The Problem With Magic Arena Alchemy Has A Simple Solution
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- čas přidán 9. 09. 2024
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"Vintage Education" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
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Why, yes, Vince did introduce me to Auntie Donna during his recent visit. New episode of DtR! Universes Beyond Will Continue Until Morale Improves | Dies To Removal 37: czcams.com/video/9G0CubPcseU/video.html
Spot on impression of Zach, btw. There’s always room for pud.
What a great guy
Absolutely Fantastic, I love it. Always room for more Auntie Donna references.
Lol they call you a pot stirrer? How? Because you point out the shady nonsense for us and they hate that. They need to admit they are wrong on this one and pair the different versions so if you unlock one you get the other version too. It's insane that they saw their ineptitude for designing cards as a fucking business opportunity. That's what I'm honestly more upset about. They design the cards, they are responsible for the bans, so why do I have to pay more to play a standard format with fixed cards? Other card games change the cards in the paper game so why does WoTC get a pass on this? Standard sets are out for a year or longer, so why not have a version 2 print run with the changes, or maybe start putting the fixed rares in the master sets instead of filling it with actual toilet paper/bulk? Its a $200+ product, make it better or stop the reserve list so the value in master sets isn't loaded on 5-10 cards.
I'm one guy, I'm sure WoTC could shit out a better plan if they wanted to.
I'm so happy I found my answer before I asked! Auntie Donna fans unite!
WOTC isn't as engaged in their community the way they think they are. You get the blowback because you read the forums, you talk to us, and you put the players and game experience first and ask the questions that "many major the gather players" have. You have the platform, and reputation, to actually get our concerns and issues heard and it's a shame that WOTC just brushes it aside as just your clickbait issues. When really you are an important part in voicing what we, the consumers, the players, THE GATHERING, wants. We all don't always agree on everything, but know that many of us agree with most of your concerns and issues, thanks for being our spokesperson.
Consider the possibility that you are part of a vocal minority. I'm sure you can think of a hobby or fandom that has a toxic subsection of its community, and I think you understand why the creators for that hobby don't listen to that part of their community.
In this case, giving us hardcore players what we want wouldn't (as far as I can tell) affect the general player's experience negatively, but it's still a good idea generally to realise the difference betweeen "everyone is asking for this/nobody is asking for this" and "everyone/no-one I talk to is asking for this". Maybe you're too deep into your part of the community to realise how small a part of the whole conversation you're actually hearing.
@@TheEvilCheesecake
Or maybe you’re mistaking justified criticism of WotC’s asinine design philosophy as a flash in the pan.
This road runs both ways, sorry
@@TheEvilCheesecake Really, tell me three good things Alchemy has done.
I agree with everything you said whole-heartedly.
@@corpsefoot758 the three words at the start of my comment are the most important and you should look at them again.
As a historic player, I didn’t really even pay too much attention to the alchemy announcement. When I logged in and saw several of my decks were no longer legal I realize what happened. This really sucks
Yeah that's the big problem. A new format is fine but messing with previous ones is just bait and switch.
@@henrymccoy2306 yeah. It makes me not even want to make decks built around powerful new cards out of fear that they will just nerf them. Leaving my deck now not as good and me feeling like I wasted my wildcards
What decks
@@Anthony-kd4rz Yeah, alchemy sucks, but what was magically made illegal? Pretty sure nothing.
@@nightwingaven69 yeh I don't believe what op said, think he is just bandwagoning. All of my decks are untouched. Only a real argument can be made for the white 2 drop but that is one deck
Wizards gives the players a format they never asked for, and messes up a format players enjoy.
First time?
@@ForeverLaxx no, but I like the game so much, it still disappointing 😕
wizards doing wizards things
"Enjoy"
This isn't actually true, people have been saying that they should rebalance cards on Arena instead of banning them since the beginning of Arena.
I had NO idea Historic got hit with Alchemy. Literally whyyyyy did they force it onto there instead of just making it it's own separate thing
To make Historic a rotating format, simply that.
There's no user friendly justification for it.
So they can constantly nerf good cards to force you to spend money to get new cards... they did it for money. And in the process ruined Historic
Um, it literally is it's own thing, you can play Standard, Alchemy or Historic
@@LunkovichTromofski nope historic uses the alchemy cards
@@LunkovichTromofski Like the other poster said, Historic uses alchemy cards, and so does my favorite format in arena: Brawl
When people, especially at Wizards, accuse you of stirring the pot simply for the sake of it, it's a load of crap. They shouldn't be insulated from valid criticism. They make mistakes and should be made aware of their consequences.
i would understand if it some other youtuber but prof? do they even watch the whole thing in the 1st place
If they do not want the pot stirred then they should stop sticking new spoons in it continuously because someone is going to grab one of them and start stirring.
I see I have found the Asmongold Mtg. Some days we just need devs not to talk down to the community and keep their opinions to themselves.
It pains me that wotc has negative criticism towards your channel , I agree firmly with most of your opinions and I always felt your platform voices important opinions that can help the game progress.
How about this Professor, the 1 thing is that Arena is tooooooo expensive if your simply buying packs, and people who just want to play Standard or Historic don't want to be forced into Drafting, the format Arena economy is entirely based around (which is a problem). Keep gem and gold rates exactly how they are in game and in events, it works, however buying packs is the problem, and so for people who buy packs, the solution is simple, When you buy packs in the store, they cost 100 gems, the current best rate which is $1 per pack, means I have to drop $200-300 to get 200 to 300 packs every set If I don't want to draft at all, also all the other ways to collect the "free cards" is extremely time consuming and quite frankly is low rewards for your efforts, and I'm gonna say all the events this applies to, I've been playing since closed beta 2018 and quite frankly I'm tired of this bad system of collecting and it's cost.
I don't want to pay for more formats or new cards on top of cards I already have to collect.................thanks for more work WOTC or throw more $$$$ at a video game .............. Arena is a video game all you claiming is a "F2P TCG for the past 4 years can shush and stop supporting wotc's economy and pricing policy aka Hasbro's money maker". They also ruined the mythic vault because in beta " infinite drafters were collecting so many packs that they nerfed the system for everyone" and abandoned any type of quality system. Shit Economy, always will be, and the force feed of marketing and shiny bullshit, real gamers get pissed off at any company that uses wotc's tactics, but all you players with free $$$$$ don't care, well I hope you like the money pit you've sank into MTG whether it be paper or digital. Economy needs to change, it will never, so grats on keeping a low player base and pissing off all the players who think the game will get better somehow. PVDDR even said the pack pricing is outrageous, come on people, fight for a cause for once in your life!!
