For most decks this is underground sea 5-8. You need to BAN the orignal in addition to printing the near perfect functional reprints. Otherwise decks will use both.
I can't think of any Legacy decks that would actually want 5-8 of a given dual because of the wy fetches mold manabases. Maybe Infect would want the 5th Trop, but I'm not even certain of that. Maybe players would still want both types of duals for extreme corner cases (like some sort of Sowing Salt effects), but this would be a trivial amount of positive win percentage. Functionally identical duals would give new players a cheap entryway into most Legacy decks with near-zero downsides.
That said, I don't expect WotC to ever do this, because it might cut into Standard/Limited profits and heaven forbib players wander off the reservation.
Missing the point, Just becuase you can not think of one does not mean one does not exsist (or that one will not ever exsist) even if that means I put say a 2-2 split, with the world of net decks people want the BEST win chance will go that way. In competive magic ever edge counts My way neatly nips that in the bud.
For most decks this is underground sea 5-8. You need to BAN the orignal in addition to printing the near perfect functional reprints. Otherwise decks will use both.
I can't think of any Legacy decks that would actually want 5-8 of a given dual because of the wy fetches mold manabases. Maybe Infect would want the 5th Trop, but I'm not even certain of that. Maybe players would still want both types of duals for extreme corner cases (like some sort of Sowing Salt effects), but this would be a trivial amount of positive win percentage. Functionally identical duals would give new players a cheap entryway into most Legacy decks with near-zero downsides.
That said, I don't expect WotC to ever do this, because it might cut into Standard/Limited profits and heaven forbib players wander off the reservation.
Missing the point, Just becuase you can not think of one does not mean one does not exsist (or that one will not ever exsist) even if that means I put say a 2-2 split, with the world of net decks people want the BEST win chance will go that way. In competive magic ever edge counts My way neatly nips that in the bud.
"Neatly" is quite a stretch. Yes, it handles the issue of powering up decks that are already powerful. Though, I don't know what the ultimate problem is with letting a UB deck run 8 Undergrounds in Legacy or Vintage. I mean is more mana fixing that much of a problem that a hackneyed solution needs to exist?
One issue is that you cut off access to these to some EDH players. Maybe you are trying to concern yourself with the effect it has on tournament formats, but why should an EDH deck be prevented from using the new duals just because they run the old ones?
Another is how do you enforce this in tournaments without a deck list? Does someone need to reveal their entire deck to their opponent after the match to prove they were not cheating? Plus, this introduces something that in the entire history of Magic has happened only once and never on the cards themselves: conditional bans. Other than the issue with Stoneforge being banned and being in a PreCon, never has there been a situation where one card is made illegal to play if you play another card (Stoneforge was legal if the deck list was unchanged). It is a messy solution that affects a lot of things that should not be employed in any circumstance.
Honestly, we are at the point in this game where the community is saying card x is a staple like cryptic command and yet wizards chooses to ignore every single person playing the game and only reprint the card in a modern masters set at high msrp, then people wonder why it costs so much. I don't think older cards have a ghost of a chance of getting reprinted unless wizards fickle magpie personality goes "SHINY!" and runs off in some odd direction.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Honestly, we are at the point in this game where the community is saying card x is a staple like cryptic command and yet wizards chooses to ignore every single person playing the game and only reprint the card in a modern masters set at high msrp, then people wonder why it costs so much. I don't think older cards have a ghost of a chance of getting reprinted unless wizards fickle magpie personality goes "SHINY!" and runs off in some odd direction.
I am not sure I understand what you are saying. Cryptic is not a staple (due mostly to the lower number of blue control decks in Modern) though it is a high profile card. And they did reprint it. 3 times (not counting the Player Rewards card). The MM3 printing dropped the price from $50 to $20 and it can still be had for under $30. Are you suggesting that reprinting it in a Masters set is bad because they could have reprinted it in Commander? Or Conspiracy? Or Standard? I don't get how you go from "Wizards is not listening " to "Wizards is doing what I want but not well enough".
They gave us Goyf in all 3 masters sets. I would honestly not be surprised if it showed up in Masters 25 or Iconic Masters due to player demand. It is now at less than $80 from its high of $200. They gave us Dark Confidant in 2 Masters sets. They reprinted the Fetch lands in MM3 when few people thought they would (and it cut the price in half). They gave us Mana Crypt, Force of Will, Jace, Sinkhole, Cabal Therapy, Chain Lightning, a cycle of Tutors, and a host of other expensive cards in Eternal Masters. This crashed the price on a few of those and stabilized the price on others. They gave us Berserk and Show and Tell in an unlimited print run set (CN2) and these are cards used in specific Legacy decks that demanded higher price tags.
They gave us Mana Drain, Temporal Manipulation, Ravages of War and Imperial Seal as Judge foils. Those were great rewards for our judges and it also gave the player base cheaper versions of these cards. PK3 Seal is still over $500 while the foil is around $150. Not "cheap" by any means, but the supply is increasing. Plus, again, I would expect at least one if not a few of those in one of the upcoming Masters sets.
