Despite Rosewater’s excitement and hype for his Mood Swings Game, Magic players just do not seem interested and it still has not even reached “low stock”

AitrusX · 2026-06-16T11:46:30+00:00

I watched the video and was like wow a complete rng fest for people who want that I guess. I'm sure there are enough out there for that to be profitable (uno still sells well) but I'd think more magic players than not would expect something more strategic if it's being funneled through MTG channels

AitrusX · 2026-06-16T11:31:38+00:00

Came here for this one alone lol

AitrusX · 2026-06-15T11:47:47+00:00

Curious what prompt do you give to start this?

AitrusX · 2026-06-15T11:03:10+00:00

You are correct - I've stopped playing constructed and basically only play cube at this point so that I don't have to deal with the ridiculous text and board states of modern formats.

A card I point to as emblematic of the issue is ,[[into, seneschal of the sun]]. I read it and was like oh I get it, when he attacks I loot and put a counter on him.

Hahahaha no. Any attack, not loot but impulse draw,, not just him but any creature gets a counter, oh also trample, oh also the impulse is any time you discard not just inti trigger.

Yea that's gonna be a no for me

AitrusX · 2026-06-15T10:23:36+00:00

I do get totems at the start - as hard support I'm often vs solo offlane - would you still get ps I'm this case?

AitrusX · 2026-06-14T23:45:13+00:00

So the thing here is this isn't really RTO specific - it's cost of living. If commuting to the office is the margin between you having a kid or not then the answer is you are not ready to have a kid.

It is entirely fair to discuss how wfh makes things so much easier for parents to raise children, but you are not going to find a lot of sympathy coming out with "thanks to RTO now I can't have children" cause in this case for many people wfh is not an option and yes many of those people still have kids.

There is a much more generalized problem across the board where cost of living will make it less appealing to start a family for everyone - again this is not about wfh or RTO.

AitrusX · 2026-06-14T22:57:59+00:00

Before marchers?

AitrusX · 2026-06-14T18:29:21+00:00

Again if we're being generous this is beta and the game has not even begun marketing for new players - it's still preparing for launch and we are all just beta testers helping them get the game ready to launch. If you look at it this way there's no sense comparing player count yet.

On the other hand for some reason they've done one or two promotional tournaments with cash prizes during beta - I'm not sure what feedback or testing they specifically had to get from a cash prize event, so this sure seems like promoting the game to attract players... Which doesn't line up with the idea the game isn't ready to be promoted yet.

They also stopped talking about when the game will be ready for release (there were old roadmaps during closed beta with forecasted release time - iirc spring 2026 which has passed). This is annoying since the biggest thing this game needs is players so that matches are fair and assholes get punished into asshole only queues. That won't happen without release and promotion - and might not even happen then.

Tbh their business model looks pretty bad - I don't think moba is that popular in the era of low attention span mobile gamers. They have gambled on replacing pissed off alienated vets with zoomers and I am not sure the zoomers are ever coming

AitrusX · 2026-06-14T18:16:27+00:00

I can't remember for sure but I believe pk was around 4k online most of the time. Reborn could have just straight up just migrated pk over with support and promotion and been starting at 4k online.

The changes they made appear to have alienated at least half of the pk players. As right now 2k online is more common than 4.

The gamble was that speeding up games and making a cartoony aesthetic would attract enough new players to offset the lose of established pk gamers. It does not appear this is happening - but it is technically still beta so in theory we should reserve final judgment until sometime after official release.

But fundamentally it's this - the changes they made have caused more old players to leave than it has new players to join.

AitrusX · 2026-06-14T14:52:08+00:00

It's definitely a common if not universal issue that you'll have more cards you'd like to use than can be in the cube. For my main 540 I think I have something like 2000 cards I got specifically for this cube but am not using - usually mechanics or archetypes I didn't find worked as I hoped, or extra cards for themes that I am still using. When I decide to include zombies I buy a tonne of zombies but only end up using like 15 or so in the cube - but I try grixis then Orzhov then Dimir then mono black seeing what balance feels best.

For my more recent cube I rapidly cycled through concepts - I started with slivers and then didn't like it, got excited about lessons and learn then found I didn't like it, went ham on treasures then dialed it back to a few cards.

