While most of your post is spot-on, I don’t think Magic: The Gathering belongs here. Magic is a (fun, to us) game that I’ve played with my friends for decades. The cards also have nice art on them most of the time. People can and do totally spend as much on Magic as the other fandoms listed, but what game are Labubus for, or baseball cards? Thus, I feel M:TG is the odd one out in this list.
The similarity is the mystery box nature of them, not what’s intended to be done with them.
Are D&D rulebooks mysteries when you buy them, or do you know it’s the player’s handbook before purchase?
And btw you’re not better than other collectors simply because you play a little game with your collection, you’re the same as any philatelist.
Who said anything about being “better” than anyone else? Jesus Christ, is that what people took from “this one is not like the others”? I see the mystery box nature of the packs, of course, but the existence of the game around Magic means there’s a literal difference between that and all the other examples, for fuck’s sake.
To the point about D&D rulebooks, do you not know you’re buying a pack of Magic cards? No, you just don’t know what’s in the pack. If you already knew exactly what was in the D&D rulebook, why would you need to buy the book? That said, I’ll concede the point that they’re not really equivalent despite the fact that they’re both games played with printed pieces of paper, because that mystery aspect to a pack of Magic cards makes them different. Just like the presence of a game makes Magic different than the other examples.
It doesn’t make people who collect Magic cards any better. It just means their collection has a practical use in addition to display.
So then all books are now mystery boxes, and so are movies, tv shows, music, etc? Unless you’ve memorized every word? That’s not ridiculous at all lol.
No, to fit your analogy you’d need to buy “DnD Book” sight unseen, and then open a wrapper find out if it’s the PH, DMG, Tasha’s, whatever. “Aww man player’s handbook again? Why can’t I get the Monster Manual?!”
But yes it does kind of seem like you’re putting down those who collect “useless” things and your distinction of collecting to display vs collecting to play a game is tenuous at best. It’s like saying that collecting guitars is better than magic because at least you can gain a real skill instead of playing with sweaty dudes in the card shop every Friday, like, sure but also guitar is no more worthy a pursuit than magic which is no more worthy a pursuit than collecting action figures or [insert any “useless” item that brings someone joy.] Sometimes people like things that you don’t, it just be like that.
So then all books are now mystery boxes, and so are movies, tv shows, music, etc? Unless you’ve memorized every word? That’s not ridiculous at all lol.
I think you might have missed this from my reply:
That said, I’ll concede the point that they’re not really equivalent despite the fact that they’re both games played with printed pieces of paper, because that mystery aspect to a pack of Magic cards makes them different
But yes it does kind of seem like you’re putting down those who collect “useless” things and your distinction of collecting to display vs collecting to play a game is tenuous at best.
Listen pal, I already told you that wasn’t my intention, and clarified again that the existence of the game is the thing I hold as the differentiator between Magic and quite literally everything else on that list. You can do me the courtesy of believing me, or you can fuck off. You don’t get to dictate my intentions or meaning.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I said Magic: The Gathering but I was thinking of Weiss Schwarz, a less popular card battle game that uses anime characters. Sometimes called Waifu Wars because, well, waifus. Part of the gamble there was that the game would last, whereas Magic was a more established property.
I didn’t mean to shit on Magic. I got plenty to not like about it. When it came out, Wizards of the Coast was competing with TSR (who made D&D). Wizards ended up buying TSR out entirely. But, I think they’ve been good to the franchise, so I’ve cooled off on Magic. Even tried it. Got a starter set five, six years ago, tried playing, I was running forest or whatever you call it (all my lands were trees/forest, so I ran the related cards). Never really went anywhere. But I’ll tell ya what I love about Magic… the troll cards. So I was playing Weiss one day, guy comes up and asks for a high five. I bet you know where this is going — He Who Is Left Hanging or something like that. Had I denied him, he would have gotten some bonus in combat? And the card that forces you to set the whole game aside and run a sub-game out of your discards? Love it. So aside from the nice artwork, there are some really interesting game mechanics. I kinda wanted to get into Commander, but didn’t really have the patience/drive at that point. I know a guy with like a dozen Commander decks and we played a game, it was fun.
F_State@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
Magic can be fun but buying and opening packs is 100% a form of legalized gambling
voracitude@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Apparently a lot of people are reading my comment as defensive which wasn’t intended at all, so don’t worry, I wasn’t taking it badly 😊 Like I said, I strongly agree with you generally!