It feels good to be back in normal form, so to speak. It’s still a bit strange admittedly after having the last year and change be focused on an entirely different angle, but there is every confidence we’ll get back into the normal swing of, you know, Magic-centered Monday Magic. Or the new normal, whatever the case may be.

While it’s certainly a relief to have been able to resume playing Magic after so long an absence (indeed in the end it was very close to the longest gap period I’ve ever had playing the game), and it has reignited all sorts of deck construction and alteration ideas with surprising alacrity, it’s not as if I had stepped away from the game entirely during that time. Not entirely. Part of that is self-evident, as there continued to be the weekly articles, and there’s an intoxicating element to a set’s spoiler season as new cards are announced that is hard to resist. Part of that is also because, as has been mentioned several times in the past, I also like to collect sets as well – which is helpful during downtime when I’m not playing.

For all its faults at times, Magic: the Gathering does two things I particularly love: tinkering, and completing tasks. It radiates both a deep wellspring of strategic and tactical gameplay that continually evolves and changes, keeping the game from ever feeling stale, while at the same time exists as a hallmark product that taps directly into completionist tendencies. Hence the oft-used nickname (and excellent webcomic) “cardboard crack”. There’s a reason I was drawn to it all those years ago.

Therefore even though the last year saw a dearth in EDH activity on my part, my attention overall didn’t quite stop. The amount and frequency of that attention dropped significantly, this is true, as life sort of commanded me to deal with matters of much greater importance, but it wasn’t a completely abdication.

During this time on the sideline, however, it became glaringly obvious that one thing hadn’t changed throughout the pandemic: the release schedule itself.

Only on rare occasion over the last 18 months has Wizards had to come out and address minor product delays and shortages as a result of global shipping issues and the pandemic writ large. They canceled in-person tournaments and acknowledged difficulties of stores trying to run regular events. But Wizards is very much a corporate entity. It is one of Hasbro’s most profitable companies, and there was little doubt in retrospect they were going to slow their gravy train down. Especially one whose product timelines are planned years in advance. We consumers may currently be excited about Strixhaven or Forgotten Realms, but internally, those sets are quite literally so last year. For the most part the game continued to spit out set after set irrespective of the plague ripping through the population and its audience’s potentially curtailed attention and / or drop in disposable income.

In fact, that pace accelerated.

See, for many years Wizards tended to have a relatively straightforward release schedule, with three normal sets and a core set released throughout a calendar year. The exact dates on when they dropped have varied over time, but they’ve generally had some sort of quarterly product for a very long time. Most supplementary products (Duel Decks, fat packs, etc.) were tied to those sets in some way rather than their own focus.

Then in 2008 they began adding annual upscaled product releases aimed at collectors and players looking to trick out their decks, starting with From the Vault, and continuing through the Premium series, the Signature Spellbook series, and now, the Secret Drop series.

Then, starting in 2009 they introduced an annual casual product release. This started with Planechase, Archenemy, and Conspiracy, before they were all pretty much pushed aside for Commander products. Unlike the premium products, most of these releases started to include new and unique cards in them. (The same later proved true for Planeswalker Decks, which would replace Duel Decks, and contained not only a few unique cards but a pair of planeswalker cards not found in the accompanying main set.)

This followed suit with the revamp of core sets in Magic 2010 when they decided upwards of half of core sets could now also have new cards.

In 2013, they added another annual release, the Master Series – basically their annual full reprint series but now aimed at Modern audiences.

Then, in 2015, starting with Battle for Zendikar, Wizards introduced the idea of “Masterpiece” cards, a not-quite-annual addition of ultra rare alternate art cards that can be pulled from packs in certain sets. Some of these cards are from the set in which they’re found, while many others are reprints of popular card staples in various formats. Basically expensive chase cards.

In 2018 they experimented with bringing back unique cards for buying booster boxes in stores (one which due to the whole Nexus of Fate dustup, they’ve again moved away from).

Finally in 2019 they made a pair of major changes. First, they added a high complexity compilation set (possibly to be released every 2-3 years) with Modern Horizons, which is aimed at eternal formats and enfranchised players and, yes, contains a bevy of unique cards. Second, starting with Throne of Eldraine, they introduced this dizzying new matrix of card options for each traditional expansion set going forward. In addition to the normal set printing there would be a small amount of “showcase” cards – alternate art forms of in-set cards with a differing style matching the set’s theme. In addition, sets would now contain extended art versions of cards (partially borderless), and a handful of fully borderless cards and planeswalkers. The odds and frequency that you can get these extended and/or borderless versions vary based on whether you buy a traditional draft booster box, a stepped up “set booster” box, or a tricked out “collector’s booster” box.

