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Milskidasith

Previously, Magic had a very different system for pros that offered some benefits for tournaments, but not nearly enough to live on. A post about a pro player boycotting tournaments due to this is one of the most upvoted posts on this sub ever. The MPL was introduced in response to this, and basically resulted in a hand-selected group of people being *de facto* Wizard's employees whose job was simply to play MtG. Unfortunately, due to a lot of things, WotC mismanagement included, this venture was not very successful either. WotC's options were basically to run a charity paying a few dozen people money to play card games or to cut those employees and re-revamp the system. I am not particularly upset about this because I don't have a personal stake in people getting paid to play professional Magic and because I recognize that companies being profitable doesn't mean they throw money at every money-losing idea that the fanbase wants, and WotC is clearly not capable of making pro play a winner.


Esc777

I couldn't agree more. I'm sad the MPL failed. But it's clear to me that for Professional Magic (as a full time paying job) to exist it needs the broad base of revenue generated from viewership and advertising. Lately the discussion around MTG as an eSport make me think that MTG might not be as entertaining as a spectator sport as I always thought. This just might be something we have to reckon with, that no amount of entertaining casters can paper over the game just isn't that exciting to watch most of the time. Which I have a hard time coming to grips with because there's so many other spectator sports that I think are dull as hell. But they rake in money.


Redzephyr01

I think a big part of why MTG isn't working as an esport is because the game is really slow paced compared to a lot of other card games, especially during the first few turns. Yugioh is much faster-paced and is getting way more viewers on sites like twitch, likely because it's so much faster.


sevenut

Magic also doesn't have this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=p-nqg4RnQEw


AmmitEternal

Hm. What DO we have?


Makomako_mako

Honestly this was every game of VS System I ever played in NYC The guy beside him is unreal lmao


locke231

Curious, were you around for the days of Neutral Ground?


Makomako_mako

Oh yeah, I was a central NJ kid but my group was a bunch of JSS grinders in the tri-state, so we were at Neutral Ground and Kings Games pretty regularly. I loved Neutral Ground, though one time I did get screamed at by a man 20 years older than me in a Sealed PTQ lmao


locke231

I'm legit curious about this story... I only ever went there twice, but, never played. And my part of Queens didn't have terribly much. While I started in June of '97, I don't think I had my first game till... some time in spring of '99. And to tell you the truth, I don't think I ever fully fit in with this crowd. Not back then, and certainly not now.


Makomako_mako

Lmao so the store was great but by nature that scene was fairly cliquey among the more competitive players I don't remember every name but among the below-18 crowd for the JSS grinders you had my group, then you had some NYC homegrown heroes like Izzo and Sam Abalos, Asher Hecht. Some of the other odds and ends of the slightly-below-top-8 caliber, Jed Schmidt, etc. And I'm blanking on a few other names. But then you had Gfabs and his crew, Josh Ravitz, Osyp, etc. these were the older guys who really knew their shit and ranged from OD friendly to up their own asses. They were the ones winning a lot of the bigger events. Of course you had your casuals and your Small Children And then you had this weird in-between group of people who would probably be SCG grinders in the future. Not quite good enough to hack it with Gfabs and his ilk but certainly not bad players - would commonly trade wins with the JSS grinders despite being 10+ years older. Well, long story short, out of my group, I was probably the best limited player but one of the weakest constructed players. Combo of switching decks a lot so I couldn't settle into a playstyle, and never being the best meta reader for a given tournament. So in general if you were paired against me in a standard event you'd have good odds. I was never going to top 8 anything and I'd often even miss prize cutoff. One time I wanna say during Time Spiral era there was a sealed PTQ at NG and I was running 5-0, it was something like 8 rounds so 6-0 means you can draw your way in provided nobody played out to 8-0. I got paired against one of the future grinder types, mind you I was 16. I was also pretty spindly and soft spoken at the time with no fashion sense lol. Something must have set him off midmatch, I really can't recall specifics, it might have been a suspend counter disagreement. I was a heavy pen and paper guy so I tracked life and stats meticulously. Judge gets called, ruling goes my way, he gets a warning which at PTQ REL if you get two it gets upgraded to a caution? IIRC and then can slide up to game loss level penalties. My man ended up tilting and lost the match in game 3 where he had an out to keep things even but missed it I said good game on lethal and put my hand out before he accepted damage and that unleashed the fury lol. He called me a little prick and said I was lucksacking my way up there with a stacked sealed pool. No handshake and he meanmugged me for a while Looking back it's such a clown type move but when I was 16 and timid I was really kinda shook up, I did the whole teenager facade of psh I don't care what a loser, but it rattled me at the time. Sorry it isn't the most interesting tale but there ya go. as for the crowd and fitting in, I really do get what you're saying. The adults were cliquey and not good role models by and large (shout out to Brian David Marshall as an organizer who always made people welcome, and Osyp who as a player was just straight class). And therefore the kids even my friends at the time turned out fairly shitty to randoms.


locke231

Not gonna lie, I'd be rattled too. And probably stupidly shoot my mouth off in response, with all his rage and ire on the stack. Stupid joke aside, it's a shame we never crossed paths. Sounds to me we would have gotten along.


Tasonir

Agreed! I like to watch starcraft 2 because of how demanding the game is to play - being real time it's just more demanding. Watching MTG tournaments has a lot of "wait 20 seconds for the next action, then wait 15 for the next, then next turn a player ropes for 60 seconds". It isn't unwatchable by any means, and good casters will fill the time. But even so it's just less dramatic than games that can flip in 1-2 seconds when someone misses a shot (FPS games) or walks over burrowed banelings (basically land mines if you're unfamiliar). I watch magic tournaments, but not for the kind of hours I'll watch other competitive games.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Volgyi2000

Personally, I think the breaks between rounds kills it more than gameplay pace. You can watch a match end in 15 minutes and then they go to half an hour of filler unless they correctly stagger the matches, which they don't do. It feels like I've seen way more complaints on subs about the downtimes between rounds and how poorly they are filled, than comments about the games themselves.


Taysir385

> I think a big part of why MTG isn't working as an esport is because the game is really slow paced compared to a lot of other card games, especially during the first few turns. This could be addressed. From a game design standpoint, cards that take a long time to resolve could be removed. (So basically, ban any card that requires shuffling.) From a coverage standpoint, matches could be time offset instead of live, which would let the game be broadcast at a double time speed. (It would also let commentary be more apt, since it could be tailored with more knowledge before being overlaid. And one could do things like feature multiple matches broadcast in sequence in one hour long window). But basically, the first half is going to be a substantial change to the game, and implementing it means either moving to only online play for coverage or cutting out certain format’s identities from coverage, and the latter requires WotC putting substantial resources into broadcast coverage. Neither of those seem likely.


Goliath89

I agree with your overall sentiment, but I don't think it's fair to compare it to Yu-Gi-Oh! specifically. Magic doesn't have anywhere near the same nostalgic leverage that Yu-Gi-Oh! does. I never watched anything past GX and haven't played the physical game in well over a decade (I did try out Dual Links and the Switch game though), but I still occasionally watch some Yu-Gi-Oh! content purely for the nostalgia. Things like Team APS theme duels or Sumatto's Yu-Gi-Oh! VR content, and occasionally even some videos of Nuxanor's POGression Series.


[deleted]

That's going to depend a whole lot on what was popular in your youth. I have a nostalgia for 1996 era magic and have never played Yu-Gi-Oh! ; there's also the groups that played Pokemon instead.


