Given the entire recession happening in Magic the Gathering thanks to bad press, conflicting products, and a somewhat weak and inflexible competitive standard, is it the right time for wizards to try and reinvigorate the second hand market by reworking the new world order and giving people more value in packs? I was pondering this in the Frontier forum since I was filling out a bunch of commons for deck building and realized how bleak the uncommon / common card pool really is without legacy. Cards that could have been printed at uncommon like Goblin Kaboomist got printed at rare and cards that weren't worth the paper they were printed on got printed at common like Smoldering Efreet.
Given a booster box is for the most part made up of uncommons and commons, singles sellers have to eat the cost of these horrible prints that no one wants and force shift the cost onto the cards constructed players want such as mythics and rares. Maybe at one point WoTC thought they could kill the second hand market this way, but the reality is that it shouldered on and the only thing their "new world order" did was shift card costs onto the bombs and leaving entire lots of bulk cards sitting and collecting dust, which wouldn't be a problem on it's own if LGSs had infinite vaults of space in their back rooms. Eventually all those cards have to get either sold, thrown out, or stashed into rentable storage which ends up costing even more money.
Also, if they did print more interesting commons and uncommons they would no longer need to have a mythic rarity, which would probably help everyone including draft players. From observation and playing, it seems like in draft if someone got a Gisela, the Broken Blade during a Shadows draft it often turned into a game of Gisella or Bust. Anyone else have thoughts on this? Think I'm right or wrong?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Smoldering Efreet is awesome for my bad cards cube... But no, having some bad cards is okay, though I certainly do see where you are coming from on the general power level point, at least up through Shadows of Innistrad block. But Kaladesh has actually been better in this respect; the average power level is pretty damn good in the set. There is a moderately parasitic mechanic involved, but WotC has done a pretty good job of balancing that, in my opinion. As for removing the mythic rarity, I think it has led to more good than bad over the years and removing it would probably be a bad idea.
Smoldering Efreet is awesome for my bad cards cube... But no, having some bad cards is okay, though I certainly do see where you are coming from on the general power level point, at least up through Shadows of Innistrad block. But Kaladesh has actually been better in this respect; the average power level is pretty damn good in the set. There is a moderately parasitic mechanic involved, but WotC has done a pretty good job of balancing that, in my opinion. As for removing the mythic rarity, I think it has led to more good than bad over the years and removing it would probably be a bad idea.
So what would you say are the upsides to the mythic rarity to the player? I feel that in some ways it helps point out what WoTC considers the defining cards of the set and helps them sell packs, but the downside is that they print fewer mythics and that leads to problems of supply when they get popular.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I agree with Osieorb on this one. There have to be weak cards, not everything can be a bomb or even just generally "good" in a draft environment. The entire point of constructed over limited is to get you to play with the best synergies, which ultimately boils down to "playing with the best cards", but across multiple sets. As far as limited goes, sure, Shadows and some recent sets had some depressing commons, but Kaladesh wasn't that bad and had more interesting mechanics to create a better limited environment. Bumping up the power of commons or removing a rarity level won't do anything to fix the secondary market (it's largely supply and demand), and it wouldn't really change anything about limited or constructed either. This is why we have $2 mythics from old sets that aren't playable in eternal formats, and why some standard mythics/rares fluctuate in price (they suck but then someone makes it work and its suddenly a chase card, think Sphinxes Revelation in RTR block). Some cards are just standout good and start high and stay there.
On the other hand, if instead of beefing up the strength of commons you just look at mythics/rares and print MORE of these cards, and keep them at the same power level, you damage the idea of investing in cards from a secondary market standpoint which would turn off almost as many players as you would be helping get into constructed/eternal formats. If you reprint old cards in quantity large enough to permanently affect their price, then you just alienate a large portion of your older players because you can't reprint EVERY value card, so you essentially pick and choose who's investment is less worthwhile in the long run. Remember that not everyone looks at card values in strictly dollar-to-cardboard, but they use these values as trade value so they can constantly try new decks and move their collection around. If you knock one $500 deck to $100, you've made it much harder to allow that player to convert his collection. Price drops are inevitable with reprints, even in limited sets like MM, but a deliberate attempt by WOTC to affect the secondary market like that would really damage the non-casual, non-beginner playerbase.
