I mean, okay. UB won't be standard legal, but all they have to do is print a crossover set that is declared not to be part of UB and still make it standard legal. It's so simple I wouldn't even call it a loophole.
Am I suddenly going to tell people they cant play with cards if they came from Time Spiral Remastered?
Nobody is saying that though.
All people are saying is "If you play UB I might not play with you or not play a second match with you."
And you know, if you would say that to me about Time Spiral Remastered cards? Sure. That's fair. I wouldn't be mad, because you are free to play and not play what you want. The idea of being entitled to playing with a specific person literally never crossed my mind before this thread.
I don't know why you guys keep having to twist "I don't want to play this" into "I tell people they can't play this" in order to make people who don't like UB look like unreasonable ********s. It's almost as if there is no good moral/ethical argument against not wanting to play UB.
it means their enjoyment of the game went down a lot because of the external IP, so all the other things magic has going for were out weighted.
It seems like a tantrum really, you drop your enjoyment because one addition to the game, maybe you didn't enjoy the game that much in the first place. Anyway, seems like something deeper going on, I would talk with my therapist for sure.
"People who stop playing a game because they don't enjoy it anymore have mental health issues." is a take I certainly did not expect to read in this thread.
I don't understand this position. These new toys take ABSOLUTELY NOTHING away from existing players.
It takes away from Magic about as much as canonizing the Star Trek universe into Star Wars takes away from Star Wars fans. So yeah, it can totally have a negative impact on someone's enjoyment of the game depending on what they enjoy about the game. You don't get to tell people what to enjoy.
Conversely, these IPs already exist. There is nothing that takes away from those players if these crossovers would not be made. You want to play a LOTR card game? Great, there's actually two made already. You even get to choose. The "taking away" argument makes no sense especially when those IPs already exist.
I would also posit that even if you do like these crossovers, that they are still hurtful for the game in the long run, as I already mentioned. This has the potential power to actually damage the brand, which directly influences Magic players joining and staying in the game, and that can build up. So yeah, I think even people who do like the crossovers in theory should be wary of the longterm effects in practise.
This adds something new and nice for crossover fans and fans of the other IPs, attracting new blood to the game (which is an objectively good thing).
Is it though? There are two factors that determine the health/growth of a game: New User Acquisition and Retention. (Forgive me if I use those terms if they feel a little unpersonal and dehumanizing to the player, but it's the terms used in the video game industry so I am using them out of familiarity. Tells you a bit how the video game industry sees players, I guess... )
New User Acquisition is basically new players entering the game. Due to players leaving due to various reasons (let's call it entropy) you basically need a constant flow of fresh blood. Retention is the ability of a game to keep players in the game.
Now the thing is, crossovers may help with acquisition, maybe. Let's assume that someone who likes LOTR feels like committing to an entire game just because they saw Gandalf on the box. (I personally find it unlikely and I doubt that's the real goal of the product, the real goal being to increase sales with already enfranchised players by selling them two things they already like, at once. But whatever. Sake of argument.) But okay, we may get some additional players. But what about the retention. This hypothetical player most likely only got into it because of LOTR. But UB won't be able to spit out a LOTR set every quarter of the year, or even every year. Maybe we get one every decade, if we're lucky and it was received well. (Kamigawa fans are still waiting...) The player will likely end up not buying future product and drop out again entirely. Some of these players may convert to regular Magic players, but the rate is probably really low. People you draw in under 'false pretenses' ("Look, we have LOTR!" and then not delivering more afterwards) does not result in loyal players usually.
But then you may alienate already enfranchised players. You may also "reactivate" dropped out players (probably the secondary goal of this product). So who knows what's going to be stronger, but I just don't think this will have any real impact on getting new players in. At least not longterm.
The way I see it it's chiefly a way for players already in the game to spend more. Which... Is kind of on par with all the flood of recent products they spit out, like the secret drops and the double set Innistrad. It feels like Hasbro is losing faith in the brand and they pressure Wizards to produce as much revenue as they can before the game dies. Maybe Hasbro knows more than we do. Maybe they are paranoid. Maybe it's a battle of egos among Hasbro executives. Maybe I'm full of crap. Who knows.
