I don't know much about other formats, but here's wrong with THE format that I play - Modern.
1. We have players here that have come to the realization that Wizards does not want Counterspell to ever hit Standard or Modern. Yet, Wizards is trying to find a way to make a better Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, another creature that "if it goes to the graveyard from anywhere, put back onto the battlefield tapped" creature, and a (Green) creature that will put Thragtusk to shame. To put it more succinctly, Counterspell is silly broken for Modern, but a 1GG 4/3 flying, haste, first strike, trample, cannot be countered (by what, Wizards?) is completely fine, not just for Modern, but for Standard and Limited as well.
2. Too many bans. Standard received a ridiculous amount of bans, then the Cat after the deadline. It was definitely the right ban after those other ones. And Aetherworks Marvel is also the right ban now. Poor Wizards, losing consumer confidence and all...
3. Too many other things to get into, but there is a silver lining.
The silver lining is that Magic is in a really good spot right now. Are there things that could be better? Yes, it is so for anything that is worth doing.
That is a problem wizards created themselves by creating the worst starting point ever conceived for a non-rotating format. It's basically the same issue with starting Frontier at Kahns: You end up with half of what you need or half of what you don't need in the format to make it run, and the ultra competitive will exploit that fact. When wizards starts the inevitable new format because goodness help them they are never going to keep modern afloat at this rate, it will at most include BFZ and up and likely will have a banlist composed of 90% Kaladesh / Eldrich moon / Aether Revolt. I'd say those three sets have done some of the most degenerate things players have gotten to see since the original Mirrodin block. The only way this could have topped Mirrodin was the second coming of eggs and a pro literally walking off to McDonalds while the eggs player is completing their turn.
Edit: Also, can't wait for this to devolve into an argument about which standard was worse. Because that is argument worth winning, apparently.
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 don't know much about other formats, but here's wrong with THE format that I play - Modern.
1. We have players here that have come to the realization that Wizards does not want Counterspell to ever hit Standard or Modern. Yet, Wizards is trying to find a way to make a better Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, another creature that "if it goes to the graveyard from anywhere, put back onto the battlefield tapped" creature, and a (Green) creature that will put Thragtusk to shame. To put it more succinctly, Counterspell is silly broken for Modern, but a 1GG 4/3 flying, haste, first strike, trample, cannot be countered (by what, Wizards?) is completely fine, not just for Modern, but for Standard and Limited as well.
2. Too many bans. Standard received a ridiculous amount of bans, then the Cat after the deadline. It was definitely the right ban after those other ones. And Aetherworks Marvel is also the right ban now. Poor Wizards, losing consumer confidence and all...
3. Too many other things to get into, but there is a silver lining.
The silver lining is that Magic is in a really good spot right now. Are there things that could be better? Yes, it is so for anything that is worth doing.
We both have been in conversations in the Modern forum about these points.
Wotc has painted themselves into a corner, and to get out they are going ot have to make a portion of the player base upset and possibly want t stop playing the game. There is no way Wotc can dig themselves out of this without stepping on some toes and hurting some feelings.
Does the majority of the current player base enjoy the spell side or the creature side of the current game? If its the creature side, those spell players are going to be pretty mad. If its the spell side, we possibly go back to lower attendance numbers, the way it was when spells were king, at events and possibly less LGS depending on how its handled. How would you like to be running a company and have to decide between those 2 possibilities?
Standard is in a bad place, but lets not pretend its never been there before. Its been there many times. The only way is up from here. It may take a bit, but Wotc has to straighten out Standard before they can worry about anything else. period.
I agree Magic is in a decent spot even with everything wrong with it at the moment. But I only draft and play Modern, and I think Modern is the best its ever been at this moment.
I think the fact that attendance has gone up is overstated. The population of the world has gone up since then and I believe that it's still unclear about whether attendance has gone up as spell based Magic has gone down or people are now attracted to a game that has been around forever.
Regarding Standard, I took a break from Ice Age to Tempest and from Nemesis to Mirrodin, but I have never seen problems as ridiculous as this compounded by a bunch of bans. I heard a lot of discontent during Faeries, but I never saw it locally and I played a lot of PTQs and other large tournaments at that time. That was around the middle of my most competitive "career," and I use that very loosely for lack of my brain coming up with a better word right now. I heard a lot of problems during Caw Blade, but it wasn't as bad locally as I heard online, so I just thought people were overstating things.
Outside of an SCG Open where I 7-0ed Delver decks in the Swiss and an Extended tournament where I faced 6 UR Storm mirrors in 9 rounds, finishing 6-3, I saw very diverse metagames. To me right now, you'd have to not like winning to play anything other than RUG Marvel in Standard.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I think the fact that attendance has gone up is overstated. The population of the worl has gone up since then and I believe that it's still unclear about whether attendance has gone up as spell based Magic has gone down or people are now attracted to a game that has been around forever.
Regarding Standard, I took a break from Ice Age to Tempest and from Nemesis to Mirrodin, but I have never seen problems as ridiculous as this compounded by a bunch of bans. I heard a lot of discontent during Faeries, but I never saw it locally and I played a lot of PTQs and other large tournaments at that time. That was around the middle of my most competitive "career," and I use that very loosely for lack of my brain coming up with a better word right now. I heard a lot of problems during Caw Blade, but it wasn't as bad locally as I heard online, so I just thought people were overstating things.
