What bothers you most about the Walking Dead commanders?

[DirkGently]

There's been a lot of discussion about these cards recently, of course, and I've been trying to coalesce the things that bother me about them. And while many things do bother me, I think it's the combination of so many of these hitting at once that particularly bothers me.

But if you had to pick just ONE, what would it be?

I considered adding "the precedent it sets for future printings" as an option, but decided that the obvious follow up "the precedent for what, exactly?" pretty much just redirects back to the same list of options. Plus it's sort of the obvious answer - if somehow I knew this was a never-to-be-repeated-in-any-similar-form kind of thing, I wouldn't be NEARLY as bothered. Honestly I might even consider picking them up, if I wasn't morally opposed to supporting the practice. So I think the precedent kinda goes without saying.

If you feel I left something out, though, by all means let me know.

[Card Slinger J]

The precedent for Wizards of the Coast to take full control of the EDH / Commander format from the Rules Committee in the near future according to the Magic Historian?

You may have noticed that there is a lot of conversation out there in the world going on around the Walking Dead Secret Lair and honestly the Walking Dead Secret Lair has illustrated to me that the EDH / Commander Rules Committee's days are numbered. This in my opinion is an inevitability. This isn't something I enjoy bringing to light and I really don't think people understand the magnitude of what's going on here because it does appear to me that people think that the Rules Committee has more power and influence over the game than they really do. So to understand why the Walking Dead Secret Lair is this pivotal moment that really is the first step down the road and actually may not even be the first step there may been other groundwork that leads to this that I haven't thought of.

But really the Walking Dead is a linchpin style moment. This is really going to be where things start to shift because of what it represents fundamentally. On the surface the Walking Dead Secret Lair is just that. It's just a Secret Lair themed around the Walking Dead so what's the big deal? The big deal is the functionally unique cards that were printed in these. These are cards that only exist with the abilities and everything like that on the cards in these Secret Lairs. There's no other way to obtain them. They're only going to be on sale for a week. Now we have seen functionally unique cards that you can only get in a very limited way already cause problems for Magic: The Gathering. Essentially the Walking Dead almost works like a Trojan horse. If you don't get what I'm trying to say here take a look at the Buy-a-Box Promos.

For the longest time in MTG's history, they did Buy-a-Box Promos that were just alternate art promo versions of a card that existed in the set and they returned to doing that. But for a brief period of time they made functionally unique cards that were legal in the Standard format that you could only get by buying a box. Now what did that lead to? That led to Nexus of Fate. Nexus of Fate was a HUGE problem for Magic: The Gathering but Nexus of Fate wasn't the first time they printed a functionally unique card for a Buy-a-Box Promo. So basically the first Buy-a-Box Promo they did that was functionally unique was fairly weak Firesong and Sunspeaker. Maybe I'll use this in Brawl or Commander or something like that but it wasn't an insanely overpowered card. It's basically like easing us into the well. That's what this is.

So the Walking Dead Secret Lair is just to get you accustomed to the concept that they will make Commander legal cards that are only available for a week right? And this is what people are upset about. This is just the gateway. When Wizards of the Coast brings something new in they present to us in a particular way and then change it. Secret Lair for example was presented to us as just as way to have different art styles and you see that's clearly not the case now. Mythic Rares were originally shown to us as something that were meant to be flashy Timmy cards that got people really excited but weren't meant to be strong enough to impact Standard and that changed. There's no reason not for them to ramp up the power of these functionally unique Commander cards. There's no reason. The incentive IS to ramp up the power level. Wizards of the Coast very much wants to move in on the Commander market.

They've signaled this in a ton of different ways. One is making announcements in earning reports and stuff like that. That Magic is growing on the back of Commander. From their statistics they're saying the Commander audience has grown four fold. I think really it's that they didn't understand how big the Commander audience was to start with. Commander is a big audience. That's why you'll see more and more products pitched towards Commander players. Brawl was an attempt to create a Standard rotate version of Commander where they can have cards obsoleted and get you running in that hamster wheel even further. Brawl in a way showed a fundamental lack of understanding why people played Commander, "How'd you like to play Commander with way fewer options and your deck well you won't get to keep it for the rest of your life?", scenario. So Brawl works on Arena but in Paper Magic it failed.

