The product deluge vs Costs

[DirkGently]

Had a thought last night - I think if the cost of keeping up with new releases wasn't an issue, I think I'd be fine with getting new cards spoiled constantly.

That's not to let WotC off the hook, ofc - money IS an issue for most people. And I'd still wish that they weren't 100% laser focused on commander players at all times. But in terms of the rate, if the cost was meaningless to me, having new cards to consider all the time is fun.

Thoughts?

[Moxnix]

Money is not an issue for me remodeling my basement make magic cards feel like a drop in a bucket. I don't even buy real cards most time I buy better looking proxies and if I'm missing a card since shipping on those takes forever ill buy real foils and pay expedited shipping just to have a card for a single Friday I may never play it so money is not an issue for me at all. When i go to the LGS and buy a precon for 80$ im super happy to have dr who cards a deck for noobs and a way to support the guy with the shop probably barley making any money so I have a place to play. The focus on commander because that's what people play and spend money on and I'm cool with that I love the cards from walking dead and dr who and LOTR like those are the things that sucked me back in I'm not sure if I even play without them so the marketing certainly worked on me. Ill also note the LGS i was at sold out of all sealed dr who products on the night it dropped. I like more releases and cards and the universe delving.

[PrimevalCommander]

Even if I could afford all the new stuff I wanted, I wouldn't have time to play it. My decks are rotating cards out faster than I can play them. I put option 3. It would help a little, but I would still be annoyed with the volley of products because I don't have time or energy to stay up to date with everything. SLOW DOWN WOTC.

[Lifeless]

My issue is the mental bandwidth required to keep up. I wouldn't suddenly have more brain to work with even if I was significantly more wealthy.

[duducrash]

I made the concious decision of not following sets that I'm not really into. I'm sure there are a bunch of W40K and Doctor Who cards I would appreciate, I'm just not interested. That said, money if a big factor for me right now, I even sold a bunch of stuff this past week

[RxPhantom]

It's so constant that I'm almost numb to it. I barely care about any of it anymore. I haven't played a while, but I'm playing Sunday. I'm hoping my apathy doesn't carry over into the actual game itself. I can't care about every punch being thrown, I only know that I'm getting the %$#% kicked out of me.

[materpillar]

Wizards can't stop themselves from creating power creep with new cards. More releases means more new cards means more power creep.

I miss looking forward to set spoiler season.

[Sinis]

I'm still brewing stuff from Baldur's Gate. Maybe some March of the Machines stuff.

I'm actually just buying a lot less cardboard. I literally cannot play it fast enough, so I only buy cards for current decks. Part of me is that I just no longer care about 50%+ of releases. Caverns of Ixalan? Don't care about dinos, etc. Maybe there will be one or two cool vampires I buy as singles, but probably nothing else. Dr. Who? Indeed, Who is that (I'm familiar, it's just not a property I care about). There's going to be something equally cool or cooler around the bend anyway.

I liked Eldraine as a plane, but for the most part, I'm only focusing on thematic stuff anyway.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I only buy stuff when I need it and for very specific purposes. The product deluge does mean a lot more scryfall searches, but not much change in expenditure. Currently I only play Pauper and Commander. Pauper decks are cheap enough to buy a full 75 without concern and in commander lately I'm usually piloting garbage piles or Phelddagrif. Raffine got me branded as a psuedo-spike by some locals for a bit there so I've been making a concerted effort to play more objectively casual decks.

[Hermes_]

the choice of "It would make no difference, I would still be equally annoyed" makes me think of the old joke "If WotC included money in the packs, players would complain about how it's folded"

[Mookie]

For me, time is a more significant limitation than cost. I have a personal restriction of $2/card... but part of the reason why I do so is to limit the number of cards I need to consider / test. I would certainly prefer for new stuff to be cheaper, but price isn't a direct contributor to my mental math. Less product would be appreciated though - I only have so much mental bandwidth to analyze things. If WotC doubles the amount of stuff they release, then my options are to either cut down on my other hobbies to analyze spoilers... or to cut the amount of analysis in half (which is what I generally do these days). I guess the things I'm currently willing to spend focus on are 'things that go in my EDH decks or cube', and I ignore pretty much everything else.

[Treamayne]

If all of the Universes Beyond were not Black Border (Silver, Gold, White, Purple - anything but Black) then I might not have a problem with it (or at least not as much of a problem, because 3+ different versions of every card every set is still annoying to me - isn't that why they stopped printing commons with different art way back in FE?).

Honestly, it just feels like "Profit > Game Integrity" is the new mindset, and that's what bothers me. . .
(Hasbro or WotC driven doesn't make much difference, the effect is the same)

[Ardeyn]

For me it's kind of the same as for @duducrash.
I consciously don't follow sets and releases I'm not really interested in. This includes most of the UB stuff (except LotR) and the Un-Sets. But sometimes that's just subsets of cards, like, I still don't know what the dice throwing cards from the D&D sets do. This makes the flood of new releases a lot more bearable.
Also, this way I get to discover some new cards the (very) old fashioned way: when someone else plays them against me.
Having more disposable money wouldn't really change this stance, as it wouldn't alleviate the mental load created by this massive input.

Ardeyn

[Vertierer]

I am at a point were I don't even care anymore. Last month I sold my collection for a nice chunk of cold hard cash and just kept my precious pool for some mono black decks with cards that hold sentimental value for me. Everything else will be proxied from now on - Malcolm/Breeches aka "Bootybay" and I want to build a deck for my wife as some folks at her job started playing, too.
I don't care for different IPs outside of D&D, which blends in nicely, and wont even proxie cards from them. I don't care about alternative artworks, foils, different frames. I care for playing the cards I like the most with some good people I enjoy spending my time with.

