So just got home from a Standard Tournament that never fired (I was the only player that signed up). The same thing happened at FNM last night (only three players signed up). The only time I've been able to play/test my standard deck against other people was this past Monday (nine people signed up), a day in which I expected less of a turn out because it isn't the weekend. Now I live in a major metropolitan area (we're talking population in the millions) and the three game stores I go to are all within 2-3 miles from where I live. Yet I can never consistantly find people that play Standard or go to tournaments where Standard is played. Many people say that the price of entry to play Standard is too high for many players, and I'm inclined to agree with this sentiment. You'd think Wizards would go out of their way to understand why their Standard player base has dwindled in a format that is the most pushed/covered via tournament coverage/articles/singles sales. So the question becomes, what gives? Why is Standard attendance so poor?
Bad R&D. It's only going to get worse before it gets better, since R&D works on sets a year or two ahead of when they're released.
R&D from a game design side or a sales side? From a sales side, I don't understand. Why buy cards if you don't get to play them? I Haven't bought a box since Theros was released (the set, not the block). Mostly because I liked the idea of seeing what I happened to pull and getting my hands on most copies of the commons and uncommons I needed to build a variety of decks. Gimmicks, like the Masterpiece Series don't appeal to me, although I do understand they appeal to other players/collectors. I, however, like playing with my cards and want to use them for the purpose for which they are intended.
Bad R&D. It's only going to get worse before it gets better, since R&D works on sets a year or two ahead of when they're released.
R&D from a game design side or a sales side? From a sales side, I don't understand. Why buy cards if you don't get to play them? I Haven't bought a box since Theros was released (the set, not the block). Mostly because I liked the idea of seeing what I happened to pull and getting my hands on most copies of the commons and uncommons I needed to build a variety of decks. Gimmicks, like the Masterpiece Series don't appeal to me, although I do understand they appeal to other players/collectors. I, however, like playing with my cards and want to use them for the purpose for which they are intended.
Bad R&D on the game design side is leading to desperate/bad decision on the sales side. Nobody wants bans, but if they're forced because people simply give up on the format...well...it leads to gimmicks like Masterpieces. That and the intrinsic drive of sales to increase sales at all costs.
Bad R&D. It's only going to get worse before it gets better, since R&D works on sets a year or two ahead of when they're released.
R&D from a game design side or a sales side? From a sales side, I don't understand. Why buy cards if you don't get to play them? I Haven't bought a box since Theros was released (the set, not the block). Mostly because I liked the idea of seeing what I happened to pull and getting my hands on most copies of the commons and uncommons I needed to build a variety of decks. Gimmicks, like the Masterpiece Series don't appeal to me, although I do understand they appeal to other players/collectors. I, however, like playing with my cards and want to use them for the purpose for which they are intended.
Bad R&D on the game design side is leading to desperate/bad decision on the sales side. Nobody wants bans, but if they're forced because people simply give up on the format...well...it leads to gimmicks like Masterpieces. That and the intrinsic drive of sales to increase sales at all costs.
Love when people trash talk the Masterpiece series and say it's a gimmick and response to low sales, yet in this instance in the same post the same guy acknowledges they work years in advance, so they wouldn't have known to include them based on sales. Or how switching to the 2x-rotation would effect turn out even if the idea of not letting Standard get stale was a good intention. Or that they'd need to make bannings that they have. "More testing" isn't the answer because it's like any complex system in that you need more eyes and time to break something than most developers for anything have to test it. Same thing happens in many other games. But using master pieces as a scapegoat is hilarious when people were complaining about the most expensive Standard since Cawblade and Masterpieces resulting in lower Standard prices from more supply being opened, and adding rare and in-demand older cards like many of the artifacts and lands in the series. Find another scapegoat.
Bad R&D. It's only going to get worse before it gets better, since R&D works on sets a year or two ahead of when they're released.
R&D from a game design side or a sales side? From a sales side, I don't understand. Why buy cards if you don't get to play them? I Haven't bought a box since Theros was released (the set, not the block). Mostly because I liked the idea of seeing what I happened to pull and getting my hands on most copies of the commons and uncommons I needed to build a variety of decks. Gimmicks, like the Masterpiece Series don't appeal to me, although I do understand they appeal to other players/collectors. I, however, like playing with my cards and want to use them for the purpose for which they are intended.
Bad R&D on the game design side is leading to desperate/bad decision on the sales side. Nobody wants bans, but if they're forced because people simply give up on the format...well...it leads to gimmicks like Masterpieces. That and the intrinsic drive of sales to increase sales at all costs.
Love when people trash talk the Masterpiece series and say it's a gimmick and response to low sales, yet in this instance in the same post the same guy acknowledges they work years in advance, so they wouldn't have known to include them based on sales. Or how switching to the 2x-rotation would effect turn out even if the idea of not letting Standard get stale was a good intention. Or that they'd need to make bannings that they have. "More testing" isn't the answer because it's like any complex system in that you need more eyes and time to break something than most developers for anything have to test it. Same thing happens in many other games. But using master pieces as a scapegoat is hilarious when people were complaining about the most expensive Standard since Cawblade and Masterpieces resulting in lower Standard prices from more supply being opened, and adding rare and in-demand older cards like many of the artifacts and lands in the series. Find another scapegoat.
The masterpieces seem like an easy cheesy add-on. No testing required as they are non-standard legal and so rare that if they do break limited, it will only happen when someone opens the right cards. Commission the art and tack them on into packs, seems easy.
It's not a scapegoat - it's the canary in the coal mine. Standard sales are down despite the Masterpieces.
Standard isn't expensive today. Khans had a way more expensive T2. With the inventions, playing T2 is cheaper but brings a bigger problem.
1- T2 players play FNM for the cards and for boosters prizes. The current FNM cards are *****. There is no way to put it. With a HUGE selection of uncommon/common cards that would make nice promos, they prefer to print things that NO ONE wants. The other problem is that "winning" means you get more lottery tickets. We use to get some consistency, now days you crack the pac and if there is no master piece? You'll probably get a dollar for your cards. 3rd place got one booster and cracked and lottery card? Better than winning. There is little to no reason to play the next championship if a new box isn't opened. It means players are getting a gimped prize, since the master piece is already gone.
