I have to go out on a limb here: I feel like this game has just gone through an apocalypse and now we are slowly coming out of the dark ages with the bubonic plague still in the country side.
First Rant: walked into the local walmart and saw the gift pack for Magic the Gathering and thought it looked pretty good, until I saw the price of 20 usd for the box... that had 5 foil basics, two basically worthless rares that didn't even have any unique art, and the distinct lack of a Ragavan Token for Kari Zev. And only three booster packs. Picked up a pokemon TCG pack that is basically doing the same thing and compared... I think wizards has no idea how this is supposed to work.
Second Rant: Mark Rosewater, energy, and the current standard. People are getting tired of energy and there's no winning this: if they don't do anything Energy is just going to stick around until rotation when all the cards rotate out, and if they ban something I think a number of people will just outright not play standard. I am praying for all the sanity in the world that if wizards ends up making a new start point for a non-rotating format they don't include Kaladesh, because holy smokes I stopped playing frontier because of Saheeli cat combo, energy, and vehicles in general.
Third Rant: Two masters sets in the same year with a new unglued set and somehow they still are fitting Rivals of Ixalan into this. I'm seriously worried that this is going to be how wizards is going to reprint all the high value cards from now on and nothing of value will ever be in a constructed product again, let alone standard.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I think wizards has no idea how this is supposed to work.
What do you mean by this? Nothing in the preceeding paragraph lead up to it.
If you're complaining about worthless rares, it is mathemically impossible (unless they're identical) to make all cards playable. Some cards _will_ suck and there will be a lot of cards that are not competitive more common formats.
Third Rant: Two masters sets in the same year with a new unglued set and somehow they still are fitting Rivals of Ixalan into this. I'm seriously worried that this is going to be how wizards is going to reprint all the high value cards from now on and nothing of value will ever be in a constructed product again, let alone standard.
The releases are in part in recognition that mtg players play for different reasons. In your specific example above, what do you propose? Remove the unsets? Sure, that will make constructed players happy, but not the people who want unsets. Unsets aren't even playable in constructed so they don't overlap much for customers. Remove some of the next set? Standard and limited players will be unhappy because of the lack of change in the meta. Remove the masters sets? That will make modern players unhappy.
To put simply: some of these sets are not for you. They're for more niche markets. IF you play standard, then don't buy un-sets or masters sets. If you play strictly modern, the the masters sets will be a godsend, not so much the standard sets. ETc.
I think wizards has no idea how this is supposed to work.
What do you mean by this? Nothing in the preceeding paragraph lead up to it.
If you're complaining about worthless rares, it is mathemically impossible (unless they're identical) to make all cards playable. Some cards _will_ suck and there will be a lot of cards that are not competitive more common formats.
Third Rant: Two masters sets in the same year with a new unglued set and somehow they still are fitting Rivals of Ixalan into this. I'm seriously worried that this is going to be how wizards is going to reprint all the high value cards from now on and nothing of value will ever be in a constructed product again, let alone standard.
The releases are in part in recognition that mtg players play for different reasons. In your specific example above, what do you propose? Remove the unsets? Sure, that will make constructed players happy, but not the people who want unsets. Unsets aren't even playable in constructed so they don't overlap much for customers. Remove some of the next set? Standard and limited players will be unhappy because of the lack of change in the meta. Remove the masters sets? That will make modern players unhappy.
To put simply: some of these sets are not for you. They're for more niche markets. IF you play standard, then don't buy un-sets or masters sets. If you play strictly modern, the the masters sets will be a godsend, not so much the standard sets. ETc.
The problem I have with the gift box is that it contains nothing unique of value to the majority of players and is actually worse than the gift boxes they originally were giving out. Pokemon gives full art foil cards, typically more booster packs per box, collectible pins and figures, and an online code to redeem the contents online. The only thing in the gift box to justify the cost is the foil lands, and those only have good value to those who are collecting the shooting star lands. Maybe if they had an additional booster pack? I'm not really sure, but they need to go all the way with these gift packs if they want them to sell well.
Also, my problem with the masters sets is that they aren't really good for players at all. The primary reason they are printed is to make the company money by feeding off the secondary market prices, and while they offer players a way to gamble on getting modern level cards, it's at 10 msrp a pack (its actually 170 dollars a box if someone is pre-ordering right now, which is well below msrp). Basically, a person is arguably paying twice the amount per box for 24 packs instead of 36 packs. If it was for a full 36 packs that would be a different story. Right now at msrp, to match the same number of packs would put the cost at 320 usd. So, really these are actually even more costly than they appear to be. So assuming a rough discount similar to the pre-order, to match the same kind of value in one booster box of standard, one would have to pay three times the cost roughly of a booster box.
Well, if sellers had a 36 card box and it was 320 msrp, it would probably be around 255-270 dollars on pre-order right now given the discount on the current box compared to ixalan, which is going at around 85 minimum from some shady dealers to 100 usd a box. But that should give a good idea of why I'm not a fan of now having two of these sets in a year and most major high cost reprints now being all moved into these sets.
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 think wizards has no idea how this is supposed to work.
What do you mean by this? Nothing in the preceeding paragraph lead up to it.
If you're complaining about worthless rares, it is mathemically impossible (unless they're identical) to make all cards playable. Some cards _will_ suck and there will be a lot of cards that are not competitive more common formats.
Third Rant: Two masters sets in the same year with a new unglued set and somehow they still are fitting Rivals of Ixalan into this. I'm seriously worried that this is going to be how wizards is going to reprint all the high value cards from now on and nothing of value will ever be in a constructed product again, let alone standard.
The releases are in part in recognition that mtg players play for different reasons. In your specific example above, what do you propose? Remove the unsets? Sure, that will make constructed players happy, but not the people who want unsets. Unsets aren't even playable in constructed so they don't overlap much for customers. Remove some of the next set? Standard and limited players will be unhappy because of the lack of change in the meta. Remove the masters sets? That will make modern players unhappy.
