>>723020628
Dude, it's fucked.
You are going to think I am exaggerating. I am not. People thought Planeswalkers were bad come Lorwyn, but Planeswalkers were more of a storytelling and lore fuckup than a mechanical fuckup. People thought Mythic Rare rarity was bad, but that was nothing compared to now.
Blocks are gone, all sets are stand alone. Standard rotates every three years now. There are six sets a year. Half of those sets are now non-magic the gathering IPs, like avatar the last airbender, final fantasy, the hobbit, teenage mutant ninja turtles, etc. The in-universe sets are thematically terrible, from "Wild West Plane (but with no natives so we don't have to go near Political Ick)" to "80s Horror Movie Plane" to "Death Race across multiple planes"
An era of card design known as FIRE kicked off in about 2019 that led to power creep in every format and utter bullshit.
commander (the new name for EDH) is the primary format people play, and cards are designed and sold more for commander than other formats
the EDH/commander community rioted against the fan run Commander Rules Committee so hard that the CRC threw up their hands and gave the format to wotc officially last year. The power level in commander is getting silly, and printed for commander cards are fucking up standard and modern.
They had to ban cards for power level in vintage in the last couple of years, after not doing so since the 90s. That's because they printed a Commander Like mechanic into standard / modern / vintage, and it was so busted they had to ERRATA THE RULES to add an extra tax to the cards. Even then, some of them needed banning in vintage.
You can now play optimus prime, equip him with The One Ring, and counter your opponent's attempts to kill him with Pic Related, which is an official alt-art printing that WotC sell via their website (because fuck your FLGS, buy direct from us)
It. Is. Fucked.