I'm asking because that's pretty much the granddaddy of crossover IPs in one platform. If you say you like SSB then you can essentially say dick all about MTG and its forthcoming developmental plans.
'buster
The crossover content in SSB is contained to SSB though. I can choose to play SSB or Zelda. Link being in SSB does not lessen my experience of playing any of the Zelda games. But the same is not true for Magic. As long as the format allows it, anyone can play any card they want.
Imagine Bowser, Peach and the villager or whoever is now part of the Zelda universe and they walk around in BotW and all future games. I mean, some players may not mind it, or even like it, but others will definitely say "What the hell, Nintendo?!", rightfully so.
Or if Star Trek was suddenly canonized into the Star Wars universe. It's the same thing, because it isn't contained. It would affect all future installments of either IP.
Note that I am not talking about these crossovers being canon, because they won't. But the issue is that both are comparable in terms of how the franchise is consumed. Star Wars and Star Trek are movies with a narrative and worldbuilding, while Magic is a game showcasing certain cards of the universe. No single Magic match is canon, but at least it's all Magic. Until, with the new universes beyond, it's not anymore.
It worked for Marvel, but that's because superheroes are their own brands and the worldbuilding was... there. As such they could be easily consolidated into one setting. It's not easy to consolidate Warhammer into the Magic universe, at least not any easier (or controversial) than consolidating Star Wars into Star Trek.
the cardboard crack comic is extremely relevant. some would argue it isn't. it'll never get to that point. it doesn't seem like it will right now, but what about in 5 years? how about 10? where will we be in 15? will the game even exist? will anyone seek it out any more if it doesn't even have its own identity? its being treated like its no different than monopoly, that at its heart its still just monopoly despite whats slapped on the board. games like that though, they don't have a fierce identity, they don't have over two decades of flavor and lore. would it be star wars if the jedi were actually my little ponies that pilot helicopters and turn into werewolves or is it just a ******* mess at that point?
I think this is an important point. This new move bears the danger of eroding the brand. The effects will be subtle but probably affect how many players enter the game and how many stay. It's not so much that people will not necessarily like it and thus not get into it or drop out. It's just that the game isn't particularly recognizable anymore. It's not that you can point out any particular instance where this move directly hurt the game, but it may lead to a death of thousand unnoticed papercuts.
And when numbers drop, corporate will take even more desperate measures to try and save the brand, alienating more of their established palyer base while confusing new players as the game pulls in multiple different directions.
I don't have the numbers and I'm just a rando with a keyboard so what the hell to I even know, but the past years Magic hasn't felt particularly healthy, and I don't mean in terms of raw numbers of players but in terms of how likely the brand is able to survive itself in the upcoming years. So many business decisions just reek of desperation as if Hasbro is aware (or just pessimistic) that Magic likely won't last much longer and they just try to milk it for as much as they can before it's gone. There are no recent decisions or changes to the game that help its longevity. Instead they cut out things that kept Magic stable just to increase the output of product.
Just like the stack, removing mana burn, the introduction of Planeswalkers and ending of Extended was going to kill Magic, I find your rantings less doomsday, and more pompousgrandstanding...
"People in the past have been wrong about Magic dying, therefore Magic will never die." is a pretty weird take. Magic will die, that's just the nature of things. The question is just when and how it will happen.
The stack and the removal of mana burn did not kill Magic because both were in truth measures to make Magic more robust and helped its longevity. Everyone who knew what they were talking about knew that neither was bad for the game. The only people who complained about it were the usual "they're dumbing down the game" crowd. Planeswalkers didn't kill Magic because it was really just a new (minor) card type that didn't fundamentally change how Magic was played.
But this is different because it has far reaching -and irreversible- consequences not just to some people who don't like the change, but also to potential new players. It not only changes the experience of the game itself, but also how it is perceived from the outside.
