"Cheap" has completely different connotations for different people. I remember a discussion on a different forum once where someone asked for deck advice, and then got angry when someone replied suggesting an uncommon card that fit the strategy (I forget what it was exactly; something on the tier of Boros Guildmage or so). The original poster responded indignantly: "I can't justify spending $1.00 on a playset of an uncommon card."
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Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching.
Masters set make them huge amounts of cash, remember.
Remember also who pays for premium events and sponsors players- the big single vendors- CFB et al. They make money off the sales of singles- and at inflated prices they partially determine.
What we have is WOTC in bed with SCG/CFB etc. all happy to sell the hype train, all happy to keep those OOP prices high. On this site you sure will get more than your fair share of complete strangers saying arrogant garbage like "you must chose this because I am right " or " this wrecked my FNM and thus is the correct build" and "the pros know nothing", but tell me does how many actually believe it when say, for example, a Luis Scot-Vargas writes a content article and previews the latest 20-30$ pre-order card that he says is going to dominate standard? Most of pros have the decency to put a couple of caveats, but we all know that only 1 in 10 of the cards they are "excited" or "hyped about" make it anywhere near predictions, and I will bet good money they they are not remotely excited or hyped abou anything other than the pay packet. How many pros rattle off "the next big deck articles" when they know full well their own team is playing something completely different? Or talk about a deck to "dominate" standard that will, in fact, do nothing. Talk about comedy value- with the joke being on the poor sods driven by fear who believe them and pre-order at inflated prices or invest in a dud deck. There are a few pros who have a bit of honesty in their writing- Craig Wescoe is one I always feel is being honest when he assesses new cards or decks, but overall the whole show is a self-perpetuating sham of symbiosis between the company that makes the cards and the companies that put on the events and drive single and bulk sales with supposedly independent content, with pros doing the writing for them most of whom would not be "pro" if it were not for the sponsorship of the companies they write for, given that even the very best Mtg players maybe bring in 300K prize money over a few years, which once you add in pensions is no better than a middle-class job would bring in, and less security and worse holidays.
WOTC is not going to do anything that hurts ChannelFireball's profits or hits SCG in the pocket, even if it makes WOTC money, they won't be altering the secondary market any time soon unless they themselves are hit really, really hard by single prices being OTT.
Masters sets are for drafting far more than they are for price control on the secondary market. The only way to get the secondary market under control and to keep prices from skyrocketing on specific cards is to offer a direct to buy option. Also, an option like that isn't going to crash the secondary market. I'm not sure why people think that is the case, but I've heard some people try attacking this from that angle. Wizards already does this sort of price control in MTGO via the treasures. In paper magic they can control prices by simply offering the cards for sale directly on the wizards store. Basically they'd treat the card orders like a mass drop and once the order period subsides they take the cards off the store and rotate in new ones. Then the orders get fulfilled by sending them to a print facility that will do the work.
This strategy does work, its just that in paper form they can't do it with all types of cards. The card value has to be high enough to pay for the work involved with printing and mailing the cards out, so we're talking mostly cards with a price of probably 10 to 15 usd minimum. They'd still have to do masters products regardless.
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!
When a card like Scalding Tarn is 50 dollars, that is 50 dollars to SCG once sold, for which they probably paid 25.
If you allow the card to be purchased directly, that is 0 to SCG. It is not a question of crashing the secondary market by offering direct cards.It is a question of directly reducing the profits of their partners. Why would they do that? Because some players can't afford to buy 500 dollar manabases? Unless enough players can't afford it and attendance drops as a consequence significantly they won't care. There is NO problem with the secondary market as far as WOTC are concerned UNTIL it adversely affects attendance.
Why would CFB or SCG not want prices to rocket? The higher the price on a card the more a certain % profit makes. So nobody is going to do this in paper MTG. The only people it benefits are players, and that is not enough to get action.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
When a card like Scalding Tarn is 50 dollars, that is 50 dollars to SCG once sold, for which they probably paid 25.
If you allow the card to be purchased directly, that is 0 to SCG. It is not a question of crashing the secondary market by offering direct cards.It is a question of directly reducing the profits of their partners. Why would they do that? Because some players can't afford to buy 500 dollar manabases? Unless enough players can't afford it and attendance drops as a consequence significantly they won't care. There is NO problem with the secondary market as far as WOTC are concerned UNTIL it adversely affects attendance.
Why would CFB or SCG not want prices to rocket? The higher the price on a card the more a certain % profit makes. So nobody is going to do this in paper MTG. The only people it benefits are players, and that is not enough to get action.
