I can see myself getting burnt out if I was playing competitively all the time but I don't think i can get too bored just playing commander. Any time I get bored of a deck I tear apart that deck and try to play a fresh new deck. It helps that I tend to play with my really good friends and we are fine drinking a few beers, ordering a few pizzas and just jamming games and talking magic for hours.
I like this post. I think the heart of it is: if you get burned out playing competitive, which is just like anything else in life that is truly competitive, take a step back and have some fun. The beauty of magic is that the minute you aren't enjoying it, you can build a pointless deck and play some VERY casual games where your objective might not even be to win, only to annoy. You can't always do that with other competitive things, its hard to take a step back from your olympic parallel bars career and just have some fun on the parallel bars, but magic is, at its core, a game that is so fun you should be comfortable losing at over and over as long as you aren't too invested.
@@captaingildor6884 I agree. Yes play to win. But winning is never my ultimate goal. My goal is to have the most fun and do the most fun things as I can. That resolves most of my burnout
On the topic of getting better, I totally agree with the Prof about keeping a log, and taking an introspective look at your performance and the factors that went into it. I’ve trained for long road races and having a fixed goal, and keeping track of my progress towards that goal and seeing that progress helped fuel my motivation. Not only that, but if you analyze why you performed how you did, then you can identify where you can improve and take steps to do that.
Last video: “Magic players overuse jokes way too much.” Every Dies to Removal episode: “Oh Vince you have a CZcams channel? You’ve never mentioned that.”
100% with you on this one. I didn't really get on board the hype train everyone else did with the new Ravnica sets, and with so many products being announced in quick succession, as well as the constant revisions to gameplay/design and bland art, I just got so overwhelmed. The game is stale for me right now as well (shocking since Dominaria was such a fun set) and I think it's appropriate for a bit of a break.
I didn't hear either of you mention. However, one thing I find helps with renewing the vigor of Magic is to shift playgroups from time to time. Drive 30 mins or 1 hour sometimes to go to a shop you've never played at. Learn how they do it there from "FNM" in general to Prize support to the local culture. Chat with the players there with whom you have no particular history to see how they view magic differently. Finally, I think Vince hinted at this, but the coffee table art books are a great way to get light into the Vorthos thing and even share the game with others.
0-20?! That's not even incompetence any more, that's Lady Luck kicking your bottom with a running start. In 20 games, there should have been at least one where your opponent's screwed enough for you to score. That run probably needs to be treated with beer ;)
The easiest way to avoid burnout is to simply step away sometimes. I'm primarily a Limited player, so I got into Commander. When my obsession with building Commander decks got too big, I switched into Modern. I rotate between these every two to three weeks and haven't burned out or been consumed by any one format.
Honestly the toxicity of competitive players had me burnt out when I was grinding events. Even at fnm modern with the Friday night heroes or wanna be pros had me hating the modern format and standard format. Biggest change that got me back into the game was legacy cause most players to me felt excited cause a new player was joining in. Even at 1k or higher paying events, legacy players always had a smile on their face and it was welcoming. I may not be able to play fnm every week cause of access to legacy but when I travel to events for the format, I never had a bad time and have met many great ppl doing so.
Ryan Hallock I agree. Where I live there are two stores, with two totally different atmospheres. One is a VERY clean and organized corporate feeling game store, with a competitive crowd it seems like at most events. I’ve had some less than enjoyable experiences, including a match where my first round opponent seemed very frustrated, lost and dropped immediately.(maybe he was experiencing burnout) 🤷♂️ The other store is much more relaxed, and that includes the store and the employees, as well as the regulars that play. I’ve stopped playing at the other store because my experience at the more laid back store has almost always been better. The community makes a huge difference.
Right now I'm not enjoying Magic so much but the problem is that I don't feel comfortable in the game stores anymore so maybe I can try to host some events and see how that comes out
I built my first cube last year because of this channel and my friends say its the most fun they have had playing magic since Tempest. Thank you for that!
I'm painting warhammer models while listening lol. War gaming is a life style. I enjoy magic a lot but my collection of 9 commander decks fit in a toolbox and I don't really interact with them until I play. My warhammer habit takes an entire room in my house, requires a multitude of specialized tools, hard earned artistic skills, a fully furnished table for playing. Wargaming is an all consuming hobby and I'm a little disappointed he just hand waved it in the beginning of the conversation.
RPGs too. I can fill multiple bookshelfs with various DnD, Deadlands, Pathfinder, DC Adventures, Vampire the Masquerade, Requiem, Apocalypse, Awakening .etc.
Have you every tried altering magic cards? I haven't done anything warhammer related, but I've seen info about people using the same kind of paint you uses for models to do mtg alters.
My personal burnout on standard and commander is why I convinced my LGS to try and do a non-standard FNM at least once a month. We have been doing Chaos Draft, Pauper, and my All-Ravnica Sets Singleton Peasant Cube. I highly recommend pauper for anyone who is feeling standard burnout... Inexpensive, powerful, and interesting. Also funny when your pauper deck gets wins against standard decks.
I just ranted about that. Dude I paint, build, convert, sculpt, build terrain, or something *EVERY* day, before and after work. My wife and I are on different shifts so weekends are together the week is for warhammer.
Started playing Magic at the tail-end of Mirrodin block, and I dealt with burnout back in the middle of the Lorwyn block and stayed away from the game for more than ten years. It wasn't until Dominaria came out that I jumped back in, and stuck with mainly participating in pre-releases. I'll occasionally play with a friend, but it's not to the same degree as it was for me in high school.
I feel the opposite about the number of decks to maintain. The way I don't get burnout playing Commander is I constantly build and rebuild decks. I now have the full chromatic spectrum, 32 decks, one for every possible color combination, plus my "pet" deck that I never even consider unsleeving, plus my "travel deck" that I always bring along, just in case, plus 6 pauper commander decks. They are all ready to go and I rotate them every Magic night. Oh, and I'm not rich: turns out you can absolutely play Commander without expensive manabases. It's a multiplayer format, basic lands and cheap duals work just fine.
@@dohc16vturbo4g63 I usually make two piles, shuffle each, then grab half of each and make two different piles and shuffle those, and I rinse and repeat a few times, so I basically always shuffle 50 cards each time.
@@dohc16vturbo4g63 not really... I mean it takes up time during the game, for tutoring and stuff... We usually shortcut the tutoring and shuffling by announcing what we're going to get and then actually doing it during others' turns
My first experience of full on Magic burnout was at GP Toronto. My friends and I drove down, left at 5:30am, arrived in Toronto at 10am, played side events and on demand events until 10pm, got dinner, and then played more EDH back at the AirBnB. The exhaustion I felt that night was REAL... But then we spent the next two days doing the same. The burnout was worth it!
I had a little burnout when i discovered edhrec and other great sources for deckbuilding. Never fell in love for a commander deck i build since then and deck building was never the same for me
Herr Kainer the trick is to brew on pen and paper and putting on some 80s pop. Just time warp yourself back to pre-internet and let your creativity run wild
That's a real problem for me too. Too easy to net-deck and lose all the fun of brewing. i tend to just search Gatherer for certain keywords and write down all 200+ cards in a word file. Then I can start trimming for what I really want the deck to do.