To put simply: some of these sets are not for you. They're for more niche markets. IF you play standard, then don't buy un-sets or masters sets. If you play strictly modern, the the masters sets will be a godsend, not so much the standard sets. ETc.
The problem I have with the gift box is that it contains nothing unique of value to the majority of players and is actually worse than the gift boxes they originally were giving out. Pokemon gives full art foil cards, typically more booster packs per box, collectible pins and figures, and an online code to redeem the contents online. The only thing in the gift box to justify the cost is the foil lands, and those only have good value to those who are collecting the shooting star lands. Maybe if they had an additional booster pack? I'm not really sure, but they need to go all the way with these gift packs if they want them to sell well.
Also, my problem with the masters sets is that they aren't really good for players at all. The primary reason they are printed is to make the company money by feeding off the secondary market prices, and while they offer players a way to gamble on getting modern level cards, it's at 10 msrp a pack (its actually 170 dollars a box if someone is pre-ordering right now, which is well below msrp). Basically, a person is arguably paying twice the amount per box for 24 packs instead of 36 packs. If it was for a full 36 packs that would be a different story. Right now at msrp, to match the same number of packs would put the cost at 320 usd. So, really these are actually even more costly than they appear to be. So assuming a rough discount similar to the pre-order, to match the same kind of value in one booster box of standard, one would have to pay three times the cost roughly of a booster box.
Well, if sellers had a 36 card box and it was 320 msrp, it would probably be around 255-270 dollars on pre-order right now given the discount on the current box compared to ixalan, which is going at around 85 minimum from some shady dealers to 100 usd a box. But that should give a good idea of why I'm not a fan of now having two of these sets in a year and most major high cost reprints now being all moved into these sets.
i think the major flaw in your argument is that you assume the masters sets are printed to make money by feeding off the secondary market... and you kinda ran from that flawed point with some kind of crazy math formula to back your own claims
i've been playing this game for 24 years, if you think the current mtg environment is failing, or the plague, or however it is you choose to describe it... well you straight up have no idea what you're talking about and need to step back for a little bit, and maybe consider that you are not the audience for every single product released, nor do you have to buy every single product released.
I think wizards has no idea how this is supposed to work.
What do you mean by this? Nothing in the preceeding paragraph lead up to it.
If you're complaining about worthless rares, it is mathemically impossible (unless they're identical) to make all cards playable. Some cards _will_ suck and there will be a lot of cards that are not competitive more common formats.
Third Rant: Two masters sets in the same year with a new unglued set and somehow they still are fitting Rivals of Ixalan into this. I'm seriously worried that this is going to be how wizards is going to reprint all the high value cards from now on and nothing of value will ever be in a constructed product again, let alone standard.
The releases are in part in recognition that mtg players play for different reasons. In your specific example above, what do you propose? Remove the unsets? Sure, that will make constructed players happy, but not the people who want unsets. Unsets aren't even playable in constructed so they don't overlap much for customers. Remove some of the next set? Standard and limited players will be unhappy because of the lack of change in the meta. Remove the masters sets? That will make modern players unhappy.
To put simply: some of these sets are not for you. They're for more niche markets. IF you play standard, then don't buy un-sets or masters sets. If you play strictly modern, the the masters sets will be a godsend, not so much the standard sets. ETc.
The problem I have with the gift box is that it contains nothing unique of value to the majority of players and is actually worse than the gift boxes they originally were giving out. Pokemon gives full art foil cards, typically more booster packs per box, collectible pins and figures, and an online code to redeem the contents online. The only thing in the gift box to justify the cost is the foil lands, and those only have good value to those who are collecting the shooting star lands. Maybe if they had an additional booster pack? I'm not really sure, but they need to go all the way with these gift packs if they want them to sell well.
Also, my problem with the masters sets is that they aren't really good for players at all. The primary reason they are printed is to make the company money by feeding off the secondary market prices, and while they offer players a way to gamble on getting modern level cards, it's at 10 msrp a pack (its actually 170 dollars a box if someone is pre-ordering right now, which is well below msrp). Basically, a person is arguably paying twice the amount per box for 24 packs instead of 36 packs. If it was for a full 36 packs that would be a different story. Right now at msrp, to match the same number of packs would put the cost at 320 usd. So, really these are actually even more costly than they appear to be. So assuming a rough discount similar to the pre-order, to match the same kind of value in one booster box of standard, one would have to pay three times the cost roughly of a booster box.
Well, if sellers had a 36 card box and it was 320 msrp, it would probably be around 255-270 dollars on pre-order right now given the discount on the current box compared to ixalan, which is going at around 85 minimum from some shady dealers to 100 usd a box. But that should give a good idea of why I'm not a fan of now having two of these sets in a year and most major high cost reprints now being all moved into these sets.
i think the major flaw in your argument is that you assume the masters sets are printed to make money by feeding off the secondary market... and you kinda ran from that flawed point with some kind of crazy math formula to back your own claims
i've been playing this game for 24 years, if you think the current mtg environment is failing, or the plague, or however it is you choose to describe it... well you straight up have no idea what you're talking about and need to step back for a little bit, and maybe consider that you are not the audience for every single product released, nor do you have to buy every single product released.
First, don't ever try pulling the "I've played the game longer than you" card on this forum. I've played since Chronicles was around and there are people here who have played even longer than I have. Second, no one is buying every single product wizards is putting out because they don't all target the same group and it's basically financially impossible to do so. The reason I'm singling out the new shooting star foil land pack is that it's not a good product and it's falling into the same line of problem products as the planechase anthology. They are asking for too much for too little at the msrp they set it at. Can they fix it so the next one is better? Definitely. If they put a quality item in the box like a collectors pin (not the cheap ones either, one with an actually good clasp), that's a Ravnica guild symbol, a set symbol, etc, an additional booster pack, and made the promo rares alternate art cards (and not forget the token that the rare promo actually needs), it would be miles better. The spin down is just okay as those are already a dime a dozen due to the fat packs having them.