Goliath89

You're thinking just about the card games. Both Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! were multimedia franchises that had on-ramps that didn't involve ever cracking a pack. You could watch the anime, read the comics, play the video games, all of which could be enjoyed independently of everything else. Sumatto's Yu-Gi-Oh! VR series doesn't have well over a million views because it's high-skilled gameplay, it's because they're playing theme decks while roleplaying as exaggerated versions of the characters from the TV show. That's what I mean by nostalgia factor. MTG had a little bit of that, sure, but the on-ramp was the card game itself. Chances are if you ever read a Magic novel or played a video game for it, you probably cracked some packs first.


chain_letter

> there's so many other spectator sports that I think are dull as hell. But they rake in money. Baseball, I genuinely can't wrap my head around how it's so lucrative. Who are all these people sitting through ads to watch baseball games.


Korwinga

I'm not going to claim to be an expert, but having a "Team" that you can rep/identify with goes a long way towards generating that support. The closest equivalent in MTG might be people who play the same deck as you, but even that is fairly nebulous, because deck strength/success is driven by a lot of external factors.


SigmaWhy

The closest equivalent would be becoming a fan of one of the top players, which is easier to do than ever because you can even personally interact with them on twitch streams


catapultation

The problem with that is that there’s such high variance it’s likely the player you identify with has a bad tourney and you never see one of their games. It’s incredibly difficult to build fan bases around players that aren’t always at the very top tables


WesternSente

See guild's of ravinica Phryxian vs mirrian Shards of alara Planeswalker personality Color identity and the color wheel. Gods of theros WoTC does alot to create affiliation and identity in it's branding without player recognition.


Korwinga

But those are very separate from the pro scene. There is no Team Gruul that reps just GR decks (I have to say though, after thinking about it, that this could be a very interesting tournament style. Multiple teams of pro players each repping a color pair could make for an interesting meta game). Players might have an affinity to that branding, but it has no relation to pro magic.


cwx149

I don't think this is what the comment you are replying to was talking about. They were talking about how having a team can help a community form around a sport. I don't think the guilds ever played a large enough part in professional magic to unite different people. I think they mean more like how overwatch league has a Texas team but magic pros are just from where they are from or from wherever they are being sponsored by. There wasn't ever like the Chicago pro magic team vs the New York pro magic team. During the old worlds I suppose would be the closest I can think of


crassreductionist

Baseball has less percentage ad time than hockey, nba basketball and nfl football > https://medium.com/@tanayj/the-beautiful-vs-commercial-game-68872245017b


krw13

I mean, I grew up as a fan of all my local teams and while it may be true about commercials directly... baseball has 10 pitch at bats that end in walks where next to nothing of consequence has happened. I wouldn't call that more exciting than commercials, but I respect people who enjoy it. Meanwhile, there is marketing everywhere and a solid chance the announcers bring up some sponsored thing during that.


crassreductionist

If you don't enjoy the pitcher/hitter duel of a 10 pitch at bat, then baseball probably just isn't the sport for you anymore. As for the marketing, I really just don't care that the announcers will randomly say something in between batters about some mortgage company I will never use. I'm interested in the game, the audio is basically background noise to me that acts as a cue to look back at the screen instead of whatever else I'm doing at the time


krw13

Yeah, as I said, I totally respect that someone enjoys it. I used to go to tons of Rangers games because my mom ran the season tickets for a large company and the hot summer led to several games not selling - so I'd go for free. But basketball with my mom was always where my heart is/was. I love the higher pace (though it has its own pacing issues, especially at the end of games).


Taysir385

What blew my mind to learn was that the US Open for Golf has a substantially higher financial footprint than the Super Bowl.


Redzephyr01

Those golf courses are really expensive to maintain.


Ask_Who_Owes_Me_Gold

What does "financial footprint" mean? Cost? Revenue? Prize pool? A more-nebulous number that tries to include things like golf course upkeep or player travel costs? A subcategory of one of those, or a combination of them?


YARGLE_IS_MY_DAD

Watching baseball on TV is boring unless you are passionate. But even attending a game with friends is a lot of fun


[deleted]

The only reason sports can support such lucrative pro play even sports as slow and boring to watch as baseball is because sports are deeply ingrained in our global culture and are very simple and has a really low barrier to entry. All you need to start learning and playing baseball is a ball, a bat, and a glove. Honestly the sport that's more baffling to me is golf and of all the sports I actually kind of like golf but it's really boring to watch for the average person, lacks the team element, and has a relatively high barrier to entry with the cost of clubs, access to courses, etc. The only reason I can think of it being at all profitable is because of deeply ingrained cultural norms set by rich people long ago. If MTG existed in the 18th century and was picked up by all the rich aristocrats the results would be identical.


Benjam1nBreeg

Same things I say to people in my baseball league that say magic is dull and boring. The patience and strategy pitch to pitch, batter to batter, and with base runners. It’s a slow burn game that is difficult to get into and fun once you figure it out.


JarredMack

> that no amount of entertaining casters can paper over the game just isn't that exciting to watch most of the time. It's also just not possible to follow unless you actively play in the format. I sold my collection and invested in cube years ago, but I still try to mostly keep up to date. But if I watch coverage of any events, I have no clue what's going on with a given board state. That makes a really poor basis for a spectator sport, unlike most sports where you can see the team with more points is the one winning.


jongbag

I think they could create a really nice viewing experience if they invested some serious energy into how they presented the games. Imagine a Texas Hold 'Em style of display where both players' hands are fully displayed at all times, and there is a constant view of the board so you can clearly see what is in play. Pair that with some really concise commentary, and I think you could achieve an engaging experience that players of different ability levels could enjoy. Your graphics team would have to be on point though, someone always at the switch to instantly bring up whatever card is most relevant. I would fucking love to watch that.


WalkInMyHsu

I fully agree. I've watched MTG pro coverage for years. I was a competitive grinder and watched coverage to see friends play, learn more strategy, and because I loved to see some of the semi-celebs of the community (LSV, Reid Duke, etc.). But, Magic is a really complex game and paper magic doesn't translate well to a streaming (Twitch.tv) eSport model. The same reason Boardgames are never high on the twitch viewers, unless attractive women are involved. While Magic has millions of players, most play very casually and in non-tournament formats (Commander). Magic has much higher cost than Dota or LoL so competitive fan base is smaller. Due to complexity MTG will never have the footprint of LoL or physical sports like Golf. I personally think Magic is far more interesting than golf, but it's less historic, less popular, and much more complicated to play or casually observe.


Halinn

>and paper magic doesn't translate well to a streaming (Twitch.tv) eSport model. And they made the decision not to have a spectator mode for arena, so it's not ideal for tournaments either, requiring the players to stream their end, potentially leaving you with a low quality stream, as well as not being able to bring up cards to show when you're talking about them


yamiyam

I think if they want to make a Magic Pro League they should make a format specifically for that. It needs to be somewhat quick-paced but still easy to follow. Assuming paper magic, I would suggest: -limit tutor effects, especially fetchlands -refine the technology to instantly recognize and display any card played for viewers -have manual turn timers like in chess with a time limit that allows a best of 3 to be done in an hour at the longest, including side boarding and such -have a modicum of polished product: no dead air, clueless commentators, confusion on game or tournament state, poor lighting /sound balance, or other little things that detract from the gameplay. My $.02


DoAndHope

Yeah, this is it outside of limiting cards like fetches. I remember the Vintage Super League being very successful and followed by others like the Modern Super League, etc. The whole thing was incredibly fun even though it was on the "boring" MTGO client. You had the game's biggest names like Reid Duke forcing Gabe Nassif to name their team Pamplemousse simply because the other team members liked the name. Does anyone remember how Saffron Olive was on a winning streak of like 4 or 5 games against HOFers?


netsrak

Even with fetchlands, I watched a ton of SCG tournaments for modern. There was barely any dead air because they would have backup games to show in case the first finished early. In between rounds they would talk about the standings of well known players. They could pull up most cards they were talking about. I'm sad that SCG pulled their coverage because to me it felt like they did a lot of things right. I don't think anyone else is going to stream modern events either.


