This year has been one of the busiest for MTG in recent memory. It seems like we can’t go more than three weeks without a new product reveal, a bunch of new spoilers, and some big announcement to pay attention to.
While that might be the case in other games, this is a fairly new phenomenon for Magic: The Gathering, which normally takes things a little slower. It’s nice to have things to look forward to, obviously, but we also can’t help but feel a little burned out by the hype cycle at this point.
Have some spoilers in your spoilers
Let’s put this in perspective. We here at MTG Rocks have only been a website since February. If you go on over to our Spoilers section, you’ll notice that there are eight different sets listed within that. Now, even if you strip away the two Commander sets within that and Kaldheim, which launched just before we did, you’re still left with five sets. We’ve been a site for about five and a half months.
That averages out to just under one new set of spoilers a month, and that’s too many. Assuming each set has 300 cards, that means there are around ten new cards spoiled every day in MTG. Obviously, these don’t come daily, but when you break it down to look at it like that, doesn’t it feel like it’s too much?
We’re forever in a spoiler season now, often getting spoilers for one set before the next is even out. In fact, we’re now even potentially getting cards from the next set printed in the current ones, and it’s all just a lot to deal with. We can’t maintain excitement about new cards all year round, and we don’t think anybody else can either.
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Welcome to burnout
The result of this never-ending feeling of hype is that it’s hard to actually get excited about any of it. Sure, we want to be excited about every new card, and honestly, we do find ourselves besotted with specific cards or sets even if we are being taken for a ride amongst a flood of new options. However, it’s hard to even know what we’re looking forward to.
It used to be that you could set your sights on the next Standard set and now that that’s when things will see another new shake-up. The set slowly unfurled over the course of a few weeks, and every reveal was worth analysing.
Now though, how on Earth are you meant to be excited constantly? That’s not how excitement works. Much like a good horror film, you need quiet moments to have the big ones hit properly. Without actual downtime between all of these sets and announcements, it’s impossible to maintain enthusiasm properly, and it means we’re all sort of burning out.
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What can you do about this?
Now, the main thing here is that theoretically, not all of these sets are for every kind of player. However, if you’re the kind of MTG player who loves every aspect of the game, then that’s not really a choice for you. There’s no real answer to this constant barrage of products aside from disengaging or picking one or two formats to play.
None of that’s ideal though, The new direction Wizards is taking is fun in some ways, because there’s always something coming for everyone, but it’s also just kind of draining if you’re one of the people who wants to consume everything voraciously.
It’s not like we’re going to stop playing Magic, obviously. However, it does just feel like we’re little more than consumers now. Maintaining that passion that drives many of us as players is tricky without regular paper play anyway, but it’s almost harder to do when you’re constantly staring at your bank account willing more money into it to allow you to get into the next set.
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