On the subject of the masters sets: This is a pretty deep subject to talk about. I'll try to explain things a bit more clearly, but if you're new to the whole past discussion on the shifting of high value cards out of precon products (not to mention the true name nemesis debacle and the under printing of modern masters 1) than it's going to take a bit of back treading.
Basically, it goes back to the true name nemesis incident and the secondary market reaction to the original Modern Masters release. The idea they had was to reprint the high value cards in booster boxes and match the msrp so people trying to buy preconstructed products wouldn't get stuck fighting with scalpers and investors. They had some issues during this time such as underestimating demand for the masters set and actually causing prices to violently snap back on the secondary market for modern masters cards. Then we went through the years of the Kahns->BFZ->SOI where wizards started pulling high value cards from non-booster pack products and also declared they were removing core sets. This lead to things like Mind vs Might, the Planechase Anthology, and the wave 2 eternal masters issue.
Now, wizards has been reprinting more cards in standard. We've seen Essence Scatter, Spell Pierce, and Opt appear now in standard along with the allied check lands. We've also seen some reprints in the commander set as well, but what people are not noticing is the age of the cards they are reprinting. Zendikar Resurgent is an example from the latest commander set, Master of the Pearl Trident and Master of Waves in Merfolk vs Goblins, etc. Now Spell pierce is an older card as that dates back to Zendikar, but it's value is relatively low and the other cards are a bit more questionable. Why Master of the pearl trident instead of Lord of Atlantis? Why reprint Zendikar Resurgent when that was a card that just rotated?
What I think is happening is that wizards of the coast has decided they are going to reprint older and expensive cards exclusively in the masters sets. What does this mean for people who play the formats these cater to? It's probably going to make things more expensive in the long run, but prices will be more level across cards assuming they can keep reprinting the cards.
Basically, super simple math here: player A plays standard and buys two booster boxes for a total of 72 packs. For player B to get the same number of packs for the non-standard masters sets, they have to buy three booster boxes because they only have 24 packs per box. To keep things from getting too complicated, sticking with msrp those standard booster boxes are 120 msrp, while the masters boxes are 240 msrp. So, player A is paying 240 msrp for 72 packs of standard while player B is paying 720 msrp for the same number of packs. Can you see the issue now? It may look like masters sets are really 2x the price of a standard set, but they really are more expensive than that. On top of which the runs are limited. I don't mind if wizards wants modern, legacy, and commander players to pay a premium, but that premium seems rather high, and if the plan is to put all the cards that get just a bit too spicy on price in the masters sets and not reprint them in standard or secondary products, that's starting to take things even more over the top.
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!
First Rant: walked into the local walmart and saw the gift pack for Magic the Gathering and thought it looked pretty good, until I saw the price of 20 usd for the box... that had 5 foil basics, two basically worthless rares that didn't even have any unique art, and the distinct lack of a Ragavan Token for Kari Zev. And only three booster packs. Picked up a pokemon TCG pack that is basically doing the same thing and compared... I think wizards has no idea how this is supposed to work.
On the Gift Boxes - I think I mentioned it to you before regarding Archenemy: Bolas, it's purposely designed that way because of the target demographic - it's not meant as incentive for enfranchised players to buy them, it's actually meant for non-players to stumble across it and buy them as gifts for their family/friends whom they know play Magic. For that to happen by chance it has to stay on shelves longer than other products (other than Standard Boosters, but that's where the whole packaging concept is for in the first place) and well, to do that it obviously wouldn't contain cards of (much, if any) value.
Note here I'm not actually disagreeing with how bad the product is, as an enfranchised player I can outright say it's a bad product value-wise and it will hold true even if I had great interest in the foil lands (which I don't). What I'm quite annoyed is "bad products" like this doesn't automatically equate to "Wizards doesn't know what they're doing". Seriously, you think a company like Wizards doesn't actually specifically plan their products, target demographics and how to ward off frenzy-buying (especially since the Mind Sieze incident only happened once, Atraxa doesn't count because its root cause was popularity within the target demographic).
Wizards knows exactly what it is doing and I'm not "defending" Wizards when I'm saying that - I'm pointing out Wizards, as a company definitely had a planned direction and any statement that just writes that off when trying to criticize a product honestly just unsubstantiates their own criticism. You can argue that the direction they're headed is wrong, but to phrase it in a way that implies that they literally don't know anything at all ("has no idea how this is supposed to work" is a statement I personally thought had phrased in that way, but mileage may vary with other readers) feels like nothing more than discrediting the work put behind the product and at the same time discrediting one's own efforts of research/inferred assumptions behind their statement/criticism.
I know this is getting awfully close to feeling like I'm targeting you, but I like to disclaim that it was not intended at you (threadstarter) specifically and that there are many, many statements for similar or not subjects on this forum alone that have a similar flaw - eventually I would have to point out this point somewhere and given the structure of the forums, it would most likely be in context of the thread and hence feel like it was targeted. I won't deny that the main trigger for me choosing this thread to post this statement was specific to you (as I said above I remembered a similar statement situation regarding Archenemy), but the statement itself doesn't exclusively apply to you (although the trigger does mean I have the impression you tend to be more prone to this, admittedly).
It'll be unfair for me to just go on about the general issue without going into the context (that'll be really too close to targeting), but in context let's put it this way - "bad products" like this (and arguably Archenemy since I still see it on shelves) have always followed the "for the general "uneducated (in Magic)" public" direction and were specifically planned out to be "bad", therefore the direction in itself is always going to be a "bad" one for us, but from a business perspective I don't see them ever dropping the direction itself off because it essentially falls under product marketing, an essential part for any franchise.
So, bluntly put, for as long as that direction exists, we will basically continue to see subpar/bad products churned out for the shelves. There's a point for contention that whether they churn out those too frequently, but your statement this time is about one of the products (mixed with other topics that don't fall under the same umbrella of that direction) and not about the direction in whole, so I'm not going into the topic.