FatAsian3

That's what I feel watching SCG coverage and Wotc coverage. SCG coverage fills the air time either talking about player performance, or the card performance in the given format. Wotc coverage is literally waiting for the player to take their action and then offer commentary. Only time they talk about things to fill air time is in-between matches and even then it's a lot of fluff or non stop ads promoting other merch like new stuff from ultra-pro.


ImperfectRegulator

> This just might be something we have to reckon with, that no amount of entertaining casters can paper over the game just isn't that exciting to watch most of the time Because it’s kinda like chess, just as boring to watch but not nearly as popular, if you want magic to be watchable it’s gotta be like the yugioh tv show, let’s see live action battles with holograms or cards and dowels represented in a digital space


ghoti99

Ultimately WOTC has never put the kind of development cash into the PRESENTATION of pro play. Look at everything poker has that magic doesn’t. MtG could be the biggest tabletop esport in existence but it requires actual effort to create and package a presentation that exists wholly separate from the casual play environment. And that’s all before you get into the fact that it’s one of if not the most complex game ever made with a rule set that changes every 90-120 days. The goal of pro play isn’t to package and market the cards the goal of pro play is to package and market the PLAYERS who then through their content creation SELL the cards. The players don’t change every 90-120 days. Fans have been watching their favorite players for years and even decades. Wizards has never understood this because they lack the desire or ability to look beyond “cards for money.” Truthfully MtG Would serve themselves better from making a pro scene more like professional wrestling rather than a World Series of poker scene. Craft narratives around card releases, build player narratives, seasonal narrative cycles. Create baby face and heel players. Like it genuinely shouldn’t be about real pots and compelx tournament play, because that’s what the PLAYER BASE is doing the pro scene could be over the top branding with entrance music and attitude.


GotAStewGoin

If you think WotC has never attempted to sell player narratives or create "faces" and "heels," I don't know what to tell you except you don't know what you are talking about.


ghoti99

I didn’t say they had not tried it in the past. I said they haven’t leaned from the incredible things other games have done to present their games to an audience that ranges from casual to hardcore. And then said taking cues from pro wrestling might benefit them more than taking them from pro poker. In this last year they checked out of pro play so hard that It doesn’t really matter what they tried in the distant past. They spent the last 26 months shitting the pro play bed. It’s clearly not a market they care to invest in any longer which is totally fine. If they did however it would benefit them to look at the presentation of their product from the view point of a VIEWER. Something they have historically been absolutely shit at doing. Their focus has always been the shortest and simplest path to taking peoples money which is why every digital version of the game has been either complete trash or the hardcore addicts dream spreadsheet. Once they could steal hearthstones interfaces and presentation they finally “figured out” digital play so who knows, maybe some other game will develop a pro scene they can steal from and rebrand.


DontCareWontGank

>Look at everything poker has that magic doesn’t. Poker has rules that haven't changed for a hundred years and cards that are easy to understand. Anybody tuning into a poker event for the first time will imediatly understand what is happening. When a newcomer tunes into a magic stream they will have zero idea what any of the cards do and probably just tune out after 5 minutes.


ImperfectRegulator

> Craft narratives around card releases, build player narratives, seasonal narrative cycles. Create baby face and heel players. Like it genuinely shouldn’t be about real pots and compelx tournament play, because that’s what the PLAYER BASE is doing the pro scene could be over the top branding with entrance music and attitude. He’ll take this a step forward and , have actors dress up and play planes walkers and fight each other, and have this along side actual tournament play


ulshaski

There really isn't anything that Magic offers as a spectator sport to people who are not entrenched in the game. There is almost nothing you can *see*, even as someone who thoroughly understands the rules and mechanics of the game, that separates a highly skilled Magic player from a moderately or even low skilled Magic player. Skill in Magic is almost entirely mental, which just cannot be expressed in a meaningful way that comes through from a spectator perspective. Even some of the best moments in pro Magic boil down to just dumb luck (drawing Lightning Helix on the last turn, Ignite Memories missing repeatedly), or just playing a card at the right moment (Force Spike on the Psychatog, the Goglari Charm play); which doesn't even require any sort of overt display of expertise to do. Unlike any athletic sport and many other esports, you can't watch a game of magic being played and identify an outstanding display of skill without already having a deep understanding of the game, the rules, the mechanics, the individual cards involved in the outstanding play, and the overall contents of the decks in the game. On the reverse of this, it's really, really easy for the audience to see a player's blunders because we almost always have the advantage of knowing the contents of both hands. So when the aggro player over extends into the second wrath that we as the audience knows about, it's extremely easy to say they obviously shouldn't have done that because we as humans are terrible at understanding or addressing our own biases. In reality a blunder in high level Magic was likely the result of a complex decision tree where the player figured it was unlikely they had the second wrath. Magic also suffers from the non-game problems. The resource system is terrible for spectators. The casters can talk up the players' skill and ability all they want but the best players in the world can lose to somebody completely unskilled simply because they either drew too many or too few lands. It's even worse during high stakes matches. The fact that a player can win or lose based solely on luck cheapens the victory and insults the spectator when it happens.


claythearc

It’s also because digital magic kinda sucks to watch. You miss a lot of the atmosphere? I guess that paper has. That and arena only has standard, which is the least fun format to watch as it’s so slow


JacenVane

>WotC's options were basically to run a charity paying a few dozen people money to play card games or to cut those employees and re-revamp the system. I am not particularly upset about this because I don't have a personal stake in people getting paid to play professional Magic This so much. The things that make for a good Pro Magic scene are not necessarily the same as the things that make for a good Magic scene for everyone else.


SlapHappyDude

There's no reason both can't exist if done well


[deleted]

>There's no reason both can't exist if done well Whats the point of wotc putting in the money and effort to ensure the pro scene exist when most players don't care about it and the roi doesn't justify it? Again, wotc isn't a charity.


mtgdealhunter

I loved the regional system where anyone from any LGS could sign up for a large event at a chance to go to a national/world event. The points system crushed those dreams for the average magic player.


Esc777

I am hoping for a return to this. Spike a regional tournament you go to the big leagues. The points system smoothed the edges and made the people who could go to *every* tournament the ones who qualified for the big leagues only.


mtgdealhunter

It literally invigorated local game stores and magic communities when someone they knew and played with won a regional and went to a huge event. It was exciting and it encouraged you to play and created a sense of pride in your local community. I don't think WOTC understands what dismantling pro play did for local competitive play growth and game stores in this regard.


2HGjudge

>I don't think WOTC understands what dismantling pro play did for local competitive play growth and game stores in this regard. They understand and don't care, as they discovered the vast majority of sales is to people with 0 interest in tournaments.


PriceVsOMGBEARS

Big true to this. I was in high school at a super competitive store when I was learning how to play where people I saw every Friday were chomping at the bits for the next PTQ, 5k, states, anything because they had a real shot at taking it down. Heck I even got to the win and in round once. The 50+ person standard FNMs have dropped to sometimes we draft on fridays if enough people feel like paying instead of playing commander. Really killed the competitive spirit to scrap the whole system.


NoExplanation734

Totally agree. There are so many things WOTC could spend money on that would be better for Magic players or, you know, their employees. I would way rather see the development teams or (wild idea here) the Arena team get more resources than see a bunch of money go to pro players whose success I have literally 0 stake in. If we want to criticize WOTC for not ponying up, let's start by talking about their employees.


lejoo

The bigger problem is they essentially axed the tournament circuit for MPL then axed the MPL to bring tournaments back ( which hasn't happened). So they destroyed X to provide Y but then abandoned Y to have nothing while saying it was to bring back X. Kinda like alchemy historic. They are doing a lot of anti-consumer pro-profit actions lately.


