"let's sell a set of five of them with alternate art for $500" This got scarily close.

What is ruining Magic is that there is still no spiritual successor to the Shandalar pc game

One thing that gives me an increasingly bad taste lately, is the increasing amount of standard legal cards that you can't open in standard BOOSTER PACKS.

I'd love it if they replaced that Arena ad card in boosters with a wildcard code. Reason for paper guys to try Arena and for Arena players to buy boosters.

We all know the moon glows because it's foil.

I agree that the only super expensive cards should be "bling" versions of cards that are otherwise affordable. You know who else agrees with you? Richard Garfield, PhD.

Magic became so expensive that the professor and pleasant kenibi cant buy shoes xd

I love every time you have PK on. So many mtg podcasts have a cast where they do nothing but agree on everything. "That good, that bad..." You two disagree on a lot, and it leads to an actual interesting discussion and listen. These podcasts are always more interesting when not everyone agrees with what you believe prof. This one was a great listen, much better than "magic bad, magic good."

Kenobi: There must be snow on Innistrad Me (singing): This is Innistrad. This is Innistrad. Stichers rise in the dead of night.

Kenobi: Wrenn and six is an overpowered planeswalker. Power creep is ruining magic. Wizards: Wrenn overpowered?. Hold my beer..

This poor innocent pre-oko professor, lamenting the low power of recently printed cards

The watered down fetchlands that the Professor is hypothesizing are gonna be something like this: T, Sacrifice,: Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a *swamp* or *mountain* card. Put that card onto the battlefield and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.

This is one of the most insightful debates about make-up tutorials I have ever watched.

49:18 Some dude at WOTC heard that and was like: "Yeah, and we'll call it 'Secret Lair: Ultimate Edition'."

"Power Down" should obviously be called "Power Leak"

Power creep is like inflation: A little is necessary for the betterment of the economy/game state. Too much makes everything feel unimportant and is terrible for the economy/game state.

