Losing interest?

[WWolfe]

I know we’ve vaguely touched on this in other threads, but does anyone else find themselves kind of losing interest in the game? I really don’t find myself making time to play anymore, I really don’t even find myself excited to brew the way I usually do. I don’t know, maybe it’s a phase with everything else I’ve got going on but I kind of think it’s due to the over saturation of product lately. Anyone else?

[Morganator 2.0]

I feel the same, and I know it's because of the oversaturation of product. I can barely keep up with spoilers, let alone figuring out what cards I want. The quantity of product has increased while the quality has decreased. There's just so many new cards and most of them aren't that interesting. Has anyone bothered to build a Strixhaven double-faced commander?

And that's not including all of the Universes Beyond stuff. I think that's when my burnout began. I really haven't been excited for anything since then. They just make the game seem really gimmicky. Every time I see one of those Walking Dead cards across from me, I'm just reminded of how much my enjoyment for this game has dropped.

Despite this, I'm sticking through. I still have a regular group of friends that I can see on a weekly basis. I like the way my decks play. I like the stats (have I ever mentioned this?). I like fine-tuning a deck until it's just right. And I like Deckstats. It's rare to find an online community where the members actively support each other. I don't want to lose any of that.

[ApothecaryGeist]

I too have been experiencing product fatigue.  Regular sets have fewer reprints.  There are more supplemental sets being put out.  And more supplemental products.  And all have at least some unique cards.  And then there are Secret Lairs.  With unique cards.  At least those cards will be reprinted on The List.  Still remains to be seen if this is an adequate distribution mechanism for mechanically unique cards.


Because of this, I am finding that I have less time to build decks.


I still like playing Commander.  But the format has lost some of its charm.  I really liked when Commander was a format that took cards that weren't very good in Standard, but became bonkers in Commander.  Like Cyclonic Rift.  I feel that all the made-for-Commander cards are homogenizing the format.

[Aetherium Slinky]

I can't keep up with the spoilers and I don't even know what's coming up. And I have plenty of free time.

[GoManaDrainYourSelf]

I made an account to reply to this (but who cares, right? this is the interweb).

There's this format called 'Old School'. People who resent magic play it (ha!).
It exists because players reject 'modern' Magic, and have their own idea of what Magic is. They want to play the game they (perhaps incorrectly) remember.

They don't hate Magic, they hate what it's become (and it's all in their mind I think).

I think you're completely correct in your assessment: Magic is whoring itself to other Intellectual Properties in the (rather well founded) hope it moves a few more booster packs over the virtual-counter (ur LGS, whaddat?).
You watch: Wizerds will stoppit when the tweets blow the another way; they are exceedingly adept at monetising the zeit. I have little doubt it is the role of employed individuals at wiz to chart the change. They'll pick something else to do, something else to exploit fur lootz.

"Nobody cares". That's what is etched over the doors of bros Hasbro in arched text (add copyright and trademark to mentions, as their lawyers prefer).
"Sell more boosters" is written under that in lovely flowing gold-cursive.

Cardboard-crack whore to cardboard-crack whore: just play the cards you love. After more than 25 years of Rosewater fking it up: employing tournament-grinder burnouts to make card sets (hastag-omg turns out it's all about kitchen table: the format that dominates the market), and now it's unimaginative rebakes of baloney that create twitter-guano (actual #omg some fictitious Negan character is a pretend-rapist and a 'good' card #tweet-meltdown). You know what you want. Rosewater doesn't: he's can't see the game without eyes of a grinder. He thinks he's making a game. He's just lived his life in the shadow of someone who had a good idea and got really lucky.

But still buy the power-creeped cards you need. When you stop playing, keep doing this.

When you accept power-creep, you can move on.
The cards you love aren't good anymore, move on, buy the modern crap-remakes and move on.
And at its heart, it is a great game. Your memories with your friends don't come out of boosters, they come from whatever mundane plays they made 2am some Saturday night.
Turns out Rosewater can't break that: as hard as he tries with "comprehensive rules" (his historic retelling of how magic should be: it's really just a framework for tourney grinders. Adults can sort out conflicts themselves, so it goes).