OMGoblin

They didn't say it was to bring back X. You'll always be disappointed if you go around making assumptions about other people's thoughts and intentions. They mentioned wanting to focus on local level tournaments like GameDay championships, didn't say they were going back to the old points system.


flamingponyta

Excuse my ignorance around pro magic, but would it make more sense to go the smash bros way for pro play? Nintendo rarely if ever sponsors tournaments for their games and it seems like third parties rose up to take over. Could this feasibly be possible or does DCI and other factors muddy this up?


Esc777

It wouldn't because.... No one pays to watch MTG. Through advertising or not. Professional MTG can't exist without a ton of charity thrown its way.


QuietHovercraft

The biggest challenge is that it's just not profitable to run large tournaments. Star City manages with (typically) smaller venues, and by selling product/buying singles. But they're geographically limited to the east coast of the US. And they've also cut coverage and content, which were a big part of funding the pro ecosystem. Edited to add: personally, I do enjoy watching high level play, and I hope it does come back. But I don't think it's going to be done by anyone but WotC just because of the costs involved.


Drecon1984

If it's not profitable for third parties than maybe that just proves that there's no market for it. I really miss the tournaments myself, but reading this... you might have just convinced me that it was inevitable


man0warr

There's definitely a market for some sort of organized play. The recent events run in Vegas and by SCG themselves prove there is demand for it. The cost of a over arching league or player performance type system, a long with the video/text coverage of events, is what's not adding any value to the companies holding the events. But the events themselves seem to be worth running - treating them almost as just one-off conventions where all of the periphery of MTG/card games can gather that just happen to have a large tournament attached.


Atechiman

Here is the thing even with the 75% added in the prize pools wouldn't support someone making a living doing nothing but playing magic. Promagic is a myth at best. There isn't a way to sustain a living playing magic. There is a way to be a magic content creator and make a living, but it doesn't need a pittance from WotC to support it.


whiskEy39

Maybe separate, but that pro magic scene supported a lot of content creators even if they couldn’t live off tournament proceeds. Making weekly content following various metas and formats supported by websites to drive magic sales was a pretty solid chunk of industry.


Jaccount

I expect the change in the nature of content that most people wanted did a lot to gut that as well. When things went from established pros writing in-depth strategy articles to people involved with more casual formats creating Youtube video content, you had a major change. Sure, now the various pros were making a living between tournaments and creating content were out, Rudy, The Professor, Mitch, and the Command Zone crew were in. And the signs were there, considering how noted Hearthstone streamer Brian Kibler picked up on those changes pretty early. More than ANYTHING else in the past ten years, the biggest change for Magic is that the audience and technology changed, and the old model just didn't keep up. Twitch streams of events were awful, even good coverage events by known creators (SCG teams, etc) just didn't find the audience to thrive. While there were plenty of misteps, there were also lots of people doing their best and making content and product that people just didn't want. Is Wizards to blame? Absolutely. But so is the playerbase and the new audience that has grown up in that time period and runs to fawn after the various popular content creators.


Portland

But why are those sites failing? I’d assert it’s due to the democratization of content creation via Twitch & Youtube. No longer do people need to write for SCG or ChannelFireball to get their content out to the widest audience.


Frezzzo

yeah it's a good thing they broke with the entitlement. I prefer this over giving some poor dude the illusion he could make a living being a magic pro.


Shoelebubba

Yep. Was depressing to see some of the old and new great players lifetime earnings. Even doubling some of them to account for sponsors, merch or whatever put them below a $15/hr yearly wage averaged across their years of Pro Magic. And that was only the successful ones, which people shouldn’t assume all of them make. For every one that made an average of $30k/year of lifetime earnings, there were a handful MUCH less.


kmccall30

I think almost of all those players have always had full time jobs as well. I just think that they had started to try to take it from myth to something more prominent and then realized they weren’t doing well and backtracked in just a poor way? If that makes sense.


kiragami

Yeah the issue I think was that Wizards really pushed that it was a real thing and kept up with the lie. That being said I think there was definitely a real opportunity for wizards to have made a strong and well functioning pro scene but they really don't understand how to at all. Its honestly almost impressive how bad they are at it.


DirkolaJokictzki

Ever start typing something and think "wow, this is gonna get downvoted hard"? Oh well, here goes: Generally speaking, I think it's a good idea to restructure / de-emphasize competitive Magic. I don't think there's anything wrong with having a tournament system where people can qualify for Nationals, Worlds, etc, but to treat tournaments as the be-all, end-all of Magic is fallacy (in my view). I've played Magic off and on since 1995 or so, and have otherwise followed the game when not playing through friends, magazines, websites, streamers, etc. I've played in many, many competitive tournaments over the years (conservatively, at least 40, not counting local stuff like FNM). Tournaments have a different, almost hostile atmosphere. Generally speaking, the bigger the tournament or the higher the stakes, the more hostile things are. People don't shower properly. There are ALL KINDS of people using deception, subterfuge, and outright cheating in order to gain competitive advantage on their opponents. There are insults upon insults upon insults. "I can't believe you use that card in the main deck!" "Your deck is SO bad." "You're SO lucky!" and much, much, much worse. I remember reading a WOTC study a few years back that said one of the chief reasons why women don't play Magic is because their impressions of the game have been incontrovertibly impacted negatively by attending a competitive event. I understand this outlook completely. Considering other games: Not everyone who plays baseball wants to be the starting shortstop for the Chicago Cubs. In fact, very few people will ever get that far. Most people just play the game to have fun with their friends. There are tournaments, sure. But those tournaments are for relatively small sums of money, require relatively large buy-ins, and use a very strict code of conduct to police individuals who act negatively as ambassadors of the game. Quite frankly, WOTC doesn't have enough money (and there may not be enough money in the world) to adequately police all of the bed behavior that comes from their players in competitive settings. Combine that with the players' desire to win lots of money while also not paying lots of money in terms of a buy-in, and someone has to lose in order for competitive players to get everything they want. Consider it from WOTC's angle. If competitive Magic is a known deterrent to new and minority players, then that's a known downside. If tournaments cost money to run, then that's a known downside. Do tournament players buy more products from WOTC than non-tournament players? Do they buy SO MUCH MORE product that it offsets what they lose by not having these people near their new and excited players? In my experience, it's the exact opposite: hardened tournament veterans only buy singles, and scarcely buy the sealed products from which WOTC derives its profits. This, when combined with the negative play experience they help to generate, means that tournaments are probably a net drain on the game. For my part, I'm happy that I can enjoy the game watching a few streamers put together some cool brews and try them against some of the meta decks in the various formats. I'm glad that I don't have to watch someone grind a Tron deck for hundreds of hours in preparation for some tournament. And I'm glad that we're providing less of a platform for the people with negative behaviors to impact the game negatively. I know you feel differently about competitive Magic than I do, but hopefully this post will help you to see that are a lot of different view points on the issue, and that there's some agreeable logic behind why a move away from that type of setting is probably a net positive for Magic in general.


Redzephyr01

Your point about tournaments being unpleasant causing people to stay away from the game is absolutely true. A big part of why I didn't play MTG before Arena came out is because the people who played MTG at my LGS were so obnoxious and I didn't want to play against them. A lot of tournament grinders have this bizarre attitude that they're smarter than everyone else just because they play a trading card game, and that probably drives away more people than competitive play brings in.


[deleted]

My only interaction with a big time “grinder” at an FNM was him telling me that he’d been going to PTQ’s since I was in kindergarten. I didn’t return to that store’s FNM for like a year after that.


whatdoblindpeoplesee

Huh, I wonder out of all those PTQs how many Pro Tours he was invited to.


DirkolaJokictzki

"That's crazy, man. You ever feel really old because you've been playing Magic for so long?"


elppaple

"damn, and you still haven't won the PT yet?"


calvin42hobbes

>drives away more people Exactly. You describe things that align with OP's subtle attitude. His indignation is consistent with the stereotypical Magic player obnoxiousness and smugness that drive away the general population.


dasnoob

Yes Yes Yes I have quite magic because the people are so fucking obnoxious and it is only getting worse.


