_1974]

Tbh WotC seems really slutty with how much they’re just banking on other IPs to sell their product. From what I hear the game is pretty pricey to get into now if you want to be even remotely competitive.

I’m more of Yugioh guy but I played Magic up until like Ixalan I think, which was a little while before they started getting all woke pandering. Though I stopped playing more because my friend group ended up disbanding, so I had no one to play with irl.

I did like the GuildGate/GateCrash stuff. Had a neat Gruhl deck and Simic deck. But there was always that one guy who bought $80 staples while the rest of us were scraping together structure decks, and wrecked everyone and made it less fun.

Magic Arena can get you underway without spending much or even anything. It's the only way I play Magic these days.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

Tbh WotC seems really slutty with how much they’re just banking on other IPs to sell their product. From what I hear the game is pretty pricey to get into now if you want to be even remotely competitive.

Playing these kinds of games felt completely different in the 90s, before the internet took over distribution/knowledge of cards and before the creators started having to one-up the power of the cards each generation to make the old ones obsolete.

You could pick up just a few packs in the 90s as a kid with a little cash to spend on a hobby, play some kids at school, win or trade for cards for a while, and come out competitive in a fun way. No one was looking up "best deck builds" online to make everything so boring and uniform; finding rare cards was a true surprise, since almost no one you played even knew what kinds of high level cards are out there until you actually encounter one; and it didn't feel like the last gen of cards were suddenly useless when a new expansion released.

It's hard for me to even imagine CCGs being fun anymore in the internet era. Took my son once to a local game store where they had a Pokemon night, and every single guy he played was a college kid who clearly followed standard best-deck templates from online and purchased the required cards individually from one of the sites that lets you build & ship a deck. Once you can do that, the fun is gone... it's just a matter of spending to get a powerful deck. Most of the joy in the past came from surprise and mystery of the cards, or making interesting decks with what you had in creative ways.

 

[Faust]

I loved MTG back in the day, but the butchering of MiddleEarth/LotR cards has me permanently off the MTG train.

 

[kurisu_1974]

Playing these kinds of games felt completely different in the 90s, before the internet took over distribution/knowledge of cards and before the creators started having to one-up the power of the cards each generation to make the old ones obsolete.

You could pick up just a few packs in the 90s as a kid with a little cash to spend on a hobby, play some kids at school, win or trade for cards for a while, and come out competitive in a fun way. No one was looking up "best deck builds" online to make everything so boring and uniform; finding rare cards was a true surprise, since almost no one you played even knew what kinds of high level cards are out there until you actually encounter one; and it didn't feel like the last gen of cards were suddenly useless when a new expansion released.

It's hard for me to even imagine CCGs being fun anymore in the internet era. Took my son once to a local game store where they had a Pokemon night, and every single guy he played was a college kid who clearly followed standard best-deck templates from online and purchased the required cards individually from one of the sites that lets you build & ship a deck. Once you can do that, the fun is gone... it's just a matter of spending to get a powerful deck. Most of the joy in the past came from surprise and mystery of the cards, or making interesting decks with what you had in creative ways.

You can still get this with the duel decks, just premade decks to have some fun and play the game without having to worry about the meta or whatever.

 

[NecrosaroIII]

I loved MTG back in the day, but the butchering of MiddleEarth/LotR cards has me permanently off the MTG train.

The LotR set is a mixed bag for me. Some of the art is gorgeous. Others aren't. They really did a disservice to people wanting a traditional LotR set.

I rather liked the DND set.

In any case, those two crossovers made sense. Jurassic Park? not so much

 

[DevilMayFlyForAWhiteGuy]

Playing these kinds of games felt completely different in the 90s, before the internet took over distribution/knowledge of cards and before the creators started having to one-up the power of the cards each generation to make the old ones obsolete.

You could pick up just a few packs in the 90s as a kid with a little cash to spend on a hobby, play some kids at school, win or trade for cards for a while, and come out competitive in a fun way. No one was looking up "best deck builds" online to make everything so boring and uniform; finding rare cards was a true surprise, since almost no one you played even knew what kinds of high level cards are out there until you actually encounter one; and it didn't feel like the last gen of cards were suddenly useless when a new expansion released.

It's hard for me to even imagine CCGs being fun anymore in the internet era. Took my son once to a local game store where they had a Pokemon night, and every single guy he played was a college kid who clearly followed standard best-deck templates from online and purchased the required cards individually from one of the sites that lets you build & ship a deck. Once you can do that, the fun is gone... it's just a matter of spending to get a powerful deck. Most of the joy in the past came from surprise and mystery of the cards, or making interesting decks with what you had in creative ways.

I play Yugioh with a group of friends now (which is cheaper than Magic, though tourney level decks can still get in the $200-600 range). Playing at a store competitively would probably be cancer but we all have around the same power level of card pool.

We “Net deck” some stuff but no one has the super expensive, currently meta-relevant, $80+ cards. Another thing that’s nice is they just released a reprint set that turned some of the $50-$100 stuff into a $1-15 price range. They do reprints every year, so most of the time patient casual players can wait it out and build stuff much cheaper.

I talk to a guy at the card shop I go to who plays Magic and he says his decks are like $1000. I’ve heard meta common cards go for $30 a pop. And Magic doesn’t get as many reprints, except that awful one where the cards weren’t even Tourney legal. Of course I’m less versed in current Magic, so anyone feel free to correct me on those points.

