Who here lost their deck building mojo with all the new cards coming out?

[3drinks]

I know I did for about two years. Lately I started really getting intrigued whenever people mention Kardur, Doomscourge and. Now I've been exploring that. I've never been keen on these all out offense decks but the sheer dearth has almost rejuvenated my senses. It's been a fascinating journey, and it all started from the average budget list on edhrec that I could add my own spice to.

Anyway I'm just saying I'm having a blast finding ways to force people to enter the red zone, and even incentivizing others to do so. Who else has a similar story about finding your mojo?

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I had to sell damn near everything to see the light again. Decision paralysis is a mean and salty %$#%, but a good limitation or two keeps it away. Now that I'm down to one deck per format, I don't have to pay as much attention to new releases too.

[pokken]

Any time I'm not sure I just outsource it to the forum

[Dunharrow]

I haven't really opened much since my last pre-release (January 2020). I was in a lull but recently decided to try building decks. I will eventually update them but I in no way expect to make any of them 'tuned'. If I really like a deck maybe I will try, like I did with my MIna and Denn list.

There are so many cards coming out all the time I don't even want to know about it anymore.

[BeneTleilax]

I think it's just that we've lost our reference points. I've definitely been like "Oh, I went two major expansions without adding anything to my decks, have I forgotten how to build?" then realized that major expansions are one set long and we're getting a bazillion a year now, and I'm still building and tinkering at my normal rate.

[Sinis]

I think it's really hard to keep up with it, especially if you have any real life stresses. I think this year is a landmark where I have played some 10% of the things I bought. I'm still messing around with Kaldheim and Strixhaven stuff, and commander legends things I haven't quite mustered the brains/soul to build. For AFR, I just modified the dungeon precon, and I think that's all I really wanted to do with the set (aside from little staples like the ramp dog). For MID, I built Sigarda human tribal (it's... pretty meh), which kind of built itself and leverages a fair amount from the w/g precon.

Releases have been breakneck, and I can hardly give VOW the time of day.

I will say also, that I have still been brewing decks, but they just don't have the depth previous decks have had. It's really hard to find time to mine all the tech I want to use in a deck, etc.

[5colorsrainbow]

Not really but I really don't aim to build a new deck every new set, I mostly just get around a dozen cards or so to upgrade older decks if that. Like I had no interest in the time spiral remaster or much of Adventures in the Forgotten Realms and Innistrad 3 has mostly been getting more werwolves for a causal non-commander deck.

[3drinks]

I've definitely become the boomer that has to ask for and reread every hip new card that gets played and then asks for it again because I don't get why they'd play it instead of something classic anyway. Ha.

I had to sell damn near everything to see the light again. Decision paralysis is a mean and salty %$#%, but a good limitation or two keeps it away. Now that I'm down to one deck per format, I don't have to pay as much attention to new releases too.

Fwiw, the only evergreen cards you'll want for any deck they've put out is Doomskar, Cathartic Pyre, and Infernal Grasp. If that helps you.

[Treamayne]

Short answer: Yes. Not very much new deck building - just some adjustments to the favored decks with some final new cards.

I had to sell damn near everything to see the light again. Decision paralysis is a mean and salty %$#%, but a good limitation or two keeps it away. Now that I'm down to one deck per format, I don't have to pay as much attention to new releases too.

^This^

I was already drawing down my collection, but after the SL:TWD (and UB) brouhaha(s) and the release faux-celeration (is it really an accelerated release schedule if nothing ships on time for a year?) - I realized that the WotC "mantra" that not every release is meant for every player was just their way of telling me that this game is no longer meant for me.

I'll keep a few decks, but I won't give WotC any more of my money until/unless they realize the damage they are doing - or - admit that they no longer care about established players (as long as the rate of new players exceeds the rate of leaving players - a statistic that can't be maintained very long in any case).

[Nimbaway]

I enjoy the inspiration that I get with certain new Commanders, but I'm more so at a point where I have several decks that I barely play. So for the moment I've been giving those some final chances before taking them apart if I feel it's not going to be something I play regularly enough. Knowing myself I'll eventually add new decks, but for now I'm slimming down my collection in preparation of moving, so the extra cash and free shelf space will be welcome until I get that sorted.

[Mookie]

Hmmmm.... I haven't built a new deck recently, but I wouldn't necessarily say that is because of the increased amount of product being pushed out. Historically, my main motivation for building new decks is to fill holes not covered by my other decks. As I've built more decks, more of those holes have been filled. I've also switched to a new meta semi-recently after not playing for a while, so even my old decks feel pretty fresh.

