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

[TheAmericanSpirit]

You know, I've been thinking and reading about this some more and I think I've seen the light. The individuals most vitirolic about this development are likely the festering bits of the playerbase anyway, people whose dissatisfaction was building like a cyst long before this announcement freshly irritated them. I think perhaps I'd trade a chance to play against many of those "veteran players" to catch a game with some wide-eyed newbies (drawn in by UB maybe?) whose enjoyment is still uncomplicated by years of percieved slights. I'd probably spend 4x the time explaining rules/interactions, but I wager it'd be way less toxic of an experience.

Yes, I think I've come around. This is not only gonna be okay, I think this will be swell.

Edit: Because no paragraph needs the word "probably" in it 4 times.

[materpillar]

You know, I've been thinking and reading about this some more and I think I've seen the light. The individuals most vitirolic about this development are likely the festering bits of the playerbase anyway, people whose dissatisfaction was building like a cyst long before this announcement freshly irritated them. I think perhaps I'd trade a chance to play against many of those "veteran players" to catch a game with some wide-eyed newbies (drawn in by UB maybe?) whose enjoyment is still uncomplicated by years of percieved slights. I'd probably spend 4x the time explaining rules/interactions, but I wager it'd be way less toxic of an experience.

Yes, I think I've come around. This is not only gonna be okay, I think this will be swell.

Edit: Because no paragraph needs the word "probably" in it 4 times.

I don't think this is particularly fair. It's hard to watch the game you've spent over a decade of your life studying, playing and mastering slowly warp into something you don't enjoy nearly as much anymore.

I, for example, want nothing more than to jam Lightning Angel|19760 and slay some fools with her. She's never been good in EDH but now she's basically completely and utterly atrocious. The more things they print specifically for EDH the worse and worse she becomes and the worse and worse I feel for even considering to cast her. Watching older, nostalgia filled cards get strictly better reprints feels awful (I'm looking at you Thassa's Oracle and what you wrecked upon Laboratory Maniac). The shiny new stuff might be stronger but it doesn't make the game feel better. These upcoming secret layers are incredibly risky in this area. No matter how cool the upcoming Smaug card is, it won't be as cool as Chromium but it'll probably be way stronger and thus push Chromium even farther into the dumpster. I want to play with Chromium not Smaug. That isn't a toxic desire and it isn't invalidated by the desire for other people to want a spiffy smaug card.

[Hermes_]

I don't think this is particularly fair. It's hard to watch the game you've spent over a decade of your life studying, playing and mastering slowly warp into something you don't enjoy nearly as much anymore.

I, for example, want nothing more than to jam Lightning Angel|19760 and slay some fools with her. She's never been good in EDH but now she's basically completely and utterly atrocious. The more things they print specifically for EDH the worse and worse she becomes and the worse and worse I feel for even considering to cast her.

why?

[TheAmericanSpirit]

@materpillar

I'm not saying that wanting play Lightning Angel and have it be at least okay is toxic. I'm saying all the doomsaying is tiring and the arguments against UB are much more petulant and imo unconvincing in general than the arguments in favor of UB. My initial gut reaction was much the same as yours, but frankly, after mulling it over I can't justify being that angry over something that will make a fair amount of people happy, that will possibly bring in many new players (if the SlTWD market data is to be believed), and that I can't control anyhow. I've played long enough to remember people losing their minds over a lot of things in MtG and generally, most of them were overblown in retrospect. So this time, I'm going to be patient, watch the outcome when it happens, and not go berserk on the internet like I have done many times prior. I would advise everyone to try to do the same.

[Dunharrow]

You know, I've been thinking and reading about this some more and I think I've seen the light. The individuals most vitirolic about this development are likely the festering bits of the playerbase anyway, people whose dissatisfaction was building like a cyst long before this announcement freshly irritated them. I think perhaps I'd trade a chance to play against many of those "veteran players" to catch a game with some wide-eyed newbies (drawn in by UB maybe?) whose enjoyment is still uncomplicated by years of percieved slights. I'd probably spend 4x the time explaining rules/interactions, but I wager it'd be way less toxic of an experience.

Yes, I think I've come around. This is not only gonna be okay, I think this will be swell.

Edit: Because no paragraph needs the word "probably" in it 4 times.

I don't think this is particularly fair. It's hard to watch the game you've spent over a decade of your life studying, playing and mastering slowly warp into something you don't enjoy nearly as much anymore.