That's a loaded question if I've ever seen one. You're putting some assumptions into that opening post that not everyone shares. Magic is in a very healthy place right now, and pulling up a couple of examples of random bad cards printed a couple of years ago isn't going to change that. Magic always has had and always will have bad cards, and people will always complain about that fact while clamoring for more power creep and proposing their own dubious ideas of how to end bad cards. Face it, not everyone here is on board with your apocalyptic viewpoint on the current state of the game.
NWO is about complexity at common, not power. A vanilla 8/8 for 1G would see extensive play despite being a very straightforward design. Ponder was printed at common under NWO twice. Not all of the current design practices are due to NWO. It sounds like your complaint is more with the low power levels of commons and uncommons relative to rares and mythics, not with complexity. If that's the case, rolling back NWO isn't what you want to happen.
So what would you say are the upsides to the mythic rarity to the player? I feel that in some ways it helps point out what WoTC considers the defining cards of the set and helps them sell packs, but the downside is that they print fewer mythics and that leads to problems of supply when they get popular.
Mythic rarity drops the prices of rares significantly, which includes a lot of the mana fixing. Going by TCGPlayer prices, there's currently no rare in standard over $10 and only six of them over $5. Of the 32 rare and mythic lands in standard, only one is above $5. Pushing value onto mythics is bad from a pack opening standpoint or if you only want chase mythics, but it makes a lot of the cards on the secondary market a lot more accessible. From a deck construction standpoint, shifting cost from rares to mythics doesn't do much to the total cost of the deck (though historical standard pricing is surprisingly difficult to track down with a cursory google search). Even then, it's mostly the chase mythics holding value. Of 76 standard mythics, 66 are under $10 and 56 are under $5.
I'm also not seeing supply problems, as long as you can use the internet. There are a minimum of 37 playsets available for the mythic with the current lowest listed number on TCG (Grim Flayer, with 149 listed prices), and even that assumes that each listing has only a single copy available. If you want Grim Flayers, you can get Grim Flayers. If your issue is with pricing, that's beyond WotC's control. A playset of Deploy the Gatewatch, which has roughly the same number of copies, will only cost $3. You can talk about relative power levels and competitive demand, but it's not a supply issue. If your issue is with local availability, that's completely different and out of WotC's control.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
Given the entire recession happening in Magic the Gathering
[citation needed]
The secondary market for magic is very weak and the rate of recovery is not looking too good at the moment. Most of the card prices on secondary sellers has shifted onto commander staples and casual cards because they are safer and right now people are putting more into those cards than standard or modern. Frontier is having a minor impact as well with people picking up cards like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy along with M15 and kahns. It's not officially a recession yet since it's only been happening in the fall quarter, but if it goes through the winter then we can say it is absolutely. Earlier it was sort of weak but holding.
That's a loaded question if I've ever seen one. You're putting some assumptions into that opening post that not everyone shares. Magic is in a very healthy place right now, and pulling up a couple of examples of random bad cards printed a couple of years ago isn't going to change that. Magic always has had and always will have bad cards, and people will always complain about that fact while clamoring for more power creep and proposing their own dubious ideas of how to end bad cards. Face it, not everyone here is on board with your apocalyptic viewpoint on the current state of the game.
People ask me for citation on the health of magic when I bring up the word recession and no one asks you for citation on Magic being a healthy place right now?
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
How about 2 rares (one a potential mythic) 4 uncommons and 8 commons in a pack instead of the current setup. More "good" stuff, same price and less bulk commons. Same fixed printing/packaging costs. Just a crazy thought.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Well what should be done is "reduce" the "bombness" of mythic rares: mythic rares may very well be there. But they shouldn't be "another level of their own". And deckbuilding should never be "he who can work the most mythic rares to have synergy wins". Rather mythic rares should be in the general situation be not better than rares, rather they should have a mythic component that really shines if you meet a certain deck building standard.
So planeswalkers should be relugated back to normal rares, or they should all be made similar to tezzeret: who is amazing if you meet certain situations and otherwise just as good as a skysovereign. Mythic rares should not be the "majority of a board state".
A good mythic rare is for example: emrakul, the promised end. While the typical "bad" (in my opinion) is: gideon ally of zendikar. The former is strong, but requires a deck that is build in specific way to actually show its power. While the latter is just a card you can include in many many decks. Almost all white decks.
Something like that shouldn't be a mythic rare, mythic rares should "identify" with the strategy you take.