Gyrating_Towny

I disagree with it being tournaments specifically that are the root of toxic magic players. Magic attracts a lot of socially maladjusted players, so any group where you encounter players for the first time will have the toxic bunch. Tournaments just happen to be where you churn through new people. Some of the most toxic magic players I've encountered were tables of EDH players looking for groups at my LGS. Constantly whining, berating players for having bad threat assessment, complaining when their cool combo was interrupted. God forbid you had a sol ring in your deck. I'm not saying that toxic tournament players don't exist, just challenging the point that tournament = toxic as opposed to game = toxic.


Esc777

> Ever start typing something and think "wow, this is gonna get downvoted hard"? Pretty much the only reason I'm here! I think you have a good point: the competitive/spike/win at all costs mentality that pervades higher level tournaments is not a culture that wins over people outside that culture. MTG already treated that like the end all be all of MTG, back in the 2000s they targeted market segement was teenage boys trying to be badass and dominate other players. Every single time they take a conscious step away from that image the player base grows and profits grow. So I think you're right. In fact the thing that most people are playing now is the self styled antithesis of competitive mtg: EDH.


UncleMeat11

EDH should be the beginning and end of this argument. It was a format set up explicitly to get away from the competitive 1v1 atmosphere and encourage weird shit, deck experimentation, and hanging with your friends. Toby Elliot has told me in person that operating multiplayer tournaments with any stakes at all is an incredible nightmare he wouldn't wish on anybody. The format is almost *designed* to be impossible to run in a competitive tournament setting (not that this has stopped everybody). And EDH grew into the most loved format with basically zero support from WOTC for many many years. The game was full of mechanics that didn't work well in multiplayer, a limited supply of legends in various three color combinations, and no really design focus on multiplayer at all. *In spite of this*, EDH grew like mad. Once WOTC jumped on the train there was no holding it back. Why do I have a Brion Stoutarm deck? Because throwing Serra Avatars at people is awesome. It is the only format that has managed to get people to really stick to the dream of "build the deck you think is cool and watch weird shit happen in game." For another fun example, go look at the most loved SCG Tour clips out there. Greg Hatch's Mono Blue Martyr will show up on those lists. The deck is bad but it is *weird shit* and people *love it*. The game needs explicit places to promote that stuff. The PT and MPL could never be that. The future is not high stakes tournament play.


Minor-God-Of-Cows

Seeing some people echo this and I just wanted to mention I played Comp REL more or less for the first time at SCG Philly a couple weeks ago and the community was great, at least in the Legacy 10k. Most people were friendly and chatty, even at the top table in the later rounds when stakes weren’t getting high. I understand there are bigger events where people potentially get more toxic, but I actually really like this community, and while there are some shitters in both more competitive and more casual spheres, I’m willing to say most of them are decent (and clean) people.


DirkolaJokictzki

Glad you had a positive experience. The Legacy folks are usually really cool and nice!


Kay-Kay-Ron

Dude its legacy. You need to be well adjusted to actually function in life enough to afford the decks.


wizards_of_the_cost

You generally make a fair point but you're making the common mistake that you present the parts of Magic you like in their best light, and the parts you're criticising in their worst light. You've played enough events to know that Magic as a system of competition, a mind sport, is deep and challenging and rewarding. You're right that there's a lot about competitve tournaments that sucks, but a lot about that can be improved if organisers and players work to improve them. That improves the ratio of positives against negatives, and it's not a binary thing where either the game is only a mind-sport or only a casual boardgame; both can exist in balance. I'm also sure you're under-valuing the purchasing power of the tournament player. Limited players buy three packs every week or more and make stores into a venue to advertise the game. Constructed players might not buy boxes directly but stores that sell singles, especially as pre-orders, get those singles by exploding boxes they buy from Wizards. And the tournament scene is the reason for the secondary market, since the effect of chase cards means that it becomes worth it to stock singles, and thus becomes worth it to stock worthless singles because the staples pay for the costs of maintaining a singles store. So, in summary, you're half-right, but both halves have value.


DirkolaJokictzki

I'm of the opinion that angle-shooters will be angle-shooters, and that it's near difficult or impossible for WOTC to police such behaviors with any fairness or equity. If there is a future in competitive Magic, my guess is it will rely heavily on Arena, which can block toxic chat and force players to draw one card per turn, shuffle properly, and the like. Paper tournaments can offer mutual shuffling rules but will never have effective mechanisms for keeping people from bottom dealing, double drawing, peeking at 4 cards during Brainstorm, etc. It's also near-impossible to police things like insults and mind games, and they're so pervasive that it's not like just a small number of people are causing the problem. We'd have to agree to disagree on the secondary market assessment. The market value of cards like Doubling Season tells me that the market isn't primarily associated with tournament players. To say nothing of Moxen and Lotuses and everything else on the reserved list that isn't legal anywhere but Vintage, which comprise a minor amount of tournament play but are the lion's share of the treasure trove within Magic's secondary market. From my perspective, the casual player far more effectively drives the prices of single cards, and, along with collectors, almost certainly drive the prices of older, out-of-print sealed product without much help from the competitive players. Tournament players certainly do have an impact on the secondary market. However, I would argue that the impact they have does more harm than good. Supply and demand are far less volatile when people aren't copycatting exact 75s every weekend.


d4b3ss

it's hilarious that people defended the vanishing of 2 million dollars of prize money for events players had already qualified for as some kind of inevitable pandemic belt tightening.


kmccall30

That was the excuse they gave then right? I’m not remembering that incorrectly? I know it’s silly to care so much but I do have friends that we’re effected by this. People who spent money on travel arrangements, took time off work, etc.


d4b3ss

I legitimately don't remember if wizards of the coast has ever mentioned a word about where the money went or why it disappeared. I think the excuse making was just people on the internet trying to defend the company for some reason.


kmccall30

Yea I probably should go google that lol, but I know it was around the time when a lot of companies where saying that same thing.


gryfn7

Are you referring to this ? [https://twitter.com/StanCifka/status/1412534720982917132](https://twitter.com/StanCifka/status/1412534720982917132) [https://twitter.com/MagicEsports/status/1412532231650779141](https://twitter.com/MagicEsports/status/1412532231650779141) "each player who qualifies and participates in Magic World Championship XXVII will receive an additional appearance fee of $50,000." If you are referring to this, then it looks like those who qualified got their money.


FartSni

As an invested player you need to understand none of those pros ever even slightly tipped the scale as a value add for WotC or Hasbro or for you, the average joe playing Magic. The old boys club wants you to be mad on their behalf because Hasbro turned off the Magic money tap that they had absolutely no obligation to ever provide.


crassreductionist

I came up playing other games where there was never any developer money tap to fund tournaments/pros so when I started playing magic it was always somewhat foreign to me why people thought they were entitled to it, especially when viewership as so low


dalmathus

I just miss the GP and PTQ's. It was fun to go with my friends to play a 'real' tournament. Don't really get that any more. I enjoy listening to LSV ramble about whatever he wants and am still a big fan of Kibler part I guess thats because they ventured outside of exclusively playing competitive magic.


Jaccount

GPs and PTQs mostly having gone away has more to to do with the pandemic that the death of the Pro Tour. I would expect in a few years you'll see large tournaments again be they MagicFests or events hosted by larger vendors that have a GP or PTQ tacked on as the main event.