They basically just tried to grab some money from it. So Commander right now is Wizards of the Coast's main focus. They're working on Standard sets and everything else but the underline of what they're doing is focusing purely on Commander pretty much. That's why you see cards like Omnath in the Standard sets, they've said they even changed the way they designed sets to try to reach into other formats. Yes they want to reach into Modern. Yes they want to reach into Vintage. But where they really REALLY want to get to is Commander. Commander is the crown jewel. Cause If you took all MTG players and broke them down into different categories it's almost guaranteed that the Commander category would be bigger than ALL the other one's combined. Commander is a very cool and casual format. Up until now, all the rules decisions for it have been made by the Commander Rules Committee but their days are numbered.

Either they're going to be disbanded or they're going to be fully absorbed by Wizards of the Coast and essentially they may be like represented as a puppet. To me that's almost what they already are. Now let's make sure we're on the same page. I'm not knocking the Commander Rules Committee. Okay? Those are people who love Magic: The Gathering and they have basically fostered this format out of their own desire to see it flourish and have people play games of MTG which I love. I'm a fan of the Commander Rules Committee. I think the idea of them trying to keep Commander as fun as possible and have as light of a touch possible is a fantastic and admirable goal. However the problem isn't with the Rules Committee, the problem is with Wizards of the Coast and their absolute desire to make as much money as possible from Commander as we've seen with this new Secret Lair where they're trying to sell you Commander singles direct.

No longer are you going to have them coming from packs and whatever and reprint them as Secret Lairs, they're going to do it direct. Now a bunch of people have cried out to the Rules Committee for Commander saying, "We need you to send a strong message to Wizards of the Coast. We need you to ban all the cards in the Walking Dead Secret Lair so that Wizards of the Coast will get the message and not make any more of these Secret Lairs." Now this puts the Rules Committee in a really rough spot because the players are asking them to represent them but on the other hand they have Wizards. Let's be real, Wizards of the Coast LETS the Commander Committee run Commander. The Rules Committee isn't some more powerful entity. So If Wizards of the Coast wanted to locate all the Commander rules on their website like they their own decisions and do whatever they can do it like that (snap of a finger).

They can turn to the Rules Committee and say, "You're no longer in charge of Commander, WE ARE!" They've taken steps over time to show the level of influence and power they have over the format. So why wouldn't the Rules Committee WANT to work with Wizards of the Coast? So obviously they're eager to work with Wizards of the Coast. That's to Wizards of the Coast's advantage? Why? Free labor. Just look at this from the perspective of a large corporation that doesn't care about you specifically look at it from the perspective of upper management. These are the people that are going to be making the decisions that influence the future of MTG, Commander, the Rules Committee, all of that. What you need to understand about upper level management is that they don't care about anything but results right now. The way that corporations function in America is by working for this company for X amount of months and X amount of years.

During that time I'm going to make sure that the quarterly results go, "Bang! Bang! Bang!" The future doesn't matter because I'm only doing this now to plump up my resume and move on to another corporation where I get paid even more. So their view is only short term and it's ALL about the money. From that perspective up until this point having the Rules Committee has been great, it's just another way to take advantage of MTG Judges. All the members of the Rules Committee are at least previously high ranking MTG Judges. I don't know If they joined the new Judge Academy or kept their accreditation levels but either way these are high level judges. Judges have always been taken advantage of by MTG. Wizards of the Coast used judges as a free labor pool. Take it from somebody whose judged for 8 years for free out of love for the game. So the Rules Committee is going to do all the work of managing an entire format for you?