I have recently felt strongly about the phrase "It's easier to destroy than it is to create." Anyone can be a critic.
Major Kudos to the professor for actually making suggestions of what he'd like to see instead of just saying he's unhappy with things. It makes a big difference. I think it also makes it a lot harder to ignore his critiques of the game, and WotC
“Not anymore. Now we can do both at the same time. According to myth, the Earth was created in six days. Now watch out! Here comes Genesis! We’ll do it for you in six minutes!”
I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist
"Its easier to destroy than it is to create" can much more aptly be put towards, say, destroying your card game for short term profit motivations instead of trying to creating a positive (and sustainably profitable) community around it.
I've always felt that phrase to be a cop out by creators. Especially when they create strictly for profit like a major corporation does. Critics do not destroy, they protect their audience from wasting their money. Even if someone says "this sucks don't buy it" they haven't destroyed anything. Its only until someone says "This sucks and I could do better" that it becomes an issue.
@@stepforwardentertainment715 Can you please explain that?
@@genesisbustamante-durian it’s a quote from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Advocacy for Pioneer is in my opinion what MTGA needs, thanks prof. I'm sure we will have it as soon as they figure the best way to milk us with it's implementation
a year later and no Pioneer. Truly, WOTC has 0 fucks to give.
@@ahealthkit2745 Yeah, it seems even WotC's greed isn't enough to surclass WotC's incompetence
If anyone at Wizards reads this: It's not just the professor, many Magic The Gathering players like me have a problem with the way Alchemy was implemented and many of us who have a problem with it believe your actions are driven by excess greed.
My guess is there're quite a few people at WotC who feel the same way, but the Hasbro overlords are hellbent on pressing every last drop of oil out of their customers.
They are aware of the anger of the fans. They just don't care.
As a player who escaped Hearthstone in 2019, I appreciated how MTG and MTGA were normal cards in both places. No random cards materializing and such. I imagine WOTC could better balance things than Blizzard with MV, spell color and other numbers and things, but I like the idea of playing a game that matches what's in paper. In the meanwhile, I think I have found a tiny oasis in MTGA until we can get Pioneer. Limited. I've checked. Limited doesn't appear to have any of the cards you find in Alchemy. I really want paper BO1 BO3, and Commander in Arena. Alchemy-standard/historic is great when I can play my boys like Omnath 🔥🌳☀💧at least to a degree... and Omnath is not banned in Limited!
I Played alchemy, I was debating quitting MTG arena.
@@willthethrill8661 Same here. Alchemy is just a waste of my time. Hope somebody enjoys it.
Adding Pioneer one set at a time would honestly be pretty amazing. My starter deck was Izzet spells with hypersonic dragon in Return to Ravnica when I started playing in 2012.
I still remember the live stream they did after the Walking Dead Secret Lair announcement with Aaron Forsythe. The entire stream was focused around explaining what they were doing and how it was justified, as if the community simply *didn't understand* what they were trying to do. We understood perfectly well, we just didn't like a number of things about it, and there was almost zero empathy towards these feelings. If anyone from WotC is reading this, bullshit. TCC raises legitimate issues the community has. The fact that WotC is seemingly incapable of even acknowledging the problems people have with *any* of their decisions, let alone this latest surprise format, belies a serious disconnect and lack of communication with the community.
Apparently "we" didn't because it sold high enough to create the entire Universes Beyond concept, without them needing to change any of the things "we" told them were wrong with it.
unfortunately the only logic within the capitalist system (an incompetent when it comes to the US, which doesn't even have basic health for everyone) is the search only for profit, they don't care about the players, they want money.
@@altosforteaquax5083 This guy gets it. The older generation are to enfranchised to just leave but there will be a point when they do and if they go to all the effort of selling off their collection they are never coming back. At that point it will be all up to the new playerbase to carry the game.
@@TheEvilCheesecake Magic critic Jesse Mason (of the now effectively defunct blog Killing A Goldfish, still some of my favorite writing about magic) wrote about this idea a number of times. Wizards decides what is and isn't good purely by how much money they make off of it, which ends up promoting a lot of shitty ideas because they're very marketable and dismissing good ideas because they didn't sell well or won't make them grotesque enough profits in the future. The wellbeing of the game and the community are not priorities for them as long as they can keep making loads of money.
Made me think of Diablo Mobile announcement. How out of touch the developers were with their target audience. You own a cell phone right? Ughh
As a Historic player I'm incredibly annoyed that the Alchemy cards have been forced into the format why would I play a non rotating format if the cards I use change when new sets are added. Thanks for bringing this up Prof you are a man of the people
Actually, I loved your previous video and, having never heard of a Winston draft, am eager to try it with my previously unused Unsanctioned Cards.
Agreed. I'm waiting on the Winston cube video right now
Agreed I loved that video and it made Winston look really fun
LRR has done a couple of really fun Winston draft videos! Highly recommend them!
Indeed.
i liked the new video too. i am always excited about new formats . Especially since I've never drafted for two people but would like to try it out
I bookmarked it !
However, there are FAR too many new videos for me to watch everything the very day (or week) it is posted, regardless of video quality.
The only reason I ever invested and tried to keep up with historic was the promise of Pioneer coming to arena. I’ve stopped following the format when they introduced digital only cards in the most obnoxious way possible: jumpstart 2. But alchemy is now really the final nail in the coffin. I guess I’m done until they decide to bring real life paper magic back to Arena. If I want digital only card games, I’ll rather go play Legends of Runeterra. Thanks for nothing, Wizards.
you're right! Runeterra is much better in terms of exclusive digital card game. Who continued to invest time and money on the historic format, even after JHH, shouldn't complain now. I'm sure they knew exactly where WoTC was heading. If they decided to continue to trust WoTC, it wasn't for lack of warning. Nothing is going to change if they complain today, but tomorrow, silently accept and continue investing time and money in Arena. Nothing will change as long as Wizards' profit with the game continues to increase 🤷🏼♂️
I jumped ship as soon as historic came out instead of pioneer. The whole thing is an absolutely random hodgepodge of cards instead of, oh, I don’t know, working their way back set by set like they’d been doing initially.