2- Sealed players: "So let me get this straight, if he opens a wurmcoil master piece he can play it? Wizards spent years making sets "draftable" and now they drop a free win joker? I'm out..."
3- Modern/vintage/EDH/legacy players see the master pieces - "So t2 is *****ty and us, the other format players are being used to sustain the format by shoving lottery cards in the new boosters? Why the cards aren't in the mythic slot? You know, wizards said before that that slot were for historical cards! Big lie. Not going to buy those cards".
4- Collector - " So they are reprinting cards, making chase cards ( EMA foil mana crypt), make us buy it and after a few months they release a 'ultra super mega rare mana crypt'. F*** wizards. Don't wanna be triple dipped because I collect these cards."
5-Shops- "So if we crack a good master piece we make the box price back, if we get a crappy one we got hosed? So they increased the variance AGAIN with another rarity? Cut the order by 3/4".
6-t2 bans. "Heyyy guys, you know we test for t2 only but we need to ban because we don't know how to do our job. Have fun selling those banned cards. By the way, we don't acknowledge the secondary market, so we will give you no compensation for that".
7- Hey, conspiracy spoilers, commander 2017, eternal masters, kaladesh, aether revolt. SLOW THE F*** DOWN WIZARDS. Players are saturated with products.
8- Lottery cards don't excuse crappy set design. See oath of the gate watch.
9- Power creep is turning T2 into modern, yet they keep introducing more and more creatures that are win conditions and more effective than sorcery/instants. See the eldrazi, in modern there are decks with 8/10 spells spells, twisting how magic is meant to be played. If I want turn 4 kills I can play modern.
You see, wizards is literally PISSING EVERYONE OFF except for the T2 players, just because they want to keep growing numbers. It is a really dumb strategy because they forget that many T2 players are modern/vintage/legacy/EDH players.
It is better to show some really short results to Hasbro. We should complain with our wallets and teach hasbro a lesson. We, the customers, are not sheep.
Obviously no matter which you open, IF you open one, its a welcome Bonus.
The value otherwise consists of the overall expensive cards in the set.
If a single mythic tanks all the value, its a hit or miss.
Cycles that are good, like Fetchlands spread the value over multiple rares, so you are almost guaranteed to open some of them "at least", and you can still jackpot in foils and master pieces.
Problem in Kaladesh and Aether Revolt is that there simply is no value , the expensive cards are standard only relevant (Heart of Khiran, Planeswalkers for standard).
So that seriously hurts the value of the set.
Its very difficult to buy product for these sets and make a profit, as theres basicly nothing that you can open that is really worth the cost.
For the "value" of the set it would have certainly helped to make Fatal Push a rare, would have easily reached the levels of a Thougtseize and increased packs sold, as its the card that everyone wants and its a uncommon, nobody really cares for the rares or mythics in the set.
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For FNM i would recommend to draft.
We do that every week and Standard is a "maybe" if enough players want to play, otherwise everyone will just build a deck for some bigger tournaments, not for casually playing standard, and especially not right after a set is released.
The last time I was interested in playing Standard was Return to Ravnica. I was hopeful that the set would capture a lot of the play-ability and balance of the original Ravnica and for the most part, the first set in the block delivered. The cards were powerful and eternal format playable, the flavor was spot on for the guilds and limited was fun too. Everything has been awful since that release in my opinion. There's been a few tidbits for eternal format players here and there but really, not that much. Theros was such a wasted opportunity. They should have directly tied in Greek gods by name, made it more like "Arabian Nights" in epic feel. The made-up Greek god stuff was lame, not to mention the complete failure of "enchantments matter".
I originally got off of the Standard train after "combo winter" back when the Urza's block was out. Magic nearly died at that time as many players quit like I did. WoTC managed things very poorly. Many powerful T2 cards were banned and I think a lot of long-time older players were just fed up and left. I returned when Mirrodin was released only to find out that a whole bunch more cards needed to be banned from Standard. I stuck around somewhat causally anyway because I was having some fun playing again. Sets like Ravnica, Timespiral, and Zendikar were really very good sets. Cards from these sets still have a presence in Legacy and frankly, that's all that really matters to me. Once you realize that it's actually "cheaper" to play Legacy than it is to dump thousands of dollars on repeat with Standard, it becomes clear that Legacy (and to a lesser extent Modern and Commander) are really "Magic".
With that in mind, I think WoTC hasn't really been selling "Magic" for a while now. Why would I want a bunch of useless chaff from what I see from Standard set releases? None of the cards are going into my eternal decks. Maybe a single card here and there. That's not enough for me to want to sit down and build a standard deck or even play limited.
I know the thinking is that Standard players drive Magic, but those players eventually turn into eternal players and that isn't going to happen when Standard players are getting junk that they can't play with outside of standard. It can't sustain itself. I don't think WoTC has a good grasp on what happens to their long-term player base.
Firstly I am an optimist and this thread is so negative and conspiracy ladened. Pull it back for a second
WoTC's primary goal is to make money correct but you are forgetting they make the most money when the game is good, balanced and exciting.
Commander products have actually been of consistantly high quality..even if some of the generals were a little strong (I am looking at you Deveri). Excelent way to make money from casual players, commander is really fun if you have the right mind set for it.
The standard players of today get to use thier fatal pushes in eternal formats. Fatal push is a good example of printing cards for eternal formats. They have and can continue to do so.
Okay now for my own version of negativity. I think WotC has made a bunch of mistakes recently. Starting with the utter failure of BFZ and the craziness of Oath of the gatewatch. I personally like Shadows and even Eldritch moon despite Emmy. Kaladesh though.. I think they just tried too many new things at once energy vechicals and just couldn't hope to balance them, it is kind of a true new mirridon and we already had that with the mistake laden New phyrexia.
Standard is definately lower in cost than during Khans battle era and the RTR/innstrad era mentioned above... But there is an issue, even in the best case senario of a paper sissors rock format of different archetypes you cannot improve your win percentage because you can't hate out a deck. So either you lose to the same deck week after week or you change your deck.. then lose to a different deck week after week... cross your fingers and hope not to be pair against them. What is expensive is this deck hopping not the decks themselves.