Outside of an SCG Open where I 7-0ed Delver decks in the Swiss and an Extended tournament where I faced 6 UR Storm mirrors in 9 rounds, finishing 6-3, I saw very diverse metagames. To me right now, you'd have to not like winning to play anything other than RUG Marvel in Standard.
To be frank, the entire game seems to be going through a crisis at the moment on multiple different fronts. We've been talking about card choices and prices, but we haven't even gotten to the print quality on the cards lately. There have been videos on this already on Youtube, but the number of misprints are going overboard as well, and the card stock they are using appears to be lower quality. The packaging is no where near as good as it used to be and games like Final Fantasy TCG are putting wizards packing to shame.
Everybody is seeing something wrong with the game right now despite peoples opinions on different aspects of the game, and we are all stuck playing the waiting game to see how wizards handles and reacts to these problems.
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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!
if only magic went to LCG model or make decks/releases with useful non random cards.that dont cost 100E to get per box
there's no point getting boosters, having a super low chance to get what you want, most of the time you get 0,50$ rare. and cards that you throw into the bin unless if you draft them before throwing them
the only good thing of booster system is trading
opening expensive cards isnt good, it's part of the problem
The LCG-Concepts does nothing for the prices of magic.
First, in lcg´s you need to have at least one card an every set that you really need to have, so every sets sells.
Second, even lcg´s have different "rarities", for a lot of them have most cards at playsets, yet the chase cards are often just a one-of, so if you want to play them whith high concistancy, you need to buy your expansions at least two times, depending on the game even more often.
lets say wizards switched to the lcg-model, and release old cards in living card game sets. Everything with a higher rarity than the chasecards are worthless instantly, no more trading on them. Lets say a set cost 50$. But for your chasemythic, you need 4 of them, so you actually have to spend 200$ per set.
you want to play modern? Modern includes about 55 sets, so for a complete modern pool you are paying 11.000$. But wait, you just want once deck. But in this concept, your deck will be mostly made out of playsets of chaserares, so you need 55 (nonebasiclandcards in deck) + 50 (price for set) = 2750 for a modern deck. Thats not really cheaper than nowadays. The bonus is, thats usually the cap for a deck, no matter if its modern, legacy or vintage.
I don´t think there are too much benefits for such a system. You have to realise, that the whole rarity-structure of the game would change, you wouldn´t just be able to buy complte sets of old editions.
not all lcgs have the FFg model, and even with that, they only do that with the core set
in magic ,you dont need all the sets(fully), because of the sets,are what, 1/5 is playable? the other cards are filler, or useless /reprints and you want like 5-6 sets to construct a deck. (even for modern,and you will sure have more than a deck if you buy 5 complete sets.)
with lcgs you can play ALL the decks. not just one with 200E .
there are no rarities, this happens only in the lcgs of FFG,and that happens because there are so many factions and there so many c ards to be included so every faction is represented so they do that, 1-2 copies instead of 3 . it's bad that you arent covered with a core set but you get so many cards,and if you get another one you have like 10 decks and more that you can play with 80E.
there are no chase mythics, no scarcity, you can play the full game, not being cut out of it because of the budget
your calculations aren't up with reality,even if you wanted to play one deck, and you HAD TO BUY ALL THE SETS AT ONCE(even with the crap/draft /filler cards) you would buy only the sets that include the cards you want.
a magic deck has 60 cards, 20 of them at least are lands, so it's 40 cards, many cards are playsets, you would buy what, 3-4 sets maximum to get the deck you want,only the sets that have the cards you want,and and you will get so many other cards to complete other decks /deckbuild
don't be so biased, lcg is much cheaper and healthier distribution model.
let's say you had to buy all the sets in standard, 7 sets, that would be like 40E each set (remember in lcg useless cards dont exist(base core cost 40E,expansions cost 15-20) so that's 280 E if we take core set price. with 280 YOU HAVE ALL THE CARDS IN STANDARD, you can play all the decks. of standard. that's a good calculation , thank you very much
The thing killing the game is the price multiplier factoring into costs on cards. 10 dollars on a single isn't much, but when you need 4x of that card, that suddenly is 40 usd. If a card already costs 40 usd, now it's 160 usd a playset.
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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!
The thing killing the game is the price multiplier factoring into costs on cards. 10 dollars on a single isn't much, but when you need 4x of that card, that suddenly is 40 usd. If a card already costs 40 usd, now it's 160 usd a playset.
Yeah but how can they (WotC) fix that? People will find the most successful thing to win and when they do others buy it up like hotcakes. It's a snowball effect for sure.
The thing killing the game is the price multiplier factoring into costs on cards. 10 dollars on a single isn't much, but when you need 4x of that card, that suddenly is 40 usd. If a card already costs 40 usd, now it's 160 usd a playset.
Yeah but how can they (WotC) fix that? People will find the most successful thing to win and when they do others buy it up like hotcakes. It's a snowball effect for sure.
The thing killing the game is the price multiplier factoring into costs on cards. 10 dollars on a single isn't much, but when you need 4x of that card, that suddenly is 40 usd. If a card already costs 40 usd, now it's 160 usd a playset.
See, I don't really agree with this. Magic has always been expensive, especially for top tier decks. Sure, the advent of $40 mythics is relatively new, but you used to spend quite a bit on a range of necessary rares (most rares are now pretty cheap). Cost to play the game is an issue for standard, but it isn't the issue for most. The game has thrived in many environments despite high prices at various times. The problems we are seeing is more that the game has ceased to be fun for at least some people.