Yes, these cards are are not $5 a piece. But to suggest that Wizards is not listening to its player base regarding reprints suggests a willful ignorance of what they are doing for the sole reason of complaining. They will never get to everything people want. There will always be an expensive card somewhere that people want reprinted (mine currently is Capture of Jingzhou).
They are making strides and developing products that allow for these reprints to happen. They are re-introducing core sets based partly on the ability to reprint cards. They have a number of avenues in place to increase the supply of older cards. One of the lessons of Eternal Masters is that it is difficult to do older (not Modern Legal) cards because the price is held up by scarcity more so than demand. I know I have read a couple of comments of people complaining about the EV of Eternal Masters being so low. This is because a lot of those cards came down so much from their pre-reprint price that the value of the packs dropped.
So, a card like Reset will fit into a set, but its price will not cover the price of a pack as the reprint value will be significantly lower than its current value. And, if Wizards wants to price them lower, then we won't see things that have high demands (such as the fetches). So yes, we can complain all day about the packs being $10 but this is because we are getting $100-$150 (or more) cards. Wizards does not publicly acknowledge the secondary market, but they obviously take it into account. They have made the mistake once before of crashing process (Chronicles) that they are cautious not to make the same mistake again. I think they are finding a rhythm now with their Masters sets and reprints in general. I personally like what I have been seeing and like the direction Wizards has taken so far.
With the topic at hand, there are so many factors beyond just playability, or demand, or cost that dictates what should go into the next set that we will often see Wizards pass over certain cards in favor of others. Riding the Dilu Horse is absurdly expensive, but who really wants to open it up as their rare (and secondary prices probably dictate that it would be rare in its first reprint)?
The problem is that they are putting the card in a product with a high msrp and because of how these products are built and that sets an artificial bottom to the card. I don't have the time at the moment to do the math, but basically masters sets are kind of sleazy because of the fact they are built to keep the prices on the high end cards, well, extremely high. The rest of the reprints in the set for the most part are basically worth very little and absorb little of the box EV. So when someone asks for a reprint, it's not just about reprinting a card as much as how and where that card gets reprinted.
It does bother me quite a bit that the community doesn't seem to grasp that masters set reprints of rare cards are not really an answer to the supply and availability issues on cards that are heavily sought after. The only way we ever got fetches at 20 usd was to have them printed in a heavily drafted block with the presence of the enemy fetches also helping dampen costs. To get enough copies out there of something like Cryptic Command to make it affordable to pick up, it would need to be reprinted in a commander or standard product that gets printed sufficiently. Wizards has been basically saying "nope, we don't want to print this anymore, but we'll give you this collector tin with it in it to remember it by and go buy more standard!".
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
It does bother me quite a bit that the community doesn't seem to grasp that masters set reprints of rare cards are not really an answer to the supply and availability issues on cards that are heavily sought after.
But it is an answer. It's just not the answer you (and others) want. If I wanted to get into Legacy and I need Cabal Therapy, I would have needed to spend around $45 for a playset. Now, I spend $10. Chain Lightning was nearly $60 for a playset. Now, I can get one for $15.
Jace was almost $100 even after the FTV printing. He came down to half that (only going up recently because of speculation of unbans in Modern). Karakas can be obtained for $40 when they were $150. Wasteland is down to under $30 when they were $60. Basically, the only card in that set that didn't move any significant amount is Force of Will due to the immense demand that card has. In fact, it looks like that card went up in price with the Eternal Masters printing.
Modern Masters shows the same thing. Cryptics down to under $30 when they were at $50 (and shortly after printing I found a couple for $20). Goyfs were around $120 and can now be had for around $80. Fetches, as I mentioned, were nearly cut in half. Again, there is an outlier in Liliana but even she has come down somewhat. She was at $65 shortly after release, down from about $95 and she is back up to $85.
Yes, these prices are still high and I am not arguing that they don't still represent a barrier to new players getting these cards; they do. But the cards' prices do come down. And to suggest that there isn't shouldn't be an active effort by Wizards to keep prices high of some cards in these packs is ignoring common business sense.
For a hypothetical, let's say they printed the original Modern Masters to demand and for $4 a piece. This would first of all wreck the interest in whatever Standard set was available at the time. Why buy a $4 booster to get a $20 card when you can buy a $4 and get a $200 card (Goyf was around $200 at the time remember). Then, this extreme supply crashes all the prices to the point where everyone who wants a card can get it for under $20. There is no shortage of supply.
This creates a situation where players lose a ton of value and stores' stock is now drastically reduced in value depending on how many of these cards they have. Even ignoring all that, what does this do for the next set? Wizards then has to look at the cards that spike because of the last set (Inkmoth going up because Ravager is printed for example). They do this for a short time and everyone is happy. Every card in Modern or Legacy (save for RL cards) is under $20. Tournaments are at record highs. Players own multiple decks due to card availability.
