Hey there Prof., just wanted to say that I did watch your Best Off video already and am gonna watch it again. There are a lot of fans who appreciate your optimism. My friends and I are quiet, but not silent. Best wishes for the next year!

FYI, my last whatnot order has been left on "preparing" even though it was from your last stream. I know it's the holidays so nbd but please take a look.

your the reason i started playing magic the gathering, i play purely discard decks with no wincon.

Hey Prof, hope you see this. I backed the Academic on Kickstarter, didn’t receive one due to missing the survey, and have yet to be refunded. Been trying to get this resolved for a while now, would appreciate your help.

The whole point of Booster Fun was to make opening packs a spectacle. Serialized cards were an inevitability from that mindset.

me 2

If he had said the precons were I'd agree, they really over priced those for what was in them. The draft experience was fun if you were willing to shell out for the cost. It is ironic that people will go out and spend thousands on lands foe their commander deck then complain about the price of a sealed event 😂

​@@jessehinshawthe fact that someone even needs to explain this to you is beyond sad. Paying a few hundred dollars for a Reserve List Dual that will almost certainly always at least maintain the value, versus wasting that money on draft packs that might actually see you lose money with the poor EV, are two VERY different things.

@@Xoulrath_ when I Rome...

​@@Xoulrath_so instead of bothering to explain it in such a rude way, why not just STFU?

But you can almost picture that happening at various card shops/resellers. Maybe not to quite that extent but it'd certainly happen.

He was 100% right though. Such a picture perfect representation

Ditto

Sure, there were the streams where people who don't play were opening the packs and discarded everything

@@danilzashikhin3591 that is just sad.

He is like Jerry from the Zefrank True Facts episodes.

if 1/1 ring and 1/100 serialized reprints replaced every other money grubbing action from hasbro I'd be all here for it, but of couerse serialized cards are just added to the pile of bullshit hasbro is doing to squeeze as much money out of the players as possible before mtg becomes a wasteland and the CEO takes his golden parachute and lets someone else clean up the mess

The 001/001 Ring is not, by itself, a bad marketing move for MtG. All the extra crap to goose quarterly sales before it, for years, made it look like a shark jump episode instead of a monumental, truly historic move in the history of MtG. Nothing has impacted new player acquisition and sales greater than the Lord of the Rings set in MtG history and it justifies printing the first 001/001 card as a commemorative event. How the Professor feels about it, though, is how I felt about the Priceless Treasures gimmick in original Zendikar.

The 1 of 1 ring was a complete and utter sham. They knew exactly in what pack of what box of what case it was in and made sure it got to where they wanted it to go and probably took a cut of the money from the sale to that clown Post

@@DilanQuill What you're suggesting is a crime and also one that barely benefits them lol.

@@jadegrace1312 It was the most successful set ever apparently, pretty sure that's a big benefit.

Honestly, Nahiri is a better example than Nissa. Nissa underwent a huge process involving three planeswalkers spending their sparks, plus the sacrifice of a unique person to accomplish, and even then, her spark was destroyed. Nahiri just cured herself.

​@@snakeman830who had to be sacrificed?:0

@@Westblader Melira, who was notable for being immune to phyresis.

As far as I'm aware, the last time a Standard event fired at my LGS was March of 2020. Until this summer, drafts would only fire on release day of a new set, and maybe the week after, but that was it. Lord of the Rings seems to have motivated people to start coming around for limited again, at least.

pretty much the same thing happened in my lgs. They now announced that the first standard store championship is going to be free to enter to stimulate people

I have someone in my playgroup who knows how to make fabulous proxies. I might finally make my cEDH deck

Yeah. Proxy to your heart's content. They pretty much made them official by now. And with the amount of new cards per week we are getting, it's almost impossible to keep up with everything going on.

Which is why we have been advocating for counterfeits

I would encourage you not to cut spending on magic, but not buying product. Buying singles still helps the LGS and individual sellers with none of that money going directly to hasbro.

Proxy proxy proxy :)

Very lore friendly

That is why I had said that the person who pulls it needs to take it to the top office of the Wizards HQ and put it into the paper shredder. Then I was honest with myself, they would stand upon the precipace and thier closest friend exlaims "throw it in!", only to be responded with "No".

My preciousssssssssssssssssssss

@@theatlastech8792 Tsk, so human so weak.

That was last year

@@vileluca and I still haven't forgiven wotc. Lmao

Good for you! I'm hoping more people will treat this company the way it should be treated by withholding their dollars.