As for buying packs vs. singles, packs have rarely, if ever, been a particularly smart choice. However, to echo some of SavannahLion's sentiment, they are now possibly the worst they've ever been. Mythics soak up all of the playability and the value, meaning that, instead of spending $160 on a few playsets for a deck, you only spend it on a playset of one mythic. It is also hard to justify buying into standard when 90% of your purchases will lose all value upon rotation. This is also compounded by the fact that the vast majority of cards one gets in a standard legal pack aren't even standard playable. Chaff has always existed (and is likely necessary to some extent), but amount of chaff to playable has become severely out of whack recently.
I don't think price is as much of an issue for Modern, however. Expensive formats have always existed, and they are kind of aspirational in nature. It gives people something to work towards and trade into, either with other players or shops. When I played vintage, I was able to trade into several pieces of power in that manner. It wasn't easy, and it took a while to get a functioning deck together, but it was a cool long term project, while I was playing mostly standard at the time (this was before the rise of legacy as an ideal format). Although WotC doesn't fix supply issues completely for modern, the master's sets, for all of their flaws, do address it in some ways. Without them, Goyf would be at Lotus prices. Either way, it is in WotC's interests to have a bar for modern entry, at least while they are trying to support standard as the premier format.
All together, here would be my suggestions for WotC:
1. Flatten the power differential in Standard packs; mythics should have a bit less power, while everything else should be a bit better; I'm sure that they can make solid draft environments with less unplayable chaff and good mythics will still be desired even if they aren't the only thing of any value in a set.
2. Drop the price on modern master's packs, increase the supply somewhat (still limited, but more easily available) and be willing to occasionally introduce new modern/legacy/vintage legal cards through these sets. I think their concern will be that setting modern legality with master's sets will be counter-intuitive for some, but modern players are used to complexity and checking legality anyway, so the actual impact in terms of player confusion would likely be negligible. Moreover, increasing the accessibility of masters sets somewhat, would drop some prices, but still support them. Once they can directly print to address the format's needs, they may actually be able to shrink the banlist at times.
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Sig by Dark Night Cavalier at Heroes of the Plane Studios!
The thing killing the game is the price multiplier factoring into costs on cards. 10 dollars on a single isn't much, but when you need 4x of that card, that suddenly is 40 usd. If a card already costs 40 usd, now it's 160 usd a playset.
If you are playing casually among friends you can proxy the cards. If you are playing in a tournament then you need to buy those 40 dollars cards!
I take the side of fraud, even though that may not be the correct term. Here's why.
It doesn't matter how wrong you think box mapping is or why. If it's not fraud, you should not call it fraud, because doing so opens you up for the potential of a defamation case against you.
What do you think fraud even is?
Deliberate deception for unlawful gain, reliant on the victim relying on a fact that has been misrepresented or concealed.
Again, the LGS isn't selling you "a chance to get $mythic", they're selling you 10 commons (or 9 commons and a foil of any rarity), 3 uncommons, and a rare or mythic, which you're still getting. To even start making a plausible fraud argument in court, you'd need to say that the only reason you're purchasing a pack of $set is to obtain a copy of $mythic. Then you would need to prove it. Then you would need to prove that the LGS knew that was your motivation.
There is a reason fraud allegations are notoriously difficult to prove.
The thing killing the game is the price multiplier factoring into costs on cards. 10 dollars on a single isn't much, but when you need 4x of that card, that suddenly is 40 usd. If a card already costs 40 usd, now it's 160 usd a playset.
If you are playing casually among friends you can proxy the cards. If you are playing in a tournament then you need to buy those 40 dollars cards!
I used to think that, but there is the issue of setting a precedent when using proxies and given the falling quality of printings on cards, that is starting to open up a big can of worms. It is universally a better idea to be playing with the official versions of cards. The only exception is the reserved list cards that literally can never see official reprint.
Private Mod Note
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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 take the side of fraud, even though that may not be the correct term. Here's why.
It doesn't matter how wrong you think box mapping is or why. If it's not fraud, you should not call it fraud, because doing so opens you up for the potential of a defamation case against you.
What do you think fraud even is?
Deliberate deception for unlawful gain, reliant on the victim relying on a fact that has been misrepresented or concealed.
Ok, so we need deliberate deception, unlawful gain, and a victim relying on a fact that has been misrepresented or concealed.
Given, a store has box-mapped the bast booster packs out of their inventory:
The deception is that the booster packs on sale are not actually from the Expansion Set in question. They are from a subset of that expansion which you know ahead of time contains substantially fewer "money cards" (or whatever it is you mapped). Claiming the subset is interchangeable with the original set is deceptive. This claim is being made by the product's own packaging. The booster pack says it's from a set, and may even have the excluded cards own its packing. Unless you have a sign saying something to the effect of "WARNING: VALUABLES REMOVED" any buyer would assume a pack of Magic cards with Noble Hierarch on it may contain a Noble Hierarch.
The gain is any payment received for the contents of the pack. The gain will become unlawful once all other criteria have been met.
The victim is relying on all packs marked as being from a set having a chance to contain any card within the set, which is no longer true because certain cards are not present, as they have been mapped and removed.
So yes, we do have all the elements of fraud.