Will it kill Magic? Hell if I know. Humans are absolutely terrible at predicting the future, so I won't even try. But it wouldn't surprise me if it did. If it will kill Magic it won't be because 90% of the player base decides to leave the game. It will happen over the course of years as the effects will be felt. And by the time the downwards spiral has started people will blame other things for the downfall of Magic, things that may have contributed to it, but not started it.
The problem is with the definition people use. Someone is going to propose a game of commander and a number of people will join or not join. Then when they see that someone is playing these cards some people will go "Oh, we don't allow those cards." This is gatekeeping, it's an unspoken extra modifier on what is allowed. No one gets up set when you say "Who wants to play standard" and you don't allow someone to play their modern burn deck. However, when you say "Who wants to play standard" then sit down with a player, see their opening play and go "We don't allow Rogues here it's unfun" then you are now gatekeeping. Even spelling it out makes it gatekeeping because you are modifying something everyone understands and accepts into something that has expressly exclude others. "Who wants to play Standard, no Rogues, those suck."
Irrelevant. It's still the same thing. Just because there's no official name for a format doesn't not make it a format. A format is by definition a set of cards allowed to be played in a defined environment. *cough calling non-official formats not real formats is actually gatekeeping as per the definition by the way, because you are excluding certain formats from being seen as equal to other formats cough*
Also I don't really see that above situation to be particularly realistic. When a new player will join a playgroup (or rather is invited to one) there is likely already some information about what product they have purchased and/or want to purchase. In a store environment people will likely still play the current match and then simply not play again. Claiming that people will be dicks about not wanting to play a certain format is about the same strategy used to paint "SJW's" and vegetarians as these extremely unreasonable and judgemental people, when in reality that's not true except in extreme cases.
Even if it was, though, still not gatekeeping. Being a dick doesn't mean you exclude someone from an activity or group. If someone were to somehow take political control of their local store and set up a bunch of rules of how to play that everone has to follow, then maybe it'd be true. But that is an absurd fantasy. Anyone can play Magic however they like as long as they find a willing playgroup.
I'm really confused by this. How are all of you interacting with people where walking away respectfully from something you don't want to be a part of is so outlandish a concept?
Basically this. I'm baffled by the fact that some people here consider "not playing a game with someone" to be mean or gatekeepy.
In my playgroup we tend to play different games throughout a board game evening and not all games are for everyone. And sometimes someone says "oh, you're playing <game> now? I'll pass this round." and then they do something else until we start the next game after that. Now call me naive, but I would have assumed that adults all around the world take a similar approach. "Oh, you're playing silverbordered commander? Eh, not my thing. I'll pass this round." is -to me- a perfectly reasonable thing to say. I guess commander is a special case because the games take longer, but even then you could communicate that beforehand.
Oh and on the note of gatekeeping, I have a complete Silver Bordered EDH deck that prior to lockdown, I used to bring to my LGS and force into Commander games. I say force because by it's very nature, people immediately refuse to play with me because "I dont want to be forced to do the Hokey Pokey." This was an actual line dropped on me once and the sheer IGNORANCE of it left me speechless. But take my example and apply it to Johnny, LotR fanboy who has just built his first Magic deck and heard that this local comics and gaming store has people playing Magic, so he goes and takes his deck to play. But when he shows up to play, instead of maybe playing a game or two or if not willing to play against him offering a spare deck to play a couple games of Magic with him players instead give the above vehement rebuttal and oust him from the group "because Im.not playing with those cards" as I see SOOOO many people commenting, YOU are gatekeeping and YOU are part of the problem.
I'm not sure I follow your argument. You forced people into playing a commander format with you and... What is the takeaway here besides the fact that you're a jerk about it?
The gatekeeper analogy continues to be absurd. There are tons of playgroups that only play commander. Imagine little Timmy wants to play draft. Wow what a bunch of gatekeepers. Most players don't want to play with proxies. Sheer unimaginable that 99% of all Magic players are "proxy card" gatekeepers.
Once again, nobody is keeping you out of an activity or group. (As per the definition of gatekeeping) All that happens is that you propose an activity (or group) and others decline to join.
