October 6, 2020
Newton’s Third Law of Motion – scientific principle : For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction
This is going to be an uncomfortable post to write. So be it. What’s the idiom? “Get comfortable with being uncomfortable”? Let’s do that.
A lot of Magic players have an unhealthy relationship with the game.
On the surface, it really is that simple. A lot of people genuinely love the game of Magic, while simultaneously harboring an equally intense hatred of the company that makes it.
That is not healthy. And it is NOT the game’s fault.
Some may be inclined to lay the blame, therefore, at the feet of Wizards of the Coast and/or Hasbro. I think that’s shortsighted and deflects responsibility.
Let’s look at all of this through the lens of the Secret Lair: The Walking Dead announcement. For anyone not familiar, WotC is releasing mechanically unique, black bordered cards you can only get during a one-week Secret Lair drop, and those cards are representations of characters from The Walking Dead TV show. The player backlash was swift and intense, and has not abated.
To summarize the reasons for player discontent with the TWD Secret Lair:
- Wizards has previously promised not to release mechanically unique cards in black border, that aren’t available from booster packs. Though rarely cited, Wizards broke this promise years ago by creating new cards for Commander precons. If you dismiss those (which most people appear to), there’s no denying this promise was broken when new card Firesong and Sunspeaker was announced as a buy-a-box promo for Dominaria. Every Standard-legal set released after that, up until Zendikar Rising has had new cards as buy-a-box promos. Prior to the release of ZNR, WotC announced that due to negative player feedback, they would stop this practice.
- They could have made The Walking Dead cards silver-border. This is the treatment given other non-Magic IP cards such as the Ponies: The Galloping and the Transformer/D&D/Nerf promos from Hascon. Alternately, they could have reskinned existing Magic cards with The Walking Dead art, and given the cards the same treatments used for Ikoria’s Godzilla cards. Instead, they chose to make these black border, ensuring they would be legal in eternal formats and Commander.
- Despite its inclusion of zombies (“walkers” in TWD parlance), the universe of The Walking Dead is not particularly analogous to that of Magic. Crossing over with an outside IP is never going to be popular with a sizeable portion of Magic’s audience.
There are other reasons people hated the whole concept and its execution, but the above is plenty of fuel for the bonfire.
On October 1st, Wizards hosted a Twitch stream featuring Aaron Forsythe, Magic’s Direct of R&D, and Mark Heggen, Princial Product Designer, in which they attempted to explain and defend the decisions they made surrounding the TWD Secret Lair. I’ve linked the video here:
I attended the stream, and glanced at the Twitch channel chat from time to time. Though flying by at breakneck speed, the sentiments were pretty uniform: WotC were liars that were gaslighting the audience in an attempt to snatch ever larger sums of money from players. Such statements were rampant before a single word by Forsythe or Heggen had even been uttered.
After the stream, reaction was swift and negative: WotC were liars that were gaslighting the audience in an attempt to snatch ever larger sums of money from players.
I won’t sugarcoat this: I think the vast majority of the people who attended the stream, and who commented on it online afterwards, were not acting in good faith.
Before I explain and defend that statement, I will first say that I felt the arguments the WotC employees made during the Twitch stream were largely reasonable. I still don’t agree with them, but I can largely understand WHY they made the decisions they did. I say that as someone who attended the stream with an open mind – I was genuinely interested in hearing what WotC had to say.
I don’t believe the same can be said for most of the other attendees.
Here’s what I think these people wanted: to be told the drop was cancelled, or that is was being modified to be silver-bordered or given the Godzilla treatment. Anything short of those actions was going to be unacceptable. And to a point, that sort of expectation might be…reasonable, I suppose? But the vitriol that was then dumped online about Wizards being greedy liars gaslighting players in their quest to expand profits was stunning.
If Wizards can’t be trusted in any fashion, then why attend the stream to begin with (other than to spew anger into the Twitch chat)? If none of their arguments about why they made the decisions they did can be taken in good faith or trusted, then why spend a single second listening to their justifications that you were always going to dismiss?
These are the people I was referencing at the beginning of this post: people who love this game too much to hate the company that makes it as much as they do.
A lot of players don’t fully trust Wizards of the Coast, and none of us agree with all the decisions they make. But if you hate the company so much that you are unwilling to, in good faith, listen to what they have to say about decisions you don’t like, then you seriously need to take a break from the game. To dismiss anything they have to say as lies and spin and distortions meant only to maintain the financial bottom line is not healthy (even if true.)
It’s a bit of a meme at this point, but that’s a toxic relationship that needs to end. Wizards isn’t going to stop making Magic cards anytime soon (no, the game is not dying, and I don’t believe that the TWD Secret Lair is the beginning of the end) and they assuredly aren’t done making decisions you disagree with.
To be fair, quite a few players have made it clear that this Secret Lair is over the line for them, and/or the last straw after a litany of issues in recent months or years. They’re done with Magic, some determined to sell their collections and pursue other games or interests. That’s a healthy way to handle a relationship that isn’t working: end it. I wouldn’t advise anyone to sell their cards unless they need the money – I see too many people that admit to selling their cards and then regretting it years later when they return to the game. But no amount of love for the game should keep you around if you are so consumed with hatred of Wizards and their business practices that you refuse to even consider that WotC might mean something they say or might be capable of learning a lesson.
Perhaps I’m naive. I don’t deny that Wizards has broken promises or made unpopular decisions that are about financial gain over player goodwill. But I don’t believe the entire company is riddled with liars that care only about making vast sums of money at the expense of everything else. If I did believe that, I’d like to think that no amount of love of the game would keep me buying packs, playing regularly, or angrily dumping my hatred on the internet.
Magic makes us emotional. We celebrate improbable victories or lucky booster pulls, we curse mana flood and lousy topdecks, and we despair of unbalanced formats or overpriced products. But if your love of the game is eclipsed only by the rage you feel when Wizards screws up, something has gone vastly awry with your perception of the game, and you need to take a step back (or turn around and sprint.) If the game is becoming something you can no longer support or enjoy, then step away and try life without it – including raging on Reddit about how glad you are you don’t play anymore.
Time won’t heal all wounds, but it’ll soothe most. In a month, or a year, or a decade, you may find the game is different, or you’re different, and you can enjoy Magic without also hating it or the company that makes it.
Casual Magicking 