The worst thing that can happen in a game is that you play irrelevant cards. This makes for boring play for others and is boring for you: cards you play not mattering means you don't matter in that game.
When the cards you love are irrelevant, it is easy to hate the modern game.
And when the cards that could change the game from your era are banned, it's like the modern game hates you.

Garfield created something long ago, some so genuinely addictive and fun.
Magic could have been like chess: seemingly immutable (yes, I know chess changed), but the same cards (reprint Unlimited/Arabians/Antiquities/Legends/Dark forever!), and many kinds of fun forever.
But it's not. It's not Monopoly.

The pressure Rosewater and his cronies is under from their upper management, so they remain employed (because they need/want a paycheck too) is why we're subjected to this crap. It's an entirely human problem. It's meant to force creativity: but it doesn't. They take the low-hanging fruit of whatever zeit thinks is cool: it's the easiest way to hashtag up profits for the upper management ppl who have no concern for the customer's passions.
The story of magic is the story of management-bewilderment transmogrified into management-hubris.

Definitely take a break. I think most people do. By '96 the game I loved from '94 was dead. Kitchen table was dead. I left the game until 2014, when kitchen table had a different life in the popularating el-comdante.

Meditate on the elements of the game you love while you break, return to those, when you are ready and when you can find them. Magic won't die.
Most of all, do your bit to grow the best bits of tour playgroup: put pressure on it sometimes, and lead from the front other times (Winter is coming, AL-ICE format anyone?).

Know when you're beat. The thing with FOMO: there's always another better thing to replace the thing that you FOMO-on in two years ago. Power-creep makes that a surety.
Even lotus: they remade that, in a format that didn't need it, after 25 years of it demonstrating it is antithetical to creativity (the source of mtg:fun).

#

[Potato Chop]

I might be an outlier, but I still have immense interest in the game. I love Magic. I live Magic, play Magic, breathe Magic. But even I don't keep up with the spoilers anymore: I just don't have time for it. But you know what? I'm ok with that.

Wizards can keep printing hundreds of new cards in new sets with new supplemental products and cards from IPs that everyone hates and no-one actually cares about, and I'm just going to let it pass me by. I'll do a draft or two of the new sets and love it, but I'm not trying to fully optimize my decks, so there's no motive to buy whatever shiny new $100 3/1 monkey that comes out in Modern Horizons 3. Other people can play them, and I'll enjoy watching them play it, but it's not really for me.

For me, Magic is a casual game. Sitting down around a table with both friends and friends-to-be at an LGS and playing some casual EDH is what I love. So what if I don't have a comprehensive knowledge of all the cards from the new sets? So what if they've printed another 7 secret lairs? So what if there are unique legends from non-Magic IPs? No-one's building them anyway. I have never seen a single person say, "I want to build Eleven, the Mage" or "Check out my new Rick, Steadfast Leader commander deck!". So let them keep printing Secret Lairs, because I'm not buying them.

In summary, the reason that I'm not experiencing product fatigue is that I "eat the meat and leave the bones", so to speak. I love Strixhaven Stadium, but I don't know the names of half the werewolves printed in Midnight Hunt. But despite having absolutely no knowledge of the cards in Crimson Vow, I'm happy.

[WWolfe]

I still love Deckstats. I really enjoy the way the board treats each other and attempts to genuinely help each other. That’s really the only enjoyment I get from the game anymore. Yo be completely honest about where I am with the game right now, I’ve been debating selling the majority of my collection outside of maybe a couple of commander decks. The game just doesn’t bring much enjoyment to me anymore.

[Slyvester12]

I still love Deckstats. I really enjoy the way the board treats each other and attempts to genuinely help each other. That’s really the only enjoyment I get from the game anymore. Yo be completely honest about where I am with the game right now, I’ve been debating selling the majority of my collection outside of maybe a couple of commander decks. The game just doesn’t bring much enjoyment to me anymore.

Same. I still lurk around deckstats, but I'm a little over halfway through selling my collection. Listed everything worth selling on tcgplayer and I've been making steady sales for a few months. Might keep the sub $10 cards because the effort isn't worth the return, but I'm not even sure I would play given the opportunity. I've just started focusing on other hobbies and I like the extra free time. That, and every time I start wanting to play a couple of games, I see spoilers for a new product that kills the enthusiasm.