I generally figure that it's your deck, your rules. This is why I really wish they'd commit alternate names for MtG stuff - people can play with the other IP stuff, but those that would rather not have MtG themed versions to use. Some people don't like foils, but demanding that other players don't play foils against them would be pretty weird. Maybe your playgroup could have a no foils rule, but if some random person shows up at the game store, it'd be pretty weird to walk away from a casual game because they brought their shiny Mountains.
But apparently people don't dislike foils enough to not play against them. Your argument is basically "if you don't like something, you have to refuse playing with it and you have to treat all your dislikes equally", which quite evidently real people (as opposed to the made up straw man) don't share. Everyone can set their own boundaries. You are not allowed to tell people who to play with and what games to join. I may dislike foils (for the sake of argument) but still agree to play against an opponent with an all foil deck. But that does not make me a hypocrite when I refuse to play with an opponent who plays, say, un-cards. I can even reserve to make a distinction within the same category based on scope. I can refuse to play with an opponent with a blinged up all foil deck, even though I played against an opponent before who had one or two foils in their deck.
Once again, the crux is: Nobody is entitled to playing with me. And I am simply baffled that we are having this conversation. Is the idea that multiplayer games are consentual in nature such a novel concept?
As for the "if you don't like it don't put it in your deck" argument: I mean, people say that as if that would stop me from playing with those cards. But that's not true. All it means is that I won't have them in my deck. But I may still play with them through in-game interactions, like targeting cards, blocking or simply just being exposed to them during gameplay. It actually annoys me with the godzilla cards on magic arena, because you can't stop your opponent from having these in their decks. My Magic experience is actually lessened from having to fight godzilla or mothra. I understand that this isn't true for everyone, but it is true for me, and I don't see why I should be pressured into doing something I don't want to do rather than just me simply not engaging with it. I haven't touched Magic Arena in a while mostly for this reason and I guess I am literally gatekeeping half the magic community by not playing Magic Arena, based on the logic of some people here.
(Magic Arena is a funny case because they could have easily allowed for disabling special artworks on client side through an option. There's apparently even an option but it's only for your own cards, or the function is bugged, I don't know. I assume it's so that players who pay money for their bling can shove their bling in their opponent's faces, whether they want or not.)
Basically this. Nobody's going to force you to put those cards in your deck. But if you are preventing other people from playing with you because they picked up a card with a particular creative treatment, then yeah, that's 100% gatekeeping. You can certainly chose to own that, but that's what you're doing.
You're using a really messed up definition of gatekeeping. Gatekeeping is preventing someone from doing or entering a certain activity or group. By not playing with a person for whatever reason I am not gatekeeping. In fact, if anything, I am keeping myself out of an activity. They are still free to play with whoever they want. They simply have to find a person to agree to play the game the way they want.
Is it gatekeeping when a person comes to the store and wants to play a draft of a certain set and people say "nah, we don't draft" or "nah, we'd rather play <another set>". No, it really isn't and I don't know what to tell people who think that that person is entitled to playing with anyone. I am not anyone's plaything and claiming I am gatekeeping and keeping players from playing, because I am not interested in playing a certain format is really disgusting. What is wrong with you.
Fun fact: I don't like how commander handles the hybrid rule. It's backwards and completely misses the point of hybrid (not meaning to start an argument here on that, just using that as an example). Would it be justified for me to claim other commander players are gatekeeping me because they refuse to play with my version of the hybrid rule? If I threw a tantrum at the store that I was gatekept out of commander for this people would (rightfully) call me insane.
Excuse me but demanding people to play with you under the threat of calling you a gatekeeper is kind of insane. Playing a game is still a consentual act.
I have no intention to play with superman and gandalf and captain kirk in a magic game. Calling people gatekeepers because they choose what and how to enjoy their entertainment is pretty digusting. You're not entitled to playing with me and I reserve the right to spend my free time however I choose.
The upcoming DnD set is standard legal.
I mean, okay. UB won't be standard legal, but all they have to do is print a crossover set that is declared not to be part of UB and still make it standard legal. It's so simple I wouldn't even call it a loophole.