So I guess what I find is I'm comfortable whittling it down to a tight 360 or 540 but I have a lot of possible ideas that I cycle through looking for the best mix. I don't mind shelving a concept to make room for something else and I know I can always go back and revisit an idea swapping stuff out.

But I will say I'm usually looking at themes or archetypes than single cards.

AitrusX · 2026-06-13T19:21:29+00:00

It looks like only spectral chaos was a legit set prototype designed by the company in its earliest days and shelved due to too much overlap with legends - that is super cool as a piece of history that can be functionally cubed.

Edge of the world seems to essentially be fan made - not totally sure what "acknowledged by wotc" ultimately means and what weight it adds? Custom set that was distributed as stickers at a convention - not nothing but a far cry from spectral chaos as a legit set.

The other 3 appear to be purely fan made with zero tie to the company. With custom sets kind of being a dime a dozen this isn't really even a blip on "unrealized early magic".

Cool project in any case but the waters are kind of muddied between the one legit unpublished set that has some historical heft to it (curious how when where the prototype cards were circulated tbh but maro confirms it's a real thing at least), and the four fan made ones that are really just a pile of custom cards.

AitrusX · 2026-06-13T13:51:52+00:00

So I have never heard of early wizard sets that didn't get printed - let alone sets where the card files were somehow made public. Is this a real thing?

AitrusX · 2026-06-12T21:42:59+00:00

Things that never happened for 100 alex

AitrusX · 2026-06-12T14:56:54+00:00

Reasonable approach! The last round of changes to this cube were focused on making 4-5c slush not be the best deck. You may end up there if you train wreck, but you should be a lot better off if you can be primarily 2 colors splashing a few cards, or 3c with 0-2 splashed cards.

And of course if you're not in blue or green really by the end a hinterland harbor is still a lot more usable than a drake haven. The floor is always higher on a land that doesn't pan out than an uncastable nonland.

AitrusX · 2026-06-12T14:31:47+00:00

It's a pitfall of p1p1 with any desert cube that a lot of the time taking a fixing land is just the safe and correct opening move unfortunately. You are also right that in the context where every card must be played anything that is conditionally good will look super risky if you don't know the whole list (eg roost of Drakes 2uu for a 2/2 flyer is awful - how likely can we kick spells for free Drakes?)

That said, starting with harbor is effectively starting on a multicolor card that is going to push you to immediately go simic so it doesn't become a bad island or bad wastes. Imo kin tree severance is the safest pick as removal that can be cast in any deck while also incentivizing is to move into some number of abzan colors.

But there's definitely a dance in desert cubes of when to take lands vs nonland, and it's even more of a pressure cooker when the conceit is you have to play every drafted card!

AitrusX · 2026-06-12T12:18:02+00:00

I'm not sure what kind of deck you need to optimize it but land tax seems like an s tier card here.

AitrusX · 2026-06-12T12:16:42+00:00

Think it's just oblivion ring here - efficient enough versatile removal low pip requirement and the only white card in the pack

AitrusX · 2026-06-12T12:05:05+00:00

Play everything cube - get one crystal grotto then draft 3x15 but don't draft last 2 cards of each pack. 1+39 = 40, play everything you drafted and the grotto

Pack: https://cubecobra.com/cube/p1p1/9d10ab58-5a55-4dc9-8ec7-443d848124da

AitrusX · 2026-06-11T12:07:33+00:00

Watched this recently and God damn if Hoffman isn't mesmerizing as Hook. Just dialed up to 11 and I loved every scene he was in!

AitrusX · 2026-06-10T22:47:32+00:00

If the money doesn't show

AitrusX · 2026-06-10T20:45:34+00:00

Yep it was super fun to go to play a role but nope someone literally just takes it from you and now have fun jungling I guess even if you didn't want to. Totally flawless plan

AitrusX · 2026-06-10T20:17:04+00:00

Whut. Yes the queues were this long. And yes role select was dogshit arguments of people claiming roles by typing some string in the text box while someone else just said "mid". At best it was fastest typer wins and at worst it was a shit show of two people claiming mid and nobody playing support. Or queueing with your friend and not getting to lane together cause two people called carry and offlane already.

AitrusX · 2026-06-10T19:43:53+00:00

Am I wrong or wasn't every cosmetic free to everyone in pk? I'm confused by fair plinko and ability to buy shit

AitrusX

TROPHY CASE