I, for example, want nothing more than to jam Lightning Angel|19760 and slay some fools with her. She's never been good in EDH but now she's basically completely and utterly atrocious. The more things they print specifically for EDH the worse and worse she becomes and the worse and worse I feel for even considering to cast her. Watching older, nostalgia filled cards get strictly better reprints feels awful (I'm looking at you Thassa's Oracle and what you wrecked upon Laboratory Maniac). The shiny new stuff might be stronger but it doesn't make the game feel better. These upcoming secret layers are incredibly risky in this area. No matter how cool the upcoming Smaug card is, it won't be as cool as Chromium but it'll probably be way stronger and thus push Chromium even farther into the dumpster. I want to play with Chromium not Smaug. That isn't a toxic desire and it isn't invalidated by the desire for other people to want a spiffy smaug card.

I am not sure I fully grasp what you're saying. Smaug or no Smaug, the power level of Chromium has been really low for many years. The existence of Smaug won't push Chromium out of the format any more than the next Standard set.

You are certainly allowed to enjoy playing with the cards you like. But are you going to have the attitude that you won't play against people who play with Warhammer cards? I doubt it. This is a social format for people who want to play with their pet cards.

Regarding Lightning Angel - I fully admit that some of my cube ideas are driven by my desire to play Prophet of Kruphix somewhere.

[Wallycaine]

You know, I've been thinking and reading about this some more and I think I've seen the light. The individuals most vitirolic about this development are likely the festering bits of the playerbase anyway, people whose dissatisfaction was building like a cyst long before this announcement freshly irritated them. I think perhaps I'd trade a chance to play against many of those "veteran players" to catch a game with some wide-eyed newbies (drawn in by UB maybe?) whose enjoyment is still uncomplicated by years of percieved slights. I'd probably spend 4x the time explaining rules/interactions, but I wager it'd be way less toxic of an experience.

Yes, I think I've come around. This is not only gonna be okay, I think this will be swell.

Edit: Because no paragraph needs the word "probably" in it 4 times.

I don't think this is particularly fair. It's hard to watch the game you've spent over a decade of your life studying, playing and mastering slowly warp into something you don't enjoy nearly as much anymore.

I, for example, want nothing more than to jam Lightning Angel|19760 and slay some fools with her. She's never been good in EDH but now she's basically completely and utterly atrocious. The more things they print specifically for EDH the worse and worse she becomes and the worse and worse I feel for even considering to cast her. Watching older, nostalgia filled cards get strictly better reprints feels awful (I'm looking at you Thassa's Oracle and what you wrecked upon Laboratory Maniac). The shiny new stuff might be stronger but it doesn't make the game feel better. These upcoming secret layers are incredibly risky in this area. No matter how cool the upcoming Smaug card is, it won't be as cool as Chromium but it'll probably be way stronger and thus push Chromium even farther into the dumpster. I want to play with Chromium not Smaug. That isn't a toxic desire and it isn't invalidated by the desire for other people to want a spiffy smaug card.

On the flip side, this feels more like an illustration of the point than a counterargument. If you're holding the game to the standards of cards printed nearly 2 literal decades ago (officially 2 decades as of this June for Lightning Angel), it's probably your perceptions are causing the problem, rather than the game. It's like wondering why music isn't still dominated by Britney Spears or NSYNC, or wondering where Tiki Barber is in the current game of football. Going "huh, I wish those things were still popular" is just normal nostalgia, but if you're using it to close yourself off and complain about the current status of the game, then that can quickly turn into toxicity.

[materpillar]

The game is massively different than it was two literal decades ago. I've been playing in "Low" powerlevel on EDHrec and a lot of the games are over before turn 10. Basically every game is over before turn 15. The game has sped up significantly in recent years. For example, I've found a great metric for limited formats that I enjoy are "could I add Goliath Spider to an a decent % of the limited decks in this format and be happy about it?" The answer to that is rarely yes anymore.

It happens a little every standard set, but the most egregious examples of this are in the sets designed for commander (I haaaaaaaaate the Fierce Guardianship cycle with a passion). I was terrified about Commander Legends for this reason but thankfully that set was mostly tame and interesting.

I am not sure I fully grasp what you're saying. Smaug or no Smaug, the power level of Chromium has been really low for many years. The existence of Smaug won't push Chromium out of the format any more than the next Standard set.

You are certainly allowed to enjoy playing with the cards you like. But are you going to have the attitude that you won't play against people who play with Warhammer cards? I doubt it. This is a social format for people who want to play with their pet cards.

Regarding Lightning Angel - I fully admit that some of my cube ideas are driven by my desire to play Prophet of Kruphix somewhere.

My pet card is Chromium, every year that goes by it becomes harder to cast Chromium let alone attack with her. It's a death by inches and I'm not particularly excited by them introducing a wave of what they're obviously hoping will be pet cards for people that are at a very high risk for being startlingly powerful. I don't want to play against "If this survives until my upkeep you lose" creatures. It doesn't matter what their border color is. Those cards are much more likely to exist in product designed for commander than those designed for standard. I'm much more worried that Gandalf is going to ruin games of commander than any currently unspecified legend from Strixhaven.

