There is Too Much Magic: the Gathering | Feat. Tolarian Community College 

Excuse me, but I subscribe to this channel for leftist politics, not your wacko opinions on Magic: The Gathering!

"I'm polyamorous, not Rain Man!" lmfaoooooooooooo

Being excited about Magic is literally my job, and I can't keep up with all this.

Man this hits different in 2023 with a new set every month at premium prices

I have to say bottom line, the designers and employees at Wizards of the Coast have been hitting homerun after homerun, theyve made such a wonderful game, and its heartbreaking to see that they arent getting the compensation they deserve.

I’m over here still looking at “new” ikoria cards 😂

Hey, this is 2023 speaking. In a year where we got two sets about a multiversal war between Phyrexians and everyone else, an epilogue set that involved the Pinkertons, a Lord of the Rings set, a Doctor Who set, the return to Eldraine and Ixalan, and one ridiculously overpriced set where four packs of fifteen cards each cost 200 USD, this video is preaching to the choir, and that's not even counting the secret lairs (I've basically tuned out all secret lairs since I found out about them).

"THIS ISN'T HOW I SHOULD FEEL ABOUT THE MAGIC OR THE GATHERINGS" has a brodway villain vibe. And made me laugh more than it should

"Oh my god, am I a communist? Or worse, British?" "Yes" Til

I've felt burnt out and overwhelmed by MTG products quite a while ago. Seeing where it has gone by now I'm happy for my wallet and my sanity that I have checked out when I did.

I am so tired of jumping from world to world. It feels like there is no true love for world building. It's easy to make an attractive setting but it takes more time to really explore a world.

"Previews are going to be previewing the previews at this point." Multiple previewed Midnight Hunt cards were hinting at the events of Crimson Vow, so yes, previews are previewing future previews.

*sees Iroas isn't valued* *hugs my Iroas deck* It's okay. Don't listen to the mean man. I still love you

Casual Hobbyist here who literally started with AFR: This is a really weird time to get into Magic. The way people were talking about Strixhaven or Kaldheim those sets sounded like they came out ages ago, not both this year. It's impossible to get any *real* sense of time or scale for products released the past couple years because *nobody* has that sense anymore. Preview season is eternal, and I didn't even realize AFR had just come out by the time I properly started, I'd seen friends talk about it for what felt like forever. Because there is never any break or rest.

This is so true I was loving kawigama and it respakred my love of magic, only to be dragged kicking and screaming to new capenna after being able to draft once.

I'm really feeling the burnout. I wish I could have gotten excited for and gotten to experience Kaldheim but it came and went before I even realized it existed. The business practices are driving me away. When there's three or four different types of boosters for each set, countless commander products, entirely too many Secret Lair drops, and a bunch of nonstandard sets, I can't keep up and I don't even want to. I'm a player that likes consuming Magic story through the flavor of the cards and I'm not really getting that anymore. The cards are all full of rules text, there's an overabundance of legends to support commander players but I don't know who any of them are, and the main overarching story featured in the story spotlights are kinda awful. And more practically, I'm not made of money so I can't afford to keep up anymore. I've been playing commander and ignoring pretty much anything else. I'm very frustrated with the game. And I'm even more frustrated at the company. Also, #Spice8Right

Just look at Command Zone, by the time they're finishing their card reviews the new set is out lmao

I started MTG in Amonkhet, and even I can feel the acceleration. When there were two sets per block, it still felt like things were going fast, but I could just about get a grip on the characters, story, card archetypes, etc etc Now everything is releasing constantly, and even though I accept the idea that not all products are for every player, I feel like I don’t even have the time to figure out whether or not a product is for me. I don’t have time to think or form an opinion or enjoy anything, before a brand new plate is shoved in my face. It’s like being at a restaurant, and they give you your meal before you’ve had a chance to start the appetizers. It’s just too much too fast, and it makes it impossible to actually savor what I love about this game- the art, the story, the weaving together of mechanics and flavor- I just can’t get a grip on it before I’m expected to be hype about the newest thing.

For the record, I adore your audiobook speedruns. They're some of my favorite videos to listen to when I'm bored.

The way Spice pronounces "stuff" is one of the most British things I've ever heard.

As someone who joined just as Magic allegedly started “going downhill” (started playing around the release of War of the Spark, really got into the game around Ikoria), I haven’t really felt this fatigue because it’s pretty much been like this for as long as I’ve been playing.

Me and my dad have played and collected since Ice Age & Chronicles. About as enfranchised as you can get. Yeah, the constant spate of releases has burned both us out. The pandemic hasn't helped sure, but there just hasn't seemed to be any point in trying to keep up at this point. The Secret Lair stuff doesn't help either.