Again, the LGS isn't selling you "a chance to get $mythic", they're selling you 10 commons (or 9 commons and a foil of any rarity), 3 uncommons, and a rare or mythic, which you're still getting. To even start making a plausible fraud argument in court, you'd need to say that the only reason you're purchasing a pack of $set is to obtain a copy of $mythic. Then you would need to prove it. Then you would need to prove that the LGS knew that was your motivation.
First of all, $subset isn't $set. The set of integers with all the even numbers removed isn't equal to the set of integers with them remaining. A pack of Khans that can't contain a fetch land isn't a pack of Khans, it is a pack of something else. And good luck arguing that people bought packs without an expectation of a chance to get something good.
There is a reason fraud allegations are notoriously difficult to prove.
Luckily we're talking about a hypothetical where we can control every variable, and are able to read everyone's mind so we have perfect proof of every aspect of everything.
I used to think that, but there is the issue of setting a precedent when using proxies and given the falling quality of printings on cards, that is starting to open up a big can of worms. It is universally a better idea to be playing with the official versions of cards. The only exception is the reserved list cards that literally can never see official reprint.
Sorry I'm not understanding the proxy issue.
I said, if you are playing casually with friends, proxy the cards. I could print 9 proxies very easy. I could also use a marker on a basic land.
If you're playing in a tournament. Yes you need the real cards because a tournament is similar to gambling/professional sport and therefore you need the real cards.
Now it's up to the cardshop and/or tournament holders if they want to allow proxies in the tournaments and if they do that it would be awesome.
I also think, tournament holders could make rent-able proxies, so younger/new players could enter the Legacy/Vintage format. To tell you the truth, I wouldn't mind renting out proxies because I can leave my expensive cards at home. Today, I treat my older cards/decks like some guy that bought a GTO, and fixing the car to show-off.
a magic deck has 60 cards, 20 of them at least are lands, so it's 40 cards, many cards are playsets, you would buy what, 3-4 sets maximum to get the deck you want,only the sets that have the cards you want,and and you will get so many other cards to complete other decks /deckbuild
And here is where your argument goes off. If you exclude things like Cavern of Souls, fetchlands, shockduals ,duals and everything from the cost, most modern or legacy decks aren´t that expensive.
Also, you have to consider that wizards woulnd´t switch to a model that makes them less money, but more likly to one where they make more. I think a magic lcg would have a rarity key like seen in Magic Duels, where you have 4 commons, 3 uncommons, 2 rares and one mythic. But you would most likly still need 4 of the mythics.
Also, that you only need 1/5 of the sets might be true for past sets, but i do believe thinks like land cycles like fetchlands would just used to sell multiple sets by splitting the circle and put it into different sets.
they still expensive even without lands (600$ decks, or budget decks are 100 for one deck. 100 for 60 cards... yeah..., but yeah sorry, forgot how expensive lands are,i havent played in a long time so i forgot that tiny detail..haha)
you actually enchance my post even more by saying , dont forget lands, they are much more expensive than the actual decks!
<thanks for nitpicking!>
my point is that magic is too expensive for what it is, sure the community is fun,trading (does anyone still do it) is fun,stories are pretty good, artwork is good,gameplay is ok but the economic aspect kills it for me, especially since i found games like Netrunner,Mage wars, Game of thrones lcg vs system and all the rest of games (lcgs other card games or board games in general) are much more worth it at the money per cards ratio. tcg is just a model to rip you off sadly
a lcg model or decks/collections reprints could really help the game but that's how magic does it and yeah it wont change.. so stuck with that and thats great if you have money for the luxurious hobby that magic is, but the competitive scene is pay to win first, then skill
i still miss magic sometimes but i just check the pricing on the cards/decks and compare how many other cards or board games i can get with that money and i forget it in minutes
edit: with 1/5 of the sets i meant that like if a set is 250 cards, many cards from it are vanilla or unplayable/useless because there is draft, and you dont want opening/ buying them or including them in a "lcg" pack
Again, the LGS isn't selling you "a chance to get $mythic", they're selling you 10 commons (or 9 commons and a foil of any rarity), 3 uncommons, and a rare or mythic, which you're still getting. To even start making a plausible fraud argument in court, you'd need to say that the only reason you're purchasing a pack of $set is to obtain a copy of $mythic. Then you would need to prove it. Then you would need to prove that the LGS knew that was your motivation.
First of all, $subset isn't $set. The set of integers with all the even numbers removed isn't equal to the set of integers with them remaining. A pack of Khans that can't contain a fetch land isn't a pack of Khans, it is a pack of something else. And good luck arguing that people bought packs without an expectation of a chance to get something good.
To make the case, you need to prove that the chance for getting card X is the reason the victim is making the purchase. And that the LGS knew in advance (when they were doing the box mapping) that that was the case. Considering every buyer knows (or at least ought to know) that there is a high probability that they will not get a specific card from a booster pack, trying to make the case that the reason for the purchase was specifically reliant on getting a specific card that the LGS knew wasn't present is unlikely enough that I would call it functionally impossible.
Furthermore, it's not actually the case that a box mapped to remove card X cannot contain copies of card X, because box mapping cannot predict foils. This weakens the fraud case further, as it is still possible for the victim to buy a pack and open the desired card.
There is a reason fraud allegations are notoriously difficult to prove.
Luckily we're talking about a hypothetical where we can control every variable, and are able to read everyone's mind so we have perfect proof of every aspect of everything.
I don't know about you, but I was talking about the real world, not a world of spherical frictionless cows.
