Well, folks, here we are again. Another day, another reprint set with controversial rarity bumps. Let's get into it!
As we should all know already, Eternal Masters is a reprint set with two stated goals: Firstly, create a fun limited environment to mirror the various iterations of the Masters reprint series (including Modern Masters and Vintage Masters). Secondly, usher in new printings of Eternal format (e.g. Legacy, Commander, and Vintage) cards. So, those are the guidelines.
Yet something's been amiss this spoiler season. Whilst the community expected to see some weak choices at virtually every rarity slot, we've gotten a handful of cards bumped up a rarity for seemingly no reason. To be clear, the community knew that understandable rarity increases and decreases would happen based on concerns of Limited balance and secondary/tertiary market values, but WotC has seemingly made a lot of rarity bumps on a whim.
Brainstorm at Uncommon. This was LITERALLY printed at Common in a draft set less than 2 years ago. WTF?!
Daze at Uncommon. Questionable, but borderline acceptable for Limited balance.
Hydroblast at Uncommon. A color hoser (no pun intended) and low-tier sideboard card at best. WTF is this doing here?
Vampiric Tutor at Mythic. Almost passes the smell test until you realize it's meant to tie into a cycle of rares. SMH here.
Pyroblast at Uncommon. See Hydroblast.
Worldgorger Dragon at Mythic. Garbage in Limited, and a $2 rare in Constructed. Why not just put Ryusei in this slot?
Timberwatch Elf at Uncommon. Wait, does this set NOT include cards at Common for some reason?
Baleful Strix at Rare. Okay, look. It's a gold card, and it's on a comparable power level to the Uncommons in this set, most notably Bloodbraid. It's also worth less than $6 and getting another reprint soon. So don't tell me this bump makes sense.
Shardless Agent at Rare. Same as Strix, minus the price.
Wee Dragonauts at Uncoomon. Again, WTF happened to printing Commons?
Chrome Mox at Mythic. I was willing to let this slide earlier for similar reasons as Daze, but now everything is suspect.
Now, I will take a moment to acknowledge that most of these bumps have thankfully avoided the MM2 problem of drastically hurting EVs. In most cases, the rares we've seen so far are averaging out as good EV (including the Mythics). And the vast majority of cards spoiled feel like they legitimately belong in this set, rather than looking like filler (compare with MMA and MM2).
But my issue has more to do with these rarity bumps on princible, particularly all the commons being pushed to Uncommon. It's one thing to say Strix and Shardless are too much value (both monetary and gameplay-wise) at Uncommon. It's another to try and defend quasi-unpopular cards like the elemental blasts as anything but throw-in commons. Do they see play in Eternal? Sure, in the sideboard. Is there a market for new printings? A small one, maybe. But no one needs or wants this at Uncommon. It's a waste of a slot.
To me, today's latest round of rarity bumped cards were the last straw. I'm happy I preordered and I'm still excited abhout the set, but iof all these idiotic rarity bumps are any indication of the full spoiler, I think we're all gonna be at least somewhat disappointed by all the junk cluttering up our Uncommon and rare slots.
Card playable in constructed ? Make it at least uncommon. Bump it to rare if it has any half-decent value.
If the card is bad in Limited (or just annoying) , ramp it to rare/mythic to make sure it wont be opened to much (which is ironic in itself, as the "rare and mythic" cards are what the "value" is in).
To me, they SIGNIFICANTLY overrate the meaning of Drafts/Sealed for this product, as the majority of people will just play a little with it, because they allready bought the product anyway for the cards, outside of a handful of big tournaments that will use it for some Las Vegas style super Sealed Grand prix.
A lot of the rarity inflation is completly BS , and unncessary as it gets. A lot of the cards not even get new artwork, which is somehow the minimum i would ask for (as thats a reason to get the card from this set, even if you allready have a copy).
The signficant classic cards that have a really high powerlevel, like Balance / Necropotence should totally be mythic, they are really good magic cards, just "worthless" as they are banned in legacy and not overly important for vintage anymore, but still super iconic.
Force of Will is a good reprint that does good to the format. It "could" be just rare, and got the upgrade to mythic because its expensive in the 2ndary market (and taking 2ndary market prices into account for rarity is something WotC should immediatly stop doing, thats completly ridiculous and they should be independent from that, and people should have a real loud respons to WotC to not repeat that, as its horrible if we will get rarity inflation for cards that not even on the slightest deserve that rarity).