Well, Mark Rosewater did confirm that wotc was going to keep the hype train going as long as possible by saying that AFR was a successful set because it made them a lot of money. It doesn't matter how the playerbase feels, all that matters is money. I'll be awaiting the video that recaps mtg's downward spiral into failure, because it is inevitable.

Oh God, it feels so good to know i'm not crazy for thinking the same thing in a while, since i was already breathing Strixhaven spoilers even before open a Kaldheim booster pack properly

I've been checked out since Commander Legends but I always feel so bad for you mtg creators. It makes me really sad that the Command Zone Podcast is pretty much only set reviews now.

It's too much; I agree. I've been playing on and off since '94, and very much on since 2017... and these last few years of releases have made me care less and less-and proxy more and more. The only reason I bought fancy lootboxes this last sixteen months is to support my LGS through COVID... But now that they're in a less precarious position, I feel little desire to buy lootboxes of fancy cardboard.

Watching this at the end of 2023 is astounding. A little over one secret lair per month felt like too many back then, so we fixed it by only releasing a little more than one... per week.

While I totally understand shelving the Audiobook Speedruns, I just wanted to put my voice out there and let you know I really love them and appreciate the effort you put into them! ❤️ I consider them real gems of the channel

The product fatigue really hit me hard when I realized I was buying all the commander precons and never played them. Maybe used a card from them. Even outside of buying sets, it felt silly constantly buying new pieces for my commander deck that I maybe played once a month. I want to like the werewolf set, since that was my favorite tribe when I started. I just can't seem to find excitement for any of it anymore though.

Hey! I forgot about god packs. My friend hobbes pulled one and in an act of sheer awesomeness gave everyone in our mtg group a free god. Thats how i got athreos.

The trick is completely ignore spoilers and announcements, then when you can enjoy your current set with plenty of time until the next set drops.

It just dawned on me that even in Secret Lairs, a product where the content wasn't supposed to be random, there are still singular cards that can be different from one another. And they decided to put commander exclusive cards in Set and Collector boosters, not the precons. WoTC is going full lootbox nowadays

These last 2 years were a nightmare, the thing that cut my legs out from underneath me was the roadmap of 2022, remember the last one that was kaldheim themed, and the one before that that was adventure themed The most recent one was just a glorified shopping channel production. Also, personal take: secret lairs should never have been advertized, they should have stayed in the background as their own little newsletter secret catalogue, that was the whole point of the "secret," advetising them nust makes them another big collector item for cash cows

Even as a newer player with no point of reference for slow output, I still can’t remember half of the legends printed in AFR, or Strixhaven, especially not Kaldheim (and I love Kaldheim)! It’s just very taxing to keep up with such a high-output monster

The moment I felt burnt out by both the game and product I stopped collecting and playing. I was emotionally attached after 20 years of the game but in all honesty, I don’t miss it at all now. I can still enjoy all the magic content around without investing any money or worrying about my decks becoming obsolete.

@26:07 just loved the proxy thanks for showing another way to use proxys :D

oh neat, a proxy video shoutout. :P

Finally a spice vid talking about stupid capitalism. Wet dreams come true some time

I love your videos so much! keep up the good work

As a hobyist, I feel burned the hell out, I just tapped out, set releases are like watching cars pass on a highway, especially because we know like, the next 10 sets in advance

Of all the places I didn't expect to hear Fleshgod Apocalypse at 110% speed, this is definitely up there.

Ive started proxying a bit ago, but all of this, just, reinforces my decision. No possible reason for there to be this many products its just insane. Thanks for your perspective!

17:45 For what its worth I love to rewatch your audio book speedruns. Those things are genuinely hilarious and show so much of your sense of humor. That being said I love all your content so if they're too much production wise, drop em. I just wanted you to know people love all your content, don't over think what goes well with algorithms or whatever. If the template lets you be creative We'll love it.

Looking back at this video and seeing nine secret lairs as a lot is hilarious

Can't wait to explain the intersection of Marxist Economics and Magic the Gathering at my local, extremely rural and conservative, game store! I've been longing for human interaction since the pandemic and this will be just the thing to win me friends and (MANY) lovers!

I can't believe my main source of knowledge about Marxist theory comes from a Magic: the Gathering RU-vidr

14:57 OMG Spice! Noyan Dar was a favourite of mine too! I was still playing 60-card Casual in those days and this deck was SO much fun! It remains in my collection somewhere.