However, in the long term, what does Wizards print? There are no cards worth anything to be reprinted in a set like this. Sure, we still get the occasional reprint in Standard or Modern and that is great, but for Wizards they have now lost a marketable product. They can't print another Masters set or use a high profile reprint (such as fetches) to sell a set (whether it needs it or not). In the long term, it hurts their business model to make everything affordable and they lose out on money they could be making.
I understand there is a segment of the community who feels that Wizards is bad or their decisions are bad because they are made with a backdrop of needing to be profitable. That is absurd. Wizards deserves to market their IP and make money off their IP as they see fit (one of the biggest reasons I am against the Reserve List by the way). The balance they have struck thus far shows that they can operate in the interests of the player base and shareholders alike instead of one superseding the other.
It does bother me quite a bit that the community doesn't seem to grasp that masters set reprints of rare cards are not really an answer to the supply and availability issues on cards that are heavily sought after.
But it is an answer. It's just not the answer you (and others) want. If I wanted to get into Legacy and I need Cabal Therapy, I would have needed to spend around $45 for a playset. Now, I spend $10. Chain Lightning was nearly $60 for a playset. Now, I can get one for $15.
Jace was almost $100 even after the FTV printing. He came down to half that (only going up recently because of speculation of unbans in Modern). Karakas can be obtained for $40 when they were $150. Wasteland is down to under $30 when they were $60. Basically, the only card in that set that didn't move any significant amount is Force of Will due to the immense demand that card has. In fact, it looks like that card went up in price with the Eternal Masters printing.
Modern Masters shows the same thing. Cryptics down to under $30 when they were at $50 (and shortly after printing I found a couple for $20). Goyfs were around $120 and can now be had for around $80. Fetches, as I mentioned, were nearly cut in half. Again, there is an outlier in Liliana but even she has come down somewhat. She was at $65 shortly after release, down from about $95 and she is back up to $85.
Yes, these prices are still high and I am not arguing that they don't still represent a barrier to new players getting these cards; they do. But the cards' prices do come down. And to suggest that there isn't an active effort by Wizards to keep prices high of some cards in these packs is ignoring common business sense.
For a hypothetical, let's say they printed the original Modern Masters to demand and for $4 a piece. This would first of all wreck the interest in whatever Standard set was available at the time. Why buy a $4 booster to get a $20 card when you can buy a $4 and get a $200 card (Goyf was around $200 at the time remember). Then, this extreme supply crashes all the prices to the point where everyone who wants a card can get it for under $20. There is no shortage of supply.
This creates a situation where players lose a ton of value and stores' stock is now drastically reduced in value depending on how many of these cards they have. Even ignoring all that, what does this do for the next set? Wizards then has to look at the cards that spike because of the last set (Inkmoth going up because Ravager is printed for example). They do this for a short time and everyone is happy. Every card in Modern or Legacy (save for RL cards) is under $20. Tournaments are at record highs. Players own multiple decks due to card availability.
However, in the long term, what does Wizards print? There are no cards worth anything to be reprinted in a set like this. Sure, we still get the occasional reprint in Standard or Modern and that is great, but for Wizards they have now lost a marketable product. They can't print another Masters set or use a high profile reprint (such as fetches) to sell a set (whether it needs it or not). In the long term, it hurts their business model to make everything affordable and they lose out on money they could be making.
I understand there is a segment of the community who feels that Wizards is bad or their decisions are bad because they are made with a backdrop of needing to be profitable. That is absurd. Wizards deserves to market their IP and make money off their IP as they see fit (one of the biggest reasons I am against the Reserve List by the way). The balance they have struck thus far shows that they can operate in the interests of the player base and shareholders alike instead of one superseding the other.
Stores would not care, If I recall from a similar discussion regarding the reserve list large retails like SCG were in favor of abolishment becuase they would rather have cards at lower values becuase they are easyer to move 10 cards at $20 then 1 card at $200. Speculators will complain but retails will think its christmas small pain now for LOTS of liquidity and sales later is a good deal.
Keep in mind that my point is not about reprinting cards in general or the abolishment of the Reserve List (which is what the SCG comment refers to). You are right about them potentially not caring. My point is about a store buying a set of $200 Goyfs and then having them worth $20 each soon thereafter due to an aggressive reprint strategy. And SCG has such a massive inventory that they would not be affected as much as your FLGS.
I know this is a somewhat extreme example but people want the prices to crash and there is some consideration that should be taken for stores and player's collections at least in the short term. I personally don't care if my collection is cut in half (and my collection is worth a lot) but others may feel strongly enough in the other direction to move away from the game altogether (creating another Chronicles fiasco). A slow decline over a couple years for Goyfs to go down from $200 to $80 (ignoring the price differences between sets) is quite a bit different than reprinting Goyf in one set to reduce its value by 90%.
All in all it may be the same thing so maybe it isn't a legitimate concern for the scale of reprints that some people seem to want, but it is worth mentioning.
Missing the point, Just becuase you can not think of one does not mean one does not exsist (or that one will not ever exsist) even if that means I put say a 2-2 split, with the world of net decks people want the BEST win chance will go that way.
I think you are missing the point.