Nobody is saying that though.
All people are saying is "If you play UB I might not play with you or not play a second match with you."
And you know, if you would say that to me about Time Spiral Remastered cards? Sure. That's fair. I wouldn't be mad, because you are free to play and not play what you want. The idea of being entitled to playing with a specific person literally never crossed my mind before this thread.
I don't know why you guys keep having to twist "I don't want to play this" into "I tell people they can't play this" in order to make people who don't like UB look like unreasonable ********s. It's almost as if there is no good moral/ethical argument against not wanting to play UB.
"People who stop playing a game because they don't enjoy it anymore have mental health issues." is a take I certainly did not expect to read in this thread.
Mmh, when you put it like that, maybe you are right. I'll have to rethink my opinions on the matter in light of this new evidence.
It takes away from Magic about as much as canonizing the Star Trek universe into Star Wars takes away from Star Wars fans. So yeah, it can totally have a negative impact on someone's enjoyment of the game depending on what they enjoy about the game. You don't get to tell people what to enjoy.
Conversely, these IPs already exist. There is nothing that takes away from those players if these crossovers would not be made. You want to play a LOTR card game? Great, there's actually two made already. You even get to choose. The "taking away" argument makes no sense especially when those IPs already exist.
I would also posit that even if you do like these crossovers, that they are still hurtful for the game in the long run, as I already mentioned. This has the potential power to actually damage the brand, which directly influences Magic players joining and staying in the game, and that can build up. So yeah, I think even people who do like the crossovers in theory should be wary of the longterm effects in practise.
Is it though? There are two factors that determine the health/growth of a game: New User Acquisition and Retention. (Forgive me if I use those terms if they feel a little unpersonal and dehumanizing to the player, but it's the terms used in the video game industry so I am using them out of familiarity. Tells you a bit how the video game industry sees players, I guess... )
New User Acquisition is basically new players entering the game. Due to players leaving due to various reasons (let's call it entropy) you basically need a constant flow of fresh blood. Retention is the ability of a game to keep players in the game.
Now the thing is, crossovers may help with acquisition, maybe. Let's assume that someone who likes LOTR feels like committing to an entire game just because they saw Gandalf on the box. (I personally find it unlikely and I doubt that's the real goal of the product, the real goal being to increase sales with already enfranchised players by selling them two things they already like, at once. But whatever. Sake of argument.) But okay, we may get some additional players. But what about the retention. This hypothetical player most likely only got into it because of LOTR. But UB won't be able to spit out a LOTR set every quarter of the year, or even every year. Maybe we get one every decade, if we're lucky and it was received well. (Kamigawa fans are still waiting...) The player will likely end up not buying future product and drop out again entirely. Some of these players may convert to regular Magic players, but the rate is probably really low. People you draw in under 'false pretenses' ("Look, we have LOTR!" and then not delivering more afterwards) does not result in loyal players usually.
But then you may alienate already enfranchised players. You may also "reactivate" dropped out players (probably the secondary goal of this product). So who knows what's going to be stronger, but I just don't think this will have any real impact on getting new players in. At least not longterm.
The way I see it it's chiefly a way for players already in the game to spend more. Which... Is kind of on par with all the flood of recent products they spit out, like the secret drops and the double set Innistrad. It feels like Hasbro is losing faith in the brand and they pressure Wizards to produce as much revenue as they can before the game dies. Maybe Hasbro knows more than we do. Maybe they are paranoid. Maybe it's a battle of egos among Hasbro executives. Maybe I'm full of crap. Who knows.
The crossover content in SSB is contained to SSB though. I can choose to play SSB or Zelda. Link being in SSB does not lessen my experience of playing any of the Zelda games. But the same is not true for Magic. As long as the format allows it, anyone can play any card they want.
Imagine Bowser, Peach and the villager or whoever is now part of the Zelda universe and they walk around in BotW and all future games. I mean, some players may not mind it, or even like it, but others will definitely say "What the hell, Nintendo?!", rightfully so.
