Hasbro Double Downgraded by Bank of America.

[LuisCarlos17f]

And now here it is where I say we should remember other point: the industry of physical card games have got now a serious rival, the videogames based in card games. These don't need a powerful software, and they can be played softly with a laptop.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Pokemon is doing great, Disney is getting around to launching their own ccg, Yu-Gi-Oh is picking steam again. The CCG industry is more than MTG. The CCG indsutry as a whole is doing fine.

There is also Flesh and Blood, I don't play it, but it's increasingly popular and flavourwise is more a kin to MtG then say Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, and Lorcana (Disney).

 

[Mannahnin]

The model for MTG worked for a very very long time. Can they close Pandora's box now? I dont know. If they COULD would that get us back in a few years to normality?

I am kind of wondering how they screwed this up, and if it's the pandemic that finally broke the model for Standard.

Magic was doing quite well, selling briskly and supporting multiple competitive formats going into the pandemic, as I recall. Arena came out prior to the pandemic and finally gave WotC a modern digital offering with enjoyable graphics and animations, which could be played for free but made it really easy and tempting to spend money on digital cards, for Constructed or Limited play. And to my understanding it's made a ton of money. So that should have just added to their margins, unless paper players started abandoning in-person play in favor of Arena.

My personal perspective: After taking a long break from buying new product from the late 90s until about 2013 or so, I got back into playing limited (Draft and Sealed) at local stores, plus some cube draft at a friend's house. Once I got back into draft, to do so I was acquiring new cards of the current set on a regular basis, and when I did well, winning more packs of the current set as prizes, and often Friday Night Magic foil promo cards with cool art.

Since I had all these recent cards, and since I was in the stores regularly and SEEING people playing Standard (as well as other formats), it made sense to build a Standard deck or two. It wasn't a huge additional investment of cash, though some. It gave me a use for the cards I drafted and won. It wasn't an enormous investment of time or effort in learning the cards, because I had to read and learn them anyway for Limited play. I wasn't as interested in Commander or Modern because they necessitated a) retroactively learning a much larger card pool from the 15-ish years I had been away, and b) acquiring more expensive older cards. Any FNM promo cards I had but didn't want also became trade bait. Standard was a logical stepping stone from Limited play into Constructed. And I DID gradually work on acquiring cards for Modern decks, and built a couple of budget ones, again since my friends at the store often played Modern.

There was also a good online support and promotional ecosystem for Standard and Limited (and to a lesser extent formats like Modern and Legacy), with folks streaming Magic the Gathering Online (and later Arena), WotC streaming coverage of Grand Prixs and Pro Tour tournaments, Star City Games streaming coverage of their tournaments, SCG and TCGPlayer paying pros to write tournament coverage, deck and card analysis and strategy articles, etc. YouTube also had a ton of video content if that was more convenient for you than watching live streaming. If you got bit by the bug you had plenty of options for content to feed it. People sometimes decried the continual churn of cards in Standard's rotating format as a cash sink, but the investment needed at any given time wasn't that high for a hobby, and the barrier to entry was definitely lower than older formats where merely acquiring the older rare lands needed for your mana base could be hundreds of dollars for a single deck (or thousands, for Legacy and Vintage).

Eventually my hobby and free time priorities shifted again and I no longer regularly had Friday evenings or Saturday afternoons free to go draft at a local store, so my play and spending dropped way off, though I've kept up the habit of watching streaming play on Twitch a fair amount, and it's definitely something I'd be interested in getting back into at some point if and when my schedule and priorities change.

Do folks think it really come down to the pandemic breaking this on-ramp into Standard (Limited play giving people all these cards)? Or am I just thinking from my own perspective and how I got in? I do also wonder how much WotC dropping support for the Pro Tour and Grand Prix tournament ecosystem, and all the coverage it used to get, factors in.

 

[Art Waring]

Do folks think it really come down to the pandemic breaking this on-ramp into Standard? Limited play giving people all these cards? Or am I just thinking from my own perspective and how I got in? I do also wonder how much WotC dropping support for the Pro Tour and Grand Prix tournament ecosystem, and all the coverage it used to get, factors in.

During covid paper mtg was in crisis mode for wotc because no one was able to play in person in stores. Locally all the LGS' except one closed for good after the first year of covid (and they were all heavily reliant on paper mtg to survive). So yes partly covid but it was also several company decisions after the fact.

Add to that the bottleneck in card production at the time, right before they changed to the current print schedule (massive prints and amazon dumps are standard practice now).

Wotc decided to drop paper tournament support, and earlier FNM, and other support for LGS' while simultaneously ramping up their mtg arena online. They pushed players online to keep profits coming in (because paper mtg's growth was stunted by C-19), and they never changed the model back to support standard in store formats.

Additionally, their straight to amazon dumps, undercutting LGS' have hit the stores hard. LGS' aren't seeing any support from mtg right now, and a lot of them have been burned on overpaying for sealed product when it gets dumped later on amazon at reduced price, sometimes at half the price they paid.

That was all on the LGS side.

On the player side, increased production of sets (now every six weeks i think?) effectively priced a lot of people out of standard, primarily because everyone has to replace their cards every few months rather than around once a year. Mythic chase cards are also designed to be "staple" cards, pushing prices ever higher, right up until they get banned a few months after release (more card bans in last two years than in the entire history of mtg).