The point is that such lands would increase the accessibility of Legacy. This is true.
Even if decks move to a 2-2 split (more commonly a 2-1 or 1-1 split), this reduces demand for ABUR duals. And even if some decks run 5+ duals, there will still be a ton of decks that won't. As long as Wasteland (and Moon), Brainstorm, and DRS are format staples, people want a high fetch-land count. There is just not room for 5 of any dual - especially in 3+ colour decks.
At some point I'm hoping we will see more and more of the lands known in modern get printed again in the new age of standard mass printings. It's possible the strategy wizards has adopted is one where they acknowledge they can't reprint everything in standard like they want (because of the cold, steely hands of the stockholders and company master minds wanting to keep seeing explosive increases in profits instead of stable growth...) so they reprint some things in these masters sets to keep things under control at the very least until they can actually squeeze them into standard again. I still can't believe we are getting allied buddy lands in Ixalan. Those lands actually do need a reprint and are quite good, even if they aren't as popular as the fetch / shocks.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Missing the point, Just becuase you can not think of one does not mean one does not exsist (or that one will not ever exsist) even if that means I put say a 2-2 split, with the world of net decks people want the BEST win chance will go that way.
I think you are missing the point.
The point is that such lands would increase the accessibility of Legacy. This is true.
Even if decks move to a 2-2 split (more commonly a 2-1 or 1-1 split), this reduces demand for ABUR duals. And even if some decks run 5+ duals, there will still be a ton of decks that won't. As long as Wasteland (and Moon), Brainstorm, and DRS are format staples, people want a high fetch-land count. There is just not room for 5 of any dual - especially in 3+ colour decks.
Or more to the point...
So what if there's an Underground Sea 2 and people run them as cards 5-8 in Legacy? Do people honestly think Legacy players can't play around that?
I used to think restricting or banning cards in that manner was interesting but the more I think about it (as I read some of the custom card creations) the more I realize it's a terrible idea. Let's take a reserved card, give it a new name, and add a restriction that it can't be played in a deck if the original reserved card is in the deck. Yeah.... why not just print the reserved card? The restriction actually means that a player can't use the card to do slot 2-4 if all they have is one original. It's just some weird pseudo-ban that only marginally works as intended.
Cards with conditions like that is a dangerous rabbit hole we don't need to go down. It just opens up the possibility for more cards with negative conditional deck construction rules. And if the whole idea goes South, which it will, it's just going to result in straight bans or some terrible confusing rules to try and fix it.
I'm trying really hard not to bash that idea but it's not easy. I really don't believe that it's that big of a deal to have 8 duals when it comes to legacy.
Missing the point, Just becuase you can not think of one does not mean one does not exsist (or that one will not ever exsist) even if that means I put say a 2-2 split, with the world of net decks people want the BEST win chance will go that way.
I think you are missing the point.
The point is that such lands would increase the accessibility of Legacy. This is true.
Even if decks move to a 2-2 split (more commonly a 2-1 or 1-1 split), this reduces demand for ABUR duals. And even if some decks run 5+ duals, there will still be a ton of decks that won't. As long as Wasteland (and Moon), Brainstorm, and DRS are format staples, people want a high fetch-land count. There is just not room for 5 of any dual - especially in 3+ colour decks.
Or more to the point...
So what if there's an Underground Sea 2 and people run them as cards 5-8 in Legacy? Do people honestly think Legacy players can't play around that?
I used to think restricting or banning cards in that manner was interesting but the more I think about it (as I read some of the custom card creations) the more I realize it's a terrible idea. Let's take a reserved card, give it a new name, and add a restriction that it can't be played in a deck if the original reserved card is in the deck. Yeah.... why not just print the reserved card? The restriction actually means that a player can't use the card to do slot 2-4 if all they have is one original. It's just some weird pseudo-ban that only marginally works as intended.
Cards with conditions like that is a dangerous rabbit hole we don't need to go down. It just opens up the possibility for more cards with negative conditional deck construction rules. And if the whole idea goes South, which it will, it's just going to result in straight bans or some terrible confusing rules to try and fix it.
I'm trying really hard not to bash that idea but it's not easy. I really don't believe that it's that big of a deal to have 8 duals when it comes to legacy.
They basically would have a note saying that "This card counts as a Bayou" on it, which then prevents the player from playing more than 4 of a kind. The irony is that would basically be reprinting the reserved list card anyway and the whole promo foil work around they had tried before with some other cards didn't go down so well.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Missing the point, Just becuase you can not think of one does not mean one does not exsist (or that one will not ever exsist) even if that means I put say a 2-2 split, with the world of net decks people want the BEST win chance will go that way.
I think you are missing the point.
The point is that such lands would increase the accessibility of Legacy. This is true.
Even if decks move to a 2-2 split (more commonly a 2-1 or 1-1 split), this reduces demand for ABUR duals. And even if some decks run 5+ duals, there will still be a ton of decks that won't. As long as Wasteland (and Moon), Brainstorm, and DRS are format staples, people want a high fetch-land count. There is just not room for 5 of any dual - especially in 3+ colour decks.
