Hacker News Reader

Comment by Avicebron | Hacker News Reader

Hopefully they can push back against some of these collabs. I have yet to meet someone who is thrilled with playing a deck with Post Malone, TMNT, or The Walking Dead in it. The best you get is indifference.

View on HN

I completely lost interest in Magic when they started churning out all the licensed crossovers. It feels like they really jumped the shark compared to how they used to be - they used to seemingly care deeply about the lore, gameplay, structure of releases etc whereas now it all just feels like a cash grab.

I feel that. I really do. But I also LOVED the Avatar crossover. To be fair, I haven't played any other ones, but this one played so well and seemed to be very well thought out. They really did the IP justice.

It's also probably worth pointing out that Lego was nearing bankruptcy and was saved by a ton of licensing (and Ninjago, to be fair). Fortunately, they've used that income stream to still consistently put out a lot of high quality first party sets. Hopefully WotC doesn't lose sight...

my favorite cEDH commander of recent memory is Aang at the Crossroads. Cast your commander, and roll the dice to see if you find the win.

yeah. scrolling this expansion list, you can see 2018 was really the last _block_ as we knew them: few sets labeled under a theme an author might write a book about

also shortly after we see new sets stopped getting their own wiki articles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Magic:_The_Gathering_s...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Magic:_The_Gathering_n...

There is a whole format of pre-2018 legacy due to how starkly game design changed that year.

to verify, you're talking about https://prefiremagic.com/ aye?

cool, was only familiar with predh, which scryfall also filters on

https://scryfall.com/search?q=f%3Apredh+is%3Acommander&uniqu...

I was specifically talking about PreWar Legacy (pre war of the spark), but PreFire Modern looks similar.

Final Fantasy, LOTR, Avatar, are some of the best selling sets in the history of Magic. As much as I don't like some of the spiderslop, there is no real argument against printing more of it. The Hobbit set is going to be a complete blowout success.

The argument is that cashing out now destroys the long-term viability of the game ... but WotC will learn that lesson in a few years when the Magic gravy train crashes.

How many more years do you want to wait? I own a store and we have not really seen any dip in attendance. There are definitely lots of older players churning, but lots of new ones being brought in as well. It's clear the game is being Commander-ified and lots of folks who were more interested in constructed / competitive Magic aren't happy, but it doesn't mean the game will die or anything like that.

Same here: I own (literally) 50 Commander decks ... and I stopped playing 100% as soon as Transformers and My Little Ponies became cards.

Magic will either become "generic TCG that's unrecognizable to the original" or it's going to pay a very painful long-term cost for their short-term gains.

I’m “uhm acshually”-ing a bit.

The MLP cards aren’t legal in any format and Transformers, legal in commander yes, was a very small set.

You can’t deny the popularity of the Final fantasy set. Selling that well indicates a desire.

I don’t think the small secret lair releases deserve the hate.

Wizards is still committed to making in-universe sets. The first novel in years was just published with the release of strixhaven. Every in-universe set has come with a short-story/novella length addition on the official site.

FWIW, I don’t love the marvel collab and I don’t think it fits at all. But I’m sure someone does.

I think criticism should be focused on the actual design and mechanics of sets rather than the IP. Since Wizards is committed to both their own and others. The latest Marvel set for example enables way more infinite combos in standard and is an example power creep gone bad.

I think it's legit to criticize a game that was fantasy only (about MAGIC) for decades ... when it stopped being that.

I suppose that’s fair. I also think it’s okay for a game that’s been around as long as magic has to change a bit. Maybe an agree to disagree situation.

A setting with planeswalkers is just asking for random "in universe" collabs. Same disease as multiverses.

Note to writers: yes, adding multi dimension shenanigans keeps your options open, but remember that limitation breeds creativity.

Richard Garfield recently stated in an interview with The Professor that he took heat back in the day for pushing to have goblins with guns. Playing with the world aspect of the game’s design is as old as the game itself!I agree that it’s fair for anyone to criticize a divergence from a preferred game atmosphere. I also personally don’t mind, because looking at images on cardboard has never felt like an immersive experience. I like the game because of the strategy - so long as the cards tell some story with the graphics I don’t much care what that story is.

Nobody playing commander ever made a stink about peoples alters at the table

People are trying to rationalize their behavior based on their hurt feelings

As a counter-point, I was hanging out with my brother the other day, who has recently gotten into Magic the Gathering, and he was specifically talking about the TMNT collab as something he thought was neat (I wasn't aware of that specific collab until he mentioned it). I suspect that the collabs are actually making WotC a decent amount of money, because people who do not share your specific tastes are buying them.

Nobody doubts they are making money. It’s literally a nostalgia cash grab. The question is how much that money will cost WotC in reputational harm and loyal customers.

It's painfully obvious these decisions were not made by people who play Magic

The average duration that anyone is actively playing a TCG is something like 2 years. There’s also way more players than ever. Most of the new players never engage in online community around their game.

So you may not hear a lot of excitement but that’s still the minority opinion. Universes Beyond sell like gangbusters.

I remember multiple players at my local’s prerelease for TMNT saying that was the most fun they’d had playing a prerelease in years. And none of these things have really sunk in the secondary market after they’ve gone out of print.

Heck my Warhammer 40K collector commander decks are up several hundred percent post release. And I’ve made a small fortune buying up all the things the online MTG community seems to hate…

I don't think current WOTC actually cares if people play MTG at all, only if they continue buying cards. It has become a collectible more than a game

It is just weird how much of it is treated as investment in medium term or simply gambling. Well gambling has always been part in sense. But now for purely monetary gain. Well in current financial market maybe it works, but still feels just so weird.

Like secret lairs, they are trying to make products that some people will adore more than products everyone will like.

Seems highly unlikely. Us unions Almost Never have input in product strategy and marketing decisions. That isn't part of their Union contract and they don't have a seat at the table of governance

There are ~25k total different MTG cards. Who cares if even 1k of them are for collabs (as long as they don't contain broken cards that end up in tournament play)?

More than 50% of sets are now UB, and UB has been standard legal since ~mid 2025.

There's quite a few new cEDH staples from UB sets as well.

Some folks really love the story of MtG. Think of it as if you were expected, as a dungeon master, to allow your players to be Spongebob. Some folks won’t care, others will have their experience ruined.

The sets also increase the number of legal cards you have to purchase to keep up with the meta.

Those would be easy in comparison to the Marvel (Disney) ones. 6 expected sets !

Not to mention that it's the Arena workers, they are downstream of the card design process.

These collabs actively made me stop playing...

feels so gross

Reply on news.ycombinator.com