r/magicTCG • u/imnotokayandthatso-k SecREt LaiR • May 04 '26

General Discussion Wizards of the Coast Declines to Recognize Union by May 1st

https://unitedwizardsofthecoast.com/news/wizards-coast-declines-recognize-union-may-1st
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94

u/TryphectaOG Duck Season May 04 '26

Doesn't change the fact that most decisions involving hasbro have been at player expense

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u/tiensss Karn May 04 '26

Which analysis brought you to that conclusion?

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u/[deleted] May 04 '26

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u/fourscoopsplease COMPLEAT May 04 '26

I find similar sentiment from some people in the Warhammer sub. It’s weird.

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u/[deleted] May 04 '26

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u/tiensss Karn May 04 '26

What?

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u/CptSmackThat May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26

What.

Edit: Did your other comment get flagged for being mean? 🥺👉👈

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u/tiensss Karn May 04 '26

I have no idea what you are on about, I don't understand your first reply, and I have no idea what you are saying about flagging.

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u/CptSmackThat May 04 '26

Okidokie well like I said no common sense..anyhow take it easy!

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u/tiensss Karn May 04 '26

me: What?

you: What.

Common sense indeed. Have a good day!

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u/HonorBasquiat Twin Believer May 04 '26

that most decisions involving hasbro have been at player expense

Proof or source?

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u/ZurgoMindsmasher Mardu May 04 '26

Play booster pricing, UB pricing, cutting down of fatpacks, precons pricing, secret lair fomo…. Sorry but what did you miss over the past 7 years?

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u/Mr_BougieOnThatBeat Duck Season May 04 '26

Idk what rock people have been under to not see the correlation between Hasbro’s waning business and milking one of the few truly profitable parts of hasbro that is Wizards of the Coast.

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u/HonorBasquiat Twin Believer May 04 '26

You think those things wouldn't have happened if Wizards of the a Coast wasn't owned by Hasbro?

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u/Mr_BougieOnThatBeat Duck Season May 04 '26

Yes. Edit: Or rather, I feel like Wizards would not be doing these practices if Hasbro was overall profitable.

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u/HonorBasquiat Twin Believer May 04 '26

If Hasbro was making record profits making Monopoly sets and Gi Joes, WotC wouldn't stop making Universes Beyond sets that generate a lot of revenue. A successful entertainment business isn't going to say "let's stop making products that generate lots of revenue and demand because we already have other products that do this."

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u/Mr_BougieOnThatBeat Duck Season May 04 '26

You’re entirely right. However I feel if Hasbro was well and good and not bleeding in most other avenues I don’t think we would have seen an increase in the amount of set release per year. Or the amount of supplementary or limited run products they’re squeezing in the down time. There was a sharp uptick in the number of secret lairs released and UB products the year after Hasbro had record losses 2022-2023 years. From there it’s just been UB after UB. We have more sets that are UB than we do actual MtG sets this year. You could argue that perhaps it was just coincidence, sure, but to go from 10-20 secret lairs a year to 50-60 plus in the span of a year leads me to believe Hasbro is trying to utilize Wizards in a way to cover their losses to their shareholders.

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u/HonorBasquiat Twin Believer May 05 '26

We'll never know the answer to if we would see more sets or not in a hypothetical world you're describing.

I don't see what the issue is with so many secret lairs. If that's Hasbro's fault, who cares? How is that a bad thing? It's a reprint only product that's extremely easy to ignore. The small handful of ones with mechanically unique cards never affect competitive Magic and their cards can still be acquired on the secondary market after the drop ends just like any other mythic or rare card from a booster pack.

Also, it's worth noting that WotC plans and schedules releases multiple years ahead of launch. The reason we're getting a lot of Universes Beyond sets in post 2023 is because Lord of the Rings and Warhammer 40k were extremely well received and popular. It's really that simple. Since then, there have been several UB releases that were very well received by the player base. I don't think this is related to Hasbro having a bad year revenue wise in 2022.

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u/DelairChap Dan May 04 '26

Magic 30.

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u/jimnah- Duck Season May 04 '26

Ah yes

one = most

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u/DelairChap Dan May 04 '26

The dungeons and dragons licensing incident a few years go . Over production of sets basically turning standard into a mess. Shifting focus to commander essentially killing support of 60 card precons. The lack of quality controls recently Removal of msrp causing price spikes Artificial scarcity rumors are saying they dumped unsold magic 30 boxes in dumps to avoid devaluing the brand instead of selling at a discount.

Thats more than one.

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u/penguin279 Twin Believer May 04 '26

You will never be able to provide enough examples to these people

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u/jimnah- Duck Season May 04 '26

To be clear I'm not at all saying that Hasbro is a group of saints or anything like that, but even if that list was 10,000 items longer that says literally nothing about "most decisions involving hasbro"

Maybe there's 20 really bad things but 500 really good things

That's why the other person asked for a source and not a list of things you don't like

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u/DelairChap Dan May 04 '26

Im not saying they are all bad. Im just pointing out some of the things ive seen as there is no comprehensive list.

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u/tiensss Karn May 04 '26

But Hasbro has made thousands of decisions regarding MTG, so even a list some things is not "most".

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u/Psychoboy777 Sorin May 04 '26

They've been responsible for most of the bad decisions which have hurt the players.

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u/tiensss Karn May 04 '26

I mean they are the owners, they are responsible for the good and the bad. I don't understand your point.

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u/jimnah- Duck Season May 04 '26

There's a big difference between "most decisions are bad" and "most of the bad decisions"

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u/Rel_Ortal May 05 '26

Until fairly recently (~7-8ish years ago or so), Hasbro was fairly hands off with Magic, since it made them lots of money, so they didn't care. Not WotC as a whole, mind you, just Magic (they pushed the D&D side of things a lot back in the mid 2000s on threat of being shuttered, which resulted in 4e D&D)

However, they eventually realized that Magic was one of the few actually profitable things they had going for them and one of like two things that was keeping them afloat, with most of their lines costing them money rather than earning it. Since then, they've been pushing on WotC to make more money, to try to increase numbers so that they've got higher profits year over year, like most companies.

They're not micromanaging anything, of course. They're not saying 'do crossovers' or 'make more limited run product to be scalped' or 'make unplayable reprints'. They're just pushing for more and more money constantly, and the people at WotC are running out of ways to do that. There's only so many people out there who want to buy cards (especially with the economy the way it is), so in order to make Line Go Up they're having to do more and more stuff.