If you’re going to use the internet to deckbuild, you could limit it to gatherer advanced search. That’s a really fun way of doing it. You kinda feel like a student studying at the library trying to put together a set of spells for a journey
@@maxbloomfield540 That's what I have been doing, too! The result was a Zur the Enchanter reanimator deck. A commander that has the reputation of creating super dreadful gameplay actually enabled a super fun reanimator deck. Just open a deckbuilder on one screen and Scryfall on another screen and let your creativity do its thing!
I’m still getting into magic and it feels like I’m being sucked down a whirlpool, I don’t want it to be my identity but I’m becoming more and more obsessed and it feels like I have no choice in the matter. 🤷♂️
Warhammer has a very similar thing, as it costs an arm and a leg. I quit both Warhammer and magic for about 10 years before jumping back in. No regrets
As someone who got burnt out from grinding I kinda took a step back for a while, focused down on a deck or 2 and worked on general archetypes. (I mainly play GY decks.) I started limiting how far I would drive for events. (this one was huge since I do events alone primarily so a 3 hour drive to an event that you likely don't day 2 is brutal when you do the drive back the same day.) The other thing I really started doing was brewing my own deck. The hope isn't to win but just to see what you can build and how to build it best. Makes the game a lot more fun when you start futzing around with cards you haven't looked at in ages. I've been on BR Vampires and even brought it to an open and had a huge amount of fun. You go in expecting nothing but learning and research not to win necessarily but to have fun. I personally liked testing my own creation against people playing their hardest and best because it's a larger event.
Professor, my mom likes to play and collect magic cards. Every set that comes out prompts her to have drafts at the house with food and stuff. She always orders a variety pack from our LGS and she uses this as a way to open her booster boxes. She keeps all the cards of course, but its a fun way to draft when you can make different choices than you might at your shop. You are never tempted to money or rare draft and hate drafting isn't a thing...well except this one time that I took a slimefoot I didn't need because I knew I couldn't deal with the saproling deck that I could see was being built. I'm a degenerate, I know, but that's not the point! LOL
Thats because you play a few games in paper in the weekends, in Arena you can easily play 50+ games in a week even if you play like 30-45 minutes a day.
What the hell?! You're getting burnt out on Arena? It's so much fun(tm)! Don't you love leaving one monored game to go into another opponent's on the play T1 Mountain + Fanatical Firebrand?
I really enjoy variety, that definitely helps. I've got the Card Kingdom starter cube and it's been great. I also am...getting closer...to 10 commander decks. I've got some budget standard decks and 1 casual modern bogles deck that's had fetches and paths taken out to go into commander decks. The problem is that I also like playing traditional irish flute and whitle, I enjoy painting with acrylics and oils, and I also enjoy linocut printmaking. Too many hobbies...
Very good episode! I am currently going through a burnout...I play EDH everyday and I’m starting to get bored...to refresh I’m going for the first time to a GP, I am SO hyped to attend a GP! For me is working!
I've been meaning to build a spreadsheet and luckily I always jot down the deck I'm playing going into an event, and each of my opponents decks. Every game and who went first
One of the best times I've ever had was the chaosdraft my friends and I organised. A combination of kamigawa, unstable, dragons gate and ixalan was very weird but super fun!
Sorry that isn't Magic-related but it still relates to burnout because that is what I still felt with Cardfight Vanguard (CFV) atm. And not wanting the same to happen to Magic. Being stuck with only a single deck to work with and unable to change it much because of being on a budget. Then you start to get envious about how other people are playing multiple decks, especially with the latest set. Unlike Magic, the pressure kinda builds up when booster sets are being released on a monthly basis. I guess I find MTG somewhat refreshing after getting back into it in Fall of 2018. I want to get into Commander but kinda struggling to build a Temur deck from scratch since the 2011 pre-con is currently going for $100 (USD), including shipping.
As a Commander player with 7 diverse decks that I all love to play, the thought of breaking any of them apart makes me feel very sad. 😔 It does help though that my LGS has Commander nights on Monday and runs Commander for FNM, so I have plenty of opportunities to play each one.
I took my old decks from 2012/2013 when I first started playing and modified them to run modern. They may not be Tier 1 or 2, but they're fairly competitive while still maintaining the casualness element.
I really need to watch this when I get home. Only playing commander and having a need to build crazy good versions of decks means burning out happened recently. Commander is good but if your playgroup isn't used to your style or level or play, alienation occurs. Burning out because people are negative towards you wanting to make great (not winning on turn 3) decks
Sounds like you're at a higher level than your meta, friend if they don't want to go up in level that's cool. Best thing to do is build a deck for their level of play and find a group that plays at that level that you like. Keep your friends and play the way you want
I really love that you had this discussion. I must ask: How much time of the day/week is healthy for a person to dedicate to Magic (content included)?? For people that doesn't work with it, I mean.
I have a list of creators I always watch, so I watch 2+hours of Magic content daily and normally one game night of 6~8 hours pwr week. Let aside the time i'm browsing for good prices to buy Cards... I honestly think I have an addiction problem
I've been playing mtg for 14 years and just came back from a couple years break. The point of looking through old tubs of cards is very relevant as I was able to find about $600 in cards that were worthless at the time but now some of them were 20x the price they were when I threw them in tubs. I was able to build a brand new commander deck off mostly trades because I looked through my old stuff
I totally agree, switching hit can help in not just just magic the gathering, but also in so many areas of you're life. If you're constantly doing the same things over and over again yea life is going to get dull and boring really quick. Do everything in moderation!
Playing modern doesnt burn me out too much. I always run into different decks and because I often lose, I seek and practice ways I can improve my choices. Even during a long magic weekend, I try to evaluate my games and improve
Im so glad i quite making CZcams videos myself this past year. In hindsight I dont think that I could handled blowing up to the level TCC and LRR, and Pleasant Kenobi. I had a heart attack in Dec of 2022 and was in the hospital until Jan of 2023 from making content 3 times a week for each of my 3 old CZcams channels. So traveling and meeting people would probably have killed me.
I relate to this discussion a lot. I recently spent a couple of weeks grinding leagues on MTGO in the evening to prep for SCG Cincinnati. In the week after the event I repeatedly thought how funny it was that I thought that I needed to relax during the evening. I had been spending my free time playing Magic. Why did I need to relax? Why did I need a week "off" from a hobby?
D&D (RPGs in general) can absolutely be a lifestyle game, or you can play it once every few years and have a good time. It can be just as expensive as MTG though if you DM or just want to bring new campaigns/settings to your group. The reason that RPGs don't have as much of a burnout factor as CCGs is that they're open-ended game systems with a ton of freedom to vary each play session : you can play whatever campaign you can think up or dig up online. Even if you're a powergamer and only play vanilla-ass Forgotten Realms, just rolling a different class, on top of the variance from checks and DM choices, makes replaying the same campaign a very different experience. Whereas, with any CCG constructed format, you're going to be playing one of a few decks against the same dozen decks for months at a time.
Just took a 2 month hiatus. Played EDH every week 1-2 times a week for almost 3 years. Just couldn't get excited about anything related to magic at all. I put everything away and didn't think about magic for a while. The first thing I did when I came back was throwing away all the jank I amassed over all those years. It felt so good.
That rap was horrific! I'm a commander player and sometimes find it overwhelming with how much there is to the game; standard/arena, modern, the periodic "outrage". I can definitely see how this can burn people out. I'm just taking it slow- dipping my toes into standard/arena and continuing to play our periodic commander game
This podcast came at a great time for me. I’ve been on a pretty bad losing streak right now and this has helped me put things into perspective. Thanks Prof and PK.
