Nice article! You’ve stated a lot of things I’ve been reading about the past few years in the MTG world. In my opinion, WOTC has sort of failed to capture the collector optimism like Pokemon and other TCGs have with the newer cards. It’s sad to see because I think there are some really amazing MTG cards from time to time in terms of artwork and things but people just don’t care it seems. The release cycle is also very confusing at times and things like the Secret Lairs and stuff I really feel very few care about like they probably should. To me those cards should be as exciting as things like Pokemon promos and other limited releases but I feel like no one really cares at all. Too much product being released, too much flash, no real substance to it.
Overall, it’s been frustrating to see how WOTC has managed things over time. Some of the decision making has been questionable to say the least. I agree with @Dyl in that if you ignore a lot of the bad vibes from Hasbro/WOTC you can still enjoy MTG just fine, but the sentiment has been increasingly going stale in so many ways. I also started MTG around 7th Edition in the early 2000s and have a lot of great memories building decks and playing the game with a small group on and off for a few years. I don’t really play now and just collect old MTG cards mainly, but its clear to me the modern products and cards are unlikely to gain a long-term collector following like in Pokemon or the vintage market.
So anyway, I think the big problem is that WOTC has to really rely on players to keep MTG going at this point and they’ve mostly failed at having casual collectors grab on to a lot of the stuff they release where things like Pokemon has absolutely done amazing at in comparison. They just don’t have many avenues to fall back on. Collectors just aren’t stepping up for the new cards at all compared to the vintage market (with exceptions like the recent LOTR stuff or similar). The good news is I think the vintage market will be safe long-term. People are collecting the old cards not just because of how powerful they are in the game, but also because of the very unique artwork and “feel” to them that people clearly enjoy a lot. Many people who didn’t even play MTG necessarily find enjoyment in a lot of the old cards, so I think the market will survive regardless of what WOTC does in the future.
To conclude, I hope the best for MTG and I still find enjoyment in my MTG cards. But I really feel WOTC needs to go back to the drawing board on a lot of things. They need just go back to the basics I feel. The approach they are doing might be working well for some things, but I don’t know how sustainable it really is. I find a lot of it hard to get excited about, especially when you see some of the crazy decisions at times. I hate to mention the 30th Anniversary, but that’s a prime example of what I’m talking about. It was just an absolute gut punch when it didn’t have to be. There’s just so much they could do better and it has so much potential to turn the ship around if they’d just really sit back and think about what made MTG so successful in the past.
Pokemon was never a card game first whereas that’s only what Magic is.
It’s an uphill climb for pretty much everything that isn’t based on another brand or franchise to become collectable because the game itself has to shoulder all of the responsibility for pushing the franchise forward.
Obviously being based on a franchise itself isn’t a guarantee of success - there’s a whole graveyard of failed TCGs - but Pokemon is also again a unicorn in the sense that the franchise itself is centred around collecting. It has the highest chance of making it into a mature collectible because of the generational appeal.
That is totally true, but can probably only be said for the existing players.
I think I have not mentioned it, but I am owner of tcdecks.net. I’m daily in contact with the hobby.
This is one of the first Magic The Gathering webs for decks that existed. Nowadays is a bit outdated compared to competitors, but is mainly focused on the formats that are played by the community and not so much on the official ones from WoTC.
Passion for the game is real. I play Premodern with many others. Community in Spain is strong, as in many other places in the world. I see myself, as probably my colleagues, playing Premodern or any other community format forever…
But the thing here is that probably this love for the game will not transcend into newer generations. The game will die slowly over the next 2-3 decades. Even if I teach my son and all other players do… they will probably have too few people to play with for it to make an impact in new generations really playing and loving the game.
If children don’t find the game sufficiently attractive to play by themselves at playgrounds, it will probably not transcend. And, nowadays, there is just too many games and hobbies that compete trying to win their attention.
Yes, they aren’t really apples to apples across the board. I really feel MTG could reach a wider audience like Pokemon has without relying on just the TCG side. I mean it has a ton of good lore to work with. There’s really no reason they couldn’t make interesting TV shows or video games or other forms of media at this point.
