Search Results
6/29/2025, 3:23:48 AM
>>95969570
For me, Magic died in 2003, when 8E/Mirrodin changed the card frame and artifacts became silver instead of brown. (The first runs were actually too light and looked like white cards, which may be when WOTC got the idea of artifacts with color costs.) I eventually got over my dislike of the new frame thanks to the Steam ports of Magic 2010-2014 XBOX games (gone now, WOTC killed them for Origins, and killed Origins for Arena), though I never really came back to "current" or store/tourney Magic, playing casually with friends. But I only started at the tail end of Saga block, and there were several "breakpoints" when people dropped Magic.
94-95 was first. Card shortage led to Edgar / Summer Magic debacle. Comic book investor panic hit WOTC due to white-border reprints (Chronicles). Reserve List was a compromise, but its necessity is still divisive today. On top of that, The Dark / Fallen Empires / Homelands were generally derided, to the point that WOTC made it a tourney rule that decks had to include cards from every expansion (this was before blocks and formats) which how people learned about Hymn to Tourach, Goblin Grenade, and...uh, Serrated Arrows.
Saga Block was the second. WOTC kept "standardizing" Magic with blocks and collector numbers and colored rarities, but 6E rules turned interrupts into instants (stack vs batch) and some people got upset. Rules themselves got weaponized (Humility vs Opalescence layers in Replenish decks). Some people quit due to a constant speeding up of the game and power level increase (Mirage > Tempest > Saga). WOTC knew this and throttled things down with Masques, even acknowledging it in flavor text (pic). Some people quit because they thought the throttling was too much like The Dark / Fallen Empires and Magic would suck for a while. Some people quit because of Weatherlight story fatigue (prior Magic's story was emergent, not top-down).
2003 also upped power levels: storm, affinity, indestructible helped people quit.
For me, Magic died in 2003, when 8E/Mirrodin changed the card frame and artifacts became silver instead of brown. (The first runs were actually too light and looked like white cards, which may be when WOTC got the idea of artifacts with color costs.) I eventually got over my dislike of the new frame thanks to the Steam ports of Magic 2010-2014 XBOX games (gone now, WOTC killed them for Origins, and killed Origins for Arena), though I never really came back to "current" or store/tourney Magic, playing casually with friends. But I only started at the tail end of Saga block, and there were several "breakpoints" when people dropped Magic.
94-95 was first. Card shortage led to Edgar / Summer Magic debacle. Comic book investor panic hit WOTC due to white-border reprints (Chronicles). Reserve List was a compromise, but its necessity is still divisive today. On top of that, The Dark / Fallen Empires / Homelands were generally derided, to the point that WOTC made it a tourney rule that decks had to include cards from every expansion (this was before blocks and formats) which how people learned about Hymn to Tourach, Goblin Grenade, and...uh, Serrated Arrows.
Saga Block was the second. WOTC kept "standardizing" Magic with blocks and collector numbers and colored rarities, but 6E rules turned interrupts into instants (stack vs batch) and some people got upset. Rules themselves got weaponized (Humility vs Opalescence layers in Replenish decks). Some people quit due to a constant speeding up of the game and power level increase (Mirage > Tempest > Saga). WOTC knew this and throttled things down with Masques, even acknowledging it in flavor text (pic). Some people quit because they thought the throttling was too much like The Dark / Fallen Empires and Magic would suck for a while. Some people quit because of Weatherlight story fatigue (prior Magic's story was emergent, not top-down).
2003 also upped power levels: storm, affinity, indestructible helped people quit.
Page 1