And you don't have to pay them or do anything? Why would you not take advantage of that? The answer is when it starts to affect your bottom line and affects your money right? So that's where this Walking Dead Secret Lair puts us because this is Wizards of the Coast saying, "Hey we're making singles directly for Commander". They may not be saying that outright but that's what's going on. "We're making cards for old Vintage formats!" You think people are going to be playing Negan in Vintage? No they're making Legendary characters like come on dude. This is clearly for Commander meant to be sold to Commander players. Now what happens from Wizards of the Coast's perspective If all the sudden this product that they've made, this spearhead of what's going to be an all going product line. What happens when the Commander Committee turns around and goes, "Actually you know what? We're banning all those cards! Don't you dare make another Secret Lair like the Walking Dead!"

Now do you think the upper management, the ones that don't care about anything other than getting as much money as possible from MTG players, do you think they're going to turn around and say, "You know what, Commander Rules Committee, we respect and abide by your decision and we won't make any more of these Secret Lairs" OR "Sorry run by me again what the Rules Committee is like what part of our company is this?" "Wait they're not a part of our company?" "So these decisions are being made by somebody who doesn't work for us? CANCEL THEM!" "Contact them! Tell them to stop using our trademark!" Cause Wizards of the Coast trademarked Commander (but not Elder Dragon Highlander a.ka. EDH). Why did they do that? So that Wizards of the Coast could trademark "Commander". So there's one instance of Wizards of the Coast's financial decisions influencing the Committee.

The bigger one was when Unstable was released. Wizards of the Coast convinced the Rules Committee to make Unstable legal for one month in Commander. So normally you couldn't use Un cards cause Commander has Rule Zero which everyone can agree to what they want to do at their own home or whatever. The Commander Committee came out and said, "Hey guess what? This products legal for the next month." Wizards of the Coast doesn't care If this ruins peoples' fun, they don't care If it calls into the ethics of the Committee. You know what I mean? You're sitting there making a decision that affects ALL players and well there's Rule Zero. So what's to stop them from going, "Well we're going to agree with whatever Wizards of the Coast says" because If the Un cards weren't legal then why isn't Wizards going to turn around and says, "You're done. You're not in charge anymore."

For those who would side with the Rules Committee on that you would for a little bit, but Wizards of the Coast would verbally take control of the format cause all information about it would be on their website. They have more reach, more resources, they own the property, there's no logical reason to think for a second that everybody would go with this independent group that most people probably don't even know. So Wizards of the Coast is in charge of the banlist? Cool at least we got Rule Zero now. The existence of Rule Zero can override anything so what do you even need the Rules Committee for? They exist right now because it's cheaper and easier for Wizards of the Coast to LET them exist but the Walking Dead Secret Lair is basically the crucial turning point where one of two things is happening.

We're now walking down the road where either the Rules Committee is going to be disbanded and Wizards of the Coast will take over fully or the Rules Committee is going to FULLY become pawns of Wizards of the Coast and rubber stamp everything they make and what's the difference? It's just for show. It's like, "Hey we're the power behind the throne!" kinda thing. At this point I really don't see any other route and I genuinely believe it's not logical to think for a second, "We as a people can go do whatever!" What you need to understand is well and I don't think a lot of people get this is we as a group. By us as a group I mean MTG players that engage online Social Media in terms of being really active on YouTube videos, talking on Twitter and Reddit, We all represent a very small portion of the MTG playing public. Most people who are using the Internet to interact with MTG are probably doing two things right now: Looking at new cards and checking rules.

So this whole loyalty to the Commander Rules Committee isn't a thing, it's not real. You're not living in reality. Reality is that Wizards of the Coast has turned from "Commander is something we just ignore and whatever, If stuff sells for you great!" into "Commander is one of our primary focuses. We intend to extract as much money as humanly possible from these people because Commander players aren't spending enough money so let's get more of it!" and that ultimately will lead to the ruin of the Rules Council. Either it will be puppets or they'll be destroyed. There is no other possible future. I'm not particularly happy about this because I liked Commander being it's own little sorta like fun club or whatever. Now Wizards of the Coast meddling with it too much it's like, dude this was all built without your influence and something beautiful was built, "Slowly but surely have Unstable be legal for a month is fun for our bottom line!" So If you want to understand the situation you have to look at it from a monetary perspective.