Not sure what to think about how everyone is talking about Commander as if it's an Oasis. My current playgroup is bordering on cEDH so doesn't really help with burnout when you lose to noninteractive infinite combos. Thinking about playing Modern instead, but don't know much about it.
As someone that just started playing fresh a couple months ago and doesn't have much money to dump into it commander is probably the only format I'll play because the social aspect and diversity of decks that can be made and played well will probably never burn me out
As somebody who's played over a decade burn out will happen. Try new formats, build/play new decks, and occasionally just take a break. Coming back is like discovering a hobby all over again. Everytime I do I end up with 3 new edh decks I'm gitty to tune.
I've got a Patron (the alcohol brand) carrying case that a boss at an old job had and was throwing away. I ended up taking it because I figured I could put alot of loose cards in it, but found out that it fits 18 decks almost perfectly, an area to slip some pens and paper into, 3 playmats on top and just enough space next to the playmats for 2 Dragon Shield 100 sleeve boxes for all of my sideboard cards and dice. Although I don't have 18 decks built, I do have about 10 complete with at least 4 others that I'm working on finishing up and plenty of time to figure out what else to build.
Man, don't call that "burnout". Every game gets boring at some point. Nothing special about that. Observing my local "scene", I think the important part is to not do anything radical like selling off your collection. Just do something else for a few weeks or even months, and once you start feeling the itch again, you go back to playing.
Volkbrecht Well I never really explained how I became burnt out so I do not know how you can claim that my definition of burnout isn't legitimate. I was playing a crap ton of EDH with my playgroup whenever we got a break at work. It ranged from 1-6 games per day which I feel like adds up to a lot of games per week. The decision came when I lost a game and got very salty over it. So much so that I ended up snapping off at one of my friends in my play group over something totally stupid. I apologized and it is water under the bridge but I felt like this was a legitimate reason to take a break from EDH until I can get into a better state of mind. So I'm sorry if this doesn't meet your definition of burnout but I can't help with how I feel.
I have been hosting fnm for more then ten years, every friday rain or shine. The best this is that you build your own group (over 50 people) and weed out the undesirables. Apart for having to deal with that, it has been great therapy for me and the people coming over. Btw i say build all the decks you want and use proxies, who cares anyways. Personally i own all my proxies but i dont care if others do. :) Great show thanx. :)
I found that building a deck that is the complete opposite of what you normally play can do it. I usually play decks with black or green so I built a Narset edh deck. It was the most fun I have had in a while.
This has been a great video, I have been really trying to increase my win - loss ratio and be a better player, learn from my mistakes and play better in the standard format. I am burntout for sure but you have to stay motivated. And I just enjoy playing too. I feel like my shift is going from standard aggressive development to just playing some commander or old school with my wife.
I'm only starting to get into paper MTG but what I'm starting to think about to break the mold is just to bring regular Skat cards for an inbetween round of Skat, Mau or Offizierskat, when you have to wait for your next game. I, however, don't know how popular or common these games are outside of Germany.
had a burnout when i learned that there will be no more PPTQs and Nationals, and that there's no Grand Prix in my country this year. no reason to travel far, spend hard-earned money on transport, food and entrance fee. maybe when War of the Spark arrives my passion for MtG will be reignited, but for now i am content just reading about MtG and being a spectator.
Great video! I am in the process of downsizing because I hit a stall and had 5 budget commander decks but now I have 2 highly tuned ones that I actually play! Great advice, great content!
I love how the Prof uses his awkwardness and older age for comical effect. Listen to some of "the rap music" and while they're "busting rhymes" you should "bust with them". XD
This is an interesting topic, which I come across a lot with mentees in my career. It’s different than a hobby like mtg, they are getting paid in a career they chose, but the advice is the same: ask yourself why you are there. Understanding what drives you is key to getting the most out of everything you do. If you enjoy winning and being competitive, then I like their advice of tracking your results, taking notes on your mistakes or weaknesses (key: without judging yourself harshly) so you can see your progress along the way and keep motivated. Me, I’ve discovered I actually enjoy the intellectual exercise of deck building more than anything else, so I play commander. It doesn’t matter if I win, as long as I did something cool and maybe even unique. I actually rarely play - maybe a couple of games, one day a month, and not every month. But I watch a lot of content and I enjoy that. Find out what drives your enjoyment, and focus on that to avoid burning out. And if you do burn out, step away give yourself a break, and check in once a month on the happenings in the game, new sets, etc. if something doesn’t pique your interest to come back to MTG, find something new that you will enjoy!
I played storm for six years straight, and I was really damn good at it. At my lgs, i was THE storm guy, i had my deck foil, i had foil tokens and mana and storm counters, i had my grapeshots signed, and i loved playing it. I owned or borrowed every tier one and tier 1.5 deck in modern at some point, as well as many tier two decks, and storm was the only deck I liked playing, other than commander. About 3 months ago, i sat down at fnm and said to myself "man, i really don't want to play storm today" for the first time in 6 years, and dropped halfway through round 2 because i wasn't having fun. I didn't play it after that and didn't want to, but I played a lot of commander and got more into competitive yugioh. So, with my deck gathering dust, i sold it to build up my commander deck and buy the best yugioh decks. I play storm in commander, and I really like my yugioh decks. If i wanted to play modern again, i could easily sell a commander deck or two and have storm back, but honestly I don't want to. I realized that sometimes, it is time to move on and try something else, and now I dont want to go back. So burnout isnt always a bad thing, just a sign of needing a change
I mean I take 6 months breaks when I am burned out by playing legacy, modern, and cube... but I am going to try out standard actually now and it’s kinda exciting
Pumpin George for me it’s exciting as I haven’t played standard in years and I’m not quitting the other formats just taking a break from them and trying out standard as it looks fun to me
Amazing content guys. I've been really enjoying these podcasts as a returning magic player. It's been tough to get back into it and these videos help, especially this one. I liked the point about focusing your decks and collections, I have too many decks that need a couple cards to be complete
James Stevens I think before it was an issue of timing for wedge. Already, prof and vince have more than double the amount of content than prof and wedge did. Good sign.
I'll tell you right now I'm burnt out on playing arena! I really want to love this game but I'm really sick and tired of getting hosed by the shuffler with not getting enough land. When I build a deck I typically use the land package suggested by the computer. And yet, very often I'll get stuck on 3 lands through sometimes as many as eight turns which means of course I lose the game. Pretty sick of it.
I got burnt out quite awhile ago. I was playing abzan midrange and I just stopped enjoying what I was playing. I was winning, but wasn't having any fun anymore. I took a week off and came back with some random Sultai Hedron Alignment deck which I just enjoyed. Yeah I won 1 game in 4 rounds the whole night, but I enjoyed it immensely more than the past few weeks leading up to it. It allowed me to get my enjoyment of the game back to me and I remember people asking me why I was playing a bad deck like that and my response was simply because I wasn't having fun. I was the guy who was always talking about wanting to spike bigger events and wanting to get better to get to that level, but they kept almost like berating me for playing the deck because it was awful (which yes it was but it was enjoyable). Burnout happens and sometimes you need a step back to get back the energy and excitemnent you have in the game.