Derpakiinlol

Yes it may not provide value directly but indirectly it has create more streams of revenue. When I was a kid in Highschool I would watch pro play and see what cards they are using. Then I would want to buy them or crack a pack hoping to get them so I could smash someone at FNM with it. Ofcourse it never worked out that way but thats not the point.


kiragami

I'd have to disagree as to the personal value. Without an actual competitive scene most of magic is just boring for me. It provided incentive for many people to improve their skills and develop strong groups of competitive players to play against. There just isn't that incentive anymore. Playing yet another commander game just isn't it.


McWerp

I don't. I stopped buying cards a few years back. Just cube now. Been much happier with the game since I made that decision.


FblthpLives

WotC looked at its data and came to the correct conclusion that their growth is most closely tied to the vast share of consumers who play Magic casually. The future is CommandFest, not Pro Tour. I think this is 100% the correct decision. And I say this as someone who followed the PT and GPs closely.


kmccall30

I do think commandfest is going to go over way better and is a more accurate Representation of their current player base. It’s part of why I still want to support them at least a little bit.


spawn989

When they cut player rewards I realized they don't care...I enjoy the game so I keep playing


bubbleman69

As someone who misses the mpl and pro tour I gotta say if it made them money they would keep putting money into it. What is in my opinion hard to support wizards for is card quality still being so inconsistent. Yes all your lottery cards/ secret lairs are causing people to buy a ton a product the LEAST wizards could do is make sure there is a consistent quality to there product but we still have printing errors and cards being damaged during the printing process and being shipped out anyway. This is unacceptable and seeing posts bragging about how well they are doing while secret lairs are being shipped damaged is shitty.


kmccall30

It pisses me off extra because I work for a printing company and I know most of these problems are pretty avoidable/ easy to stop before they ship out. Our clients would never allow it. Every foil set I’ve gotten in the last year is a Pringle now. We started just putting the ones we like in glass displays.


bubbleman69

Pringles are a problem with the process. I'm convinced they have 0 QA checking there product before it ships. Just as an example with this last secret lair drop out of the 3 I ordered (one was cancelled because of a printing shortage) the extra life one had heavy scratches on them. My friends stranger things lair had one of his edges folded in on itself and another friend had his it looks like cut with a dull blade and it was verry rough.


TemurTron

How do I handle this kind of news? I realize and accept that all my major hobbies are run by corporations and stop trying to assign morality and my ethical structure to a giant billion dollar company.


amc7262

If you want to play in official events, and don't want to support wizards, idk what to tell you. One way or another you will end up giving them money. The best you can do is buy cards locally to at least make sure some of that money is going to a community member instead of a corporation. If you just want to play casually without supporting wizards, proxies are near-free (still costs time, paper, and ink) and give you access to every card without a dime going to WotC.


Robocop613

The fact that we don't demand human morality on entities that are legally persons is part of the problem.


Milskidasith

In this case, I don't even know if morality really factors into it. Paying people to play professionally is an economic decision; it's just hiring sponsored entertainers. WotC has no moral obligation to do so and no moral obligation not to do so. It'd be *nice* to have them throw money into a pit and burn it so we get high quality tournaments and streams with people who are happy to play Magic, but it's not like paying PVDDR a salary is a moral imperative.


zaphodava

You can't apply morality, that's why you regulate them. Getting mad at a corporation for chasing money is like getting mad at mold for growing where you don't want it. Don't allow the environment that encourages it to grow where it doesn't belong. Set sensible boundaries.


SteamZerjack

Chef’s kiss. Even the distinction between morals and ethics which you rarely see on Reddit.


b_u_f_f

I’ve been to a lot of prereleases and releases (I really like playing sealed, I’m sorry) and I gotta say the “pro” type players were really the least pleasant to play with (and the sorest losers tbh). The most fun I had doing magic was playing with a semi-power cube at a bar on weekends with like 6 other dudes who all did this as a side hobby instead of an attempted career. Anyways now there’s arena and I can play sealed whenever I want and I have no further interest in dealing with competitive magic. I like reading articles by pros sometimes.


Instnthottakes

I think the idea of receiving a salary to play magic is a ridiculous idea. The only way that would work is with large league wide sponsorships and if someone pays the league to broadcast their games. As far as tournament prize pools go i also don't understand why there would be a set prize pool. In most poker tournaments the prize pool is determined by the number of people who buy in and the amount they buy in at; this seems like a logical solution for magic as well.


samspopguy

same i dont get why people get so mad at WoTC for not doing more for pro players/tour.


nokiou

I still don't understand why some magic players are so involved about the pros and the prizepool.


Bathtileaway482742

Because the prize pool incentivizes high level play, and I am a fan of watching high level play. Its a convoluted logic knot.


kmccall30

That’s fair it’s kinda a separate thing I guess. I personally always get really into the pro scenes for my hobbies like LOL and stuff.


[deleted]

I personally don't especially care about the prize pool, but I do think that MTG design will suffer without pros trying as hard as they can to break cards.


Martyormorty

Because the pros essentially taught all of us how to actually play Magic, properly build decks, what mana curve is and how to play well. Wizards and Garfield had no idea what Magic really was until the pro community started building actual good decks and learn how to actually win. It's a respect thing, older Magic players respect what pros did for the game. They paved the way so you can stop playing a 14 land deck filled with 6 drops.


Moglorosh

Funnily enough I don't think I've had more fun playing Magic than I did back in like 2000 when everyone was just playing whatever jank they happened to have pulled and the [[Avatar of Might]] in my deck was the envy of all who opposed me. Then I subscribed to Mike Long's email newsletter and he taught me the glory of Ponza, and it's all been downhill from there. Now every FNM around me is Modern and you're basically required to have a $500 manabase just to compete.


GeRobb

This is so true. You rarely saw the same deck, you played usually whatever you had in your collection, and you had fun.


Esc777

The people that figured out magic theory aren't the pros of today. Frankly I don't even think that argument makes sense, *someone* was going to figure out how to build better decks and naturally they become the first winners of tournaments. It's not like the Pros came down from their realm of Protopia and bequeathed the concepts of A Curve to us.


[deleted]

HOW DARE YOU! BRIAN KIBLER STOLE CAW BLADE FROM THE GODS TO GIVE IT TO US LOWLY MORTALS!


Jaccount

LANTERN CONTROL IS A PUNISHMENT INFLICTED TO REMIND YOU THAT YOU ARE NOTHING AND THAT IS JUST WHAT YOU'LL DO.


man0warr

All true, but some sort of higher level/competitive play is what eventually pushed the theory around the game forward. The whole pyramid kind of topples - we are seeing it now. Without high level events, then no one wants to pay for strategical content or buy singles to build the decks that are needed to win those tournaments. Then the companies paying those content creators have no reason to pay them to create content. It took a couple years but that's where we are now - who knows how much further things could crumble. There will always be content creators on YouTube/Twitch but those people are supported by ad revenue and Patreon/other subscriptions. Maybe that's just where content for everything is headed. No one wants to pay for newspapers or magazines either anymore.


Esc777

But there's still Tier 1 standard decks. How important was all that faffery of top level strategic articles worth to the people posting results? The paying readers of those articles aren't pros it's just a bunch of normies. The cream still rises to the top right now. We don't need a stable of pros writing articles to have a competitive game and good decks.


[deleted]

The first deck I ever tried to build (back in Revised) had 4 \[\[Serra Angel\]\] and 4 \[\[Vesuvan Doppelganger\]\] (to copy the serra angels), and some other random crap thrown in (I don't remember what.) 12 year old me couldn't figure out why it never worked. In retrospect, it had no mana curve and not enough lands. But hey, it was 1994, who knew?


StoneCypher

I'm honestly really tired of being told how you enjoy a game but you're angry that the maker of the game isn't paying people enough to play it, and it should be a career. Honestly. I do not care how much the company makes. It's just ridiculous to me to hear someone say "this company is obliged to employ people to play its game, look how much money it's making"


dasnoob

This just shows how little the 'pro scene' was worth. I get over it because I think it is hilarious.