@@charliemallonee2792 "should we start adding the old standard sets back to Arena to eventually build up to Pioneer? Nah, pick these random Modern cards and put them in Historic Anthologies, but also don't bother making boosters for those because we need to maximize profits"
@@charliemallonee2792 Amonkhet remastered utterly pissed me off. Haven't touched Arena since.
Yeahh! I just gave up on farming arena... They are just focusing on digital stuff while they could be supporting both communities (digital and physical)!
It seems to me like alchemy should just be cordoned off by itself and not affect any other format. Thats just my opinion though.
Either that or just give necessary, adequate refunds for cards that are changed, like how other digital CCGs did it. Both works, although I will say that having another format in the client will just bloat it even more than it is now but eh, it’s not that big of an issue.
Maybe they needed a last-minute revenue spike to help make the 2021 fiscal targets. You'd think that an extra Standard set would have done that, but alas.
Thought the same here... Until I noticed that the _eternal_ formats are now forced to have the Alchemy cards instead of how they were printed.
It is cordoned off by itself in this horrible little client called "MTG Arena" where the rest of the bad design decisions go.
i thought that was how it was supposed to be
As someone who plays Pioneer every Tuesday, my husband and I really would like to have a Pioneer mode on MTG Arena to try out deck ideas.
@@altosforteaquax5083 we already do this to some extent.
Except maybe it still be cheaper to build those ideas in paper than in arena =)
@@KavkaObscura but then I need to build all the various competitors decks as well in addition to one I was wanting to test. Whereas in Arena I would just play against them.
@@Kasperblk ah, good point! Ever tried MTGO?
@@KavkaObscura I haven't, although I have considered it because honestly Arena has issues.
Looking forward to Monday's video. Also agreed, rotating historic is a bad idea.
A rotation of historic kinda has an anti-flavor in itself. It just shouldn't happen
Remember powercreep means standard sets kinda are rotation for eternal formats too
Absolutely. They need two different Historic formats. One with digital only cards and mystical archives and one without.
The pioneer-like version doesn't need to be complete. It could simply aim at becoming pioneer eventually but the important part is they absolutely need a pioneer-like format that has no digital only cards and can be played in paper.
The only reason they probably don't want it is because they're afraid it would be so widely popular it would out compete Historic and Alchemy.
At this point is more likely they get rid of standard altogether than bring pioneer to Arena.
I like how Prof adds something positive to the conversation (e.g. possible solution) as opposed to just bitching about a problem.
I love this! I have always loved Pioneer and have been trying to get my friends to play it but the lack of exposure from Arena has kept them to only standard and commander. Although, one of them did get us all into Pauper so there’s still hope there!
My personal solution to the Alchemy problem is simple aswell: Don't have it affect Historic.
Then there wouldn't be anything to do with all the Alchemy cards once they rotated and they would have to keep banning cards in historic instead of just rebalancing them.
@@falconJB No they wouldn't. None of the Standard cards that they nerfed are anywhere near ban-level in terms of power in Historic.
@@Nr4747 That still doesn't change that the buffed cards should be buffed and the new cards should be in historic.
@@falconJB lol Goldspan Dragon and Alrund’s Epiphany were barely meme cards before the Alchemy gutting. My opponent is welcome to bring out their treasure dragon or their kitty chariot. I’ll just swing in with Phyrexian Obliterator and call it a day.
@@falconJB Well, let's just agree to disagree. I personally want Alchemy to be its own "Standard but weird"-format that doesn't affect Historic or Historic Brawl.
I see two major problems with Alchemy:
1. Cards have a name, because that is an association for what that card is and what that card does. Having two versions of a card, 1 digital and 1 physical with the same name is only going to cause confusion and annoyance.
2. Digital card games can modify problematic cards/rules on the fly, but doing so with no warning and not compensating players, feels bad for people who just spent time and effort making a deck with those cards. If the intent was healthy play they would refund, otherwise the intent is to perpetuate the sale of wildcards.
TLDR Alchemy is not the problem, WotC's greedy no refund policy and digital/physical divergence is the problem.
The problem with the refun argument is, what if you are playing a deck built around a main card or two. Your deck doesn't really function without those cards. They nerf them, down to the point where your deck no longer really functions. Even if they refund you 8 wild cards for the playsets of the nerfed cards, that doesn't help you with all your other cards. Cards you may well not have crafted if not for the altered cards, which you will no longer play and so have no use for. The 8 wild cards is not enough to get going on your new deck
Okay but the Winston Draft video was actually great! I really appreciate your quality content and critique Prof. Your videos on cube from years ago convinced me to build my own cube way back when and its been my favorite format ever since. Keep making the niche videos because there's definitely an audience even if it doesn't attract the same amount of views. I'm excited to try some Winston drafts with friends, anything other than playing Alchemy lol.
Easiest & fastest solution: Add a paper/digital toggle switch. With the switch turned off historic, standard, brawl, & historic brawl mirror paper. With it turned on any format & future formats utilize errata & digital-only cards.
This would also ease the transition of paper players to Arena, & also allows Arena players to prepare for paper events by playing Arena.
It would also provide WotC with actual data that would show what their players are interested in playing. I don’t believe for a second that “splitting the player base” like that in Historic would have a noticeable impact. If it did have an impact, it wouldn’t be in Alchemy’s favour, which is reason that perhaps Alchemy isn’t a good thing for MTGA.
I like the idea of starting out with Remastered sets every once in a while and then slowly filling in the gaps till they have full Pioneer.
That was the old plan they shouldn't have strayed away from :/
@mattador_actual And they justified it with "if we had worked on Pioneer you wouldn't have the new gameplay experience you have now with Alchemy in the same short time!" Like, what? If they had worked on Pioneer instead of the Alchemy and Jumpstart nonsense we would be at least half way there *and* we would have had new "gameplay" each time a remastered block dropped.
In all of the many videos I have watched from you prof you have never "stirred the pot" you are a voice for the issues that many have but cannot be heard. You are our voice in a sea of screams that wash out the rest.
I literally shouted "Yes!!!" out loud when you said the solution is Pioneer.
As a hardcore Modern player, I'm all for Pioneer getting attention. Why not give players a more affordable non-rotating format in paper with digital support in Arena?
Last week I was saying exactly that to a friend. Bring Pioneer the format and than build up the rest of the sets...
