When I started playing Magic, it was in 2012; things at that time felt great. I played from Return to Ravenica - Khans of Tarkir Standard very religiously, and then dialed it back after the 4-color decks started being dominant and common, with fetchlands pricing me out of the game. After Khans rotated, I ended up being entrenched in Battle For Zendikar Standard, and played religiously once again until about Eldraine.
Along the way, I purchased a lot of side and supplemental products; all I play nowadays is Commander; and I rarely update my paper decks. I play with a small group of friends on occasion and that's it. When we are playing online, we've stopped using Arena, and instead use some kind of client for playing your game. Tabletop Simulator on Steam is great, and there are many other alternatives; we just get mods that include all of your cards for free, play them in decks by saving images and boom; building a deck isn't hard. Kind of beyond paying you to play this game at this point.
You created Modern Horizons; meant to fulfill a purpose, it reprinted cards that needed it so that the price point of the game would come down.
Eternal Masters focused on reprinting more Legacy/Vintage/Commander stuff, and it fulfilled a purpose.
Historic Horizons was just...why? These were all cards released on your client or stuff only obtainable from there? You didn't learn with Modern Horizons that including cards of your own design meant to "shake-up" the Modern environment is a bad idea.
Modern's supposed to change with the sets you naturally release; you make mostly cards designed for Standard sure, but your excuse back in the day to make Modern Horizons was that the power level of Standard is often too low to print stuff there that's not broken but good for Modern.
Then you made Once Upon a Time, Oko, Omnath, Field of the Dead, Golos, Winota, and so many more cards. There's so much potential here for things; and that's the point Modern focused normally on small changes that built up over time to create great stuff. Modern wasn't meant to be shaken up this much; while I love it when decks become good in a format, slow changes are best; you'd make Standard sets that eventually created some unique changes like Humans and Death's Shadow and evening the RB Hollow One deck. So many new decks come and shake up stuff, then you started adding stuff to it to spice it up more.
Before I get more mad and ramble on, what I'm trying to say is; stop adding stuff manually. Design your sets to impact multiple formats in creative ways. Ban problem cards, and stop making sets designed specifically around "improving" a format. None of you at WotC play this game nearly as much as the players through your design/testing process. People will break what you think "fixes" it, because none of you understand the dials and knobs you are trying to turn. You create new cards because you want to invalidate older things, and make money off the fact that your in-game economy is terrible and designed to be a predatory system.
It's a digital card game. I don't even get to own the physical cards. Why does it cost *so* much to keep up with this game. I'd play it more if I could get better cards faster and more consistently so that I could own multiple good decks, but I often end up stuck making hodge-podge piles of "somewhat playable" stuff, which often can't handle the amount of quality rares, mythics, and uncommons that one deck has.
I've come to learn over the last few years that I can enjoy Magic without the company that makes it.
Secret Lairs constantly pour out cards that could easily be in sets; Masterpieces and Innovations were the pinnacle of "how do we make it possible for just anyone" to get cool and interesting cards randomly. Now they are specifically available to bots and whales and that's just not gonna jive with me.
Magic isn't dead; it isn't dying. It's a cow that can be milked infinitely, most likely; but I'm genuinely convinced that the best years of Magic are behind it. Everything forward might be a lot of "Magic", but it's lost the actual Magic that made it great; well-designed sets, products designed on helping people get cards and decks to play for a reasonable price, and a planeswalker points system designed to get cool items and things into the players hands for being at their local game store and signing in.
Now I get Arena codes for pre-releases, which I can't even use; and every product I buy beyond that doesn't give me codes for anything. Can't redeem my Commander deck on MTGO; that'd cut how much money you guys make. Can't redeem the booster box I just bought; you could get twice that money from me possibly if you don't give me it.
Fuck you guys. Nothing is about player convenience; it's about what's convenient for WotC.
And now? You guys want to nerf what the actual cards (that YOU made) do. It's a paper-first game. What the hell?