Anyways playing with a friend group and having a cap on what meta cards everyone is willing to shell out for is probably the way to go no matter what the game.

 

[Werewolf Jones]

Wouldn't be shocked if they made Alan Grant black in this set.

 

[Hemingwayoffbase]

Playing these kinds of games felt completely different in the 90s, before the internet took over distribution/knowledge of cards and before the creators started having to one-up the power of the cards each generation to make the old ones obsolete.

You could pick up just a few packs in the 90s as a kid with a little cash to spend on a hobby, play some kids at school, win or trade for cards for a while, and come out competitive in a fun way. No one was looking up "best deck builds" online to make everything so boring and uniform; finding rare cards was a true surprise, since almost no one you played even knew what kinds of high level cards are out there until you actually encounter one; and it didn't feel like the last gen of cards were suddenly useless when a new expansion released.

It's hard for me to even imagine CCGs being fun anymore in the internet era. Took my son once to a local game store where they had a Pokemon night, and every single guy he played was a college kid who clearly followed standard best-deck templates from online and purchased the required cards individually from one of the sites that lets you build & ship a deck. Once you can do that, the fun is gone... it's just a matter of spending to get a powerful deck. Most of the joy in the past came from surprise and mystery of the cards, or making interesting decks with what you had in creative ways.

I agree completely with what you’re saying. The only way I have fun with it anymore is that my buddies and I get together for a game every now and again. We keep it cheap and old school.

 

[PaddyOCanager]

I got out of the game a few years ago, it was just too much.

I'll buy a random single here and there but the game just feels so bloated and excessive now. None of the cards coming out feel special, iconic, or even interesting. It just feels like.......more.

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

Ehhhh uh huh huh huh... rarrrrr

Eh huh huh huh, HA HA! HA HA!

 

[DevilMayFlyForAWhiteGuy]

Magic Arena can get you underway without spending much or even anything. It's the only way I play Magic these days.

I meant to respond before but forgot. Half of the reason I got back into a TCG was to have something to do/socialize with with my friends. I tried playing Magic Arena and Yugioh Master Duel, but didn’t care for the anonymous nature of it all. I guess digital is cool if that’s you’re only recourse or really can’t spend anything, but I prefer the real life friend group setting.

 

[ChazAshley]

Had a long day of driving today, so want to decompress by talking about one of my favorite hobbies: MTG.

Started in 4th edition as a middle schooler, stopped in college because it was too expensive. Picked it back up around 2009 again once I had a job and had income to spend.

Loved playing back in the days with my friends - since we couldn't afford to buy a lot of cards, just being able to make jank decks with whatever we had was the best. MTG rules back in the day were not streamlined, so there were still tons of unofficial houserules that felt right. We didn't care though, the long nights playing MTG at sleepovers was great.

When I returned back, I was amazed at the new cards that were a huge contrast to when I was playing as a kid. What is often called, "power creep" - where back in the day, a 3 mana 2/3 no ability creature was the norm, now you had 5/5 creatures for 3 mana (and it's worse now) that did make the game exciting again. Got some of my old friends to start up as well and good times were had by all.

Then it happened: MTG was bought out by Hasbro - Now, won't get into the specifics and argue that Hasbro is the reason for everything wrong with MTG, but I would say the signs were there. Basically because Hasbro was losing tons of money from their other IPs, Magic was the way to go.

Too tired to find all the specific stats, but once Chris Cocks came in, a guy who apparently had a lot of experience in digital gaming, there came the reshift of MTG from a simple card game, to a 'gaming engine." as in, use the game engine to just basically pump out as much product as much as possible - unfortunately, this had some other negative consequences (which I'll get into later) But first off, since Hasbro saw MTG as the profit cow, they just put the pedal on producing products:

Look at this

At first, it was kinda cool, because my friends and I would love spoiler season - check out the new cards, go crazy over any of the broken cards, and be excited for new deck possibilities. Roughly you'd get a new set every 3 months or so, with some supplemental sets here and there. Which would actually cause spoiler season to actually be EXCITING.

But then now you have like three to four products PER MONTH. What was once exciting is now overwhelming, due to all the new cards that you have to read. This wouldn't be TOO bad, if not for another reason:

Design changes:

Gone are the days of vanilla creatures, where basically they'd be creatures with no abilities, but simply power and toughness, which means they could attack and block. But my goodness, look at cards now:

- this is a freaking UNCOMMON -

- then you have double faced cards - requiring you to memorize both sides (equally wordy)

Not to mention the different variations of cards that exist - that yes, as a collector may be great - but my goodness, must be an absolute nightmare for those who have to do inventory:

And although Arena as a whole is cool - It has definitely led to some card designs that had digital in mind, which are fine when automated on Arena, but are an absolute chore to keep track of in paper. (Day/Night I'm looking at you) - Roserwater claimes that they're doing it to discover new design space,. I think, they're just tossing everything as much as possible as the cost of failure is too little, considering how much product they pump out. (people forget about the sets quickly)

I could go on and on - but in short, knowing that at the end of the day WOTC and Hasbro are a company that needs to make money, it's still sad that as someone who honestly does want to continue supporting the product AND have fun with it - are just constantly thrown hurdles and FUs as a customer.

Quite the abusive relationship.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Didn't they do a Dr. Who, LOTR, and Marvel set recently?

Marvel is in 2025, dr who now.
Future sets will be jurassic park, final fantasy, fallout, assassin's creed and marvel