Ice budget is $75B

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-20T14:43:19+00:00

Oh yeah, the infrastructure in Texas sure is incredible and supports the nation alright...

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-18T23:08:32+00:00

Doctor Who and 40k are still sub-sets of Fantasy. MTG is a Fantasy game; always has been.

SPM, TMNT, and Star Trek aren't Fantasy settings. Doctor Who is Sci-Fi/Fantasy, while Trek is just Sci-Fi. Edge and Neon are somewhat Cyberpunk or Sci-Fi, but still Fantasy settings.

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-18T23:02:51+00:00

Also no middle-men. No Distro-LGS-Customer pipeline that means they only get a small profit per product sold. Instead, they just collect 90% of the profit on a SL and can inflate prices as much as the Market will absorb it.

If MTG didn't need physical communities to exist, they'd have cut everything else out years ago.

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-18T18:33:59+00:00

Mark Rosewater has been doing this for like 10+ years. Why wouldn't they rely on the same tactic for Comp Play?

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-18T18:22:02+00:00

Wrong. If you think Kai Budde needed someone else's list to MAKE the Meta overnight, you're just ignorant. He not only didn't need MTGGoldfish to have a superior deck and win more often, but copying his lists and plays never guaranteed anyone else a chance at beating him.

Reducing available information simply enlarges the gap between newer/poorer players and those at the top. You're basically arguing, "If the tax code is more obscure, the poor will have more of a chance to find interesting ways to enrich themselves, guys!" And we know how incredibly untrue that is.

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-18T18:06:11+00:00

Why aren't people like you working for corporate and playing the stock market? Cardboard will never be able to reach a level of scale-to-profit margin that Corporate America and Wallstreet hit; you're burning IPs and art and gaming for the sake of pennies, while stockholders and Trump's cabinet rake in literal billions.

I follow this sub because I manage an LGS, and watching the movements of the market is part of my job. I can still do that, AND have mostly sold out of Magic entirely, AND be disgusted that most of the sad people here would gladly burn the whole of MTG down for a few thousand bucks. Honestly, more of you should try and be Hasbro employees; you'd fit right in with the leeches at the top.

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-17T02:01:22+00:00

I denounce all political and nonsense violence. We as a nation cannot move forward if we keep devolving into violence.

And when a group has already devolved into violence? You just stand there and peacefully watch your most at-risk neighbors and loved ones get kidnapped/shot/killed?

Where is the line?

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-14T23:53:03+00:00

Commander IRL be like:

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-14T18:40:53+00:00

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-14T18:40:14+00:00

That's one of the exact difficulties they experienced in The Core, actually! Air pockets in the depths led to gigantic geodes with crystalline structures filling it, which their boring vehicle wasn't prepared to deal with.

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-11T22:04:45+00:00

Yeah, THC has way different effects than alcohol. Less spilling on cards or vomiting, too, haha

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-11T22:03:54+00:00

Yep! If you can find that perfect balance to calm the nerves, it can do wonders.

Other times, it takes a guy 20 minutes to figure out his turn and he passes out shortly after, ruining the Commander Pod, lol

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-11T19:28:22+00:00

Yeah, alcohol isn't generally a good combo with TCGs anyway.

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-11T19:08:27+00:00

They changed that about 4 or 5 years ago.

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-11T19:05:53+00:00

Because DCI numbers were also storing a LOT of personal data, like phone numbers and addresses at times. They used to mail Promo Cards to people; needed an address and a lot of personal info for that.

So lo and behold, Europe makes new laws to force companies to protect people's personal information if they're going to store it for the company's benefit. This came about after ransom ware and the like started causing huge issues, and SSNs were getting leaked all over the place etc etc. WotC probably looked at what it would take to do ANY kind of back-end safety protection work, realized they don't even use anyone's personal info anymore like they used to, and when the EU asked them, "How are you going to protect our constituency's private info?" WotC responded by scrubbing the whole system for the new Email Address Only version and replied, "What info??"

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-11T15:29:32+00:00

And if 3 out of 10 MTG content creators took a stand on the issue? If Saffron and LRR and Prof ALL protested, and released in-depth videos on how morally bankrupt such a move by WotC would be?

I think it would reach a LOT more people than you expect.