I stopped playing arena last year because of several issues I've had with WotC. If they make changes so that I can have confidence in arena, I'd come back. Adding an eternal format like pioneer would give me that confidence. I'd also accept pauper.
I did too. They are a total mess anymore.
After initially spending about $100 on arena, after wrapping my head around the economy and formats, I’m now completely free to play. I’ve bought several boxes of paper magic and regularly play modern nights at my lgs, so I will save my money for cards I need, and can resell if necessary, instead of continuing to sink money into arena. Do I want the master pass for crimson vow? No, I’d rather buy a paper Urza’s saga for five more dollars or save a few dollars and get an arid mesa, both of which will increase in price and I can use in my modern deck.
You vote with your wallet when it comes to companies like this. Maybe they’ll listen one day.
Professor everything you do is for a love of the game and a wish for it to be better for everyone . “You don’t whip us up” you represent what everyone is feeling in an articulate way and are a big part of our voice! Appreciate you professor!
Worth mentioning that the MTG Bugs and Product Suggestions page lists "Leave Historic Alone" as its 2nd most popular issue if you sort by "Hot" and 9th if sorted by "Top Issues". At the very least we can see there is a real desire for an as-paper non-rotating format on Arena.
And if you scroll through the topics, it is the most numerous reposted topic with varying rewordings of leave historic alone. If they don't know the criticism, they are actively trying to avoid seeing/hearing it.
It took me awhile to buy in to Modern, and as soon as I did it totally changed with Horizons 1&2. I feel like I'm holding on to my modern deck for the sunk-cost, but Pioneer does just grow more and more enticing. You've intrigued me Prof...
I loved Hostoric and Historic Brawl, but I refuse to play in a format that can change the cards that I bought with time and/or money without any recourse or repayment.
You didn't "buy" anything, you were given a digital licence to use WotC property.
@@dogdriver70 Dude, this is like the worst time to try and make that argument. While you're technically correct that none of the content on Arena is truly purchased, they entered the game on the understanding that if they spent their time (and money) on this game they would be given access to specific content and now WotC is altering the content that they earned.
@@automaton1740 its never a bad time to state the cold hard facts. That user agreement we scroll through so we can play says things. Important things, and we all Agree.
@@dogdriver70
Hi WotC.
@@dogdriver70 🥾👅🥾👅🥾👅🥾
I watch your videos as a way to keep in the loop about Magic as I work on progressing in life. Always appreciate the well written thoughts you bring along with the latest happenings.
I've got a crazy idea regarding the alchemy: Do the testing and balancing that end up in alchemy before sending it it to the printers instead of after. We could call the process "play testing" and have a whole team of people research the newly proposed cards and their interactions with everything legal in standard and pioneer. They'd be in charge of developing these cards and the balancing prior to being printed in paper.
this is revolutionary, get this person a job
How many people should work in "play testing" then? Because any number you'd suggest will either be ridiculuosly large and financially impossible for WotC or so small next to the number of players that it is impossible for them to balance everything. I don't say they shouldn't do play testing but thinking that any reasonable amount of playtesting would result in a balanced game is pure fantasy.
@@michaelroth2166 they make billions per semester lmfao, they have more than enough money, they're no small indie company and these excuses for em is embarrassing
I see the primary issue with using Arena for this would be spoilers, or rather speculation. WIzards wouldn't do this because it would make a big impact on the speculative buying of sealed products. "Why pre-order this set?" Or "Put off buying those lands, they're about to be re-printed" etc
No no no, that makes too much sense!
Love that suave and sassy beginning. You had a grown man giggling, lol. Great vid.
"In theory you can build a successful mono-white commander deck"
I feel personally attacked
My buddy has a really good Odric deck
Isn't feeling attacked the point of a Darien deck?
I loved the Winston draft video! And I actually watch lots of the accessory reviews. And all the basic deck videos to learn how to build better ones
Quitting Arena until they separate Historic and Alchemy
See you in runeterra.
Sad to see you go, but good bye I guess
@@JoelChenFa noooo but they door the saaaaame thinking in ruuuneterraaaaa!!!!!
Jokes aside I only play commander for magic, when I want to play a competitive card game it's legends of runeterra.
Same
Nobody cares
As someone who appreciates Winston draft I loved having you point it out to a broader audience
I as a magic nerd feel totally overwhelmed by the vast amount of cards wotc is spilling out. I just can't keep up, and with alchemy introducing 100 more + starting changing existing cards, I don't even bother to...
Exactly.
The only way that I can still participate in Magic (a game that I enjoy), produced by a company whose only concern is sucking as many dollars from the pockets of its players until it hits lint, is by playing on my own terms.
Quit Arena completely, taking an hiatus after RNA Standard; played ELD Standard for 2 weeks; then played ZNR Standard for 1 week before deleting my account. Switched to MTGO in May.
Bought 2018/19 Challenger decks to play with my son when he is old enough. Aside from that, have zero interest in new Magic product.
Neon Kamigawa is tempting me to play Pre-release in person, as I want to get back into Limited, and am looking forward to Kamigawa Another reason why I switched to MTGO (flashback limited sets).
I have zero fucks with regards to the amount of product that WotC pumps out because I have no intention of purchasing it. Yet it still pains me to see Magic used as a vehicle to treat the players as walking piñatas full of dollars, rather than focusing on the health of the game.
I have very little faith in WotC medium, let alone long-term. But I will still add my voice to the chorus of dissent for how Alchemy had been implemented because the fuckers have form in this regard re: the whole 2 WC for 1 Historic card, and they need to be called out for their predatory practices.
I watched your Winston draft video. I liked it. I must say I really enjoy all your content. Thanks for making it and keeping such a fair view.
The German term for "venture into the dungeon" has THREE different translations in MTG: Arena. One in the card text, another one in the tooltip explaining the mechanic and a third one on the dungeon cards. When the German version of the client gives you the choice to either add a loyalty counter or a +1/+1 counter on a card of your choice, you get promted in Portuguese. Wizards recently removed Korean Draft boosters altogether.
WotC right now is focused on ONLY acquiring and keeping players from the english speaking areas of the world, and Arena perfectly exemplifies that. In my humble opinion, they got their priorities wrong, with the paper cards AND especially with Arena. They act like they're bleeding customers but hyperfocus on the English countries while neglecting QA and pumping out more cards and Secret Lairs.
