It’s been almost a year since the last time I wrote a thought piece on this blog, which examined the hypothetical pros and cons of WOTC making Oathbreaker a sanctioned format (linked here); however, this thought piece is going to be a little bit more personal in nature. A lot has happened in the last year—most notably, and obviously, the global pandemic—and I’ve found my overall attitude toward MTG to be shifting quite a bit. I’ve spent much of the last 6-ish months on and off recovering from shoulder/neck problems, which had a significant effect on my ability to put out articles. Even now after I have mostly bounced back from those shoulder/neck issues, I’ve been finding it surprisingly difficult to get back into MTG writing—and that essentially is what this thought piece is for.
I’m going to walk y’all through where my mind has been at with MTG lately and how it’s been affecting my motivation to write and interact with the game in general. Again, this article is definitely going to be a bit different from my usual articles, but I will do my best to put my confusing soup of thoughts into some kind of coherent format. A lot has changed for me in the last year, but I’ve found the three general factors that have affected my motivation with MTG the most have been the pandemic, frustrating decisions made by WOTC, and my personal lack of excitement toward recent sets.
The Pandemic
COVID has obviously had a significant impact on everyone’s ability to play multiplayer MTG, and my own playgroup has been no exception. I did take a few stabs at playing digitally via Spelltable, but I personally found that kind of gameplay to be much less enjoyable and much more stressful for me. Even now after most of my playgroup has been vaccinated, organizing games has become much more difficult than pre-COVID. I actually managed to play my first in-person game of Oathbreaker in quite a while just about a week ago, which ended up being very hastily put together once the three of us randomly found a convenient time for it. Hopefully scheduling games will gradually become easier in the near future for my playgroup.
Frustrating WOTC Decisions
“Frustrating” might be a bit too generous of a descriptor here, if I’m being completely honest. Corporations will always have their own perspective and motivations that differ from that of the individual, and larger corporations—such as Hasbro—are sometimes particularly prone to perceived poor decision-making due to their sheer size. That being said, I think it’s fair to say that WOTC has made more than its fair share of disappointing choices in the last few years. To list out just a handful of such decisions:
- TWD Secret Lair: This particular topic was actually a pretty big talking point in my last thought piece, so I’m not going to restate everything I said there. Long story short, this specific product was very problematic for several reasons, quickly making it a near-universally disliked product—which unfortunately did not stop it from selling well.
- Decline in storytelling: In the past handful of years there has been a notable dip in the quality of storytelling done on the MTG lore side of things. The novel War of the Spark: Forsaken is probably the most well-known blunder of this variety, however it certainly has not been the only one—far from it. Although there have been some improvements in this regard during the last year, I still have not found myself drawn to the story in the same way I was back in the days when Khans of Tarkir and other sets would come with their own load of free, high-quality short stories. I wouldn’t say I’m primarily a “vorthos” MTG player, but the lore has still been one of my stronger ties to the game as a whole, until recently.
- Unsatisfying attempts at combating racism/bigotry: This one topic really deserves an article of its own, but seeing as how I am definitely not the most qualified person to write extensively on this issue, I will keep it brief. WOTC as a whole has a pretty poor track record of addressing racism in their games/communities in meaningful ways, both in MTG and elsewhere. “Good intentions; poor execution” is a decent summary description of these struggles in recent times, I believe. To give a relatively small example, the inclusion of Killian’s character in Strixhaven’s set+storyline was meant to be an effective instance of Asian inclusion; however, Killian’s storyline was riddled with harmful Asian stereotypes that caused his inclusion to feel empty at best and insulting at worst. Racism doesn’t affect my personal experience as a white person, but seeing WOTC stumble the ball time and again hasn’t exactly boosted my overall confidence in their competency at handling such issues. Combine slip-ups like that with situations like the queerbaiting in War of the Spark: Forsaken and WOTC has clearly shown they have yet to figure out how to consistently tackle these topics with any real competence—and not from lack of profits/resources on their part.