On the flip side, this feels more like an illustration of the point than a counterargument. If you're holding the game to the standards of cards printed nearly 2 literal decades ago (officially 2 decades as of this June for Lightning Angel), it's probably your perceptions are causing the problem, rather than the game. It's like wondering why music isn't still dominated by Britney Spears or NSYNC, or wondering where Tiki Barber is in the current game of football. Going "huh, I wish those things were still popular" is just normal nostalgia, but if you're using it to close yourself off and complain about the current status of the game, then that can quickly turn into toxicity.

The game isn't as fun as it used to be for me. As a result of the increased speed of the game, more games are decided by raw card powerlevel and tempo than politics and decision making. Mana curves are constantly dropping, making more and more cards unplayable. I don't think I'm toxic for saying that Sheoldred, Whispering One is pretty awful now if all you're trying to do is hard-cast it, and I prefer a game where hardcasting Sheoldred, Whispering One is a viable plan. I've accepted this thing, doesn't mean I have to be happy about it or excited for product that is likely to push the game even farther from where I want it to be.

[caulkwrangler]

The game is massively different than it was two literal decades ago. I've been playing in "Low" powerlevel on EDHrec and a lot of the games are over before turn 10. Basically every game is over before turn 15. The game has sped up significantly in recent years. For example, I've found a great metric for limited formats that I enjoy are "could I add Goliath Spider to an a decent % of the limited decks in this format and be happy about it?" The answer to that is rarely yes anymore.

It happens a little every standard set, but the most egregious examples of this are in the sets designed for commander (I haaaaaaaaate the Fierce Guardianship cycle with a passion). I was terrified about Commander Legends for this reason but thankfully that set was mostly tame and interesting.

I am not sure I fully grasp what you're saying. Smaug or no Smaug, the power level of Chromium has been really low for many years. The existence of Smaug won't push Chromium out of the format any more than the next Standard set.

You are certainly allowed to enjoy playing with the cards you like. But are you going to have the attitude that you won't play against people who play with Warhammer cards? I doubt it. This is a social format for people who want to play with their pet cards.

Regarding Lightning Angel - I fully admit that some of my cube ideas are driven by my desire to play Prophet of Kruphix somewhere.

My pet card is Chromium, every year that goes by it becomes harder to cast Chromium let alone attack with her. It's a death by inches and I'm not particularly excited by them introducing a wave of what they're obviously hoping will be pet cards for people that are at a very high risk for being startlingly powerful. I don't want to play against "If this survives until my upkeep you lose" creatures. It doesn't matter what their border color is. Those cards are much more likely to exist in product designed for commander than those designed for standard. I'm much more worried that Gandalf is going to ruin games of commander than any currently unspecified legend from Strixhaven.

On the flip side, this feels more like an illustration of the point than a counterargument. If you're holding the game to the standards of cards printed nearly 2 literal decades ago (officially 2 decades as of this June for Lightning Angel), it's probably your perceptions are causing the problem, rather than the game. It's like wondering why music isn't still dominated by Britney Spears or NSYNC, or wondering where Tiki Barber is in the current game of football. Going "huh, I wish those things were still popular" is just normal nostalgia, but if you're using it to close yourself off and complain about the current status of the game, then that can quickly turn into toxicity.

The game isn't as fun as it used to be for me. As a result of the increased speed of the game, more games are decided by raw card powerlevel and tempo than politics and decision making. Mana curves are constantly dropping, making more and more cards unplayable. I don't think I'm toxic for saying that Sheoldred, Whispering One is pretty awful now if all you're trying to do is hard-cast it, and I prefer a game where hardcasting Sheoldred, Whispering One is a viable plan. I've accepted this thing, doesn't mean I have to be happy about it or excited for product that is likely to push the game even farther from where I want it to be.

It is toxic, to you. This is a game, it should make you happy, and if it doesn't then what's the point?

[SocorroTortoise]

I haven't read most of the previous discussion here so some of this may be already covered in previous posts. My initial reaction to this was that it was pretty much the end of my heavy involvement with the game. After sleeping on it for a few days that's still more or less where I'm at. I don't have as much of an interest in playing the game if it's going to be as much a platform for other facets of pop culture as its own distinct thing. It currently seems like that's going to be unavoidable to some degree in the formats I'm interested in, EDH and legacy. The only way I see around that is to either curate my playgroup so I'm only interacting with people on the same page or to bring it up before every game, which sounds both toxic (especially to new players who are excited about the cards) and exhausting. I've gone from being excited about TSR and its old border reprints to not even bothering to check what's going to be in the set. I understand that it's out of my control and I'm glad people are excited about it but it's a sad thing after the amount of time, money, and mental energy I've put into the game over the years.