So why do they need to print fewer mythic rares than rares? If they want to identify a strategy and link it to a card they can just as easily mark the rare with a different symbol and print all the rares at equal volume. But then, they run into the problem they created with the New World Order: They can't print complex mechanics except at rare. So now what happens when we shift the distribution back to classic? I don't think people realize how insidious the R&D for marketing can be with this. They invented mythic rarity and New World Order around the same time because in order for the Mythic Rarity and new world order to work, they had to print more of the cards that once were uncommon at rare and the higher powered rares at mythic. However, then they had to fill out the commons and uncommons, so what do they do? They fill it with the most generic filler junk they could find. So when people are complaining about high costs of constructed play and argue that the cost of rares are less thanks to mythics, they aren't really seeing the picture here. The rares they are printing more of were once uncommon and uncommons used to be common. They are actually printing fewer useful cards and no one seems the wiser.
So food for thought. Honestly, the entire mythic rarity and new world order was WoTC being EA. You know, taking something popular and seeing if they can milk more cash out of the market by forcing more pack openings. The ones who ultimately feel the burn from this are the singles sellers, which then comes down on our heads.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Given the entire recession happening in Magic the Gathering
[citation needed]
The secondary market for magic is very weak and the rate of recovery is not looking too good at the moment. Most of the card prices on secondary sellers has shifted onto commander staples and casual cards because they are safer and right now people are putting more into those cards than standard or modern. Frontier is having a minor impact as well with people picking up cards like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy along with M15 and kahns. It's not officially a recession yet since it's only been happening in the fall quarter, but if it goes through the winter then we can say it is absolutely. Earlier it was sort of weak but holding.
That's not ac citation.
To reiterate: give official numbers and sales figures.
Otherwise, you're blowing smoke.
Nearly every day someone is complaining about magic sales going down, or magic somehow dying.
In other words, you have to factually demostrate the there is a problem before trying to fix it.
People ask me for citation on the health of magic when I bring up the word recession and no one asks you for citation on Magic being a healthy place right now?
Yes, because YOUR THE ONE MAKING THE CLAIM IN THE FIRST PLACE. Burden of evidence is on you.
Besides:
!) Weak commons and powerful rares have ALWAYS been part of the design of magic even while they were designing the alpha set. It's sucky from a consumer viewpoint, but not sucky enough to prevent it's success.
2) NWO is not about power level. It's about complexity. That means they avoid complex cards at common and tend to shove them up in rarity the more complex they are.
Your entire thread assumption is that NWO is somehow responsible for making commons suck. It isn't. NWO was made so that it appeals to beginners so that can easily understand the game when they buy fresh packs or play limited.
Given the entire recession happening in Magic the Gathering
[citation needed]
The secondary market for magic is very weak and the rate of recovery is not looking too good at the moment. Most of the card prices on secondary sellers has shifted onto commander staples and casual cards because they are safer and right now people are putting more into those cards than standard or modern. Frontier is having a minor impact as well with people picking up cards like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy along with M15 and kahns. It's not officially a recession yet since it's only been happening in the fall quarter, but if it goes through the winter then we can say it is absolutely. Earlier it was sort of weak but holding.
That's not ac citation.
To reiterate: give official numbers and sales figures.
Otherwise, you're blowing smoke.
Nearly every day someone is complaining about magic sales going down, or magic somehow dying.
In other words, you have to factually demostrate the there is a problem before trying to fix it.
People ask me for citation on the health of magic when I bring up the word recession and no one asks you for citation on Magic being a healthy place right now?
Yes, because YOUR THE ONE MAKING THE CLAIM IN THE FIRST PLACE. Burden of evidence is on you.
Besides:
!) Weak commons and powerful rares have ALWAYS been part of the design of magic even while they were designing the alpha set. It's sucky from a consumer viewpoint, but not sucky enough to prevent it's success.
2) NWO is not about power level. It's about complexity. That means they avoid complex cards at common and tend to shove them up in rarity the more complex they are.
Your entire thread assumption is that NWO is somehow responsible for making commons suck. It isn't. NWO was made so that it appeals to beginners so that can easily understand the game when they buy fresh packs or play limited.
They did make NWO to simplify commons and make it easier for new players. It also made commons linear and screwed over pauper without legacy cards to pick up the slack. Proof? Go look at deck lists for pauper and count how many of the cards in pauper are from post NWO and what cards actually make the decks run.
The thing is, I'm from before Modern was even invented and a lot of us who played through the time when they brought in mythic and NWO saw what they were doing. It's a lot harder for anyone post mythic launch and especially post NWO to notice the changes because they didn't live through them. Going back to the old rarity scheme probably wont significantly reduce the costs on breakout cards like Ugin, the spirit dragon or Karn, Liberated, but it will make the uncommons and commons worth a lot more to pauper players (well, in their case commons) and cube in general, as well as make pack openings a lot more fun than they are now.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Proof? Go look at deck lists for pauper and count how many of the cards in pauper are from post NWO and what cards actually make the decks run.