Or more to the point...
So what if there's an Underground Sea 2 and people run them as cards 5-8 in Legacy? Do people honestly think Legacy players can't play around that?
I used to think restricting or banning cards in that manner was interesting but the more I think about it (as I read some of the custom card creations) the more I realize it's a terrible idea. Let's take a reserved card, give it a new name, and add a restriction that it can't be played in a deck if the original reserved card is in the deck. Yeah.... why not just print the reserved card? The restriction actually means that a player can't use the card to do slot 2-4 if all they have is one original. It's just some weird pseudo-ban that only marginally works as intended.
Cards with conditions like that is a dangerous rabbit hole we don't need to go down. It just opens up the possibility for more cards with negative conditional deck construction rules. And if the whole idea goes South, which it will, it's just going to result in straight bans or some terrible confusing rules to try and fix it.
I'm trying really hard not to bash that idea but it's not easy. I really don't believe that it's that big of a deal to have 8 duals when it comes to legacy.
They basically would have a note saying that "This card counts as a Bayou" on it, which then prevents the player from playing more than 4 of a kind. The irony is that would basically be reprinting the reserved list card anyway and the whole promo foil work around they had tried before with some other cards didn't go down so well.
Yeah.... that's the other wording I've seen. Avoids the slotting problem. Yep... might as well print Bayou or whatever.
Could always print a true Tri-land without annoying drawbacks.
They basically would have a note saying that "This card counts as a Bayou" on it, which then prevents the player from playing more than 4 of a kind.
Show us some deck lists that even run 4, then come back and tell us why we'd need a rule like this.
I don't know I don't really play legacy. Just commenting on what the other guy was mentioning.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
They basically would have a note saying that "This card counts as a Bayou" on it, which then prevents the player from playing more than 4 of a kind.
Show us some deck lists that even run 4, then come back and tell us why we'd need a rule like this.
I can't garentee their won't be a NEW deck that would like that at some point between now and when magic stops being sold. Stopping future potential problems. This is how you have to think when you print stuff for an eternal format, Not only whats a potential problem today but what MIGHT be a problem 10 years down the road. Also According to this very board in the Esablished vintage section Dragonstorm and My Black Blue (I did not check to extensively their may be others) but their are decks that in formats where they are legal will use 4 with fetches.
Well its a mix of interest, demand, price tag and now masterpieces.
Example: A Phyrexian Altar could be reprinted now but it would be more suitable as a masterpiece for a Return to New Phyrexia. As it could create interest and raise demand for it.
Reset if it got reprinted would tank fairly hard as most of its price tag is due to limited availability.
They basically would have a note saying that "This card counts as a Bayou" on it, which then prevents the player from playing more than 4 of a kind. The irony is that would basically be reprinting the reserved list card anyway and the whole promo foil work around they had tried before with some other cards didn't go down so well.
Very few Legacy decks would run 5-8 copies of the same dual, because of fetches. It happens, but the decks that would do so are not common.
I can't garentee their won't be a NEW deck that would like that at some point between now and when magic stops being sold. Stopping future potential problems. This is how you have to think when you print stuff for an eternal format, Not only whats a potential problem today but what MIGHT be a problem 10 years down the road.
I can pretty much guarantee that allowing decks >4 of any dual will not create a problem.
I can accept that some hypothetical future deck that might want a 5th dual land. I don't understand how you are envisioning this will make the difference between a deck the format can answer vs a deck the format cannot.
Cutting fetches for duals makes delve spells worse, makes Brainstorm worse, makes DRS worse, and makes it harder to play around Wasteland. Also, with 3+ colours, too many duals and too few fetches makes colour fixing worse, not better.
Also - perspective! Worrying about extra colour fixers causing problems while they continuously print stuff like Angler, TKS, Prelate, Leovold etc is categorically absurd.
I can't garentee their won't be a NEW deck that would like that at some point between now and when magic stops being sold. Stopping future potential problems. This is how you have to think when you print stuff for an eternal format, Not only whats a potential problem today but what MIGHT be a problem 10 years down the road.
I can pretty much guarantee that allowing decks >4 of any dual will not create a problem.
I can accept that some hypothetical future deck that might want a 5th dual land. I don't understand how you are envisioning this will make the difference between a deck the format can answer vs a deck the format cannot.
Cutting fetches for duals makes delve spells worse, makes Brainstorm worse, makes DRS worse, and makes it harder to play around Wasteland. Also, with 3+ colours, too many duals and too few fetches makes colour fixing worse, not better.
Also - perspective! Worrying about extra colour fixers causing problems while they continuously print stuff like Angler, TKS, Prelate, Leovold etc is categorically absurd.
To be honest, the fact they included the mana-base in the same pile of cards as everything else in this game is probably one of the biggest failings the game has. Green and Blue draw got a lot of it's value because of the threat of getting mana flooded or mana screwed and to this day, the mana base is the hardest part of the game for young deck builders to master and get right. I'm kind of hoping if they go forward with a digital version of the game in the future, they rework it so that it doesn't have this mana problem and maybe has a mana deck and a main deck instead of constant mimicry like they are doing right now with MTGO and Duels.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
...to this day, the mana base is the hardest part of the game for young deck builders to master and get right.
