Tolarian Winds: Aftermath | The Why Of 5 Card Magic The Gathering Booster Packs 

Be sure to also watch Tomer Brings Budget Commander And Cookies | Shuffle Up & Play #25: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ckH6LCfOjS8.html

Aftermath feels like day-one DLC that was pulled from the main game.

Nahiri: *gets killed, dismembered, compleated and falls to her apparent death while being crushed by a skyclave* Nahiri: *walks it off in Aftermath*

If there was three sets, phyrexia could've had a better ending than "norn died, phyrexia fell over"

The thing I remembered the other day, is there's a reason we had blocks. Three sets is perfect for introducing a setting, then creating a climax, and finally resolving the main event. Not all stories need three sets, but this one surely did. It also feels weird that the "big change to the Multiverse" happens in Aftermath, almost like an afterthought. All in all I'm grateful for the leak, as it made a lot of people retract their pre-orders, and that will hopefully send a message to the executives.

In the immortal words of the wise and powerful Yogurt, "Heaven forbid we all meet again in 'Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money." That is how this set makes me feel.

One of the best new features of Magic: The Gathering: March of the Machine: The Aftermath is the slim chance of having armed goons sent to your home by Hasbro every time you open a pack.

We have blitzed through story so fast that I don't even know what's happened or why the cool villians are dead. Last I checked it, was... Kamigawa.... I miss spending a year on a plane.

The Saga of the Weatherlight and the Scars or Mirrodin Block. That is how a Phyrexian invasion and take over is handled properly.

Thanks SO MUCH for echoing this sentiment on the March of Machines story. I'm relatively new to magic so when everything came to an extremely abrupt end after all that set up I had to wonder "Is this... Just how MTG does stories?" cause it felt like we'd skipped the entire second act.

My thoughts are that this is how WotC test the waters for how they could possibly rip customers off more efficiently. If this experiment proves to be a success, we'll see a lot more "micro sets" in 2 years.

The phyrexian history spans almost the creation of mtg in general. The end of phyrexia in such a sudden manner leads me to think wizards never cared about the lore. They needed a defeat, but an epic one at that. I'm big sad

Good disclamer in the beginning, wouldn't want the Pinkertons knocking on your door.

Totally agree with you on the story. This story would have been so much better served broken up, as you have argued.

"Aftermath" would've been such a cool name for the third set of the three-set "Phyrexia" block, reminiscent of old single-word sets like Apocalypse and Odyssey. Man, I miss blocks.

Totally look forward to buying this whole set in singles for like ~20 bucks

I see it this way. Alchemy was designed to "reinvigorate" (IOW sell more to) Arena players before the next set, when the Standard becomes "stale". Aftermath is the IRL attempt at doing an "Alchemy", to sell more to the player base. As I recall, there was an announcement of no Alchemy for MOM because of the timing of Aftermath.

Hard agree on the story. They rushed and compacted it so bad, we just... skipped right over the invasion. Yeah it was there, but it was just window dressing to Elesh Norn being defeated throughout more than half the story. It just felt flat.

The "three acts" structure to stories and the trillogies common in fantasy exist for a reason. "Beginning, middle, and end."

Yeah it was weird reading flavor text that talked about the days leading up to the invasion right next to flavor text that talked about Teferi honoring Wrenn's sacrifice. I haven't read the story yet and that makes it hard to get excited about it.

This is absolutely hilarious. Very entertaining. Thank you WOTC! At least thank you from those of us who quit a while ago.

I didn't know Elesh Norn was even gonna die until I saw a card a the prerelease with Karn holding her severed head. I was like wait wtf?

100% agree with your points about the story structure. When Heliod, Radiant Dawn was spoiled, I was super excited to read the story about his compleation and that of other gods. Ajani gets sent to Theros in chapter 1 of MOM, and because his turn was pretty important in DMU, I thought the story would follow him. Then all we got was a handful of paragraphs before Elspeth comes back as an angel to save the day. MOM should have been treated like Inifinity war and Endgame, where the Phyrexians are mostly victorious in MOM, then are defeated in the next set. Cards like Archangel Elspeth and Wrenn and Realmbreaker should have been saved for a set after MOM. Then we would have had room for more compleated gods and a compleated Koma, both of which only got mentioned in flavor text. At least Nicol Bolas got to have victory set in Hour of Devastation before the heroes took him down.