What makes the gift box different (and rather easy to break down that it's even bad for the target demographic they are trying to go after) is that there is a direct competitor on the same shelf that offers better rewards for purchase than what the gift box actually gives. Also, part of the reason products like the gift pack exist in pokemon was to help keep prices in check on specific cards. Basically, right now the parallel example of what an equivalent gift box would be like in magic would be a collector tin with either The Scarab God, Hazoret the Fervent, Chandra, Torch of Defiance, etc, helming them. At least that is what my buddy has basically informed me on the subject since I don't actually play pokemon. He sort of double dips into both games.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I think wizards has no idea how this is supposed to work.
What do you mean by this? Nothing in the preceeding paragraph lead up to it.
If you're complaining about worthless rares, it is mathemically impossible (unless they're identical) to make all cards playable. Some cards _will_ suck and there will be a lot of cards that are not competitive more common formats.
Third Rant: Two masters sets in the same year with a new unglued set and somehow they still are fitting Rivals of Ixalan into this. I'm seriously worried that this is going to be how wizards is going to reprint all the high value cards from now on and nothing of value will ever be in a constructed product again, let alone standard.
The releases are in part in recognition that mtg players play for different reasons. In your specific example above, what do you propose? Remove the unsets? Sure, that will make constructed players happy, but not the people who want unsets. Unsets aren't even playable in constructed so they don't overlap much for customers. Remove some of the next set? Standard and limited players will be unhappy because of the lack of change in the meta. Remove the masters sets? That will make modern players unhappy.
To put simply: some of these sets are not for you. They're for more niche markets. IF you play standard, then don't buy un-sets or masters sets. If you play strictly modern, the the masters sets will be a godsend, not so much the standard sets. ETc.
The problem I have with the gift box is that it contains nothing unique of value to the majority of players and is actually worse than the gift boxes they originally were giving out. Pokemon gives full art foil cards, typically more booster packs per box, collectible pins and figures, and an online code to redeem the contents online. The only thing in the gift box to justify the cost is the foil lands, and those only have good value to those who are collecting the shooting star lands. Maybe if they had an additional booster pack? I'm not really sure, but they need to go all the way with these gift packs if they want them to sell well.
Also, my problem with the masters sets is that they aren't really good for players at all. The primary reason they are printed is to make the company money by feeding off the secondary market prices, and while they offer players a way to gamble on getting modern level cards, it's at 10 msrp a pack (its actually 170 dollars a box if someone is pre-ordering right now, which is well below msrp). Basically, a person is arguably paying twice the amount per box for 24 packs instead of 36 packs. If it was for a full 36 packs that would be a different story. Right now at msrp, to match the same number of packs would put the cost at 320 usd. So, really these are actually even more costly than they appear to be. So assuming a rough discount similar to the pre-order, to match the same kind of value in one booster box of standard, one would have to pay three times the cost roughly of a booster box.
Well, if sellers had a 36 card box and it was 320 msrp, it would probably be around 255-270 dollars on pre-order right now given the discount on the current box compared to ixalan, which is going at around 85 minimum from some shady dealers to 100 usd a box. But that should give a good idea of why I'm not a fan of now having two of these sets in a year and most major high cost reprints now being all moved into these sets.
i think the major flaw in your argument is that you assume the masters sets are printed to make money by feeding off the secondary market... and you kinda ran from that flawed point with some kind of crazy math formula to back your own claims
i've been playing this game for 24 years, if you think the current mtg environment is failing, or the plague, or however it is you choose to describe it... well you straight up have no idea what you're talking about and need to step back for a little bit, and maybe consider that you are not the audience for every single product released, nor do you have to buy every single product released.
First, don't ever try pulling the "I've played the game longer than you" card on this forum. I've played since Chronicles was around and there are people here who have played even longer than I have. Second, no one is buying every single product wizards is putting out because they don't all target the same group and it's basically financially impossible to do so. The reason I'm singling out the new shooting star foil land pack is that it's not a good product and it's falling into the same line of problem products as the planechase anthology. They are asking for too much for too little at the msrp they set it at. Can they fix it so the next one is better? Definitely. If they put a quality item in the box like a collectors pin (not the cheap ones either, one with an actually good clasp), that's a Ravnica guild symbol, a set symbol, etc, an additional booster pack, and made the promo rares alternate art cards (and not forget the token that the rare promo actually needs), it would be miles better. The spin down is just okay as those are already a dime a dozen due to the fat packs having them.
On the subject of the masters sets: This is a pretty deep subject to talk about. I'll try to explain things a bit more clearly, but if you're new to the whole past discussion on the shifting of high value cards out of precon products (not to mention the true name nemesis debacle and the under printing of modern masters 1) than it's going to take a bit of back treading.
Basically, it goes back to the true name nemesis incident and the secondary market reaction to the original Modern Masters release. The idea they had was to reprint the high value cards in booster boxes and match the msrp so people trying to buy preconstructed products wouldn't get stuck fighting with scalpers and investors. They had some issues during this time such as underestimating demand for the masters set and actually causing prices to violently snap back on the secondary market for modern masters cards. Then we went through the years of the Kahns->BFZ->SOI where wizards started pulling high value cards from non-booster pack products and also declared they were removing core sets. This lead to things like Mind vs Might, the Planechase Anthology, and the wave 2 eternal masters issue.
Now, wizards has been reprinting more cards in standard. We've seen Essence Scatter, Spell Pierce, and Opt appear now in standard along with the allied check lands. We've also seen some reprints in the commander set as well, but what people are not noticing is the age of the cards they are reprinting. Zendikar Resurgent is an example from the latest commander set, Master of the Pearl Trident and Master of Waves in Merfolk vs Goblins, etc. Now Spell pierce is an older card as that dates back to Zendikar, but it's value is relatively low and the other cards are a bit more questionable. Why Master of the pearl trident instead of Lord of Atlantis? Why reprint Zendikar Resurgent when that was a card that just rotated?