You add the effect of rotation you lose a few cards and your deck stops working, in a way that is not as obvious as losing your key cards. I played esper dragons and by the time I got my 4 th Ojutai. Dig rotated.. then despite still having Ojutai and Silumgar's scorn. the meta shifted in such a way my deck was now average to terrible. I had played UBx control for about 5 years at that point every time I was able to simply shift a few rotating cards for new equivilents but that came to an end with dragons. So i picked up UR thermo-thing... that only lost jace in rotation anddddd now every win con in my deck loses to fatal push. So I have to a) buy a new deck or b) quit standard.
Dragons would of been fine, if there was something better than anticipate to find my pieces or if there was any grave hate.. any at all! to stop delirium/den protector decks taking over. Where was my hate! the fatal push issue is a bit harder to solve but another major issue is the 2 mana, 4 toughness creatures that a deck relying on red remove cannot remove effiecently.. and no goddamn shatter!
blergh, now I am all negative.. I am going to bed.
Wizards thought they knew the definition of fun magic. Undoubtedly their market research showed people like fielding threats and casting win cons over spot removal, sweepers and counters. So they went in hard in printing powerful threats, while scaling back the answers to a point of being unplayable. This has resulted in several standard rotations being Magic; The Midranging, which even as a Midrange fan, can get really boring. There was a time when Spells where the overpowered sub set in magic, and Wizards really wanted to balance that out. The issue is there aren't a whole of of "answer" creatures. When instants and sorceries where the most powerful thing in magic, you had your answers and your win conditions. With creatures being pushed, you really only have win cons. Luckily Wizards has admitted their mistake, and will hopefully try to find an equilibrium.
As for the Masterpieces, I don't think they will be as common as people believe them to be. In BFZ they where riffing on the original Zendikar's Treasures, while also hoping to minimize the damage caused by not having fetches in the set. With Kaladesh, there was a decent story reason to have these Masterpieces, even if it was somewhat of a stretch. If we where going to see things like this moving forward, I can only believe that Shadows over Innistrad would have had their own flavorful versions. Now all of this being said, I do think they tried to pull of these lottery sets much to close together, so they lost a lot of the luster they had when we heard of them for BFZ.
As for the cost of standard, the Masterpieces are helping keep the price of standard down, by making cracking packs more intriguing. This floods the market with unwanted cards of all rarities, lowering the prices. The issue is that it's weakened the secondary market, making opening boxes a game of Lottery card or bust. That is not good. Things where even worse with the sped up rotation, but luckily that was fixed, with the rotation speed being slowed down again. I fear this though, as Wizards alluded to the faster rotation allowing them to print pushed cards, and let the fast rotation deal with them. Without that, it'll be interesting to see what kind of creatures they had in the pipe line with the faster rotation in mind. Another issue was the consolidation of powerful, playable cards at the rare and mythic levels. This undoubtedly has pushed the price up. Aether Revolt has a great selection of uncommons, and hopefully we see that trend continue. If not, I don't see a big drop in standard price anytime soon.
Lastly, a real lack of player rewards is hurting the player base. The FNM promos have been laughable for the most part, and they are the only real incentive to play standard for most people. With a boring, expensive format with little to no reward at the end what is the point?
As for other formats, Modern is still living under the Ban Hammer and lack of reprint support. Legacy would kill for any WotC support what so ever. Vintage is a joke for most people outside of MTGO. And MTGO? The issues with that train wreck could have a thread of it's own. Supplemental products are coming out far to fast, with some getting printed into the ground (Planechase Anthologies) and others not being printed enough (Commander 2016). It's easy to see why there was a change in upper management. Let us just hope it actually translates into a positive move for the game on our end.
As for the Masterpieces, I don't think they will be as common as people believe them to be. In BFZ they where riffing on the original Zendikar's Treasures, while also hoping to minimize the damage caused by not having fetches in the set. With Kaladesh, there was a decent story reason to have these Masterpieces, even if it was somewhat of a stretch. If we where going to see things like this moving forward, I can only believe that Shadows over Innistrad would have had their own flavorful versions. Now all of this being said, I do think they tried to pull of these lottery sets much to close together, so they lost a lot of the luster they had when we heard of them for BFZ.
You must have missed the part where they came right out and said that every new set in standard will have masterpieces (which is why the Zendikar Expeditions are retroactively considered part of the Masterpiece Series). People aren't wildly speculating that WotC is going to include them going forward, we know they're going to, because they said as much when Inventions were first spoiled.
As for the Masterpieces, I don't think they will be as common as people believe them to be. In BFZ they where riffing on the original Zendikar's Treasures, while also hoping to minimize the damage caused by not having fetches in the set. With Kaladesh, there was a decent story reason to have these Masterpieces, even if it was somewhat of a stretch. If we where going to see things like this moving forward, I can only believe that Shadows over Innistrad would have had their own flavorful versions. Now all of this being said, I do think they tried to pull of these lottery sets much to close together, so they lost a lot of the luster they had when we heard of them for BFZ.
You must have missed the part where they came right out and said that every new set in standard will have masterpieces (which is why the Zendikar Expeditions are retroactively considered part of the Masterpiece Series). People aren't wildly speculating that WotC is going to include them going forward, we know they're going to, because they said as much when Inventions were first spoiled.
"However, when we experimented with putting some of these older cards in Standard, we found the more powerful ones warped Standard in a way we felt was unhealthy for the format, so we looked to other avenues to release these cards."
Standard reprint of powerful cards are a thing of the past. Since modern masters there was no reason to insert powerful cards in unlimited sets because there is already a way to supply that demand.
EMA, commander, Modern masters and conspiracy aren't enough. I mean conspiracy was a non limited set with little to no reprints (serum, show and tell, IOK...), and they say they need to reprint card in an ulta super rare rarity.
It's like saying "We need to put away a fire, but insteead of using a hose (non limited set) or a bucket (limited sets) we are using tea cups (lottery cards) because it is the most effective way.
It is even funnier when they recognize the secondary market while not recognizing it.