[Dragonlover]

The creation of 40k commander decks is a product basically laser targeted at my brain. That said, if there isn't a Chaos Marine deck, I march on Seattle.

In general, I'm cool with this. Every other card game from the last twenty years is just a tweak on MtG with the odd attempt at breaking the mould anyway, why not just have it all go in the other direction?

My only concern is Secret Lair gating, but that would be a concern even without this.

Dragonlover

[Wallycaine]

I really wanna push back against the notion that we're going to see these cards everywhere. Let's go back to my criteria before: It's 2027, 5 years from the start of this, and we've seen a full set and full commander product tied to an outside IP each of those years. We'll compare it to the spring releases from the past 5 years, and just to satisfy those who complained about me not explicitly calling out Commander products, we'll also include all the full commander products from 2016 on. So, checking on https://edhrec.com/top, how far down do we have to go to find a card that fits that originated with those sets? Our first close call is Chaos Warp, at slot #26, found in 27% of decks. But that originated in commander 2011, so while there likely will be a alt art, that's no different than Luminous Broodmoth's Mothra. Next close call is Commander's Sphere at #59, 19% of decks. But that one's Commander 2014, still outside the window we're looking at. Finally, we hit our first card that originated in one of those 5 sets or commander products with Tatyova, Benthic Druid at #73, in 17% of decks. Rounding out the pack in slots 92, 97, and 100 (for 14% inclusion each), we have Dockside Extortionist, Shalai, Voice of Plenty, and Teferi's Protection respectively. So out of those aforementioned sets, we've got 4 cards in the top 100 used EDH cards, all clocking in towards the very bottom of the rankings. And that's 5 years straight of commander product + Spring sets. So when I say that these new cards are likely to be a drop in the bucket, I really do mean that. There's so many cards already released, and far more normal magic cards than these coming out every year, that if you want to avoid them, you're giving up maybe 4% of the card pool.

[Hermes_]

Can't believe someone actually asked

[DirkGently]

I really wanna push back against the notion that we're going to see these cards everywhere. Let's go back to my criteria before: It's 2027, 5 years from the start of this, and we've seen a full set and full commander product tied to an outside IP each of those years. We'll compare it to the spring releases from the past 5 years, and just to satisfy those who complained about me not explicitly calling out Commander products, we'll also include all the full commander products from 2016 on. So, checking on https://edhrec.com/top, how far down do we have to go to find a card that fits that originated with those sets? Our first close call is Chaos Warp, at slot #26, found in 27% of decks. But that originated in commander 2011, so while there likely will be a alt art, that's no different than Luminous Broodmoth's Mothra. Next close call is Commander's Sphere at #59, 19% of decks. But that one's Commander 2014, still outside the window we're looking at. Finally, we hit our first card that originated in one of those 5 sets or commander products with Tatyova, Benthic Druid at #73, in 17% of decks. Rounding out the pack in slots 92, 97, and 100 (for 14% inclusion each), we have Dockside Extortionist, Shalai, Voice of Plenty, and Teferi's Protection respectively. So out of those aforementioned sets, we've got 4 cards in the top 100 used EDH cards, all clocking in towards the very bottom of the rankings. And that's 5 years straight of commander product + Spring sets. So when I say that these new cards are likely to be a drop in the bucket, I really do mean that. There's so many cards already released, and far more normal magic cards than these coming out every year, that if you want to avoid them, you're giving up maybe 4% of the card pool.

Unfortunately I'm not sure that EDHrec provides the sort of information (or at least, easily provides the information, without needing to write a program to scrape their data) that would really provide the full picture here. For starters, simply checking the most popular cards isn't going to give an overall percentage of deckspace. It's a decent idea, but it's way too simplistic. And the way EDHrec ranks things doesn't help either, since multicolor stuff is always going to be way overrepresented in their rankings relative to how many cards are actually played, though who knows which direction that pushes the data.

I went through some of the sets and tried to kind of eyeball some stuff - feel free to double check me since this was wildly unscientific, but I'm guessing the total number of cards for Ikoria is in the vicinity of 300K. The total number of cards for C20 was less than 200K. With 464K decklists in EDHrec, that means that for 5 years worth of precons and full expansions (although afaik no one really knows if that's going to be consistent or change in future years - up or down - but we work with what we have) I'd expect *very roughly* 5 cards per deck. Which is not wildly different from what you estimated, but I feel better having done the math.

