Warhammer 40K, Lord of the Rings, and other IPs in Magic.

[onering]

The fact that ANY of these cards from outside IPs will be needed is a problem. Just further diluting the brand, and the things that kept players coming back, to chase quick cash that won't last.

[DirkGently]

Okay, lets extrapolate it out. 5 years from now, there will presumably (assuming, again, that this is just a normal year and not a particularly big rollout) be 5 whole entire sets of this. Whoop di do dah. How many cards from the last 5 spring sets are actually in your decks? That's Shadows over Innistrad (but not Eldritch Moon), Amonkhet (but not Hour of Devastation), Dominaria, War of the Spark, and Ikoria? Looking through your Pheldigrif deck, I found 4 total cards originating from those sets. Zirlan had 3. Kaervek has 5 (and that's including a pair of lands). Not exactly hellish to deal with 3-5 total cards, across 100. And that's after 5 years of continuous releases of these crossover sets, you might have to accept running 3-5 "sub par" choices to avoid dealing with them. And you'd probably expect to see them from someone else once every couple games? Again, welcome to hell seems to be overselling it, if we're looking at that sorta volume in the distant year 2027.

Let's go point by point.

1) I don't think it's particularly instructive to look at my specific 3 perm decks as though that's a representative sample size for commander as a whole. This is especially true because I am a known crotchety old fart and play lots of old cards that most new players don't have and might not even be aware of. Most people I've played against have primarily cards from the past couple years of sets. Partly because older cards are usually harder to acquire, and partly because WotC's design model has moved more towards powerful resource generation and whatnot (insert all the usual complaining) which I generally prefer to avoid, but which most commander players (especially new ones) do not. My 3 pet commanders are current ranking at #230, #484, and #512....really not indicative of what most people are playing.

2) Assuming we get the usual 4-sets-per year, then if we're only looking at full sets (more on that later) we'd assume things will move asymptotically towards 20% if we added a 5th set. I think that's likely to happen sooner than you'd think, based on the aforementioned tendency of new players to play new cards, and for WotC to continually push the power level of new cards to make them more desirable.

3) But it's worse than that, because these sets will not be legal in standard (and may not be legal in modern - information is still out on that although it seems likely they will be), which means they can push them substantially more. I think a much more accurate comparison would be modern horizons, except that this will likely be targeted more towards commander than towards modern, with a likely increase in playability within this format.

4) But you're also completely ignoring the commander precons which we know for a fact we're getting advertisedthemed around 40K this year. Precons are probably a bigger impact than any single set, because not only are the cards designed ONLY for commander where they can push the power level harder because they can ignore standard and modern (and can do things like referencing commanders specifically), but they're also going to be the starting place for a lot of new players, which means they'll start with 100% UB cards.

5) Speaking of which, while many precon cards are likely to be reprints, I think it's highly likely that those reprints will use advertisingart themed around the IP of those precons. You wouldn't ordinarily count sol ring as being part of Ikoria, for example, but if it's getting released in the 40K commander decks I'd bet that it'll have 40K advertisingflavor.

6) Maybe this information is covered somewhere, but why are we assuming that the rate of UB is going to stay the same? We used to get 5 (and for a while, 4) commander precons per year. Now we're getting, I don't even know, double that? If this is successful (and people love having their eyeballs assaulted by advertisingadvertising so it almost certainly will be) I would not be surprised in the slightest if this continued to escalate in the future. It might not even take that long.

So yes, we're all dead, this is hell, and WotC is Satan stabbing us with pitchforks and waiting for money to fall out.

[Yatsufusa]

I've come to terms with it, just like when Arena was announced and launched I predicted a change in R&D designing the game to be more "flashy" with mechanics a decade ago would have been binned for being too "complicated" and now we've mutate, ability tokens, MFCs within a year, along with Standard being torn up multiple times because power is also "flashy".

When the TWD debacle happened, I already forecasted that it was an omen for a deluge to come, and now that deluge is officially announced. I still threw a Vorthos tantrum of sorts then, but truth is even by then after years of mediocre lore, my faith in MTG lore was already dwindling for like half a decade or so. TWD just happened to be a crux point by injecting it into official black border rules, but it was also a release, my final severance with MTG lore as something I would have sold to people to get into the game.