[Morganator 2.0]

I would suggest not selling your collection if you can avoid it. For one, card prices in general just keep going up in price. It could be something to sell later in life when you need the money. I also know more than a few people who got tired of the game, sold their collection, and then wanted to get back into the game a few years later. If anything, put the cards in boxes and pile them at the back of your closet.

And if you do end up leaving Magic altogether... promise you'll say goodbye? It always sucks when you just suddenly lose contact with someone. Even though we all barely know each other we do have some semblance of friendship here.

[fire5167]

And that's not including all of the Universes Beyond stuff. I think that's when my burnout began. I really haven't been excited for anything since then. They just make the game seem really gimmicky. Every time I see one of those Walking Dead cards across from me, I'm just reminded of how much my enjoyment for this game has dropped.

100%. I usually play online, but if I ever see an opponent playing a Universes Beyond card, I’m not going to join the game. If I wanted to spend an hour and a half of my time thinking about Stranger Things, I would literally just watch Stranger Things. Even sorting through Scryfall, I’ll see a UB card pop up and I just think, “why is this a Magic card? This should not be a Magic card”.

And the reprint rate is just getting worse and worse. So many new cards are added every year that the rate of new cards being added out-paces the rate of reprints. There was a deck I was thinking about getting in paper that used to cost 300 but like a year later now costs 500. And I’m pretty sure that none of the cards in the deck are going to get reprinted in the next 10 years so that is discouraging.

[Slyvester12]

I would suggest not selling your collection if you can avoid it. For one, card prices in general just keep going up in price. It could be something to sell later in life when you need the money. I also know more than a few people who got tired of the game, sold their collection, and then wanted to get back into the game a few years later. If anything, put the cards in boxes and pile them at the back of your closet.

And if you do end up leaving Magic altogether... promise you'll say goodbye? It always sucks when you just suddenly lose contact with someone. Even though we all barely know each other we do have some semblance of friendship here.

I had considered that, but I actually sold the cards and just made normal investments instead of collectibles. I've made a lot more than the appreciation would have gotten me, and I plan to keep investing the profits, too. (For the record, I'm not advocating anyone sell their collections to buy stocks. Don't listen to a stranger on the internet who says it worked for them. I spent literal years studying before I started risking real money.) Unless Gaea's Cradle shoots to Black Lotus territory in the next ten years, I'm pretty happy with my decision. Even then, there's no way of knowing now if that will happen, so I wouldn't blame myself for not seeing the future.

As for the rest, I still check deckstats regularly for now. If that changes, I'll make a post, but I expect to keep lurking for a while yet.

[WWolfe]

I would suggest not selling your collection if you can avoid it. For one, card prices in general just keep going up in price. It could be something to sell later in life when you need the money. I also know more than a few people who got tired of the game, sold their collection, and then wanted to get back into the game a few years later. If anything, put the cards in boxes and pile them at the back of your closet.

And if you do end up leaving Magic altogether... promise you'll say goodbye? It always sucks when you just suddenly lose contact with someone. Even though we all barely know each other we do have some semblance of friendship here.

Yea, I can't decide on selling my cards or not for all the reasons you mention. At the very least I plan on keeping some of my commander decks current (Sidisi, Varina, and probably Skullbriar- who would have guessed all zombies?). And I don't plan on going anywhere as far as the site goes, I just don't care as much about the game as I did even a year ago.

[KingKia]

Hi All,
I totally agree with WWolfe....unfurtonately I'm also losing interest in this game more and more.
But for Innistrad I was absolutely in to it, because I could improve my loved Edgar Markov Deck and finally build a EDH Werwolf tribal deck with Tovolar. So this block was very special for me.

But still there are some point, which make this game more and more uninteresting to me.

First of all the prices...each card which is just a bit better than average is >10€. Magic is as expensive as never before....If I check my old decks every god damn card is so fucking expensive. I Bought necropotence for 3€ 2018 now it is 30€ same is true for many other cards no matter if they are reprinted or not. People are willing to paying way too much money for cards and this is why it gets more and more expensive. This is also true for new products not only single cards. For example war of the sparks was 85€ for a Display at my local store...Innistrad crimson vow is 110€.

Next are these IP cards like walking dead and stranger things...limited artworks are absolutely fine for me but limited cards just for cash grabing reasons is an absolutely no go.