That said, if we pivot and look at a different metric - the most popular commanders - the story is very different. Looking at those same sets + commander precons, 43 of the top 100 are within them. Of course, that has some issues in terms of data collection as mentioned before (minus the multicolor thing since that's not taken into account for commander rankings), but I think most of us have had similar experiences in this regard - new commanders, and precon commanders especially, are extremely popular. And I think a big part of that is because WotC is designing them for commander, without the limitations of a standard set. Of course it's hard to guess what these sets will be like - commander legends wasn't wildly out of whack, power-wise, despite being commander focused. I'd assume that these will be draftable sets, so likely they will include a similar level of mostly-constructed-unplayable chaff. But this is all pretty speculative at this point.

I think you're likely right that we won't see an overwhelming number of these cards in the near future - 5% is enough that you'll see multiple cards in most games, but it won't get to "that cardboard-crack comic everyone has seen" levels unless production is ramped up significantly or they push the power level to the moon. That said, I think we ARE likely to see a pretty high percentage of UB stuff in the command zone within a few years, and I suspect that within 5 it'll be rare to have a game that doesn't involve another fandom's character sitting at the table.

As far as UB-version reprints, I think those will become a lot more common. While I didn't take great offense to the Godzilla cards, that was primarily for 2 reasons: 1) Godzilla is a pretty venerable franchise that's essentially part of our collective culture, and 2) The art wasn't in any way tied to any upcoming commercial ventures. The result is that, to me, they didn't feel like ads.

Now, especially as regards LotR, there's a few ways this could go, imo. The excellent way would be that the art is unrelated to any film version of the franchise, and either imitates old illustrations or has an aesthetic all its own. That would be great, I'd retract pretty much all my complaints if that happens (as regards that specific release, at least). The medium way would be that it follows the 2000s movies, but that's it. It's a bit pop-culture-y, but they're not exactly trying to move DVDs for those, so it's tolerable. The bad way, and the way I think is most likely based on the selection of other things they've chosen to make these around and the timing of the release, is that it's heavily linked to the Amazon series, with enough characters from the movies to draw initial interest from fans.

40K, on the other hand, I find a lot less forgivable. Partly because it's kind of just stupid. LotR has had some games, but none terribly successful (at least, none I've seen being played in game stores). 40K literally is a game. Multiple game stores I've played in over the years have had people playing it WHILE we're playing magic. So I find the "people just want to play with (40K thing)" excuse is pretty silly. Just play 40K. Besides that, it's way more blatant cross-promotion. Magic players are nerds. 40K players are nerds. Let's pass the nerds around and make a big pile of money. And ofc there's the aesthetic thing, although that's definitely a secondary concern for me. If WotC made a magic version of space marines, I think I'd probably shrug it off.

Anyway, all that to say - I don't think UB reprints are quite as tolerable as the Godzilla ones. Obviously all this stuff is on a spectrum. TWD is still by far the most egregiously awful thing, since they compounded the awfulness of a functionally-exclusive secret lair card and a functionally-exclusive UB card. With this set of UB we're *mostly* dodging the secret lair problem (though they definitely implied that there will be future UB SLs), so that's definitely a step in the right direction. As far as the reprints, they're just as much ads as functional-exclusives, but at least they're not compulsory ads. I'm still going to find it a bit annoying when someone plays them against me, and they will, but at least I don't have to run them myself if I want access to the card. I'll be even less annoyed if they do UB around franchises that aren't currently marketing themselves - at that point, I'll hardly care tbh, especially as regards reprints. Maybe I should make a graph. Dirk's Rage-o-meter.

@Krishnath The first paragraph of mine that you quoted is a direct response to what you posted.

@caulkwrangler I didn't say anything about MtG's business model, so I'm not sure why you're bringing that up. I think you could definitely make an argument that it's exploitative as well, but at least we all got in knowing that (even if they've continued to make it more and more exploitative as years have gone by). At any rate, I'd say fan sets are essentially morally pure, whereas once you add wotc's monetary interest in marketing for other companies...not so much. In addition, fan sets are obviously opt-in only, which means no one is forced to play with or against other IPs if they don't want to. That's why I would agree with the statement "such things should stay fan sets."

Stop trolling and try making a coherent argument?

[caulkwrangler]

@caulkwrangler I didn't say anything about MtG's business model, so I'm not sure why you're bringing that up. I think you could definitely make an argument that it's exploitative as well, but at least we all got in knowing that (even if they've continued to make it more and more exploitative as years have gone by). At any rate, I'd say fan sets are essentially morally pure, whereas once you add wotc's monetary interest in marketing for other companies...not so much. In addition, fan sets are obviously opt-in only, which means no one is forced to play with or against other IPs if they don't want to. That's why I would agree with the statement "such things should stay fan sets."

Stop trolling and try making a coherent argument?

I'm not trolling, nor do I think you understand what you're arguing with me, so please manage some coherence yourself first.