What I think is happening is that wizards of the coast has decided they are going to reprint older and expensive cards exclusively in the masters sets. What does this mean for people who play the formats these cater to? It's probably going to make things more expensive in the long run, but prices will be more level across cards assuming they can keep reprinting the cards.
Basically, super simple math here: player A plays standard and buys two booster boxes for a total of 72 packs. For player B to get the same number of packs for the non-standard masters sets, they have to buy three booster boxes because they only have 24 packs per box. To keep things from getting too complicated, sticking with msrp those standard booster boxes are 120 msrp, while the masters boxes are 240 msrp. So, player A is paying 240 msrp for 72 packs of standard while player B is paying 720 msrp for the same number of packs. Can you see the issue now? It may look like masters sets are really 2x the price of a standard set, but they really are more expensive than that. On top of which the runs are limited. I don't mind if wizards wants modern, legacy, and commander players to pay a premium, but that premium seems rather high, and if the plan is to put all the cards that get just a bit too spicy on price in the masters sets and not reprint them in standard or secondary products, that's starting to take things even more over the top.
look, basically super simple here, you're salty that you're not getting valuable things in your packs/precons and that you feel forced into buying masters sets in order to get reprints of worth
the solution here is the same as it ever has been.
stop buying packs.
stop buying the supplemental products you feel aren't worth your money.
your entire problem with magic boils down to: i want expensive cards in my packs/products
we all do.
oh, and get down off your high horse for a moment and realize that the argument "i've been playing this game for longer than you" is valid in this instance when several things aren't happening. attendance for events hasn't completely tanked, and the secondary market hasn't completely collapsed. both of which have happened in the past. so yes. i have been playing longer than you. and yes. this is a valid argument here because of your original doom and gloom posting.
chill out with the math proving your point that the products aren't worth the investment (this is generally fact many times over), and take a step back from the game for a little bit.
What do you mean by this? Nothing in the preceeding paragraph lead up to it.
If you're complaining about worthless rares, it is mathemically impossible (unless they're identical) to make all cards playable. Some cards _will_ suck and there will be a lot of cards that are not competitive more common formats.
The releases are in part in recognition that mtg players play for different reasons. In your specific example above, what do you propose? Remove the unsets? Sure, that will make constructed players happy, but not the people who want unsets. Unsets aren't even playable in constructed so they don't overlap much for customers. Remove some of the next set? Standard and limited players will be unhappy because of the lack of change in the meta. Remove the masters sets? That will make modern players unhappy.
To put simply: some of these sets are not for you. They're for more niche markets. IF you play standard, then don't buy un-sets or masters sets. If you play strictly modern, the the masters sets will be a godsend, not so much the standard sets. ETc.
The problem I have with the gift box is that it contains nothing unique of value to the majority of players and is actually worse than the gift boxes they originally were giving out. Pokemon gives full art foil cards, typically more booster packs per box, collectible pins and figures, and an online code to redeem the contents online. The only thing in the gift box to justify the cost is the foil lands, and those only have good value to those who are collecting the shooting star lands. Maybe if they had an additional booster pack? I'm not really sure, but they need to go all the way with these gift packs if they want them to sell well.
Also, my problem with the masters sets is that they aren't really good for players at all. The primary reason they are printed is to make the company money by feeding off the secondary market prices, and while they offer players a way to gamble on getting modern level cards, it's at 10 msrp a pack (its actually 170 dollars a box if someone is pre-ordering right now, which is well below msrp). Basically, a person is arguably paying twice the amount per box for 24 packs instead of 36 packs. If it was for a full 36 packs that would be a different story. Right now at msrp, to match the same number of packs would put the cost at 320 usd. So, really these are actually even more costly than they appear to be. So assuming a rough discount similar to the pre-order, to match the same kind of value in one booster box of standard, one would have to pay three times the cost roughly of a booster box.
Well, if sellers had a 36 card box and it was 320 msrp, it would probably be around 255-270 dollars on pre-order right now given the discount on the current box compared to ixalan, which is going at around 85 minimum from some shady dealers to 100 usd a box. But that should give a good idea of why I'm not a fan of now having two of these sets in a year and most major high cost reprints now being all moved into these sets.
i think the major flaw in your argument is that you assume the masters sets are printed to make money by feeding off the secondary market... and you kinda ran from that flawed point with some kind of crazy math formula to back your own claims
i've been playing this game for 24 years, if you think the current mtg environment is failing, or the plague, or however it is you choose to describe it... well you straight up have no idea what you're talking about and need to step back for a little bit, and maybe consider that you are not the audience for every single product released, nor do you have to buy every single product released.
First, don't ever try pulling the "I've played the game longer than you" card on this forum. I've played since Chronicles was around and there are people here who have played even longer than I have. Second, no one is buying every single product wizards is putting out because they don't all target the same group and it's basically financially impossible to do so. The reason I'm singling out the new shooting star foil land pack is that it's not a good product and it's falling into the same line of problem products as the planechase anthology. They are asking for too much for too little at the msrp they set it at. Can they fix it so the next one is better? Definitely. If they put a quality item in the box like a collectors pin (not the cheap ones either, one with an actually good clasp), that's a Ravnica guild symbol, a set symbol, etc, an additional booster pack, and made the promo rares alternate art cards (and not forget the token that the rare promo actually needs), it would be miles better. The spin down is just okay as those are already a dime a dozen due to the fat packs having them.
On the subject of the masters sets: This is a pretty deep subject to talk about. I'll try to explain things a bit more clearly, but if you're new to the whole past discussion on the shifting of high value cards out of precon products (not to mention the true name nemesis debacle and the under printing of modern masters 1) than it's going to take a bit of back treading.
Basically, it goes back to the true name nemesis incident and the secondary market reaction to the original Modern Masters release. The idea they had was to reprint the high value cards in booster boxes and match the msrp so people trying to buy preconstructed products wouldn't get stuck fighting with scalpers and investors. They had some issues during this time such as underestimating demand for the masters set and actually causing prices to violently snap back on the secondary market for modern masters cards. Then we went through the years of the Kahns->BFZ->SOI where wizards started pulling high value cards from non-booster pack products and also declared they were removing core sets. This lead to things like Mind vs Might, the Planechase Anthology, and the wave 2 eternal masters issue.
