Dunharrow wrote: ↑3 years ago
I get it. You want to enjoy the game the way you like to enjoy it. These products sorta affect the way you want to enjoy it. I would say that most commander play is more casual, and thus card choices are just that - choices - not obligations. You can either be less invested in pushing your decks to the max, or you can do the proxy thing.
It probably feels more like an obligation because of how much I'm invested. If I wasn't so invested there's a chance I'd just quit commander and move to limited only (although that's somewhat difficult since it's not very popular where I live and I don't like playing online as much).
But I'm heavily invested so I'll probably just do the proxy thing.
But why should your wants dictate what other people are allowed to do? I want to play with Lord of the Rings cards. So I shouldn't because you don't want to play against them? How is that fair?
First of all, if these had been silver bordered I would have been fine to let other people play them against me as an opt-in situation.
But more to the point, this is not a solitaire game. What one person is doing will affect the other (you must understand this...sorry, reflexes). Would you apply that same logic to someone who wanted to play a cEDH stax list in a casual game?
And even more to the point, I'm not talking about trying to prevent people from playing them when they exist - that's simply not going to be possible. I'm talking about whether they should exist in the first place - whether wizards should make them, not whether people should play them. Aesthetically LotR is pretty innocuous (depending how closely they match the actors' faces), but I'm sure there are people who would want to play spongebob cards, or fortnite cards, or BTS cards, whatever other dumb joke you might make. For that matter, there are probably people who would love to play hentai cards (I can think of one of my friends in particular...). Do we need to bow to their desires too?
If you want to play with LotR cards, I'd say play the LotR card game. Or the LotR board game, I bet there's a dozen of them. If you want to play with magic cards, though, play magic. Just because you want it doesn't mean it should exist.
First, these products will not be detrimental to the game. Warhammer players can pick up a commander deck now and play with a flavour they like against people with non warhammer magic decks. That's cool. It will 100% be successful.
It will be successful because it will make money and that is the only thing WotC cares about.
If it was limited to occasionally playing off-the-shelf precons on occasion (again, as an opt-in) I'd be totally fine with that. But that's not what's going to happen - if they ever print strong cards (and they will) they'll be in tons of decks because most people want to optimize more than they care about the immersion or integrity of the game. Instead of losing to craterhoof, we'll be losing to Pickle Rick. Can't wait.
If you're so happy to kowtow to the will of the uncritical pop-culture fanboys
I don't know if this is a jab at me... but come on. Lord of the Rings is so personally important to my life.. It literally saved my life. So, if I am excited to play with Frodo Baggins it is not up to you to say whether my opinion is uncritical. Please be more polite and understanding.
It was not, and I apologize if it came off that way.
If I had to point to the sort of person it was aimed at, it'd be the sort of person who unironically enjoyed Star Wars episode 9 (note: this is a joke, I don't actually mean to attack anyone).
Because if they are played in competitive tournaments it will make them 'required' for tournament play. That is what they are avoiding. They want people to choose to play with them or choose not to play with them. They don't want people to be forced to play with them. Casual Spikes are not that common, but I feel like that best defines you. You want your casual deck to be as tuned as possible.
While not everyone takes it as far as I do, I think you're underestimating the degree to which people want to optimize. When I look at decklists on EDHrec, I don't see very many casual theme decks. Basically any commander that makes a 2-card infinite combo, that second card is going to be in a high percentage of decks, usually well over half of them, and that's also what I tend to experience IRL. The main thing preventing people from optimizing imo are budget and a lack of skill, with self-restraint a distant third. I don't think most people will hesitate to put a strong card into their deck if they have access to it, regardless of the IP.
But some people hate certain expansions. I have friends that so profoundly dislike Kaladesh that they refuse to play any cards from the block. So even with standard expansions opinions are varied.
I don't usually see the top posts of the MTG and EDH reddit being rage posts when a normal expansion comes out.
It's fine to hate an expansion, but at least the primary goal of a normal expansion is to please the players, even if it might fail for some. They knew this was going to piss off a huge number of the playerbase, but they did it anyway, because at the end of the day, people who already have their collections aren't making WotC any money. It's all about catering to new players, existing players be damned.