[DirkGently]

I agree with most of what he's said, except that I think WotC's allowance of the RC isn't simply for free labor, but because cutting them out would likely cause a pretty big disruption of the format. Sure, many players probably aren't super keyed into the RC, but the more enfranchised ones are. I'd bet that, if WotC cut ties with the RC, that there'd a lot of splintering at my LGS, likely with most tables agreeing to RC rules. Maybe eventually the format would be mostly under WotC control, but there'd be a lot of unprofitable turmoil before that happened.

But it will definitely be interesting to see what happens in the next few weeks.

[Vertain]

Why is "They set a precedent for printing black-bordered secret lair exclusives" not an option? That, to me, is the really egregious thing about them.

The precedent for Wizards of the Coast to take full control of the EDH / Commander format from the Rules Committee in the near future according to the Magic Historian

Then again, if this prediction is true, it's a bitter pill I'd gladly swallow without a second thought.

[AvalonAurora]

I don't like that these can essentially only be printed once. Their comments about functionally identical cards being possible to print don't matter, because these are still unique in the sense of things like numbers of copies in a deck under these names. Even if the cards are unplayable, I don't like that being a thing they can do, especially outside of silver border that isn't legally playable. I'd be fine with something like the godzilla cards where they just had fake alternate pseudo-names, but they can still be functionally reprinted. It's not quite on the level of adding to the reserved list, but it's close enough for me to strongly oppose it, especially the precedent it sets, or if they turn out to be even reasonably fun in casual situations like commander. I strongly oppose the reserved list to start with, and getting even close to adding to it is something I find unacceptable.

[DirkGently]

Why is "They set a precedent for printing black-bordered secret lair exclusives" not an option? That, to me, is the really egregious thing about them.

If you read the post it explains the post. That would be "they're only available online only" since that's the precedent you don't want set.

It blows my mind that wotc is CURRENTLY flogging commander players for money, and people still want them in charge of the format. I was somewhat ambivalent about RC control but this debacle makes me absolutely positive that wotc should have as little control as possible.

[Card Slinger J]

I don't think players would be complaining as much If these Walking Dead Secret Lair cards were designed and distributed the same way they did Godzilla in Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths where they were print on demand (wish I could say the same for Jumpstart) which is also what they should've done with My Little Pony and Transformers back when Hascon was still a thing before COVID. I shouldn't have to pay an arm and a leg for a Nightmare Moon // Princess Luna or Grimlock, Dinobot Leader // Grimlock, Ferocious King yet here we are in 2020.

Is it any real surprise coming from a company who cares more about Papa Hasbro than the Local Game Store (LGS) struggling to make ends meet? I'd like to believe that Wizards of the Coast is currently increasing the quantity of Paper Magic products to help save Local Game Stores when in fact it's having the opposite effect on them. A lot of these small businesses have been cutting back on mass box openings due to lack of events being held because of the pandemic. The singles market at one of my LGSs seems to be going strong though.

I think Commander's Quarters summed this situation up nicely:



Same for the Professor from Tolarian Community College as well:

[BounceBurnBuff]

Glenn is the sort of Azorius commander that needs to be printed. Proactive, doesn't deny opponents the ability to play the game, low cmc, provides card advantage in a way Azorius doesn't usually go for.

And it is wasted on this product.

[DirkGently]

One of the worst parts of this, imo, is that there's really no great way to fight back.

Not buying it is a start, but other people will almost assuredly buy it, and at $50 for a couple cards wotc will make way too much money to consider this a mistake.

If you stop buying mtg altogether, you're hurting your LGS way more than wotc.

If you refuse to play with the new kid who bought these because he loves TWD, you're hurting him way more than wotc.

I'm kind of tempted to take a hiatus from buying magic, but our local draft scene is hanging on by a thread already and I really don't want to lose that. But I'll at least avoid buying any other mtg products, and buy more non-mtg products from my LGS to compensate. Until they do something to fix this travesty.

The only vote you have that counts is your wallet.

