I'm an active M:TG player.. I'm going to the LGS tonight to play Pioneer.
There's a few misconceptions going on here.
Lorwyns fairly popular MtG set.
Lorwyn has sort of gotten the same treatment as 4E D&D. It was largely panned at the time. For one thing, it came out late 2007, right at the dawn of a recession, and it also introduced the new card type "Planeswalkers" which, at the time was the big bugaboo that was going to "Kill Magic". It did not sell well.
However, fans have really turned on it. Between the charming theme, the wonderful art, and the simple mechanics like "Creature Types Matter" that tend to stand the test of time, it's a set a lot of folks now look back on fondly. Including people like myself, who didn't actually play then.
That puts it near Ravnica in terms of popularity.
I remember Lorwyn-Eveningtide-Shadowmoore block. That was almost 20 years ago.
So probably 2nd most popular set if not top 5 not 100% sure.
It depends on how you measure popularity. By sales, it's nowhere close.
Shrugs. Haven't looked at magic since 2010.
I ask occasionally at flgs about it. Theyre not fans of Spiderman for some reason.
Spiderman was a bad set. A couple of years ago, WOTC tried making "Mini-Sets" with just 50 cards, sold in 7 card booster packs. The first one they tried was "March of the Machines: Aftermath" and it was hated. Loathed, really. About a year following they tried mini-boosters again with an Assassin's Creed tie-in set, and it also didn't set the world on fire.
Like Parmandur mentions below, Magic sets start development roughly 2 years before they launch. Spiderman was also originally going to be one of these mini-sets, but it was far enough out that they were able to see the reception and try to change course. It was still a smaller than normal set, and felt really disjointed because of the change. A lot of the cards are just bad. It doesn't fully support 10 draft archetypes (Most magic sets are designed to be drafted with 10 themes, based around the 10 two color pairings.). They also tried to push a new, faster, simpler, pick-two draft format to go with it.
It was just like a perfect storm to be hated.
-It's a Universes Beyond set, so there's already a big swath of people who skip it just because it's a non-magic IP. (Most of the guys I play pioneer with skip these sets, and just buy the single cards for decks they play if needed. We all got together during the Spiderman Pre-Release and drafted someone's cube instead.)
-It was a poorly made set, so the people who don't care about the theme/setting and just draft didn't want to play it.
-It doesn't really have any banger, stand-out cards, so constructed players are skipping on it.
-It didn't have commander decks, so while it introduced a lot of potential new Legendary creatures to build commander decks around, it didn't have the introductory, road-map product to help capture people who are interested in Spiderman, but maybe new to magic.
My LGS is flush with spiderman packs they can't move.
One of my D&D players is quite well connected in MtG circles, they are my main source of gos.
Yeah, MtG is flagging, and WotC are thrashing about trying to figure out how to reinvigorate it. Like D&D, their print costs are rising rapidly, but they don’t have enough popularity to significantly increase the sale price.
MTG is actually the most profitable part of HASBRO. They are thrashing trying to figure out how to reinvigorate
portions of it.. Namely the Standard Format, which used to be the primary way to play the game.
They don't seem to have issues raising prices. Packs have only gone up in the last couple of years. Standard boosters have gone from $4-5 up to $5-6, and all of the Universe Beyond sets have a premium, and tend to be more like $7-8. If it's popular it's even more. I saw Final Fantasy packs running for $15 at some stores when it first came out and no-one had stock.
One of the issues is their core age for players (excluding proto-grogs like my friend) is early teens. And one of the things about that age group (teacher experience) is their culture changes very quickly. What was cool 5 years ago is embarrassing now.
The MCU is another dad-franchise. Not even the amazing Spiderman can save the day.
In my experience, the "Young" MTG players I interact with tend to be in their early 20's. Don't see many kids and teens at FNM.
I would send for the K-Pop Demon Hunters.
They've been teasing a K-Pop crossover for a few months now, and I think I recently saw an article about HASBRO securing some merchandising rights for Demon Hunters.
It would probably end up being a Secret Lair Drop of a few cards, rather than a whole set though.
I believe that its been said that the Vorthos community is at most 25% of the MtG community, hence why all the MtG Universes Beyond sets seemed to sell more then the regular sets usually.
Yeah, there are players who enjoy the story, but they are a small group. They've quit selling books, and instead post short-stories on their website for each set.
UB also has the bonus of reaching non-Magic players. I've met quite a few new people who have gotten into the game because they love Final Fantasy, and I'd imagine there's going to be another wave with Avatar, which just came out last week.
You know what, I was curious about this, and was fairly surprised as a casual not-plugged in very occasional Magic player...but Magic is actually not a tern oriented game like D&D. With D&D, the average players are Teens, from middle school to college, and then it tapers off. But for Magic, the average is around 30, and the percent of players who are long term versus new isactually fairly balanced, with less falloff. B
I guess it is easier for a 2o or 30 something to be casual about an occasional card night with their friends, or an occasional round with family, as a game lasts 10 minutes.
I think you're spot on for the demo, but you're a little off on the game itself. The most popular way to play magic now, is Commander, or EDH. It's a 4-player format, that's more casual, and games tend to last 45-90 minutes. My LGS does two Commander nights each week, each pulling 40+ players, whereas we get 8-12 for Pioneer and 4-8 for Modern on Fridays and 6-12 for Pauper on Saturdays.
