To me it's not even just about UB -- it's about the soulless-ness of it all. It all just feels so corporate now, like a subscription service. The in-house art style being so derivative. The card design getting more complex and less elegant. The here-today-gone-tomorrow cadence of sets. There just isn't any integrity or authenticity. UB just exacerbates this imo.

i mean we can discuss this forever, but when money is the most important driving force, having the best designers wont mean shit.

One thing I think the 3 set block did very well was storytelling.  The first set typically introduces (or reintroduces) the world and the central conflict.  The second set escalates the conflict.  Then the 3rd set resolves the conflict.

Nothing can kill Magic faster than WOTC themselves

Like World of Warcraft killing World of Warcraft, MtG will eventually kill MtG

Pre-modern demonstrates that the existing card pool is more than large enough already to sustain itself nearly indefinitely

“Magic is dying.”
“It made a ton of money last year.”
“Well yeah, strip mining is very profitable.”

Magic’s not dead, BUT the version of Magic that was its own game is. I don’t begrudge anyone who loves the current version of it, but it has lost a lot of its appeal to me.

If anything does somehow actually manage to kill MtG,  it’ll be Hasbro too aggressively pushing the envelope to see what we’ll collectively let it get away with.

genuinely crushed by the direction magic has taken, god it feels like im such a loser for saying this but i have already begun grieving magic to a point where i've cried about it

Ive been playing magic for over a decade. This is the first time ive really lost interest in the game. I have so little excitement for new sets already and seeing more and more UB kills my enthusiasm even more.
My main format is legacy which i hoped woule be untouched, but now we have the fantasticar running rampant. I cant take the game seriously when theres a thanos copter -level joke card kicking my ass. Its actually such a bummer

Nothing is stopping them from saying "We were wrong, we are going back to 3 blocks + core set and we're removing UB from standard."

I have been playing since the early 2000s and Magic definitely lost me around 2020. I hated the fake digital arena cards, the universes beyond cards felt wrong, and the 250 dollar fake packs with proxy power 9 was the last straw. I only keep up with magic for my cubes now and the occasional drafting, but that's about it.

Wizards over the past few years has repeatedly said to me as a customer this product is not for you. To the point I don't think this game is for me.

It’s notable that, the collector focused model works better for Pokemon because Pokemon is already highly collectible without the need for an external IP, and collectors do not care about the quality of a card in game. They just care whether or not it’s their favorite mon, and how pretty the card is. Their purchases put downward pressure on the cost of cards for players, as there is no advantage to playing with one version of the card vs another. So while the SIR Mega Greninja EX might be very expensive, the regular version is a few dollars because collectors have bought so much product in search of the Chase cards. This doesn’t work for Magic as much because the game itself is the primary selling point, and the IP is secondary.

The 2014 problems were NOT actually problems.

EDH supplanting standard as the premier format has done irrevocable damage to the card design space.

Magic was kinda flourishing until Corporate found out that it made money.

WotC do seem to have an increasing corporate tone-deafness to players' needs. It echoes a wider trend in the world, which there will hopefully be an adjustment for in the near future as customers flee for any better option they can get.

They have spread the legs of the game so far that it has lost it’s identity. The art is garbage, card design is uninspired, and WAY too much is being released.

Magic has become a template for whatever horse crap they want to sell that day instead of its own amazing property that it was for so long.

Went from buying 2-3 booster boxes of every new set to refusing to buy anything whatsoever. I only buy singles from other individuals or from my local shop.

The problem is greed.  Plain and simple.  And old magic players have always seen this.

We don't believe WotC when they say that the changes they are making are for the health of the game/competitive format(s).  And after Universes Beyond, I think we are vindicated in our disbelief.