This question has been answered before, They DO want lower prices per card, because they would rather move alot of $20 cards then some #200 ones. it helps mitigate risk, inprove liquidity and make formats more accessable (which makes them more popular, which means more people will buy stuff)
Wizards of the Coast do NOT want to make Legacy or Vintage accessible, because it will detract from Standard if they cost the same. It is not like mobile phones where the latest model is better and people will try and keep up. You could play forever spending 30$ a year on keeping your Legacy deck going or you can play Standard where you have to keep buying new cards to keep playing. As a card manufacturer, which do you want your customers doing?
They want to make Standard cheap. They have even said they want to make Standard cheap. Not "magic" not "vintage". They want to make draft and sealed popular too. Anyone saying they want the other formats cheap is wrong. They could have made Legacy cheap by any number of methods, they have chosen not to. The evidence is in the fact they have not done this.
CFB and SCG don't give a monkeys about specific formats being accessible- they care about overall sales rather than formats, and it tends to be EDH and Standard that drive sales. When a player quits a game and sells on to a dealer the dealer benefits, WOTC don't, but if they grow the game and a new player comes in and buys the same cards, that benefits both. There is some antagonism there between dealers and WOTC, but not much. Ideally what happens from both POVs is they sell their cards in and buy in new cards as rotation happens or slightly later.
There are a finite number of Mtg players out there, they [EDIT WOTC and CFB et al] want to grow the game and want as many of them as possible playing Standard, selling rotating cards, and playing new Standard. They will take action to keep Std cheap, they will not take action elsewhere.
From an onlooker looking in at things, Magic the Gathering has sort of grown into a Modern format game more than standard for constructed, and is suffering largely because wizards has a hard time regulating the market that most modern players tap into. Standard survives because of drafting and limited players dumping cards onto the market along with singles sellers opening packs. Anything older goes into a buylist cycle that causes price inflation unless the card is basically never sought after. The game would probably be better off if the masters sets were the core sets and sold at 99 msrp as part of the summer set releases as they have too many overpriced supplemental products floating around as is.
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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!
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Masters sets are for drafting far more than they are for price control on the secondary market. The only way to get the secondary market under control and to keep prices from skyrocketing on specific cards is to offer a direct to buy option. Also, an option like that isn't going to crash the secondary market. I'm not sure why people think that is the case, but I've heard some people try attacking this from that angle. Wizards already does this sort of price control in MTGO via the treasures. In paper magic they can control prices by simply offering the cards for sale directly on the wizards store. Basically they'd treat the card orders like a mass drop and once the order period subsides they take the cards off the store and rotate in new ones. Then the orders get fulfilled by sending them to a print facility that will do the work.
This strategy does work, its just that in paper form they can't do it with all types of cards. The card value has to be high enough to pay for the work involved with printing and mailing the cards out, so we're talking mostly cards with a price of probably 10 to 15 usd minimum. They'd still have to do masters products regardless.
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 you allow the card to be purchased directly, that is 0 to SCG. It is not a question of crashing the secondary market by offering direct cards.It is a question of directly reducing the profits of their partners. Why would they do that? Because some players can't afford to buy 500 dollar manabases? Unless enough players can't afford it and attendance drops as a consequence significantly they won't care. There is NO problem with the secondary market as far as WOTC are concerned UNTIL it adversely affects attendance.
Why would CFB or SCG not want prices to rocket? The higher the price on a card the more a certain % profit makes. So nobody is going to do this in paper MTG. The only people it benefits are players, and that is not enough to get action.
This question has been answered before, They DO want lower prices per card, because they would rather move alot of $20 cards then some #200 ones. it helps mitigate risk, inprove liquidity and make formats more accessable (which makes them more popular, which means more people will buy stuff)
They want to make Standard cheap. They have even said they want to make Standard cheap. Not "magic" not "vintage". They want to make draft and sealed popular too. Anyone saying they want the other formats cheap is wrong. They could have made Legacy cheap by any number of methods, they have chosen not to. The evidence is in the fact they have not done this.
CFB and SCG don't give a monkeys about specific formats being accessible- they care about overall sales rather than formats, and it tends to be EDH and Standard that drive sales. When a player quits a game and sells on to a dealer the dealer benefits, WOTC don't, but if they grow the game and a new player comes in and buys the same cards, that benefits both. There is some antagonism there between dealers and WOTC, but not much. Ideally what happens from both POVs is they sell their cards in and buy in new cards as rotation happens or slightly later.
There are a finite number of Mtg players out there, they [EDIT WOTC and CFB et al] want to grow the game and want as many of them as possible playing Standard, selling rotating cards, and playing new Standard. They will take action to keep Std cheap, they will not take action elsewhere.
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!