Players trying to keep up are forced to spend more than they ever have on mtg, but have learned the hard way that sealed product never gives you a return on investment. You can crack a whole case of booster boxes and might not get the mythics you were looking for, or only get one or two of the card when you need a playset, for a whole case. This pushes more players into the secondary market instead of opening sealed product, where wotc makes nothing at all on secondary card sales.

Their strategy then went on to include more "staples" and particularly commander staples into new standard sets, forcing EDH/ commander players to keep buying new product as well.

---> Not to mention FIRE design, where new cards are now outpacing older ones, staying with older cards will eventually leave you out of the loop. Standard will keep pressing forward, because its primarily played online now, but as a paper format is is effectively dead until they choose to support it again.

EDH/ Commander are the only games I can find locally now at any LGS' (and that's ok), they aren't even doing booster drafts at any of the nearby stores.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

During covid paper mtg was in crisis mode for wotc because no one was able to play in person in stores. Locally all the LGS' except one closed for good after the first year of covid (and they were all heavily reliant on paper mtg to survive). So yes partly covid but it was also several company decisions after the fact.

Add to that the bottleneck in card production at the time, right before they changed to the current print schedule (massive prints and amazon dumps are standard practice now).

Wotc decided to drop paper tournament support, and earlier FNM, and other support for LGS' while simultaneously ramping up their mtg arena online. They pushed players online to keep profits coming in (because paper mtg's growth was stunted by C-19), and they never changed the model back to support standard in store formats.

Additionally, their straight to amazon dumps, undercutting LGS' have hit the stores hard. LGS' aren't seeing any support from mtg right now, and a lot of them have been burned on overpaying for sealed product when it gets dumped later on amazon at reduced price, sometimes at half the price they paid.

That was all on the LGS side.

On the player side, increased production of sets (now every six weeks i think?) effectively priced a lot of people out of standard, primarily because everyone has to replace their cards every few months rather than around once a year. Mythic chase cards are also designed to be "staple" cards, pushing prices ever higher, right up until they get banned a few months after release (more card bans in last two years than in the entire history of mtg).

Players trying to keep up are forced to spend more than they ever have on mtg, but have learned the hard way that sealed product never gives you a return on investment. You can crack a whole case of booster boxes and might not get the mythics you were looking for, or only get one or two of the card when you need a playset, for a whole case. This pushes more players into the secondary market instead of opening sealed product, where wotc makes nothing at all on secondary card sales.

Their strategy then went on to include more "staples" and particularly commander staples into new standard sets, forcing EDH/ commander players to keep buying new product as well.

---> Not to mention FIRE design, where new cards are now outpacing older ones, staying with older cards will eventually leave you out of the loop. Standard will keep pressing forward, because its primarily played online now, but as a paper format is is effectively dead until they choose to support it again.

EDH/ Commander are the only games I can find locally now at any LGS' (and that's ok), they aren't even doing booster drafts at any of the nearby stores.

This year had few bans compared to last year.

 

[Art Waring]

This year had few bans compared to last year.

Did it? my bad. I guess change it to "in recent years" then.

 

[Scribe]

Do folks think it really come down to the pandemic breaking this on-ramp into Standard? Limited play giving people all these cards? Or am I just thinking from my own perspective and how I got in? I do also wonder how much WotC dropping support for the Pro Tour and Grand Prix tournament ecosystem, and all the coverage it used to get, factors in.

@Art Waring covers it well. I know I have burned years talking about this in other forums, but essentially it boils down to Wizards giving up on the competitive integrity of the game.

 

[Art Waring]

@Art Waring covers it well. I know I have burned years talking about this in other forums, but essentially it boils down to Wizards giving up on the competitive integrity of the game.

Thank you @Scribe I'm just speaking from personal experience. Other folks may have their own perspective, but based on what LGS store owners have said to me (in the US & the UK) this is what it looks like on the ground floor anyway for the moment.

This isn't the end of anything though, LGS' have plenty of new options to have in their stores, and tables will always be there to play games on as long as we support them. It just might mean that for the next year or so businesses may have to shift their expectations while mtg gets some time to set itself on a new course, whatever that may be.

Final Fantasy has its own ccg now, Flesh and Blood looks to be doing well for now but its a new game (First set released in 2019). Never looked at Metazoo but its out there if that's your thing. The big three will probably always be there as long as they remain in print due to casual players.

New LCG's, tcg's. and ccg's are still being made, along with new ways to play card games (like half board game and half card game types).

 

[Zardnaar]

Think there were 0 bannings in standard from Urzas bannings through to Jace the Mind Sculptor apart from Affinity.

Recent years idk how many have been banned. When mythics became tournament staples I could see the writing in the wall.

 

[Scribe]

Think there were 0 bannings in standard from Urzas bannings through to Jace the Mind Sculptor apart from Affinity.

Recent years idk how many have been banned. When mythics became tournament staples I could see the writing in the wall.

I'd have to go back and research, but I think most were either new card types (Vehicle had one I think) or were part of the absolutely dumpstering that was F.I.R.E where they pretty blatantly pushed cards, when they knew KNEW KNEW KNEW what they were doing was undermining the competitive integrity and history of the game.

Some of these cards are even still legal, and are STILL warping the game in non-standard formats like Modern.

My personal 'they dont care' moment, was the printing of Companion as a Standard mechanic.