Excellent video! I enjoy the new spoilers but I agree completely about fatigue and the issues with too many commanders. Keep up the great work.

For me, I just ignore like all but 1 or 2 sets each year. It makes everything manageable

My main problem with the product overload is that all of the product are trying to sell to commander players and ruining other formats in the process. If they used standard products to print cards for standard, commander products for commander cards, and modern products for modern cards, there wouldn’t be as much of a problem.

I’m 20 minutes in and Mr Spice has mentioned at least three different other topics he wants to/could do videos on. Loving it :)

I love the editing in this one, great work! I agree with your points, especially about 'hype' overlap being excessive. How can I get excited about something when I won't even have an opportunity to enjoy it? But I think the problem is less that there is more product available - a lot of people, including me, would never buy standard so it's nice to have more products that aren't related to standard, but when there's so many new cards being designed, it must be exhausting for the designers. I don't think it's sustainable.

I'm pretty sure I said the following on the Prof's video too but....with all these releases I'm getting "the video game crash of 1981" vibes. We I'll reach a critical mass soon. Hopefully our game doesn't kill itself.

excellent video. the massive glut of products, some which are very exclusive and expensive, is one of the reasons I've essentially stopped playing and buying MtG entirely. I'm just not a fan of how WotC is running things currently and it sours the whole game for me.

You are just a fantastic human thank you for existing on this platform

This is the most important magic the gathering video ive seen in a long time. Hard truths but necessary. I hope more people gain some consciousness of this system through this video. Great Work! Looking forward to your upcoming content Spice

Honestly spice, this whole thing really wants to see you explore cube in a video. A friend of mine literally referred to my cube once as "a tiny step towards emancipation from capital".

The number one mtg channel and the number one political commentary channel teams up

You've voiced my thoughts so nicely, thank you! I'm playing the game since 2003 and I am approaching the point of quitting for good.

once again I'm positively surprised by the use of random fleshgod apocalypse music in your videos, never gets old

This video pretty much sums up my feelings for magic in the last two years or so, really enjoyed the prof bit. Keep it up mr. spice

Oh man, when you spoke of having just drafted Forgotten Realms and having to hype for the new set. I feel you so SO hard. This video so was so on point I cannot explain. My new strategy now is pick 1 set out of the jillion each year and buy the singles and goodies of that one. And with the plethora of Commander precons I just pick 1 set of them to buy a year. We need to hinder this cycle and I 100% agree with you on all points. I even got into magic EXACTLY when you did!

Finally! The mill vs discard video!

The overwatch analogy aged like fine milk

Oh I can already tell this video is going to be a BLESSING

Weird that we started mtg at the same.time I remember my first prerelease being gatecrash. I remember oloro precon being my into to commander. It's sad to see the bloat in mtg which started for me around eldritch moon honestly

The only things keeping me in the loop about MTG at all are MTGGoldfish’s daily spoilers and Nizzahon’s limited set reviews

Can we take a second to acknowledge the fact that this rain man made a detailed, funny, 30 minute video for us

Such a perfect video for our family Sunday drive 😇😇😇 what a lovely day for a feud ❤️

As a regular hobbyist, as you asked, I don't feel overloaded, mainly because I only play Arena and probably will only play Arena as paper is incredibly expensive for what is essentially cardboard I can proxy. My main issue with all these products and record profits which result in more products, is that I don't see them being invested into anything that isn't more product, in my case Arena, which is in a very worrying state right now

incredible video i love you spice, tolarian, and marx 💕

I like that your read the patron names, some of them are really funny

I can't wait for secret lair Magic: The Gathering RU-vidr drop. I want spice on a card. Or I'd honestly settle for secret lair Marxism. Alt art land tax, smothering tithe, etc.

This is legitimately an exact summary of my apathy towards mtg over the past months

You’ve put into words what I’ve been feeling for a while. Stopping playing magic about a year back just because I got to busy. But haven’t returned to it because it felt like there was so much stuff being released that I didn’t know how to get back in and keep up with it all

Just got back into Magic now that my area has recovered from the pandemic Having to deal with all these rapid-fire releases on top of getting myself up to speed with the year and a half of magic I missed is mind numbing

Last time i was this early, Goblins had just 1 planeswalker and Planeswalker wasn't a card type yet.

I'm still buying the Commander precons, but it's as much as I can bear to. It's the only product that's coming out in a cadence I can bear.

I love the character progression from "That's right, I'm YOUNG" to "I know, you're old."

