Does Magic Need Competitive Formats?
The following is a lightly-edited transcription of the Eternal Durdles episode published on Sept. 10, 2025. The full video can be seen below:
Zac Clark: Phil, I want to talk about a video from Distraction Makers, wherein the two co-hosts asked, "Does Standard need to exist?" I liked many of their points because they come from an EDH-perspective.
One of the hosts was pretty competitive; my level of competitive, probably didn't make the Pro Tour but grinded for a long time. They put up what they called a 'steel man case' for each situation: why Standard needs to exist and why it doesn't.
I thought it would be interesting to do that for Legacy: why Legacy does or does not need to exist in Magic: The Gathering (MTG). I'm not saying we need Legacy, but is Legacy necessary now for MTG to exist? In my heart of hearts, I say yes, but reality may bear out otherwise.
ForceofPhil: It's not a difficult question. From Wizard's of the Coast's (WotC) point of view, they can curate only to Commander and make every set that is for Standard or Pioneer or whatever other 1v1 format have a bunch of plants for Commander. We see that over and over.
Everything revolves around Commander now. The 1v1 formats are a byproduct of being grandfathered into the game.
Zac Clark: You're setting up the steel man argument for why it doesn't need to exist, but let's start on the positive: why Legacy and eternal formats do need to exist for the health of MTG; if they don't, it's detriment to the game.
My thesis is about the onboarding and off-boarding of players. People pick up MTG, and the life-cycle as a player is approximately seven years. That significantly shortens when you remove eternal formats, especially competitive eternal formats, because people don't have anything to aspire to.
If you're playing Commander, you play with friends. But eventually, you're like, "I've grown out of that group of friends or vice-versa. Seven years is a long time. I need a new thing to do." Over that time, you've put together a card collection which has worth and can be ported into other formats like Legacy, Modern, or Vintage.
You can play eternal formats and still get joy out of your MTG cards. That means you continue purchasing Magic cards, right? It's year seven; do I quit or do I keep playing? Well, I can still play Commander with this group of random people; that's fine, but I'm having fun building a Legacy deck. It's something to build to. Players need that financial incentive: the sunk fallacy of "I still have cards. I still need to keep buying stuff."
I would venture to say everyone plays more than one MTG format, even if they mostly play Commander; Cube or Draft. With players who only Draft sell off cards off afterward and just keep Drafting as limited-only players, I understand. I don't see Commander-only players staying that way forever. If you remove ways to play 60-card formats, there's no reason to keep playing or buying cards.
ForceofPhil: Commander is the only thing that they play because it is the most-played format by an overwhelmingly large margin.
Zac Clark: I agree, but I don't think the majority of players only play Commander.
ForceofPhil: An astronomical majority of players only play Commander. Like an obscene, like...
Zac Clark: I think a majority of players play Commander and then even dabble in something else.
ForceofPhil: 30 million players worldwide. I'd venture around the 25 million mark is where it's Commander only.*
Zac Clark: No, I don't think that that many players play. There's many kitchen-table players who don't play Commander. They're outliers who buy whatever they see at the store and will never be affected by this argument one way or the other.
*Editor's Note: WotC has said that there are approximately 40 million players worldwide, of which about 40% (16 million) *primarily* play Commander.
ForceofPhil: You know what they see at the store? Commander product.
Your argument that players can use their cards other formats and that people keep buying new product because they can use it forever and always is not true. WotC power creeps what makes it and what doesn't. Modern, Legacy, and Vintage use all the same cards aside from Moxen in Vintage.
Look at threats, you can play Psychic Frog and Murktide Regent and Orcish Bowmaster and Psychic Frog and Orcish Bowmaster and Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student and Urza Saga and Orcish Bowmaster and Psychic Frog and Murktide Regent. In Legacy, you get Up the Beanstalk. In Modern, you get Expressive Iteration but it's too slow because people just play the energy package that WotC preconned to in Modern Horizons set and now people port that to Legacy.
"You can play whatever card you want forever" is an argument of the past. Most cards can't keep up with the arbitrary power creep.
Zac Clark: Some cards won't be power creeped; Dual lands that Commander players do collect.