You were asked for proof that magic is in a recession.
Those links do no such thing. IF anything, it shows more people playing pauper now than they did before NWO, which was in 2011.
So I'll have to ask you to show evidence of magic is in recession, before you can be taken seriously in "fixing" it.
The thing is, I'm from before Modern was even invented and a lot of us who played through the time when they brought in mythic and NWO
And I've played since Beta. What's your point? As I've said before, powerful cards being rarer has been part of the design since the beginning. NWO has barely affected that.
It's a lot harder for anyone post mythic launch and especially post NWO to notice the changes because they didn't live through them
Ah, I see. Apparently my opinion isn't worth much because I stared playing post mythic/NWO launch.
Complexity reduction cannot coexist with continuingly sufficiently flat and relevant commons. Magic could keep going with New World Order exactly as it is, and have not very many commons that aren't reprints or very linear (as pointed out) impact constructed, or New World Order (remember, it's only a complexity limit on commons that was well explained and justified with a falling off the cliff graph) could be clawed back by about 30%. Keyword proliferation does that. When you have more keywords and can use one sentence, as long as board complexity factors aren't breached, you have a compliant common, still.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Warning: Um, warning. This is going to be a game state violation. And a taking extra turns and drawing extra cards violation, pretty much, a whole bunch of violations. Look at me, I'm the DCI."
I do believe new world order hurts magic. Complex cards leads to a deeper card pool to build from. More things can be tested. Decks these days are the few uncommons and many rares.
I think more complex commons is an awnser.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have dyslexia, no I am not going to spell check for you, yes you have to live with the horrors of it.
NWO drives more pack sales for WotC, they aren't going to revoke NWO. It also gets more players into the game because commons are easy to understand and people see a lot of commons when cracking packs.
Magic is fine financially. No clue where the doom and gloom talk comes from.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
So what would you say are the upsides to the mythic rarity to the player? I feel that in some ways it helps point out what WoTC considers the defining cards of the set and helps them sell packs, but the downside is that they print fewer mythics and that leads to problems of supply when they get popular.
Depends on the player. But in general, players who are more competitive, more experienced, or more rules-oriented are more likely to gravitate towards mythics. It also is, fundamentally, a money-making scheme. But the downsides are not super relevant, especially from WotC's perspective.
People ask me for citation on the health of magic when I bring up the word recession and no one asks you for citation on Magic being a healthy place right now?
Because of Occam's Razor - Burden of proof is on you due to your situation not being the default.
The thing is, I'm from before Modern was even invented and a lot of us who played through the time when they brought in mythic and NWO saw what they were doing. It's a lot harder for anyone post mythic launch and especially post NWO to notice the changes because they didn't live through them. Going back to the old rarity scheme probably wont significantly reduce the costs on breakout cards like Ugin, the spirit dragon or Karn, Liberated, but it will make the uncommons and commons worth a lot more to pauper players (well, in their case commons) and cube in general, as well as make pack openings a lot more fun than they are now.
I've been playing for 10 years, and while I didn't necessarily agree with mythics when they came out, I haven't seen a ton of issues with them, and the good is there.
----------------------
As for Magic being in a recession, that won't happen until either the eternal bubble bursts or WotC releases something not very popular in Standard, neither of which apply.
Well, this is probably going off topic but for those asking for citation where do you go for your information to know what is going on in the world of magic?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
It's a lot harder for anyone post mythic launch and especially post NWO to notice the changes because they didn't live through them
Ah, I see. Apparently my opinion isn't worth much because I stared playing post mythic/NWO launch.
Brilliant!
Actually, it's the complete opposite. Someone explaining where they come from and saying that it would be hard for someone else to have the same opinion if they didn't live through the same situation isn't wrong. That's a fact of life. I'm starting to think people want to talk about everything but the subject here in the thread. If people want to know about the issues with the secondary market at the moment the best places that can probably catch you up on it are Alpha Investments and MTG Market Monday, both of which can be found on youtube. If you want to read about it I think you have to have a sub to actually see the articles, so I can't actually link you to those. They are or were on Quiet Speculation, which I highly recommend as a place to go frequent because they have a lot of great articles on cards to watch and other news.