[Ginuqu]

In a meta sense, the worse thing about seeing people complain that they've got black borders instead of silver is the idea that most or all casual discussion online has become too serious and picky for silver-bordered cards. People get so weird about these things and I don't see why it's a meaningful distinction. I love Unglued and holiday promos and stuff them in my decks by the dozen and have also run gold-bordered versions of staples cos they're expensive. Sorry if it ruins your precious immersion

[DirkGently]

In a meta sense, the worse thing about seeing people complain that they've got black borders instead of silver is the idea that most or all casual discussion online has become too serious and picky for silver-bordered cards. People get so weird about these things and I don't see why it's a meaningful distinction. I love Unglued and holiday promos and stuff them in my decks by the dozen and have also run gold-bordered versions of staples cos they're expensive. Sorry if it ruins your precious immersion

Gold bordered is a totally different thing from silver bordered. I don't play any gold bordered either, but at least it's mtg flavor. I don't think many people have a problem with them even if they're not technically legal. They're basically just proxies and I don't generally mind proxies.

The most important difference imo between black and silver is that players have a reasonable right to reject silver bordered decks. A guy at my LGS plays one of the MLP promos as a commander. The deck is quite underpowered, and I find the pony kinda cringy, but he's not ruining the game by any stretch. But if the deck was unpleasantly powerful it'd be easy to request that he change decks since it's not really legal. And because of that right, most silver-border decks I've seen tend to deliberately be low-powered to avoid raising any hackles and getting kicked out.

Personally, even if someone had a custom card commander that wasn't being abused, I'd probably be fine with it tbh. Honestly I don't see much of a meaningful distinction between silver-border and fully custom cards. It's important to have the right to say no. Black border denies that right.

Also, as a collector, I don't feel the need to collect silver-bordered cards. If you like them, great. I'll most likely be happy to play against them even. But again, I don't see them as any different than custom cards really. They're not a real part of the game and I don't pay them much mind accordingly. It may not be true this time, but I sure don't love the idea of the next obnoxious omnipresent commander - muldrotha, atraxa, korvold, chulane, golos, etc - being only available by sending wotc $50+, and being someone else's IP, especially not an IP that I personally find distasteful. And if I want to have a "complete" collection, I'd need to buy it and support this miserable product. And I can't even really say "no" against it in a game, because it's a completely legal black-bordered card.

Personally I intend to cut down on my magic spending. WotC needs to feel the pain for this.

[Ginuqu]

That's fair! I suppose I treat cards the same whether they're official or not. I love seeing custom cards, I think it's a waste when all magic forums have these big active fantasy card communities and they never make it to cardboard, and see the basic M:TG experience as something you can build upon to make it more about yourself! So silver-bordered cards with their quasi-official status is something I leap to embrace every time. Apart from the ponies, I'm too old to cast a pony.

Unstable as a set introduces some really amazing mechanics that no-one's gonna be tempted to play because they seemingly add up to something psychically offensive in polite company, or something? I interface only occasionally with commander and still haven't built my deck, not afraid of omni-present commanders being hard to obtain because they'll neve be omni-present in the way I play. Or the way I want to play, recent times have destroyed my last play group and the webcam method makes me super self-conscious for some reason,

[DirkGently]

Unstable as a set introduces some really amazing mechanics that no-one's gonna be tempted to play because they seemingly add up to something psychically offensive in polite company, or something?

Kind of off-topic, but I drafted it a couple times and found it pretty frustrating. It didn't feel like it had been sufficiently playtested to me. blurry beeble was such a format-defining card that you were basically forced to wear glasses all the time, which is kind of cute the first time and then gets really old, especially if all you have is sunglasses and you're trying to play indoors. And X was such abject misery to play against that I can't believe anyone ever once played it in playtesting and thought it was OK (I had the good fortune to play against it twice iirc). Most of the other stuff - contraptions, augment - was pretty enjoyable, but it doesn't take much to ruin a limited format.

I'm very glad that X is a card I can say "no" to if someone tries to play it as a commander.