I remember when my LGS started selling homemade packs of 5 bulk opened product with a guaranteed rare for 1$ each. There was almost always more than a dollar of value but it felt right with the price of a normal booster.

Keeping in mind how many sets were needed to tell all the stages of the war between Urza and Phyrexia, and the invasion of Dominaria, it's really silly to see everything done in 2 sets (3 if you want to count Dominaria United).

Oh, I thought the “6-card Collector Booster” was just a joke. Nothing is truly a joke in this Clown World…

This product illustrates the entire reason I stopped playing Magic. This game was my childhood, but now I literally cannot recognise it. Too many products and far too little time to actually enjoy a new set of cards before another flashy bauble is shoved into your figurative face. That and the accelerating cost, ridiculous collectibles and the entire system of Universes Beyond meant that I spent more time keeping up with MTG than actually playing it. Even things like the Lord of the Ring's set or even the Doctor Who crossover have so many products that I can't enjoy the actual set, cards, art or any part of the game because I'm too busy trying to figure out what the five new commander decks do, and whether I can get this style of card in a draft, set or collector's booster. I feel that the focus of Magic is now on selling product instead of making it. This business model might make more money in the short term, but long-term Hasbro must realise that killing off the people who actually play the game won't lead to a bright future. I just hope at some point they get their act together, (maybe if they're bought by another company who actually cares about the way the game works) and that I can get back to enjoying MTG again.

Is true how compressed feels MOM. You have in the same set cards featuring the moment before the invasion (with the symbols appearing), the battles depicting the phyrexian offensive and the plane deffensive at the same time, and the cards of how it ends like render inert.

I’ve been trying my hand at a few different hobbies over the past few months, and coming back and looking at MTG’s release schedule for products, it looks insane. I can’t fathom a brand new set of cards almost every month, nor can my wallet. It’s unfortunate that I can no longer afford all the cards I want from each new set

The reason they can't make the collector boosters all foils is because they need a splint in there.

They need to bring back three bloc sets, I feel we never have enough time to spend on a set, I would love three set New Cappena and Neo Kamigawa, just feels jarring we get one set before we move on.

I just realised I "what have they done now"'ed in a tone like a father getting another message from their childs high school. My faith in WOTC has fallen to subterrainean levels, it's only the commuity and the three remaining members of my group that stop me from dropping it.

The upcoming timeline has me completely CHECKED OUT. Time to save some money and just keep buying singles! I havent opened a pack in 6 or so months because I cant even find them on shelves. lmao.

I just noticed your box of Homelands. I got a sealed pack of it in Japan last week. My name is Chandler, so it has my favorite commander for obvious reasons!

Received my Kickstarter Deck Box this weekend. Thank you!

I think it speaks volumes that WOTC's response to the decreasing popularity of Standard is to make a fifth Standard set. Their problem is that there aren't enough sales, so their solution is to make more products. They don't care that no one wants to play Standard, they're just worried that they aren't selling enough Standard product.

The fact that the price didn't go down with the amount of card makes this set a pass for me

I don't believe this product deserves the amazing optimism and positivity you put forward in this video, prof. That being said, that's why you're awesome.

Because 2023 WOTC has to try to outdo 2022 WOTC in terms of Greed.

You nailed it with the double feature comparison. Feels to me like they had extra art and poof free microproduct.

Sad thing is (with some leaks in mind) that the set does one thing I wanted for quite some time: planeswalker-characters as legendary creatures. The story always heavily focused on characters that are planeswalkers (wether or not that is good is a different question), but since they can be attacked and usually dont have enough loyalty counters to survive for long it meant that some of the most important story characters were the most fragile card type.

As a Vorthos, I do love the idea of an Epilogue to follow the Event Set. As a player, I think the best use for these is as a bonus pack before/after Drafting March of the Machine itself. As someone with a limited budget, I feel bad that I can't get all the product that I actually want to get.