....I think it's also reached the point where the time it takes to test and update all my decks is roughly equal to the amount of time between set releases, leaving little time to add a new deck into rotation.

That said, I will call out that the fact that there are so many new releases has dampened my enthusiasm a bit. It feels like there was a good month of brainstorming when everyone started building decks for the once-a-year precons, since those were the primary source of new commanders that were interesting for EDH. but these days, every set has 10+ legends, all of which have been designed with EDH in mind... which, it turn, makes any specific legend much less exciting. I mean... for comparison, the original Innistrad has four legends, Dark Ascension had two, and Avacyn Restored had five, pretty much all of which saw play in the format. Midnight Vow and Crimson Vow both have 17(!), most of which I've already forgotten - and the latter set isn't even out yet!

[Crazy Monkey]

The quantity of cards printed has made it difficult to keep up for all of my decks. I usually have to go through spoilers multiple times and even then, new cards aren't added to my "mental database", so it takes me longer to interact with those cards in-game and brainstorming requires more database searching.

I used to build 4 or 5 decks a year. By comparison, the past couple years have had 3 total. It's only a correlation, but I have been less inspired. I don't know if that's saying that my threshold for interest is higher or the quality is lower, or outside factors. I do get excited for deck updates/retooling, but entirely new decks have mostly eluded me.

It may also be that I cover most things that I want my stable of decks to do, similar to the commentator above. Maybe I have just reached critical mass.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Fwiw, the only evergreen cards you'll want for any deck they've put out is Doomskar, Cathartic Pyre, and Infernal Grasp. If that helps you.

Pyre and grasp are neat, but I'll never let go of WoG as my go-to wrath. I haven't been beaten to death by a Silvos since I was 12, and it won't happen again. It's gotta have a lot more gravy than foretell to let go of the "can't regen" rider.

[toctheyounger]

I've slowed down on games but thats less release schedule and more parenthood. Its a time vampire.

I still brew a ton for existing decks and I'm constantly mulling weird jank brews in my head. Most of it doesn't usually stick but sometimes it does. Case in point is all of a sudden I have a cycling Slogurk deck that could potentially be a lot of fun.

All that said, I've mentally relinquished the desire to buy cards every release. Innistrad has zombies so these last two were always going to get me given Varina is my favorite build, but I'm looking to not really giving a %$#% what comes out in the next few months. So is my trade binder and my wallet.

[materpillar]

I've never been much of a deck builder. I only throw together maybe one new deck a year. The breakneck pace of releases hasn't really phased me that much. Card prices going through the roof definitely has. As has my previous meta game being destroyed by Covid and not really finding a good replacement.

Most of my friends now play other board games. It's a lot easier to invest $50 in an entire board game than two magic cards.

I'm still trying to find games but my experience with webcam magic has been significantly more hit or miss than in person.

[Guardman]

The breakneck pace of releases hasn't really phased me that much. Card prices going through the roof definitely has. As has my previous meta game being destroyed by Covid and not really finding a good replacement.

This is pretty much where I am. Except it wasn't COVID as much as my local gamestore closing back in October of 2019 because the owner wanted to focus on his family (which I totally get and was the correct decision given the timing) and I've had a Hell of a time finding a replacement location. It probably doesn't help that any worthwhile replacement is at least 20-30 minutes away from me.

Card prices have also affected me. I'm not a collector in the traditional sense where I have to have every card. But I do like getting cheap cards I think are neat and sorting them. But it is hard to find cheap cards nowadays. I did go on sort of a spending spree around Modern Horizons II, but that was more the exception than the rule (and I know I spent less than if I was just buying packs, so eh).

A little off-topic, but one thing I really appreciated this past year was the number of uncommon legends we got. They were cheap to pick up, neat, and many had neat/unique abilities (looking at you Quintorius, Field Historian, Firja, Judge of Valor, and Krydle of Baldur's Gate).

[Sinis]

Most of my friends now play other board games. It's a lot easier to invest $50 in an entire board game than two magic cards.

I've frequently said that you must be a certain kind of mad to play Magic in general.

I think if I even sold some small proportion of my collection, I could have a lifetime supply of boardgames, and the cost-to-fun ratio in this game is reaching absurd heights.

[pokken]

On the flipside most board games have extremely poor resale value. There's a small percentage that do hold up and become collectible but it's by far the exception from what I've seen

[Sinis]

On the flipside most board games have extremely poor resale value.

I hate to break the news about most magic cards to you, but...

[pokken]

I hate to break the news about most magic cards to you, but...