As someone who enjoys teaching the game as well as playing it, it's come to my attention that the competitive metagame, and the establishment ( and restriction ) to certain roles and playstyles is working counterproductively towards what I feel are the main selling points, or enjoyable factors, of this game. To me as well as many others I'm sure, one of the most beautiful things about magic the gathering and what makes it so fun to play is the sheer amount of diversity you have to be able to build a deck the way you like to fit your own strategy and personality for what you want to do. That no matter who you are or what you'd like to do there's bound to be a card somewhere that fits the bill. There's thousands upon thousands of magic cards in existence and they keep making more every year. You can create just about anything you want to basically and that's something I feel we should emphasize with new players in particular. Another thing about magic, I want to say, is the incredible community of friendliness. That even in a rivalry game with potential for politics and treachery, and even with people duking it out to try and win (because who doesn't like winning?) that the community is very open and welcoming and supportive, and you can make good friends playing people. I feel these are two big selling points. And competitive magic... Seems to do both these things wrong. Play to win as you might be oriented, the fact remains that magic is supposed to be a game. A "game" that everyone can enjoy playing. A friendly reminder for competitive folks that most people's lives are not going to revolve around this game, likely have other jobs and things and see magic as a fun pasttime and way to unwind... I know that there are always going to be some unsportsmanlike "sore losers" in the crowd of any game, which there's nothing to do about, and I'm not talking about general trash-talking, as mind games with an opponent can be okay. But I have observed especially toxic attitudes and truly degenerate playstyles when approaching the competitive magic community. Along with a sharp lack of diversity in deck types. If something doesn't conform to a certain list of acceptable "deck types" or doesn't run certain contingencies within the decklist just to deal with threats found in the metagame, you either are labelled a "bad player" or your deck is labelled as a "bad deck." It doesn't help that a lot of the most optimized decks are incredibly pricy to construct, especially in eternal formats. When you don't conform, the amount of insults and general abuse you receive as a player is quite staggering, and the degenerate playstyles used tend to leave no room for truly interactive and fun gameplay. It's exactly the wrong message to be sending if the objective is to make a game everyone will want to enjoy playing. I know I'm probably going to draw a lot of flak for this, because I know a lot of people appear to disagree with this sentiment, but let me tell you right now -- Control, in particular, just isn't casual. No matter how you spin it. And control decks are unhealthy towards creating diverse, enjoyable environments for everyone, by using a playstyle that either forces opponents to try and play around them by specifically building in contingencies to halt control, which kills diversity, or just be locked out from playing magic and lose because there's nothing you can do, watching the other person play solitaire. I've heard several different arguments that favor control as a deck archetype, and unarguably it is one of the top deck types one can construct. But that's part of the point. There is nothing fun or casual about it if you're on the receiving end of the stick. Control only appears to be fun to the player using the control deck, or periodically when it is considered relevant as an occasional check in games with 3 or more people. And there are those who say that "without control, magic becomes just a race to see who gets to the biggest baddest creature first and wins, which is also not diverse and is just boring." A mindset like that is one that is clearly restricted to thinking only about time-tested, competitive deck types. There's no question that big bad creatures CAN win games, but is that all it's limited to? Absolutely not! Magic is a huge game with thousands of cards, and there is loads of creative potential if you just put your mind to it. It's one of my central points and selling features of this game. But when you play versus control, there's only so much you can diversify your playstyle. Yes, there are things you can do specifically to combat control, like hexproof creatures and uncounterable cards, or playing bunches of cheap things not worth removing that add up to player destruction. And there are other competitive playstyles that deal with control. ..."Competitive" playstyles. That's the problem. Whenever you add in an answer for a control deck, that takes a deck slot away from something else creative you could have put in to make your deck unique. If you don't do it though, you just wind up losing to control every time, while the control player proceeds to berate you for building your deck badly when you complain you can't pull off the creative strategy you wanted to try using. "If you don't have a response for control, you just suck" is a mentality I see an awful lot. And in a purely competitive environment, okay, maybe they would have a point -- not having a contingency plan for control would mean a suboptimal deck. If the competitive community were wholly distinct and separate from the ordinary community this wouldn't be an issue. But there isn't any real separation. Every argument for control being fun and interactive that I see winds up based on the assumption that everyone will be doing something truly degenerate, and that it's good to have checks and balances. But this only makes sense to do in competitive environments! Casual fun decks with creativity and personality are stomped out by control every time unless they specifically build around dealing with control in places, and the moment they do that, they stop being so unique. It's a lose-lose situation: Control decks force their opponents to either conform or die while they laugh in your face about what a terrible deckbuilder you are. In a casual setting where decks are supposed to be fun and aren't necessarily going by what's optimal. Control is just inherently competitive. And that is why I very firmly believe that control decks have absolutely no place in casual magic. Every time it shows up in casual magic, someone's getting pissed off because they can't play with the cards they want to play with. I have tried control myself as well and have tested things over many games at a variety of power-levels, from jank to tier 1. What I have personally found is that even when I deliberately try to make control more janky, it still winds up being on a much higher power level compared to the rest of the jank. And I don't feel very good or accomplished when I successfully beat people with control. People say that it's supposed to be a "thinking" or "smart" way to play, but more often than not I find myself thinking "This is way too freaking easy. I just 'Nope' on anything that looks even remotely threatening" and then win because my opponent couldn't play their deck. Having been on both sides of the coin it is increasingly clear to me that as magic caters more to longtime fans than it does to inviting new people to enjoy the game, that control decks, and the inherently competitive folks that play them, in particular are a serious problem in the magic community to bringing in more people. Most people aren't going to want to get active in the competitive scene, and the presence of control in casual magic angers or bores the new people. It even bores me when I use it. It takes the fun out of magic, which I reiterate is JUST A GAME. What are games supposed to be? Fun. Otherwise, why play. In conclusion, what needs to happen I think is a clear and distinct separation between the casual and competitive communities -- while placing control decks firmly in the competitive bracket. If we did this, and cut back on some toxic attitudes otherwise, I honestly think that would drastically improve both the size of the player base and the overall morale.

So this was recorded looooong ago lol

*Arena's mismanagement* . I really enjoy Arena, but like the Prof said in his end of the year video, it's handling is really the worst thing to happen to Magic lately. *WotC's short-sighted emphasis on non-consumer-friendly monetization is such a waste of an incredibly successful product.* All the while actually needed improvements and features that will make the game thrive and live long and prosper are criminally neglected... Almost 2 years to get a barely functional friends list! Maybe by 2021 we'll actually be able to chat with our friends...

This is my favorite makeup tutorial channel here on KZfaq!

