The thing is, is that Wizards does not owe the fanbase anything.
Wizards is a corperation, they have no obligation for you to continue to get the promos you want.
To get upset over not getting a certain kind of promo anymore is just childish.
If I give you 5 dollars every week, and then suddenly I decide I don't want to give you 5 dollars anymore, to you have any right whatsoever to be upset at me?
Again Wizards doesn't owe us anything.
They may not owe us anything but it's a very small expense to them and it gets people into stores. Getting people into stores supports local card shops and gets tons of boosters sold. Less promos=less people show up. Their gateway promos couldn't have cost them more than $15/year per store given what they've said it costs to produce/ship cards. Since their profit margin should be around $1.50/pack from a sheer profit standpoint if a lack of promos cause an entire playerbase to buy 10 less packs a year, they'll have lost money by cutting them.
Finances aside, they were fun. They're trying to market things as experiences and promo cards contribute to that. Less enthralling experiences lead to more bored/unhappy players.
I was a bit irritated about this too - the site doesnt load half the time.
Here's what it says:
Quote from Wotc »
Marketing kit?
Many retailers questioned the purpose of the Gateway Kit and how best to use it to support play at their store. As a result, we felt the Gateway Kit didn't do enough to support stores and players. Instead we've created a yearly kit that will accomplish far more. That's right, the Trade Marketing kit is designed for use throughout the entire year; you'll only need to sanction the new kit once to enjoy its benefits for an entire year. Because of its annual nature we're also able to better utilize the kit to bring you the materials you need to support organized play throughout the year. What's in the kit?
The goal of the Trade Marketing kit is to continue bringing you the materials you need to make your store awesome. The kit will include creative materials promoting all of our brands whether tried and true favorites like Magic and Dungeons & Dragons or the exciting new Kaijudo. You'll receive several posters, window clings, and a few unique items we've never included before. One such item? A double-sided, dry-erase event calendar to help you showcase your Magic League night, Dungeons & Dragons Encounters, and more. It will have Magic art on one side and Dungeons & Dragons art on the other, giving you the freedom to display the side that best fits with your play community's tastes.
We've also included Friday Night Magic, Encounters, and Lair Assault see-through clings which are conveniently the right size for your calendar. By using these clings your players can easily see what's coming up and when! We're particularly excited in the Trade Marketing team about being able to offer you this new method for marketing your events with the Trade Marketing kit. This kit lasts all year!
The best part of this kit is that these marketing materials look awesome and you won't want to take them down! All of the materials included are designed to be effective all year round. Customers and players will easily be able to identify your store as a Wizards of the Coast retailer and know which brands you carry. And with the event calendar, players will know what Organized Play you support and when you're running events! We've made requesting a Trade Marketing kit as simple as scheduling your events!
This kit is absolutely free! Just as you schedule your events directly through Wizards Event Reporter, the Trade Marketing kit can be ordered by using the WPN Materials section of WER. Remember, if you order this kit starting on May 7th you should receive it by June 25th. If you're a new store, you can find information about the Wizards Play Network here.
For all the people that don't care, I think it's the overall trend of getting rid of all the rewards for players while saying they're going to give us sweet stuff. They haven't replaced the MPR and now they're cuttting/scaling back other promo support. Then they do the much hyped Helvault promotion which sucked for 98% and was awesome for the 2%. They're essentially cutting support because they know that it won't make a dent in their bottom line.
Honestly just one more reason to play off the grid with good friends and at non sanctioned events. Weather they owe it to us or not it did factor into the decision to hit the shops on Friday night.
For all the people that don't care, I think it's the overall trend of getting rid of all the rewards for players while saying they're going to give us sweet stuff. They haven't replaced the MPR and now they're cuttting/scaling back other promo support. Then they do the much hyped Helvault promotion which sucked for 98% and was awesome for the 2%. They're essentially cutting support because they know that it won't make a dent in their bottom line.
Bastards. I can't believe they'd try to improve their bottom line.
it is funny to see how people complain about useless stuff being cut like gateway promos that most of the time were even worse than FNM... last one i remember as good stuff was shrine of burning rage and prior to that path to exile and hellspark elemental... and that was like 3 years ago
and not being happy when getting triple nationals and doubling the GP schedule...
I live in latin america, and at least in my city i've seen gateway promos once since paths and hellsparks and there was a bunch of golem's hearts and plague stinguers...
but on the other side although i'm not going to attend any, i'm very happy that we are getting 3 GPs a year instead of (luckily... 2010 there was no GP in latin america) 1 GP a year (last year was GP Santiago). and triple nationals with airfare included (last year nationals were not giving away the air tickets in my country).