I am going to put this out there for those thinking this is some kind of cry wolf post: No the focus is not on the fact magic is or isn't in a recession. The post is about NWO and the Mythic Rarity. My feeling is the market could head into a recession if it doesn't recover from the state of weakness it's been in the last few months, and wizards isn't helping things with the over priced planechase anthology collection. On the flip side I think the reprint of eternal masters actually helped single sellers since the boxes could be cracked and singles sold for more value than the box. At least that is how it was a week ago.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
There's a difference between not liking something and that thing actually having measurable detrimental effects for a product's sales.
Personally, I don't like NWO design. I'd like more commons to be messy tricky cards like Brine Shaman, Pestilence, Phthisis or Exhume. I'd love to commiserate about it with other MtG players over a beer, and trade hits from one another's inhalers and compare the latest trends in highwater pants.
But that's different than claiming at it makes WotC's sales worse. I don't remember the last official statement they made, but for a long time after they talked about designing under the NWO philosophy, they were reporting strings of years of record sales. And in the absence of data, I'd tend to trust Hasbro's market research over results you or I pull out of our asses with our respective sample sizes of 1.
There's a difference between not liking something and that thing actually having measurable detrimental effects for a product's sales.
Personally, I don't like NWO design. I'd like more commons to be messy tricky cards like Brine Shaman, Pestilence, Phthisis or Exhume. I'd love to commiserate about it with other MtG players over a beer, and trade hits from one another's inhalers and compare the latest trends in highwater pants.
But that's different than claiming at it makes WotC's sales worse. I don't remember the last official statement they made, but for a long time after they talked about designing under the NWO philosophy, they were reporting strings of years of record sales. And in the absence of data, I'd tend to trust Hasbro's market research over results you or I pull out of our asses with our respective sample sizes of 1.
I did check what hasbro has released as far as figures, but the issue with that is they tend put everything into one big pot with their sales. They have an overall profit growth in Q2 which is great for the company, but that is comprised of everything from Nerf to MtG. The reality is they released way too many products too close together and the first layer of response to bad stuff from a company like that is the vendors and store owners.
Honestly, I'm pretty much with you that I ultimately as a player don't like the design of NWO at all either and if / when wizards moves to a new "eternal" window we'll be all the way into it 100%. That's sort of why I'm hoping even if they don't get rid of Mythics, they at least undo NWO so there are more non-linear strategies in the budget and pauper deck builds.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Given the entire recession happening in Magic the Gathering
[citation needed]
The secondary market for magic is very weak and the rate of recovery is not looking too good at the moment. Most of the card prices on secondary sellers has shifted onto commander staples and casual cards because they are safer and right now people are putting more into those cards than standard or modern. Frontier is having a minor impact as well with people picking up cards like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy along with M15 and kahns. It's not officially a recession yet since it's only been happening in the fall quarter, but if it goes through the winter then we can say it is absolutely. Earlier it was sort of weak but holding.
That's not ac citation.
To reiterate: give official numbers and sales figures.
Otherwise, you're blowing smoke.
Nearly every day someone is complaining about magic sales going down, or magic somehow dying.
In other words, you have to factually demostrate the there is a problem before trying to fix it.
People ask me for citation on the health of magic when I bring up the word recession and no one asks you for citation on Magic being a healthy place right now?
Yes, because YOUR THE ONE MAKING THE CLAIM IN THE FIRST PLACE. Burden of evidence is on you.
Besides:
!) Weak commons and powerful rares have ALWAYS been part of the design of magic even while they were designing the alpha set. It's sucky from a consumer viewpoint, but not sucky enough to prevent it's success.
2) NWO is not about power level. It's about complexity. That means they avoid complex cards at common and tend to shove them up in rarity the more complex they are.
Your entire thread assumption is that NWO is somehow responsible for making commons suck. It isn't. NWO was made so that it appeals to beginners so that can easily understand the game when they buy fresh packs or play limited.
totally this.
I don't see a recession. If anything I see fatigue because there are many many products and wallets are stressed. But thats not a recession, just means too many products to blow cash on.
I also do not agree with NWO, and also agree that in general that the power level and creativity of commons and uncommons seems to have been lowered. ... But there are some gems... so its not all terrible... aaannd... thats how magic sets have always been... lots of chaff with a few gems. I also do not like mythics, mostly because it makes it such that I have to buy more product if I want to open them (as opposed to getting singles).. but that is the intention and it has worked beautifully for wotc thus far, not a problem for the company at all If anything mythics seem to have lowered prices for commons unc and rare... i would and do think that it is a good thing for players?
