Why is Archenemy Not Popular?
General forum
Posted on July 14, 2025, 10:07 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
In this post, Mark Rosewater stated that atchenemy is not a popular format, which I find to be very disappointing, since I am very fond of that format, as I enjoy the idea of several brave heroes fighting against one diabolical villain, but I suppose that not everyone shares that sentiment, as unfortunate as that may be.
What does everyone else say, about this? Why do you believe that archenemy is not popular, and how do you feel about that? I certainly am interested to hear your thoughts, on this matter.
FormOverFunction says... #3
I like mtg variants as a general rule. Mtg is such a complex game that it provides a LOT of avenues to approach it, and that’s really interesting to me. I really only play commander any more, so all of this is coming from that perspective. Planechase is not something I usually jump at the opportunity to play because it falls just short of what I think it could be. My thinking is that it’s regular magic with a dose of disruptive influence added, which I feel is something the normal commander decks should be doing already (and I take every opportunity to do so). If planechase was just a little more focused on the planes it would hit bigger. Archenemy is closer to the mark, and (though I’ve never done it) conspiracy is close too, but I feel like they’re still falling short. It’s going to change when they try to make more of an rpg-style game that uses decks as the functional piece rather than dice. The old shandalaar video game was close to this as well, as you made your character/deck as you played, but I think that was also a little off the mark (though still EXTREMELY enjoyable). I think when they realize that D&D and MtG are the peanut butter and chocolate that people love, we’ll end up with a peanut butter cup of a game that will hit pretty hard. I’m looking forward to it.
July 15, 2025 12:32 p.m.
I don't mind Archenemy but I think that, with Commander being as popular as it is, people get the Archenemy style of game experience often enough already. There are plenty of times where one player jumps ahead with their value engines and the rest of the table has to fight together to catch up.
Archenemy establishing who the most threatening person is right off the bat is an interesting way to do things for a game or two but I think that it gets a bit stale compared to the more chaotic aspects of a Commander game. It's a fun thing to pull out if your group or LGS is doing some sort of gauntlet of different game challenges though.
For the Archenemy format to really work I think that it requires a few additional ground rules. No infinite combos and the "heroes" should not coordinate decks. Infinite combos ruin the attrition-style personality of Archenemy game play where the heroes try to whittle down the archenemy's inflated life total and the archenemy tries to knock out the heroes one-by-one. The heroes using coordinated decks lets them divide up specialized party roles where one is always holding a hand of counterspells, another can focus on aggro, and a third can run removal while setting up engines to take over the late game. Coordinated decks further reduce the variety in game play experience.
legendofa says... #2
It's got kind of a niche popularity. I don't think many actively dislikes Archenemy, but the number of people who are just kind of neutral on it heavily outnumber the people who would go out of their way to play it.
Why is it not more popular? If I had to make a couple of guesses:
It requires an outside deck. There are apps to simulate the Archenemy deck, but not everyone will be interested in downloading even a free app to play a format when they could just play instead. If people expect to play constructed Magic, they're definitely going to bring at least one Magic deck, but most people don't have a stack of Schemes readily at hand.
It hasn't been pushed by WotC. Back in ye olde dayes around 2010, there was a new casual product coming out every summer. Archenemy and Planechase were less popular than Commander, so WotC focused on the best-selling product, creating a self-reinforcing loop--people wanted more Commander sets, so WotC made more Commander sets, so people wanted even more Commander sets. If WotC decided to enforce sales of one of the other products, we could be getting a couple of new Planechase planes or story beats as Archenemy schemes instead of Commander sets.
It can be unbalanced. I've had Archenemy games that were decided by the first or second Scheme, in both directions. If the Archenemy gets too slow of a start, they get dog piled. If they get too fast of a start, at least one "hero" gets booted and there's nothing they can do about it. Uncontrollable randomness can affect the outcome, and while many people are okay with that, many people aren't.
If somebody offered me an Archenemy game at my LGS, I'd probably accept. It's been a long time since I played, and it can be a lot of fun with the right group. But it's not for everyone, and I guess WotC believes it just doesn't have enough of a following to regularly produce it, when other products are more universally popular. Maybe it was just luck of the draw for which product took over, maybe Archenemy's literal extra baggage slowed it down, but it just never really took hold.
July 15, 2025 1:40 a.m.