To each their own.
Personally I think that's something worth learning, and is one of my favourite aspects of deck building. Weighing colour requirements vs ramp and utility; power vs resilience (basics); setting the mana curve; options for mana-sink, etc.
I wouldn't want to give that up.
I also prefer formats where LD and resource denial is a valid strategy and legitimate deck building concern. So I personally dn't want a system like Versus where players always have access to land cards.
They basically would have a note saying that "This card counts as a Bayou" on it, which then prevents the player from playing more than 4 of a kind.
Show us some deck lists that even run 4, then come back and tell us why we'd need a rule like this.
Are there any Legacy decks that run Tainted Pact? (Serious question, I don't follow Legacy closely.) I know there are EDH decks with Tainted Pact that do things like run 1x Swamp and 1x Snow-Covered Swamp so that Tainted Pact can serve as an instant-speed Demonic Tutor. While a deck might not want 5-8 copies of the same dual, a deck with Tainted Pact currently only running 1x of a given dual might want 2 copies.
No, Tainted Pact is pretty random in a deck full of triples a quadruples. Infernal Tutor + Lion's Eye Diamond is the pseudo Demonic Tutor for Legacy (or Gamble if you play Lands).
There are no decks in Legacy that limit their dual count because of card name issues.
...to this day, the mana base is the hardest part of the game for young deck builders to master and get right.
To each their own.
Personally I think that's something worth learning, and is one of my favourite aspects of deck building. Weighing colour requirements vs ramp and utility; power vs resilience (basics); setting the mana curve; options for mana-sink, etc.
I wouldn't want to give that up.
I also prefer formats where LD and resource denial is a valid strategy and legitimate deck building concern. So I personally dn't want a system like Versus where players always have access to land cards.
This... couldn't have been said any better.
Resource management is almost always in every good game out there. From the clock in Super Mario bros. to money in Monopoly. It is exactly what Magic is about and why it has such a draw for so many people. Removing this fundamental aspect negates a huge slice of the game to the point it might as well be a different game entirely.
Yes... I have tried it. A variant called Landless Magic from the late 90s based on a letter sent to The Duelist. It was fun for a while but it distinctly felt different. All the elements were there but it just wasn't the same game. Enough that I really never played Landless since and I don't really have a desire to try another version of "land fixed" Magic.
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Missing the point, Just becuase you can not think of one does not mean one does not exsist (or that one will not ever exsist) even if that means I put say a 2-2 split, with the world of net decks people want the BEST win chance will go that way. In competive magic ever edge counts My way neatly nips that in the bud.
One issue is that you cut off access to these to some EDH players. Maybe you are trying to concern yourself with the effect it has on tournament formats, but why should an EDH deck be prevented from using the new duals just because they run the old ones?
Another is how do you enforce this in tournaments without a deck list? Does someone need to reveal their entire deck to their opponent after the match to prove they were not cheating? Plus, this introduces something that in the entire history of Magic has happened only once and never on the cards themselves: conditional bans. Other than the issue with Stoneforge being banned and being in a PreCon, never has there been a situation where one card is made illegal to play if you play another card (Stoneforge was legal if the deck list was unchanged). It is a messy solution that affects a lot of things that should not be employed in any circumstance.
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!
They gave us Goyf in all 3 masters sets. I would honestly not be surprised if it showed up in Masters 25 or Iconic Masters due to player demand. It is now at less than $80 from its high of $200. They gave us Dark Confidant in 2 Masters sets. They reprinted the Fetch lands in MM3 when few people thought they would (and it cut the price in half). They gave us Mana Crypt, Force of Will, Jace, Sinkhole, Cabal Therapy, Chain Lightning, a cycle of Tutors, and a host of other expensive cards in Eternal Masters. This crashed the price on a few of those and stabilized the price on others. They gave us Berserk and Show and Tell in an unlimited print run set (CN2) and these are cards used in specific Legacy decks that demanded higher price tags.
They gave us Mana Drain, Temporal Manipulation, Ravages of War and Imperial Seal as Judge foils. Those were great rewards for our judges and it also gave the player base cheaper versions of these cards. PK3 Seal is still over $500 while the foil is around $150. Not "cheap" by any means, but the supply is increasing. Plus, again, I would expect at least one if not a few of those in one of the upcoming Masters sets.
Yes, these cards are are not $5 a piece. But to suggest that Wizards is not listening to its player base regarding reprints suggests a willful ignorance of what they are doing for the sole reason of complaining. They will never get to everything people want. There will always be an expensive card somewhere that people want reprinted (mine currently is Capture of Jingzhou).