[Ginuqu]

Yeah, X is brutal and unbalanced. The silver-border cards I think it's particularly fair to reject are the ones that require a physical restriction (head on table, balance this card on X, wear glasses, don't wear jeans etc) cos everyone's circumstances are different and it's sort of a bridge too far.

sorry for the Unglued aside!

[JWK]

Use of non-magic IP doesn't bother me as much as it does some folk. Vengeant Vampire looks an awful lot like Angel (from Buffy/Angel), and Ikoria gave us a Sharknado card, so it's not the first time non-MTG content has gotten folded into the game's mythology. These WD cards are a much worse flavor fail than the cards I mentioned, but just on that regard I don't consider them any worse than a lot of custom alters people play, and vastly less egregious than some of the porned up anime/hentai alters out there.

I do not believe mechanically unique, format-playable, black-bordered cards should be printed in exclusive products or in ways otherwise inaccessible to a large amount of the player base. The Godzilla cards have zero appeal to me, but I think they were fine because they were just special skins of ordinary Magic cards. Variant art versions of cards, that's fine. These WD cards cross over a line that I believe is a mistake for the WotC and harmful to the game.

And to those who counter with arguments about some high-play mythic like U being "exclusive" because the secondary market price is so high, you'd have an actual argument if the secondary market was the only way to get those cards, but it isn't, so that argument sucks. You can also buy a pack and have a shot at getting those cards. I just got my copy of the new Omnath by trading stuff I pulled from packs to a guy who pulled Omnath out of a pack.

If they stuck these WD cards in Commander Legends, or if that set included cards which were more lore-adherent but mechanically identical, then I would have zero problem with these, as they'd essentially just be a reskin of a normal MtG card.

[RxPhantom]

Functionally unique cards shouldn't be exclusively available to well-off people in certain countries. That's my biggest complaint, but there are some runners up.

Many others have said this but it bears repeating: Secret Lairs have always preyed upon players' FOMO with such a narrow window of opportunity, but this becomes predatory with the cards being unique.

Like the Professor, I want to play Magic, not The Walking Dead TCG. I wasn't crazy about the Godzilla cards but with one exception, I could always track down a non-Godzilla version of a card. I have no choice with these cards. It's also off-putting for me for Negan or Michonne to tangle with dragons, angels, etc. Is Magic for sale to any IP now?

[UnfulfilledDesires]

I chose regional availability even though that doesn't affect me personally. It would be annoying to live somewhere they don't ship these to. The limited time and cost are also issues. Honestly, I'm not much bothered by these cards themselves and I hope they aren't banned in EDH. I'm worried about future format staples being released in this fashion and hitting excessive prices.

[Hawk]

I selected "selling them online only" because "all of the above" wasn't an option.

I play Magic to play Magic. I don't mind alters or reskins for players that want them, but I dread the day where I need to use Captain America to protect my Gandalf the Grey from my opponent's Elder Wand-wielding Elsa, because I need Gandalf to survive to make sure the Millenium Falcon (crewed by Hiccup) cannot pass through my blockers this turn - and this coming from someone who loves basically every single one of those fandoms. If these cards must exist, I'd much prefer them to be reskins (like the Godzilla promotion) or silver/gold-bordered so that I can easily opt out of using or seeing them.

Not all fandoms would have set me off as much as these though - I'm excited for the Forgotten Realms set as that feels "close enough". And I suspect if we had gotten LotR that would also have seemed okay (or GoT; I dislike GoT but at least it's fantasy). I don't know where the line is (Shrek and How to Train Your Dragon are also fantasy as is a lot of Disney...Harry Potter is "modern" with cars and trains but still fantasy and magic at heart...Star Wars looks like sci-fi but is basically space fantasy with space wizards and laser swords...) but The Walking Dead is 50 miles past that line. Seeing Negan and Michonne across the table is never not going to be a jarring experience.