Well timed, this is. I'll be backing off of standard for the foreseeable future- the expense and there being little room to brew my own decks greatly reduce my enjoyment of the format. Next time I'm in my LGS I think I'll make a suggestion or two about holding events for pauper...... @Vince- go have a gander at a 40k forum called Dakkadakka and prepare to be AMAZED. I swear, the MTG subreddits are actually an IMPROVEMENT.
I'm not burnt out but I am helping in hosting an online magic tournament. We have a 64 player tournament set on discord played on arena, and I'm very much looking forward to how it pans out!
The Warhammer 40k lifestyle exists, but it's SO much more involved as a lifestyle -- plastic models that you must assemble, paint, and write an army list for within a points constraint is much more involved, require more energy, etc. than Magic.
This is all great advise, recently I’ve been abit burnt out so I’ve been building commander decks so me and my friends can all play, many of which can’t afford edh decks but love the game, I’m also going to a magicfest over summer to freshen things up. I’m planning on just drafting, playing commander and chatting and since this even being organised I’ve had the energy for standard because it reminds me of why I play
Focusing is something I am doing, I start making a deck then I change my mind. WASTING MONEY! So now I am working on the one deck I was super close to finishing, everything else I will sell up my unused cards.
tbh i got burnt out from seeing the same decks over and over on arena, and there's no LGS here. my favourite part of the game is building (jank and combo-y) decks but it's really boring to know what someone is playing by turn 2-3 and having a level of predictability every game eventually began to turn me away. arena also allows for an infuriating amount of slowplay too, and there is something that really grinds at my patience when it comes to someone burning rope for a play i knew was coming 90 seconds ago. a lot of decks have a pretty straight forward game play and you have three cards in hand, hurry up vamonos пойдем let's go. it adds insult to injury that i'll be running a fresh new silly deck and not roping out, so eventually i just had to take a break. edit: i want to add that i realised i just had to stop when i was level grinding in rpgs while waiting for people on arena to decide to play curious obsession turn 2 or rhythm of the wild turn 2/3. and i was more interested in the mundane level grinding.
Oof. That Commander section really got to me lol. I don't always agree with ya, Prof and Kenobi. But I really appreciate what y'all try to do, and I appreciate that ya get into those hard to talk about conversations. I'm gonna try (as best I can lol) to downsize from my 20 (!) Commander decks. It's hard when you love deck building
When I have the beginning feeling of burnout I build a new deck something that goes against my typical play style. The only time I had a serious case of burnout was right after Journey into Nyx block and it took me years to get out of the funk.
Um, maybe google D&D. There are entire sites, blogs, forums, and sub-reddits for people to discuss in-depth and share tips, tricks, and stories about their D&D games. There are streaming games with HUGE communities around them (cough... Critical Role... cough...). Mugs, hats, shirts, in-jokes, conventions, events, podcasts... D&D is very much a life style.
Re: the MTGO vs. Arena argument: I'm relatively new to Magic. Started last year, played arena and liked it, but now that I've finally bit the bullet and paid the initial $10 to get on MTGO I am way way way more into MTGO. I know everyone who's been playing on it for years already it thinks that MTGO is dead but as one of the supposed millions of newcomers who's (sort of) entered into magic via Arena I have to say, MTGO seems like the future. Not only can you play all the formats, you don't have to grind for cards! That's the thing on Arena that's frustrating, grinding for wildcards is exhausting and/or valuing drafting for cards is expensive, buying gems gives way less value than trading on mtgo. Arena needs to drop the scammy freemium design philosophy.
A while back at a gp I player team limited. Got a hotel Friday into Saturday. Saturday I played 13 hours and qualified for day two. 2 hour drive each way so 6 hours sleep and another 8 hours of playing on day two. I didn’t want to play again for weeks.
CFB did a real shit job running Magicfest Toronto. The raised the entry price by almost 50% and the actual organization of the event was a complete mess with side events getting the meeting points shuffled around all the time and never firing when they were supposed to.
@@lumijo2407 its not like anyone even wanted the playmat. And Ugly maple leaf COVERED in the CFB logo? Yeah no thanks, how about a playmat with that brand new art for Lightning Bolt instead.
Fantastic episode, gentlemen. I love magic because there are so many different ways to enjoy it. Daniel: I'm just scared. You know, the tournament and everything.. Mr. Miyagi: You remember lesson about balance? Daniel: Yeah. Mr. Miyagi: Lesson not just karate only. Lesson for whole life. Whole life have a balance. Everything be better.
I would love for them to add commander with only the cards in arena after a couple of years. I just feel like mtga is missing formats that are meant for casual players. Even the free play mode is extra competitive due to the win challenges for the daily and weekly.
A cube is a curated draft format that you or someone else made. Cubing is never for keeps, so people can put whatever they want in there. Basically imagine it as the most powerful, most exciting draft format possible. I'd recommend it
The awkward moment when you wait 3 weeks for that sweet, sweet Dies to Removal shirt to arrive from America but when it does you miss delivery. You try to get redelivery via the Royal Mails website but it tells you it’s already been delivered... but it hasn’t and they don’t know what they’ve done with it. Sadness.
I can see myself getting burnt out if I was playing competitively all the time but I don't think i can get too bored just playing commander. Any time I get bored of a deck I tear apart that deck and try to play a fresh new deck. It helps that I tend to play with my really good friends and we are fine drinking a few beers, ordering a few pizzas and just jamming games and talking magic for hours.
I put my Hancock under this.
^same
So true. EDH is always fun
I like this post. I think the heart of it is: if you get burned out playing competitive, which is just like anything else in life that is truly competitive, take a step back and have some fun. The beauty of magic is that the minute you aren't enjoying it, you can build a pointless deck and play some VERY casual games where your objective might not even be to win, only to annoy. You can't always do that with other competitive things, its hard to take a step back from your olympic parallel bars career and just have some fun on the parallel bars, but magic is, at its core, a game that is so fun you should be comfortable losing at over and over as long as you aren't too invested.
@@captaingildor6884 I agree. Yes play to win. But winning is never my ultimate goal. My goal is to have the most fun and do the most fun things as I can. That resolves most of my burnout
"I eat literal trash." - Vince, Confirmed Raccoon
On the topic of getting better, I totally agree with the Prof about keeping a log, and taking an introspective look at your performance and the factors that went into it. I’ve trained for long road races and having a fixed goal, and keeping track of my progress towards that goal and seeing that progress helped fuel my motivation.
Not only that, but if you analyze why you performed how you did, then you can identify where you can improve and take steps to do that.
I’ve never kept a log for magic, but I think I’ll start doing that. Thanks for that idea.
Last video: “Magic players overuse jokes way too much.”
Every Dies to Removal episode: “Oh Vince you have a CZcams channel? You’ve never mentioned that.”
The timing of this episode could not have been better. Many thanks from Germany =).
100% with you on this one. I didn't really get on board the hype train everyone else did with the new Ravnica sets, and with so many products being announced in quick succession, as well as the constant revisions to gameplay/design and bland art, I just got so overwhelmed. The game is stale for me right now as well (shocking since Dominaria was such a fun set) and I think it's appropriate for a bit of a break.
I didn't hear either of you mention. However, one thing I find helps with renewing the vigor of Magic is to shift playgroups from time to time.
Drive 30 mins or 1 hour sometimes to go to a shop you've never played at. Learn how they do it there from "FNM" in general to Prize support to the local culture. Chat with the players there with whom you have no particular history to see how they view magic differently.
Finally, I think Vince hinted at this, but the coffee table art books are a great way to get light into the Vorthos thing and even share the game with others.