51:00 Pleasant Kenobi predicts Secret Lair: Eldrain Wonderland

"My full art snow lands can only get so erect." - underpaid community college professor, 2020

Power-creep is so, so, so, so, so, so much worse than power-down. Come on prof... One thing has the potential to make the game a little stale, that other has the potential to ruin archetypes, push players out of formats, rotate non-rotating formats and quite literally destroy the game long-term

I had chores to do today and this is PERFECT to listen to while I do them! Great timing on uploading this!

Magic is just too confusing in general now. That’s why I’m out. I used to keep up with every set release, including reading or listening to limited and standard set reviews. Used to keep up with GP coverage and the Pro-Tour. I can’t for the life of me figure out what comes out when, or when there are big events. It’s just too much work to be a hobby.

Calling it "Magic the Gathering" implies that you are gathering around a table in person, with friends. To me, Magic Arena does not imply that I am "spending time" with my friends and making new acquaintances or life-long friends.

I love this guy. I recently started getting back into mtg and noticed this trend that cards keep getting outdone by its predecessors and that makes it harder for the average player to stay up to date with the competition. Also, Shivan Dragon was one of my favorite cards.

I’d rather not play with shiny cards. They’re constantly curled and my deck roles off the table.

Oko was the Tireless Tracker for food, silly Kenobi.

It's so weird to me that having a code to claim a digital version of a product in the same physical product is something wizards hasn't leaned into when it's been the standard for games like Pokemon for so long

wow I've been listening to all the old episodes at work today, hoping the new DTR would come out soon! perfect timing :)

This is honestly my favourite series on youtube. Goodness, Brian, you and Vince have been brightening each of my days lately

FYI, at Theros pre-release last week I did receive a special redemption code for a booster pack. Our LGS stated that they wanted us to do the redemption as the code was linked to their specific store and WotC was wanting to track linkage between the LGS and Arena.

Question: how many episodes did they film together? There've been, like, 5 episodes pre-Professor Haircut. Did they just spend 2 days recording episodes?

Prof, what you said about the Gatewatch - YES!!! Jeez, I'm even relatively new to Magic and am so fatigued of them. Throne of Eldraine was so incredibly refreshing without the same old thing. It makes the multiverse seem so small and uninteresting when the same old characters show up over and over and over again.

Mirrodin block had my favourite flavour of any set to ever come out. It felt so great to progress through the story and plane via the cards that we got. And the set symbols! Such a great block.

8:00 I just watched an episode of Game Knights where Torrential Gearhulk played a pretty substantial role!

The snow land cycle was a good call Vince

I worked for Wizards early when Hasbro purchased WotC. I can not honestly bring myself to believe that Hasbro as a GAME and TOY company, would ever abandon MTG as a "Card game" in addition to its additional "platforms."

"make up tutorial! Uh, video games, wait no kids toys" was hilarious. Great job on this episode!

Great podcast gentlemen. I play exclusively with paper magic because I don't like how people can randomly Nerf cards (as they have done in Hearthstone). If Hasbro decided to drop paper magic they would lose all of my business which I know wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket for them.

I love how Vince casually predicted the Eldraine Snow Land Secret Lair product.

What is ruining Magic: The gathering today? Hey guys, it's me Vince also known as PleasantKenobi on the internet

Prof your comment about the arena-to-LGS for a promo pack-esque item is spot on.

Magic has the unique ability to protect itself from its customers from jumping ship and playing a completely different game such as Hearthstone. It comes with built in diversity of game modes, especially with Historic on Arena and now Pioneer in Magic Online and paper. The fact that WoTC chooses explicitly to make decisions on Arena to go against that philosophy. Making Brawl inaccessible and costly, or making Historic more “expensive” to craft cards for is driving people away, and those are the two most aggravating purposeful changes that the client has introduced, and the fact that they either don’t understand or don’t care is what troubles me the most. Fixing the this fundamental philosophy of doing things to negatively impact the player base for what seems to be a strictly monetary reason is what is ruining magic. Those have nothing to do with reprints, power level of the actual game pieces, cosmetics, or anything else.

heres my issue: average power levels are barely increasing, but it seems like we have big powercreep because instead of the 5 best cards of the set being liek 20% above everything else in that set, they are 200% better and so broken, they either enable stupid combos or have to be banned in several formats. Set design would be fine if they werent printing these very few completely off the charts insane cards

I remember watching that video about the new pro tours info. I watched it and basically just decided that tournaments weren't worth it. I guess that is why so many other people also play commander now.

51:45 LIFE DAY!!! But seriously, use Christmas/Secret Lair to show seasonal festivities & Holidays on the planes.

