Fallen Empires and Homelands are bad examples of sets that were not power crept since they were both notoriously poorly received by the fanbase and nearly tanked the franchise. Perhaps these sets could even be pointed to as examples of why Wizards couldn’t power down sets and needed to include chase cards that would fuel interest.

This set is so powerful it’s uninteresting

#1 is something yk they’re not taking into account. I hear so many creators saying that to many commanders are coming out that are just basic, boring and actual interesting commanders are being missed! Idk what company would go against feedback from the people that are buying their product!

1 more thing, WotC: SLOW tf DOWN. They need to go back to simply printing fewer products each year, and simply creating fewer newly-designed cards each year.

get your point now. i love unique designed cards not the same but better... it would be good to listen more to the community... sometimes WOTC listens too much to the whining: i built a mono white deck today and had too many card options to draw cards... white is tied with green for first place in commander in terms of drawing cards

I think the root of the problem with the commander format is the players of the format. There are so many new players coming into commander with hyper competitive mindsets because their local LGS is only holding commander events. The spirit of interesting decks that do neat things or decks that are filled with cards a player loves is dying. It's because the majority of Magic players only care about winning and how to crush their opponents. Magic players have lost sight of enjoying the game they are playing and only can seem to have fun when they are dominating their play group. Wizards of the Coast has just done the corporate thing of looking at play statistics and sales. Then they make cards that will sell. Catering to the masses of new players leaving the old vanguard of player to rot in a sea of power creep. I've only got into MTG in 2014 with some of my favorite cards Sunblade Elf, Flamespeaker Adept, and Sigiled Starfish. While I have greatly improved as a deck builder since I started, the only goal I ever go into a game of commander game with is; I hope I can show off what my deck can do. I am the minority and the other players of the game will eventually break the final straw and make me leave the game.

Maybe this is a novel idea, but maybe, you know, have wizards STOP focusing so much on commander products. They could instead take the time to bolster other, more dying formats rather than try and help an already thriving format

The time you mentioned when power creep wasn't a thing... remember that Standard was the main driving format behind magic at the time, meaning that people would buy the new cards not because they were more powerful than last year's cards, but because last year's cards were rotating out of the format. Now that Commander is the main driving format behind Magic, there isn't rotation to make people buy more cards. I do think that we're experiencing some power creep as a way to make commander players continue to buy into new sets.

Commander is the jank format. Stop the power creep and give us the jank and fringe strategy support we enjoy. CEDH is for tryhards and goes against the very spirit of the format.

I started writing a small book on my thoughts about this...then I thought "you know what? Nevermind" Just have fun and play games.

The last two inastrad sets had a very decent moderate power level minus a hullbreacher or two and was good flavor but it sold like shit cuz were spoiled these days. That said, I will still use my new free mh3 counterspell

Winners of Magic tournaments sadly aren't designing cards anymore. WotC says it was really difficult to integrate the player's ideas and ongoing feedback to get it just right with their design process, mostly delays waiting to hear back from the player. So now they have several pre designed cards that they show the player and they get to pick one to put their likeness on.

The only card that caught me by surprise was growth spiral. So many youtubers have been crapping on that card for at least a year now, to me it feels like the hate came out of nowhere lol

Can we get an Amen?!

To be fair, most of the online magic community I see makes the most broken homemade cards and froth at the mouth when commanders that are one card combos or insanely broken are dropped. A lot of the current designers started as magic players, and are creating cards that fulfill their power fantasies with the help of FIRE design. An apt name as it's really burning down the house that is mtg.

So, my thoughts on your three suggestions to wotc: 1. If you've ever read a comment thread on social media or youtube in relation to mtg, then you would quickly conclude that the community is the least qualified group to speak on mtg. It's funny, you even suggest as much yourself by highlighting a comment from a previous video you deride as ignorant. However, if Wotc works more closely with proven pro tour players on a regular basis then thats another thing altogether. But I've seen this in other ccg's, where letting the pro players take the design reigns leads to nonstop spikey set designs that burns out everyone, and even kills those games. 2. A LOT of players have actively disliked most if not all of the made-for-commander cards in early commander releases. Even when they came out. In fact youre the first person Ive ever heard of actively speaking in favor of those old designed-for-commander cards. But this could also go back to point one, the community cant be trusted with design input. The spider fog one is the only one I can think of that's been viewed in a more favorable light in the past few years, and thats only because of new releases leading players to hunt the card down. 3. Wotc is NEVER going to ignore EDH. Even if everyone in their building agreed it would be for the good of the format's health, Hasbro will continue to impose profit expectations on them which must always be met lest there be dire consequences. The guys, gals, and pals at wotc want to keep their jobs more than they want a healthy format.

