Disappointment

So, if you're not up to speed on why Magic players are so unhappy, here's a pretty solid article on the subject. 

And this reaction is one I particularly like. Just because I can feel that take, right? Frustration and disappointment.

This game has leaned in hard on a pay-to-win model, with product that increasingly feels...bland. 

Powerful, sure. But boring. And that power is forcing ideas out of the sphere of playability. Why try something different if Uro, and Oko, (remember Oko? That card still sucks.) and Omnath run over everything, so your options are beat that deck, or play that deck. 

When essential game pieces, such as lands, cost over $10, that again, puts a barrier to entry for Magic. Want to do a cool thing? That'll be $120+ to start. That's your base. 

When the market is so flooded with product that consumers have difficulty telling what a Buy-a-Box promo is vs a Box Topper, there are multiple Commander decks released at different times, premium releases every month or more, and at least two different kinds of booster packs to purchase, you get a bewildered consumer base.

Look at how many friggin' product types there are for Zendikar Rising! That is a nearly 2,000 word essay just to explain the different kind of product available. At that rate, we've hit videogame pre-order levels of nonsense. 

While I do believe that 'there is no perfect sauce, there are only perfect sauces', there is a point where the number of options without true variance becomes overwhelming.      

We just want to play Magic in the formats available (deep breath): Draft, Sealed, Standard, Modern, Historic, Pioneer, Brawl, Commander, Vintage, Legacy, Oathbreaker, and casual kitchen-table Magic.

Did I miss anything? Spoiler: I did. The game is that expansive. And having that many formats is different than having that many products, because the products slot into almost all of those formats. I can ignore a format I don't find interesting, I don't get to ignore a product.

But increasingly, those formats feel as if they are being kept behind gates: gates of product, gates of complexity, and now, with the release of the Walking Dead Secret Lair, it is clear that gates of money are involved, too. Because I'm in agreement with The Professor's and PwrDragn's take (and other's); putting black boarder, unique cards into a Secret Lair is a bad thing, one that could have been easily avoided. 

Which is...just sad. It sucks away my desire to play Magic. There's nothing to try, there's just the best deck vs the deck that might beat the best deck, and the styles all feel very much the same. What's the point of playing if the most important thing required to do so is to have enough money to get the best thing? 

There's a feeling in the community that WotC is trying to shoehorn all formats of Magic into something Commander players love...I can't help but feel that they've got a point. 

It's not a good feeling, either.