So, to recap, the current annual schedule going into the pandemic contained:

• 3 normal sets
• 1 core set
• 1 Masters reprint set
• 1 casual product (i.e. Commander decks)
• 1 expert set (minimum bi-annually)
• at least 1 premium art product (likely more with the Secret Drop series)
• Plus, each normal set now includes alternate art showcase cards, chase borderless cards, and extended art cards generally found by buying the more expensive booster boxes. They may also have a super rare art series accompanying them as well.

That’s…a lot.

The pandemic didn’t slow this down one bit. In fact, 2020 saw two more changes, with the introduction of “The List” slot in booster backs, where there’s a chance of getting a reprinted card from an older set and yet another product release in Jumpstart, an introductory product aimed at introducing new players to Magic (of course, with a handful of its own unique cards).

Fast forward to today, and, yes, there’s so much going on here release-wise. It’s confusing even to me, and I’ve been at this since 1994.

Basically, Wizards has ramped up its product releases hard and is saturating their own market with a blitz of options. While their traditional philosophy had been that they didn’t want to overload their customers, in the last few years they’ve gone the complete opposite direction by stating that not all of their products are aimed at the same audience, and therefore you get to pick and choose what you want to purchase. (Because FOMO clearly doesn’t exist.) While I certainly have reservations about such an approach in the long term, sales over the last couple years only continue to climb, so it’s at least working in the short term.

Personally, my time on the sidelines made me make concrete decisions on what I would and wouldn’t worry about collecting. Which essentially boils down to unique cards and not worrying about any of the 18,000 alternate art card versions that may float around a set or product…with the exception of the showcase cards.

Yes, Wizards’ business model of 2021 is very different than that of even a few year ago. We’ll see where it goes from here. In the meantime, here’s to the death of one business philosophy and the birth of another, with this week’s card pick.

Today we have: Deathsprout

Name: Deathsprout

Edition: War of the Spark / Commander 2020

Rarity:  Uncommon

Focus: Spot Removal / Land Fetch

Highlights: Black / Green is a fairly decent color pair at removal cards, both in terms of its potency and the scope of possible targets. One of the relatively newer additions to that family, Deathsprout, is no exception. War of the Spark had quite a bit going on with it conceptually, and with so much focus on the story itself – the culmination of a story arc started years ago – it was surprisingly easy to overlook some highly useful cards that didn’t command the same level of attention as some of the shinier cards in the set depicting planeswalkers, dragons, and Bolas’s endgame battle. Which for Deathsprout is kind of a shame.

As with many utility-driven cards, Deathsprout is a stapled together card, coming in at a modest four mana to cast and drawing on both its Green and Black elements with effects and an excellent flavor reflecting its color pairing. On the one side, Deathsprout allows you to destroy any creature at Instant speed with no restrictions – as long as it’s targetable. The best spot removals in Black are generally in the 2-3 mana range (e.g. Doom Blade, Murder) and is often higher at lower rarities, so Deathsprout is close to on par in that regard. On the other side, the card also lets you search for a basic land and put tapped on the battlefield. The math here is similar: at its best Green can fetch a basic land for 2-3 mana (e.g. Rampant Growth, Natural Connection), but rarely is it at Instant speed unless it’s a sacrifice effect of a card already on the battlefield.

Both effects independently are quite helpful in Magic, let alone in a format like Commander. Doing both at once as a means of maximizing card slot usage, doubly so. Being able to not only remove a problematic creature from the battlefield and gain an additional land drop, at the same time, on someone else’s turn, for just four mana? That’s a pretty useful card sitting in plain sight that’s beneficial at practically every stage of the game. It may not be flashy or need a lot of explanation, but such utility cards often let the results speak for themselves. And this one says you can’t go wrong with multiple core effects in a single card.

Plus, unlike some of the other Black / Green removal out there, this one won’t remotely hurt the piggy bank. You know, at least until it gets some super rare art treatment.

Keep an eye out for us to be regularly featuring other more accessible-but-worth-it Commander cards going forward. In the meantime, we’ll keep the light on for you.

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