They are making strides and developing products that allow for these reprints to happen. They are re-introducing core sets based partly on the ability to reprint cards. They have a number of avenues in place to increase the supply of older cards. One of the lessons of Eternal Masters is that it is difficult to do older (not Modern Legal) cards because the price is held up by scarcity more so than demand. I know I have read a couple of comments of people complaining about the EV of Eternal Masters being so low. This is because a lot of those cards came down so much from their pre-reprint price that the value of the packs dropped.
So, a card like Reset will fit into a set, but its price will not cover the price of a pack as the reprint value will be significantly lower than its current value. And, if Wizards wants to price them lower, then we won't see things that have high demands (such as the fetches). So yes, we can complain all day about the packs being $10 but this is because we are getting $100-$150 (or more) cards. Wizards does not publicly acknowledge the secondary market, but they obviously take it into account. They have made the mistake once before of crashing process (Chronicles) that they are cautious not to make the same mistake again. I think they are finding a rhythm now with their Masters sets and reprints in general. I personally like what I have been seeing and like the direction Wizards has taken so far.
With the topic at hand, there are so many factors beyond just playability, or demand, or cost that dictates what should go into the next set that we will often see Wizards pass over certain cards in favor of others. Riding the Dilu Horse is absurdly expensive, but who really wants to open it up as their rare (and secondary prices probably dictate that it would be rare in its first reprint)?
It does bother me quite a bit that the community doesn't seem to grasp that masters set reprints of rare cards are not really an answer to the supply and availability issues on cards that are heavily sought after. The only way we ever got fetches at 20 usd was to have them printed in a heavily drafted block with the presence of the enemy fetches also helping dampen costs. To get enough copies out there of something like Cryptic Command to make it affordable to pick up, it would need to be reprinted in a commander or standard product that gets printed sufficiently. Wizards has been basically saying "nope, we don't want to print this anymore, but we'll give you this collector tin with it in it to remember it by and go buy more standard!".
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!
Jace was almost $100 even after the FTV printing. He came down to half that (only going up recently because of speculation of unbans in Modern). Karakas can be obtained for $40 when they were $150. Wasteland is down to under $30 when they were $60. Basically, the only card in that set that didn't move any significant amount is Force of Will due to the immense demand that card has. In fact, it looks like that card went up in price with the Eternal Masters printing.
Modern Masters shows the same thing. Cryptics down to under $30 when they were at $50 (and shortly after printing I found a couple for $20). Goyfs were around $120 and can now be had for around $80. Fetches, as I mentioned, were nearly cut in half. Again, there is an outlier in Liliana but even she has come down somewhat. She was at $65 shortly after release, down from about $95 and she is back up to $85.
Yes, these prices are still high and I am not arguing that they don't still represent a barrier to new players getting these cards; they do. But the cards' prices do come down. And to suggest that there
isn'tshouldn't be an active effort by Wizards to keep prices high of some cards in these packs is ignoring common business sense.For a hypothetical, let's say they printed the original Modern Masters to demand and for $4 a piece. This would first of all wreck the interest in whatever Standard set was available at the time. Why buy a $4 booster to get a $20 card when you can buy a $4 and get a $200 card (Goyf was around $200 at the time remember). Then, this extreme supply crashes all the prices to the point where everyone who wants a card can get it for under $20. There is no shortage of supply.
This creates a situation where players lose a ton of value and stores' stock is now drastically reduced in value depending on how many of these cards they have. Even ignoring all that, what does this do for the next set? Wizards then has to look at the cards that spike because of the last set (Inkmoth going up because Ravager is printed for example). They do this for a short time and everyone is happy. Every card in Modern or Legacy (save for RL cards) is under $20. Tournaments are at record highs. Players own multiple decks due to card availability.
However, in the long term, what does Wizards print? There are no cards worth anything to be reprinted in a set like this. Sure, we still get the occasional reprint in Standard or Modern and that is great, but for Wizards they have now lost a marketable product. They can't print another Masters set or use a high profile reprint (such as fetches) to sell a set (whether it needs it or not). In the long term, it hurts their business model to make everything affordable and they lose out on money they could be making.
I understand there is a segment of the community who feels that Wizards is bad or their decisions are bad because they are made with a backdrop of needing to be profitable. That is absurd. Wizards deserves to market their IP and make money off their IP as they see fit (one of the biggest reasons I am against the Reserve List by the way). The balance they have struck thus far shows that they can operate in the interests of the player base and shareholders alike instead of one superseding the other.
Stores would not care, If I recall from a similar discussion regarding the reserve list large retails like SCG were in favor of abolishment becuase they would rather have cards at lower values becuase they are easyer to move 10 cards at $20 then 1 card at $200. Speculators will complain but retails will think its christmas small pain now for LOTS of liquidity and sales later is a good deal.
I know this is a somewhat extreme example but people want the prices to crash and there is some consideration that should be taken for stores and player's collections at least in the short term. I personally don't care if my collection is cut in half (and my collection is worth a lot) but others may feel strongly enough in the other direction to move away from the game altogether (creating another Chronicles fiasco). A slow decline over a couple years for Goyfs to go down from $200 to $80 (ignoring the price differences between sets) is quite a bit different than reprinting Goyf in one set to reduce its value by 90%.
