Cards
Magic used to be about strategy and intelligence. The understanding of how cards interact with each other. It used to be a game where anyone could win and all it took was out thinking your opponent, like chess for cards.
I’ve been playing this game since the beginning. And I’ve never been so disappointed in you for the new cards that are released. I used to be able to use protection from a color instants to counteract cards like “Doomskar” and other board wipes... gone...no more. It used to be that anyone could put a deck together of commons, uncommons, and maybe a rare or 2 and win against any deck. Worst of all it used to be that you could be original and build a fairly unique deck and be extremely competitive.
Not any longer.
There are at least 6 different cards that if your opponent has them in their deck and you don’t, good luck winning. You WILL lose 90% of the games all because you don’t have enough $ to buy those certain cards. On top of that I shouldn’t have to use the same cards as the next player in my deck to win. THAT IS NOT STRATEGY. The cards released are ever increasingly overpowered, well some of them are. I don’t know the names of all the cards of importance I’m talking about, business it shouldn’t matter. I’m guessing you already know which ones. No one should have to build their deck and be forced into using specific cards just to be competitive. That whole idea undermines the spirit of this game that I love so much. I play this game A LOT online and off against an ever growing variety of opponents and I can count the amount of different decks on one hand it seems. I don’t mean different by a card or two, but different in behavior. Plus it’s SICKENING to play hundreds of different people and see more than 90% building their decks around the same few cards. Cosmic Elixir(I think), an artifact planeswalker, the legendary artifact that prevents dmg(probably the least of my worries in this case), and a few more I can’t think of at the moment. You have COMPLETELY ruined the balance and strategy of this game.
If you’re going to keep this up then I think that cards like “black creature killers” should all be permanent killers for the same price. Not just black ones, but you get the idea. There are a couple but NONE are strictly black and only one or 2 destroy any no land perm. It’s funny you keep banning cards but very rarely ban the actual cards that upset the balance. Online on Arena, I’ve been playing there for 2+ years and most of the banned cards I very rarely ran into before or after the ban, yet all the ones that literally upset the game are still in. Just because they’re popular doesn’t mean they aren’t overpowering. Just because a card CAN be dealt with doesn’t mean it’s not overpowered. Finally just because I can’t afford to go out and buy EVERY Mythic Rare doesn’t mean I should lose 90% of my games. It’s not a new problem, but has gotten worse since 2021 core set. Before 2021 core this problem still existed, but I could easily put together a deck of mostly common and uncommon with maybe 2 sets of 4 rares and win more than 75% of the time.
I may not have explained it well, but it’s definitely a problem. It’s a problem when 90%+ use the same few cards because it’s basically forced just to be good. It’s a problem that those who don’t can’t be competitive. It’s a problem when strategy and deck building have been pretty much completely taken out and replaced with a few mythic rares/OP cards. It’s a problem when someone who has played this game for 25yrs or so feels like they’re being forced into certain cards when it has never really been like that before. The worst part is because I don’t give you all my money you probably won’t even read this, and if by chance you do nothing will be done.
Variety is the spice of life and used to be what this game was all about. It’s been ruined by a few cards, the most popular cards.