Not only in Europe, but in Canada too. Think of the union as a corpo offering bargaining and administrative services. Unions compete with each other for workforces. The typical case would be for a newly unionizing workforce needing to choose which union to join.

It is rare, but a workforce can even choose to move to a different union.

Depends on the country.

In a lot of countries, it's not much different than choosing a pension fund option. You join a job, you choose which union best represents you based on your industry/title/etc (if you are not already a member). If you are not happy with your current agreement, you choose a different union that promises better outcomes.

It's so much less extreme than US unionization. There's not much reason for hostility between business and unions - unions don't get these all or nothing powers like they do in the US.

It is common for big workplaces to have multiple unions and essentially all unions are sectoral and role-specific rather than company specific.

Take the NHS; it will have to deal with ten plus separate unions - https://nhsunions.org/#about – of which the biggest powers are the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing, but the cleaners are GMB or Unite and they're huge pan-working-class institutions.

Education has to deal with the NEU, the NASUWT, and the NAHT, each of which has a different political slant. Some unions in the UK have been historically rather centrist in their politics (a good example of that is Prospect, https://prospect.org.uk/about/, which is a roll-up of a number of scientific and finance unions), some are firebreathing communists, but all of them work across employers.

There's also no such thing as a closed shop in the UK – because there are much stronger worker protections, there's less of a need for one.

(I was, at one time, in a majority-UCU workplace; https://www.ucu.org.uk.)

It depends heavily on the country but a worker at a company can pick a union to represent them. You might see a billboards saying join Union a or Union B. If you Union a is corrupt or screwing over one group of workers in favor of another group of worker, the laborers will just leave it and go to a different one.

This solves a lot of problems with us unions, where they have a state sanctioned Monopoly on the workers.

The classic example is unions are going for terms that screw over junior members but there are other perverse examples. At my friend's company the Union demanded that it be forced to return to office because the larger number of field technicians we're a voting majority of the union and angry they couldn't work from home.

I feel that. I really do. But I also LOVED the Avatar crossover. To be fair, I haven't played any other ones, but this one played so well and seemed to be very well thought out. They really did the IP justice.

It's also probably worth pointing out that Lego was nearing bankruptcy and was saved by a ton of licensing (and Ninjago, to be fair). Fortunately, they've used that income stream to still consistently put out a lot of high quality first party sets. Hopefully WotC doesn't lose sight...

There is a whole format of pre-2018 legacy due to how starkly game design changed that year.

The argument is that cashing out now destroys the long-term viability of the game ... but WotC will learn that lesson in a few years when the Magic gravy train crashes.

I’m “uhm acshually”-ing a bit.

The MLP cards aren’t legal in any format and Transformers, legal in commander yes, was a very small set.

You can’t deny the popularity of the Final fantasy set. Selling that well indicates a desire.

I don’t think the small secret lair releases deserve the hate.

Wizards is still committed to making in-universe sets. The first novel in years was just published with the release of strixhaven. Every in-universe set has come with a short-story/novella length addition on the official site.

FWIW, I don’t love the marvel collab and I don’t think it fits at all. But I’m sure someone does.

I think criticism should be focused on the actual design and mechanics of sets rather than the IP. Since Wizards is committed to both their own and others. The latest Marvel set for example enables way more infinite combos in standard and is an example power creep gone bad.

Nobody doubts they are making money. It’s literally a nostalgia cash grab. The question is how much that money will cost WotC in reputational harm and loyal customers.

Some folks really love the story of MtG. Think of it as if you were expected, as a dungeon master, to allow your players to be Spongebob. Some folks won’t care, others will have their experience ruined.

The sets also increase the number of legal cards you have to purchase to keep up with the meta.

More than 50% of sets are now UB, and UB has been standard legal since ~mid 2025.

There's quite a few new cEDH staples from UB sets as well.

It is just weird how much of it is treated as investment in medium term or simply gambling. Well gambling has always been part in sense. But now for purely monetary gain. Well in current financial market maybe it works, but still feels just so weird.

Might also be a reference to the Homestead strike et al. Pinkertons were often employed as strikebreakers.

I knew the publishing and game industry weren’t known for good treatment of their labor, but WOTC had a fair reputation in that regard. This has apparently degraded prior to my joining the company and has continued to do so. A big motivator for organizing for many was the steady erosion of pay, benefits, and the lauded perks despite a workload that has and continues to grow tremendously.

Ideologies spread like viruses. If you don't keep them contained, they will spread.