The trade marketing kits look like they are specific to each game. One for magic one for D&D and one for the other game. I think the each kit might have promos in them or other marketing things to get players into the stores. Gosh i hope its not dry erase boards and such
how much does it cost them to print promos? next to nothing. how many more players does it draw to the game hundreds and with each of those players they will most likely spends hundreds on the card game they love. but no promos are overrated.
Nobody is going to quit the game over this. Maybe some people did over MPR (Yeah I miss Foil Cryptic Commands and Damnation). Losing Mythic Pre-releases kinda sucked as the replacements are bad and have influenced my decisions there. Gateway is just the next thing to go and doesn't really matter since it hasn't been good in a while. It's just sad because Wizards is probably moving towards a system where you shouldn't expect to get anything awesome for free. They can and probably will get away from it which frankly is disappointing. I just hope they don't take away Judge Rewards because those guys deserve that as a reward for the tremendous effort they put in to support the community.
They are going to completely discontinue Mythic Prerelease Promos? I though that was for Innistrad Block only!! WHY, GOD, WHY?!
If the store owner says that I can't trade in the premises, I'll just go outside. If he says that I can't trade within 10m of his premises, I'll go to 11 meters. If he says that he doesn't want to see me trading, I will put a basket over his head and continue trading.
Yes, he's a local legend. He's only known to take his clothes off before he goes into the Ladies' Lockerroom. Nobody knows what he does in there because he's invisible, but it's almost certainly tons of masturbating.
Bastards. I can't believe they'd try to improve their bottom line.
They can do it but they're still pissing off a lot of people by doing this. I hold a decently positive view of Wizards and a lot of their employees (even MaRo) but this cutting of relatively cheap ways of saying thank you to players is kind of lame. Maybe it comes from corporate maybe it doesn't but it kind of sucks that as the game is getting more and more popular, they're cool cutting stuff that we've had for years.
They can do it but they're still pissing off a lot of people by doing this. I hold a decently positive view of Wizards and a lot of their employees (even MaRo) but this cutting of relatively cheap ways of saying thank you to players is kind of lame. Maybe it comes from corporate maybe it doesn't but it kind of sucks that as the game is getting more and more popular, they're cool cutting stuff that we've had for years.
This is a relatively minor loss. Most of the cards were worthless, and just took up space in binders, or worse in boxes. 'They can use the money saved from this and put it into better promotions like the Helvault. For any of its faults, no one can deny that the lead up to the opening was fun for all involved. Pros on Twitter posted how much fun they were having during the promotion. The pay off was not done well, and Wizards knows that, and that is something they can fix in the future, but the plan is in place to have a good foundation for something that all players can have fun doing together at the prereleases. And that is a much better way to help the bottom line than these terrible Gateway Promos.
It's okay, guys, MPR got cut for better and cooler stuff. Like the Helvault, an absolute marketing blunder where 99.5% of the players got chaff and the other .5% of the attendees got to feel like they just won the lottery. This just means there's going to an equally awesome prerelease campaign for RTR. Jace will show up to .5% of all prereleases with hookers and blow for them while the rest of us get a spindown and some oversized tokens.
Nothing in this game is degenerate or completely dominant. They haven't banned anything in standard in a long, long time. Hell they should have banned affinity right away, but they didn't until boxed sales collapsed too. Hasbro had to come in and fire people.
I'll enjoy watching all the whiners eat crow monday.
Boy, I sure hope that the amount of gameday promos they give us this time around is enough to cover being able to give out promos for our other events. As it stands, the players EXPECT to get the extra promos at each event, and regardless of what the promo is, would complain if they werent at least given the opportunity to get whatever it is. We used up all of our pre-release promos for the pre-release (no extras there for later), we used up all of our release promos for the release draft (no extras there for later), and while we usually have a decent number of extra full-art (non-foil) promos from the gamedays (after giving everyone what they are supposed to get from it), that certainly wont be enough to cover our other weekly tournaments (non-fnm). While the advertising materials are nice and all, players want CARDS THEY CAN PLAY WITH, not random promos that, while cool sure, dont fill that role.
Ah well, guess we'll have to whip out the small amount of left-over helvault stuff and hope the players are okay enough with that taking the place of the normal promos once we run out of those. I suppose, if worse comes to worse, Ill have to sift through my personal collection of foils, and find some of the "worthless" promo foils Ive gotten over time and toss those in, better than nothing I suppose.
I supremely hope that wizards doesnt get so overconfident in how well the game is doing, that they eventually think that promos and the like simply arent neccessary, and eventually shoot themselves and the game in the foot.