The entire "genre shift" of MTG to me is not alien, I'm an ardent player of Gacha Games and cross-IP collaborations are commonplace over there. In fact I daresay generally my entertainment is surrounded more in "anime culture" rather than "western fantasy culture", which means MTG is actually the outlier in my hobbies, even if it dominates my paper play (well for OCGs I play Shadowverse, so it speaks for itself). Even before I started MTG I played Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! (yes Pokemon was by WotC back then, but the franchise itself is technically from "anime culture", even if as a unique factor it has grown to be the largest entertainment franchise name shadowing that).

As I declared during the TWD debacle, moving forward I'm treating MTG (or Commander, because it's pretty much what's left of MTG for me anyway) like it the "gacha game" it is (in fairness booster packs were the original gacha/lootboxes, even with the Secondary Market giving it a soft form of protection), like the actual gacha games I play. Like with the Arena impact, I made this decision because to some degree I anticipated this announcement and as an LGS-player, it's pretty much fact it would be inevitable that I would see some of these cards (since they're not Secret Lair) eventually on the table anyway.

I don't see the RC taking action for sure, it would utterly stupid to have a banlist hundreds of cards long in a few years using mechanics that are otherwise fair and balanced (and even fun) in the format. We would inevitably be creating our own version of the Reserved List and there will dozens of "Thunder Spirits" that would be banned from the format solely because of that. Considering WotC can't even get me a foil Dockside Extortionist with dozens of other fun Commander cards in the past decade, there's zero chance they're getting in-lore functional versions of this deluge of universe beyond cards.

At this point if a card is functionally good/fun for me and comes in foil I would just get the singles still. As I've said, my entertainment is steeped in "anime culture", but it's still obvious that WotC has a line drawn that they're not touching beyond western fantasy media at least, so I don't see a lot of these collaborations appealing to me from a "flavor standpoint". There's a tiny bit chance they might cross over to my appeal solely from the fact we had JP-unique planeswalkers, Godzilla cards and the upcoming Strixhaven spells, but I wouldn't hold my breath, although I daresay if you're going to ruin the sanctity of lore anyway, do a complete job and get us a One Piece collaboration, I might actually make that Pirate Commander deck led by Edward Newgate.

Guess I'm still a bit passive-aggressive-salty over the loss of MTG lore sanctity, but no point wasting that much energy on the inevitable.

[Krishnath]

The fact that ANY of these cards from outside IPs will be needed is a problem. Just further diluting the brand, and the things that kept players coming back, to chase quick cash that won't last.

Read my first post in the thread. The one you liked, it explains exactly how to handle it.

Talk with your playgroup, come to a collective decision for each set before it releases, act accordingly. Feel like it doesn't belong (like the Sci-Fi setting Warhammer 40k), you and your friends can opt out of that set. Feel like it would fit (like LotR, being the granddaddy of modern fantasy), go for it. It really isn't that difficult to do.

This is literally something a portion of the MTG players have asked for, for close to twenty years now.

[DirkGently]

Read my first post in the thread. The one you liked, it explains exactly how to handle it.

Talk with your playgroup, come to a collective decision for each set before it releases, act accordingly. Feel like it doesn't belong (like the Sci-Fi setting Warhammer 40k), you and your friends can opt out of that set. Feel like it would fit (like LotR, being the granddaddy of modern fantasy), go for it. It really isn't that difficult to do.

This is literally something a portion of the MTG players have asked for, for close to twenty years now.

-We don't all play in closed groups (I haven't for years).

-Groups aren't necessarily going to agree on what they do and don't want to allow.

-I really dislike the "some people really wanted this" argument. Great, they should go play the games already centered around those franchises. Hell, 40K literally is a game. Or they can make fan sets. I proxied an entire cube of the entire Star Wars fan set. It was a lot of fun. But I'm glad that it's not part of the game when I'm not playing it, and that it was created out of passion, not because the marketing department said it would increase revenue by 26%.

If MtG was first released and had this sort of crap in there that would be fine. I would have steered clear 20 years ago when my friend offered me a starter deck. But magic already has an invested playerbase of millions of people who signed up for what magic was and has been since its inception, and who do NOT want this. I've got a friend (who made it to the pro tour a couple times, funny story) who would be psyched if they started making hentai cards. I bet a pretty decent number of people would, unfortunately. Should WotC print those just because they wants them? Or maybe do they have a responsibility to their existing customers who have invested tons of time and money into this game not to suddenly uproot and debase the whole damn thing?

These are literally advertisements you put in your deck. Hentai would be less offensive to me.