Now, wizards has been reprinting more cards in standard. We've seen Essence Scatter, Spell Pierce, and Opt appear now in standard along with the allied check lands. We've also seen some reprints in the commander set as well, but what people are not noticing is the age of the cards they are reprinting. Zendikar Resurgent is an example from the latest commander set, Master of the Pearl Trident and Master of Waves in Merfolk vs Goblins, etc. Now Spell pierce is an older card as that dates back to Zendikar, but it's value is relatively low and the other cards are a bit more questionable. Why Master of the pearl trident instead of Lord of Atlantis? Why reprint Zendikar Resurgent when that was a card that just rotated?
What I think is happening is that wizards of the coast has decided they are going to reprint older and expensive cards exclusively in the masters sets. What does this mean for people who play the formats these cater to? It's probably going to make things more expensive in the long run, but prices will be more level across cards assuming they can keep reprinting the cards.
Basically, super simple math here: player A plays standard and buys two booster boxes for a total of 72 packs. For player B to get the same number of packs for the non-standard masters sets, they have to buy three booster boxes because they only have 24 packs per box. To keep things from getting too complicated, sticking with msrp those standard booster boxes are 120 msrp, while the masters boxes are 240 msrp. So, player A is paying 240 msrp for 72 packs of standard while player B is paying 720 msrp for the same number of packs. Can you see the issue now? It may look like masters sets are really 2x the price of a standard set, but they really are more expensive than that. On top of which the runs are limited. I don't mind if wizards wants modern, legacy, and commander players to pay a premium, but that premium seems rather high, and if the plan is to put all the cards that get just a bit too spicy on price in the masters sets and not reprint them in standard or secondary products, that's starting to take things even more over the top.
look, basically super simple here, you're salty that you're not getting valuable things in your packs/precons and that you feel forced into buying masters sets in order to get reprints of worth
the solution here is the same as it ever has been.
stop buying packs.
stop buying the supplemental products you feel aren't worth your money.
your entire problem with magic boils down to: i want expensive cards in my packs/products
we all do.
oh, and get down off your high horse for a moment and realize that the argument "i've been playing this game for longer than you" is valid in this instance when several things aren't happening. attendance for events hasn't completely tanked, and the secondary market hasn't completely collapsed. both of which have happened in the past. so yes. i have been playing longer than you. and yes. this is a valid argument here because of your original doom and gloom posting.
chill out with the math proving your point that the products aren't worth the investment (this is generally fact many times over), and take a step back from the game for a little bit.
I don't buy packs. That doesn't mean I'm not going to call them out on bad form.
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!
What makes the gift box different (and rather easy to break down that it's even bad for the target demographic they are trying to go after) is that there is a direct competitor on the same shelf that offers better rewards for purchase than what the gift box actually gives. Also, part of the reason products like the gift pack exist in pokemon was to help keep prices in check on specific cards. Basically, right now the parallel example of what an equivalent gift box would be like in magic would be a collector tin with either The Scarab God, Hazoret the Fervent, Chandra, Torch of Defiance, etc, helming them. At least that is what my buddy has basically informed me on the subject since I don't actually play pokemon. He sort of double dips into both games.
You're going off tangent here - it's only considered a direct competitor when they have the same target demographic. What you're describing of these "collector's tins" implies that product's target demographic in the first place are their "Standard Players" rather than "General Public" (I also don't play the game, but your description and the product's title give very strong inference support).
MTG doesn't have such a product in the first place, so technically we just lose by default. A direction that Wizards didn't consider taking that it should is a statement I can stay behind, but your comparison between two products with different markets is quite way off-track to be valid.
I would actually argue that the actual competitor for the Gift Boxes would be the EX/GX Boxes I've seen laying in stores for quite some time, giving me the impression they aren't as loaded as the Collector's tins and their naming is more in line with the Gift Boxes to represent the target demographic.
Your suggestion of the Collector's Tin for MTG isn't a bad idea at all, but since you associated it with the Gift Box because you didn't actually classify the demographics correctly your entire statement becomes a lot messier and inaccurate. Just suggesting Collector's Tins to replace the Gift Boxes is essentially asking Wizards to scrap the entire "General Public" as a demographic and only focus on "Standard/Enfranchised Players", which may not be what you intended (if you did I refer you to the "General Public is a demographic they will never abandon" paragraph in my previous post), but you just used the wrong comparisons in the following supports, essentially making your own suggestion invalid.
Bluntly put, you should have just suggested a parallel competitor from MTG to Pokemon's Collector's Tins, rather than listing the Gift Box as the current competitor of some sort, because once you get into researching and analyzing their target demographics it quickly becomes obvious they don't have the same target demographics and therefore aren't direct competitors (and Pokemon does sort of have another product that's the actual direct competitor, so...)
Also, my problem with the masters sets is that they aren't really good for players at all...
But that should give a good idea of why I'm not a fan of now having two of these sets in a year and most major high cost reprints now being all moved into these sets.
In other words, you don't want te printed at all.
Without reprints, the cards would COST MORE or be completely unavailable. The reprints make cards COST LESS.
So, you're comepltely off-base.
I don't buy packs. That doesn't mean I'm not going to call them out on bad form.
And, once again, THESE PRODCUTS ARE NOT FOR YOU, They're for people who DO NOT have modern cards but want them anyway.
Honestly, this is like complaining about the high cost of jewelry, when you don't buy jewelry, and the increase in supply is driving the cost of jewelry down.
Also, my problem with the masters sets is that they aren't really good for players at all...
But that should give a good idea of why I'm not a fan of now having two of these sets in a year and most major high cost reprints now being all moved into these sets.
In other words, you don't want te printed at all.
Without reprints, the cards would COST MORE or be completely unavailable. The reprints make cards COST LESS.
So, you're comepltely off-base.
