I've been lurking for a while, but I finally have a topic to talk about.
Recently, Mtg has been burning down for the past couple of days due to the new Secret Lair. Usually it was just reprints with a new wacky twist, but is now actually new cards that are NOT from Mtg, but from The Walking Dead. Everyone's pissed, from it being new cards in a limited product to the addition of non-Mtg properties to Magic. This isn't the first time there were non-Mtg cards made, but those were silver-border(non legal cards made for fun times).
That sucked, but what really made me post was reading a post about how some PlayEDH group banned the Negan card not for its stupid concept, but because it depicted a rapist in the artwork. A fictional rapist in the artwork. They were near on the mark and they missed it by a mile. Considering this is Mtg, there are plenty of characters that have done way worse things than rape that are depicted on cards. This reminds of when WOTC did the "racist" card bans in June.
Here's the post I saw: https://archive.vn/LVTYV
What I'm trying to say is that everything is boring and broken now. I've played this game for 7 years now, and the first 6 were pretty alright. Now it feels like the game sucks, the story sucks, and the players sucks. Maybe I spent too much time on the subreddit, maybe I though that I could weather WOTC being woke, maybe I got too attached to a bad portion of the game. All this seems like something fun just got ruined, even if the ruin started years ago.
What I came here for is to look for an avenue to talk to other people about something I cherish, or cherished, very deep in my heart. What are other Mtg players' thoughts about all this? If there are no players here, then what are the general observances of the people here?
Oof, I'm sorry to hear that. You missed the golden era. If you have a computer with an old enough OS, get a copy of the single good mtg videogame, Shandalar.
I started mtg around 4th edition. We had physical rulebooks back then - boy, those were a chore to get through as a kid. My friends all made up BS rule interpretations so it took us years to even learn to play properly.
I think Weatherlight was the death knell for the game. That's when they started their new narrative focus. And don't get me wrong, the game had loads of story told before that in the flavor text, but the narrative style got all jacked up and definitively linear, whereas it was disjointed so you could learn about the world and characters from seperated excerpts and events and cultural clues. Though maybe they went back in that direction some? I haven't paid serious attention for over 10 years. Ice Age was the absolute pinnacle of the game's strategic depth.
I spent years trying to fix the game. EDH is a great joke. Here, take my better fix for free: strict 60 card count for deck size, only the 5 primary basic land types permitted for land, no more than 1 copy of a spell (that includes all the spells that were made to bypass the 4 copy limit by having same cost/effect with only a different name). That's it. 'Course, I wasn't a tourney judge and had no clique or sway over "the scene", so everyone jumps into a bloated ruleset for their fix now.
WotC has been doing poorly for some time. You'd have to hit up a /tg/ (not 4chan) board for the details, it's more than I could memorize.