----
I got 2 boxes for 180€ a piece, which i will gladly sell instead of opening.
This set simply looks like they badly try out how far they can go with rarity inflation and people STILL buy the product and maybe dont even notice ... i dont like this experiment ...
(Whats even more annoying, a lot of the low-value cards would be completly fine rares in a normal set as reprints, for example in a commander deck or in upcomming Conspiracy 2 ; but for "whatever" reason they put them in Eternal masters, which is just ... sad ... )
they SIGNIFICANTLY overrate the meaning of Drafts/Sealed for this product, as the majority of people will just play a little with it, because they allready bought the product anyway for the cards, outside of a handful of big tournaments that will use it for some Las Vegas style super Sealed Grand prix.
My current signature has my thoughts on how Eternal Masters will play out.
Force of Will is a good reprint that does good to the format. It "could" be just rare, and got the upgrade to mythic because its expensive in the 2ndary market (and taking 2ndary market prices into account for rarity is something WotC should immediatly stop doing, thats completly ridiculous and they should be independent from that, and people should have a real loud respons to WotC to not repeat that, as its horrible if we will get rarity inflation for cards that not even on the slightest deserve that rarity).
I'm trying to remember when anyone at Wizards has outright admitted they use the secondary market as a gauge for judging rarities. I know their stated metric for rarity is power level and/or the impact the card would have in limited, but I thought their secondary market concerns were generally addressed through how much they print the set, not the rarity. Although typing this now I can see how rarities can address this as well.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
I'm trying to remember when anyone at Wizards has outright admitted they use the secondary market as a gauge for judging rarities. I know their stated metric for rarity is power level and/or the impact the card would have in limited, but I thought their secondary market concerns were generally addressed through how much they print the set, not the rarity. Although typing this now I can see how rarities can address this as well.
Clearly, rarity and card value are closely related in WotC's minds, otherwise we wouldn't get stuff like Lotus Cobra or the DGM fiasco from years back.
Card playable in constructed ? Make it at least uncommon. Bump it to rare if it has any half-decent value.
If the card is bad in Limited (or just annoying) , ramp it to rare/mythic to make sure it wont be opened to much (which is ironic in itself, as the "rare and mythic" cards are what the "value" is in).
Sadly, I think you're dead on. It's like the Temple rarity controversy all over again. WotC needs to realize that bumping cards' rarities is not a satisfactory solution in these instances. Either put the card in at the correct rarity, or don't it it in at all.
To me, they SIGNIFICANTLY overrate the meaning of Drafts/Sealed for this product, as the majority of people will just play a little with it, because they allready bought the product anyway for the cards, outside of a handful of big tournaments that will use it for some Las Vegas style super Sealed Grand prix.
Also very true. They're betting heavily on this being another hit in the eyes of drafters, yet completely overlooking the fact that it's priced out of accessibility to them (especially due EVs and short printing).
Notice how I left these off my OP. I'm not begrudging WotC for common sense pumps in rarity. I'm questioning the fact that the vast majority of cards spoiled have seen bumps in rarity (across all levels), often for the very trivial reasons you outlined above.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
To me, they SIGNIFICANTLY overrate the meaning of Drafts/Sealed for this product, as the majority of people will just play a little with it, because they allready bought the product anyway for the cards, outside of a handful of big tournaments that will use it for some Las Vegas style super Sealed Grand prix.
This is my number one complaint. They say these sets are to make a really cool limited draft environment, but smaller local shops can't even keep the product in stock, let alone have a draft with any sort of value or win incentive.
These sets were created to reprint cards, and help those with access to WotC distributions to make some money and give their hobby shops an economic boost.
While the sets add hype and excitement to players like myself, who constantly shift in and out of the game, both Modern Masters sets actually convinced me that I wasn't "in" enough at my LGS. It felt as if the owners were keeping their shipments a secret and only the long-term OG frequents were going to get a shot at buying--if at all.
While price increases are frustrating, I cannot keep blaming LGS or those with access to WotC products for the price increases. It is also noteworthy that, with a suggested MSRP, WotC aren't the ones who are gouging or even benefit from higher-than-suggested MSRP.