Secret Lairs are first and foremost collectors items, and they won't get anyone INTO the game, just because they are cross-promos. Buying a Secret Lair simply isn't enough to start playing, and you most likely haven't convinced the fan of the other franchise to go that extra step and get a deck from somewhere. The best Secret Lairs can do is create awareness of the game in new players and retain whales.
So that explains the increasing number of blue hairs on the arts
Even amongst English speakers, wotc only cares about US and to a lesser extent UK players. Australia gets entirely ignored. Even when Aussie players were entirely COVID free in most states we were not getting physical product until many months after the US
I watched your Winston draft video, and I was previously unaware of the format. Already talking to my room mate about getting a game going next day we both have off
I can't believe that the Alchemy nerfs are effecting Historic cards. I didn't realize that until I saw this video. Not only cards that I've spent wild cards on will change, but other cards I've "bought" that synergize with effected cards feels like a waste as well. What an absolute blunder.
I launched Arena last night to check out alchemy and decided I didn't want to make a deck right then. So I was just going to use my favorite historic deck for a couple games. When I realized I couldn't do that, I just turned the game off
@@getjaketospace I just had a similar experience. Pretty disappointing.
That's what I call transparency. LeL
@@getjaketospace Same i HAD 8 decks to play historic with, decks ive spent MONTHS and $$ to create, and now i have 2 decks that i can "play" in historic 1 my goblin aggro and the other sadly my mill my most beloved deck where not only have i optimised to the best of my ability but spent soo much $$ on gems to have the alt arts on cards to now have the deck be nearly useless due to the fact ppl can just add cards out of thin air to their decks now im no stranger to ppl reshuffling cards from the yard back to their decks and have found ways to combat this what ive now founud to be the prob is ive lost games where ppl have had only 2-3 cards left in their library after adding 8-12 extra cards to their deck or they create a card outside of their color identity/ create a card i cant noramally side board into to counter play it since of the crazy amount of randomness it makes it so hard for a my mill to gain momentum and lock down the game. I dont feel like i should have to make Alchemy formated decks to play the format i normally play it should be its own lil neiche format where i play it if i want to sorry rant over
@@getjaketospace Like i like the "idea" of alchemy where it would be its own format to have fun lil brews with BUT my main format on arena is Historic and thats where most of my $$ and time has been spent and its now trash. Yea the meta changed but it now feels like its this joke of a format with a whole bunch of useless bullshit that ruins some of the core mechanics of the game and im just alil tilted that this is what has happened to arena and it has become 1 of my mainways to play mtg and i feel now its ruined i guess back to my lgs and playing modern i guess......
I remember in the early days of Hearthstone when they were nerfing and rebalancing cards because of overly popular and "oppressive" decks that were floating around; I'm talking about Grim Patron + Warsong Commander specifically.
In Magic terms at the time Warsong Commander gave any creature with power 3 or less that entered the battlefield haste until end of turn, and Grim Patron was (essentially) a 3/3 Polyraptor, making a 3/3 copy of itself any time it survived damage. The strategy was fun and required a bit of skill to pilot properly and was an easier, high tier deck to put together since the two main pieces, the Patron and the Commander were available to everyone without needing to open packs or burn building resources to get them (the Commander was part of the starter set Blizzards gave people and the Patron was from a solo set anyone could) Blizzard nerfed the Warsong Commander to no longer give creatures haste, and instead buffed creatures you controlled with haste. That change to one card killed the entire deck strategy.
Alchemy will be the same way.
And that’s why I quit hearthstone back in the day, nerfing is a lazy design encouraging policy with little respect for players decisions. It is either a system of injecting short term hype to cards, or a inability to foresee the play environment and just let the players solve it and then punish them.
WotC heard complaints about how many bans there have been in recent years and decided that instead of banning problem cards they would just digitally “fix” them, but of course this is much worse. Banned cards were replaced with wild cards, which wasn’t perfect, because often players had spent many resources to build decks around those cards but at least there was an acknowledgement that the players had lost something. With the new system players are not compensated in anyway for these nerfed cards and WotC refuses to acknowledge what we are losing. This is the type of problem that players identified the day Alchemy was announced, yet somehow WotC is pretending not to have noticed. Then they launch the format with all the problems we foresaw and they again seem shocked by the negativity and controversy. It really does feel as you said on DTR with Vince, that these are not card and card game problems they are PR and customer service problems. So many issues, particularly on arena are predictable and they always seem completely unprepared for the backlash.
Because, for as much backlash WotC gets for these decisions, they know (and the investors know) that there are enough whales and addicts to offset it all and increase profits. Ever-increasing profits is what always drives a company once it grows too large.
@@ForeverLaxx WotC reached the "Too big to fail" point. The fact that despite everything that they have been doing to the game, they still almost double their profits every year is the proof of that
But consider this: How do you expect them to create new card which are fair and balanced if they have no way to test what "fair and balanced" actually is? Using Alchemy they can tweak and fine-tune balance until they are familiar with what really makes an overpowered or underpowered card, and hopefully that leads to overall better quality and consistency of future paper magic releases. You can't really say that grossly overpowered cards which can never be changed (without an outright ban) are healthy for the game, right? I understand that some people might find them fun to play, but they are certainly not fun to play *against*, and that leads to negative experiences of MtG, which leads to people quitting or being turned off to picking the game up in the first place.
Could you imagine drafting RTR again? Love the Ravnica sets!
Oh boy yup, when I think of Tolarian Community College my first thought is "drama llama" and not "interesting and informative videos about magic and other games", yessir that's right yup, uh huh. Sheesh. Remember that time you told us about the best card sleeves and deck boxes? The twitter drama about that was epic.
Oh, I am definitely looking forward to that deck box video, looks awesome
I was livid when my muldrotha historic brawl deck had 3 cards BANNED due to alchemy, forcing me to remove Ugin the spirit dragon, Field of the dead and Agent of Treachery (3 of the 4 best cards in the deck...). Oh- And I did not receive any wildcards. Delightful. Now I have no playable decks, and the only format I cared about is unrecognizable.
Wizards in a nutshell, my man
This. I can kind of get Field, since it seemed like every other deck was running it, sometimes with no synergy whatsoever, but Ugin was a completely fair card. Strong? Absolutely. But not busted, from my experience. And Agent of Treachery makes even less sense. I've only ever seen it in ETB decks, and the occasional control deck (usually synergizing with other steal stuff things). I wouldn't be mad if they gave wild cards. Sad that I lost fun interactions? Yes. But not mad.