But I guess thats the problem... I hardly care for the value of the cards. Modern prices are languishing at the moment, but thats for other reasons and in fact I think its more of a correction from the heavy speculation (so the low you are seeing is likely more due to over inflated prices due to speculators), again this is a good thing in my eyes at least
I don't think the issue is the NWO, but the vast difference in power between spells and creatures in standard. While I understand that historically, spells have always held the upper hand, and that Wizards is attempting to balance this, however I think they've went to far. Limited removal is at three mana, and it's becoming harder to find a reasonable soft counter at two mana. These are the sort of spells that I feel are important to magic, and they are being weakened in favor of creature combat and power. This has lead to very boring and straight forward standard seasons that have aged quickly and poorly. Simple cards aren't the problem, but the power imbalance between creatures and spells is. We need to get back to stack interaction being the norm, and de-emphasize the combat step just a tad.
If magic is suffering I would put the blame on this and the rising cost of standard. When your premier format is not only boring, but expensive, you'll have an issue. Older players are getting tired of this style of standard, while new players are being kept out of the introductory format by decks full of rares and mythics, with commons and uncommons being the exceptions. You could also blame product fatigue. Last year had several products release right on top of one another, taking away from the other releases. I know this personally pushed me from the game quite a bit this year. On top of all this you have poor format support with wizards creating yet more formats to compete with the ones they don't properly support! Wizards has a great cash cow, but seem intent on squandering it.
Given a booster box is for the most part made up of uncommons and commons, singles sellers have to eat the cost of these horrible prints that no one wants and force shift the cost onto the cards constructed players want such as mythics and rares. Maybe at one point WoTC thought they could kill the second hand market this way, but the reality is that it shouldered on and the only thing their "new world order" did was shift card costs onto the bombs and leaving entire lots of bulk cards sitting and collecting dust, which wouldn't be a problem on it's own if LGSs had infinite vaults of space in their back rooms. Eventually all those cards have to get either sold, thrown out, or stashed into rentable storage which ends up costing even more money.
Also, if they did print more interesting commons and uncommons they would no longer need to have a mythic rarity, which would probably help everyone including draft players. From observation and playing, it seems like in draft if someone got a Gisela, the Broken Blade during a Shadows draft it often turned into a game of Gisella or Bust. Anyone else have thoughts on this? Think I'm right or wrong?
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
So what would you say are the upsides to the mythic rarity to the player? I feel that in some ways it helps point out what WoTC considers the defining cards of the set and helps them sell packs, but the downside is that they print fewer mythics and that leads to problems of supply when they get popular.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
On the other hand, if instead of beefing up the strength of commons you just look at mythics/rares and print MORE of these cards, and keep them at the same power level, you damage the idea of investing in cards from a secondary market standpoint which would turn off almost as many players as you would be helping get into constructed/eternal formats. If you reprint old cards in quantity large enough to permanently affect their price, then you just alienate a large portion of your older players because you can't reprint EVERY value card, so you essentially pick and choose who's investment is less worthwhile in the long run. Remember that not everyone looks at card values in strictly dollar-to-cardboard, but they use these values as trade value so they can constantly try new decks and move their collection around. If you knock one $500 deck to $100, you've made it much harder to allow that player to convert his collection. Price drops are inevitable with reprints, even in limited sets like MM, but a deliberate attempt by WOTC to affect the secondary market like that would really damage the non-casual, non-beginner playerbase.
Mythic rarity drops the prices of rares significantly, which includes a lot of the mana fixing. Going by TCGPlayer prices, there's currently no rare in standard over $10 and only six of them over $5. Of the 32 rare and mythic lands in standard, only one is above $5. Pushing value onto mythics is bad from a pack opening standpoint or if you only want chase mythics, but it makes a lot of the cards on the secondary market a lot more accessible. From a deck construction standpoint, shifting cost from rares to mythics doesn't do much to the total cost of the deck (though historical standard pricing is surprisingly difficult to track down with a cursory google search). Even then, it's mostly the chase mythics holding value. Of 76 standard mythics, 66 are under $10 and 56 are under $5.
I'm also not seeing supply problems, as long as you can use the internet. There are a minimum of 37 playsets available for the mythic with the current lowest listed number on TCG (Grim Flayer, with 149 listed prices), and even that assumes that each listing has only a single copy available. If you want Grim Flayers, you can get Grim Flayers. If your issue is with pricing, that's beyond WotC's control. A playset of Deploy the Gatewatch, which has roughly the same number of copies, will only cost $3. You can talk about relative power levels and competitive demand, but it's not a supply issue. If your issue is with local availability, that's completely different and out of WotC's control.