MTG Set Disappointment
At the end of the day, every MTG player has their own kinds of cards/gameplay that they personally find the most exciting/engaging, and I would never expect sets to be catered to my particular tastes; however, I do usually expect to at least be excited by some amount of new cards/sets every once in a while. Although there have been a few mechanics in the last year that I have found to be very interesting, I still struggle to recall the last time I was really excited to play with a new set. Maybe it’s mostly been a side effect of the previously mentioned frustrating aspects of WOTC, or maybe I’ve been setting my expectations too high. Regardless, I’ve found myself feeling underwhelmed in regards to recent products. To give just a few examples:
- Adventures in the Forgotten Realms: Unlike some players, I actually have zero issues with the idea of a D&D-inspired set. In fact, as a D&D player and Forgotten Realms nerd, this particular set announcement actually got me feeling very hyped. I was sure this set would be my favorite MTG product of the year by a landslide; unfortunately, I ended up being very mistaken. I am happy that there seem to be a lot of people that have enjoyed the set as a whole, but it just hasn’t been my cup of tea. It definitely felt like this set was trying to break the mold in a surprisingly high number of ways, especially since it took the place of a standard Core Set, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Even still, the venture mechanic never really got my gears turning, and the handful of cards that did pique my curiosity couldn’t make up for what ultimately felt to me like an underwhelming set. To be completely clear, I am not claiming the set was poorly designed or that anyone is wrong for enjoying it. I am genuinely relieved that most players don’t feel the same way as I do about the set. Even still, I’d be lying if I said I don’t feel pretty let-down by the end result.
- Digital-Only Sets: This particular topic is actually what ended up convincing me to finally write this article. For those that may not have heard yet, for whatever reason; a new digital-only set called Jumpstart: Historic Horizons will soon be coming to MTG Arena. Unlike previous additions to the client, such as the various Remastered sets, this set will contain many brand new cards with mechanics designed specifically for digital play—in other words, these cards will never make it to paper, nor would it even be possible to playout their mechanics if they were printed physically. Among the first batch of previews for this set was a new iteration of Davriel (linked here), a planeswalker I’ve been eager to see return since his original debut; however, as a person that does not play MTG Arena, I won’t even be able to play with this neat new planeswalker. I really am happy for all the players that will get the chance to play with these new cards, but I have to admit that seeing a whole set full of goodies I won’t have access to has been a bit of a downer for me—particularly given how little excitement I have felt for recent paper sets.
Where to Go From Here
Suffice it to say, I am going to be stepping back from MTG for a while. How long exactly, I can not be sure; however, I don’t really see myself interacting with the game meaningfully for at least the next several months. As much as I have grown to love Oathbreaker and producing Oathbreaker content, I just can’t make myself write articles about a game I have become so emotionally detached from. I hope that this lapse in enthusiasm proves to be a temporary lull rather than a permanent change, but trying to force myself to stay tuned in to the game right now won’t fix anything. I’ve experienced and studied burnout enough to recognize it when I see it.
In case this article does end up becoming my final installment on the blog, I would like to thank everyone that has read my work and supported my content over the last few years. The Oathbreaker Thoughtcast really was a passion project that almost came up out of nowhere. Once I decided to start an Oathbreaker blog, I spent roughly 2-3 weeks preparing the site, which included commissioning an artist friend for the wonderful drawing that makes up the head of this site. To be clear, I am the only person that has been involved in the writing/editing/creative process for The Oathbreaker Thoughtcast, and I have never made a single cent off of it—in fact, I never intended to. I chose to make this content because I wanted to, and because Oathbreaker became—and still is—my favorite way to experience MTG. I can’t say for sure if I would have continued writing articles for this long if no one had shown appreciation for my work, but y’all’s kind words sure as hell made writing/deckbuilding for the blog much easier to do, so thank you.
About the author: My name is Alex Enders. I am a college student that’s been playing MTG for almost eight years, though I only began writing content about a year ago. My personal formats of choice are Oathbreaker, EDH, and draft. My other interests include music, education, and most things nerdy. You can find me on Twitter (@AAAEnders) or email me at aenders2112@gmail.com