[DirkGently]

For people who feel limited by time, is that a limitation in terms of the amount of time you have available (i.e. too busy doing other things, or not enough play opportunities) or a limitation in terms of time you desire to play (you have the time to "keep up" with the release schedule theoretically, but you don't want to play that frequently)?

For me, I definitely feel a bit of a deluge for new commanders to try out, but I'm less bothered by new cards for the 99. For example, I don't feel I need to do extensive playtesting to determine whether Cyber Conversion is a good removal spell in Phelddagrif. Very few 99 cards excite me enough that I really want to spend time trying them out. I'll run them if they're appropriate for the deck I'm building but if that never happens that's also fine.

I do feel like I never get around to a lot of commanders that I once would have been excited to build, back in the beforetimes. Agatha of the Vile Cauldron is a cool commander, no shot I'll get around to it though. Like a supermodel on Tinder, the standards to catch my interest have gotten outrageously high. It is a bit disappointing to know that I'm missing out of a lot of potentially-cool commanders that I'll never have time to build, but it also means that my average deck is more likely to be engaging. Is it worse that Agatha exists but I don't have time to play her, or would it be worse if she didn't exist at all? The former kinda feels worse, but I think I'm getting more used to it as the deluge constantly picks up steam.

[Hermes_]

If all of the Universes Beyond were not Black Border (Silver, Gold, White, Purple - anything but Black) then I might not have a problem with it

legal to play

[Treamayne]

If all of the Universes Beyond were not Black Border (Silver, Gold, White, Purple - anything but Black) then I might not have a problem with it

legal to play

Exactly - not being Black border makes them like Un-Sets - only usable by agreement, not by default.

[Hermes_]

If all of the Universes Beyond were not Black Border (Silver, Gold, White, Purple - anything but Black) then I might not have a problem with it

legal to play

Exactly - not being Black border makes them like Un-Sets - only usable by agreement, not by default.

at that point as they might as well not even... oh wait that is your point

[Treamayne]

at that point as they might as well not even... oh wait that is your point :P

Was that not your point?

Your change:

SPOILER

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If all of the Universes Beyond were not Black Border (Silver, Gold, White, Purple - anything but Black) then I might not have a problem with it

If all of the Universes Beyond were not Black Border (Silver, Gold, White, Purple - anything but Black) then I might not have a problem with it

legal to play

Becomes: If all of the Universes Beyond were not legal to play then I might not have a problem with it

[Mookie]

For people who feel limited by time, is that a limitation in terms of the amount of time you have available (i.e. too busy doing other things, or not enough play opportunities) or a limitation in terms of time you desire to play (you have the time to "keep up" with the release schedule theoretically, but you don't want to play that frequently)?

Primarily time available. I play other games and have other hobbies (plus work and sleep), and all of those things compete for my time and attention.

That said, I do like to test my decks before and after updating them, and it has been increasingly difficult to test all of them between set releases. I usually wait to order cards until I have ~100 cards on my wishlist... and while I used to reach that threshold every 6 months or so, it feels like it happens every 3-4 months these days. As a result of that increased frequency, I feel like I don't even get to play with some of the new cards before it's time to cut them for new stuff - I'm fine with cutting cards I know are bad, but I'd prefer to not cut experimental cards I think are bad without at least a little data to justify it.

[Hermes_]

at that point as they might as well not even... oh wait that is your point

Was that not your point?

Your change:

SPOILER

Show

Hide

If all of the Universes Beyond were not Black Border (Silver, Gold, White, Purple - anything but Black) then I might not have a problem with it

If all of the Universes Beyond were not Black Border (Silver, Gold, White, Purple - anything but Black) then I might not have a problem with it

legal to play

Becomes: If all of the Universes Beyond were not legal to play then I might not have a problem with it

I made your sentence short and same point with three words, also white-bordered cards are a thing, i have several of them....

[3drinks]

Money isn't truly an object persay, as much as the value being non-existent. At one point the commander decks used to be a real value, but when the same cards are reprinted next set and next set, suddenly you realize you spent $50-$60 for a box of $25 in single product (see also, Tinker Time) and that causes great pause even if you're not an investor (I'm not). LGS have to make a profit, and I wanna support my LGS, but I can't in good faith throw this kind of money around every month and watch it go to zero. Nor does anyone want to spend this money on a box of 0.50c rares and terrible lands because $50 cash is worth more than $50 in 0.50c cards. I couldn't imagine running a LGS on the razor thin margins they operate on in an era of WotC dumping product on Amazon and leaving LGS owners holding the heavy bags, I don't know how much longer the majority of LGS can remain in business under this much product del-- let's call it what it is, shovelware.

I am happy I'm largely isolated from all these Universes Beyond franchises, at least. I can save brain power by tuning out because I am not familiar or connected to any of it beyond Final Fantasy (and I probably will not buy that either).

[Treamayne]

I made your sentence short and same point with three words

That's what I thought at first, but your "that's your point" comment made me doubt my ability to interpret what I was reading. . .

white-bordered cards are a thing, i have several of them....

Absolutely, as do I (in multiple languages - kinda hard to avoid when you started playing with The Dark). . .
My point with that comment was "If UB were White Bordered and could only be played with other White Bordered" - I would have no problem with that. UB gets access to Pre-M10 staples and everyone else can continue to ignore White Bordered Cards (unless they feel strongly enough about a UB expansion to overcome the hideous border)

[Hermes_]

I made your sentence short and same point with three words

That's what I thought at first, but your "that's your point" comment made me doubt my ability to interpret what I was reading. . .

I tend to do that even with my own writing

[DirkGently]

@3drinks when I say money is no object for the hypothetical, I mean NO object. Like, when a new product comes out, you get a box on your doorstep the next day with a playset of every new card. Consideration of value is irrelevant.