I first found interest in Magic when I saw a group of kids at school play. As somebody that grew up with classic Yu-Gi-Oh, overhearing the more complex gameplay made me want to give it a closer look. While out of town I buy a bunch of bulk and Core 2012 to get into the game, not getting any mythics or even really foils. I was enamored by the artwork, and I still am. However, when I got back to my hometown, our only card shop wasn't the nicest to people just starting out, and with no friends wanting to join me, I lost interest and didn't come back for a long time.

Fast forward to last year, I'm suddenly into Pokémon cards. I got my brother a Celebrations box for Christmas, got myself one to try, and the first pack was the base set Charizard reprint. 40 packs later, I have the whole set.
So many cards with incredible artwork that make the characters stand out.
That's the problem though, the vast majority of people buy Pokémon cards on brand recognition that exists from another medium. They aren't playing the card game. You see a Charizard fighting a Venusaur taking up a full trading card as an alternative art and think "That's worth some money!" I read the 7+ game rules and thought "I'm an adult now. I should just be buying Magic cards for something to play instead."

I heard about the low reception for the two Innistrad sets and skipped out on them, waiting for the next set, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. I was drawn to the artwork in that set like it had magnetic foil. In Canada, draft for Kamigawa was $7, set was $8, and collectors was $45.

Every card in draft/set has a randomly inserted "premium" version and a foil version. From my understanding, you get the premium foil version of each card in a collector booster, at legitimately five times the price. These "premium, borderless, foil" commons and uncommons are still just that. It's just better looking bulk, except now they take up the foil slot in your draft or set booster. It's not as if foiling has a severe mpact on printing costs, it's not like borderless cards require $1 per card extra worth of factory ink, why not just make these things more common?

Then Baldur's Gate released, I picked up a dozen of Forgotten Realms at Walmart on clearance and really dug the art and D&D related gimmicks (as a non-player, still) despite not being attached to the D&D property. Why did they call this new one Commander Legends II? Seems to have little connection to either. With this, they announce this set will have textured foils at a 10% price increase on top of an additonal "name tax" for being called Commander Legends. I was kind of shocked to hear they haven't done textured foil a decade ago given Pokémon's use of them since the 90s. Draft was $12. Set was $16. Collectors was $65. Skipped that one.

Then Double Masters 2022 comes out. It's a reprint set, so I thought it would be like the annual Yu-Gi-Oh super pack tins, Pokemon Celebrations, etc. a fun little set that reprints some fan favorites. At $22 a draft booster, $65 a draft pack, $320 a draft box, and $500 a collector box (for 4 packs), it certainly wasn't that. With Pokémon its a little more chill when they have these special sets because they make you get some goofy crappy merchandise with the packs if you're down bad for a crack. I barely tolerate that behavior from a company, but you can't convince me $65 for 3 packs of cards is better or ever a good thing, much less $500 for 4 packs. Paying $8 a card, you hold out on the off chance there's a $100-200 card. After 10 draft boosters, my sole hits above $5 were Sensei's Divining Top, Seasoned Pyromancer, and Monastery Mentor. Great cards, but none foiled or borderless, nor did I even see more than three borderless uncommons. I was pumped to get those three almost back to back but seriously not the best use of that money. It makes me far more excited for YuGiOh's anniversary celebrations this year, as their Summer 2023 lineup includes regular priced reprints of the first five sets, which is amazing.

At this point, the people I see online that love the game say don't open packs, get the cards you want. The people who know the game but are more interested in the investment side are all in on simply not opening the past 3-5 years worth of this game in general for at least half a decade. I keep hearing that these aren't bad products overall, which I agree with pretty heavily, and many of these cards have the potential to be worth something in the future, but only if Wizards slows their roll. Which it doesn't look like they're doing. I stopped buying the packs after Dominaria United which was a solid set in my outsider perspective.

Secret Lairs are disgusting to me, but could have been done better with tie-in cards being alternates or chasers in a fitting set instead of 5 cards for $40 USD on a drop site. When it comes to Universes Beyond, giving Doctor Who an entire set isn't the absolute worst idea in comparison to Secret Lairs, but needing to buy a commander deck for each Warhammer card is the absolute worst idea. If you had a problem with brand integration based on desecration of something you love, duck out soon before we see a Rick and Morty set stamp or something equally ridiculous actually happens, because it might. We already got Fortnite cards this year.

Sure, Magic is one of Hasbro's biggest money makers, but its very far from their strongest brand. I had 1 or 2 IDW Magic comics when I was younger, so where are the TV series, movies, anything external fleshing out this universe now? How hard is it to popularize a planeswalker? Pandemic boom is over, we're in a recession. Is there anything they're doing to bring new people in, or is all of the "good product" ($50-$250 booster packs in short supply) just for finance people speculating on physical assets to an intellectual property that is not nearly as inherently recognizable or widespread as its competitors? I'd say the YouTube community and Post Malone have done a lot to bring in new players, but Wizard's doesn't seem to do all that much community building unless it's a sponsored ad in the news feed. So that means they're just going after the same audience, which at this point is players who have had the heat turned up on their wallet in a creeping fashion, and speculative investors seeing gold at a flood of products nobody wants or can buy.

For me, it's not the $999 30th Anniversary booster packs that has done the most damage, it is market saturation and overvaluation. It's one thing to know what something is going to be worth in the aftermarket, so you would normally price and supply accordingly to match demand take the most money, but it is wholly malicious to price in hundreds of dollars of perceived aftermarket value into an MSRP of a product line that ships billions of units on 3 separate occasions this year on entire sets (CLII, DM22, 30th) while doing the same with collector boosters and Secret Lairs for years.

Do you think that they're wringing out a shrinking playerbase, or do you feel this sort of release cycle is sustainable for such a large game? The fact they've already done this much without much fight, petitions or response with high end products still flying off shelves is striking to me and suggests either the fans aren't buying the majority of product, or Wizards has ignored the fans to go fully anti-consumer, which it certainly seems like given their revisions to Dungeons and Dragon's OGL.

I've heard concerns about power creep, but honestly after a single online game of YuGiOh I feel like Magic players don't have nearly as much to be concerned about in that regard, comparatively.

Did I make a mistake by getting into the game in 2022? Did the last year hurt your interest in continuing the game going forward? Do you think they can recover from the ills of the past year, or do you think the releases were no big deal?