So that’s what I mean, lots of potential where they could make up a lot of ground with MTG if they wanted to do more with it besides just the TCG. Even Yu-Gi-Oh has done this just fine, most people enjoy the anime and characters and also enjoy the TCG (including myself). In fact, watching the early Yu-Gi-Oh anime is what made buy a starter deck when I was a kid! I loved it. MTG could easily do something similar to create a childhood experience that kids will look back on as adults which is part of what made old MTG, Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards valuable was the experience of it all as a childhood toy.
So anyway, I think they could fix a lot of issues if they wanted to. There’s no clear cut solution at this point. But just as an outsider looking in, I can see lots of areas where they could easily fix a lot of the problems and improve the attitude and perception towards it again, both in the short-term and long-term.
The thing is that, for example, the Standard format has practically disappeared from physical game play. Now it is only played at Magic Arena (the app game). That has been a huge negative impact for their revenue, as Standard players where the ones that HAD to buy all new sets that where released.
Since then, is when they have been trying to release sets that try to attract a collector’s niche… but will probably not be enough as Magic has never been a collector’s TCG.
Yes, but physical Standard tournaments are not played any more at stores. So only professional players must play standard one o twice a year in the big tournaments, but casual magic players don’t play physical standard any more.
In Modern and Legacy, that is what people most play, only a very few cards of every new set are played. So purchases of boosters are not really a thing in Magic, because no one is collecting and what you need (that is 4 copies of maybe 2-3 cards), you simply buy.
Now, there are some standard players at LGS, but yes, for all intents and purposes, no one really plays standard at LGS anymore.
To add, in case someone doesn’t realize, if people only buy the new set for a few useful cards, and are not opening booster packs to get a large number of the new cards, then it doesn’t make sense for the company to make booster packs. BUT at the same time, they cannot release card singles to match demand, because it would de stabilize the primary market. We worry about secondary market prices a lot, here, BUT imagine if the primary market prices behaved like the secondary prices!
I agree that consistency definitely pays off in the long run, however I also believe interacting and making connections within the community is also a key element of collecting.
The biggest reason I say this is due to the information or deals that you could only get by knowing someone or knowing where to look for the information. I guarantee that without E4, I would not have had as many fantastic memories or opportunities when collecting.
Oh that’s really interesting. Is there a particular reason people no longer play standard in person? Has MTG arena just replaced it or do people just no longer like the format?
I’m also not super familiar with the tournament circuit for MTG but I assume there’s regional level events like pokemon where people would need to play standard at least somewhat regularly?
Pokémon TCG, as Magic, where card games made to play.
At the beginning, few people were collecting. I remember, as a child, playing hard in my school’s playground without sleeves… I bought cards to have as many decks as possible and all my friends did the same.
We were all in love with the medal system and the shop tournaments!
And it is thanks to this, that Pokémon TCG has an organic collectability. Without it, old cards will probably have no such value.
Now it is mostly a collectible TCG, with many fewer players than collectors. But that has been a natural evolution.
I’m preparing a complete article about organic collectability. I hope to have it finished in less than 2 weeks.
On the other hand, I agree with the fact that Pokémon TCG is not just a TCG game… There’s a whole franchise behind it that has been pushing and that has given Pokémon TCG an incredible advantage over the rest.
Tsunekazu Ishihara, the CEO was a huge magic fan and it is stated through various interviews that this was his vision for the franchise from the very beginning. The only reason why there is not much talk about linking Magic and Pokemon is that, Pokemon was the first Japanese TCG to be developed, and it was a matter of pride to state that it was developed without inspiration or influence from other TCG’s. But even hardcore players and collectors could not deny the amount of similarities Pokemon TCG has to Magic.
So it is not completely true that Pokemon was never meant to be a card game as Magic was.
Given the nature of Magic and the overall approach that most people take towards it, I would’ve probably done the exact same as you if I owned those cards. There’s definitely pride in owning a Black Lotus, but seeing as how it’s banned in most every format, there isn’t really much point to owning it if you aren’t focusing on Magic collecting. I probably would’ve kept the Duals and other playables for EDH/cEDH, but that’s just me. Props for prioritizing and doing what makes you happy! It can be hard to break diamond hands!