But if these were some sort of special thing in a collector booster or a box topper, I wouldn't be as upset. I'd still be frustrated and still concerned about this franchise, specifically, but it's definitely the method of distribution that really burns me up. Selling mechanically unique cards online only directly to Commander players at $10/card in a limited print run that isn't available all around the world is the most evil thing WotC has done in a long time, and I hope Sheldon and the RC bans these to the ground to teach WotC to never ever do it again.

[ISBPathfinder]

I don't like how they are selling this product. The price tag and availability all seem kind unreasonable. Its $50.00 and how many cards is it even going to be? If all of the cards were as bad as the first two they spoiled I wouldn't really be as mad but Glen actually looks like a reasonable commander.

This feels like that stupid dragon they did ages ago but worse in that some of these cards are actually reasonable. If the price tag on this product was less money, or it was available in stores I would feel better about it.

[materpillar]

I guess I'm in the minority here but I'm more excited about these cards than bothered. Not to de-rail this thread with politics, but the vast majority of my outrage is vacuumed by the state of US politics. I just can't feel bothered to care that WOTC is creating another premium lightly predatory product, especially when it feels less predatory to me than booster packs.

At the end of the day all of the card designs here feel interesting to play with and against while not being pushed to the edge with powercreep. Give me secret layer Twilight, Barbie, and The Office official magic the gathering cards if they're this interestingly designed. I'll take those in a heart beat over the format warping garbage that is Deflecting Swat and Fierce Guardianship. Cards that also sit behind a similar $40 paywall (at least in the US, I can't speak to the accessibility in other countries).

At the end of the day I'd be way happier sitting across from Negan in all his non-magic the gathering glory than another Omnath, Locus of Creation non-interactive goodstuff vomit deck and that's really the deciding factor for me. Does the existence of these cards improve the quality of gameplay? I feel like these do more than a lot of stuff I've seen recently.

[pokken]

External IP in black border. It just rankles with me for some reason.

I would prefer they not do these crossover things at all because it erodes some of the magic of Magic.

After much thinking on it I am at peace with the distribution model. I think they should revise the window to be longer, but I still prefer it over limited run product being in the hands of retailers.

[onering]

In a meta sense, the worse thing about seeing people complain that they've got black borders instead of silver is the idea that most or all casual discussion online has become too serious and picky for silver-bordered cards. People get so weird about these things and I don't see why it's a meaningful distinction. I love Unglued and holiday promos and stuff them in my decks by the dozen and have also run gold-bordered versions of staples cos they're expensive. Sorry if it ruins your precious immersion

I care about black vs silver because silver bordered means it's banned by default and you have to rule 0 them in. They're basically custom cards, and it's exactly where you can go wild. It's where you can not only bring in wacky comedy sets or other IPs without ruining the immersion of the game (which IS important to a large portion of the player base, just because you don't care doesn't mean that watering down the IP won't hurt it), but also to introduce new card designs in a limited, collectors or promotional fashion without creating the issues that doing it in black bordered does. Because these super limited edition can't be reprinted cards are legal by default, it sets the precedent for wizards to move to this as a model going forward. In silver bordered, their just collectors items first and gamepieces only if people agree to let you use them, not real magic cards. Doing these silver bordered basically makes them swag, the same as the black bordered special edition reprints normally in secret lair but for different reasons (for the silver border cards it's because they aren't legal magic cards, for the special editions its because they are already real magic cards and the alt arts change nothing). Doing these like Godzilla cards would be fine, and announcing that the Godzilla are releases if these cards with magic themed names in a regular set is forthcoming would quell almost all the opposition to this. The precedent of releasing the wacky crossover IP limited edition version first isn't bad, the precedent of ONLY releasing that is, unless like Grimlock or the holiday cards they aren't treated as real magic cards.

[BaronCappuccino]

I feel like the inevitable future of MtG is like Legos: a platform for endless licensing of other IPs, with regular movie tie-ins and the like. I can't say I like it. I wouldn't quit Magic over it. That said, I could definitely see a time when MtG sort of passes me by, and I'm just an old curmudgeon who only plays with his may-as-well-be-vintage throwbacks from when MtG was its own creative force. I don't plan on evolving with the times too much.