Magic gets ruined by overpowered/pushed cards, that get banned shortly after release. Bad Promocard distribution... and a bad official play program.

When a card isn't amazing, but it's expensive because it's not reprinted.

i like the huge variety of boarders, frames, & styles today. it allows for more stylish customization of decks (you could be using one style for one deck and a different style for another to go with the theme of the deck). it allows for a wider range of appeal (some people don’t like foils but like full art, some don’t like full art but like classic frame, etc) it also reminds me of the surprise of opening packs in the nineties (you didn’t know what was in the sets) and reminds me of the wide range of alters that you’re seeing pop up in old school and commander formats.

Guilds of Ravnica pre-release was the last event my LGS had before shutting down. I went undefeated with a Dimir build & still have the deck sleeved up in memoriam. Power creep makes me worry about the validity of my EDH decks, but it's a fun casual right now...(If only I had folks to play with me.)

The new Weatherlight crew are more interesting than almost every planeswalker combined, definitely more than all of the gatewatch combined.

This was a great makeup tutorial!

To the last point about Arena vs Gathering, minor but also huge; every single paper card has Magic the gathering written on the back of the physical card. It would be a shock, quite a large shock, to suddenly see Magic arena written on the back of the cards.

Hey i was just wondering when a new ep. Was coming. Happy surprise right here.

Wonder when we run out of these gp Vegas recorded ones

Didn’t we already have this with just the prof

So am late watching this vid but omg I loved the professor's face when PleasantKenobi burned the Gatewatch XD was so good

I loved when prereleases gave you a free sealed entry on arena. I was devastated when they changed it to cheap digital packs. I only draft, why would I want arena packs.

prof: New card, 4 mana 10/10. Power creep. me: Gigantosaurus is in my meme deck, and it's a 10/10 for 5 mana

I think the core issue with power creep, or the reverse, is that WOTC's design philosophy, rules ,and process has become so extremely linear. A card is either more or less powerful than another card. WOW had this problem too, because as a player gains xp and levels, they simply become more powerful- they have more health and deal more damage. So much so that with Warlords of Draenor, I think, the devs addressed the power curve specifically and toned players down because they'd gotten so out of hand. Magic cards are the same. Since the panic after Lorwyn WOTC tanked the game's complexity, and started using "strictly better" to sell packs, instead of developing new strategies and synergies with open-ended cards, as they did with original Ravnica, TS block, Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, etc. If you check out the in-development MMORPG Camelot Unchained, you will find a deliberate choice to avoid this problem by making combat more skill-based. As a player uses their skills, those skills will improve, but not so much that a new player will be 1-shot by someone who has been playing for a year merely because their numbers are higher. Horizontal progression, not vertical.

Hey prof, wondering how often dies to removal will be released? Is it once/month or less frequent than that?

You run basic lands and snowlands in Titanshift due to Field of the Dead. They count as different named lands so it speeds up field's activation.

I've always heard "Power Seep" ...

The most relevant part of this vid is when the Prof mentioned that the true ruin of Magic is mtg finance. Paper mtg at least

They were really right about one bad standard messing up arena. At least me personally, I quit arena during the Oko nonsense, started playing Modern and now have no interest in going back to standard

Loving all the intros here!!❤️💥❤️

I'm worried about the color White. There are not coming enough good cards down the pipeline in recent years.

WOW. PROF'S HAIR GROWS SO FAST

22:20 damn it Kenobi, that burn just made my steak well done >:(!

Nice socks! Also, I always thought the opposite of power creep was called power seep.

I wonder how depressed I’m going to get after I finish watching this video. Edit: I’m amused at how outdated this ended up being.

Korvold loves gold, clues, treasure, and food in EDH

Watches till 13:14 so far: The opposite of „powercreep“ is „powersleep“ maybe :D My favourite was ixalan and I do think that powercreep is a big problem. Greetings from germany (Sry for bad english)

When talking about Theros cards in eternal formats did they miss Eidolon of the Great Revel ? Perhaps the best original card from theros block

I have always hated american comics and superhero stories and when I came back to Magic with Arena, I was really disappointed to see that the game basically tries to be a marvel story. It totally diminishes the impact and flavour of the individual planes. Also, the borderless cards are ugly as sin.