As for the rarity bumps on an already limited print run set, I can only theorize that the main reason isn't due to an ideal draft environment, but simply to reserve reprint quantities and prevent over-flooding in reservation of another type of reprint in the coming years.
Will it really be a fun draft environment? Luckily, there exists MTGO, where this set can be HIGHLY over drafted, and prices of many digital cards should eventually take a steep drop thanks to the prevalence of competitive bots and lack of casual formats or reasons to hang on to anything over a playset.
As far as these paper reprints, it is very depressing and frustrating especially as a player more apt to collect than play competitively.
I do have hopes that these sets will keep being reprinted and values of modern and legacy staples will become more accessible to players that shy away from (or simply cannot afford) the initial investment of a competitive legacy deck.
If only there was a way for players to obtain these sets through their LGS using their DCI number, so that both LGS could benefit, but also WotC could keep distribution in check and fair to the players.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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As we should all know already, Eternal Masters is a reprint set with two stated goals: Firstly, create a fun limited environment to mirror the various iterations of the Masters reprint series (including Modern Masters and Vintage Masters). Secondly, usher in new printings of Eternal format (e.g. Legacy, Commander, and Vintage) cards. So, those are the guidelines.
Yet something's been amiss this spoiler season. Whilst the community expected to see some weak choices at virtually every rarity slot, we've gotten a handful of cards bumped up a rarity for seemingly no reason. To be clear, the community knew that understandable rarity increases and decreases would happen based on concerns of Limited balance and secondary/tertiary market values, but WotC has seemingly made a lot of rarity bumps on a whim.
Brainstorm at Uncommon. This was LITERALLY printed at Common in a draft set less than 2 years ago. WTF?!
Daze at Uncommon. Questionable, but borderline acceptable for Limited balance.
Hydroblast at Uncommon. A color hoser (no pun intended) and low-tier sideboard card at best. WTF is this doing here?
Vampiric Tutor at Mythic. Almost passes the smell test until you realize it's meant to tie into a cycle of rares. SMH here.
Pyroblast at Uncommon. See Hydroblast.
Worldgorger Dragon at Mythic. Garbage in Limited, and a $2 rare in Constructed. Why not just put Ryusei in this slot?
Timberwatch Elf at Uncommon. Wait, does this set NOT include cards at Common for some reason?
Baleful Strix at Rare. Okay, look. It's a gold card, and it's on a comparable power level to the Uncommons in this set, most notably Bloodbraid. It's also worth less than $6 and getting another reprint soon. So don't tell me this bump makes sense.
Shardless Agent at Rare. Same as Strix, minus the price.
Wee Dragonauts at Uncoomon. Again, WTF happened to printing Commons?
Chrome Mox at Mythic. I was willing to let this slide earlier for similar reasons as Daze, but now everything is suspect.
Now, I will take a moment to acknowledge that most of these bumps have thankfully avoided the MM2 problem of drastically hurting EVs. In most cases, the rares we've seen so far are averaging out as good EV (including the Mythics). And the vast majority of cards spoiled feel like they legitimately belong in this set, rather than looking like filler (compare with MMA and MM2).
But my issue has more to do with these rarity bumps on princible, particularly all the commons being pushed to Uncommon. It's one thing to say Strix and Shardless are too much value (both monetary and gameplay-wise) at Uncommon. It's another to try and defend quasi-unpopular cards like the elemental blasts as anything but throw-in commons. Do they see play in Eternal? Sure, in the sideboard. Is there a market for new printings? A small one, maybe. But no one needs or wants this at Uncommon. It's a waste of a slot.
To me, today's latest round of rarity bumped cards were the last straw. I'm happy I preordered and I'm still excited abhout the set, but iof all these idiotic rarity bumps are any indication of the full spoiler, I think we're all gonna be at least somewhat disappointed by all the junk cluttering up our Uncommon and rare slots.
Thoughts?
I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
Cubes:
Modern Banlist Cube
Monocolor Budget Cube
Card playable in constructed ? Make it at least uncommon. Bump it to rare if it has any half-decent value.
If the card is bad in Limited (or just annoying) , ramp it to rare/mythic to make sure it wont be opened to much (which is ironic in itself, as the "rare and mythic" cards are what the "value" is in).
