Yeah, it sucks being a magic fan who likes UB on the internet lately. Apparently the fact that I can enjoy UB ruins magic for people who won’t buy the sets?
Honestly, that’s great that you enjoy them! I think the negativity is the sets aren’t self-contained. Once they’re released, they’re a part of magic and the eternal formats forever. Especially for those who have played for decades, that identity shift of the game is jarring.
I first started playing between 4e & ice age, and it’s BECAUSE i’ve been playing magic for 28 years (well, off and on like many people), that I’ve been wanting to see optional UB-like special releases that reinterpret other universes as if they were a plane in the magic multiverse for over a decade.
Playgroups can very easily ban UB from their own eternal format playsessions, and I think in formats like legacy and commander where nearly anything goes anyway, it’d be silly to ban them. Perhaps there should be official “UB-friendly modern” and “core lore only modern”? modern is kinda the midway point between serious competitive and casual play anyway.
Plus in those 28 years, magic’s core lore itself has gotten way wackier, especially in the last decade and a half or so. We now have a whole bunch of weird magic planes that would have felt just as out of place in the mid-90s; there are now:
a mobster plane
a fairy tale plane
an egyptian plane
a plane that covers everywhere from ancient to modern japanese culture
a vampire/werewolf centric european gothic horror set
a nordic/viking plane
a bunch of other wacky planes
plus eldrazi and the blind eternities are an obvious take on lovecraftian horror
For most of the above, the only reason they’re not considered UB themselves is that the source material they’re copying is old enough to be in the public domain. And almost none of them feel like they fit in the universe magic was in its first decade or so. Even without UB, today’s landscape in mtg is far separated from the original/“pure” lore i grew up with (and even that took plenty of influence from classic public domain fiction).
A whole bunch of top-down sets have been “jarring” to people who have been playing magic for decades.
@rubythulhu@kajib it’s very hard to control your play group when that includes games at a store or CommandFest. A large part of magic being fun is playing against strangers.
I think more people complain about UB than really cared deeply about the flavour of things, but UB is also tied to other trends in MtG that have been increasing, like the number of cards printed each year.
it’s very hard to control your play group when that includes games at a store or CommandFest
Correct, because some of those players will not have the same opinions as you; hell, some of them may actually enjoy UB releases. They also can’t control you ([[mindslaver]] and similar cards notwithstanding 😉).
We have public games, and we have private games with friend playgroups. It’s not a bad thing for public games to be more inclusive, especially in casual formats like commander.
My take is the two UB and MH3 in the lineup are very polarizing, leading to negative perceptions overall.
Yeah, it sucks being a magic fan who likes UB on the internet lately. Apparently the fact that I can enjoy UB ruins magic for people who won’t buy the sets?
Honestly, that’s great that you enjoy them! I think the negativity is the sets aren’t self-contained. Once they’re released, they’re a part of magic and the eternal formats forever. Especially for those who have played for decades, that identity shift of the game is jarring.
I first started playing between 4e & ice age, and it’s BECAUSE i’ve been playing magic for 28 years (well, off and on like many people), that I’ve been wanting to see optional UB-like special releases that reinterpret other universes as if they were a plane in the magic multiverse for over a decade.
Playgroups can very easily ban UB from their own eternal format playsessions, and I think in formats like legacy and commander where nearly anything goes anyway, it’d be silly to ban them. Perhaps there should be official “UB-friendly modern” and “core lore only modern”? modern is kinda the midway point between serious competitive and casual play anyway.
Plus in those 28 years, magic’s core lore itself has gotten way wackier, especially in the last decade and a half or so. We now have a whole bunch of weird magic planes that would have felt just as out of place in the mid-90s; there are now:
For most of the above, the only reason they’re not considered UB themselves is that the source material they’re copying is old enough to be in the public domain. And almost none of them feel like they fit in the universe magic was in its first decade or so. Even without UB, today’s landscape in mtg is far separated from the original/“pure” lore i grew up with (and even that took plenty of influence from classic public domain fiction).
A whole bunch of top-down sets have been “jarring” to people who have been playing magic for decades.
@rubythulhu @kajib it’s very hard to control your play group when that includes games at a store or CommandFest. A large part of magic being fun is playing against strangers.
I think more people complain about UB than really cared deeply about the flavour of things, but UB is also tied to other trends in MtG that have been increasing, like the number of cards printed each year.
Correct, because some of those players will not have the same opinions as you; hell, some of them may actually enjoy UB releases. They also can’t control you ([[mindslaver]] and similar cards notwithstanding 😉).
We have public games, and we have private games with friend playgroups. It’s not a bad thing for public games to be more inclusive, especially in casual formats like commander.
[[card name]] to call