[JovialJovian]

I feel like they should have gone the Godzilla route, and made them Walking Dead flavored, but have a Magic real name that could be used for future reprints outside of the brand tie-in.

But the big issue I have is the existence of limited availability, mechanically unique cards. We have been steadily marching towards this moment since Commander 2011. The mechanically unique cards from the first commander set commanded a high price due to the relatively limited printing of that first set. Wizards limited that printing because they were unsure if the product would be popular, and didn't want to overcommit. In subsequent Commander releases, printings were much larger, or "to demand," defusing the dangers of the cards becoming unattainably costly in the aftermarket. They handled it with care, but it was still a breaking of the seal they had placed on printing cards for limited distribution outside of a regular set.

Stemming back to the HarperPrism Book Promos, and specifically Mana Crypt, a card with very limited availability and very high playability. Now since 2011, they've been toying with the concept more and more, unique cards in the Planeswalker decks, more and more in the Commander sets, entire limited-print sets like Conspiracy, but they have all been tempered by being widely available both on release and after the fact. Then we got the Buy-a-Box promos, and that was the beginning of the end. I had hoped that Nexus of Fate would scare them away from this path, but the health of the game has taken a back seat since the Hasbro takeover. The Eldraine Brawl decks (though a failure to get Brawl to catch on) introduced a must-have Commander staple in limited quantities, and the markets freaked out. Arcane Signet could have been the next Mana Crypt, but they quickly rescued it by printing more of the decks, then by putting it into every following Commander product. But they're aggressively printing unique cards in limited availability products, it's only a matter of time before one of them breaks a format and it's aftermarket price spirals out of control. They'll be loathe to ban a Secret Lair unique card, the backlash from people who bought it would be swift and severe.

[bobthefunny]

I'm going to toss in an unpopular opinion here, but I disagree with a lot of the vitriol towards the release method. If these had been silver-bordered, practically no one would have batted an eye. Grimlock, Dinobot Leader // Grimlock, Ferocious King and Princess Twilight Sparkle exist, and no one really cares in Commander if you run them as Commanders. They were released in similar limited sale options, in similar cards-per-box-for-price model as Secret Lair. And you know that the My Little Pony run will never be reprinted, nor will Grimlock. So being limited release, or "non-reprintable", or only online printing, or the price for however many cards... those are all a load of baloney.

If these had been printed as silver border, the Commander community would have been like "Whatever, I'm playin it anyways!" Just like Grimlock and MLP cards... But Wizards goes, "Yeah sure, go ahead and play them" and everyone's suddenly like: "REAARRGHHH!!! HOW DARE YOU!?". I call baloney on that as well. Really, all this is supposed to do is make it so that when you sit down, someone doesn't go "No, I don't want to play against a silver-border card." In theory, that's all the black border is 'supposed' to do, since these should be terrible enough that no other format would actually want them (Not that Wizards hasn't messed THAT up before...).

They've also mentioned being able to make functional copies of these if they are popular. Yes, there's obviously no guarantee or timeline, but they HAVE reprinted several of the more popular Commander Precon generals down the line to make them more affordable, so it probably would happen... eventually. Yes, if they make functional reprints of the abilities later, you could theoretically run another functional copy of your Commander in your deck, giving people with a bigger budget access to more cards... As if this format doesn't have this already. Oh no. Someone might have a marginally better deck with an extra copy of a mediocre card.


Now, there is still ample reason to be upset.

• Black border cards are essentially canon for being "in-universe" for MTG. This means technically that somewhere in the multiverse the Walking Dead is now a magic plane... and that's just meh.
• This does have Wizards essentially violating two promises: Not to make limited availability black border promos, and also claiming they heard the feedback that the unique buy-a-box promos were not well received.
• I hate to jump on the slippery slope arguments, but this does set a bad precedent... for other formats. Wizards has made mistakes with limited black border cards before, and they'll certainly do it again.

Overall, I'm still personally upset at this marketing move, but I think a lot of the arguments I've been seeing are seriously overblown.