Or if Star Trek was suddenly canonized into the Star Wars universe. It's the same thing, because it isn't contained. It would affect all future installments of either IP.
Note that I am not talking about these crossovers being canon, because they won't. But the issue is that both are comparable in terms of how the franchise is consumed. Star Wars and Star Trek are movies with a narrative and worldbuilding, while Magic is a game showcasing certain cards of the universe. No single Magic match is canon, but at least it's all Magic. Until, with the new universes beyond, it's not anymore.
It worked for Marvel, but that's because superheroes are their own brands and the worldbuilding was... there. As such they could be easily consolidated into one setting. It's not easy to consolidate Warhammer into the Magic universe, at least not any easier (or controversial) than consolidating Star Wars into Star Trek.
I think this is an important point. This new move bears the danger of eroding the brand. The effects will be subtle but probably affect how many players enter the game and how many stay. It's not so much that people will not necessarily like it and thus not get into it or drop out. It's just that the game isn't particularly recognizable anymore. It's not that you can point out any particular instance where this move directly hurt the game, but it may lead to a death of thousand unnoticed papercuts.
And when numbers drop, corporate will take even more desperate measures to try and save the brand, alienating more of their established palyer base while confusing new players as the game pulls in multiple different directions.
I don't have the numbers and I'm just a rando with a keyboard so what the hell to I even know, but the past years Magic hasn't felt particularly healthy, and I don't mean in terms of raw numbers of players but in terms of how likely the brand is able to survive itself in the upcoming years. So many business decisions just reek of desperation as if Hasbro is aware (or just pessimistic) that Magic likely won't last much longer and they just try to milk it for as much as they can before it's gone. There are no recent decisions or changes to the game that help its longevity. Instead they cut out things that kept Magic stable just to increase the output of product.
"People in the past have been wrong about Magic dying, therefore Magic will never die." is a pretty weird take. Magic will die, that's just the nature of things. The question is just when and how it will happen.
The stack and the removal of mana burn did not kill Magic because both were in truth measures to make Magic more robust and helped its longevity. Everyone who knew what they were talking about knew that neither was bad for the game. The only people who complained about it were the usual "they're dumbing down the game" crowd. Planeswalkers didn't kill Magic because it was really just a new (minor) card type that didn't fundamentally change how Magic was played.
But this is different because it has far reaching -and irreversible- consequences not just to some people who don't like the change, but also to potential new players. It not only changes the experience of the game itself, but also how it is perceived from the outside.
Will it kill Magic? Hell if I know. Humans are absolutely terrible at predicting the future, so I won't even try. But it wouldn't surprise me if it did. If it will kill Magic it won't be because 90% of the player base decides to leave the game. It will happen over the course of years as the effects will be felt. And by the time the downwards spiral has started people will blame other things for the downfall of Magic, things that may have contributed to it, but not started it.
Irrelevant. It's still the same thing. Just because there's no official name for a format doesn't not make it a format. A format is by definition a set of cards allowed to be played in a defined environment. *cough calling non-official formats not real formats is actually gatekeeping as per the definition by the way, because you are excluding certain formats from being seen as equal to other formats cough*
Also I don't really see that above situation to be particularly realistic. When a new player will join a playgroup (or rather is invited to one) there is likely already some information about what product they have purchased and/or want to purchase. In a store environment people will likely still play the current match and then simply not play again. Claiming that people will be dicks about not wanting to play a certain format is about the same strategy used to paint "SJW's" and vegetarians as these extremely unreasonable and judgemental people, when in reality that's not true except in extreme cases.
Even if it was, though, still not gatekeeping. Being a dick doesn't mean you exclude someone from an activity or group. If someone were to somehow take political control of their local store and set up a bunch of rules of how to play that everone has to follow, then maybe it'd be true. But that is an absurd fantasy. Anyone can play Magic however they like as long as they find a willing playgroup.
Basically this. I'm baffled by the fact that some people here consider "not playing a game with someone" to be mean or gatekeepy.