My first set was Magic 2014, followed up by Theros. I'm a purely casual player, I only really play Commander. My goal was to make a commander deck for every possible colour identity, with the additional challenge of making them all have a different theme or playstyle, and I am around halfway through. But your point about just the constant barrage of new legendary creatures, new 'made for commander' cards and just the perpetual hype engine resonated with me, and made me realise, I haven't picked up my cards since Strixhaven dropped. It's all just too much to remember and to be tweaking THAT many decks constantly, well, it's more stressful than my job. And I'm a health care worker! Love you spice

I've definitely noticed that I'm less excited for new releases now than I was a few years ago.

This was the best time to take a break from Magic haha, I’m still chilling on Ravnica and watching the world explode from over here

The intro sounded like Fleshgod Apocalypse... Awesome! :)

Oh cool spice you and i started playing at the same time thats pretty neat greetings again from aus

We started mtg at the same time! I agree, there's too much, nothing feels special anymore and the new legendary creatures are just game pieces not cool characters. I'll play Krenko as long as i play magic, yes because it's powerful but also because in a world with Planeswalkers, elder dragons and wizards a mere goblin who is savvy and charismatic can beat them. Great video! Always enjoy them

I am 100% burnt out on it, but I love magic and playing last night with friends was amazing ☺️

I cant wait to see this collab of two of my favorite mtg youtubers

I popped when you mentioned Gyome. The dude I was also most excited about and have completely forgotten.

Oh goodness, I empathize with all of the feelings you share in this video so much, as well as agree on many of the points you make. I started playing at a similar time, and have just generally been checked out for a similar period of time. I'm unable to synopsize the depth of these feelings at the moment. An anecdote I want to share though is that I was so excited to begin running a Magic club at my LGBTQ+ community center in 2019, and it finally reconnected me to an extent since it was playing limited or commander in a good environment. But with that fatigue setting in, the subsequent apathy, the pandemic, and everything... I don't think I can really run that club, or participate anymore in Magic in general! It's genuinely heartbreaking to me since it was a hyperfixation for me for many years, and something I cared about deeply. I think I'll just cherish the time I had with it and move on.

13:00 This is part of the reason I don't play any competitive magic. There's not point in spending money on cards when they will be worthless in just a few months.

And this is why your channel, Scryfall, and Magic Arcanum are basically the only ways I consume Magic content anymore

Woah, Spice! You started playing magic the same exact time I did! I started sometime between Dragon's Maze and Theros. Weirdly, I could have sworn that it was earlier than 2013, since I remember getting the 2013 commander decks and I definitely started playing EDH like a year into playing magic. I guess I just got them later? And yeah, theres too much damn product. Its now nearly a year after this video came out an its only gotten worse.

Thank you SO much for making this, Spice! I feel like I'm constantly shouting into a void about this, as my friends, subreddits, and other content creators I follow act like this product overload isn't happening or is somehow a huge positive for us (and the game). With this deluge of products, I've basically had to stop following any limited content and more or less give up sealed and draft, create spreadsheets for every set in order to track potential new cards and prices for my existing or new Commanders, and generally debate dropping MtG wholesale. It's EXHAUSTING just as a player, so I can only imagine how drained you and other creators get about this. How are we supposed to analyze and master the game if we only get 7-10 days between spoilers for some new product? How are staple prices ever going to drop if there's just more and more FLASHY NEE CONTENT and never even a break for a Core Set that's just 40-60% reprints? How will any chase cards be "the right value" to put in a Precon without breaking WotC's impossible notion of "balance" and "availability to new players" or whatever bs they trot out to keep every Commander Deck from coming with a shockland and a Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe? I knew it was gonna be bad when Wizards PR faces were saying certain products just "weren't made for" me. Now I'm coming to see, maybe the whole game isn't for me. And that's tragic.

Been more and more casual the less time I've had to play. Still love the game, still intend to keep playing, but most product releases for me boil down to checking the spoiler page after previews are done and being like 'oh that's cool', and then checking out and not caring afterwards.

I used to know what time of the year it was solely based on the release of Magic sets. No longer. I now have no concept of time, all thanks to my obsession with Magic! What a wonderful world to live in!

This is a great video, and as someone who jumped back into Magic last year, I'm definitely already feeling the fatigue. I've had so much fun with AFR on Arena, and I'm gonna be honest, I'm not ready for Innistrad yet even though that's the first set I bought back in the day.

Too many stuff

2022 And I'm Still Processing Strixhaven

I would have never in my life expected to see a Marx quote in a Magic video :) you've earned my sub :D

That Adam Savidan stock photo is hilarious...damn you Ben I want to see you video about D&D... I can't be the only one nerding about how "Tasha's Hideous Laughter" makes no sense as a mill card