When you feel rusty and mtg doesn't sound the same
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on April 10, 2023, 7:57 a.m. by Niko9
I don't know if it's just me, but whenever I don't keep current on every set, magic starts to sound more and more like a language that I'm getting worse at, and it's kind of a weird feeling. Like, when I sit down to play and there are new commanders, new mechanics, new types of counters (or whole new types of cards!), I mean, I know it's to be expected, but at the same time it does seem a bit discouraging sometimes because I feel like I've only missed a few sets. It really gives me that sense sometimes of missing a few duolingo lessons, and then it's so much harder to get back to it.
So, I don't know, I guess I just wanted to see if anyone else felt this way too. It's probably the biggest bump for me to get current on the game because it's like, well, then I'd have to look at everything I've missed, plus the next one, plus the next one, and things are just oh so fast now. Within my playgroup I'm sure I'll adjust, but when I look at decks and things on here it's like, wow I've never heard of so much of this.
And one weird one that I miss was when I could put on command zone or something and cook dinner, being able to mostly keep up with just the audio. Now...wow now, I'd be lost by turn 1.
So, is mtg like a language, and does it make any sense to stay fluent? When people talk about product fatigue, I feel it as a, yeah I just don't understand the game like I used to, but hey I can still play Shivan Dragon and that makes me happy : )
I think the problem here is one a LOT of mtg players have been bringing up in the past year or two which is Product Fatigue. WOTC keeps printing set after set, commander decks, secret lairs, universes beyond, universes beyond commanders and 32 other "specialty small releases" a year and the majority of players have been extremely vocal about how bad it is for the game and how unfun it is as a player to try and keep up with all of this. It's so bad there was a Bank of America article warning WOTC about exploiting and burning out its players/buyers. Despite the very vocal and consistent opposition from the community, WOTC keeps doing it.
So yea, you're definitely not alone in this feeling. It has had me missing the old days of commander when the options were so much more limited and you'd see things like Shivan Dragon more often.
April 10, 2023 9:29 a.m.
themainlineinc says... #4
Hey man, right there with you.
I left the game in 10th edition. Now one of my coworkers is now into it and I told him I would play with him. Planeswalkers werent a thing back then. Im learning so many new abilities. Researching new decks is nuts as I am looking up stuff from my time. For reference, elves, is so different. Still the same concept normally(mana ramp and the either swarm or hit with big guys) bit the stuff you can do now it nuts. And commanders decks are a fun concept I am getting into now.
I played last Friday at a card shop with my elf proxy deck (dont hate me) and he was running a newer Ninjitsu deck and they other was running an Artifact creature deck. I took extra time each turn to read these new abilities and effects just to make sure I was understanding.
You are not alone and unfortunately, im back into the game and its sucking up alot of my time and ....... funds.
April 10, 2023 10:10 a.m.
themainlineinc As long as your playgroup/lgs/pod is cool with it, continue to use proxies like you did with the elf deck! That way you can have fun and experiment with new decks and cards but not have to put a bunch of money down right out the gate. Proxying has allowed me to build so many fun decks I couldn't otherwise afford.
(And I don't mean the decks are filled with expensive cards, I mean I have at least a dozen EDH decks now and more coming lol)
April 10, 2023 10:13 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #6
I realized this past Wednesday (meaning: I actually started counting) that the cutoff on whether I even read a card is five lines. It’s made my gameplay a lot more enjoyable, allowing me to focus on the people I’m playing with. Not necessarily a good plan for everyone but it might be worth a try. Anything that sounds interesting I can revisit, or flat out talk to the player about it, and if I get caught off guard by a card that negates something I’m doing then we can talk about that too. I honestly just roll with all of it because I do not enjoy M:tG like I used to. We’ve been hurtling through magic space in an accelerated way that covers years-worth of magic in mere months. I feel like the speed burn out is most of the problem.
April 10, 2023 10:17 a.m.
DrukenReaps says... #7
I honestly enjoy it. For the first time in years I don't know what my opponents are playing. It takes me back to learning the game when everything was new to me. Sure I have to slow things down and read this or that but it's easy to get the information too. Not like when I started at all lol.
To me it's just so cool to run into entire decks where I don't already know all the cards and interactions. I also don't really feel any need to keep current because I can just look stuff up in the moment if I really need to.
April 10, 2023 11:42 a.m.
griffstick Right? And dungeons too, so many times when I bring my dungeons deck now people are like, wait, what the heck is that : ) But yeah, I feel like if you hadn't played in a while and came back it would feel crazy.
April 10, 2023 12:20 p.m.
What I enjoy is when unknown cards = unknown power levels & when you can kick the 'usual suspects' & staple-decks in the gonads because new interactions flip some of the mainstay decks & strategies upside down.
Fortunately, in my meta, I am a pretty lazy player - so I just have other players read stuff for me all the time unless I am doing nothing during someone's long turn (maybe it is my fee for providing cognac?) :).