That wasn’t due to Alchemy, those cards were just banned from Historic Brawl
These Historic Brawl bans had nothing to do with alchemy and are actually really good, these cards weren't healthy for the format. Also it's just 1 card in HB, as much as I dislike a lot of Arena this is not that big of an issue as long as they don't ban Commanders
While I do think the bans were a good thing overall (especially Agent), I do 100% agree that you should get your wildcards. Not giving them to you is just WotC being greedy.
I never knew about Winston draft; it sounds like a lot of fun, thanks for bringing it to my attention, I do hope you make a follow up cube video
This comment has nothing to do with Magic, but I wanted to thank you, Prof, for introducing me (in one of your other videos) to the Death Gate Cycle Books! They are awesome.
Oh, is there a vid where he talks about them? I've noticed them on the shelves many times but haven't heard him bring them up. Also is one of the backdrop bookcases from a while ago I noticed that there were six books from the cycle on the shelf, and it drove me nuts wondering why it wasn't all seven! :-D
@@CanuckMonkey13 iirc it was in one of the Q&A videos
The scathing open was EXCELLENT. Professor, I love your attitude. :)
We really, really want these "live" cards out of historic brawl too! Let Alchemy be it's own thing, don't ruin Arena Commander, it's really quite good and the recent bans show they're paying attention to us, it's in a good place right now.
This is really the problem; they created a fun format... and destroyed it literally a week later with that new Jumpstart set and its digital-only mechanics. Now there's more of them to make it worse!
For the past few months I've simply stopped playing games where digital-only cards show up. As soon as I see a digital-only card, I concede the game, regardless of how it's going. This is not really a solution: the person playing those cards is presumably just trying to play the game and have fun, and ending games prematurely stops that. But I really don't want to play against those cards.
Maybe if they stopped showing up in games I'd start appreciating them and maybe even playing them every now and then. I did enjoy the Jumpstart set. But bringing them into Historic Brawl was a really bad choice.
Same answer though - just need Pioneer Brawl !
This is spot on. Completely agree with the Prof here. We need Pioneer as a non-rotating format unaffected by digital cards and changes.
As someone who started playing Arena recently as a means to get into Magic, I don't like the idea that my historic deck won't mirror something I could in theory run in paper. It puts me off playing now at all.
Historic was meant as digital only format from the start. As bad as Wizards comunicates sometimes, they were always clear about this.
@@berndb3141 I'm still learning clearly
@@du1987de Fair enough. There are many paper formats out there you might enjoy or you just play casual without format boundries. Paper Magic is great.
@@berndb3141 There's almost too many, I often have to look up what each format is and why it exists. I've always liked the idea of magic and TCGs in general but don't really know anyone to play paper with. Sometimes I just browse scryfall for fun.
I guess they sort of followed your advice with the explorer format.
I also watched the Winston draft video, it was rather well done, a doff of the cap to you good sir.
I thought i watched that one too, must have imagined that :)
Thank you so F**** much for saying this. I've said so many f*** times already, make pioneer with what we have and gradually bring the older sets, we'll still enjoy it.
What Alchemy did for me is leaving Arena without a single constructed format I enjoy at the moment.
It was really discouraging to log into the Arena and see that majority of my Historic and Historic Brawl decks I built are now illegal, I do not have the time and resources to rebuild every single one of them, so I might as well stop playing Arena at all.
Also, it explains why they no longer wanted to continue having Arena forums running. At least there are still "votes" and reports available, I saw thousands of those saying that Historic is now "broken" because of Alchemy, hopefully they will address it and in a timely manner.
Ngl that video never popped up for me, gonna watch it after this one. Thanks for all the content you do prof, much love and hope you are having a good holiday season :)
As someone who plays historic on arena a lot I have been completely devastated by this news yesterday I just don't want to play arena now and I feel like I've wasted all the money I put into it and time got a lot of time I'm happy you made a video professor
Serious question: how did alchemy affect historic?
@@barrosinc several cards have already been changed what are you talking about it literally affects the format
@@TheGrimmjowisaboss that's what i was asking. I thought the changes were for alchemy format
@@barrosinc no they're tied together I don't know why but they are
@@TheGrimmjowisaboss that's pretty stupid
I said exactly that to friends at my local LGS. It's almost stupid of how simple it would be to deal with it all...
I personally don't want Alchemy, I want Standard to be a thriving format and something that Wizards invests time to cultivate and balance. And yes, that means having to ban cards sometimes if a mistake was made. WotC seems determined to make people resent them and the decisions they make for constructed formats.
It would also require stop using the business model of heavily pushing a few rares and mythics to boost sales. A model that, funnily enough, does not really apply to Arena, but then Alchemy means you need to get more cards on Arena, when your best cards get nerfed.
@@alfyb4512 The digital-only cards are SO ridiculous too, that it kind of makes buying the "regular" cards pointless anymore. They're making Arena into Yu-Gi-Oh.
Dear Professor, your Winston Draft video was fantastic! I had never heard of it before. With the pandemic going on, I mostly only play with my brother these days (social bubble, and all that). We mostly play sealed, because it works better than regular draft for two players, but we are excited to try Winston this weekend when we get together. Thanks!
As for Arena, I loved Historic last week, and I loathe it today. The feel-bads from having decks nerfed with no compensation is entirely representative of WotC's attitude towards its c̶a̶t̶t̶l̶e̶ ... oops, I mean customers.
The idea that alchemy is harmless and 'good for those who enjoy it' relies on the idea that the existence of Alchemy will have no impact on how WoTC handles ordinary standard, which is just obviously wrong.
Alchemy will serve as an excuse to pay less attention to standard balancing (That is, even less than is already the case) and as such it's existence will make my life, as someone who doesn't touch Arena and only plays in paper, worse.
But wtf will they do about the pro scene, then? Don’t all of them only play Standard?
Paper magic is a huge cash cow and people will still play standard on Arena, they will only start ignoring standard if Alchemy is so popular that people stop playing standard.
You are absolutely right. Alchemy is a great excuse for Wizard to stop even trying to make a good standard in the first place.
@@corpsefoot758 Yep, and drafting is largely based off standard sets, they would be choosing to just not make as much money if they stopped bothering to try to make good standard sets.