This show had everything...good advice, bad advice, freestyle rapping....great show.
Having gone 0-20 at prereleases definitely teaches you to be realistic about what expectations should be.
0-20?! That's not even incompetence any more, that's Lady Luck kicking your bottom with a running start. In 20 games, there should have been at least one where your opponent's screwed enough for you to score. That run probably needs to be treated with beer ;)
Sometimes sitting in that tank we can forget that it is a gathering. Great perspectives guys.
The easiest way to avoid burnout is to simply step away sometimes. I'm primarily a Limited player, so I got into Commander. When my obsession with building Commander decks got too big, I switched into Modern. I rotate between these every two to three weeks and haven't burned out or been consumed by any one format.
Honestly the toxicity of competitive players had me burnt out when I was grinding events. Even at fnm modern with the Friday night heroes or wanna be pros had me hating the modern format and standard format. Biggest change that got me back into the game was legacy cause most players to me felt excited cause a new player was joining in. Even at 1k or higher paying events, legacy players always had a smile on their face and it was welcoming. I may not be able to play fnm every week cause of access to legacy but when I travel to events for the format, I never had a bad time and have met many great ppl doing so.
Ryan Hallock I agree. Where I live there are two stores, with two totally different atmospheres. One is a VERY clean and organized corporate feeling game store, with a competitive crowd it seems like at most events. I’ve had some less than enjoyable experiences, including a match where my first round opponent seemed very frustrated, lost and dropped immediately.(maybe he was experiencing burnout) 🤷♂️
The other store is much more relaxed, and that includes the store and the employees, as well as the regulars that play. I’ve stopped playing at the other store because my experience at the more laid back store has almost always been better. The community makes a huge difference.
Right now I'm not enjoying Magic so much but the problem is that I don't feel comfortable in the game stores anymore so maybe I can try to host some events and see how that comes out
I've felt burnt out on Magic many times in my life. When that happens, I just take a break from the game until I'm feeling nostalgic about it again.
I built my first cube last year because of this channel and my friends say its the most fun they have had playing magic since Tempest. Thank you for that!
I just built my first cube as well. My kids love it.
Imagine running over a Vintage deck in Burnout's Crash Mode.
for the small price of a ford focus... YOU TOO can enjoy budget vintage!
That's how you get the big combos
I'm painting warhammer models while listening lol. War gaming is a life style. I enjoy magic a lot but my collection of 9 commander decks fit in a toolbox and I don't really interact with them until I play. My warhammer habit takes an entire room in my house, requires a multitude of specialized tools, hard earned artistic skills, a fully furnished table for playing. Wargaming is an all consuming hobby and I'm a little disappointed he just hand waved it in the beginning of the conversation.
Cody Lee my best friend’s entire house is pretty much dedicated to warhammer. Totally see where you are coming from. Lol
RPGs too. I can fill multiple bookshelfs with various DnD, Deadlands, Pathfinder, DC Adventures, Vampire the Masquerade, Requiem, Apocalypse, Awakening .etc.
Have you every tried altering magic cards? I haven't done anything warhammer related, but I've seen info about people using the same kind of paint you uses for models to do mtg alters.
@@andrewlaverghetta715 I haven't but I've done paintings on a large scale. I'd be interested in trying alters after I finished painting my army.
Wargammer is far greater time consuming than Magic. Just as exspensive, and with the modeling and painting, it's a lifestyle.
My personal burnout on standard and commander is why I convinced my LGS to try and do a non-standard FNM at least once a month. We have been doing Chaos Draft, Pauper, and my All-Ravnica Sets Singleton Peasant Cube. I highly recommend pauper for anyone who is feeling standard burnout... Inexpensive, powerful, and interesting. Also funny when your pauper deck gets wins against standard decks.
"I don't know if people let it [Warhammer] take over their life in the same way". Oh Vince, you're funny...
The Inquisition would like to know your location.
I just ranted about that. Dude I paint, build, convert, sculpt, build terrain, or something *EVERY* day, before and after work. My wife and I are on different shifts so weekends are together the week is for warhammer.
I suppose it's less common since Age of Sigmar :)
Prof needs to team up with Dev for that mixtape 35:10
Best collaboration possible
Oh man, Prof's been streaming a bit recently, every so often going into a rhyming tantrum with rap-esque tones.
Started playing Magic at the tail-end of Mirrodin block, and I dealt with burnout back in the middle of the Lorwyn block and stayed away from the game for more than ten years. It wasn't until Dominaria came out that I jumped back in, and stuck with mainly participating in pre-releases. I'll occasionally play with a friend, but it's not to the same degree as it was for me in high school.
I feel the opposite about the number of decks to maintain. The way I don't get burnout playing Commander is I constantly build and rebuild decks. I now have the full chromatic spectrum, 32 decks, one for every possible color combination, plus my "pet" deck that I never even consider unsleeving, plus my "travel deck" that I always bring along, just in case, plus 6 pauper commander decks. They are all ready to go and I rotate them every Magic night. Oh, and I'm not rich: turns out you can absolutely play Commander without expensive manabases. It's a multiplayer format, basic lands and cheap duals work just fine.
One question: how do you shuffle so many cards? I can barely shuffle 60 😂
@@dohc16vturbo4g63 I usually make two piles, shuffle each, then grab half of each and make two different piles and shuffle those, and I rinse and repeat a few times, so I basically always shuffle 50 cards each time.
@@Giby86 that makes sense, but I bet it's tedious if you have to mulligan lol
@@dohc16vturbo4g63 not really... I mean it takes up time during the game, for tutoring and stuff... We usually shortcut the tutoring and shuffling by announcing what we're going to get and then actually doing it during others' turns
I just don't play or look at the game for a few months, then I go back into a commander game loving it again. Just take breaks.
My first experience of full on Magic burnout was at GP Toronto. My friends and I drove down, left at 5:30am, arrived in Toronto at 10am, played side events and on demand events until 10pm, got dinner, and then played more EDH back at the AirBnB. The exhaustion I felt that night was REAL...
But then we spent the next two days doing the same. The burnout was worth it!
Thanks professor , as much as i love this game im burn out with it something hard and this helps
I had a little burnout when i discovered edhrec and other great sources for deckbuilding. Never fell in love for a commander deck i build since then and deck building was never the same for me
Herr Kainer the trick is to brew on pen and paper and putting on some 80s pop. Just time warp yourself back to pre-internet and let your creativity run wild
That's a real problem for me too. Too easy to net-deck and lose all the fun of brewing. i tend to just search Gatherer for certain keywords and write down all 200+ cards in a word file. Then I can start trimming for what I really want the deck to do.
If you’re going to use the internet to deckbuild, you could limit it to gatherer advanced search. That’s a really fun way of doing it. You kinda feel like a student studying at the library trying to put together a set of spells for a journey
@@maxbloomfield540 That's what I have been doing, too! The result was a Zur the Enchanter reanimator deck. A commander that has the reputation of creating super dreadful gameplay actually enabled a super fun reanimator deck.
Just open a deckbuilder on one screen and Scryfall on another screen and let your creativity do its thing!
I'm surprised you didn't mention lore, it got me neck deep back into Magic after a really long break
I’m still getting into magic and it feels like I’m being sucked down a whirlpool, I don’t want it to be my identity but I’m becoming more and more obsessed and it feels like I have no choice in the matter. 🤷♂️
"I was with it once. Then "it" changed and then I wasn't with it. It happened to me, and it'll happen to you." - Abe Simpson
Read this in Abe's voice .