There are two positive (for you) outcomes you can get out of accusing a store of committing fraud: force the store to pay damages (or settle), or convince customers to stop shopping there.
In order for damages to be paid, you would have to sue. The store could settle the case, in which case they have -- legally speaking -- not committed fraud, since we have a presumption of innocence. If the case went to court, you would have an extremely difficult time proving your case. If you did win, you would be awarded damages and it would be correct to say the store was acting fraudulently. If you did not win, it would be incorrect to say that.
Convincing customers to stop shopping at the store does not require going to court, simply talking to customers and convincing them of your position.
However, if you were to accuse a store of fraud and they either settled or went through the whole court procedure and you lost, or if you simply took the second option of convincing people not to shop there because (according to you) the store was acting fraudulently, the damages you have caused to the store by getting people to not shop there opens you up for the potential of a defamation case. In every case except taking them to court and winning, you are making a claim that has not been prove true in the eyes of the law, and that claim is costing the store business.
Disclaiming that I am not a lawyer is shorthand for telling people not to take my posts as legal advice. If you are actually in a situation where you feel the need to deal with an LGS box mapping in a legal fashion, you should consult a professional, not the internet.
That does not mean I know nothing about law, cannot research law, and cannot discuss law.
a magic deck has 60 cards, 20 of them at least are lands, so it's 40 cards, many cards are playsets, you would buy what, 3-4 sets maximum to get the deck you want,only the sets that have the cards you want,and and you will get so many other cards to complete other decks /deckbuild
And here is where your argument goes off. If you exclude things like Cavern of Souls, fetchlands, shockduals ,duals and everything from the cost, most modern or legacy decks aren´t that expensive.
Also, you have to consider that wizards woulnd´t switch to a model that makes them less money, but more likly to one where they make more. I think a magic lcg would have a rarity key like seen in Magic Duels, where you have 4 commons, 3 uncommons, 2 rares and one mythic. But you would most likly still need 4 of the mythics.
Also, that you only need 1/5 of the sets might be true for past sets, but i do believe thinks like land cycles like fetchlands would just used to sell multiple sets by splitting the circle and put it into different sets.
they still expensive even without lands (600$ decks, or budget decks are 100 for one deck. 100 for 60 cards... yeah..., but yeah sorry, forgot how expensive lands are,i havent played in a long time so i forgot that tiny detail..haha)
you actually enchance my post even more by saying , dont forget lands, they are much more expensive than the actual decks!
<thanks for nitpicking!>
my point is that magic is too expensive for what it is, sure the community is fun,trading (does anyone still do it) is fun,stories are pretty good, artwork is good,gameplay is ok but the economic aspect kills it for me, especially since i found games like Netrunner,Mage wars, Game of thrones lcg vs system and all the rest of games (lcgs other card games or board games in general) are much more worth it at the money per cards ratio. tcg is just a model to rip you off sadly
a lcg model or decks/collections reprints could really help the game but that's how magic does it and yeah it wont change.. so stuck with that and thats great if you have money for the luxurious hobby that magic is, but the competitive scene is pay to win first, then skill
i still miss magic sometimes but i just check the pricing on the cards/decks and compare how many other cards or board games i can get with that money and i forget it in minutes
edit: with 1/5 of the sets i meant that like if a set is 250 cards, many cards from it are vanilla or unplayable/useless because there is draft, and you dont want opening/ buying them or including them in a "lcg" pack
A very big problem is that wizards has created a reprint rule that is self defeating and toxic to the game. They won't print cards that people want because the secondary market has them priced too high, which is caused by wizards not printing enough and promoting formats that use them. This has resulted in some of the worst casual products ever printed such as planechase anthology, duel decks like mind Vs might, and now arch enemy. Even deck builders toolkits and planeswalker decks are in this category. They have no chance in hell of selling these at msrp because they are so bad value wise no one would touch them.
You can't even go by the current secondary market values either as those are going to drop with a reprint of significant number, so why they aren't trying to do highway robbery on prices is a mystery.
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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 do you explain the khans fetchlands then? They were reprints of the onslaught-fetchlands, and they were high in price to the time khans came out.
Okay, and where are those right now? Aven mindcensor? Also talking more about things like duel decks and anthologies. They used to release products that had good cards in them like the Origins Duel Decks and the modern event decks. Now the best we get are planechase anthology, Archenemy, and Mind vs Might? The dip in giving people good cards in secondary products is staggering and it has been getting worse as time goes on. I was saying it feels like Wizards is trying to demonstrate what the heat death of the universe looks like in card form jokingly in another thread, but there is some truth to that as the costs to play will just keep rising without printing enough cards people want in these products to justify the crazy MSRP they are chucking around.
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!
Right now the main problem with Magic is that we are going through the Urza's Saga / Mirrodin block dance all over again, which means we are probably doomed to have a repeat of the Mercadian Masques block all over again as they overcompensate for the current standard. Case in point, Mirrodin -> Kamigawa. Urza's Saga -> Mercadian Masques. Kaladesh -> ???. I think we already are seeing some of this overcompensation in other ways with card products like the new Anthology set for commander and Archenemy. Just a few short years back we had the Origins Duel deck that had Collected Company, Siege Rhino, Warden of the First Tree, Anafenza, Kin-tree spirit, Windswept Heath, and Tasigur, the Golden fang. Then as we moved towards now the number of great cards in the decks started decreasing, with the last really good one being Blessed Vs Cursed. It was sort of a miracle that Nissa vs Ob Nix actually turned out to be a somewhat good value, and that was strictly because of the sudden spiking of Nissa thanks to standard.