"Challenge #1: Keeping Standard Accessible
Standard is the most-played Constructed format. It's designed as an entry point for players who wish to play Constructed Magic. Through market research and social media, we learned that many of the players who were interested in playing Standard felt it was something beyond their reach. We had to find ways to address this."
Instead of reducing the price on the new sets, reducing the set sizes or, i don 't know, removing the ridicule "mythic" rarity (just imagine how much city of traitor would cost if it was "mythic", because of the "flavor" mythic brings to the table.
I 'm not buying anything until wizards stops trying to PR bull***** everyone.
"However, when we experimented with putting some of these older cards in Standard, we found the more powerful ones warped Standard in a way we felt was unhealthy for the format, so we looked to other avenues to release these cards."
I knew they were going to do Masterpieces from now on, but I missed this part completely. This is rather irritating. They thought this was the only way to do such things, no wonder there hasn't been any decent reprints past Felidar Sovereign and Dragonmaster Outcast, also Terrarion.
I understand you don't want to warp how something sells, but they took away practically any way of getting anything useful from things like Duel Decks. Commander still has a good track record, but to keep certain things out of them is a little insane. Duel Decks have been failing for years, I mean the last DD the best reprint was Crop Rotation, followed by Treetop Village.
They say they needed another avenue for reprints, well then how about just making reprint products better? They say they have restrictions, but also need a place to put these.
They can't just hide things with value while saying they don't pay attention to it.
One thing that MTG teaches us is that just like anyone's own personal interest in the game the popularity of it ebbs and flows as this is the start of an ebbing cycle. One thing that's different this time is the absolutely massive financial bubble that has grown around the card trading aspect of the game which has created an incredible bubble in the prices of cards that are used by the best decks. Wizards of the Coast doesn't print hate cards like they used to so if you don't buy these expensive dominating cards because you don't have the money or simply because you think it is ridiculous to pay $20+ for a piece of cardboard then it is much harder to compete against the money decks with meta targeting home brews.
I think we are looking at a very unstable Secondary Market due to the speculator bubble. To sustain a market bubble like this you need for continued growth in the player base which I think has likely peaked. The moment that the player base starts to shrink the bubble will start to destabilize with only price memory hedging the effect. I think we are at that point in the curve. If enough people leave the game and dump their cards on the market there will be a real price crash which will be a self feeding process once the panic sets in with the speculators who then panic sell everything because for them it is an investment rather than hobby (looking at you Rudy from Alpha Investments).
The more the price falls the more speculators will dump their product. If the bubble pops, in the short term it will be very bad for the game because nobody likes to have their hundreds or thousands of dollars in cards become worth pennies on the dollar. Many actual players will leave the game just out of the disgust of having lost so much money on a hobby and many will leave simply because they had to panic sell their collections during the crash because their attachment to the game was not greater than the attachment to the money they were losing as the market crashed out. In the long run after the crash, a more affordable bar for entry will lead to new people picking up the game assuming it is still being made and is decently designed.
Will it kill MTG? I don't think so, although some of the older formats could die out. Like I have said MTG has ebbed and flowed in popularity for years. It will be interesting to see how things pan out this time around. Things are a little different this time with there being such a large speculation bubble and such a high financial bar for entry, plus I think our world as a whole is about to get a whole lot scarier and uglier. During dark times luxuries like collectables and entertainment are the first things to go. Only time will tell, but if war and financial hardship lie ahead for us all then a Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game will be the least of our worries.
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They say they needed another avenue for reprints, well then how about just making reprint products better? They say they have restrictions, but also need a place to put these.
They're on record as saying they can't make supplementary products too good, or else people will buy them.
Yes, that's right. Their concern is that if the products are too good, stores and speculators will hoard them and the reprints won't get into the hands of people that need them.
They say they needed another avenue for reprints, well then how about just making reprint products better? They say they have restrictions, but also need a place to put these.
They're on record as saying they can't make supplementary products too good, or else people will buy them.
Yes, that's right. Their concern is that if the products are too good, stores and speculators will hoard them and the reprints won't get into the hands of people that need them.
I can understand that, to a degree, it isn't like they can shove $80 worth of value in there, but putting $30-$35, maybe $40, max of value in these should be fine. Once the cards decrease in value everything in it should be around $20 in end, and at least then people would still buy them just for a decent deal, rather than now where there are $10-$15 worth of value and by the time everything is affected you end up with barely $10, in some cases, and those products sit on the shelves doing nothing.
I understand you don't want to warp how something sells, but they took away practically any way of getting anything useful from things like Duel Decks. Commander still has a good track record, but to keep certain things out of them is a little insane. Duel Decks have been failing for years, I mean the last DD the best reprint was Crop Rotation, followed by Treetop Village.
Quote from Dontrike »
I can understand that, to a degree, it isn't like they can shove $80 worth of value in there, but putting $30-$35, maybe $40, max of value in these should be fine. Once the cards decrease in value everything in it should be around $20 in end, and at least then people would still buy them just for a decent deal, rather than now where there are $10-$15 worth of value and by the time everything is affected you end up with barely $10, in some cases, and those products sit on the shelves doing nothing.
Wrong. Just taking a tally of rares and mythics that are worth $1 or more you get...
The standard players of today get to use thier fatal pushes in eternal formats. Fatal push is a good example of printing cards for eternal formats. They have and can continue to do so.
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Regarding push, that's not really quite true, it requires quite an investment in deckbuilding and in money to really be able to use push. In modern, you really need fetchlands to use push.
And in the eternal formats where its legal, you would want some number of wastelands.
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Pod (RIP)
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Merfolk
I understand you don't want to warp how something sells, but they took away practically any way of getting anything useful from things like Duel Decks. Commander still has a good track record, but to keep certain things out of them is a little insane. Duel Decks have been failing for years, I mean the last DD the best reprint was Crop Rotation, followed by Treetop Village.
Quote from Dontrike »
I can understand that, to a degree, it isn't like they can shove $80 worth of value in there, but putting $30-$35, maybe $40, max of value in these should be fine. Once the cards decrease in value everything in it should be around $20 in end, and at least then people would still buy them just for a decent deal, rather than now where there are $10-$15 worth of value and by the time everything is affected you end up with barely $10, in some cases, and those products sit on the shelves doing nothing.