Boy, I sure hope that the amount of gameday promos they give us this time around is enough to cover being able to give out promos for our other events. As it stands, the players EXPECT to get the extra promos at each event, and regardless of what the promo is, would complain if they werent at least given the opportunity to get whatever it is. We used up all of our pre-release promos for the pre-release (no extras there for later), we used up all of our release promos for the release draft (no extras there for later), and while we usually have a decent number of extra full-art (non-foil) promos from the gamedays (after giving everyone what they are supposed to get from it), that certainly wont be enough to cover our other weekly tournaments (non-fnm). While the advertising materials are nice and all, players want CARDS THEY CAN PLAY WITH, not random promos that, while cool sure, dont fill that role.
Ah well, guess we'll have to whip out the small amount of left-over helvault stuff and hope the players are okay enough with that taking the place of the normal promos once we run out of those. I suppose, if worse comes to worse, Ill have to sift through my personal collection of foils, and find some of the "worthless" promo foils Ive gotten over time and toss those in, better than nothing I suppose.
I supremely hope that wizards doesnt get so overconfident in how well the game is doing, that they eventually think that promos and the like simply arent neccessary, and eventually shoot themselves and the game in the foot.
Players should not EXPECT free anything. WOTC has frequently given out free stuff, but the fact that they have should not give anyone the expectation of more. That's just stupid beyond belief.
This is bad news.. not for me, but for the LGS that I go every Friday for a chance of promo cards.
Now instead of going to the store and spend money on packs at retail prices, I am just going to buy packs at dirt cheap price from the local small distributors instead.
'They can use the money saved from this and put it into better promotions like the Helvault.
I'm not sure better is the word I would use. At least I could play a game of Magic with the the Gateway promos, no matter how good or bad the cards were.
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She wants a ride on the pony, dude.
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Players should not EXPECT free anything. WOTC has frequently given out free stuff, but the fact that they have should not give anyone the expectation of more. That's just stupid beyond belief.
Yeah, how dare people expect to continue receiving things they've been sending out for years now with every new set. People are so stupid, it makes me so angry!!! :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
Nothing in this game is degenerate or completely dominant. They haven't banned anything in standard in a long, long time. Hell they should have banned affinity right away, but they didn't until boxed sales collapsed too. Hasbro had to come in and fire people.
I'll enjoy watching all the whiners eat crow monday.
Players should not EXPECT free anything. WOTC has frequently given out free stuff, but the fact that they have should not give anyone the expectation of more. That's just stupid beyond belief.
Actually, the stupid line of thinking falls to the few people on here that naturally gravitate toward the 'how dare you people complain this way' line of thinking and always manage to find their way into these threads.
It's been there for years, so one would EXPECT that it continues as it had. It's not a selling point if it's random support for stores. "Yeah, you should check out our Friday Night tournaments, and who knows, maybe Wizards might give us stuff to hand out, maybe."
Don't get me wrong, it's no big loss, the promos have largely sucked since Path to Exile, but to say that free support/selling points for tourneys that have been in place for years does not create an expectation going forward shows a lack of common sense that borders on dense.
This sucks. I used those promos to support my League players.
Grr... MPR I could understand (the system honestly was pretty broken), Rares as prerelease cards had at least a grain of logic to it, cutting Release Parties also understandable based on attendance... but this... this is just lazy.
Dislike.
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Actually, the stupid line of thinking falls to the few people on here that naturally gravitate toward the 'how dare you people complain this way' line of thinking and always manage to find their way into these threads.
It's been there for years, so one would EXPECT that it continues as it had. It's not a selling point if it's random support for stores. "Yeah, you should check out our Friday Night tournaments, and who knows, maybe Wizards might give us stuff to hand out, maybe."
Don't get me wrong, it's no big loss, the promos have largely sucked since Path to Exile, but to say that free support/selling points for tourneys that have been in place for years does not create an expectation going forward shows a lack of common sense that borders on dense.
The line of thinking that is stupid is not the complaining itself, but the underlying reasoning of the complaining. People can complain about anything they want, it's their right. However, I could complain about there being laws against murder, and the line of reasoning that allows me to complain is just stupid. Similarly to the line of reasoning that leads to people complaining they can no longer receive free things (which isn't even 100% true).
They may not owe us anything but it's a very small expense to them and it gets people into stores. Getting people into stores supports local card shops and gets tons of boosters sold. Less promos=less people show up. Their gateway promos couldn't have cost them more than $15/year per store given what they've said it costs to produce/ship cards. Since their profit margin should be around $1.50/pack from a sheer profit standpoint if a lack of promos cause an entire playerbase to buy 10 less packs a year, they'll have lost money by cutting them.