My biggest issue with understanding is just the amount of complicated mechanics that the designers keep feeling they need to push out there. I do love creativity in the game.. but it does feel like there are alot of new unnecessarily complex mechanics when they could just explore some "tried-&-true" ones in a more creative way, or just keep re-using some of them so players can familiarize with them. We could have had more creative takes on sagas instead of wacky battles... you want a minigame? Make sagas with a Monarch trigger involved with a static monarch boost. I just feel like the old formula of sets needing new mechanics is problematic. Change the equation & reuse some mechanics here & there.
I already mentioned in another post/rant, I think 'backup' has the makings of a fun, evergreen, mechanic. But are we going to see 'backup' for 2 seconds in 'MoM', then nothing? - chances are good.
April 10, 2023 12:29 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #10
Gleeock you do raise a good point: this perpetual rush of cards HAS, in one way, created a situation for me similar to that of the nineties. So many cards have come out that I’m still seeing new cards that I didn’t know exist from sets that came out something like a year ago. Part of me wished for a time where the internet didn’t swipe the wonder and surprise out from under us... but that part of me should have known that making wishes is risky business ;p
April 10, 2023 2:58 p.m.
On a personal note, as someone who loves deckbuilding and has a bunch of decks, I do enjoy how many new cards are coming out even if it can be a bit overwhelming at times. Its really fun to look through all the new releases for deck additions.
But as the person who organizes and manages my playgroup, and the only person who follows new releases, I do sometimes get tired of explaining new/unheard of mechanics in rules level details when the interactions come up.
April 10, 2023 3:20 p.m.
Yeah, I am actually fine with new product, I have been pretty consistent in my response there. For me fatigue is mostly related to new, niche (non-evergreen), card-types & mechanics that pop up.
My other fatigue is that every set seems to need a 'best of' WUBRG chase card. I think I am in a vocal minority there. My meta is already discussing basically making the game into: "Lord of The Bombadils" when that comes around. I know I strike a naggy cord with that because again, mostly that example is met with infatuation, but that is my soap box... I don't like that.
April 10, 2023 4:22 p.m.
5 color OP Best Stuff decks are not my thing either, feels like the fun of EDH is the restrictions. 5 color goodstuff always makes for boring games IMO.
Also, if you provide cognac while we play I will read everyone's cards to you haha
April 10, 2023 4:29 p.m.
Gleeock Too true about WUBRG in commander. It's just so weird because WoTC seems to completely know the problem of homogenizing commanders, going as far as to ban Golos, the world's most popular commander, but then they print more 5 color utility commanders, or more partner commanders...It's like, they want to have all responsibility for the health of the format to come from bans, not design, which may have worked in the past, but that was before they starting printing so much stuff directly into commander.
And interesting your thoughts on new products and things. I know I might be in the minority of players with my fatigue, but I'm just at that point of, I don't care what a battle card does : ) or whatever else may be.
April 10, 2023 5:39 p.m.
Yeah, pretty anticlimactic by time they built up to WUBRG Omnath. Used to be that WUBRG was a rarity in the days where my kind roamed the Earth :) With every set having a Jodah, Jodah2-Electric Boogaloo, Golos, Omnath, Bombadil, I just sigh a bit for the lack of focus. There is also some corporate level research going into those decisions, with the nature of the growing popularity of an eternal format, each one of those mean a whole-lot of 2ndary market action (WUBRG land-base is a kick in the wallet) & more set popularity to boot.
To link back to the OP intent though, those WUBRG best of commanders usually have a wall of text & being that they are so mindlessly popular/prolific, you have to encounter these popular walls of text with increasing frequency. Then sometimes the WUBRG flavor of the week goes away & you have to learn that new language for nothing :)
April 10, 2023 5:45 p.m.
This is part of the reason why my playgroup switched to only EDH precons, co-op Horde Magic, or Cube.
You get a longer game with the precons, and they don't overwhelm you with the new mechanics.
I get to scratch my building itch by making both the Horde co-op decks, and any decks which StuBi and I play against them (we play with a third friend, HydraBear who often used Planeswalker decks for co-op).
I also get to scratch that itch by building Cubes, which I usually do with any set I have opened lots of cards for.
There's nothing to stop you building a Cube with the cards you already own, including Shivan Dragon
All hair the Dragon!
April 11, 2023 8:57 a.m. Edited.
I get the vibe that Magic the Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh are becoming more and more similar... people always rip on yugioh for how much text is on a card or how many different kinds of summoning mechanics there are... and ummm Magic just seems to be catching up in those departments.
Dont get me twisted I honestly love both games but they are both really complicated and need to be religiously followed if you wanna stay currently and knowledgeable of the meta... I feel like I could have an actual school degree for a job IRL with the amount of time I have spent learning and following these games lol
April 11, 2023 10:36 a.m.
It's certainly a little worse now, but even since the 90s every new Magic set has had new mechanics.
April 11, 2023 4:20 p.m.
They had a way higher evergreen or recurrent use + 3 part-blocks were way different.
April 11, 2023 5:02 p.m.
Gleeock even when three blocks on the same Plane was the norm, there were a lot of new mechanics.
Take a look at the Dragons of Tarkir set.
You had Dash, Bolster, Rebound, Exploit, Formidable, and Megamorph.