Wrong. Just taking a tally of rares and mythics that are worth $1 or more you get...
Price total: $24.17 Lowest online price+shipping for DD: $19.98
If you were to include the price of the remaining cards, I would safely wager that you would come close to $30 in value in complete total.
I don't debate that you have the potential to recoup or gain from selling individual cards from several of these auxiliary products; the issue is finding buyers for everything when there is a massive variance in collectibility/power/supply of specific cards. The item(s) in demand will move quick in heated supplier competition alleviated only through print run sizes while the less desireable cards plummet in value. The result is the market soaks up the chase card (true-name nemesis) and sits on a pile of inventory you can't move in leftovers.
If the khans fetches are an indication, standard is the best avenue for reprints affecting the secondary market through volume. Thoughtsieze in standard is fine when you don't have a busted curve with a super resilient threat like pack rat backing it up. The issue for these cards that are "too good for standard" is when they show up in an environment with crap for answers and too much support. stoneforge mystic wouldnt be that impressive right now imo, because we don't have BS like the sword cycle or batterskull hanging around with it.
My issue is that they don't tweak sets to reprint a card, but actively avoid reprinting a card because of a set. If 1 card makes an archetype too busted, tweak 2-4 other cards to compensate so we can get a breather.
My issue is that they don't tweak sets to reprint a card, but actively avoid reprinting a card because of a set. If 1 card makes an archetype too busted, tweak 2-4 other cards to compensate so we can get a breather.
Its not that they can't do this, its that they don't want to do this. They have flat out said that between printing strong old cards and pushing new cards they will always want to push new cards. Meaning that the powerlevel of reprints can't be too high or it spirals out of control.
As for the Masterpieces, I don't think they will be as common as people believe them to be. In BFZ they where riffing on the original Zendikar's Treasures, while also hoping to minimize the damage caused by not having fetches in the set. With Kaladesh, there was a decent story reason to have these Masterpieces, even if it was somewhat of a stretch. If we where going to see things like this moving forward, I can only believe that Shadows over Innistrad would have had their own flavorful versions. Now all of this being said, I do think they tried to pull of these lottery sets much to close together, so they lost a lot of the luster they had when we heard of them for BFZ.
You must have missed the part where they came right out and said that every new set in standard will have masterpieces (which is why the Zendikar Expeditions are retroactively considered part of the Masterpiece Series). People aren't wildly speculating that WotC is going to include them going forward, we know they're going to, because they said as much when Inventions were first spoiled.
I did miss that.
I really don't understand their plan here. They want to "support" older formats by printing cards at a rarity higher than Mythic. The math I heard was something like 3 boxes for every one masterpiece. And why? Because Wizards isn't able to correctly reprint staples in standard formats without them dominating. They point out Tsieze while ignoring the rest of the deck they printed around it. They where going to reprint Liliana of the Veil into that mess! They recently missed the new standard combo! They seem to be so focused on Draft and Sealed that they don't seem to be looking into testing constructed at all.
Price total: $24.17 Lowest online price+shipping for DD: $19.98
Problem with that line of thought is that this is what it adds up to now, not at release. This version of Nissa, Voice of Zendikar was not $16 when the DD was released, she was closer to $6.
Price total: $24.17 Lowest online price+shipping for DD: $19.98
Problem with that line of thought is that this is what it adds up to now, not at release. This version of Nissa, Voice of Zendikar was not $16 when the DD was released, she was closer to $6.
Oh really?
Why is the Oath version relevant, because they both sink and uptick around the same times. September and through most of December. But a few days after January the 17th both uptick in price, first the Gatewatch version and then the Duel Deck version. Meaning that it had little difference on which version you picked, you still close to the equivalent for singles. This is also expected as any duel deck for planeswalkers has always tanked the price tag of said planeswalkers and their original printings. Koth Vs Venser, Jace vs Vraska, Elspeth Vs Kiora, Nissa Vs Ob Nixilis. Aside from Jace, Ob Nixilis and Kiora most planeswalkers printed in this manner actually regain value over time. Also during my digging, ALL planeswalkers printed in this manner share a similar fate of being lower in price initially alongside their original printings. Funnily enough, the only outlier of them all is the DD version of Jace who actually has some crazy spikes in price while the RTR version didn't experience even one such spike.
So what we are either experiencing with Nissa, Voice of Zendikar in Standard is either: A) A momentary spike. B) A permanent spike.
I would however wager an educated guess on B) as BFZ Block doesn't rotate for about a year.
Why is the Oath version relevant, because they both sink and uptick around the same times. September and through most of December. But a few days after January the 17th both uptick in price, first the Gatewatch version and then the Duel Deck version. Meaning that it had little difference on which version you picked, you still close to the equivalent for singles. This is also expected as any duel deck for planeswalkers has always tanked the price tag of said planeswalkers and their original printings. Koth Vs Venser, Jace vs Vraska, Elspeth Vs Kiora, Nissa Vs Ob Nixilis. Aside from Jace, Ob Nixilis and Kiora most planeswalkers printed in this manner actually regain value over time. Also during my digging, ALL planeswalkers printed in this manner share a similar fate of being lower in price initially alongside their original printings. Funnily enough, the only outlier of them all is the DD version of Jace who actually has some crazy spikes in price while the RTR version didn't experience even one such spike.
So what we are either experiencing with Nissa, Voice of Zendikar in Standard is either: A) A momentary spike. B) A permanent spike.
I would however wager an educated guess on B) as BFZ Block doesn't rotate for about a year.
I think you missed the part of my statement where I said...
As in the DD version, you can't list a price for a different version of the same card as that could mean a world of difference. Original Ugin and prerelease Ugin are dozens of dollars apart and I can't say that the original is the same price as the promo, they are completely different things.
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R&D from a game design side or a sales side? From a sales side, I don't understand. Why buy cards if you don't get to play them? I Haven't bought a box since Theros was released (the set, not the block). Mostly because I liked the idea of seeing what I happened to pull and getting my hands on most copies of the commons and uncommons I needed to build a variety of decks. Gimmicks, like the Masterpiece Series don't appeal to me, although I do understand they appeal to other players/collectors. I, however, like playing with my cards and want to use them for the purpose for which they are intended.