Also the card mechanics are just dumb...they printing just better versions of old cards for the eternal formats and increasing the power more and more.

The reprinting strategy is another annoying fact about mtg. I mean a lot of ppl are waiting for some reprints and then we get a god damn "masters" reprint edition for 250€ for an display....mate we want a reprint to decrease the prices and not to hold them on the same lvl.

Yeah last but not least the price strategy of wizard and the stores...like "you want to buy a pre con commander? which one because each have a different price, because  the prices of the single cards inside it are different on the secondary market, so I have the change the prices as well..." uhhh but you buying them all for the same price or not? "yes I do but mtg isn't lucrative therefore i have to base my prices on the secondary market"....

I still love to play with my friends and build some new decks and trying to play cEDH or something else but the last 2 years Magic getting worser and worser.

I'll still play magic and build new decks and buy some cards if they are fitting into my decks but I'll not be that focused anymore and check the next edition and spoilers and watching the content creators.

[Elan Morin Tedronai]

Hello, lads and ladies. As a Tribal player I expect and want only several cards from Standard-to-Modern sets. Especially only-Modern sets like the Horizons, of which I hope we'll get "3" in the upcoming years. But, lost interest? No, not really. I love it, since I've built around 40 ready decks and 7 ultra pro in a Tarkir toolkit box, that're great in casual play. I still haven't lost interest in the least. It's as strong as ever, but I'm older. I started this Gallery in 2013 and gradually put more and more Tribal decks, but I'm selective with what I get from the sets. In this aspect, Morganator who created a list of All Tribal Cards, did it for me on the side of my deck building, when I decided to make cheap Unreal Illusions while selecting from Gatherer the best Phantasmals. I'll make 5 more Tribal decks in the fall or early next, on one of whom called "Temur Elementals", I already received 2 stars, which is big honor, since it has things like Primal Beyond that are very expensive, yet the ultimate fixer for any Elemental deck. Making casual Tribal decks is the only thing that keeps me in the game, since it's such a pleasure to have lords like Pheres Band Warchief, Lord of the Unreal and the good ol' trampling Sunrise Sovereign. Some others also can be mentioned like Rhox Pikemaster and Captain of the Watch for Soldiers and Kinsbaile Cavalier and Knight Exemplar for Knights. Vampires like some people said had resurgence in recent sets, but I wouldn't put more than Stromkirk Captain, Vampire Socialite, Rakish Heir, Cordial Vampire and Indulgent Aristocrat in the Lord-sphere and only the Socialite and the Falkenrath Pit Fighter actually made the list, and I didn't lose interest in my Falkenrath Innistrad Vampires. Kidding. Oh, and Anje, Maid of Dishonor. That's why I've never lost interest, but I'm very selective from what I get, while trying to make new Tribal decks and while expecting several cards from current sets and still not losing it. Maybe I could've made Murmuring Treefolks, Oona Faeries, Wanderwine Merfolks, passable Ninjas and Temur Elementals, back 6 or 7 years ago, when I had better financial times and still I had interest. Even then I had several projects to make (they haven't still released Kaladesh and Amonkhet) and I made decks for my girlfriend, I just couldn't afford it. Although I had and still do have interest in making them, but it's not concerned with current set publishing, than with Tribal deck building.
Regards:
Chavo

[Mynus]

Not to simply repeat much of what is already being said, but...

When I first started playing, a new set was exciting, but now they happen FAR too often. I can't even begin to name all the sets released in the past year. I maybe see one or two spoilers for each set before the next round of spoilers begin. I imagine I have missed some really cool cards because there is just too much to take in, and more specifically, I imagine I have missed some potential new commanders to build. This has also led me to plan, theorize, and build new decks less because I pay less attention to the new cards coming out.

This does lower my interest in the new releases of magic going forward; however, this is different from my interest in Magic overall. I am strictly a commander player, and I still look forward to playing with my group whenever I can. We used to play more often, but within the past year that has changed, and I very much miss playing on a weekly basis.

Curious...How many sets per year do you think would be a good number? I like the idea of one set per quarter, with maybe 1 special release throughout the year, capping at 6 sets max per year.  On this note, Commander deck pre-cons need to chill as well. Each yearly set was a cool thing to look forward to, now it's just another thing being released most of the time.