[pokken]

I would virtually guarantee multiple busted commanders in those products. If there isn't a space marine that is at least like chulane level annoying I'd be super surprised.

This stuff will be waaaaay more pushed than standard sets.

[materpillar]

I would virtually guarantee multiple busted commanders in those products. If there isn't a space marine that is at least like chulane level annoying I'd be super surprised.

This stuff will be waaaaay more pushed than standard sets.

That's a valid fear but not a guarantee. From a purely mechanical perspective, most of the Walking Dead cards seemed extremely reasonable (although I guess I have no personal experience playing against any of them). Negan, the Cold-Blooded and Daryl, Hunter of Walkers are both really interesting to me from a purely game perspective.

Commander Legends has given me some hope for the future because it was quite well managed outside of just 1-2 cards. I've been doing sealed of it with my friends and been having a great great time. Those games felt a lot closer to the oldschool EDH that I love.

[RxPhantom]

I was cogitating on this a bit more, and I was thinking that there will probably only be two 40K decks. I make this assumption because I think every card in it will be themed 40K, which means a massive amount of new art has to be commissioned. Even if many cards are reprints, I doubt they'd put in, say, Forsake the Worldly with that Amonkhet art.

Anyway, a few things:

1. Stop calling everything a cash grab. You sound ridiculous. Every single thing WotC does is a cash grab. They're a business and they want our cash. The ways they go about it can sometimes be scummy, but it's all about money, and it has been about money since Alpha.

2. I don't want this, and know many of you don't either, but please be cool to players who want this or are excited about it, new or otherwise. What kind of a-hole would turn down a game because of it? As the flavor text on our future Bill & Ted cards will surely say, "Be excellent to each other."

3. I keep hearing that this stuff is all for casual play, which should somehow suggest that casual players don't have any standards, preferences, or passion about the game. It's as if to say that casual players don't care about anything, so WotC can do whatever. This is simply not the case. One can be enfranchised and casual.

[DirkGently]

I'm not trolling, nor do I think you understand what you're arguing with me, so please manage some coherence yourself first.

k.

That's a valid fear but not a guarantee. From a purely mechanical perspective, most of the Walking Dead cards seemed extremely reasonable (although I guess I have no personal experience playing against any of them). Negan, the Cold-Blooded and Daryl, Hunter of Walkers are both really interesting to me from a purely game perspective.

Commander Legends has given me some hope for the future because it was quite well managed outside of just 1-2 cards. I've been doing sealed of it with my friends and been having a great great time. Those games felt a lot closer to the oldschool EDH that I love.

There's definitely a solid chance that these will be fun (at least the draftable sets - idk that commander precons really register on the "fun" spectrum for me tbh). Mostly I just wish it was either separated in some way, or temporary. I'd be down to try a UB-allowed, anything-goes commander experience. But then I'd like to return to magic.

Ofc it's hard to say how the community will react. I'm sure there will be at least some groups that are no-UB-allowed. Idk if that will carry over into LGS play at all. For the record I'm not saying that UB players should be excluded or anything, any more than legacy decks are "excluded" from standard. I'll probably end up creating some mix of UB and non-UB decks, unless absolutely no one is playing non-UB and then I guess there's not much point.

I was cogitating on this a bit more, and I was thinking that there will probably only be two 40K decks. I make this assumption because I think every card in it will be themed 40K, which means a massive amount of new art has to be commissioned. Even if many cards are reprints, I doubt they'd put in, say, Forsake the Worldly with that Amonkhet art.

Anyway, a few things:

1. Stop calling everything a cash grab. You sound ridiculous. Every single thing WotC does is a cash grab. They're a business and they want our cash. The ways they go about it can sometimes be scummy, but it's all about money, and it has been about money since Alpha.

2. I don't want this, and know many of you don't either, but please be cool to players who want this or are excited about it, new or otherwise. What kind of a-hole would turn down a game because of it? As the flavor text on our future Bill & Ted cards will surely say, "Be excellent to each other."

3. I keep hearing that this stuff is all for casual play, which should somehow suggest that casual players don't have any standards, preferences, or passion about the game. It's as if to say that casual players don't care about anything, so WotC can do whatever. This is simply not the case. One can be enfranchised and casual.

1) I don't think hardly anyone has actually been calling it that. I only see at most 2 uses of that phrase in this thread. That phrase has certainly been bandied about a LOT with practically everything wotc has ever done, and while I don't think it's very useful for the reasons you stated, I do think it more closely matches this product than others because WotC isn't just trying to produce a product people want - it's effectively taking money from other companies in exchange for advertising those companies to MtG players. That's pretty different from just "how dare you print an interesting/powerful card that people will want".