Warhammer has a very similar thing, as it costs an arm and a leg. I quit both Warhammer and magic for about 10 years before jumping back in. No regrets
As someone who got burnt out from grinding I kinda took a step back for a while, focused down on a deck or 2 and worked on general archetypes. (I mainly play GY decks.) I started limiting how far I would drive for events. (this one was huge since I do events alone primarily so a 3 hour drive to an event that you likely don't day 2 is brutal when you do the drive back the same day.)
The other thing I really started doing was brewing my own deck. The hope isn't to win but just to see what you can build and how to build it best. Makes the game a lot more fun when you start futzing around with cards you haven't looked at in ages. I've been on BR Vampires and even brought it to an open and had a huge amount of fun. You go in expecting nothing but learning and research not to win necessarily but to have fun. I personally liked testing my own creation against people playing their hardest and best because it's a larger event.
Professor, my mom likes to play and collect magic cards. Every set that comes out prompts her to have drafts at the house with food and stuff. She always orders a variety pack from our LGS and she uses this as a way to open her booster boxes. She keeps all the cards of course, but its a fun way to draft when you can make different choices than you might at your shop. You are never tempted to money or rare draft and hate drafting isn't a thing...well except this one time that I took a slimefoot I didn't need because I knew I couldn't deal with the saproling deck that I could see was being built. I'm a degenerate, I know, but that's not the point! LOL
I am definitely kindof burnt out on arena, while the system itself is great. Paper magic is so much more fun and standard get boring quickly.
Oblivionator36 I relate. Really looking forward to when arena modern comes around though.
Thats because you play a few games in paper in the weekends, in Arena you can easily play 50+ games in a week even if you play like 30-45 minutes a day.
What the hell?! You're getting burnt out on Arena? It's so much fun(tm)! Don't you love leaving one monored game to go into another opponent's on the play T1 Mountain + Fanatical Firebrand?
Use Arena to build a deck, then buy the paper cards you need. ARENA Can be a great deck building tool
I really enjoy variety, that definitely helps. I've got the Card Kingdom starter cube and it's been great. I also am...getting closer...to 10 commander decks. I've got some budget standard decks and 1 casual modern bogles deck that's had fetches and paths taken out to go into commander decks.
The problem is that I also like playing traditional irish flute and whitle, I enjoy painting with acrylics and oils, and I also enjoy linocut printmaking.
Too many hobbies...
Very good episode! I am currently going through a burnout...I play EDH everyday and I’m starting to get bored...to refresh I’m going for the first time to a GP, I am SO hyped to attend a GP! For me is working!
I've been meaning to build a spreadsheet and luckily I always jot down the deck I'm playing going into an event, and each of my opponents decks. Every game and who went first
One of the best times I've ever had was the chaosdraft my friends and I organised. A combination of kamigawa, unstable, dragons gate and ixalan was very weird but super fun!
Sorry that isn't Magic-related but it still relates to burnout because that is what I still felt with Cardfight Vanguard (CFV) atm. And not wanting the same to happen to Magic.
Being stuck with only a single deck to work with and unable to change it much because of being on a budget. Then you start to get envious about how other people are playing multiple decks, especially with the latest set.
Unlike Magic, the pressure kinda builds up when booster sets are being released on a monthly basis. I guess I find MTG somewhat refreshing after getting back into it in Fall of 2018.
I want to get into Commander but kinda struggling to build a Temur deck from scratch since the 2011 pre-con is currently going for $100 (USD), including shipping.
2:35 professor's smile was freaking me out
"That was a piece of crap, Brian." I laughed way too hard at that.
As a Commander player with 7 diverse decks that I all love to play, the thought of breaking any of them apart makes me feel very sad. 😔
It does help though that my LGS has Commander nights on Monday and runs Commander for FNM, so I have plenty of opportunities to play each one.
Traded all of my standard cards for modern and am having a blast.
Yes!
I took my old decks from 2012/2013 when I first started playing and modified them to run modern. They may not be Tier 1 or 2, but they're fairly competitive while still maintaining the casualness element.
I really need to watch this when I get home. Only playing commander and having a need to build crazy good versions of decks means burning out happened recently. Commander is good but if your playgroup isn't used to your style or level or play, alienation occurs. Burning out because people are negative towards you wanting to make great (not winning on turn 3) decks
Sounds like you're at a higher level than your meta, friend if they don't want to go up in level that's cool. Best thing to do is build a deck for their level of play and find a group that plays at that level that you like. Keep your friends and play the way you want
I really love that you had this discussion. I must ask:
How much time of the day/week is healthy for a person to dedicate to Magic (content included)?? For people that doesn't work with it, I mean.
I play between 1 and 6 hours a week.
I have a list of creators I always watch, so I watch 2+hours of Magic content daily and normally one game night of 6~8 hours pwr week. Let aside the time i'm browsing for good prices to buy Cards... I honestly think I have an addiction problem
I've been playing mtg for 14 years and just came back from a couple years break. The point of looking through old tubs of cards is very relevant as I was able to find about $600 in cards that were worthless at the time but now some of them were 20x the price they were when I threw them in tubs. I was able to build a brand new commander deck off mostly trades because I looked through my old stuff
I totally agree, switching hit can help in not just just magic the gathering, but also in so many areas of you're life. If you're constantly doing the same things over and over again yea life is going to get dull and boring really quick. Do everything in moderation!
Playing modern doesnt burn me out too much. I always run into different decks and because I often lose, I seek and practice ways I can improve my choices. Even during a long magic weekend, I try to evaluate my games and improve
Im so glad i quite making CZcams videos myself this past year. In hindsight I dont think that I could handled blowing up to the level TCC and LRR, and Pleasant Kenobi. I had a heart attack in Dec of 2022 and was in the hospital until Jan of 2023 from making content 3 times a week for each of my 3 old CZcams channels. So traveling and meeting people would probably have killed me.
I relate to this discussion a lot. I recently spent a couple of weeks grinding leagues on MTGO in the evening to prep for SCG Cincinnati. In the week after the event I repeatedly thought how funny it was that I thought that I needed to relax during the evening. I had been spending my free time playing Magic. Why did I need to relax? Why did I need a week "off" from a hobby?
D&D (RPGs in general) can absolutely be a lifestyle game, or you can play it once every few years and have a good time. It can be just as expensive as MTG though if you DM or just want to bring new campaigns/settings to your group. The reason that RPGs don't have as much of a burnout factor as CCGs is that they're open-ended game systems with a ton of freedom to vary each play session : you can play whatever campaign you can think up or dig up online. Even if you're a powergamer and only play vanilla-ass Forgotten Realms, just rolling a different class, on top of the variance from checks and DM choices, makes replaying the same campaign a very different experience. Whereas, with any CCG constructed format, you're going to be playing one of a few decks against the same dozen decks for months at a time.
Just took a 2 month hiatus. Played EDH every week 1-2 times a week for almost 3 years. Just couldn't get excited about anything related to magic at all. I put everything away and didn't think about magic for a while. The first thing I did when I came back was throwing away all the jank I amassed over all those years. It felt so good.