Bad R&D on the game design side is leading to desperate/bad decision on the sales side. Nobody wants bans, but if they're forced because people simply give up on the format...well...it leads to gimmicks like Masterpieces. That and the intrinsic drive of sales to increase sales at all costs.
Love when people trash talk the Masterpiece series and say it's a gimmick and response to low sales, yet in this instance in the same post the same guy acknowledges they work years in advance, so they wouldn't have known to include them based on sales. Or how switching to the 2x-rotation would effect turn out even if the idea of not letting Standard get stale was a good intention. Or that they'd need to make bannings that they have. "More testing" isn't the answer because it's like any complex system in that you need more eyes and time to break something than most developers for anything have to test it. Same thing happens in many other games. But using master pieces as a scapegoat is hilarious when people were complaining about the most expensive Standard since Cawblade and Masterpieces resulting in lower Standard prices from more supply being opened, and adding rare and in-demand older cards like many of the artifacts and lands in the series. Find another scapegoat.
(Also known as Xenphire)
The masterpieces seem like an easy cheesy add-on. No testing required as they are non-standard legal and so rare that if they do break limited, it will only happen when someone opens the right cards. Commission the art and tack them on into packs, seems easy.
It's not a scapegoat - it's the canary in the coal mine. Standard sales are down despite the Masterpieces.
1- T2 players play FNM for the cards and for boosters prizes. The current FNM cards are *****. There is no way to put it. With a HUGE selection of uncommon/common cards that would make nice promos, they prefer to print things that NO ONE wants. The other problem is that "winning" means you get more lottery tickets. We use to get some consistency, now days you crack the pac and if there is no master piece? You'll probably get a dollar for your cards. 3rd place got one booster and cracked and lottery card? Better than winning. There is little to no reason to play the next championship if a new box isn't opened. It means players are getting a gimped prize, since the master piece is already gone.
2- Sealed players: "So let me get this straight, if he opens a wurmcoil master piece he can play it? Wizards spent years making sets "draftable" and now they drop a free win joker? I'm out..."
3- Modern/vintage/EDH/legacy players see the master pieces - "So t2 is *****ty and us, the other format players are being used to sustain the format by shoving lottery cards in the new boosters? Why the cards aren't in the mythic slot? You know, wizards said before that that slot were for historical cards! Big lie. Not going to buy those cards".
4- Collector - " So they are reprinting cards, making chase cards ( EMA foil mana crypt), make us buy it and after a few months they release a 'ultra super mega rare mana crypt'. F*** wizards. Don't wanna be triple dipped because I collect these cards."
5-Shops- "So if we crack a good master piece we make the box price back, if we get a crappy one we got hosed? So they increased the variance AGAIN with another rarity? Cut the order by 3/4".
6-t2 bans. "Heyyy guys, you know we test for t2 only but we need to ban because we don't know how to do our job. Have fun selling those banned cards. By the way, we don't acknowledge the secondary market, so we will give you no compensation for that".
7- Hey, conspiracy spoilers, commander 2017, eternal masters, kaladesh, aether revolt. SLOW THE F*** DOWN WIZARDS. Players are saturated with products.
8- Lottery cards don't excuse crappy set design. See oath of the gate watch.
9- Power creep is turning T2 into modern, yet they keep introducing more and more creatures that are win conditions and more effective than sorcery/instants. See the eldrazi, in modern there are decks with 8/10 spells spells, twisting how magic is meant to be played. If I want turn 4 kills I can play modern.
You see, wizards is literally PISSING EVERYONE OFF except for the T2 players, just because they want to keep growing numbers. It is a really dumb strategy because they forget that many T2 players are modern/vintage/legacy/EDH players.
It is better to show some really short results to Hasbro. We should complain with our wallets and teach hasbro a lesson. We, the customers, are not sheep.
Obviously no matter which you open, IF you open one, its a welcome Bonus.
The value otherwise consists of the overall expensive cards in the set.
If a single mythic tanks all the value, its a hit or miss.
Cycles that are good, like Fetchlands spread the value over multiple rares, so you are almost guaranteed to open some of them "at least", and you can still jackpot in foils and master pieces.
Problem in Kaladesh and Aether Revolt is that there simply is no value , the expensive cards are standard only relevant (Heart of Khiran, Planeswalkers for standard).
So that seriously hurts the value of the set.
Its very difficult to buy product for these sets and make a profit, as theres basicly nothing that you can open that is really worth the cost.
For the "value" of the set it would have certainly helped to make Fatal Push a rare, would have easily reached the levels of a Thougtseize and increased packs sold, as its the card that everyone wants and its a uncommon, nobody really cares for the rares or mythics in the set.
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For FNM i would recommend to draft.
We do that every week and Standard is a "maybe" if enough players want to play, otherwise everyone will just build a deck for some bigger tournaments, not for casually playing standard, and especially not right after a set is released.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
I originally got off of the Standard train after "combo winter" back when the Urza's block was out. Magic nearly died at that time as many players quit like I did. WoTC managed things very poorly. Many powerful T2 cards were banned and I think a lot of long-time older players were just fed up and left. I returned when Mirrodin was released only to find out that a whole bunch more cards needed to be banned from Standard. I stuck around somewhat causally anyway because I was having some fun playing again. Sets like Ravnica, Timespiral, and Zendikar were really very good sets. Cards from these sets still have a presence in Legacy and frankly, that's all that really matters to me. Once you realize that it's actually "cheaper" to play Legacy than it is to dump thousands of dollars on repeat with Standard, it becomes clear that Legacy (and to a lesser extent Modern and Commander) are really "Magic".
With that in mind, I think WoTC hasn't really been selling "Magic" for a while now. Why would I want a bunch of useless chaff from what I see from Standard set releases? None of the cards are going into my eternal decks. Maybe a single card here and there. That's not enough for me to want to sit down and build a standard deck or even play limited.
I know the thinking is that Standard players drive Magic, but those players eventually turn into eternal players and that isn't going to happen when Standard players are getting junk that they can't play with outside of standard. It can't sustain itself. I don't think WoTC has a good grasp on what happens to their long-term player base.