Proxy proxy proxy!!! But all jokes aside you really should if you enjoyed your first two months you can continue to explore the games though proxying it gives them no money or if you have the money buying older product off ebay and shit like sealed doesn't profit wizards at this point and you can get that dopamine... only if you have the money though I always recommend proxies its a great game don't let hasbro wizards take that from you

Does Hasbro ever do anything right?

Name one thing

​@@eaglegamer1000challenge level: IMPOSSIBLE

if you have alot of money, you will win alot of games@@eaglegamer1000

He did. Two days ago. :P kzfaq.info/get/bejne/qsiqitKjuteYpJ8.htmlsi=fIsz455Y7u_qgPhu

What about the blunder at @5:33? lol

yeah not everyone needs a raise.

Commander Masters was a good set for buying singles and singles only, I got a couple packs and got stung.

I only got singles as i know my luck with boosters.

@@Womb2DaTomb I was just getting back into MTG after a 10yr hiatus so I didn't mind because there was a lot of cards I didn't own

The only reason i remember commander masters is because my favorite legendary creature Sek'kuar Deathkeeper finally got his legit tokens for use in moxfield

I had forgotten about it also.

Nah, go listen to wotc sponsored channels like a certain zone for mtg shilling, there's tons of em. I appreciate that the professor is willing to call them out and put a face to his statements.

​@@-8h-I honestly don't follow that many MtG creators beyond the professor, so I can't say anything about that. However, I can't agree enough about the prof standing up for what he believes in, always willing to push important issues with the game whilst keeping a nuanced view

If you made it even 2 minutes into the video, you'll see him promote his other recent video (that he made first) where he talks about the great stuff that's working with Magic....

​@@SomethingWickedLives They're joking, surely?

@@devononair Um, the Professor literally posted a positive Magic video before this one.

(Just ignore the core set and deck build set releasing within the same 30 day window)

(just ignore making the staples incredibly rare and expensive in the first place)

@@uS0ra(just ignore TCG vs OCG)

yugioh definitely has a different slew of issues, but yeah... i have no idea why MTG didn't do something awesome like this for the 30th anniversary when it woulda sold like hotcakes. there's not really a good reason they can't do a better job with reprints considering the secondary market they aren't making profits off anyway. They could take these out of circulation cards that are highly desired and just make a GOOD masters-style set that doesn't have garbage in it lol a pure value set would sell out even if it tanked prices into the dirt. Yes, you could only do this like a few times probably but every single time would be a MASSIVE cashout from WotC even though it'd fuck TCG player and private sellers/collections... but I have no idea why they should give a fuck about that lol it'd be good for everybody else including them.

@@insertcolorherehawk3761 I'm not denying yugiohs problems. Hell rarity bumping /short printing the deblo star engine to cost 1k while banning the bugget alternatives is crap. But yugiohs reprint policy is leauges better then what magic has. Ash blossom is basically yugiohs force of will and konami reprint it so much a playset is $6.

In retrospect, I really wish they hadn't gotten rid of blocks. Blocks were such a nice way to understand what the hell was going on in the story. I genuinely am so lost at this point outside of the Phyrexian Invasion. It feels like the story is just bouncing from plane to plane, leaving some planes feeling irrelevant outside of being popular in terms of gameplay (Ixelan imo. I genuinely do not know why we went to Ixelan in the story, even through the story highlight cards), some as side story-esque (Innistrad feels that way to me, as does Eldraine), and others actually feeling important to the plot (all of the Phyrexian ones, plus Neon Dynasty and New Capenna, where they were at least going there looking for something to stop the Phyrexians). Blocks made it feel much more organized in terms of the story. I know the story isn't as vital to some, but I actually enjoy hearing the story and knowing why I should care about some legendaries and planeswalkers. Like I have no idea what Quintorius is doing beyond looking for more historical objects.

March of thr machine would have been better as a classic 3-set (or hell, even 4-set) block. Set 1 is their infiltration to attempt to destroy phyrexia before they can launch their invasion Set 2 is the phyrexians invading, with an advantage on most planes thanks to catching their armies off guard Set 3 is the defending planes fighting back against the invading phyrexians with greater force as their entire existence is at stake. bring in team-ups of cross-plane characters working together (like, say, Jhoira and Satoru working together) Set 4 is the other planes striking against the Phyrexians' home, with this being when Zhalfir is switched with New Phyrexia Include hints to what's going to happen throughout sets 2 and 3 as set-up for set 4, both in the story and in the cards, and you've got a good 6 months to a year of story there, without needing to R&D a bunch of new stuff without properly playtesting first

Like I get why blocks aren't a thing anymore, they can lead to a sort of 'oh we're still doing this' feeling, but they definitely made storytelling and Standard better (weren't as great for limited admittedly).