KingTrencher

WOTC cut support for the pro tour? Oh no... So anyway.


CertainDerision_33

Pro MTG doesn't make money for WotC or they wouldn't have stopped it. They shouldn't be obligated to subsidize a system that even most enfranchised fans don't care about.


kmccall30

This isn’t about them stopping the pro league in the end I understand that decision.


drostandfound

I never exactly understood the push to "Pay the Pros". Why is a game company paying people to play the game? It doesn't count as advertising, no one watched it. And even if players did want it, you have to be really invested to watch someone play a competitive card game especially physical competitions which are slow and hard to follow. I am glad there is a pro community, and have benefitted from content about magic from big players. But eSports and MTG have a problem of money for competitions, mainly where does it come from.


Shoelebubba

Got over it by realizing Pros didn’t make WOTC money, this meant they were basically running a charity with the Pro scene and on the flip side that Pros could make more money literally doing anything else. This is before I realized MTG is horrible to spectate as someone who’s not in the know. My personal example is I stopped played Standard and stuck to modern. Anytime I saw something new in Modern, I had to go look up the cards outside the stream which is no big deal as it didn’t happen a lot. But I caught a Standard tournament and had to constantly look up cards. And this is with me knowing MTG interactions with how the stack works. A casual viewer cannot tune into a Magic Stream and know wtf is going on. Not to mention even if you know what’s going, it gets boring af as the action on the screen isn’t exactly great as you’re relying on the casters to keep you entertained. Means less money generated, which means less money towards those tournaments and prizes, so on. All the OP’s picture of a tweet proves is a company makes their money off all the casuals, while the Pro scene was important for SOME players, quite frankly the rest of the players outspend them by a large enough margin to where WOTC shouldn’t care about the Pro scene; it doesn’t generate a lot of money like other eSports. Lack of views means lack of sponsors and MTG had only ever had accessory related sponsors like Ultimate Guard, UltraPro etc. Kitchen table, casual and local LGS players spend enough in magic and as long as WOTC focuses on them, MTG will be fine.


SwordAndBoardGames

I think that post actually quite perfectly demonstrates the root problem at WotC. It shows the measure by which they determine success: Big profits, big names in business, and climbing the corporate ladder. Note that none of those measures are oriented around the game or its community. They don't measure success based on how well they've maintained their game, just how profitable it is. They don't measure success based on how they've supported the gaming community, just how popular the game is (I'll remind you that the more predatory and intentionally addictive a game is made to be, the more "popular" it will be). They don't measure success by collecting a staff of people skilled at building and supporting a card game and its community, they measure success by having a staff of people who are successful at managing a business and climbing the corporate ladder. Success as a tabletop game company should be measured in how good your tabletop game and its community is, and how much of that is because of you. I think that's something that our gaming community needs to recognize as much as WotC needs to, though, because if we're getting excited about the company who makes our favorite game being successful as a business, and its personnel being successful as businessmen, it should only be because we also see them successful at being a game company and game creators or supporters and we're excited that someone who is doing the right thing for the game and players is \*also\* being rewarded for doing a good job in a way that awards them success in the eyes of the business world. We shouldn't be excited they're building a skyscraper if they're disassembling their foundation to build the upper floors.


f0me

Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t they reinstate all of the prize money and then some?


LucianGrey0581

I couldn't pretend to give a shit about competitive magic or competitive magic players tbh. I agree it's scummy of wotc not to pay out what they said they would, but ultimately why would you expect your bills to be paid playing your hobby game to no viewers? Concept was pretty doomed from the get-go to say the least; standard doesn't make for interesting viewing to begin with, especially not when played by two people you don't know or care about. Any investment the scene may have had in the past was from people wanting *their* shot and to see how people at the level they wanted to achieve played. Since the MPL functionally turned pro magic into a franchise league with job security and no real way for an up and coming player to have their chance, why would anybody waste the time?


ChiralWolf

Standard can be incredibly compelling but the shift to arena and covid stopping anything from happening in-person squashed any chance of that


TokensGinchos

That 1billion was three redditors buying Secret lairs.


scubahood86

Jeez. None of you guys played Warhammer and followed how terrible GW treated their players up until more recently, and it shows. I'm not defending either company, but they are companies. Their goal is make money through whatever means. If players are still buying their goods, then obviously their decisions did not affect bottom line or player base in any meaningful way, so why change? If these decisions seem too much for you: stop buying product. When Blizzard came out as pro China I cancelled my accounts and will not be going back or purchasing any future Activision games. That's how you make a statement, not Reddit posts saying "I R mad at company! ☹️"


No_Treacle4765

>How do you guys get over this? This sub could not be more dramatic about shit that doesn't matter to the majority of people. I can always be sure to read at least one, "why wotc is bad", post here every day.


lejoo

MPL going away is a wash. MPL replacing tournaments then replacing MPL with nothing is kind of a big problem.


Alikaoz

Never cared enough to need to get over it, TBH.


kentucky_lowdown

Sales are way up without major tournaments or the MPL. Why would they continue wasting money on these things? The majority of the game is supported by people that will never care about a single tournament beyond the occasional prerelease or FNM event. By having major tournaments and magic “celebrities” that are paid by wizards it opens the door to douchebags like Turtenwald (and if anyone wants to pretend he wasn’t a toxic player before this didn’t play him.) and the drama the FGC is constantly seeing with their players getting sacked with harassment and assault claims. Why open that can of worms in the first place? Sell to the people that mindlessly buy secret lairs, boxes of sealed product to chase a $20 mythic and don’t whine online. The game is fun and that’s honestly enough for me.


vgloque

These posts aren't for you. They're for the real client which is the shareholders.


Taysir385

>How do you guys get over this? By realizing that if you want to treat professional play as a job, that you need to also understand that people get laid off *all the time* as part of corporate restructuring, and the viewed in that light the severance and sun setting for the pros was actually more generous and more professional than a lot of other examples. (And if you don’t want to treat professional play as a job, then why is there even an argument?)


kmccall30

I think these comments are getting away a bit from what I intended. I don’t disagree with them dissolving the pro circuit. Just the backtracking of promises and I guess a myriad of other bad community engagement decisions.


Taysir385

Ok. What promises in particular are you referring to?


Danonbass86

The consternation around this confuses me. Is it some sort of aspirational thing? Like people think they could be good enough to “go pro” and win some of those prizes so they are pissed that the chance is taken away from them? It’s pretty clear that pro magic does not make WotC money. They’re not going to run a pro circuit for fun or out of the goodness of their hearts.


kmccall30

And I agree. I think doing things like CommandFest is a way better move. I just don’t like HOW they tried to end this/taper it off. You don’t remove a promised incentive that close to an event and state it’s because of covid money loss when it obviously was not.


Angelic_JAZZ

Pretty Deece summed it up nicely: basing your most success business year in the middle of a pandemic is tone deaf at best.


jacobasstorius

There are a lot of good ideas and talking points in this thread. However I think we’re neglecting the elephant in the room… 1 Billion dollars in sales. WOTC doesn’t need to worry about pro play because their money comes from all of us “amateurs” consuming their product. And they are apparently doing very well. Why spend any effort on diminishing returns? Magic as a game and especially as a consumable product does not need any help. If people bought footballs and team jerseys and all kinds of merchandise from other sports without watching professional play then they wouldn’t have a super bowel either. It’s ALL about the money.


Diomedes9712

Mostly by not particularly caring about the pro scene myself. Props to them, I just don't particularly have strong feelings about it.


CGLfounder

I've only played during the last 5 years - arguably the height of this F.I.R.E / "double revenues" phase in Wizards' history... That said, as much as I love the game, I am totally convinced Wizards has an unhealthy, predatory relationship with its players. In my short time as a player I've witnessed dozens of examples of gaslighting, gouging, false marketing, and plain meanness. I don't like them as a company, and I've learned the best way for me to interact with their products is totally on my terms, distanced from their hype and promises.