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
WoTC's primary goal is to make money correct but you are forgetting they make the most money when the game is good, balanced and exciting.
Commander products have actually been of consistantly high quality..even if some of the generals were a little strong (I am looking at you Deveri). Excelent way to make money from casual players, commander is really fun if you have the right mind set for it.
The standard players of today get to use thier fatal pushes in eternal formats. Fatal push is a good example of printing cards for eternal formats. They have and can continue to do so.
Okay now for my own version of negativity. I think WotC has made a bunch of mistakes recently. Starting with the utter failure of BFZ and the craziness of Oath of the gatewatch. I personally like Shadows and even Eldritch moon despite Emmy. Kaladesh though.. I think they just tried too many new things at once energy vechicals and just couldn't hope to balance them, it is kind of a true new mirridon and we already had that with the mistake laden New phyrexia.
Throughout all of this that forgot the hate cards and the answer cards, that normally litter the format. RTR innstrad format the last really good format. Had vicious hate, stony silence, rest in peace, vandleblast,Thragtusk, pithing needle, lifebane zombie and eventually scavenging ooze. Thundermaw hellkite vs lingering souls. Look at that hate!, yet the decks vunerable to that hate still worked.
Standard is definately lower in cost than during Khans battle era and the RTR/innstrad era mentioned above... But there is an issue, even in the best case senario of a paper sissors rock format of different archetypes you cannot improve your win percentage because you can't hate out a deck. So either you lose to the same deck week after week or you change your deck.. then lose to a different deck week after week... cross your fingers and hope not to be pair against them. What is expensive is this deck hopping not the decks themselves.
You add the effect of rotation you lose a few cards and your deck stops working, in a way that is not as obvious as losing your key cards. I played esper dragons and by the time I got my 4 th Ojutai. Dig rotated.. then despite still having Ojutai and Silumgar's scorn. the meta shifted in such a way my deck was now average to terrible. I had played UBx control for about 5 years at that point every time I was able to simply shift a few rotating cards for new equivilents but that came to an end with dragons. So i picked up UR thermo-thing... that only lost jace in rotation anddddd now every win con in my deck loses to fatal push. So I have to a) buy a new deck or b) quit standard.
Dragons would of been fine, if there was something better than anticipate to find my pieces or if there was any grave hate.. any at all! to stop delirium/den protector decks taking over. Where was my hate! the fatal push issue is a bit harder to solve but another major issue is the 2 mana, 4 toughness creatures that a deck relying on red remove cannot remove effiecently.. and no goddamn shatter!
blergh, now I am all negative.. I am going to bed.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
As for the Masterpieces, I don't think they will be as common as people believe them to be. In BFZ they where riffing on the original Zendikar's Treasures, while also hoping to minimize the damage caused by not having fetches in the set. With Kaladesh, there was a decent story reason to have these Masterpieces, even if it was somewhat of a stretch. If we where going to see things like this moving forward, I can only believe that Shadows over Innistrad would have had their own flavorful versions. Now all of this being said, I do think they tried to pull of these lottery sets much to close together, so they lost a lot of the luster they had when we heard of them for BFZ.
As for the cost of standard, the Masterpieces are helping keep the price of standard down, by making cracking packs more intriguing. This floods the market with unwanted cards of all rarities, lowering the prices. The issue is that it's weakened the secondary market, making opening boxes a game of Lottery card or bust. That is not good. Things where even worse with the sped up rotation, but luckily that was fixed, with the rotation speed being slowed down again. I fear this though, as Wizards alluded to the faster rotation allowing them to print pushed cards, and let the fast rotation deal with them. Without that, it'll be interesting to see what kind of creatures they had in the pipe line with the faster rotation in mind. Another issue was the consolidation of powerful, playable cards at the rare and mythic levels. This undoubtedly has pushed the price up. Aether Revolt has a great selection of uncommons, and hopefully we see that trend continue. If not, I don't see a big drop in standard price anytime soon.
Lastly, a real lack of player rewards is hurting the player base. The FNM promos have been laughable for the most part, and they are the only real incentive to play standard for most people. With a boring, expensive format with little to no reward at the end what is the point?
As for other formats, Modern is still living under the Ban Hammer and lack of reprint support. Legacy would kill for any WotC support what so ever. Vintage is a joke for most people outside of MTGO. And MTGO? The issues with that train wreck could have a thread of it's own. Supplemental products are coming out far to fast, with some getting printed into the ground (Planechase Anthologies) and others not being printed enough (Commander 2016). It's easy to see why there was a change in upper management. Let us just hope it actually translates into a positive move for the game on our end.
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
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http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/masterpiece-series-2016-09-12 , providing some source.
I find it really funny when they say:
"However, when we experimented with putting some of these older cards in Standard, we found the more powerful ones warped Standard in a way we felt was unhealthy for the format, so we looked to other avenues to release these cards."
Standard reprint of powerful cards are a thing of the past. Since modern masters there was no reason to insert powerful cards in unlimited sets because there is already a way to supply that demand.
EMA, commander, Modern masters and conspiracy aren't enough. I mean conspiracy was a non limited set with little to no reprints (serum, show and tell, IOK...), and they say they need to reprint card in an ulta super rare rarity.
It's like saying "We need to put away a fire, but insteead of using a hose (non limited set) or a bucket (limited sets) we are using tea cups (lottery cards) because it is the most effective way.
It is even funnier when they recognize the secondary market while not recognizing it.
"Challenge #1: Keeping Standard Accessible
Standard is the most-played Constructed format. It's designed as an entry point for players who wish to play Constructed Magic. Through market research and social media, we learned that many of the players who were interested in playing Standard felt it was something beyond their reach. We had to find ways to address this."
Instead of reducing the price on the new sets, reducing the set sizes or, i don 't know, removing the ridicule "mythic" rarity (just imagine how much city of traitor would cost if it was "mythic", because of the "flavor" mythic brings to the table.
I 'm not buying anything until wizards stops trying to PR bull***** everyone.
I knew they were going to do Masterpieces from now on, but I missed this part completely. This is rather irritating. They thought this was the only way to do such things, no wonder there hasn't been any decent reprints past Felidar Sovereign and Dragonmaster Outcast, also Terrarion.
