I haven’t played since before Wizards started pushing Commander, at that time called EDH. I felt the Standard Format was a perfect setup to keep the game fresh and innovative while still making money, and the Legacy Format was perfect for the people who had cards that are no longer in Standard. I think the Commander Format killed a perfect system, and Wizards/Hasbro are just trying everything to make money and keep the game mostly unplayable with the licensed tie-ins.
My unpopular opinion is I don’t mind the tie ins (mostly). I remember being a kid and wanting all my favorite characters to have cards, so I’d feel bad yucking someone else’s yum just because I don’t care for a particular franchise. That being said I’m also a bit confused, op. Standards still exists. This feels like you’re saying “I don’t like Super Mario Advanced 3, because Mario Bros isn’t as good a game as Super Mario Bros 3.” Though if you said any of the following I’d agree: Wizards focuses too much on commander; changing standard rotation rules wasn’t the best idea; the last few standard sets have had somewhat ridiculous themes; using standard design space to print cards targeting commander players might muddy the standard card pool.
I get what you are saying about what I said with Standard. It is that Wizards focuses too much on Commander, and some of these tie-in could have awesome CCG on their own, like Fallout. I think Fallout could stand to have an awesome CCG that would sell pretty amazingly. Regarding Standard, yes the format still exists, but the way sets are released it feels like it’s only there for the old players like me.