April 12, 2023 12:49 a.m.
I think I read somewhere years ago that Wizards had sets made far in advance, a few sets for that matter. On their part as a company I feel they implemented the idea of "Hey if we have this backlog of sets why not just release them and see how it goes". People bought the new sets, naturally, and so they were rewarded for releasing in such a fashion that they continued the trend at an unstable speed from what we are seeing.
Because the game is still in print, to play competitively you will need to know all the new cards as soon as they come out to have a chance at winning (As shown in the latest Atlanta Dreamhack where the Mono White Aggro deck got a new tool from the set that released THAT DAY and so did very well). This can be seen even at the FNM level of magic because when new cards come out new decks arise. I only play Pioneer where the format only receives new cards from the most recent standard set (For now...) but I can see the fatigue in others. When a non-standard set releases I get to say "It's not a Standard set, I don't need to worry about it".
From when I started more competitively back in Theros it appears you had 1 Modern and 1 Commander set release in a year. Then you add Conspiracy cycles, the Eternal Masters line (with Iconic, Utlimate), Unstable (Doesn't really count but is yet another set line), Modern Horizons, Battlebond type set lines, Jumpstart set line, and now Remastered set lines where there were more and more sets I got to avoid as the years went on. Avoided, but noted. This is a lot of new set lines that can come out every year or two years depending on when they get released. Because there are so many set lines their frequency can intertwine where when an Unstable set gets released it's been 2 years since a Remastered set line so that releases a month afterward (Made up example but very plausible)
The caveat I have to this is I play a board game that is out of print so I have experience in a game that received nothing new. The amount of official figures is set and not growing. Because of this the meta got solved and that was it for a while. Then you can build restrictions into the game, you can't use these figures, you can only use X amount of Y, to make a new meta but after a while even the made up formats get figured out as you can only really make up so many until they seem to end up being similar. I just played an event where the format was "Restricting top tier figures to X amount" In that event you just bring the next best thing. After no new figures were released people would make customs and added those to the game "as official as they can be" figures. Then formats were made up with the new figures.
Basically what I'm saying is you almost need something new to keep a game fresh, but I can tell for Commander players (and perhaps Modern players as well) maybe there are too many new things to keep track with and feed burnout for players, which is where that BoA article came into play.
April 12, 2023 9:24 a.m.
Trivia time! There were 1,930 new Commander/Vintage-legal cards released in 2022, representing four Standard-legal sets, six Commander sets, and three additional products. In 2017, that number was 915 across four Standard sets and one Commander set. (Paradox Engine got banned in Commander.) In 2012, the number was 729, representing five products, with Griselbrand getting banned in Commander. From 2012 to 2017, the number of new unique cards per year increased by 186. From 2017 to 2022, the rate increased by 1,015 new cards per year.
It's not so much the number of new mechanics per year that concerns me. It's the number of new cards. Each year now produces more than twice as many new cards than even five years ago. Product fatigue is real.
April 12, 2023 10:25 a.m.
itsbuzzi the Un sets now DO count, for some formats, since only the acorn holograms aren't allowed in any other formats.
April 13, 2023 8:31 a.m.
Icbrgr That's a good point about magic and YGO. When I see the channel lands or the elemental incarnations it's like, wait, magic has hand traps now? I mean, there always were some effects like that, but they've made hand traps that are staples, and that feels so YGO.
April 13, 2023 7:55 p.m.
Followup trivia time! To date, 634 new paper cards have been released in the first four months of 2023, representing Phyrexia: All Will Be One, March of the Machine, and their respective Commander sets.
With what's been announced so far, we're going to see over 2,000 new cards. I am actually, seriously willing to put down money that this will be the first of many 2,000-card years, and double down on 2024 completely blind.
April 18, 2023 3:01 a.m.
That's...that's a lot of cards. 2,000 new cards in a year is like, what, 5 new cards to learn every day? I'm not sure what my limit is, but that treadmill sounds too steep to me : )
April 18, 2023 7:25 a.m.
wotanaz1337 says... #27
The problem is that, yes, it's too much all at once. But Hasbro doesn't care so long as people keep buying. They want to recoup their losses from the loss of Toys R Us as fast as they can. Losing that meant Hasbro lost a huge amount of their revenue all at once.
Truly, it doesn't matter how much they damage the game to them. You keep buying en masse, they'll keep doing it. They're milking the cow. We're dumb enough to keep going.
July 3, 2023 8:03 p.m.
golgarigirl says... #28
You used to learn a few mechanics per year in 4 set releases and a few specialty products. Now you have two dozen products per year, each with it's own mechanics, many of which are wordy and same-y, as well as re-introducing old mechanics that are likewise complex.
The product glut is amplifying the complexity creep.
griffstick says... #2
I'm losing it too especially the new battles, and befor battles we had a new mechanic called Mutate. Nope. Sagas. Planswalkers with static abilities, casting from Exile everywhere. Casting for free everywhere. Modal double faced cards. Companions. Backgrounds. And many more weird shit. It's very hard to keep up
April 10, 2023 8:25 a.m. Edited.