I understand you don't want to warp how something sells, but they took away practically any way of getting anything useful from things like Duel Decks. Commander still has a good track record, but to keep certain things out of them is a little insane. Duel Decks have been failing for years, I mean the last DD the best reprint was Crop Rotation, followed by Treetop Village.
They say they needed another avenue for reprints, well then how about just making reprint products better? They say they have restrictions, but also need a place to put these.
They can't just hide things with value while saying they don't pay attention to it.
I think we are looking at a very unstable Secondary Market due to the speculator bubble. To sustain a market bubble like this you need for continued growth in the player base which I think has likely peaked. The moment that the player base starts to shrink the bubble will start to destabilize with only price memory hedging the effect. I think we are at that point in the curve. If enough people leave the game and dump their cards on the market there will be a real price crash which will be a self feeding process once the panic sets in with the speculators who then panic sell everything because for them it is an investment rather than hobby (looking at you Rudy from Alpha Investments).
The more the price falls the more speculators will dump their product. If the bubble pops, in the short term it will be very bad for the game because nobody likes to have their hundreds or thousands of dollars in cards become worth pennies on the dollar. Many actual players will leave the game just out of the disgust of having lost so much money on a hobby and many will leave simply because they had to panic sell their collections during the crash because their attachment to the game was not greater than the attachment to the money they were losing as the market crashed out. In the long run after the crash, a more affordable bar for entry will lead to new people picking up the game assuming it is still being made and is decently designed.
Will it kill MTG? I don't think so, although some of the older formats could die out. Like I have said MTG has ebbed and flowed in popularity for years. It will be interesting to see how things pan out this time around. Things are a little different this time with there being such a large speculation bubble and such a high financial bar for entry, plus I think our world as a whole is about to get a whole lot scarier and uglier. During dark times luxuries like collectables and entertainment are the first things to go. Only time will tell, but if war and financial hardship lie ahead for us all then a Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game will be the least of our worries.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
They're on record as saying they can't make supplementary products too good, or else people will buy them.
Yes, that's right. Their concern is that if the products are too good, stores and speculators will hoard them and the reprints won't get into the hands of people that need them.
I can understand that, to a degree, it isn't like they can shove $80 worth of value in there, but putting $30-$35, maybe $40, max of value in these should be fine. Once the cards decrease in value everything in it should be around $20 in end, and at least then people would still buy them just for a decent deal, rather than now where there are $10-$15 worth of value and by the time everything is affected you end up with barely $10, in some cases, and those products sit on the shelves doing nothing.
Wrong. Just taking a tally of rares and mythics that are worth $1 or more you get...
Nissa, Voice of Zendikar: $16.14
Abundance: $1.23
Crop Rotation: $1.84
Treetop Village: $1.08
Ob Nixilis Reignited $3.88
Price total: $24.17
Lowest online price+shipping for DD: $19.98
If you were to include the price of the remaining cards, I would safely wager that you would come close to $30 in value in complete total.
Regarding push, that's not really quite true, it requires quite an investment in deckbuilding and in money to really be able to use push. In modern, you really need fetchlands to use push.
And in the eternal formats where its legal, you would want some number of wastelands.
Death and Taxes
Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron
Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
I don't debate that you have the potential to recoup or gain from selling individual cards from several of these auxiliary products; the issue is finding buyers for everything when there is a massive variance in collectibility/power/supply of specific cards. The item(s) in demand will move quick in heated supplier competition alleviated only through print run sizes while the less desireable cards plummet in value. The result is the market soaks up the chase card (true-name nemesis) and sits on a pile of inventory you can't move in leftovers.
If the khans fetches are an indication, standard is the best avenue for reprints affecting the secondary market through volume. Thoughtsieze in standard is fine when you don't have a busted curve with a super resilient threat like pack rat backing it up. The issue for these cards that are "too good for standard" is when they show up in an environment with crap for answers and too much support. stoneforge mystic wouldnt be that impressive right now imo, because we don't have BS like the sword cycle or batterskull hanging around with it.
My issue is that they don't tweak sets to reprint a card, but actively avoid reprinting a card because of a set. If 1 card makes an archetype too busted, tweak 2-4 other cards to compensate so we can get a breather.
I did miss that.
I really don't understand their plan here. They want to "support" older formats by printing cards at a rarity higher than Mythic. The math I heard was something like 3 boxes for every one masterpiece. And why? Because Wizards isn't able to correctly reprint staples in standard formats without them dominating. They point out Tsieze while ignoring the rest of the deck they printed around it. They where going to reprint Liliana of the Veil into that mess! They recently missed the new standard combo! They seem to be so focused on Draft and Sealed that they don't seem to be looking into testing constructed at all.
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
Alt+0198=Æ
Problem with that line of thought is that this is what it adds up to now, not at release. This version of Nissa, Voice of Zendikar was not $16 when the DD was released, she was closer to $6.
Oh really?
Why is the Oath version relevant, because they both sink and uptick around the same times. September and through most of December. But a few days after January the 17th both uptick in price, first the Gatewatch version and then the Duel Deck version. Meaning that it had little difference on which version you picked, you still close to the equivalent for singles. This is also expected as any duel deck for planeswalkers has always tanked the price tag of said planeswalkers and their original printings. Koth Vs Venser, Jace vs Vraska, Elspeth Vs Kiora, Nissa Vs Ob Nixilis. Aside from Jace, Ob Nixilis and Kiora most planeswalkers printed in this manner actually regain value over time. Also during my digging, ALL planeswalkers printed in this manner share a similar fate of being lower in price initially alongside their original printings. Funnily enough, the only outlier of them all is the DD version of Jace who actually has some crazy spikes in price while the RTR version didn't experience even one such spike.
So what we are either experiencing with Nissa, Voice of Zendikar in Standard is either:
A) A momentary spike.
B) A permanent spike.
I would however wager an educated guess on B) as BFZ Block doesn't rotate for about a year.
I think you missed the part of my statement where I said...
As in the DD version, you can't list a price for a different version of the same card as that could mean a world of difference. Original Ugin and prerelease Ugin are dozens of dollars apart and I can't say that the original is the same price as the promo, they are completely different things.