I mean, they should have thrown in filter lands and pain lands into a lot of the products and not shy away from printing more good cards like Wrath of God and Birds of Paradise. I'm really not sure why they picked Bonepicker or other recently printed Amonkhet cards for the Archenemy release outside of tying it to the plane, which they already are doing with the scheme cards.
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!
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That is a problem wizards created themselves by creating the worst starting point ever conceived for a non-rotating format. It's basically the same issue with starting Frontier at Kahns: You end up with half of what you need or half of what you don't need in the format to make it run, and the ultra competitive will exploit that fact. When wizards starts the inevitable new format because goodness help them they are never going to keep modern afloat at this rate, it will at most include BFZ and up and likely will have a banlist composed of 90% Kaladesh / Eldrich moon / Aether Revolt. I'd say those three sets have done some of the most degenerate things players have gotten to see since the original Mirrodin block. The only way this could have topped Mirrodin was the second coming of eggs and a pro literally walking off to McDonalds while the eggs player is completing their turn.
Edit: Also, can't wait for this to devolve into an argument about which standard was worse. Because that is argument worth winning, apparently.
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!
We both have been in conversations in the Modern forum about these points.
Wotc has painted themselves into a corner, and to get out they are going ot have to make a portion of the player base upset and possibly want t stop playing the game. There is no way Wotc can dig themselves out of this without stepping on some toes and hurting some feelings.
Does the majority of the current player base enjoy the spell side or the creature side of the current game? If its the creature side, those spell players are going to be pretty mad. If its the spell side, we possibly go back to lower attendance numbers, the way it was when spells were king, at events and possibly less LGS depending on how its handled. How would you like to be running a company and have to decide between those 2 possibilities?
Standard is in a bad place, but lets not pretend its never been there before. Its been there many times. The only way is up from here. It may take a bit, but Wotc has to straighten out Standard before they can worry about anything else. period.
I agree Magic is in a decent spot even with everything wrong with it at the moment. But I only draft and play Modern, and I think Modern is the best its ever been at this moment.
Regarding Standard, I took a break from Ice Age to Tempest and from Nemesis to Mirrodin, but I have never seen problems as ridiculous as this compounded by a bunch of bans. I heard a lot of discontent during Faeries, but I never saw it locally and I played a lot of PTQs and other large tournaments at that time. That was around the middle of my most competitive "career," and I use that very loosely for lack of my brain coming up with a better word right now. I heard a lot of problems during Caw Blade, but it wasn't as bad locally as I heard online, so I just thought people were overstating things.
Outside of an SCG Open where I 7-0ed Delver decks in the Swiss and an Extended tournament where I faced 6 UR Storm mirrors in 9 rounds, finishing 6-3, I saw very diverse metagames. To me right now, you'd have to not like winning to play anything other than RUG Marvel in Standard.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)To be frank, the entire game seems to be going through a crisis at the moment on multiple different fronts. We've been talking about card choices and prices, but we haven't even gotten to the print quality on the cards lately. There have been videos on this already on Youtube, but the number of misprints are going overboard as well, and the card stock they are using appears to be lower quality. The packaging is no where near as good as it used to be and games like Final Fantasy TCG are putting wizards packing to shame.
Everybody is seeing something wrong with the game right now despite peoples opinions on different aspects of the game, and we are all stuck playing the waiting game to see how wizards handles and reacts to these problems.
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 no point getting boosters, having a super low chance to get what you want, most of the time you get 0,50$ rare. and cards that you throw into the bin unless if you draft them before throwing them
the only good thing of booster system is trading
opening expensive cards isnt good, it's part of the problem
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Grimstringer on Cockatrice, add me if you wanna
not all lcgs have the FFg model, and even with that, they only do that with the core set
in magic ,you dont need all the sets(fully), because of the sets,are what, 1/5 is playable? the other cards are filler, or useless /reprints and you want like 5-6 sets to construct a deck. (even for modern,and you will sure have more than a deck if you buy 5 complete sets.)
with lcgs you can play ALL the decks. not just one with 200E .
there are no rarities, this happens only in the lcgs of FFG,and that happens because there are so many factions and there so many c ards to be included so every faction is represented so they do that, 1-2 copies instead of 3 . it's bad that you arent covered with a core set but you get so many cards,and if you get another one you have like 10 decks and more that you can play with 80E.
there are no chase mythics, no scarcity, you can play the full game, not being cut out of it because of the budget
your calculations aren't up with reality,even if you wanted to play one deck, and you HAD TO BUY ALL THE SETS AT ONCE(even with the crap/draft /filler cards) you would buy only the sets that include the cards you want.
a magic deck has 60 cards, 20 of them at least are lands, so it's 40 cards, many cards are playsets, you would buy what, 3-4 sets maximum to get the deck you want,only the sets that have the cards you want,and and you will get so many other cards to complete other decks /deckbuild
don't be so biased, lcg is much cheaper and healthier distribution model.
let's say you had to buy all the sets in standard, 7 sets, that would be like 40E each set (remember in lcg useless cards dont exist(base core cost 40E,expansions cost 15-20) so that's 280 E if we take core set price. with 280 YOU HAVE ALL THE CARDS IN STANDARD, you can play all the decks. of standard. that's a good calculation , thank you very much
Δε φοβάμαι τίποτα...