That rap was horrific! I'm a commander player and sometimes find it overwhelming with how much there is to the game; standard/arena, modern, the periodic "outrage". I can definitely see how this can burn people out. I'm just taking it slow- dipping my toes into standard/arena and continuing to play our periodic commander game
This podcast came at a great time for me. I’ve been on a pretty bad losing streak right now and this has helped me put things into perspective. Thanks Prof and PK.
Not sure what to think about how everyone is talking about Commander as if it's an Oasis. My current playgroup is bordering on cEDH so doesn't really help with burnout when you lose to noninteractive infinite combos. Thinking about playing Modern instead, but don't know much about it.
I feel you. Two players in my group infinite all the time. I'm tempted to just make another playgroup and ban inifinites and other unfun things
As someone that just started playing fresh a couple months ago and doesn't have much money to dump into it commander is probably the only format I'll play because the social aspect and diversity of decks that can be made and played well will probably never burn me out
As somebody who's played over a decade burn out will happen. Try new formats, build/play new decks, and occasionally just take a break. Coming back is like discovering a hobby all over again. Everytime I do I end up with 3 new edh decks I'm gitty to tune.
I've got a Patron (the alcohol brand) carrying case that a boss at an old job had and was throwing away. I ended up taking it because I figured I could put alot of loose cards in it, but found out that it fits 18 decks almost perfectly, an area to slip some pens and paper into, 3 playmats on top and just enough space next to the playmats for 2 Dragon Shield 100 sleeve boxes for all of my sideboard cards and dice. Although I don't have 18 decks built, I do have about 10 complete with at least 4 others that I'm working on finishing up and plenty of time to figure out what else to build.
This couldn't have come at a better time. I'm on break from EDH as a result of burnout at the moment.
Man, don't call that "burnout". Every game gets boring at some point. Nothing special about that. Observing my local "scene", I think the important part is to not do anything radical like selling off your collection. Just do something else for a few weeks or even months, and once you start feeling the itch again, you go back to playing.
Volkbrecht Well I never really explained how I became burnt out so I do not know how you can claim that my definition of burnout isn't legitimate. I was playing a crap ton of EDH with my playgroup whenever we got a break at work. It ranged from 1-6 games per day which I feel like adds up to a lot of games per week.
The decision came when I lost a game and got very salty over it. So much so that I ended up snapping off at one of my friends in my play group over something totally stupid. I apologized and it is water under the bridge but I felt like this was a legitimate reason to take a break from EDH until I can get into a better state of mind.
So I'm sorry if this doesn't meet your definition of burnout but I can't help with how I feel.
I have been hosting fnm for more then ten years, every friday rain or shine. The best this is that you build your own group (over 50 people) and weed out the undesirables. Apart for having to deal with that, it has been great therapy for me and the people coming over.
Btw i say build all the decks you want and use proxies, who cares anyways. Personally i own all my proxies but i dont care if others do. :)
Great show thanx. :)
I found that building a deck that is the complete opposite of what you normally play can do it. I usually play decks with black or green so I built a Narset edh deck. It was the most fun I have had in a while.
I love how you guys mentioned commander... It's all my shop runs and I wish somebody else would build a modern deck...
This has been a great video, I have been really trying to increase my win - loss ratio and be a better player, learn from my mistakes and play better in the standard format. I am burntout for sure but you have to stay motivated. And I just enjoy playing too. I feel like my shift is going from standard aggressive development to just playing some commander or old school with my wife.
I'm only starting to get into paper MTG but what I'm starting to think about to break the mold is just to bring regular Skat cards for an inbetween round of Skat, Mau or Offizierskat, when you have to wait for your next game. I, however, don't know how popular or common these games are outside of Germany.
had a burnout when i learned that there will be no more PPTQs and Nationals, and that there's no Grand Prix in my country this year. no reason to travel far, spend hard-earned money on transport, food and entrance fee. maybe when War of the Spark arrives my passion for MtG will be reignited, but for now i am content just reading about MtG and being a spectator.
I get decision fatigue pretty hard, so this really speaks to me
Ok this gave me some idea to help get me back into magic. Thanks for the ideas guys I hope to get back into the game fully soon. :)
Oh look! It's Dies To Removal, the bi-annual Magic : The Gathering podcast, with The professor and PleasantKenobi.
At least the episodes are more frequent than when wedge was on
Great video! I am in the process of downsizing because I hit a stall and had 5 budget commander decks but now I have 2 highly tuned ones that I actually play! Great advice, great content!
I started journaling my commander games a couple of months ago and it definitely helps whenever I start thinking I lose too much
I find that playing base level mtg or hearthstone can help
I love how the Prof uses his awkwardness and older age for comical effect. Listen to some of "the rap music" and while they're "busting rhymes" you should "bust with them". XD
This is an interesting topic, which I come across a lot with mentees in my career. It’s different than a hobby like mtg, they are getting paid in a career they chose, but the advice is the same: ask yourself why you are there. Understanding what drives you is key to getting the most out of everything you do. If you enjoy winning and being competitive, then I like their advice of tracking your results, taking notes on your mistakes or weaknesses (key: without judging yourself harshly) so you can see your progress along the way and keep motivated. Me, I’ve discovered I actually enjoy the intellectual exercise of deck building more than anything else, so I play commander. It doesn’t matter if I win, as long as I did something cool and maybe even unique. I actually rarely play - maybe a couple of games, one day a month, and not every month. But I watch a lot of content and I enjoy that. Find out what drives your enjoyment, and focus on that to avoid burning out. And if you do burn out, step away give yourself a break, and check in once a month on the happenings in the game, new sets, etc. if something doesn’t pique your interest to come back to MTG, find something new that you will enjoy!
I played storm for six years straight, and I was really damn good at it. At my lgs, i was THE storm guy, i had my deck foil, i had foil tokens and mana and storm counters, i had my grapeshots signed, and i loved playing it. I owned or borrowed every tier one and tier 1.5 deck in modern at some point, as well as many tier two decks, and storm was the only deck I liked playing, other than commander. About 3 months ago, i sat down at fnm and said to myself "man, i really don't want to play storm today" for the first time in 6 years, and dropped halfway through round 2 because i wasn't having fun. I didn't play it after that and didn't want to, but I played a lot of commander and got more into competitive yugioh. So, with my deck gathering dust, i sold it to build up my commander deck and buy the best yugioh decks. I play storm in commander, and I really like my yugioh decks. If i wanted to play modern again, i could easily sell a commander deck or two and have storm back, but honestly I don't want to. I realized that sometimes, it is time to move on and try something else, and now I dont want to go back. So burnout isnt always a bad thing, just a sign of needing a change
I mean I take 6 months breaks when I am burned out by playing legacy, modern, and cube... but I am going to try out standard actually now and it’s kinda exciting
Pumpin George for me it’s exciting as I haven’t played standard in years and I’m not quitting the other formats just taking a break from them and trying out standard as it looks fun to me
Amazing content guys. I've been really enjoying these podcasts as a returning magic player. It's been tough to get back into it and these videos help, especially this one. I liked the point about focusing your decks and collections, I have too many decks that need a couple cards to be complete
How long does a co-host stay on dies to removal? I love listening to Vince & Prof’s conversations and would like to continue to hear them.
I'm here to stay my friend.
James Stevens I think before it was an issue of timing for wedge. Already, prof and vince have more than double the amount of content than prof and wedge did. Good sign.