I had the same thought verbatim about this set. This needed 3 sets! Could you imagine if Infinity War and Endgame were all in one film? This is that result. Rushed story lines, crowded card play that didn't fully realize its intentions, and the letdown kills butchered this set. I like it, but even war of the spark had bigger buildup and explosive payoffs, and we all know how that went! This was supposed to be a ginormous event that changes magic as a whole and it felt like another Tuesday! Seriously, a new card type, the enemy invading every aspect of the multiverse and characters we cherished now donning an evil poisoned personality and we get shafted with mediocre plots. My boi vorinclex gets beheaded by a rando like they were casually buttering toast and walks off like they were going to the mall! All in all, this was a lackluster presentation of the potential mtg story we could've and should've received.

Just got into the game like today this channel really helpful (plz never stop what you're doing)

I applauded you Professor! You came at this product with an open mind and gave every single angle a just and honest try to justify the legitimacy that this product could be needed. The actual reason it exists: less cardboard, less ink, less packaging but same price = higher profit margin. I think the term is shrinkflation. Another attempt to extract the largest amount of profits, other than making a quality, fun, and engaging game. "But they cut out the commons that you just bulk or throw away anyway". The rarity of a card in a TCG is a abstract thing assigned by the creator to try to indicate to the player the quantity of that rarity type printed. In this set the rares are common b/c they come in every single pack and the mythic is now the uncommon b/c you will open fewer than the rares. Spend you money however you want, you earned it, and i hope you have a blast with this if you do. If this is a success by wizards internal data, they we print this idea for as many standard sets as they think we will buy.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Has had 5 and 7 card “premier” packs for years. Most of the time these pander to the collectors and long time fans introducing cards that had previously been anime exclusive or giving support to older/ fan-service (blue-eyes, dark magician, red-eyes etc.) archetypes. These packs also often contain reprints of hard to come by competitive cards such as Barrone de Fleur in the latest 7 card booster pack set Maze of Memories.

I can't think of a set I was less excited about, at least homelands gave more insight into the sengirs. I think I'm likely to manage to actually listen to you prof and just buy singles this time around, or perhaps even just trade for 'em.

I thoroughly enjoy your content :)

Personally, I'm mostly upset that they keep reprinting Phyrexian Rebirth and ignoring the flavor text on it when writing the story for March of the Machine. It got reprinted like three times going into MOM! How can you not know that as long as one drop of the oil exists, the joyous work continues?

Honestly when I saw the decrease in the amount of cards per pack in the Collectors boosters I assumed it was because they wanted to Make like a $10-$15 collector booster to encourage more people to dip their toes into it. I didn't realize it was going to cost the exact same lmao

Hey Prof, I just reveived my kickstarter box... It is everything I could've hoped for and more. I literally was shaking opening it. Once again, thanks for everything.

I would love to see you narrate a comic story or an older MtG story line again.

These packs ought to be like $1 for 5 cards

I enjoyed the quick cut to the Elspeth scream before returning to business. 😀

I'm in agreement. They should have made another set, especially how many characters they miss showing cards for (Koma)

Yup from every perspective this should have been the 3rd set. I'm excited for the new Narset though.

I just returned to MTG and the number of new sets is overwhelming to me ngl. They gotta step on the brakes at some point, but I don't think thats happening anytime soon.

You know what? You reminded of something very important. I usually avoid speculation content, but didn't know what this was so I clicked. always love your stuff. but the ending hit home for me "Those 50 new cards may be home runs that do nothing but add new avenues and paths for this great game." There was no venom, no sarcasm, no exasperation. Hope. Hope for this product to succeed and make the game better. NO ONE wins when a product fails, and I seem to have forgotten that recently. Product fatigue hitting me a little hard, but this reminded me that I should still HOPE they do well for Wizards and the Players. Thank you.

Thank you for doing this video. It explains a lot.

Merchandizing! We’ve got Magic: the Gathering: March of the Machine: the Aftermath: the Commander decks! Spaceballs, the placemat! Spaceballs, the doll!