I don't buy packs. That doesn't mean I'm not going to call them out on bad form.
And, once again, THESE PRODCUTS ARE NOT FOR YOU, They're for people who DO NOT have modern cards but want them anyway.
Honestly, this is like complaining about the high cost of jewelry, when you don't buy jewelry, and the increase in supply is driving the cost of jewelry down.
1) Actually, I'd just be happy if the company would at least give the people spending 240 msrp on a box of masters the same number of packs as a standard set per box. There is such a thing as wanting a compromise instead of a binary mode of existence and non-existence.
2) Wow, is that it on the gift boxes? Oh, the only reason I'm complaining is that I'm not the target audience. Okay then, what is the target audience then? Star lands collectors? I can tell you right now that a strict casual player is going to go get the booster packs because for that same price they can get 5-6 depending if they are on sale at the store still. If they wanted something more substantial with a dice and possible poster they'd get a fat pack (err, Bundle). You're completely missing the point in this: The product they modeled it after gives significantly more value to the kind of people likely to buy them than the current configuration of the existing gift pack.
Also, while casual players and standard / modern players may have some different tastes, casual players are driven by the successes of those who play tournament events and post results. People across the board want good cards, and when a deck succeeds, those cards get marked as being good in the respective format and more people go to chase those cards. Saffron Olive, the Command Zone, the Professor, and other figures in the Magic community also drive casual audiences. So yes, there is a significant overlap between the demands of most casual players and tournament players. The entire point of the pokemon tins was to help casual players get cards that are hot in tournament play at fair prices by keeping them from spiking out of control, or offering those casual players alternative art cards of casual staples that are popular. The Gift box in it's current configuration does neither and costs a premium over other kinds of products those players would go after.
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!
2) Wow, is that it on the gift boxes? Oh, the only reason I'm complaining is that I'm not the target audience.
In short, yes. YOU ARE NOT THE TARGET AUDIENCE FOR THE GIFT BOXES.
Read the name: GIFT boxes. The target audience of this is someone who may or may not play the game to someone who likely isn't a competitive player. The box is spiffy. It has stuff in there that are useful. It looks great on shelf, or to just hold bulk cards. And someone getting it is not going to whine that the contents aren't great because, you know, it was a gift (ie free).
"Whether you're a gamer yourself or just love one (or draw them in Secret Santa), it can be hard to know if Audrey could really use a Bundle Box or if Jack is jonesing for Planeswalker Decks and booster packs."
Look at the rest of the article and see how they divide the products. The gift box falls under the "for someone who plays now and then" as opposed to someone who "lives and breathes magic", which they suggest getting boosters instead.
Of course you're not happy with the gift boxes. Because you look a product then then tries to compute if it is worth the price tag. You don't do that to things that are supposed to be gifts.
In regards to the Gift Boxes, I will probably buy one because it is convenient, has the foil shooting star lands, and a foil Zev. But, I have disposable income. I wont go out of my way to get it, but if I see it at Wal_mart I will probably snag one...
I think this is their way of competing with the Pokemon gift boxes (Which I think looks super Gaudy, and I do not play pokemon)
But I think it is important to understand Pokemon and MTG are different games and have slightly different audiences. I think that MTG is trying to use this as a method to attract Pokemon players since the products are sort of similar.
Mostly I want the foil lands...so I will shell out the money even if I think the packaging is corny and Pokemon-like. I am not worried about "Well I could get 6 boosters instead of 3 if I just bought boosters", there will be crap in 6 or 3, there will just be more crap in 6. I dont buy boosters because I think i will get good cards consistently. It is like playing Scratch offs, something to do. I mostly buy singles if I am looking for an actual card.
2) Wow, is that it on the gift boxes? Oh, the only reason I'm complaining is that I'm not the target audience.
In short, yes. YOU ARE NOT THE TARGET AUDIENCE FOR THE GIFT BOXES.
Read the name: GIFT boxes. The target audience of this is someone who may or may not play the game to someone who likely isn't a competitive player. The box is spiffy. It has stuff in there that are useful. It looks great on shelf, or to just hold bulk cards. And someone getting it is not going to whine that the contents aren't great because, you know, it was a gift (ie free).
"Whether you're a gamer yourself or just love one (or draw them in Secret Santa), it can be hard to know if Audrey could really use a Bundle Box or if Jack is jonesing for Planeswalker Decks and booster packs."
Look at the rest of the article and see how they divide the products. The gift box falls under the "for someone who plays now and then" as opposed to someone who "lives and breathes magic", which they suggest getting boosters instead.
Of course you're not happy with the gift boxes. Because you look a product then then tries to compute if it is worth the price tag. You don't do that to things that are supposed to be gifts.
So the ideal gift box for a casual player should include a spin down that is a common include in pre-release packs, bundles, and sometimes event decks, two regular foil rare cards that if the person intended to use in a commander deck or casual deck would have to purchase a token for or make their own, and five foil basic lands that are not even full art?
The problem with your argument is that you are too focused on accusing the poster of nonsense instead of looking at the product and thinking if this is something I would buy for a loved one casually interested in magic. The only way I'd buy this for someone is if they love the land art. A gift box needs to have many unique includes to make it effective, as the person buying the gift may have very little information to work with. That's why the Pokemon gift collections work and why this one doesn't.
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 think Wizards should always try to make money’s worth products, no matter which target market the product is designed for.
The gift box falls short in that department, and the flashiness of the box should not serve as an excuse for poor content, especially since there are direct TCG competitors with almost identical type of boxes with better bang for the buck.
Not only are "we" not the target demographic for gift boxes, but (I believe) WotC intentionally designeds them to be "bad" in order to dissuade "us" from buying it. Realitively limited retail productions of "good" products invite scalpers to swoop in and foment a secondary market with prices so high that they drive away potential new players.
None of this changes the fact that it's overpriced garbage.
Hasbro's greed is slowly strangling my love for the best card game in the history of the world.
Also, my problem with the masters sets is that they aren't really good for players at all...