[Krishnath]

If MtG was first released and had this sort of crap in there that would be fine. I would have steered clear 20 years ago when my friend offered me a starter deck. But magic already has an invested playerbase of millions of people who signed up for what magic was and has been since its inception, and who do NOT want this. I've got a friend (who made it to the pro tour a couple times, funny story) who would be psyched if they started making hentai cards. I bet a pretty decent number of people would, unfortunately. Should WotC print those just because they wants them? Or maybe do they have a responsibility to their existing customers who have invested tons of time and money into this game not to suddenly uproot and debase the whole damn thing?

These are literally advertisements you put in your deck. Hentai would be less offensive to me.

Yes, but Hentai cards would break every obscenity law under the moon, these won't. So your argument kinda falls flat there.

[DirkGently]

Yes, but Hentai cards would break every obscenity law under the moon, these won't. So your argument kinda falls flat there.

I'm not talking about the law. No one is saying UB is illegal, that would be ridiculous. I'm talking about ethics. WotC has an ethical responsibility to their existing customers not to radically change the game to please some fraction of the playerbase.

(plus I assume they could still make and sell them...they might need to hide them behind the counter like porn mags at the 7/11...but whatever, this is a total cul-de-sac that's irrelevant to the point of the comparison)

[BeneTleilax]

Okay, lets extrapolate it out. 5 years from now, there will presumably (assuming, again, that this is just a normal year and not a particularly big rollout) be 5 whole entire sets of this. Whoop di do dah. How many cards from the last 5 spring sets are actually in your decks? That's Shadows over Innistrad (but not Eldritch Moon), Amonkhet (but not Hour of Devastation), Dominaria, War of the Spark, and Ikoria? Looking through your Pheldigrif deck, I found 4 total cards originating from those sets. Zirlan had 3. Kaervek has 5 (and that's including a pair of lands). Not exactly hellish to deal with 3-5 total cards, across 100. And that's after 5 years of continuous releases of these crossover sets, you might have to accept running 3-5 "sub par" choices to avoid dealing with them. And you'd probably expect to see them from someone else once every couple games? Again, welcome to hell seems to be overselling it, if we're looking at that sorta volume in the distant year 2027.

I think you're missing, either deliberately or accidentally, that these will absolutely be targeted at Commander. The 40k product is a Commander deck series, as such it is most comparable to one of the Commander [year] sets. How much of *those* do you see it your table?

[TheAmericanSpirit]

So I was thinking about this topic again and I thought about PK3 cards from way back. Isn't the romance of three kingdoms technically an outside IP too? And isn't it almost kind of worse, considering that it is heavily based in the flavor of, you know, reality and historical figures? There's nearly no fantasy elements in the whole set when you look at it. Nothing "flavorful" ties the set to magic besides being a literal set of magic cards. And I adore those cards, been trying to get my hands on a Xiahou Dun for literal years.

Maybe this won't be so bad. Maybe it will. I kinda wish I knew what people thought about pk3 at time of release, but that's lost to time I imagine.

[DirkGently]

So I was thinking about this topic again and I thought about PK3 cards from way back. Isn't the romance of three kingdoms technically an outside IP too? And isn't it almost kind of worse, considering that it is heavily based in the flavor of, you know, reality and historical figures? There's nearly no fantasy elements in the whole set when you look at it. Nothing "flavorful" ties the set to magic besides being a literal set of magic cards. And I adore those cards, been trying to get my hands on a Xiahou Dun for literal years.

Maybe this won't be so bad. Maybe it will. I kinda wish I knew what people thought about pk3 at time of release, but that's lost to time I imagine.

P3K wasn't legal for a long time iirc. So whatever annoyance there was about it was presumably cut it half, like if UB was released silver border, and then years later made black-border.

I've kinda said this ad nauseum, but for me, I don't care too much about the specific IP, so much as I care about these cards being used as advertisements. We're basically being given the choice between doing marketing for other IPs or losing access to cards. That, to me, is a disgusting exploitation of their customers.

[Wallycaine]

Okay, lets extrapolate it out. 5 years from now, there will presumably (assuming, again, that this is just a normal year and not a particularly big rollout) be 5 whole entire sets of this. Whoop di do dah. How many cards from the last 5 spring sets are actually in your decks? That's Shadows over Innistrad (but not Eldritch Moon), Amonkhet (but not Hour of Devastation), Dominaria, War of the Spark, and Ikoria? Looking through your Pheldigrif deck, I found 4 total cards originating from those sets. Zirlan had 3. Kaervek has 5 (and that's including a pair of lands). Not exactly hellish to deal with 3-5 total cards, across 100. And that's after 5 years of continuous releases of these crossover sets, you might have to accept running 3-5 "sub par" choices to avoid dealing with them. And you'd probably expect to see them from someone else once every couple games? Again, welcome to hell seems to be overselling it, if we're looking at that sorta volume in the distant year 2027.