ForceofPhil: But you're not buying them from WotC. They can't reprint them; can't resell them.
Zac Clark: Without the onus on players to go and buy those cards for other formats, why are they even getting it? Why aren't they just proxying? When you proxy for the first time, you realize it affects nothing. You keep doing it and go, "New Commander set, huh? I'll just proxy that whole deck."
ForceofPhil: They should.
Zac Clark: Quarter of the price. I firmly believe that that is the way to go because Commander tournaments don't exist.
ForceofPhil: The Commander base is so overwhelming compared to players who play 1v1 formats that WotC put all their chips into the basket of unsanctioned MTG. Commander players could ignore WotC, proxy their cards, and play with proxies wherever they wanted since its all casual. Even in conventions. There wouldn't be any enforcement to dissallow proxies because it's not sanctioned. Yet, it still makes WotC billions of dollars.
Zac Clark: We were talking about that seven-year gap, right? Same thing with other intellectual properties (IP) like Spider-Man, Lord of the Rings, Fallout — there's no good data on retention because we haven't seen if somebody buys Lord of the Rings product and goes 'Cool, I played with that for a few years and I'm out since they didn't print more Lord of the Rings stuff.' Retention falls if you have no other reason to play the game.
ForceofPhil: Retention isn't the goal.
Zac Clark: Retention becomes a goal. You need some amount of retention. You can't have $250 million Final Fantasy opening weekend and then hope to repeat that process for every single IP. They put out a Final Fantasy set, but they're not going to put out another one, so the Final Fantasy stalwarts will stop playing MTG.
Eventually, WotC will hit full saturation on fan service. The Venn diagram becomes a full circle when every fandom gets served.
ForceofPhil: They've turned MTG into a game engine for other IPs to leech on. By the time WotC can even catch up to what has already out, there will be a whole new rush of things to build more on. There is enough out right now that if WotC started just with the IPs currently available, they would never be able to catch up.
"History has written more than we will ever be able to create."
Zac Clark: Why do we need legacy? Yeah, I'm going to buy some Spider-Man cards because I have to. I don't have a choice, because I have to remain competitive.
Mr. EDH guy does not have to. The game is however he wants to make it. If WotC wants people to continue buying cards, they have to force them to opt in. The only way to do that is competitive formats.
If you force people to opt into your business model, you can print whatever you want. I don't want to buy Spider-Man cards. I like Spider-Man. I like Marvel Comics. I have to buy though, because Legacy is competitive format and there may be some Spider-Man cards that are good in one of my decks or are power crept enough. A casual player can buy one deck and be done.
ForceofPhil: Zoom out. There are people who are retained MTG players because of MTG the game, not because of the products they're making. The game engine of MTG a compelling-enough puzzle that is forever interesting to try to solve. It's unsolvable but makes you believe you can solve it.
But selling out to all the other IPs sells out the history the game has built. WotC arbitrate scarcity now with the 1 of 500 cards and printing the masterpiece stuff and tell us it's worth more. The story and clout that the community built is more or less obsolete.
Psychic Frog is the best creature in Vintage. It was one of the better creatures in Legacy before it was banned. It's still one of the best creatures in Modern. It was designed that way on rate. How many players playing Psychic Frog could tell you what inspired that card in the first place?
Zac Clark: Probably very few.
ForceofPhil: Probably very few. Psychic Frog is a really lazy power-crept variation of Psychotog.
Zac Clark: It's not just Psychotog. It's Shadowmage Infiltrator and Psychotog put together.
ForceofPhil: WotC makes a lot of designs that are self-referential to the game's history. With all the new power creep and the expansion into other IPs, it cold-shoulders MTG's history. When those self-referential type cards are made, it will only be for the players who can see an Easter egg rather than an homage.
ForceofPhil: RK Post's art on Secret Identity in the Spider-Man set is a callback to his Unmask art. RK Post leaned on the history and weight that he's had in the game.
The self-referential of that art is the perfect encapsulation of it's hitting on entrenched players who understand what that callback refers to. The thing that's lost isn't entrenched players, it's the gravitas the game had before WotC sold it out.
Zac Clark: WotC doesn't have to worry about balance anymore either without 1v1 formats. They don't have to be restricted by wha