Finances aside, they were fun. They're trying to market things as experiences and promo cards contribute to that. Less enthralling experiences lead to more bored/unhappy players.
I was a bit irritated about this too - the site doesnt load half the time.
Here's what it says:
Bident Layers
B Devotion
RG Devotion
UW Control
Modern:
Jund
UW Control
Combo Pod
Legacy:
DeathBlade
RUG Delver
BUG Control
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
What will they be replaced with? Surely WotC will give us *SOMETHING* back. MPR? Please oh please, MPR.
Level 1 Judge
Currently looking to buy miscut Homelands, (my wife thinks I'm crazy too).
Semper Gumby (Always Flexible)
Bastards. I can't believe they'd try to improve their bottom line.
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
and not being happy when getting triple nationals and doubling the GP schedule...
I live in latin america, and at least in my city i've seen gateway promos once since paths and hellsparks and there was a bunch of golem's hearts and plague stinguers...
but on the other side although i'm not going to attend any, i'm very happy that we are getting 3 GPs a year instead of (luckily... 2010 there was no GP in latin america) 1 GP a year (last year was GP Santiago). and triple nationals with airfare included (last year nationals were not giving away the air tickets in my country).
Chile!
Gather the Townsfolk is in incredibly playable card, and it's "new"
Standard:
GBWAggressive Junk TokensGBW
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Cigarettes are a lot like hamsters, perfectly harmless until you stick one in your mouth and light it on fire.
They are going to completely discontinue Mythic Prerelease Promos? I though that was for Innistrad Block only!! WHY, GOD, WHY?!
They can do it but they're still pissing off a lot of people by doing this. I hold a decently positive view of Wizards and a lot of their employees (even MaRo) but this cutting of relatively cheap ways of saying thank you to players is kind of lame. Maybe it comes from corporate maybe it doesn't but it kind of sucks that as the game is getting more and more popular, they're cool cutting stuff that we've had for years.
This is a relatively minor loss. Most of the cards were worthless, and just took up space in binders, or worse in boxes. 'They can use the money saved from this and put it into better promotions like the Helvault. For any of its faults, no one can deny that the lead up to the opening was fun for all involved. Pros on Twitter posted how much fun they were having during the promotion. The pay off was not done well, and Wizards knows that, and that is something they can fix in the future, but the plan is in place to have a good foundation for something that all players can have fun doing together at the prereleases. And that is a much better way to help the bottom line than these terrible Gateway Promos.
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
Who's eating crow?
Ah well, guess we'll have to whip out the small amount of left-over helvault stuff and hope the players are okay enough with that taking the place of the normal promos once we run out of those. I suppose, if worse comes to worse, Ill have to sift through my personal collection of foils, and find some of the "worthless" promo foils Ive gotten over time and toss those in, better than nothing I suppose.
I supremely hope that wizards doesnt get so overconfident in how well the game is doing, that they eventually think that promos and the like simply arent neccessary, and eventually shoot themselves and the game in the foot.
Players should not EXPECT free anything. WOTC has frequently given out free stuff, but the fact that they have should not give anyone the expectation of more. That's just stupid beyond belief.
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
Now instead of going to the store and spend money on packs at retail prices, I am just going to buy packs at dirt cheap price from the local small distributors instead.
I'm not sure better is the word I would use. At least I could play a game of Magic with the the Gateway promos, no matter how good or bad the cards were.
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Yeah, how dare people expect to continue receiving things they've been sending out for years now with every new set. People are so stupid, it makes me so angry!!! :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
Who's eating crow?
Actually, the stupid line of thinking falls to the few people on here that naturally gravitate toward the 'how dare you people complain this way' line of thinking and always manage to find their way into these threads.
It's been there for years, so one would EXPECT that it continues as it had. It's not a selling point if it's random support for stores. "Yeah, you should check out our Friday Night tournaments, and who knows, maybe Wizards might give us stuff to hand out, maybe."
Don't get me wrong, it's no big loss, the promos have largely sucked since Path to Exile, but to say that free support/selling points for tourneys that have been in place for years does not create an expectation going forward shows a lack of common sense that borders on dense.
Grr... MPR I could understand (the system honestly was pretty broken), Rares as prerelease cards had at least a grain of logic to it, cutting Release Parties also understandable based on attendance... but this... this is just lazy.
Dislike.
The line of thinking that is stupid is not the complaining itself, but the underlying reasoning of the complaining. People can complain about anything they want, it's their right. However, I could complain about there being laws against murder, and the line of reasoning that allows me to complain is just stupid. Similarly to the line of reasoning that leads to people complaining they can no longer receive free things (which isn't even 100% true).
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!