I think you're missing, either deliberately or accidentally, that these will absolutely be targeted at Commander. The 40k product is a Commander deck series, as such it is most comparable to one of the Commander [year] sets. How much of *those* do you see it your table?

No, I was largely counting those. Relatively few cards originate in commander decks, as opposed to just having reprints there. It's possible I missed 1 or 2 in Dirk's decks, just due to not being sure on sight which were commander 2015 originals and which were 2017.

Personally, I'm highly skeptical they'll even have a full UB set every year, much less replace a commander deck with them every year. Securing these licences is going to be hard work, and there's probably a non-zero number of companies that want to see community reception to the initial UB sets before they sign on. Obviously we'll have to see, but I expect the full sets to follow a trajectory more similar to Masters sets and early commander product: every other year at first, while they assess how popular it is. If it is, then we'll ramp up to every year. The various ancillary product will likely be more frequent, but won't have nearly the impact of the full sets.

[5colorsrainbow]

Personally, I'm highly skeptical they'll even have a full UB set every year, much less replace a commander deck with them every year.

Okay I've seen people talking about this, far as I'm aware we aren't getting the commander decks as 40k, we are getting them with Strixhaven this year.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

@DirkGently

I see what you're saying and I agree with the fundamental principle of your digust. But I'm trying to find some precedence for these weird things being okay rather buy into the fire and froth camp right now. I got really mad about SLTWD when that was new and the game didn't burn to the ground. I don't really think the ads for another IP matter insofar I don't actually have to buy warhammer game pieces to play magic. Sure, the ad is there, but until they start selling exclusive cards through WH40k boxes instead of magic product, I think 'disgusting exploitation' is more than a bit hyperbolic.

In fact, the more I watch this bonfire of anger and overwrought rhetoric, the more I think the average person has no idea how bad capitalist exploitation can actually be. No one's been priced out of clean drinking water by this, no one is losing their homes a la 2008 because the bigwigs did shady stuff (it almost happened to my family), no one's being held hostage by a monopolistic, anti-competitive company. They're just trying to sell us a game, a game with thousands of competitors to vie for your wallet and attention. It's annoying, yes, and I like this game better than the others too, but the backlash is nearly totally devoid of perspective if we're going to label this 'exploitation'. Capitalism can be oh so much worse, and it diminishes the tragedy of actual exploitation to use the word so liberally to describe... this.

[Wallycaine]

Personally, I'm highly skeptical they'll even have a full UB set every year, much less replace a commander deck with them every year.

Okay I've seen people talking about this, far as I'm aware we aren't getting the commander decks as 40k, we are getting them with Strixhaven this year.

The confusion comes from the fact that the UB announcement addresses a lot of stuff coming out in 20*22*, not 2021. Strixhaven is going to have the main commander decks for this year (similarly to Ikoria did last year), while in 2022 we will have 40k commander decks. Whether those will be replacing the "normal" commander decks, be supplemental, or be something similar to the Kaldhiem commander decks is unknown. The assumption a lot of people are running with is that they'll be the full 5 "main" commander decks for the year of 2022, but we genuinely do not know that yet.

[Treamayne]

So I was thinking about this topic again and I thought about PK3 cards from way back. Isn't the romance of three kingdoms technically an outside IP too? And isn't it almost kind of worse, considering that it is heavily based in the flavor of, you know, reality and historical figures? There's nearly no fantasy elements in the whole set when you look at it. Nothing "flavorful" ties the set to magic besides being a literal set of magic cards. And I adore those cards, been trying to get my hands on a Xiahou Dun for literal years.

Maybe this won't be so bad. Maybe it will. I kinda wish I knew what people thought about pk3 at time of release, but that's lost to time I imagine.

P3K wasn't legal for a long time iirc. So whatever annoyance there was about it was presumably cut it half, like if UB was released silver border, and then years later made black-border.

^This^

No portal sets were legal in any sanctioned format before Oct 2005.

P3K was very difficult to find in the US on release (at least in CA and TX where I lived then), and it was mostly marketed to Asia (WotC began supporting Chinese [long form], Japanese, and Korean with 4ED, Chinese [short form] with 5ED and P3K was printed in both Long and Short form characters) which is also why they used that concept for the 3d Portal set - to appeal to the market they were targeting.