2) Generally I don't think most people are arguing to exclude people. I do hope that I can still play non-UB games in the future, but if people are only playing UB I'm not going to stop them from joining or anything. As I've said before, 100% of my ire is directed at WotC, not the players. Although ofc I don't speak for everyone.

I will say, though, that being accepting of players who want to play UB is not the same as rolling over when people are mocking those who have misgivings about UB. Luckily that's not been much of a problem here, but other social media is another story - it's pretty brutal warfare out there.

3) Very agreed.

As an aside, I went back to look at the TWD thread and I was pretty adamant about disliking the advertising angle back then too...so I'm glad to see I'm at least a relatively consistent.

[DizzCompleat]

I for one welcome our power-armored overlords. My honest take is I love 40k's lore and gameplay, but I suck at painting and am impatient. Being able to possibly play some of my faves is awesome

[Wallycaine]

I think you're likely right that we won't see an overwhelming number of these cards in the near future - 5% is enough that you'll see multiple cards in most games, but it won't get to "that cardboard-crack comic everyone has seen" levels unless production is ramped up significantly or they push the power level to the moon. That said, I think we ARE likely to see a pretty high percentage of UB stuff in the command zone within a few years, and I suspect that within 5 it'll be rare to have a game that doesn't involve another fandom's character sitting at the table.

Yeah, the command zone is definitely a different issue, and harder to predict. But, I would point out that UB stuff in the command zone is a bit easier to deal with diplomatically, especially if it's a somewhat established player. Going "Hey, I'm not a huge fan of the Universe Beyond stuff, do you have a deck with a different commander than Gandalf?" is possible to do at the beginning of the game, where you won't see what's in the 99 until you're in the game. Obviously that won't always work, but it's at least an option.

40K, on the other hand, I find a lot less forgivable. Partly because it's kind of just stupid. LotR has had some games, but none terribly successful (at least, none I've seen being played in game stores). 40K literally is a game. Multiple game stores I've played in over the years have had people playing it WHILE we're playing magic. So I find the "people just want to play with (40K thing)" excuse is pretty silly. Just play 40K. Besides that, it's way more blatant cross-promotion. Magic players are nerds. 40K players are nerds. Let's pass the nerds around and make a big pile of money. And ofc there's the aesthetic thing, although that's definitely a secondary concern for me. If WotC made a magic version of space marines, I think I'd probably shrug it off.

Speaking as someone who's played a 40k adjacent game (Warmachine) for many years, the argument of "just play 40k" really undersells the investment involved. Like, commander decks can be expensive, but until you start getting into the "I bought all my dual lands at current prices" level of investment, it's pocket change compared to a single 40k army. And that's not even including the time investment of assembling, possibly converting, and painting all those minis. And the time sink that going for a game involves, with an hour of setup, half hour of packing away, and usually several hours of gameplay. There's going to be a significant market for people who enjoy the world and lore of 40k, but just don't have the time or money to keep up with it anymore. Or who want something that they can plan with their friends at home without needing a 4 by 6 table and dozen pieces of specially made terrain. Or want to pick up something to do with their second favorite faction in the game, but aren't willing to drop another couple thousand dollars on a single list they'll get to play every other game night at best. I think those make up some pretty good reasons for people to want to play with 40k stuff in a different environment than the usual one. And that's not even getting into stuff like "well my local 40k scene dried up, so I can't play until I convince new people to buy into this expensive hobby".

[DirkGently]

That is a good point about the CZ (part of why I'm way more open to silver-bordered commanders than silver-border in the 99).

"...until I convince new people to buy into this expensive hobby".

Well you sold me on it, I'd love to spend dual land prices on hard-to-store models for an unbalanced game that sounds like a commitment on par with the moon landing

[Lifeless]

Speaking as someone who's played a 40k adjacent game (Warmachine) for many years, the argument of "just play 40k" really undersells the investment involved.

Funny story - I played 2nd edition 40k for about 6 years and spent and untold fortune in time and money, then fell out of it only to find Hordes\Warmachine years later and thought to myself "oh great a skirmish game, this will be so much more reasonable". I'm sure you can guess how that worked out for me.

[Wallycaine]

Speaking as someone who's played a 40k adjacent game (Warmachine) for many years, the argument of "just play 40k" really undersells the investment involved.

Funny story - I played 2nd edition 40k for about 6 years and spent and untold fortune in time and money, then fell out of it only to find Hordes\Warmachine years later and thought to myself "oh great a skirmish game, this will be so much more reasonable". I'm sure you can guess how that worked out for me.

Oh yes, much more reasonable! *looks over at standing case of miniatures that are just the ones that won't fit in the travel bags* ...so much more reasonable.

