You Don't Need to Quit Magic for Riftbound

You Don't Need to Quit Magic for Riftbound

From Eternal Durdles by EternalDurdles

September 7, 2026 · 19 min

About this episode

Zac discusses the relationship between Magic and new collectible card games, emphasizing that players don't need to quit one to enjoy another.

There has been a wave of videos telling Magic players why they should quit Magic and move to the next big CCG — most recently, discussions around Riftbound . But do you actually have to choose? Zac takes a step back from the “Magic is cooked, go play X instead” conversation and looks at the history of collectible card games, the idea of a Magic Golden Age , the explosion of products, the decline of competitive infrastructure, and the cycle that repeatedly plays out when new CCGs enter the market. The idea that everyone remembers a different “Golden Age” of Magic is more complicated than nostalgia. Zac argues that the best era of Magic is deeply personal, shaped by community, events, formats, and your own relationship with the game. We also dig into the CCG lifecycle : a new game arrives with huge prize support and hype, competitive players migrate, the company sees diminishing returns, hardcore fans remain, value-driven players move on, and eventually another game begins the cycle again. Zac argues that this pattern has happened repeatedly across the hobby. And then there's the idea of “sunk cost.” If you've spent years and thousands of dollars building a Magic collection, does…

People in this episode

Host: Zac

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Magic, Riftbound, Sorcery

Books & works: Legacy, Premodern, Cube, Limited

More episodes of Eternal Durdles

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Eternal Durdles podcast page.