Riftbound got me back into regularly playing competitive tcgs. I've completely given up on all magic except for my friend's monthly cube drafts. I can brew at golden age modern power levels and I meet a much more diverse crowd than I ever did with magic. Riot was able to give me what WoTC somehow lost, a fun competitive game that let's me meet all kinds of new people.

Edit: I love Jim's quote at the end "Magic right now is a product", Magic really does just feel like a product first and maybe a game on occasion.

This needs to be a weekly podcast. Fantastic episode. Two thumbs up!!

I definitely think the issue isn't competitive nor commander but, as Jim says, the drive to monetize. They've shown that they don't have the ability to moderate. As soon as there's a flash of profit they drive fully in that direction without considering anything else. Hence why the pendulum keeps swinging wildly between 'normal' competitive, e-sports, commander, etc.

The funny thing is, designing the game around competitive play didn't seem to hurt the causal experience at all. But designing for casual certainly seems to hurt the experience of competitively minded players.

Perfectly captures my experience. I've fully switched from Magic to riftbound and playing nexus nights and rqs and buying a box for draft nights with my buddies is what we've been missing from Magic. Fantastic game.

Jim touched on two points I think are really important and I wish people brought up more in their criticism.

1. Magic bought its whales with good practices 10-20 years ago. If the current whales ever move out, they’ll suddenly be back to square one.

2. Pricing out low spenders and not doing anything to make the game appealing to low spending beginners means they’re not gaining any young audience. It’s the older wealthier audience that’s comprising the new player base coming from things like UB. So they’re not cultivating any good will for the future.

Jim said it perfectly and it’s been on my mind for a while. Good to know I’m not alone.

I walked up and spoke to Jim at the riftbound hartford RQ he is great and very friendly.

Chris Cocks and friends need to listen to every minute of this.

As for me, I'll bookmark it for when I'm having too good of a day and need to bring down the mood.

(Brainstorm Buddies, especially the NG + Jim episodes, is fantastic.  It's the subject matter this time that's sobering.)

Thank you very much for doing this with Jim. I've been playing magic since RTR/Theros standard days, and played a lot of modern. I used to watch th SCG & CFB tournaments every weekend and see people like Jim, Cedric and tons of other recognizable names play on camera in these events. I used to go to my local GP whenever they were around, and would often drive out to some of these SCG and CFB events if they were within a 5ish hour drive. I've met my best friends through competitive magic and casually competitive events.

2020 really did a number on the 60-card formats and the scene has never been the same. Now I only play legacy once a week because I have a dedicated old school community where I live, but what Jim and you expressed here really resonates with me: magic is no longer for players like me.

I recently switched to Riftbound since I found out I can't attend Eternal Weekend this year (which is the one event I attend now). Swapping to Riftbound reminded me of the excitement of watching the SCG tour and all the events. It's got the same excitement and actual support from the game's creator. Magic now feels like that meme where the kid is struggling to swim while the girl in the background is being lifted by an adult. WotC only cares about commander and about pushing cards to sell product, while their 60-card formats suffer. There are less tournaments, less support, and dwindling interest for competitive players. Meanwhile Riftbound is exciting and new, but also gives me that feeling I had when I started competing, with tournaments every weekend, familiar pro player faces, and some actual hope that a regular player could find themselves on stage with the likes of Prismaticism or Alanzq. WotC needs to do something to right the ship or more players will start to switch once they see what Riftbound has to offer.

Dude I love Garfield! Thank you, Jim Davis!

Sold my Magic decks to play Riftbound. 0 regrets, the game is extremely fun.

Great episode, echoes a lot of what I have been feeling as someone who played and judged magic for many years and recently switched over to riftbound.

I came back to Magic after a 20-year break through Arena during COVID. I try to play local FNM whenever I can, but usually only with borrowed decks. The only format where I actually own my own decks is Premodern, because locally we’re allowed to use proxies.

As bitter as it is, compared to paper Magic, Arena is just so much accessible. If I play regularly and open my booster packs to get wildcards, I still can’t build every deck I want, but I can at least rotate between different decks from time to time.

And every time I’m on Cardmarket thinking, “Maybe I could buy this deck in paper,” (not that could play standard anywhere near me...) I end up closing the browser faster than I would like. 😅

I've never even considered competing in a real magic tournament because I knew I could never afford to be a competitive player. Decks are expensive. Now that I play riftbound I spent <$100 and got a competitive Lillia deck. You can spend ~$150 and get a real, good deck so long as you're fine with non-english cards (which I am). I'm making plans to attend the european tournament next year and trying to actually win some skirmishes. This was never possible in the last 5 years of magic for me, but riftbound made it easy.

Fantastic episode and discussion, thank you for making this you two! Totally relatable and speaks out the pain of a MtG player seeing UBs with high pricetags just to stay competitive in standard.

As a player since 1999, I totally quit standard after FF came out. All the badgermore and super shredder shenanigans proved it was the right choice. Fully focused on Riftbound rite now and I'm happy with it

I went to a 20 person Riftbound locals last night and like half of the people there were Magic players who starting showing up because local stores replaced Standard nights with casual Commander.

A huge number swapped to Sorcery TCG at my LGS.

We welcome all MTG players on the riftbound community!! The game is amazing and is still in its infancy!

In my friend group of mtg players with more than 25+ years experience playing each, we’ve either dropped tcgs entirely or have jumped on Riftbound and are loving it

I have played from 1999 till 2012 on FNM's ,Regionals, even on GP.
Recently came back to show my grown daughter how my long forgotten hobby looked like ( and to help here learn English , at least that worked for my back in the days:D).
Man i feel so sad and disappointed its not what's it used to be, couldn't agree more with you.