That said, P3K "felt" more like Theros' interpretation of Greek Myth. Also, it was so obscure at release, the average player was unlikely to encounter it. It also wasn't an incorporation of a competing copyright...

[onering]

The fact that ANY of these cards from outside IPs will be needed is a problem. Just further diluting the brand, and the things that kept players coming back, to chase quick cash that won't last.

Read my first post in the thread. The one you liked, it explains exactly how to handle it.

Talk with your playgroup, come to a collective decision for each set before it releases, act accordingly. Feel like it doesn't belong (like the Sci-Fi setting Warhammer 40k), you and your friends can opt out of that set. Feel like it would fit (like LotR, being the granddaddy of modern fantasy), go for it. It really isn't that difficult to do.

This is literally something a portion of the MTG players have asked for, for close to twenty years now.

I've unilaterally banned them in my playgroup, since I host, since TWD came out. I play a lot of mtgo and have not actually seen the cards even though they are available there, but will likely see plenty of these as they get released. Players call for stupid crap that shouldn't be done all the time.

[Legend]

I wonder why Warhammer 40K instead of just Warhammer, which is better suited for Magic IMO.

[Wallycaine]

I wonder why Warhammer 40K instead of just Warhammer, which is better suited for Magic IMO.

At a pure guess, probably two things: I believe 40K is straight up more popular than pure Warhammer, and it's definitely more iconic. And related to the iconicness, regular Warhammer probably runs the risk of being too "normal" for Magic. For example, I'm not really sure what the difference would be between a normal Orc tribal commander deck, and a Warhammer themed Orc one. I'm sure there could be some, but overall the two would feel extremely similar. Lord of the Rings can get away with it because A) more named characters everyone and their grandmother knows, and B) it gets a full set, as opposed to just some commander decks.

I also wouldn't be surprised if each of these are something of a test balloon as well. Obviously they're confident in both products, or they wouldn't be putting them out, but they may be looking for more info on how people react to Sci Fi elements in Magic, and 40K is a perfect vehicle for that. If they get data that everyone loves LoTR set, but thinks 40K is too far, then they'll take that into account for future UB releases.

[Krishnath]

The fact that ANY of these cards from outside IPs will be needed is a problem. Just further diluting the brand, and the things that kept players coming back, to chase quick cash that won't last.

Read my first post in the thread. The one you liked, it explains exactly how to handle it.

Talk with your playgroup, come to a collective decision for each set before it releases, act accordingly. Feel like it doesn't belong (like the Sci-Fi setting Warhammer 40k), you and your friends can opt out of that set. Feel like it would fit (like LotR, being the granddaddy of modern fantasy), go for it. It really isn't that difficult to do.

This is literally something a portion of the MTG players have asked for, for close to twenty years now.

I've unilaterally banned them in my playgroup, since I host, since TWD came out. I play a lot of mtgo and have not actually seen the cards even though they are available there, but will likely see plenty of these as they get released. Players call for stupid crap that shouldn't be done all the time.

Indeed it shouldn't. I am simply stating one of the reasons it was done. Personally, my playgroup have decided we are fine with the LotR's stuff, because the source is literally the granddaddy of modern fantasy, but the other stuff will be judged on a case by case basis when announced (so far WD and WH40K are a no go, and I am perfectly fine with that. Heck, I was one of the people arguing for them being banned in our group.)

If these UB sets bring in more players to MTG, then that can't be a bad thing, even if they aren't really for the average player.

As for the people who keep saying this is a desperate money grab by WotC and MTG is dying, I say they haven't really been paying attention to the news. It is going extremely well for WotC, so well that Hasbro (I.e. Corporate) has given them even more autonomy. WotC made an obscene amount of profit for Hasbro last year, and MTG and D&D stood for 80% of that profit. So while this UB stuff isn't for all of us, it is not a sign that the end is nigh.

[Mergatroid_Jones]

I hate this greatly and gravely. Unfortunately the only recourse we have is to scream on the internet.

[RxPhantom]

On a simpler, more petulant note, a lot of the bulky, over-the-top commando dude things from 40K remind me of Emperor Zurg from Toy Story. They look ridiculous to me.

[Hermes_]

@DirkGently can I haz ur stuffz?

[UnfulfilledDesires]

I don't like the prospect of Universes Beyond coming into EDH games. At the same time, I don't know how it's much worse than the status quo. Coherent aesthetics appeal to me. Magic as a whole has always been lacking in this regard. Some cards are serious, while others are silly. Genres & styles include high fantasy, steampunk, technomagic, horror, cosmic horror, & so on. Thrown all together, this becomes a mess.