Είμαι Άνεργος.
Grimstringer on Cockatrice, add me if you wanna
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!
(W/U)(B/R)GForm of Progenitus, Shape of a Scrubland
BRGJund Tokens with Prossh, the Magic Dragon Foil
URGAnimar, the RUG CleanerFoil
RRRFeldon of the Third Path 2.0 Foil
BG(B/G)Not Another Meren DeckFoil
UR(U/R)Mizzix, Y Control and X Burn Spells
(W/U)(B/R)GHarold Ramos - The 35 Foot Long Twinkie (In +1/+1 counters)
UB(U/B)Dragonlord Silumgar
All highlander, all the time.
See, I don't really agree with this. Magic has always been expensive, especially for top tier decks. Sure, the advent of $40 mythics is relatively new, but you used to spend quite a bit on a range of necessary rares (most rares are now pretty cheap). Cost to play the game is an issue for standard, but it isn't the issue for most. The game has thrived in many environments despite high prices at various times. The problems we are seeing is more that the game has ceased to be fun for at least some people.
As for buying packs vs. singles, packs have rarely, if ever, been a particularly smart choice. However, to echo some of SavannahLion's sentiment, they are now possibly the worst they've ever been. Mythics soak up all of the playability and the value, meaning that, instead of spending $160 on a few playsets for a deck, you only spend it on a playset of one mythic. It is also hard to justify buying into standard when 90% of your purchases will lose all value upon rotation. This is also compounded by the fact that the vast majority of cards one gets in a standard legal pack aren't even standard playable. Chaff has always existed (and is likely necessary to some extent), but amount of chaff to playable has become severely out of whack recently.
I don't think price is as much of an issue for Modern, however. Expensive formats have always existed, and they are kind of aspirational in nature. It gives people something to work towards and trade into, either with other players or shops. When I played vintage, I was able to trade into several pieces of power in that manner. It wasn't easy, and it took a while to get a functioning deck together, but it was a cool long term project, while I was playing mostly standard at the time (this was before the rise of legacy as an ideal format). Although WotC doesn't fix supply issues completely for modern, the master's sets, for all of their flaws, do address it in some ways. Without them, Goyf would be at Lotus prices. Either way, it is in WotC's interests to have a bar for modern entry, at least while they are trying to support standard as the premier format.
All together, here would be my suggestions for WotC:
1. Flatten the power differential in Standard packs; mythics should have a bit less power, while everything else should be a bit better; I'm sure that they can make solid draft environments with less unplayable chaff and good mythics will still be desired even if they aren't the only thing of any value in a set.
2. Drop the price on modern master's packs, increase the supply somewhat (still limited, but more easily available) and be willing to occasionally introduce new modern/legacy/vintage legal cards through these sets. I think their concern will be that setting modern legality with master's sets will be counter-intuitive for some, but modern players are used to complexity and checking legality anyway, so the actual impact in terms of player confusion would likely be negligible. Moreover, increasing the accessibility of masters sets somewhat, would drop some prices, but still support them. Once they can directly print to address the format's needs, they may actually be able to shrink the banlist at times.
If you are playing casually among friends you can proxy the cards. If you are playing in a tournament then you need to buy those 40 dollars cards!
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
Again, the LGS isn't selling you "a chance to get $mythic", they're selling you 10 commons (or 9 commons and a foil of any rarity), 3 uncommons, and a rare or mythic, which you're still getting. To even start making a plausible fraud argument in court, you'd need to say that the only reason you're purchasing a pack of $set is to obtain a copy of $mythic. Then you would need to prove it. Then you would need to prove that the LGS knew that was your motivation.
There is a reason fraud allegations are notoriously difficult to prove.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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I used to think that, but there is the issue of setting a precedent when using proxies and given the falling quality of printings on cards, that is starting to open up a big can of worms. It is universally a better idea to be playing with the official versions of cards. The only exception is the reserved list cards that literally can never see official reprint.
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!
Ok, so we need deliberate deception, unlawful gain, and a victim relying on a fact that has been misrepresented or concealed.
Given, a store has box-mapped the bast booster packs out of their inventory:
The deception is that the booster packs on sale are not actually from the Expansion Set in question. They are from a subset of that expansion which you know ahead of time contains substantially fewer "money cards" (or whatever it is you mapped). Claiming the subset is interchangeable with the original set is deceptive. This claim is being made by the product's own packaging. The booster pack says it's from a set, and may even have the excluded cards own its packing. Unless you have a sign saying something to the effect of "WARNING: VALUABLES REMOVED" any buyer would assume a pack of Magic cards with Noble Hierarch on it may contain a Noble Hierarch.
The gain is any payment received for the contents of the pack. The gain will become unlawful once all other criteria have been met.
The victim is relying on all packs marked as being from a set having a chance to contain any card within the set, which is no longer true because certain cards are not present, as they have been mapped and removed.
So yes, we do have all the elements of fraud.
First of all, $subset isn't $set. The set of integers with all the even numbers removed isn't equal to the set of integers with them remaining. A pack of Khans that can't contain a fetch land isn't a pack of Khans, it is a pack of something else. And good luck arguing that people bought packs without an expectation of a chance to get something good.
Luckily we're talking about a hypothetical where we can control every variable, and are able to read everyone's mind so we have perfect proof of every aspect of everything.
Sorry I'm not understanding the proxy issue.