Or you could look at it a different way: They can gather information about balancing in Alchemy, and use that experience to design more balanced cards from the outset of new releases.
Best video I've seen that gives a clear picture to what exactly alchemy is bringing to the table.
Man I loved Historic. It took me a long time to grind up the ladder and collect wildcards so I could build my Pummeler Deck and port over my Pioneer Merfolk Deck and now I can't play either one of them because of Alchemy. Thanks Wizards. Arena is my only outlet to play MTG with the current state of the world being what it as :( Guess I'll go back to building Commander decks and waiting for my local LGS to start open play again.
You can play MOL, is much better than Arena, despite the interface
@@Gugu4672-t3w MTGO still sucks. There are zero ways to gain new cards for free. I eventually built up a nice UB Rogues that got me to Mythic off of only a few dollars to kick off with.
If you tried to do that on MTGO, you’d have to be Reid Duke to pull that off.
@@curts7801 but currently, you can spend time and money building a deck in Arena, and soon they'll release a new pack of cards without even warning. At least in MOL your time and money is not wasted overnight
@@Gugu4672-t3w if you’re willing to spend money and don’t loathe the old ass client, MTGO would work. Me, I’ll just go back to hearthstone for my mobile game, and keep MtG to paper.
@@curts7801 there is Runeterra too hehe
Your intro is almost spot on!
You're not someone who stirs up controversy, you're someone who educates the player base!
You're an absolute champ and a true leader of the community!!!
Keeeeeep it up!!
Ditched Arena about 6 months ago, when I was spending half my time waiting for it to load (or update, or not load at all, or crash, or fail to recognise that I just wanted a couple of quick unranked games). Happy with my choice and I hope others are happy with Arena, Alchemy and the price gouging travesty that it has become. WOTC still gets a lot of my cash, but I get actual cards to enjoy, that don't fail to load (and my lgs benefits too!).
Id just like to leave a comment thats somehwat of a... thanks or a loveletter, however you take it.
I started in magic almost exactly 2 years ago. I am currently sitting with well over 30 commander decks, and only 2 60 card decks. As someone who is clearly narrow sighted in which format they build for and play i would like to say thank you for you videos in drafting and cube. Your videos actually drove me to invest in the Cubemajigs a few months ago and i look forward to developing a cube for my local shop.
Your videos regarding positive reviews and good nature dont go unnoticed. I personally greatly appreciate them (taken with a grain of salt, of course) and hope you continue to make more like the winston draft or cube-like videos.
P.s. maybe a video with the concept of deconstructing commander decks and using the nonland cards for a cube? Looking for a second opinion on building a cube this way.
I also dont like Alchemy and Jumpstart Historic Horizons for introducing mechanics that conflict with MTG's natural resource management. Conjuring cards out of thin air through a "spellbook" or perpetually reducing or increasing a creature's stats even after it's left the battlefield really just leaves a really awful taste in my mouth.
Pretty much all the recent changes have pushed me away and I was a player buying $100 gem packs and season passes. I guess that wont happen anymore.
The way ever increasingly high value generating cards had been implemented in hearthstone made it impossible to keep "card advantage" relevant when a single card could generate multiple other cards, creating far greater value and board presence than a draw spell ever could. Coupled with a complete lack of instant speed interaction, it made some matchups feel atrocious and cards that couldn't naturally 3+ for 1 feel awful. It created a level of power creep that made playing feel awful.
Beyond that, I feel like mtg arena is learning every lesson hearthstone had learned years earlier about digital only cards the hard way. The second I saw companions, I knew it was going to be a mess because hearthstone already had powerful cards that care about deck construction and those had to be nerfed and power-crept into oblivion.
Don't play those cards then. Simple. Stick to paper formats.
@@ryanparker2696 Aye, that's what Im thinking. Gonna stay away from Arena moving forward
Such a weird perspective. How is conjure any different from drawing, cascade, tutoring etc resource-wise? These mechanics aren’t inherently bad at all, they’re things MTG designers have been wanting to do for decades but couldn’t due to physical limitations. Look at things like wishes or Skullbriar
I didn’t see the last video day 1 however I did end up doing a Winston draft with my wife and loved it. Ended up convincing a friend that we should do it one of these days too
Forcing Alchemy onto Historic also affects other Historic formats like Brawl and Artisan.
I AM NOT HAPPY.
Alchemy should be opted into, NOT forced upon us!
As a paper-magic player I also strongly dislike the concept of Alchemy. These are cards, you can never play in real magic. You can no longer transfer decks from historic to paper or the other way around, because the card's on both sides are not the same anymore.
Also if you play a card on one side heavily you will do misplays on the other side, because the cards suddenly function differently.
I am not a fan of alchemy existing, but I could live with that. But I am incredibly pissed off, that I cannot even opt out anymore. I cannot play with real magic cards on MTGA anymore.....
One more thing: In general, a card that isn't even banned in standard usually never needs to be nerfed in historic. Very strong standard cards are the only thing even playable in historic. The whole concept is illogical. It just makes some good from standard cards unplayable in historic.
Hey I found that Winston Draft Tutorial very helpful.
It's just that not everyone is interested in drafting and those that do probably know the rules already and don't need to watch it.
Perfect video. I would be happy just reverting Historic and Historic Brawl. But adding Pioneer would be great too if I can use my cards that aren't "rebalanced". also they should add Pioneer Brawl so my brawl decks aren't touched either
Your winston video was so great I made a cube that same day (as I commented about on the video.) It's pioneer. Also I get to play pioneer in paper for FNM tonight for the third time (once a month starting October '21). Excited.
If they are going to insist on pushing Alchemy into Historic, when they change a card, they should remove all copies of that card from a player's pool and give them a wild card for each copy. This would allow players that like the new version of the card to repurchase the new version, while allowing those that invested because of the power of the original card to reinvest in something else.
Not a bad idea. I would be concerned with how will we be able to keep up with all the sudden lost cards from our card pool without constantly keeping up with all the changes, it would be a nightmare, but not a totally unsolvable problem, we can fix that.
But, yeah, any sort of refunds would be nice tbh, not giving refunds was the biggest problem Alchemy has in the first place.
If your deck still contains the cards but you just don't have them any longer, this should be a piece of cake.