This sounds like the cards rejected from their main boosters and just shoved into an extra booster pack to make money off of the art they paid for.

Amen. I couldnt agree more we needed 3 sets for this story.

Like always, thank you prof. You are awesome!

The deckbox is so good!!!!

March of the Machine really should have been part of a block. Start with All Will Be One, have March of the Machine focus on the invasion in its entirety, and then have a third set that dealt with the confrontation and counter-attack on New Phyrexia. Just make sure to allocate more than five stories per set for each of them.

Right on Prof. Btw i very much enjoyed the music!!!

Thank you for bringing a voice to my own thoughts, Prof. At first I was really hyped for March of the Machine, then I fell off hard after all the story beats have been revealed. How can I still be hyped about the thought of my favorite characters teaming up to fight in a seemingly unwinnable battle when I already know the outcome? It's such a shame, they've been pacing the story out through a lot of sets only to completely rush it in the end... kinda feels like Game of Thrones, now that I think about it 😅

Aftermath is the DLC expansion to MOM

I've only been playing Magic for about six months now and the first set I bought was Dominaria United. There's so many new products coming out that I haven't even bothered trying to get caught up with them. At this point I've just resorted to buying singles of the cards I think are cool and planning what deck(singular) I might put together to play in paper when I get the chance.

Thank you so much for the in depth rundown you have saved me money 5 cards is not good enough 12 cards was a bad but 5 it’s like they just took the rest of the packs n made a new set out of it

Well I have thought about this quite a bit. On the surface a five card booster seems like an affront but then when I consider it is usually the chase mythic, rare, and uncommons that prop up the desire and long term value of a product then you would think that this will be a great value. But then we also have to think about scarcity. Usually the scarcity even of a new card drives price saying that this one mythic which only shows up in an average quantity is holding up the box value may not exist here because of the probability that each card will have a plethora of printings. I suppose on the upside any great cards that do see print will be available at a reasonable price giving accessibility to players in the short term and perhaps value to the secondary market once the print run ends.

Hope the Corpos don't send their thugs after you for this video Prof

As awesome as the idea behind Brother's War was (and some of the designs were killer, Prototype needs to be used often) it was definitely an aside in the entire Phyrexian story arc. It was like Teferi had a full set for a flashback where he remembered hearing about The Brother's War when he was a student.

Fallen Empires only had eight cards per pack, and we saw what a huge retail success that set was.

Hit the nail on the head prof, thanks for a great video, and waiting with baited breath to see how this shakes out for wotc, and what new abomination of a product they'll think of next

Like many Magic products I am excited about what this COULD have been. I used to love seeing the story told with the cards in the set. I’d love if we had these micro products for epilogues of stories that are told well. Imagine something like this with War of the Spark or the Eldrazi Invasion? Rather than a hard stop in the product and moving to a new plane suddenly. Prof nailed it. We needed 3 sets to tell this story. The Rise of the Phyrexians. The Battle with the Phyrexians. The Comeback of the Multiverse and Subsequent defeat of the Phyrexians. And seeing the impact this had on characters, a set like this to put a bow on it all would be nice.

Ngl they really would benefit from showing down and fleshing their things out. I only got into magic last year and I’ve been intrigued by Karn’s story and the other characters, but there’s so many of them. Financially I can’t keep up with the packs (ik ik, buy singles but I enjoy opening packs) and story wise I don’t get time to go back and see what they’ve already made.

It's nice the leaks shows the perfect card for this. Tolarian Contempt

Dominaria United and Kamigawa… that was our intro sets to the invasion.

I feel like they need to standardize what is in each monthly release if they are going to do this. Like the set in the first month of each quarter is a Standard set, the set in the last month of each set is a Universes Beyond set, and the set in the middle month of each quarter is aimed at a specific format (Commander/Modern/Pioneer).

Nice to hear that I'm not the only one underwhelmed by the fact that the cataclysmic invasion of the Phyrexians, requiring not only multiple planeswalkers, but also many regular heroes of different worlds to fight off, was just stopped by an angel coming in and swinging a sword at Elesh Norn.

Love your videos, professor. I wish you 1m+ subs and a healthy long life.