I don't think your first video was a hot take but I think there is a certain amount of pressure on us as players to stay competitive. Especially at some tables where people can afford to keep updating their decks while others can't. I know you said the issue isn't money oriented but it can cause a problem when the more expensive versions are just better.

I would really enjoy watching a video where you offer solutions to improve the format. Not necessarily create a new format but maybe some limitations that could be implemented to keep EDH casual. I would really hate for my favorite game to turn into Yugioh (turn 1 solitaire wins) in the next few years.

I want to argue that ARE PRINTING interesting cards: they are in the precons: mostly cards that are niche but some of them are broad enough. - suggests you to look at cards made in the precon the last year, you will be surprised.

WOTC is doing the solution with the increased perçons. There are more players than ever. Buying the singles you for a decent deck can be costly. Precons open up strategies that could be otherwise: energy and multi color eldrazi. Back in the day I would wait a year for one good white card, while other colors got a lot more.

1.) leave it alone 2.) leave it alone 3.) leave it alone

The only thing I felt was necessary and essential to buy has been an upgraded mana base, which I can use in every deck for the rest of my life. No one I play with is chasing the meta, this rant seems very cedh focused. You're forgetting that the consumer can also just ignore set releases (I usually miss 3-4 at a time.) and create their own fun.

I dont know if you actually played in the mid 90s, but yeah power creep was ALWAYS a thing. the player base just wasnt griping about it as much until there were much more notable examples that exacerbated pre-existing issues. power creep itself is never the problem, it just highlights current problems and makes those problems feel worse. The current mtg problem of course is the breakneck pace of releases.

I was worried about this when they made EDH an official format. Enjoyed when it was about utilizing odd or overcosted cards and weird synergies. Now it just feels like every other constructed format. It has become MTG Commander: the search for more money

Yeah I've never cared for the power-creep, my favorite cards are always goofy mechanics and flavorful art... my favorite cards in MH3 are the Landscapes and Wight of the Reliquary. My favorite cards in OTJ are the 5 filter lands and 5 fast lands getting western art. :') I don't think any of them are very powerful other than Spirebluff Canal was very sought after for awhile. I'll probably get the MDFCs in MH3, but only 1 of each... I don't like having multiples of a card/art throughout my commander decks, even in keeping to the spirit of singleton I try to make sure none of my basic-land art is repeated. xD

Rotating format & constantly changing decks... Now imagine you're playing modern or legacy and your deck is $1000 or more. The reason we have modern horizons is because they killed the rotating format (standard) so they now had to make sets to artificially rotate eternal formats with cards that are extremely powerful. Also commander being the most popular format has influenced card design in a major way. We now have an insane amount of legendary cards in each set, to the level that every new set can have a "top 10 new commanders in *insert set *".. This has also led to commander "specific" products that are so pushed and powerful that legacy and even vintage picks up the cards... or just failing to design cards to work as intended (Kappa cannoner) or even function at all (Henzie "toolbox" Torre, or Serra Paragon) or the latest and greatest with wheel of potential, where you can choose and X you can't pay and still get the reward because the designers can't word the cards in a way that makes them work (even though MTG has actual templates for designing abilities).. Fire design has not made the game better, it has made the game more profitable...

I agree with mostly everything but the need to stop making precons. Commander is a casual format where a lot of people play with friends or family for fun and don’t have all the time in the world to curate and make decks from scratch or even have the desire to do so. A lot of my friends only play with precons because they like a theme and don’t want to have to think about how to put a bunch of cards together to make it work, it just works out of the box.