All in all it may be the same thing so maybe it isn't a legitimate concern for the scale of reprints that some people seem to want, but it is worth mentioning.
I think you are missing the point.
The point is that such lands would increase the accessibility of Legacy. This is true.
Even if decks move to a 2-2 split (more commonly a 2-1 or 1-1 split), this reduces demand for ABUR duals. And even if some decks run 5+ duals, there will still be a ton of decks that won't. As long as Wasteland (and Moon), Brainstorm, and DRS are format staples, people want a high fetch-land count. There is just not room for 5 of any dual - especially in 3+ colour decks.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
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!
Or more to the point...
So what if there's an Underground Sea 2 and people run them as cards 5-8 in Legacy? Do people honestly think Legacy players can't play around that?
I used to think restricting or banning cards in that manner was interesting but the more I think about it (as I read some of the custom card creations) the more I realize it's a terrible idea. Let's take a reserved card, give it a new name, and add a restriction that it can't be played in a deck if the original reserved card is in the deck. Yeah.... why not just print the reserved card? The restriction actually means that a player can't use the card to do slot 2-4 if all they have is one original. It's just some weird pseudo-ban that only marginally works as intended.
Cards with conditions like that is a dangerous rabbit hole we don't need to go down. It just opens up the possibility for more cards with negative conditional deck construction rules. And if the whole idea goes South, which it will, it's just going to result in straight bans or some terrible confusing rules to try and fix it.
I'm trying really hard not to bash that idea but it's not easy. I really don't believe that it's that big of a deal to have 8 duals when it comes to legacy.
They basically would have a note saying that "This card counts as a Bayou" on it, which then prevents the player from playing more than 4 of a kind. The irony is that would basically be reprinting the reserved list card anyway and the whole promo foil work around they had tried before with some other cards didn't go down so well.
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!
Yeah.... that's the other wording I've seen. Avoids the slotting problem. Yep... might as well print Bayou or whatever.
Could always print a true Tri-land without annoying drawbacks.
Show us some deck lists that even run 4, then come back and tell us why we'd need a rule like this.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
I don't know I don't really play legacy. Just commenting on what the other guy was mentioning.
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 can't garentee their won't be a NEW deck that would like that at some point between now and when magic stops being sold. Stopping future potential problems. This is how you have to think when you print stuff for an eternal format, Not only whats a potential problem today but what MIGHT be a problem 10 years down the road. Also According to this very board in the Esablished vintage section Dragonstorm and My Black Blue (I did not check to extensively their may be others) but their are decks that in formats where they are legal will use 4 with fetches.
Example: A Phyrexian Altar could be reprinted now but it would be more suitable as a masterpiece for a Return to New Phyrexia. As it could create interest and raise demand for it.
Reset if it got reprinted would tank fairly hard as most of its price tag is due to limited availability.
Very few Legacy decks would run 5-8 copies of the same dual, because of fetches. It happens, but the decks that would do so are not common.
I can accept that some hypothetical future deck that might want a 5th dual land. I don't understand how you are envisioning this will make the difference between a deck the format can answer vs a deck the format cannot.
Cutting fetches for duals makes delve spells worse, makes Brainstorm worse, makes DRS worse, and makes it harder to play around Wasteland. Also, with 3+ colours, too many duals and too few fetches makes colour fixing worse, not better.
Also - perspective! Worrying about extra colour fixers causing problems while they continuously print stuff like Angler, TKS, Prelate, Leovold etc is categorically absurd.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
To be honest, the fact they included the mana-base in the same pile of cards as everything else in this game is probably one of the biggest failings the game has. Green and Blue draw got a lot of it's value because of the threat of getting mana flooded or mana screwed and to this day, the mana base is the hardest part of the game for young deck builders to master and get right. I'm kind of hoping if they go forward with a digital version of the game in the future, they rework it so that it doesn't have this mana problem and maybe has a mana deck and a main deck instead of constant mimicry like they are doing right now with MTGO and Duels.
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!
To each their own.
Personally I think that's something worth learning, and is one of my favourite aspects of deck building. Weighing colour requirements vs ramp and utility; power vs resilience (basics); setting the mana curve; options for mana-sink, etc.
I wouldn't want to give that up.
I also prefer formats where LD and resource denial is a valid strategy and legitimate deck building concern. So I personally dn't want a system like Versus where players always have access to land cards.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
There are no decks in Legacy that limit their dual count because of card name issues.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
This... couldn't have been said any better.
Resource management is almost always in every good game out there. From the clock in Super Mario bros. to money in Monopoly. It is exactly what Magic is about and why it has such a draw for so many people. Removing this fundamental aspect negates a huge slice of the game to the point it might as well be a different game entirely.
Yes... I have tried it. A variant called Landless Magic from the late 90s based on a letter sent to The Duelist. It was fun for a while but it distinctly felt different. All the elements were there but it just wasn't the same game. Enough that I really never played Landless since and I don't really have a desire to try another version of "land fixed" Magic.