@@Metalcursine the problem is more about how do you translate that into something that don’t overwhelm the player when they open the client. Imagine this, you open the client after a month of inactivity, and suddenly you find out 3-5 of your decks can’t be used anymore because of the “lost cards”. Yes, we can just go into the decks and replace those cards, start reclaiming the wildcards, etc, but imagine having to do all that, every once in a month, not to mention the research you have to do in finding out why said cards are changed in the first place, and evaluating whether it’s worth it to keep the newly changed cards or not. It can get overwhelming, when these players probably just want to get into a short, quick game or two.
They are greedy bastards, they are never doing that
Another problem with this is that owning the altered version of a card is linked to owning the unaltered Standard-Legal version. Right now, when you craft one, you get both. Doing the refund in the way you describe would mean they would either have to rewrite the whole system - and the most likely implementations of this would bring even more problems that I won't get into in this post - or they would have to remove BOTH versions of the card from everyone's accounts when refunding the wild cards. That would mean that players like me and the Prof who play Standard but not Alchemy would have cards disappearing from our Standard decks every time they got nerfed in Alchemy, forcing us to recraft them all because of a format we don't even play!
Lol, I loved your Winston video...I instantly forwarded to friends to say "We need to do this!!!". Still watch the cube videos a lot...though opted to make a jumpstart "cube" instead for now.
I support any move by Wizards that improves the attractiveness of paper magic. Even accidental ones that have unintended consequences.
The main reason I didn't watch the video about Winston draft yet is because I already know how to Winston draft. I do still like the occasional video where you talk about alternate formats and hope you will continue to do so, even if those aren't the most popular subjects.
We really need to have a talk about the people who made this game.
Nothing wrong with the people who "made" this game (Richard Garfield and other people back in pre-1993), the problem is the people in charge of the game currently :)
“Talk”? It just takes one symbol, duh: $
@Juan Catari Pacara what will you use then?
Richard Garfield is the truth. Mark Rosewater on the other hand...
The problem is not the people who make the game, but the people who, despite complaining today, will silently accept tomorrow and will continue to invest time and money in Arena. Nothing will change as long as Wizards' profit with the game continues to increase 🤷🏼♂️
I actually love watching your deck box videos. I know that was sarcasm, but those are my favorite videos. I also enjoy your mean deck builds like Zur the enchanter.
I use Historic brawl to sort of pre-prototype my commander decks (ones that i can) to see if they are fun and functional i literally cannot use alchemy cards and playing against alchemy cards can greatly affect my opinion on whether my deck idea is working. I know that a 25 life 1v1 format is different than 4 player 40 life but Its a cheap way to avoid building complete flops and it gives me a functional decklist to start with and tweak with better cards once i convert to paper. I don't like alchemy dominating historic brawl and am slowly drifting away from the platform
This makes complete sense. I would likely do the same if I was a Commander player (which I would be if I had an income and more time!) I feel your pain, friend.
Not sure if Wizards listened or just came to the same idea independently, but you pretty much exactly predicted Explorer. Hopefully we'll be getting those remastered/flashback drafts soon!
Even Hearthstone allows you to transform nerfed and changed cards into wildcards!
I loved the Winston draft video as well. Much love for the Prof. from East TN. My play group and I really enjoy your insight and knowledge.
As a new magic player with about 6 month's under my belt. Your videos have helped me out alot. I'm actually building Geist of Saint's voltron style, 100% because of your videos. Keep up the great work, we love your content.
Its sad how the arena team exploits us more when they implement a feature aimed at exploiting us less...
How is Alchemy aimed at exploiting anyone less?
Excuse me professor. I did watch you last video on Winston draft, and have plans to actually do it with a brother of mine. We always have a hard time finding a 3rd or even a 4th for EDH, so forget about getting enough people for a draft... So Winston draft sounds like something that would be a blast for us!
Upsettingly the Winston video never showed up in my inbox, but I must say I do love those kinds of videos
"Historic Brawl will also be affected by these changes." Welp, looks like I can just delete Arena now. No reason for me to play anything other than paper.
Alchemy isnt for me either, im boycotting it and refuse to even open my free alchemy packs.the thing that upsets me most is being forced to have to use or play against alchemy cards.
Before historic jumpstart, I thought I might get into historic after building some form of collection (I started on kaldheim). I got myself an effective budget deck to play it. When they brought out the new jumpstart set, I lost all interest. Its not possible anymore to build a collection that keeps up with it. I won't bother with alchemy either
Similar experience here, except I've been playing since open beta launched. I put together a seriously competitive Historic deck for the first time about two weeks before JHH launched. After JHH released, I played one game against the Vesperlark combo and gave up in disgust. Even after they fixed the Davriel cards to prevent that combo, I had no interest in playing Historic, and now even less. I did play the Alchemy launch event (I'll play anything free just to try it out) and most of my games were fine, but the one game I played against a Toralf's Disciple deck made it clear that the format is not for me outside of free events.
yup yall are spot on. i stopped playing arena two months ago. super glad i missed this alchemy bs
you're right! Who continued to invest time and money on the historic format, even after Jumpstart Historic Horizons, shouldn't complain now. I'm sure they knew exactly where WoTC was heading. If they decided to continue to trust WoTC, it wasn't for lack of warning. Nothing is going to change if they complain today, but tomorrow, silently accept and continue investing time and money in Arena. Nothing will change as long as Wizards' profit with the game continues to increase 🤷🏼♂️
Prof. I know we are talking about ARENA here in this video. But my question for years has been especially in formats like standard mainly where B&R occur the most. Why cant we see them implement B&R approach they use for Vintage? why not semi-limit a card or even limit them and see how it goes? Why take the easy way out and just ban it and screw their players? most ban cards were not cheap for example oko and uro just to name them. I agree the cards were not fun to play against but dropping it from 4 to 2 or even 1 is a reasonable balance. I would love to see a video talking about this.
I can't understand why they have put so much energy into making a new format with new cards instead of making a untouched rotating forever format like pioneer. Or even historic au natural, without any of the extra cards added. Just standard cards that has rotated since kaladesh. They already have them in the database. Just make a new queue of that and I'd be very happy. Because all I want to play is standard and then use my cards when they rotate now and then.
If it means anything Prof, I watched the Winston Draft video; and I even already knew how to do it!
Simpler solution: Delete Arena, go play Magic in-person at your LGS.
I never got a notification for the Winston draft video wtf. This is my first time hearing about it. I'm going to go watch it asap