A great alternative for players sick of power creep, Treasure tokens, and 99% of OP pay-to-win cards is the Premodern format, a player-supported traditional 60-card format completely outside WotC control. Premodern includes all cards published in MtG sets starting from 4th Edition/Ice Age through 7th Edition/Scourge, basically all cards originally printed in retro frames. Premodern has a short 32-card ban list, which excludes OP cards like Force of Will, Vampiric Tutor, and Necropotence. It is of particular appeal to players fond of vintage cards who can't afford to invest in the dual lands/power 9 cards required for Legacy and Vintage formats, and includes non-tournament printings like World Championship Decks. Premodern is remarkably competitive within its historic domain free of overpriced, overpowered, and overhyped modern magic cards.

Unfortunately, WotC killed their non-commander paper formats. Arena has demolished paper standard and FNM. Magic used to own Fridays at every game store in the world.

i hate the "precons every set" idea a lot. i used to play competitive yugioh and as a yugioh player, we got like 2-3 structure decks every year. and it was a BIG deal. because whenever they would release one, they were generally VERY powerful and would see if not competitive play, some rogue strategies would be able to get some top cuts at tournaments with even the underwhelming structure decks. some of them would be so strong in fact, some of them had to get hit on the forbidden and limited lists. ever since i started playing magic there have been so many precons that i cant even tell you what the best card in each one is, yet i can still do that for you with all the yugioh structure decks from 2013 to 2021. a solution to this is to maybe instead of 4 precons every set, just do 2 precons every universes beyond set and 1 precon per the major set.

I can understand Wizards doing even two commander decks per set, but I agree it's unnecessary. I think one cycle of commander decks maybe two if we include a universes beyond cycle as well. That's more than enough. Don't need em with Modern sets or whatever. Even Commander Masters was an atrocious set. The current wizards strategy is off-putting like overly sweet cake. Looks good. Very tempting, but at the end of the day it just makes you sick

I stopped buying new cards in 2016 before Kaladesh. I just play with the cards I grew up loving.

I think that saying "stop printing commander cards" its faulty thinking. Every card ends up in the commander format. And strong cards printed in other format might end up being commander staples

Slowing down the rate of legendary creatures would be a big help.

I think one thing they could do to slow down power creep and such would be to print a few sets in a row that focus on support specifically for less powerful creatures types, themes, and mechanics, but I think its unlikely to see idk bears, dogs, and mutate cards taking spots away from more dragons, wizards, and zombies much for a while.

Some of these analyses are very disingenous. Village Rites, for example, rarely breaks even. Normally, you are either triggering something by sacrificing it, or the creature was going to die anyway to removal, so you will almost always plus off of it. It also seems like you are pushing the narrative that card advantage is the only thing that matters, but speed and efficiency are real things. Sometimes, seeing more cards to see the RIGHT card is better than just getting a singular free card.

Power Creep is what Yugioh does to keep selling new cards to people. I don’t want Magic to turn into what Yugioh has become over the last 10 years.

I’m curious if WOTC continues on this trend and keeps printing power crept cards, will you keep making spoiler videos/set release videos? The spoiler videos don’t seem to be your favorite, but I understand you probably feel obligated to make them.

I get what you're saying. You've got a good point. Youre basically being disingenuous to your deck.

WOTC has a greed problem

They're fixated on maximizing profits first, supporting the community last. How to fix it? Establish MSRP. Reduce price by eliminating foils, mythics, and art cards--these all cost more money. Then support all formats, but less often. At least Standard, Modern, Commander, and Pauper. But Hasbro corporate will never allow these changes.

Seperate the format in high and low power (no cedh is not what i mean, they got themself sorted out) with seperate banlists, so the lower powered one can have bans due to powerlevel. Also, i am talking for those of us who DONT have a regular playgroup or often even an lgs, and have to make do with online platforms or spelltable.

The power down shift in Fallen empire's made me stay away for years.

(If anyone actually reads this wall of text, I salute you and please disagree with me) I honestly don't think that MH3 had that many 'auto includes' but rather provided more options or variants of preixisting cards. As someone who plays decks in the $50 budget range to also playing CEDH, I think MH3 was a healthy set for the format. In my opinion, commander is always going to be a format where the power ceiling is MUCH higher than what people typically play. Just look at an average cedh deck in comparison to the same commander built for casual on moxfield. They probably only share about 20 cards MAX. I think my issue with the previous video was that it felt to centered around casual edh, with things like "people don't ramp in modern" being pretty far from true. While I definitely see the rate of powerful cards being printed as potentially an issue, i think that most of these cards are less "auto includes" and more "auto considers" or auto sideboards. I sympathize with the gripes that a lot of people have with commander getting too much attention from Wizards, but I think there is a balance to consider because of how diverse commander is as a format. As a cedh player, I got a couple cards for some of my decks, but even those are contentious, which to me feels healthy. For my casual decks, I honestly saw nothing in this set that blew my mind apart from maybe Ulamog.