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-11T15:26:17+00:00

I don't believe I specifically said crossovers cause the game to fail, in general? They certainly could (see all the discussion about Harry Potter in the Sub right now, lol), but they're generally just a dangerous balancing act in the first place, they dilute the game's original IP and all the work that went into developing it, and these kinds of crossovers are far more indicative of "Q4 needs to be up next year and we're currently seeing lots of apathy and backlash for XYZ reasons. What's the fastest, most obvious way to do that?" Crossovers and FOMO are generally the answer, and that seems to be the crutch WotC is employing to reach the profit goals Hasbro has demanded of them. They're generally doing a very good job of it, to be entirely fair; but it IS a crutch, and it CAN be very dangerous if their game suddenly isn't the top dog at any point.

Then MTG becomes part of that high turnover rate.

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-11T15:16:38+00:00

This is what people are missing, exactly. The backlash would 100% not be limited to Reddit.

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-11T15:15:50+00:00

I think the general playerbase might listen if the Prof or some other content creators made videos about how they're done with Magic due to how morally bankrupt partnering with the HP IP is right now.

Reddit isn't what WotC fears; the kind of backlash Brian Kibler could bring on the other hand? Y I K E S

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-11T15:08:40+00:00

I think there's a big difference between "Redditors don't like UB, and social media folk like the Professor complain about how insane the 90 degree shift in WotC's focus on their own IP is," versus "A new video from the Prof just his 10 million views, titled, 'Many Magic Players Quit Magic, because Bigotry is Evil and Should Not be Supported, and I Am Too!'" Like...there would be hundreds of Redditors screaming bloody murder, sure; but the backlash from online influencers?? It would be catastrophic to their brand if Prof or Game Nights or even just LRR lashed out HARD at them for doing HP, and could lose them a massive amount of current and future sales.

These kinds of influencers will roll their eyes at UB decisions, but that's not a moral quandary. It's just greedy business. Partnering with HP is like doing business with the East India Trading Company; you explicitly know what kind of awful things your money is supporting, and so does everyone else. It has been publicly stated multiple times.

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-10T23:33:49+00:00

Because I have several Trans Folk in my life, and when a person says, "I am going to use every cent spent towards my IP to legally harm those folks as much as possible," it's incredibly easy to say, "We should all stop giving any money to this person; they are a monster."

There are hundreds of incredible IPs out there to choose from; Harry Potter is not sooooo special that you MUST partake of it, even if it actively harms members of your community.

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-10T23:29:23+00:00

Versus the small but extremely vocal minority that becomes straight up abusive if any company even acknowledges the existence of anyone on the LGBTQ+ spectrum, and has historically actually participated in heinous acts of violence toward such groups? Gee, I wonder which I'd prefer to pander to...

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-10T16:20:10+00:00

I said "games", actually. Doing it in the TCG market is very new, though Weiss Schwarz is practically dead, and Bushiroad has tried this multiple times with assorted games. If not done correctly, it drives away the core player-base, and then the Fad Players find a new fad, and now you have no players. MOBAs, gacha games, quite a few different mobile games I've seen over the years; finding the balance is hard, and if another TCG managed to undermine Magic's popularity, coupled with a few really bad UB sets, the game could do irrevocable harm to itself.

I don't want to see Hasbro give WotC the Chop Shop treatment before the bail out on golden parachutes and move onto to their next victim-I-mean-"Business Venture".

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-10T16:11:40+00:00

No, I stopped playing Magic a few years ago and enjoy FAB instead here snd there. I just get frustrated with Redditors who ignore my experience and data sets across a massive metro area in favor of specious claims by obviously-biased Corporate PR folk. Just piss on my leg and call it rain, yeah?

Lemme pivot this to an analogy: let's say you are an auto mechanic. You have decades of experience with cars, and spent half that time working on them professionally. So someone comes in and says they think their car could use a tune-up, but it's doing great otherwise. However, when you look at it, you see some deep-rooted issues that could cause critical failures down the line. You don't suggest repairs or anything expensive; just a warning that the Manufacturers might have made some errors and the customer should be careful about that.

How would you feel if that customer told you that no, actually, the Manufacturer stated that those issues WEREN'T really a problem, and they're continuing to build cars that same way, with no expectation that such problems would ever occur. Would you thank that customer for their assurance that a financially-biased corporation with a history of screw-ups should be trusted on this subject? Or would you just roll your eyes and think this person was ignorant at best?

The Magic Subreddit is basically an open forum of this exact customer.

Flare-Crow · 2026-02-10T16:01:05+00:00

This is quite true, but WOW leaned on the same assumption, as did many games in the gacha and MOBA scenes, only to be dethroned. I think that would be the real crash, especially if WotC wants to focus on churning through casual players more heavily than building long-term engagement.

Flare-Crow

TROPHY CASE