I said, if you are playing casually with friends, proxy the cards. I could print 9 proxies very easy. I could also use a marker on a basic land.
If you're playing in a tournament. Yes you need the real cards because a tournament is similar to gambling/professional sport and therefore you need the real cards.
Now it's up to the cardshop and/or tournament holders if they want to allow proxies in the tournaments and if they do that it would be awesome.
I also think, tournament holders could make rent-able proxies, so younger/new players could enter the Legacy/Vintage format. To tell you the truth, I wouldn't mind renting out proxies because I can leave my expensive cards at home. Today, I treat my older cards/decks like some guy that bought a GTO, and fixing the car to show-off.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
they still expensive even without lands (600$ decks, or budget decks are 100 for one deck. 100 for 60 cards... yeah..., but yeah sorry, forgot how expensive lands are,i havent played in a long time so i forgot that tiny detail..haha)
you actually enchance my post even more by saying , dont forget lands, they are much more expensive than the actual decks!
<thanks for nitpicking!>
my point is that magic is too expensive for what it is, sure the community is fun,trading (does anyone still do it) is fun,stories are pretty good, artwork is good,gameplay is ok but the economic aspect kills it for me, especially since i found games like Netrunner,Mage wars, Game of thrones lcg vs system and all the rest of games (lcgs other card games or board games in general) are much more worth it at the money per cards ratio. tcg is just a model to rip you off sadly
a lcg model or decks/collections reprints could really help the game but that's how magic does it and yeah it wont change.. so stuck with that and thats great if you have money for the luxurious hobby that magic is, but the competitive scene is pay to win first, then skill
i still miss magic sometimes but i just check the pricing on the cards/decks and compare how many other cards or board games i can get with that money and i forget it in minutes
edit: with 1/5 of the sets i meant that like if a set is 250 cards, many cards from it are vanilla or unplayable/useless because there is draft, and you dont want opening/ buying them or including them in a "lcg" pack
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Furthermore, it's not actually the case that a box mapped to remove card X cannot contain copies of card X, because box mapping cannot predict foils. This weakens the fraud case further, as it is still possible for the victim to buy a pack and open the desired card.
I don't know about you, but I was talking about the real world, not a world of spherical frictionless cows.
There are two positive (for you) outcomes you can get out of accusing a store of committing fraud: force the store to pay damages (or settle), or convince customers to stop shopping there.
In order for damages to be paid, you would have to sue. The store could settle the case, in which case they have -- legally speaking -- not committed fraud, since we have a presumption of innocence. If the case went to court, you would have an extremely difficult time proving your case. If you did win, you would be awarded damages and it would be correct to say the store was acting fraudulently. If you did not win, it would be incorrect to say that.
Convincing customers to stop shopping at the store does not require going to court, simply talking to customers and convincing them of your position.
However, if you were to accuse a store of fraud and they either settled or went through the whole court procedure and you lost, or if you simply took the second option of convincing people not to shop there because (according to you) the store was acting fraudulently, the damages you have caused to the store by getting people to not shop there opens you up for the potential of a defamation case. In every case except taking them to court and winning, you are making a claim that has not been prove true in the eyes of the law, and that claim is costing the store business.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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Really should stop trying to post law stuff then.
That does not mean I know nothing about law, cannot research law, and cannot discuss law.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
As for the general fraud question, I think we can all agree that box mapping is morally dubious, even if it may be legally above board.
A very big problem is that wizards has created a reprint rule that is self defeating and toxic to the game. They won't print cards that people want because the secondary market has them priced too high, which is caused by wizards not printing enough and promoting formats that use them. This has resulted in some of the worst casual products ever printed such as planechase anthology, duel decks like mind Vs might, and now arch enemy. Even deck builders toolkits and planeswalker decks are in this category. They have no chance in hell of selling these at msrp because they are so bad value wise no one would touch them.
You can't even go by the current secondary market values either as those are going to drop with a reprint of significant number, so why they aren't trying to do highway robbery on prices is a mystery.
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!
Okay, and where are those right now? Aven mindcensor? Also talking more about things like duel decks and anthologies. They used to release products that had good cards in them like the Origins Duel Decks and the modern event decks. Now the best we get are planechase anthology, Archenemy, and Mind vs Might? The dip in giving people good cards in secondary products is staggering and it has been getting worse as time goes on. I was saying it feels like Wizards is trying to demonstrate what the heat death of the universe looks like in card form jokingly in another thread, but there is some truth to that as the costs to play will just keep rising without printing enough cards people want in these products to justify the crazy MSRP they are chucking around.
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!
(W/U)(B/R)GForm of Progenitus, Shape of a Scrubland
BRGJund Tokens with Prossh, the Magic Dragon Foil
URGAnimar, the RUG CleanerFoil
RRRFeldon of the Third Path 2.0 Foil
BG(B/G)Not Another Meren DeckFoil
UR(U/R)Mizzix, Y Control and X Burn Spells
(W/U)(B/R)GHarold Ramos - The 35 Foot Long Twinkie (In +1/+1 counters)
UB(U/B)Dragonlord Silumgar
I mean, they should have thrown in filter lands and pain lands into a lot of the products and not shy away from printing more good cards like Wrath of God and Birds of Paradise. I'm really not sure why they picked Bonepicker or other recently printed Amonkhet cards for the Archenemy release outside of tying it to the plane, which they already are doing with the scheme cards.
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!