Ugh, but I absolutely love MtG. That's really disappointing, but I guess it fits with the trend in MtG for pushing profit over content. Prices have gone up and I honestly don't see a ton of new ideas like I did some years ago.
I'll probably still do MtG drafts and whatnot until I find a viable alternative, but I'll probably buy less of their stuff.
I mean, mood, same, but I can print fakes from overseas for $30 per edh deck and scratch the itch with friends. Losing 60 deck comp formats hurts a little, but theres other games that last longer and cost way way less.
But youve seen the trend. MH2 forces format defining cards, which they refuse to ban until everyone buys them. Then, MH3 comes out as a branded LotR set to advertise amazons LotR flop show, new format defining staples are forced in, and then they ban the problem cards from MH2 cause everyone has them now so no one is buying.
You will see this again in a few years with a new advertisement stapled to cards required for competitive play. And it will happen for the rest of the games life.
MtG is now a billboard on your kitchen table, that you pay to put there. And then they fire half the staff.
I just don't play Standard or Modern and stick to Limited (tournaments) and Commander (casual play with friends). I tried MtG Arena, but hated the focus on the meta, and drafting was way too expensive for the enjoyment I got, especially since I don't care about building a collection.
If MtG Arena had a cheap subscription for unlimited drafting (don't keep the cards), I'd do it in a heartbeat and I wouldn't play much else. But it doesn't, so I just draft a few times a year with friends and play Commander with mostly premade decks with friends.
Thats whats fun about cubes, you cherry pick the 1-10 cards from a set you think are interesting and add them, and ignore the rest.
I know a guy who basically makes jumpstart cubes. Like, modular 1/4th or 1/6th cube pieces, which are set up with the pieces for broadish archetypes plus more niche specifics, which he can mix and match to shape the end result. Its way too big brained for me to grasp, but it seems to work well.
Im not huge into draft, but playing cube with older cards is fun as hell. Its neat seeing busted combo pieces being used how they likely were used when they were printed, rather than what they became 8 sets later.