[pokken]

Umm let's not oversell how expensive 40k is. When I was playing I built entire armies for 400-500 bucks. When I was playing a box of space marines was $35. Now they're $55. So worst case a 2000 pt army prob sets you back about $800 or so.

And that's assuming you don't buy used. I bought so much stuff second hand. And the rates are quite cheap typically.

All things considered it's a pretty cheap hobby and you can usually get half of your money back, and more if you're a good painter..

(When I got out I had spent maybe $3000 and I cashed out for $1200 in two weeks. Could have itemized for a lot more)

[Dunharrow]

The game is massively different than it was two literal decades ago. I've been playing in "Low" powerlevel on EDHrec and a lot of the games are over before turn 10. Basically every game is over before turn 15. The game has sped up significantly in recent years. For example, I've found a great metric for limited formats that I enjoy are "could I add Goliath Spider to an a decent % of the limited decks in this format and be happy about it?" The answer to that is rarely yes anymore.

It happens a little every standard set, but the most egregious examples of this are in the sets designed for commander (I haaaaaaaaate the Fierce Guardianship cycle with a passion). I was terrified about Commander Legends for this reason but thankfully that set was mostly tame and interesting.

I am not sure I fully grasp what you're saying. Smaug or no Smaug, the power level of Chromium has been really low for many years. The existence of Smaug won't push Chromium out of the format any more than the next Standard set.

You are certainly allowed to enjoy playing with the cards you like. But are you going to have the attitude that you won't play against people who play with Warhammer cards? I doubt it. This is a social format for people who want to play with their pet cards.

Regarding Lightning Angel - I fully admit that some of my cube ideas are driven by my desire to play Prophet of Kruphix somewhere.

My pet card is Chromium, every year that goes by it becomes harder to cast Chromium let alone attack with her. It's a death by inches and I'm not particularly excited by them introducing a wave of what they're obviously hoping will be pet cards for people that are at a very high risk for being startlingly powerful. I don't want to play against "If this survives until my upkeep you lose" creatures. It doesn't matter what their border color is. Those cards are much more likely to exist in product designed for commander than those designed for standard. I'm much more worried that Gandalf is going to ruin games of commander than any currently unspecified legend from Strixhaven.

On the flip side, this feels more like an illustration of the point than a counterargument. If you're holding the game to the standards of cards printed nearly 2 literal decades ago (officially 2 decades as of this June for Lightning Angel), it's probably your perceptions are causing the problem, rather than the game. It's like wondering why music isn't still dominated by Britney Spears or NSYNC, or wondering where Tiki Barber is in the current game of football. Going "huh, I wish those things were still popular" is just normal nostalgia, but if you're using it to close yourself off and complain about the current status of the game, then that can quickly turn into toxicity.

The game isn't as fun as it used to be for me. As a result of the increased speed of the game, more games are decided by raw card powerlevel and tempo than politics and decision making. Mana curves are constantly dropping, making more and more cards unplayable. I don't think I'm toxic for saying that Sheoldred, Whispering One is pretty awful now if all you're trying to do is hard-cast it, and I prefer a game where hardcasting Sheoldred, Whispering One is a viable plan. I've accepted this thing, doesn't mean I have to be happy about it or excited for product that is likely to push the game even farther from where I want it to be.

Look - I get it that power creep has made the game a bit too fast for you. You would rather swing Chromium around and play a one-hour game than three 20 minutes games where Krenko exploded and killed everyone turn 5, combo player comboed out on turn 6 and Kinnan ramped so hard that everyone was dead on turn 7. I get it.
But I do not understand how you can specifically be against UB for this reason. Let's say instead of Warhammer 40K commander decks they made regular commander decks. Let's say instead of Lord of the Rings they made Conspiracy 3. Are you saying that those sets wouldn't also contribute to the game being even further from where you want it to be?
The Walking Dead showed that they can do flavour without huge power level issues. I don't know why you think Gandalf will be more powerful than Marchesa 3.0. Why would Smaug be more of an issue for the viability of Chromium than the 5 elder dragons coming in Strixhaven? What about a return to Tarkir?

It seems like you want the game to die so you can play the same decks without any impetus for change. If that is the case, I urge you to build 4-5 decks that are equally balanced, and when you play commander give people your decks.

I have 20ish decks. Two are very strong. About 10 are strong 75% decks. Another 8ish are janky fun things. I have friends that prefer playing with my decks because they know they will be balanced with each other.
It's another reason why I avoid taking apart pre-cons for a long time. It is super fun to play with balanced preconstructed decks.

So - make your Chromium deck. Make a few others. Have fun. Ignore all the new sets.

Just don't tell me you don't like this product because it is a new product and all new cards lead to Chromium being less playable. That's nonsense. That isn't an argument against Universes Unbound and if you think it is then you are deluding yourself.