In my playgroup we tend to play different games throughout a board game evening and not all games are for everyone. And sometimes someone says "oh, you're playing <game> now? I'll pass this round." and then they do something else until we start the next game after that. Now call me naive, but I would have assumed that adults all around the world take a similar approach. "Oh, you're playing silverbordered commander? Eh, not my thing. I'll pass this round." is -to me- a perfectly reasonable thing to say. I guess commander is a special case because the games take longer, but even then you could communicate that beforehand.
I'm not sure I follow your argument. You forced people into playing a commander format with you and... What is the takeaway here besides the fact that you're a jerk about it?
The gatekeeper analogy continues to be absurd. There are tons of playgroups that only play commander. Imagine little Timmy wants to play draft. Wow what a bunch of gatekeepers. Most players don't want to play with proxies. Sheer unimaginable that 99% of all Magic players are "proxy card" gatekeepers.
Once again, nobody is keeping you out of an activity or group. (As per the definition of gatekeeping) All that happens is that you propose an activity (or group) and others decline to join.
But apparently people don't dislike foils enough to not play against them. Your argument is basically "if you don't like something, you have to refuse playing with it and you have to treat all your dislikes equally", which quite evidently real people (as opposed to the made up straw man) don't share. Everyone can set their own boundaries. You are not allowed to tell people who to play with and what games to join. I may dislike foils (for the sake of argument) but still agree to play against an opponent with an all foil deck. But that does not make me a hypocrite when I refuse to play with an opponent who plays, say, un-cards. I can even reserve to make a distinction within the same category based on scope. I can refuse to play with an opponent with a blinged up all foil deck, even though I played against an opponent before who had one or two foils in their deck.
Once again, the crux is: Nobody is entitled to playing with me. And I am simply baffled that we are having this conversation. Is the idea that multiplayer games are consentual in nature such a novel concept?
As for the "if you don't like it don't put it in your deck" argument: I mean, people say that as if that would stop me from playing with those cards. But that's not true. All it means is that I won't have them in my deck. But I may still play with them through in-game interactions, like targeting cards, blocking or simply just being exposed to them during gameplay. It actually annoys me with the godzilla cards on magic arena, because you can't stop your opponent from having these in their decks. My Magic experience is actually lessened from having to fight godzilla or mothra. I understand that this isn't true for everyone, but it is true for me, and I don't see why I should be pressured into doing something I don't want to do rather than just me simply not engaging with it. I haven't touched Magic Arena in a while mostly for this reason and I guess I am literally gatekeeping half the magic community by not playing Magic Arena, based on the logic of some people here.
(Magic Arena is a funny case because they could have easily allowed for disabling special artworks on client side through an option. There's apparently even an option but it's only for your own cards, or the function is bugged, I don't know. I assume it's so that players who pay money for their bling can shove their bling in their opponent's faces, whether they want or not.)
You're using a really messed up definition of gatekeeping. Gatekeeping is preventing someone from doing or entering a certain activity or group. By not playing with a person for whatever reason I am not gatekeeping. In fact, if anything, I am keeping myself out of an activity. They are still free to play with whoever they want. They simply have to find a person to agree to play the game the way they want.
Is it gatekeeping when a person comes to the store and wants to play a draft of a certain set and people say "nah, we don't draft" or "nah, we'd rather play <another set>". No, it really isn't and I don't know what to tell people who think that that person is entitled to playing with anyone. I am not anyone's plaything and claiming I am gatekeeping and keeping players from playing, because I am not interested in playing a certain format is really disgusting. What is wrong with you.
Fun fact: I don't like how commander handles the hybrid rule. It's backwards and completely misses the point of hybrid (not meaning to start an argument here on that, just using that as an example). Would it be justified for me to claim other commander players are gatekeeping me because they refuse to play with my version of the hybrid rule? If I threw a tantrum at the store that I was gatekept out of commander for this people would (rightfully) call me insane.
I have no intention to play with superman and gandalf and captain kirk in a magic game. Calling people gatekeepers because they choose what and how to enjoy their entertainment is pretty digusting. You're not entitled to playing with me and I reserve the right to spend my free time however I choose.