Mark Rosewater States that the Comments in the Gatherer are Gone
General forum
Posted on July 30, 2025, 8:52 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
In this post, Mark Rosewater stated that the comments from the gatherer are gone, following it being updated, and I find that to be very unfortunate, since some of those comments were hilarious, such as those on Bone Flute or Uktabi Orangutan.
What does everyone else say, about this? Do you find it to be very sad that the comments on the gatherer are gone forever? I certainly am interested t hwar your thoughts, on this matter!
BirdieGirlie says... #3
That is so sad!!! I loved reading those comments! There were some super informative and useful comments as well. Cards with weird mechanics often had some explanation from commenters. There would be card suggestions sometimes, combos explained. Man that's so sad actually.
July 31, 2025 8:45 a.m.
I actually owe a bit of sanity to those comments, when I was recovering from brutal stress overload and I couldn't handle too much stimulation, I needed the mildest entertainment imaginable. For fun I'd often go on Gatherer for a bit and click on Random. I'd stopped interacting with new stuff around Onslaught, so it was crazy seeing how things had changed over the years. Even if the comments were already disabled I could still find interesting ones, mostly on the older cards, and tbh I learned a decent amount about how the game works by reading these, mostly card evaluation, but also insight into certain rules minutia. It was far from perfect, but ultimately it was the thing that brought me back into the game. If it hadn't been for those gatherer comments I would be a bit wealthier I suppose, but it's not like I don't enjoy the game! I am confident that just clicking on random card, without any access to comments, would not be the same experience, and would have failed to draw me back into the game.
I agree that the system had very suddenly devolved into a poop cyclone, but I think the solution was to have some moderation. Suits look at that and only see the cost of those few employees, they can't observe the increase in interest the platform could have generated if they'd frozen the old platform before designing and launching a better one, so they value it at nothing. I'm sure it was nothing but cost cutting to disable comments, but taking them down feels mean spirited. I am VERY confident those comments are being used to try to build AI somewhere, I for one am glad I got there after the opportunity was gone, but not before they realized they could sell them and did so.
July 31, 2025 9:03 a.m.
I think 2014/theros was the last wave of comments....I noticed this a little while ago that it was just gone altogether. .. makes me sad... when I first started deck building the comment section about cards and how people used them and various interactions really helped me out a lot and even opened my eyes to alternative functions for som cards.
Dont get me wrong sure there were trolls and storm crow/dies to removal nonsense but there was a lot of good.
July 31, 2025 3:41 p.m. Edited.
artcwolf22 says... #6
It was a long time coming. Comments were shut down around 2014 M15. The website needed a massive overhaul, and as others stated there was no moderation so spam, troll comments like MasterOfEtherium, dies to doom blade spam, and genuinely bad takes were rampant.
I will add that I will genuinely miss the time capsule comments of the era/block, such as Dark Confidant's impressive run and price tag and slow power creep out of 60 card formats or some bizarre commander / casual tech. However, the game/company has also changed to focus more on product announcements and the occasional Official Statement on whatever controversy's going on, and genuine comments about good deckbuilding probably don't exist as much anyways.
I will also add that it's still better to use cookie free sites like scryfall just because of the insane amount of cookies the gatherer site continues to use, but that's just me being paranoid/not wanting more ads/trackers.
legendofa says... #2
Gatherer comments had been shut down since M15 or original Tarkir, so the last ten-ish years had no new insights. Also, before that, there had been a rise in copycat trolls (MasterOfEtherium vs. MasterOfEfherium vs. MasterOfEtheriurn vs. Master0fEtherium vs...), repetitive spammy comments, deadbrain memes over anything relevant or useful, and a general decline in quality. So yeah, I miss the Gatherer comments that actually meant something, or were actually entertaining. But those were starting to get lost in the tide of garbage in 2014 or whenever and it was well past time to start over.
I actually miss the M:tG home site circa 2010-2012. Card of the Day, a variety of weekly articles, and people who wanted to talk about the game. It used to be fun. Now, it feel like it's mostly product announcements, rules updates, and the occasional Official Statement on whatever controversy's going on. I can't remember the last time I saw a deck brew (From the Lab), or commentary on Limited formats (Limited Resources), or worldbuilding notes outside the Planeswalker's Guides (Savor the Flavor). I don't like using "corporate" as a descriptor, but that's how the site feels. Sterile and sales-forward.
July 30, 2025 9:41 p.m.