To me, they SIGNIFICANTLY overrate the meaning of Drafts/Sealed for this product, as the majority of people will just play a little with it, because they allready bought the product anyway for the cards, outside of a handful of big tournaments that will use it for some Las Vegas style super Sealed Grand prix.
A lot of the rarity inflation is completly BS , and unncessary as it gets. A lot of the cards not even get new artwork, which is somehow the minimum i would ask for (as thats a reason to get the card from this set, even if you allready have a copy).
The signficant classic cards that have a really high powerlevel, like Balance / Necropotence should totally be mythic, they are really good magic cards, just "worthless" as they are banned in legacy and not overly important for vintage anymore, but still super iconic.
Force of Will is a good reprint that does good to the format. It "could" be just rare, and got the upgrade to mythic because its expensive in the 2ndary market (and taking 2ndary market prices into account for rarity is something WotC should immediatly stop doing, thats completly ridiculous and they should be independent from that, and people should have a real loud respons to WotC to not repeat that, as its horrible if we will get rarity inflation for cards that not even on the slightest deserve that rarity).
----
I got 2 boxes for 180€ a piece, which i will gladly sell instead of opening.
This set simply looks like they badly try out how far they can go with rarity inflation and people STILL buy the product and maybe dont even notice ... i dont like this experiment ...
(Whats even more annoying, a lot of the low-value cards would be completly fine rares in a normal set as reprints, for example in a commander deck or in upcomming Conspiracy 2 ; but for "whatever" reason they put them in Eternal masters, which is just ... sad ... )
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
I'm trying to remember when anyone at Wizards has outright admitted they use the secondary market as a gauge for judging rarities. I know their stated metric for rarity is power level and/or the impact the card would have in limited, but I thought their secondary market concerns were generally addressed through how much they print the set, not the rarity. Although typing this now I can see how rarities can address this as well.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
Clearly, rarity and card value are closely related in WotC's minds, otherwise we wouldn't get stuff like Lotus Cobra or the DGM fiasco from years back.
Sadly, I think you're dead on. It's like the Temple rarity controversy all over again. WotC needs to realize that bumping cards' rarities is not a satisfactory solution in these instances. Either put the card in at the correct rarity, or don't it it in at all.
Also very true. They're betting heavily on this being another hit in the eyes of drafters, yet completely overlooking the fact that it's priced out of accessibility to them (especially due EVs and short printing).
Notice how I left these off my OP. I'm not begrudging WotC for common sense pumps in rarity. I'm questioning the fact that the vast majority of cards spoiled have seen bumps in rarity (across all levels), often for the very trivial reasons you outlined above.
I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
Cubes:
Modern Banlist Cube
Monocolor Budget Cube
This is my number one complaint. They say these sets are to make a really cool limited draft environment, but smaller local shops can't even keep the product in stock, let alone have a draft with any sort of value or win incentive.
These sets were created to reprint cards, and help those with access to WotC distributions to make some money and give their hobby shops an economic boost.
While the sets add hype and excitement to players like myself, who constantly shift in and out of the game, both Modern Masters sets actually convinced me that I wasn't "in" enough at my LGS. It felt as if the owners were keeping their shipments a secret and only the long-term OG frequents were going to get a shot at buying--if at all.
While price increases are frustrating, I cannot keep blaming LGS or those with access to WotC products for the price increases. It is also noteworthy that, with a suggested MSRP, WotC aren't the ones who are gouging or even benefit from higher-than-suggested MSRP.
As for the rarity bumps on an already limited print run set, I can only theorize that the main reason isn't due to an ideal draft environment, but simply to reserve reprint quantities and prevent over-flooding in reservation of another type of reprint in the coming years.
Will it really be a fun draft environment? Luckily, there exists MTGO, where this set can be HIGHLY over drafted, and prices of many digital cards should eventually take a steep drop thanks to the prevalence of competitive bots and lack of casual formats or reasons to hang on to anything over a playset.
As far as these paper reprints, it is very depressing and frustrating especially as a player more apt to collect than play competitively.
I do have hopes that these sets will keep being reprinted and values of modern and legacy staples will become more accessible to players that shy away from (or simply cannot afford) the initial investment of a competitive legacy deck.
If only there was a way for players to obtain these sets through their LGS using their DCI number, so that both LGS could benefit, but also WotC could keep distribution in check and fair to the players.