That's a very good point about Omni. And I totally agree on WOTC breaking standard. Normally some of these problems would be resolved with the 2 year rotation too but now we're stuck in this really tough spot that can't be fixed without those Eldraine style bans. They seem very scared to do that though.
I think they will have to hit Monstrous Rage, that feels obvious. But beyond that, I personally think to re-balance the entire format and prevent the next deck running away with it, they need to also hit Cori Steel-Cutter, Stormchaser's Talent, and one of Abuela's Awakening or Omniscience. Up the Beanstalk and This Town Ain't Big Enough don't rise to the same level and feel more like enablers to lots of other decks.
I think Vivi is another insane, over the top, does-to-much card that wins the game on turn 4, but we will need to wait and see with that because nothing in the FF set will get touched.
Phantasm is someone I've been watching lately -- https://www.youtube.com/@phantasmsplayground
Love their budget brews
Can't believe I'm reading this. Hasbro is truly poisoned if this is what they're still doing even after the WoTC division continues to hit insane growth numbers.
The layoff affects roughly 150 of the company's 4,985 global employees (with math accurate to the company's 2024 annual report).
It doesn't say where the 150 are coming from but it seems like a stupid decision.
Yes I completely agree about the fakes issue. No reason IMO not to have a false card back on every proxy. We shouldn't be in the business of duping people, and conversely no one should be forced to pay more than they're able to for a card game piece.
I don't think there was ever going to be a doubt if Final Fantasy, Spiderman, etc would be more popular than regular MtG. I think it's all but guaranteed to increase player count when you have something like a popular outside IP crossed over with a different game.
Steam saw 6,000 additional active users, a 50% increase, and I honestly don't know if that's a signal that the crossover is a big hit, but that number seems really low overall to me. Fortnite is seeing ~6M average actives for reference. Maybe Steam doesn't account for a very high % of the installs, so assuming a 50% increase in players in Arena is a massive jump, but to the original point, if you're a fan of FF why wouldn't you try a FTP game that features cards from the game? How much of it will you try is the real question.
The bigger issue that the game has had to deal with since the 90s is the complexity. I remember in the late 90s hearing store owners say things like "you have to be too smart to play Magic" and even though it's a little silly, there is a high level of state management and knowledge needed to play the game at all. It's quick to get a rundown of the rules, but it's not simple to play the game. These new players are interested enough to check it out, run through the tutorial, maybe do the color challenge, but then what? It has such a high onboard cost that is very different from an RPG for FPS style game. Will they still be interested after FF rotates in 8 weeks?
These are the unanswered questions that they are gambling with at the expense of the enfranchised player base. Maybe the enfranchised players will always continue to play because they just like the game mechanics. Maybe the added players from FF and Marvel sets will outpace the existing players that quit the game. I don't know, but just like with other technical parallels like chess or computer programming, there is a finite number of people who can play the game beyond a surface level.
I think this is unfortunately all we can do :(
Card Sphere and Mana Pool were two other services I found through all of this, but I haven't used either yet.
Some more info here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7zWhqVO5AE
This is pretty insane. Ebay moving the grading to Kentucky to effectively kill off the union that the Syracuse team formed. At this point there is an effective monopoly on trading card sales, it doesn't even seem possible to start a competitor anymore.
I totally agree, I wish they would go back to the original foiling method for new cards
Yea I love it too, for all Arena's issues I think watching Arena gameplay is a lot better than MTGO or even paper for me. I just want them to add the rest of the cards! Come on already!
Haha, I love that. Good lesson there lol
I would definitely play this or find a way to play it