For example, in competitive EDH, the majority of decks run Dockside Extortionist, a goofy & fairly nonsensical card. Shaking opponents down for infinite magical money ain't the story I'm hoping for from MTG. (It does kind of work in Korvold. "The king demands tribute." Etc.)

Adding Frodo & the God-Emperor of Mankind to the mix sure won't help this dynamic, but it doesn't fundamentally change things for me. I can & do construct certain EDH decks around my artistic & narrative vision. I'll still be able to do so once we have cards from Lord of the Rings & Warhammer 40k running amok.

[DirkGently]

@DirkGently

I see what you're saying and I agree with the fundamental principle of your digust. But I'm trying to find some precedence for these weird things being okay rather buy into the fire and froth camp right now. I got really mad about SLTWD when that was new and the game didn't burn to the ground. I don't really think the ads for another IP matter insofar I don't actually have to buy warhammer game pieces to play magic. Sure, the ad is there, but until they start selling exclusive cards through WH40k boxes instead of magic product, I think 'disgusting exploitation' is more than a bit hyperbolic.

In fact, the more I watch this bonfire of anger and overwrought rhetoric, the more I think the average person has no idea how bad capitalist exploitation can actually be. No one's been priced out of clean drinking water by this, no one is losing their homes a la 2008 because the bigwigs did shady stuff (it almost happened to my family), no one's being held hostage by a monopolistic, anti-competitive company. They're just trying to sell us a game, a game with thousands of competitors to vie for your wallet and attention. It's annoying, yes, and I like this game better than the others too, but the backlash is nearly totally devoid of perspective if we're going to label this 'exploitation'. Capitalism can be oh so much worse, and it diminishes the tragedy of actual exploitation to use the word so liberally to describe... this.

If you don't want to get mad, I'd say probably stay off the mtg internet for a bit.

I'd actually be more OK with exclusive non-40K magic cards being sold in 40K boxes. At least then, once it's purchased, it's over. With UB it's advertising every time I see the card. Tbh if they put non-exclusive magic cards in 40K boxes that sounds like a great way to get more players that wouldn't bother me at all (though I'm guessing 40K would be averse to the idea of giving their players a second obsessive hobby lest it cut into 40K).

Now, is all this apocalyptically bad - ok, obviously not. Everyone has the option of selling their cards and leaving. This isn't "losing our drinking water" bad - but then, if it was, I'd probably be doing a lot more than getting mad on the internet. I'm not trying to organize a march or anything. As far as responses go, getting mad on the internet is basically the lowest possible form of protest. So idk that it can reasonably be considered an overreaction. Especially considering that - while it's not exactly life and death - I've probably dedicated close to 10,000 hours of my life to magic, and god knows how much money (I know roughly what my collection is worth, but I don't really feel like adding up all my receipts). So losing it would be a pretty major loss. I don't think it's unreasonable to get pretty upset when it gets shunted in a more exploitative direction.

If these UB sets bring in more players to MTG, then that can't be a bad thing, even if they aren't really for the average player.

As for the people who keep saying this is a desperate money grab by WotC and MTG is dying, I say they haven't really been paying attention to the news. It is going extremely well for WotC, so well that Hasbro (I.e. Corporate) has given them even more autonomy. WotC made an obscene amount of profit for Hasbro last year, and MTG and D&D stood for 80% of that profit. So while this UB stuff isn't for all of us, it is not a sign that the end is nigh.

I don't think many people have been saying "this will bankrupt wotc". I definitely don't think that. I do think it's "the end of magic" in terms of "the game will change in a drastic and irreversible way that will dramatically lower my enjoyment of it," but the game itself will soldier on.

I find myself disagreeing with the "it's always good to have more magic players" argument. As long as I can reasonably find a game at my LGS, I think I'm good with the number of players. Obviously WotC always wants more, but I don't really care. Especially since anyone being brought on-board by UB is going to find a different enjoyment from magic than what I get from it.

Frankly my LGS's commander night has made it really hard to find a seat these days, so if anything I'd prefer fewer commander players. More drafters would be good, but I doubt secret lairs and commander precons are going to help on that front. I guess we'll see with LotR.

@DirkGently can I haz ur stuffz?

Maybe, you got $60K lying around?

[Hermes_]

@DirkGently can I haz ur stuffz?

Maybe, you got $60K lying around?

Do you take monoply?