The secondary market for magic is very weak and the rate of recovery is not looking too good at the moment. Most of the card prices on secondary sellers has shifted onto commander staples and casual cards because they are safer and right now people are putting more into those cards than standard or modern. Frontier is having a minor impact as well with people picking up cards like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy along with M15 and kahns. It's not officially a recession yet since it's only been happening in the fall quarter, but if it goes through the winter then we can say it is absolutely. Earlier it was sort of weak but holding.
People ask me for citation on the health of magic when I bring up the word recession and no one asks you for citation on Magic being a healthy place right now?
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
So why do they need to print fewer mythic rares than rares? If they want to identify a strategy and link it to a card they can just as easily mark the rare with a different symbol and print all the rares at equal volume. But then, they run into the problem they created with the New World Order: They can't print complex mechanics except at rare. So now what happens when we shift the distribution back to classic? I don't think people realize how insidious the R&D for marketing can be with this. They invented mythic rarity and New World Order around the same time because in order for the Mythic Rarity and new world order to work, they had to print more of the cards that once were uncommon at rare and the higher powered rares at mythic. However, then they had to fill out the commons and uncommons, so what do they do? They fill it with the most generic filler junk they could find. So when people are complaining about high costs of constructed play and argue that the cost of rares are less thanks to mythics, they aren't really seeing the picture here. The rares they are printing more of were once uncommon and uncommons used to be common. They are actually printing fewer useful cards and no one seems the wiser.
So food for thought. Honestly, the entire mythic rarity and new world order was WoTC being EA. You know, taking something popular and seeing if they can milk more cash out of the market by forcing more pack openings. The ones who ultimately feel the burn from this are the singles sellers, which then comes down on our heads.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
That's not ac citation.
To reiterate: give official numbers and sales figures.
Otherwise, you're blowing smoke.
Nearly every day someone is complaining about magic sales going down, or magic somehow dying.
In other words, you have to factually demostrate the there is a problem before trying to fix it.
Yes, because YOUR THE ONE MAKING THE CLAIM IN THE FIRST PLACE. Burden of evidence is on you.
Besides:
!) Weak commons and powerful rares have ALWAYS been part of the design of magic even while they were designing the alpha set. It's sucky from a consumer viewpoint, but not sucky enough to prevent it's success.
2) NWO is not about power level. It's about complexity. That means they avoid complex cards at common and tend to shove them up in rarity the more complex they are.
Your entire thread assumption is that NWO is somehow responsible for making commons suck. It isn't. NWO was made so that it appeals to beginners so that can easily understand the game when they buy fresh packs or play limited.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
They did make NWO to simplify commons and make it easier for new players. It also made commons linear and screwed over pauper without legacy cards to pick up the slack. Proof? Go look at deck lists for pauper and count how many of the cards in pauper are from post NWO and what cards actually make the decks run.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/pauper-mono-blue-delver#online
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/pauper-affinity-22749#online
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/pauper-ub-32499#online
The thing is, I'm from before Modern was even invented and a lot of us who played through the time when they brought in mythic and NWO saw what they were doing. It's a lot harder for anyone post mythic launch and especially post NWO to notice the changes because they didn't live through them. Going back to the old rarity scheme probably wont significantly reduce the costs on breakout cards like Ugin, the spirit dragon or Karn, Liberated, but it will make the uncommons and commons worth a lot more to pauper players (well, in their case commons) and cube in general, as well as make pack openings a lot more fun than they are now.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
You were asked for proof that magic is in a recession.
Those links do no such thing. IF anything, it shows more people playing pauper now than they did before NWO, which was in 2011.
So I'll have to ask you to show evidence of magic is in recession, before you can be taken seriously in "fixing" it.
And I've played since Beta. What's your point? As I've said before, powerful cards being rarer has been part of the design since the beginning. NWO has barely affected that.
Ah, I see. Apparently my opinion isn't worth much because I stared playing post mythic/NWO launch.
Brilliant!
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
I think more complex commons is an awnser.
Magic is fine financially. No clue where the doom and gloom talk comes from.
Currently Playing:
Retired
Depends on the player. But in general, players who are more competitive, more experienced, or more rules-oriented are more likely to gravitate towards mythics. It also is, fundamentally, a money-making scheme. But the downsides are not super relevant, especially from WotC's perspective.