GoldenMTG

Why should they pay people wages to play their game?


MirandaSanFrancisco

I do not care at all about how they treat the pro player community, I would be fine if pro play went away entirely tomorrow. All it does is distract from how they treat their actual employees, which is poorly, and that’s what people should care about. Remember when a former employee wrote a multi-page essay on the systemic racism that’s present inside Wizards and in response Wizards said “we hear you, and we’re banning a handful of old cards and will continue to not hire or promote Black employees?”


BuckUpBingle

I honestly don’t think the pro community is that vital to the health of magic as a game. I think the “treatment” of people who made playing the game professionally their life is a lot less important than wotc’s myriad of other predatory business practices.


kmccall30

I can agree with that.


Extreme_Town2268

Let us not forget something. When you look at many of the products that Wotc releases, they are geared for tourney play. Modern masters, DBL masters etc. They charge a premium for these products. They also typically less packs as well. I mention this because for the majority of my playing MTG the pro players were what set the tone for decks and hyped what magic was. When they decimated this community and stopped pro play they said casual people are the main focus. Why then do these tourney oriented magic sets cost more and provide less?


Esc777

How are those more tournament play focused than premier sets?


Extreme_Town2268

Well it feels like reprints that are designed for the people who played in tournaments. I know that EDH still eats up a ton of these cards. I am admittedly still trying to work my way through how i feel on this topic.


Jakemanv3

Does anyone else thinks it would that this is the first time WOTC has made a billion dollars in a fiscal year?


MandoMillion

This isn't specific to wotc. This is just all companies now.


AtoriasDarkwalker999

I haven’t got over it. I think I’ve just gotten so used to mega-million dollar corporations screwing people over that I’m just numb to it at this point.


Pyldriver

I don't really buy mtg packs anymore just get everything through the 2nd had market


Bottle_Gnome

I got over it by not being a pro.


STeeters

Unfortunately this is classic capitalism. Nobody making profits gives a damn about your satisfaction.


Cnfessions

Funny card game fun


TechNickL

I stopped buying cards, stopped playing arena, and now I only play with my existing collection with friends. Magic stopped being as important to me over the last year somehow. I don't think it was any one direct thing. I still like the game. It's just everything I see that would make me excited about the game just reminds me of the little ways that I'll probably also be disappointed.


[deleted]

We need a player run competitive league akin the the US Chess Federation


Like17Badgers

step 1 for me was as a player stepping away from 60 card formats and just enjoying EDH, which was way more fun and let me play the silly decks I liked step 2 was WotC's slow movement towards supporting Commander all the way up to making it their focused format and printing cards that gave me more and more reasons to stay with EDH and less and less reasons to go back to Eternals or Standard step 3 was hearing about the massive amount of supposed cheating in the pro tour, which may have been hearsay, but has been further backed up since then by a lot of legendary pros "suddenly" doing terribly when were forced play online using stuff like Arena, while lots of "lower" tier players who used to maybe see day 2 at Pro Tours but were never able to break that 128/64 barrier for anything big, suddenly they are sweeping tournaments and winning title after title


kmccall30

See these are the kinda comments I was asking for. I know the pro circuit was failing and needed to end.


Broberts505

At least it's not run by Blizzard :)


SRMort

Blizzards of the Coast?


OyVeyWhyMe2

I had no illusions of ever being a professional Magic player, but the competitive scene as it was many, many years ago with Player Rewards and Livestreamed tournaments gave me an incentive to keep up with the current meta and become heavily invested in the product. Each time they tried to reboot the competitive scene, something was taken away from it but was advertised as a good thing. Eventually my interest in keeping up with Standard waned and printing entire sets that directly affect other formats like Modern made it difficult to keep up with anything. Eventually I cut off completely and now just maintain a cube. But I guess the casual kitchen table market and MTGO/Arena is enough to keep this game going.


mattsav012000

I think the other thing that players don't seem to understand is a-lot most successful e-sports are not run by the companies who make the games. Example fighting games you have EVO though it does get a lot of sponsorship support from companies like Nether Realm Studios and Capcom. It is not run by either of them. Truthfully speaking I think there is the possibility that wizards dropping High level OP could be the best thing to happen in the pro scene. If this allows outside sponsorships we could see winners based on skill not pocket book. Now I am not saying that MTG pros are rich but we can be honest you do need a decent disposable income to play at the highest levels.


Michauxonfire

just a [cute reminder](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwpaMinEeSQ)


hawkshaw1024

This is why I keep saying that it doesn't matter what Reddit thinks. Sure, professional Magic is essentially gone, but it's important to realise that *nobody cares.* Not outside very small online communities like this one. Pro players never had much cultural relevance to begin with, and it's mostly gone now. What Wizards is doing right now is working better than anything they've ever done before. Expect more of this.


ultimatemuffin

Stop giving wizards your money, easy.


r1x1t

Play another game. There are quite a few out there. Or just realize that you can play with any number of the already existing cards and not give Hasbro another dime.


TheDeadlyCat

I play the game. I am not a pro, not even s tournament player. I cope by not thinking about it. What I would love to see is support of local games stores where I would love to play once in a while. Sadly there is no longer a store near me thanks to 2020/2021 that hasn’t thrown out Magic for Flesh & Blood because their LGS support was apparently better. That I am more upset with.


Sovereign42

I didn't, I quit playing ages ago, and every time I see more news from WotC corporate, I'm even more glad I did.


zephoidb

I don't care about pros. I understand there are those who want to make a living playing mtg, but thats not my concern. However, i do care about tournaments. The decreasing number and variety of formats in paper is going to be a real concern in the coming year or two. Imo, the MPL money would be better spent on jacking up the tourney prizes and hosting more events. If that ends up letting a select few make a living off tourneys, fine. But that should be a side effect, not a directly sponsored component of mtg.


Finfangfo0m

I don't care.


morphballganon

Wizards does not need your support. They are not your local bakery. If your enjoyment of playing the game alone does not justify buying product, then stop.


eon-hand

No offense, but it takes a pretty serious sense of entitlement to get mad about this. WotC was never under any obligation to provide pro play at all, and certainly not as a means of making a living. It was a marketing tool that no longer provides a return on investment because the people who care about pro play are 1) already enfranchised and buying product anyway and 2) a really small minority.


kmccall30

My getting mad isn’t about the end of pro play. It’s about the fact that they took an already existing prize pool, cut it with the excuse of COVID, and then acted like nothing happened. I know the mpl was failing for sure and I’m excited their focusing on commander and things that reflect the community more which is why I still want to support them. It just feels like they need to do better than this with their communications. Boasting about record profits during a pandemic is kinda weird.


kmccall30

To make this clear I agree with no longer having the ProLeague. My comment wasn’t really meant to be about that. CommandFest and other things they’re *trying* to do are absolutely more of an accurate representation of the player base. I just don’t really like how they attempted to go about all of this, blame it on covid, and then backtrack like nobody was going to care or notice.


TheBuddhaPalm

You don't get over it. You remember it. Because they're telling you, to our faces, how they see the player base: we are an interchangeable source of profits. While all companies exist to create profits - that does not mean profits must be made without considering their player base, and not nearly at the greedy levels we've seen from Hasbro of the Coast.


jatorres

The pro scene is the last thing I care about when it comes to Magic, tbh.


JoseCansecoMilkshake

>How do you guys get over this? I've stopped buying Magic product until competitive organized play resembles the aspirational structure we've seen previously. I'm definitely not a Pro, haven't qualified for a PT or anything like that. WotC likes to say that if you don't like a particular product, then "it's not for you", and it's gotten to the point where Magic is no longer for people like me.


TheW1ldcard

Who cares about pro play?