I like blocks, and I like single sets. Why can't they just do whatever they feel is appropriate for a given set? I Never hear anyone ask that question or make that suggestion. Why does it have to be such an all or nothing situation all the time?

@@danacoleman4007 that’s a very valid point. Some sets are better with a one-off storyline, others feel like they need to be developed over multiple sets, otherwise running into the issue of march, where everything seems to be rushed all at once, which makes the story harder to follow, and consequently, enjoy

did you watch the video?

@@TheFogVelour Yes, I still think it was the #1 worst thing for Magic, likely will have negative impact on quality of the products down the line too.

All year? I frequently spend more than that on it in a month.

​@davidlundquist1979 is that a flex?

@@cautiousdissolute5780 Nope. If anything, I should be ashamed of how much money I give Hasbro. I am planning to cut down next year, though. Collector boosters just aren't worth it, at least when they're new.

20k here, bud

1.5k € this year as a fulltime university student. Though, i sold around 1.4k€ in card value so it aint that bad xd

They never would have introduced set boosters and lowered the price of collector packs

Seeing other videos it's not Collector boosters but set boosters that are killing the Draft booster. If you're just looking at cards you got more value out of the set boosters leaving the only reason to for draft boosters is to play draft.

Thing is, if you're just looking to fill out a set, then set boosters are just too efficient and parasitic towards draft boosters. The problem is that sets rarely reflect the draft booster distribution. Look at Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, 117 commons to 88 uncommons to 77 rares & mythics. That's only 1.5x as many commons as rares/mythics, but you crack 10:1 in a pack, so rounding out a set of NEO with draft boosters inherently means supersaturating your collection with chaff commons. Frankly, if WOTC was competent, the new play boosters would have been the course correction they'd have made to booster packs years ago and they never should have done the set booster product. The issue isn't so much the play boosters themselves, it's that they're unsubtly and clumsily hiding an unnecessary price increase inside them.

Those were released in 2022. I’m sure it was 100% in the 2022 recap video.

@@ReactiveDeactive man time flies I could have sworn that was this year

I'm okay with the concept of one of a kind art. As long as the card is available in normal form, this is a fine way for WotC to profit from "collectors" while still focusing on players. It's not nearly as bad an idea as, say, having 8-12 different treatments of the same card within a set. I think the best idea would be to remove foils, have a special art replacing the foil slot, then have one of a kind art for each card in the set that is foil.

no. the one ring was the best that could've happened to magic this year. thousands of opened boosters, a lot of people coming back, perfect flavor, making the game even more collectable, lowering the price of normal cards thanks to the multiple art versions avaliable... it was only good.

@@kerolokerokeroloyou would have had all of that without the serialised card. Seriously, just the base set was more than enough to engage LotR fans.

America is supposed to be non religuous. Why does Christmas matter? It's the last quarter of the year, it makes financial sense.

Universes beyond and secret lairs were my limit. I was so bummed out when they first released the universes beyond because I liked the lore and art of the Magic IP and I knew if they sold well, it would turn out how it has. To me, it just cheapens the game so much. The last time I bought new cards off the shelf (I still collect the old sets) was 4 years ago. I think there are a lot of fans that feel the same way we do. I don't think it's "yucking someone's yum" to share your opinion. That's just something that fanboys say when they can't stand that their favourite game is going down the toilet.

And now when Wizards goes to other IPs for licensing they can wave their arms at Lord of the Rings and say, "See? It went great when we did it before!"

I'm pretty sure it's this year. Cause it was the 20 year anniversary

@@duo317 November 28, 2022 is when the stuff was sold

Absolutely worth mentioning. Gone too soon.

Nope. I've always hated how out of touch with the meta and how much influence the RC has had over EDH. And Sheldon's exaggerating his role and acting like he invented the format is a stain that won't wash away.

every single story with a bad guys who are too big and too bad ends poorly. thanos's whole thing was crap and full of plot holes with timey wimey crap going on. bolas's downfall was insanely obviously and poorly written... they didn't even have the balls to KILL him lol. the eldrazi "ending" was also lame AF and just laughable. doing huge stories is where MTG and basically all media just fails HARD. nobody does it well because it's unrelatable, too big to manage, and while it seems cool on paper it just doesn't really deliver. It's like trying to run a D&D game in a massive war... you THINK it'll be cool but it's actually an unmanageable pile of trash. even wargames don't do massive wars as their thing because a warhammer game that's the entirety of the assault on terra during the horus heresy would take years to play out IRL... they should stick to smaller things and have big threats be more limited in scope unless they're prepared to write another Yawgmoth style thing which should be VERY rare to happen and honestly I don't even think they have it in them to write such a good villain again.