Because of Occam's Razor - Burden of proof is on you due to your situation not being the default.
I've been playing for 10 years, and while I didn't necessarily agree with mythics when they came out, I haven't seen a ton of issues with them, and the good is there.
----------------------
As for Magic being in a recession, that won't happen until either the eternal bubble bursts or WotC releases something not very popular in Standard, neither of which apply.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Actually, it's the complete opposite. Someone explaining where they come from and saying that it would be hard for someone else to have the same opinion if they didn't live through the same situation isn't wrong. That's a fact of life. I'm starting to think people want to talk about everything but the subject here in the thread. If people want to know about the issues with the secondary market at the moment the best places that can probably catch you up on it are Alpha Investments and MTG Market Monday, both of which can be found on youtube. If you want to read about it I think you have to have a sub to actually see the articles, so I can't actually link you to those. They are or were on Quiet Speculation, which I highly recommend as a place to go frequent because they have a lot of great articles on cards to watch and other news.
I am going to put this out there for those thinking this is some kind of cry wolf post: No the focus is not on the fact magic is or isn't in a recession. The post is about NWO and the Mythic Rarity. My feeling is the market could head into a recession if it doesn't recover from the state of weakness it's been in the last few months, and wizards isn't helping things with the over priced planechase anthology collection. On the flip side I think the reprint of eternal masters actually helped single sellers since the boxes could be cracked and singles sold for more value than the box. At least that is how it was a week ago.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Personally, I don't like NWO design. I'd like more commons to be messy tricky cards like Brine Shaman, Pestilence, Phthisis or Exhume. I'd love to commiserate about it with other MtG players over a beer, and trade hits from one another's inhalers and compare the latest trends in highwater pants.
But that's different than claiming at it makes WotC's sales worse. I don't remember the last official statement they made, but for a long time after they talked about designing under the NWO philosophy, they were reporting strings of years of record sales. And in the absence of data, I'd tend to trust Hasbro's market research over results you or I pull out of our asses with our respective sample sizes of 1.
I did check what hasbro has released as far as figures, but the issue with that is they tend put everything into one big pot with their sales. They have an overall profit growth in Q2 which is great for the company, but that is comprised of everything from Nerf to MtG. The reality is they released way too many products too close together and the first layer of response to bad stuff from a company like that is the vendors and store owners.
Honestly, I'm pretty much with you that I ultimately as a player don't like the design of NWO at all either and if / when wizards moves to a new "eternal" window we'll be all the way into it 100%. That's sort of why I'm hoping even if they don't get rid of Mythics, they at least undo NWO so there are more non-linear strategies in the budget and pauper deck builds.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
totally this.
I don't see a recession. If anything I see fatigue because there are many many products and wallets are stressed. But thats not a recession, just means too many products to blow cash on.
I also do not agree with NWO, and also agree that in general that the power level and creativity of commons and uncommons seems to have been lowered. ... But there are some gems... so its not all terrible... aaannd... thats how magic sets have always been... lots of chaff with a few gems. I also do not like mythics, mostly because it makes it such that I have to buy more product if I want to open them (as opposed to getting singles).. but that is the intention and it has worked beautifully for wotc thus far, not a problem for the company at all If anything mythics seem to have lowered prices for commons unc and rare... i would and do think that it is a good thing for players?
But I guess thats the problem... I hardly care for the value of the cards. Modern prices are languishing at the moment, but thats for other reasons and in fact I think its more of a correction from the heavy speculation (so the low you are seeing is likely more due to over inflated prices due to speculators), again this is a good thing in my eyes at least
Reality is but a perception of your being --
Visit my blog!!! - http://huffalump-magic.blogspot.com/
"The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside."
—Emily Dickinson
For sales or trade, visit my blog or visit my ebay blog for my listings :http://myworld.ebay.com/arcane7828
881
Oooh Dicey:
[dice=1]100[/dice]
If magic is suffering I would put the blame on this and the rising cost of standard. When your premier format is not only boring, but expensive, you'll have an issue. Older players are getting tired of this style of standard, while new players are being kept out of the introductory format by decks full of rares and mythics, with commons and uncommons being the exceptions. You could also blame product fatigue. Last year had several products release right on top of one another, taking away from the other releases. I know this personally pushed me from the game quite a bit this year. On top of all this you have poor format support with wizards creating yet more formats to compete with the ones they don't properly support! Wizards has a great cash cow, but seem intent on squandering it.
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
Alt+0198=Æ