The community fixed all the problems with PreDH format.

The difference is those cards aren't MUST HAVES, they're just neat options in an ever growing sea of other neat options. They don't sell sets and drive up profits, powerhouse cards and strictly better cards do.

7:00 people dont RAMP IN MODERN???????

You people are all saying that Wizards needs to stop making cards “specifically “ for commander, but did everyone forget how every (mono-) white player was b*tching and crying that white had no card draw for like 10 years? And then what happened? Esper Sentinel came out. And it was, and probably still is the best draw spell for white. Then Welcoming Vampire, Tocasia’s Welcome, Bennie Bracks, The Gaffer and tons of cards that read:”whenever two or more creatures attack draw a card”. And the community was happy about it. “White isn’t the worst color.” Y’all were celebrating that they went out of their way to fix card draw for white-especially in commander. I didn’t hear any of you complaining about power creep. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Not even you, Demo. Especially as a white player, im guessing it was fine as long as it’s cards that you can play. Maybe you guys got so used to it that it was seen as boring but not actually complained. So, if it’s something the community wants it’s “fixing a color” but if it’s a card you don’t want it’s “power creep”. White COULDNT DRAW CARDS. You’d have to play equipments only to draw with Sram. That was it. I came from playing Yugioh about 6+ years ago. I KNOW powercreep. THIS IS POWERCREEP. Absolutely. And I don’t want it to devolve into Yugioh. Yugioh, for those of you who don’t know, is a card game without a resource system, is NON-ROTATING, and has a single banlist. There’s one format. And cards are made for VERY specific archetypes. All cards reading “Blue-Eyes” for example (mostly) only work with other cards that have the text “Blue-Eyes”. And that means that you CANNOT play your old 2012 deck bc it gets power crept by the next year’s decks, or the next year’s. At some point your deck becomes unable to win even in a casual setting with friends’ decks from the current era. You HAVE to play what’s meta or at least something (relatively) recent. Power creep has BEEN happening in Magic since forever now. Yes, the Alpha cards are still powerful, but that’s bc they didn’t know how to balance the game, how long the game would run for, how to make strengths and weaknesses for everything. It’s like a first draft. The difference is it was never written out of our playable cards bc boomers love their old cards, and I would too if I played back then. But aside from Alpha, cards have progressively gotten stronger, Serra Angel was a powerhouse back in the day and is now chaff. No one out there is crying tears of lament for a 20+ year old card that has gone to the wayside in terms of power due to time. Again, I don’t want to see more power creep. But it’s gonna happen. The best we can hope for is that Legends aren’t pushed as commanders, that cards aren’t pushed for MULTIPLAYER specifically. These cards can easily break the game. Just look at Nadu and Voja. Absolutely cracked. Point is, keep your outrage consistent. I better see y’all angry that the next set has more white card draw, or that red can now ramp (permanently). Or green has a new card draw, 1/1 counter, toxic 10/10 for 3 mana. Don’t get me started with all the new FREE sacrifice outlets for Orzhov. I swear there’s been like 5 in the last year.

My theory is that Wizards is angry at commander players for abandoning standard and modern and wants to destroy the format. They can't ban us, and they can't stop us, so they're making it untenable in the same way they accidentally destroyed standard. Up the release pacing and up the power level each time For the record, Fallen Empires actually did have a lot of good cards back then. Ironic that Homelands, the far weaker set, scaled better in the end due to a few cards that weren't very good at the time.

How much of wizard's problems could be boiled down to just "do what you were doing before?" I mean, the story telling is crap now, even the dang wiki plot synopsis entries suck now, and you could cover up some bad stories with having just a plot synopsis. The art I feel like isn't as good as before either. My favorite (or least favorite) example is the art of New Phyrexia in the scars black and what we got in One/MoM last year. I also miss the block format for sets, and you could probably make an argument that the constant rushing of storytelling due to the constant shifting of setting due to the lack of blocks is contributing to that. I also miss Terese Nielsen.