I'll tell you right now I'm burnt out on playing arena! I really want to love this game but I'm really sick and tired of getting hosed by the shuffler with not getting enough land. When I build a deck I typically use the land package suggested by the computer. And yet, very often I'll get stuck on 3 lands through sometimes as many as eight turns which means of course I lose the game. Pretty sick of it.
Maybe you should take the lesson that you should get a few more lands on there than the computer thinks.
I got burnt out quite awhile ago. I was playing abzan midrange and I just stopped enjoying what I was playing. I was winning, but wasn't having any fun anymore. I took a week off and came back with some random Sultai Hedron Alignment deck which I just enjoyed. Yeah I won 1 game in 4 rounds the whole night, but I enjoyed it immensely more than the past few weeks leading up to it. It allowed me to get my enjoyment of the game back to me and I remember people asking me why I was playing a bad deck like that and my response was simply because I wasn't having fun. I was the guy who was always talking about wanting to spike bigger events and wanting to get better to get to that level, but they kept almost like berating me for playing the deck because it was awful (which yes it was but it was enjoyable). Burnout happens and sometimes you need a step back to get back the energy and excitemnent you have in the game.
Well timed, this is. I'll be backing off of standard for the foreseeable future- the expense and there being little room to brew my own decks greatly reduce my enjoyment of the format. Next time I'm in my LGS I think I'll make a suggestion or two about holding events for pauper......
@Vince- go have a gander at a 40k forum called Dakkadakka and prepare to be AMAZED. I swear, the MTG subreddits are actually an IMPROVEMENT.
I'm not burnt out but I am helping in hosting an online magic tournament. We have a 64 player tournament set on discord played on arena, and I'm very much looking forward to how it pans out!
@@Lock2002ful We're using an online service called Toornament in addition to the discord server
The Warhammer 40k lifestyle exists, but it's SO much more involved as a lifestyle -- plastic models that you must assemble, paint, and write an army list for within a points constraint is much more involved, require more energy, etc. than Magic.
When you get burnt out, just play stax in edh. The suffering will quench your thirst.
This is all great advise, recently I’ve been abit burnt out so I’ve been building commander decks so me and my friends can all play, many of which can’t afford edh decks but love the game, I’m also going to a magicfest over summer to freshen things up. I’m planning on just drafting, playing commander and chatting and since this even being organised I’ve had the energy for standard because it reminds me of why I play
Focusing is something I am doing, I start making a deck then I change my mind. WASTING MONEY! So now I am working on the one deck I was super close to finishing, everything else I will sell up my unused cards.
In this intro: The Professor and PleasantKenobi Die To Removal.
“Some of the rap.” 😂😂 Thank you, Professor!
tbh i got burnt out from seeing the same decks over and over on arena, and there's no LGS here. my favourite part of the game is building (jank and combo-y) decks but it's really boring to know what someone is playing by turn 2-3 and having a level of predictability every game eventually began to turn me away.
arena also allows for an infuriating amount of slowplay too, and there is something that really grinds at my patience when it comes to someone burning rope for a play i knew was coming 90 seconds ago. a lot of decks have a pretty straight forward game play and you have three cards in hand, hurry up vamonos пойдем let's go. it adds insult to injury that i'll be running a fresh new silly deck and not roping out, so eventually i just had to take a break.
edit: i want to add that i realised i just had to stop when i was level grinding in rpgs while waiting for people on arena to decide to play curious obsession turn 2 or rhythm of the wild turn 2/3. and i was more interested in the mundane level grinding.
Same thing happened to me and all my friends.
Oof. That Commander section really got to me lol. I don't always agree with ya, Prof and Kenobi. But I really appreciate what y'all try to do, and I appreciate that ya get into those hard to talk about conversations.
I'm gonna try (as best I can lol) to downsize from my 20 (!) Commander decks. It's hard when you love deck building
When I have the beginning feeling of burnout I build a new deck something that goes against my typical play style. The only time I had a serious case of burnout was right after Journey into Nyx block and it took me years to get out of the funk.
The Burnout series was great. My favourites were the first one and Revenge. Good times.
Um, maybe google D&D. There are entire sites, blogs, forums, and sub-reddits for people to discuss in-depth and share tips, tricks, and stories about their D&D games. There are streaming games with HUGE communities around them (cough... Critical Role... cough...). Mugs, hats, shirts, in-jokes, conventions, events, podcasts... D&D is very much a life style.
Michael Schmidt Conveniently enough made by wotc too...
Wizards please, I only have a finite time on this planet!
Magazines, you know that thing dinosaurs entertained themselves with on the toilet.
1:14 They're like Dumb and dumber for a split second
Re: the MTGO vs. Arena argument: I'm relatively new to Magic. Started last year, played arena and liked it, but now that I've finally bit the bullet and paid the initial $10 to get on MTGO I am way way way more into MTGO. I know everyone who's been playing on it for years already it thinks that MTGO is dead but as one of the supposed millions of newcomers who's (sort of) entered into magic via Arena I have to say, MTGO seems like the future.
Not only can you play all the formats, you don't have to grind for cards! That's the thing on Arena that's frustrating, grinding for wildcards is exhausting and/or valuing drafting for cards is expensive, buying gems gives way less value than trading on mtgo. Arena needs to drop the scammy freemium design philosophy.
A while back at a gp I player team limited. Got a hotel Friday into Saturday. Saturday I played 13 hours and qualified for day two. 2 hour drive each way so 6 hours sleep and another 8 hours of playing on day two. I didn’t want to play again for weeks.
CFB did a real shit job running Magicfest Toronto. The raised the entry price by almost 50% and the actual organization of the event was a complete mess with side events getting the meeting points shuffled around all the time and never firing when they were supposed to.
They also misjudged the turnout size, going with an improperly sized room, not enough playmats, and a terrible prize wall.
@@lumijo2407 its not like anyone even wanted the playmat. And Ugly maple leaf COVERED in the CFB logo? Yeah no thanks, how about a playmat with that brand new art for Lightning Bolt instead.
Moebs Chan The lightning bolt mat would be what I was referencing.
@@lumijo2407 they actually had a Bolt mat? WTF, they only advertised the shitty one online at registration. Holy shit CFB can't do anything right.
Fantastic episode, gentlemen. I love magic because there are so many different ways to enjoy it.
Daniel: I'm just scared. You know, the tournament and everything..
Mr. Miyagi: You remember lesson about balance?
Daniel: Yeah.
Mr. Miyagi: Lesson not just karate only. Lesson for whole life. Whole life have a balance. Everything be better.
I would love for them to add commander with only the cards in arena after a couple of years. I just feel like mtga is missing formats that are meant for casual players. Even the free play mode is extra competitive due to the win challenges for the daily and weekly.
Many Magic the Gathering players asked the question what is qube? because i dont and it got 300 times mentioned :(
A cube is a curated draft format that you or someone else made. Cubing is never for keeps, so people can put whatever they want in there. Basically imagine it as the most powerful, most exciting draft format possible. I'd recommend it
@@Ishsa sounds cool thx for the awnser ^^
"Some of the rap music" 🤣🤣 The prof's old man explanations are the best
I'm having like the opposite of MTG burnout. I have no way to play anymore and I've instead just been itching to play.
The awkward moment when you wait 3 weeks for that sweet, sweet Dies to Removal shirt to arrive from America but when it does you miss delivery. You try to get redelivery via the Royal Mails website but it tells you it’s already been delivered... but it hasn’t and they don’t know what they’ve done with it. Sadness.