Prot4g#85589
When I started playing Magic, it was in 2012; things at that time felt great. I played from Return to Ravenica - Khans of Tarkir Standard very religiously, and then dialed it back after the 4-color decks started being dominant and common, with fetchlands pricing me out of the game. After Khans rotated, I ended up being entrenched in Battle For Zendikar Standard, and played religiously once again until about Eldraine.
Along the way, I purchased a lot of side and supplemental products; all I play nowadays is Commander; and I rarely update my paper decks. I play with a small group of friends on occasion and that's it. When we are playing online, we've stopped using Arena, and instead use some kind of client for playing your game. Tabletop Simulator on Steam is great, and there are many other alternatives; we just get mods that include all of your cards for free, play them in decks by saving images and boom; building a deck isn't hard. Kind of beyond paying you to play this game at this point.
You created Modern Horizons; meant to fulfill a purpose, it reprinted cards that needed it so that the price point of the game would come down.
Eternal Masters focused on reprinting more Legacy/Vintage/Commander stuff, and it fulfilled a purpose.
Historic Horizons was just...why? These were all cards released on your client or stuff only obtainable from there? You didn't learn with Modern Horizons that including cards of your own design meant to "shake-up" the Modern environment is a bad idea.
Modern's supposed to change with the sets you naturally release; you make mostly cards designed for Standard sure, but your excuse back in the day to make Modern Horizons was that the power level of Standard is often too low to print stuff there that's not broken but good for Modern.
Then you made Once Upon a Time, Oko, Omnath, Field of the Dead, Golos, Winota, and so many more cards. There's so much potential here for things; and that's the point Modern focused normally on small changes that built up over time to create great stuff. Modern wasn't meant to be shaken up this much; while I love it when decks become good in a format, slow changes are best; you'd make Standard sets that eventually created some unique changes like Humans and Death's Shadow and evening the RB Hollow One deck. So many new decks come and shake up stuff, then you started adding stuff to it to spice it up more.
Before I get more mad and ramble on, what I'm trying to say is; stop adding stuff manually. Design your sets to impact multiple formats in creative ways. Ban problem cards, and stop making sets designed specifically around "improving" a format. None of you at WotC play this game nearly as much as the players through your design/testing process. People will break what you think "fixes" it, because none of you understand the dials and knobs you are trying to turn. You create new cards because you want to invalidate older things, and make money off the fact that your in-game economy is terrible and designed to be a predatory system.
It's a digital card game. I don't even get to own the physical cards. Why does it cost *so* much to keep up with this game. I'd play it more if I could get better cards faster and more consistently so that I could own multiple good decks, but I often end up stuck making hodge-podge piles of "somewhat playable" stuff, which often can't handle the amount of quality rares, mythics, and uncommons that one deck has.
I've come to learn over the last few years that I can enjoy Magic without the company that makes it.
Secret Lairs constantly pour out cards that could easily be in sets; Masterpieces and Innovations were the pinnacle of "how do we make it possible for just anyone" to get cool and interesting cards randomly. Now they are specifically available to bots and whales and that's just not gonna jive with me.
Magic isn't dead; it isn't dying. It's a cow that can be milked infinitely, most likely; but I'm genuinely convinced that the best years of Magic are behind it. Everything forward might be a lot of "Magic", but it's lost the actual Magic that made it great; well-designed sets, products designed on helping people get cards and decks to play for a reasonable price, and a planeswalker points system designed to get cool items and things into the players hands for being at their local game store and signing in.
Now I get Arena codes for pre-releases, which I can't even use; and every product I buy beyond that doesn't give me codes for anything. Can't redeem my Commander deck on MTGO; that'd cut how much money you guys make. Can't redeem the booster box I just bought; you could get twice that money from me possibly if you don't give me it.
Fuck you guys. Nothing is about player convenience; it's about what's convenient for WotC.
And now? You guys want to nerf what the actual cards (that YOU made) do. It's a paper-first game. What the hell?
Pass me with that shit.