Agreed prof. It needed at least ine extra set, although in my opinion it very much coukd be one set per invaded plane just to do the Phyrexians as a multiverse ending threat justice, as well as to give impact to eqch victory and defeat they had. It would also have been a way to revisit old (and not so old planes) where we either have not been in a while or we weren't there for any significant time (like Capenna). It would have been a meaningful way to introduce new planes to keep the lore moving along.

Tbh I feel like we get a squished set because I don’t think WOTC believed we could have held an attention span to have three sets about one thing anymore. Not like we used to have 3 set blocks or anything xD

Dev at Sbmtg called it that they would eventually put out a small standard legal set in summer. He guessed it was to spice up standard before the next rotation.

Prof voicing my frustrations yet again

I definitely agree on the story structure part, there's good ideas in the story but the pace needed to sum up the story in a bunch of short stories in one set really pushed it to its limits. But also, I think these small sets can in fact be successful. But the lesson from other card games here is that the design space for the set has to be extremely tight. Like the Deck Build packs in Yugioh, such as Secret Forces or Dark Saviors, are similar size, especially in the OCG. 60 card sets with 5 card packs (more recent ones at 7 card packs). But what made them work, and what keeps them popular, is that they're narrowly focused. They're only focused on printing cards for three different decks, most of which are new, and some relevant/good reprints. The question becomes whether or not Magic can fulfill the kind of focused set design needed to make a set work and I'm not sure I'm super convinced. If I had to put money on it, I don't suspect it'll work in the end.

It's a pretty common notion among the Vorthos community that the invasion story only lasted for two sets, so I feel weird for thinking it at the very least started in Dominaria United, since its story was literally about the Phyrexians invading Dominaria. If this was indeed the way Wizards intended the story to be perceived, I wonder what exactly went wrong here. Is it the Brothers' War feeling like a prequel set, sticking out of the linear structure of this "block" even though it does include modern characters dealing with the modern Phyrexian threat? Or is it just because March of the Machine is so big, a single set just feels too small for it?

What the *Tezzeret*

I can't help but feel that the true impetus behind this product was Hearthstone's Mini-Sets. Wizards saw how effective those were and how they drove continued engagement with their Standard environment between major releases. I mean, it's even in the name, Micro-Set, Mini-Set...

Lore-focused set with no book in the bundle 🤷‍♂️ Thanks as always for the info, Prof! Hava great one 👍

After what happened to the guy who leaked the set I legitimately want wotc to go out of business

The poor leaker who leaked the whole set had his wife threatened and home entered by people hired by wotc…

Great content.

Im glad I have magic RU-vidrs to watch- I had preordered some MoM aftermath to guarantee a good price point, but the second I found out about the details of the set I cancelled the preorders.

Ironically I think the idea of "micro-sets" actually could have fit well into the March of the Machine story (albeit given careful handling that we know better than to expect from Wizards), and it could have simultaneously addressed the storytelling issue. Micro sets could have zoomed in on a few key/fan-favorite planes to show the height of the Phyrexian invasion in more detail. Use the numerous side stories and cutaway vignettes from the main story as the basis for miniature "remastered" sets for a handful of settings, exploring how they combat the Phyrexians and how they do (or don't) hold out. Priced lower than a full standard set, of course. Obviously that would mean even more products in the year and maybe having five different "March of the Machine" mini-sets would be too confusing for the average consumer, but I *can* see an avenue for micro-sets as a storytelling device.

This doesn't change how I will interact with the set. I still plan on buying singles. I have a feeling there will be less demand for this than usual sets, just because there's less cards in it to attract people.

Lore and Story sold separately

Thanks for the video, Prof! The product saturation is getting a bit overwhelming. I was already kind of feeling like I buy too many packs, but after looking at how many sets are coming out this year, I'm probably going to cut back to just drafting and occasioanlly picking up a precon if any appeal to me.

I think there is a simple solution to telling the story within the set's cards - Number the Story Spotlights... Story Spotlight - 01/20 Story Spotlight - 12/20 Etc... That way you can line up the cards in order and see the story unfold in the way its meant to be portrayed and in context...