A significant number of Magic: The Gathering fans are considering skipping the next MTG set on the schedule, according to a poll which YouTuber Nizzahon Magic put to his audience at the beginning of the month.
The poll, which simply asked viewers "how are we all feeling about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set?" has more than 5,000 respondents, only 7% of whom said they were 'excited' to see the radical reptiles in Magic card form. A larger group, 29%, answered 'meh', but the large majority chose the third, more damning option, 'skipping it'. As a result Nizzahon has said he's not doing a regular review of the cards, and will instead limit his coverage to the biggest bombs and archetypes.
Obviously, this is just one data point, so the information it provides comes heavily caveated. Firstly, it's the view of one particular subset of the community, which might not be (in fact, probably isn't) representative of Magic players as a whole.
Nizzahon's channel has a particular focus on Limited. Draft fans aren't necessarily a group you'd expect to be super invested in Magic's original lore and IP, but it's possible Spider-Man's poor draft experience could have lowered expectations for this set as well. While it is designed for regular draft rather than Pick-2 like Spider-Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is another smaller set with only 190 cards total.
Secondly, we shouldn't assume too much about the fans' buying habits from this poll. It's worth considering that 'skipping it' was the only option available that expressed a negative opinion about the TMNT set, so while it clearly indicates that interest in this release is low, it doesn't actually necessarily mean these players won't be making any purchases.
We also don't know the age demographics of Nizzahon's audience. Peak Turtlemania was in the early 1990s, so a younger audience would probably be less interested in the set. It's likely that Wizards is trying to tap into an older millennial demographic with this release, which maps up with stats just released by Hasbro, which show that the average age for tabletop players is 35.
In fact, many of Wizards' UB releases so far - from Avatar The Last Airbender to Star Trek - seem to be 'nostalgia plays', collabs with franchises that aren't currently in their heyday, but whose greatest fans will now be in their 30s or 40s, with plenty of disposable income.
How would you answer the poll? Let us know over on the Wargamer Discord.