The power creep point is so legit. It's been driving me insane lately. I play commander primarily, and I feel forced to pay attention to the new sets way too often. It breaks some of the creativity that was once allowed. If things just keep getting stronger it just becomes 100 card brawl, and that's very boring. Obvious statement: you want new creative choices that work with old strategies and/or facilitate new ones, not forced into one meta. When commander feels touched by power creep of the new sets it feels weird.

12:30 You guys missed Eidolon of the Great Revel. That card was probably the best thing since Goblin Guide that both legacy and modern burn acquired.

I hate how the discussion of Fetchlands was essentially a prophecy that came true with the secret lairs

This Video was Made so Long ago prof had wizards Talk about IT xD

MTGFinance setting their sights on EDH is ruining magic today. Cards that were available and cool are now being 'speculated on' which means buying out and ratcheting prices up. Then those cards get held in greedy financer portfolios and see no play. Then those cards become excessively pricey and we have to wait for reprints to hit to get those cards accessible. This is going to price players out of EDH which is harmful to paper magic's best format.

Power drip is know in the gaming industry as nerfing. You bring up great points in your videos and I enjoy watching them

Yes it does snow on Innistrad. From the "Shadows Over Innistrad: Collected Stories" Story 3: Sacrifice - "When spring broke that year and the snows finally melted, a young apprentice rode his horse through the pass, into the sleepy little fishing village near Lake Zhava. He carried with him a satchel of letters, many long overdue, written before the first snowfalls of the winter before."

Having Oko jpin the Gate Watch would spice things up. Although he's obviously be using them as a sort of security to protect him from Garruk. He can also do some trickster stuff and have inner turmoil among the group or whatever too. #OkoBestBoy

9:45 - Since returning (~ Kaladesh), I think ELD has been my favorite set for limited and constructed. Before that, Mirrodin. I know people scoff, given affinity... but equipment and a largely interactive set was pretty fun. I actually liked the drawback of artifact lands (it came up more than they'd have you believe), but take the sets minus the cards that got banned and you'll see well designed, innovative sets.

Rewatching this 2 months after upload hearing PK talk about all the options on how they can sell fetchlands around the 50:00 minute mark is so surreal in a world with a $300 secret lair featuring fetchlands

I love how Magic pushes the envelope on how their cards look. I love having a variety of styles in my commander decks. I almost got a invocation blood moon for my mono-red just because it looks so different.

As always. Prices. But nicely enough, Games Workshop is better at getting my money

Thank the Goddess, for the Sarcasm intro... I was about to ditch you like I did Purp for negativity.

That is a great idea from Kenobi about evaluation series- would wach that

Have an arena code in every booster pack for a random wildcard, in every fatpack (cant remember new name) have a code for a random planeswalker or guild card back in arena. booster boxes come with an arena draft token.

...when was this recorded that they say Eldraine is a "powered down" set?

"there much to hate in capitalism" Comrade Kenobi

I agree with the idea of making powerful cards in spesific ways. Drown in the Loch is a very good example.

The mending stopped inter-planar travel by non planeswalker (why the weatherlights not working), the inter-planar bridge from kaladesh is unable to transport organic material, that's why the eternals coated in lazotep

Having multiple variations of one card just seemed like lazy set filler to me. Like, instead of thinking of six different amazing cards I'm just going to come up with six variations of one good card. I speak of course of certain cards being traditional, tradtional foil, showcase, showcase foil, extended art and extended art foil. In my opinion you don't need that many variations on cards. I myself would be happy with traditional border and traditional foil, then if you must do a third variant just do masterpiece cards. Speaking of Masterpieces, absolutely love them I think they're gorgeous but I digress. Having six variations of certain cards also takes away from value of said cards from a collector standpoint. "Oh you have (insert card name here)? That's cool. Too bad it's the normal traditional non foil version. If it was the supermega Kawasaki XJ9 extended foil humper version you'd really have something." So that's really what I think isn't necessarily ruining Magic as much as it is making sets dull. Too many variants and too much filler.

Cant stand the gatewatch! I wish we could move on from them and the boring CG art style.

I'd like to see the Area to support paper play perhaps able to cash out of complete sets in the paper cards or, in some way, a path to obtain those difficult to obtain cards individually? That would have dual-track support both formats...just a thought

When they talk about a special codes to unlock at your local game store, they are talking about getting players more involved with their local game store. The problem with this is that Wizards is getting players to spend their fixed amount of money at local game stores by having them go there and see cards they like rather than on Arena.