Recent Raging Success of Magic: The Gathering

The last time I played Magic competitively was back in Kamigawa block (it was so bad I left the game for a bout 8 years). When I returned, it was the beginning of Return to Ravnica block. I found it interesting because I played some during the first Ravnica block before stepping away from the game. I found it amazing how Magic had exploded since I had left. Cards were insane prices compared to the most expensive card in standard I can remember (it was Arcbound Ravager at a peak of $22). Now it's not a big deal for mythics to cost that much.

I don't think it really needs to be said, but the price of cards in the secondary market clearly shows the popularity of the game. When i returned to Magic back in RTR block, I thought to myself, how does this happen.

I studied what Wizards had done to make the game so popular. In addition to make cards with good art and making the draft environment fun, they ramped up high level tournament coverage. That's all marketing 101 though.

I had a suspicion of what was happening but since "tempo" decks wasn't a viable strategy back when I started playing so I dismissed the idea that it was just another genre of deck. In the early days of Magic it was about control. If you didn't play control, you were losing. That's another article though.

One day I finally thought I figured it out but wasn't really sure of what to do or say or think about it. Then one day Eric Froelich did a Q&A on a twitch stream. He basically said Wizards is doing everything they can to take skill out of the game.

I felt like I got hit by a train. I thought the exact same thing. I thought wizards was making the game more tempo based, especially with the boring devotion decks in Standard. In addition to "tempo" decks ruling, there were a lot of "swingy" cards. Cards that significantly impact the game. Cards that make the format a "bomb" format, like FRF rares in draft with KTK.

So with tempo being a big deal, it's easy to play spells to maintain tempo. Just know that tempo is all that matters and there's no problem. Also there are many swingy cards that can shift the game immediately.

I think EFro's statement holds a lot of water and I agreed with it at the time, but I feel like Khans block really took a lot of that away and Standard is a much better format.

I think the elements of luck that are really big elements right now contribute greatly to the game being popular. It gives the new players chances to win when they would never have won during Ice Age. I suppose it's good for the game to have lots of new players coming to the game, but I also think there's a cost to the players who want to play grindy, fun, skill intensive Magic.