If you look at a board game collection's resale value vs. a magic card collection's resale value it's not even the same planet. My buddy had to sell out of his board game collection and he got absolutely brutalized...$0.15 on the dollar if he was lucky.

If I were to sell out at a steep discount today I'd have turned around around $12,000 into $40,000.

[Sinis]

I hate to break the news about most magic cards to you, but...

If you look at a board game collection's resale value vs. a magic card collection's resale value it's not even the same planet. My buddy had to sell out of his board game collection and he got absolutely brutalized...$0.15 on the dollar if he was lucky.

If I were to sell out at a steep discount today I'd have turned around around $12,000 into $40,000.

While I don't disagree with your assessment, someone who started playing Magic right now would probably lose in the long run. Like, maybe board games have atrocious resale value, but like, they're (comparatively) cheap for the hours of enjoyment you get out of it.

[pokken]

I would have said the same thing every year since magic started just about. If you purchase wisely now (don't buy anything inflated, and nothing popular in standard at all) I would expect modest returns about keeping pace with inflation at worst.

I flat completely disagree about board games. Even my friends who are major into board games play one game a week at most. It takes time and most board games have minimal replayability. You're going to buy ten before you find one people are going to want to play more than three times.

My old group of board gamers owned collectively tens of thousands of dollars in games and played Arkham and that mars terraforming game and gloom haven and that was just about all that saw any serious replay.

Role playing games and video games are where the values at .

And magic…I played five games a week for probably seven years and still would be playing weekly if not for the damn Covid

[Sinis]

Even my friends who are major into board games play one game a week at most.

1. I play Magic about once a week.
2. I've gotten hundreds or thousands of hours out of some boardgames, like Battlestar Galactica, Terra Mystica and Puerto Rico.

And magic…I played five games a week for probably seven years and still would be playing weekly if not for the damn Covid

I played about once a week before, and I play about once a week now (just via webcam, though we are more comfortable playing in our apartments now that things have settled a bit).

I think our experiences are just wildly different here.

[RxPhantom]

Magic hasn't been captivating me like it used to. Factors in my life surely play a role; my job has been stressful, my daughter just started school, my house may be a lemon. Throw a pandemic on top of all of that and...well...there are a lot of things pushing down, and too few that are lifting up. The deluge of new releases is a huge part of the problem. I used to follow spoilers religiously. Now, I can hardly be bothered. Secret Lairs and Universes Beyond aren't my cup of tea either. The game is going in a direction that, to put it charitably, does not resonate with me.

I've started selling some of my collection to pay for some costly repairs on my house, and it's a weird feeling. My collection used to make me happy, now it feels more like an albatross. For many, many years now, I've been buying at least three boosters of each new set and putting them in a box in hopes of doing some cool chaos drafts or even a Grand Melee Sealed event. But, like so many grand aspirations, reality interferes. I don't even know enough people who would be interested. So if it get to the point where I sell those boosters, that'll probably be the end of my time as a Magic player.

[materpillar]

I flat completely disagree about board games. Even my friends who are major into board games play one game a week at most. It takes time and most board games have minimal replayability. You're going to buy ten before you find one people are going to want to play more than three times.

My old group of board gamers owned collectively tens of thousands of dollars in games and played Arkham and that mars terraforming game and gloom haven and that was just about all that saw any serious replay.

Imma hard disagree with the bolded statement for sure. But even so, let's assume you're right though and every board game is only playable for three hours. If you have a good time with three friends for three hours that's 12 hours of good time. How many times do you have to cast a magic card to get 12 hours of enjoyment out of it? Some cards clear that, but a lot don't.

The buying 10 before you get 1, complaint applies just as much to magic cards. Magic cards have built in planned obscurity. Look how many random cards of the day are "used to be a staple can't find a home for it anymore". We're constantly axing stuff from our decks. I personally have a slot in my decks dedicated specifically to testing stuff. Often times I'll cast a card once and think "and out of the deck this goes"

Sure magic has worked out for us entrenched, reserved list card owners but I doubt it's going to end up being profitable for most people just getting into it. I'd imagine most cards we're buying from Crimson Vow aren't going to turn anything close to a profit. I have a ton of expensive stuff like Gaea's Cradle but I certainly haven't made a profit on magic cards overall but I didn't buy several legacy decks a decade ago either. Your mileage may vary.

I'm a bit of a board game fanatic. I own 40+ ones myself. I've got a pretty good hit rate on buying board games I know my friends will like and getting them to the table. I do pretty extensive research on games before I pick them up. Sidereal Confluence during thanksgiving holiday party here I commmmmmmme. Woooooo!