But that should give a good idea of why I'm not a fan of now having two of these sets in a year and most major high cost reprints now being all moved into these sets.
In other words, you don't want te printed at all.
Without reprints, the cards would COST MORE or be completely unavailable. The reprints make cards COST LESS.
So, you're comepltely off-base.
I don't buy packs. That doesn't mean I'm not going to call them out on bad form.
And, once again, THESE PRODCUTS ARE NOT FOR YOU, They're for people who DO NOT have modern cards but want them anyway.
Honestly, this is like complaining about the high cost of jewelry, when you don't buy jewelry, and the increase in supply is driving the cost of jewelry down.
1) Actually, I'd just be happy if the company would at least give the people spending 240 msrp on a box of masters the same number of packs as a standard set per box. There is such a thing as wanting a compromise instead of a binary mode of existence and non-existence.
2) Wow, is that it on the gift boxes? Oh, the only reason I'm complaining is that I'm not the target audience. Okay then, what is the target audience then? Star lands collectors? I can tell you right now that a strict casual player is going to go get the booster packs because for that same price they can get 5-6 depending if they are on sale at the store still. If they wanted something more substantial with a dice and possible poster they'd get a fat pack (err, Bundle). You're completely missing the point in this: The product they modeled it after gives significantly more value to the kind of people likely to buy them than the current configuration of the existing gift pack.
Also, while casual players and standard / modern players may have some different tastes, casual players are driven by the successes of those who play tournament events and post results. People across the board want good cards, and when a deck succeeds, those cards get marked as being good in the respective format and more people go to chase those cards. Saffron Olive, the Command Zone, the Professor, and other figures in the Magic community also drive casual audiences. So yes, there is a significant overlap between the demands of most casual players and tournament players. The entire point of the pokemon tins was to help casual players get cards that are hot in tournament play at fair prices by keeping them from spiking out of control, or offering those casual players alternative art cards of casual staples that are popular. The Gift box in it's current configuration does neither and costs a premium over other kinds of products those players would go after.
I think the real issue with your analysis of the gift box is your perception of "casual" players. There are a good number of people who play Magic only once in a while and do not keep up with tournaments at all, or streamers, or any part of Magic other than the cards that they own and their immediate friends that they play with. I know as I was once one of these people, for a number of years, along with my group of friends who played. All we knew was the cards we had and we bought booster packs and intro decks (which are almost as bad as the gift box and maybe worse as they only had 1 booster at the time.) from Walmart when we could to try to add to our very casual decks (think 80+ random "cool" cards). They have very little idea of what is "good" or value. These are the people that this gift box is meant for.
Also, my problem with the masters sets is that they aren't really good for players at all...
But that should give a good idea of why I'm not a fan of now having two of these sets in a year and most major high cost reprints now being all moved into these sets.
In other words, you don't want te printed at all.
Without reprints, the cards would COST MORE or be completely unavailable. The reprints make cards COST LESS.
So, you're comepltely off-base.
I don't buy packs. That doesn't mean I'm not going to call them out on bad form.
And, once again, THESE PRODCUTS ARE NOT FOR YOU, They're for people who DO NOT have modern cards but want them anyway.
Honestly, this is like complaining about the high cost of jewelry, when you don't buy jewelry, and the increase in supply is driving the cost of jewelry down.
1) Actually, I'd just be happy if the company would at least give the people spending 240 msrp on a box of masters the same number of packs as a standard set per box. There is such a thing as wanting a compromise instead of a binary mode of existence and non-existence.
2) Wow, is that it on the gift boxes? Oh, the only reason I'm complaining is that I'm not the target audience. Okay then, what is the target audience then? Star lands collectors? I can tell you right now that a strict casual player is going to go get the booster packs because for that same price they can get 5-6 depending if they are on sale at the store still. If they wanted something more substantial with a dice and possible poster they'd get a fat pack (err, Bundle). You're completely missing the point in this: The product they modeled it after gives significantly more value to the kind of people likely to buy them than the current configuration of the existing gift pack.
Also, while casual players and standard / modern players may have some different tastes, casual players are driven by the successes of those who play tournament events and post results. People across the board want good cards, and when a deck succeeds, those cards get marked as being good in the respective format and more people go to chase those cards. Saffron Olive, the Command Zone, the Professor, and other figures in the Magic community also drive casual audiences. So yes, there is a significant overlap between the demands of most casual players and tournament players. The entire point of the pokemon tins was to help casual players get cards that are hot in tournament play at fair prices by keeping them from spiking out of control, or offering those casual players alternative art cards of casual staples that are popular. The Gift box in it's current configuration does neither and costs a premium over other kinds of products those players would go after.
I think the real issue with your analysis of the gift box is your perception of "casual" players. There are a good number of people who play Magic only once in a while and do not keep up with tournaments at all, or streamers, or any part of Magic other than the cards that they own and their immediate friends that they play with. I know as I was once one of these people, for a number of years, along with my group of friends who played. All we knew was the cards we had and we bought booster packs and intro decks (which are almost as bad as the gift box and maybe worse as they only had 1 booster at the time.) from Walmart when we could to try to add to our very casual decks (think 80+ random "cool" cards). They have very little idea of what is "good" or value. These are the people that this gift box is meant for.
That is exactly why the box is a bad gift box. A good gift box has to account for a large number of unknowns because the gifter may not know the giftee all that well in regard to their interests. That means placing many unique items in the gift box that can't be found elsewhere. The gift box falls at this because the contents are common and shared between many products compared to the Pokemon example that has alternate foils, a promo pin and flip coin, oversized card, etc. The only unique thing in the box is the star land foils and that is very limited in appeal.
Mind Vs might would actually be a better gift simply because of the alternate art cards, the playable decks, etc.
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!
Lands. They are a ***** mechanic that adds nothing of value to the game. Also the inflexible turn structure and the way priority etc work for online play is clunky as hell.
In Cthulhu, you draw two cards a turn and anything can be a land. In Netrunner, you get 3-4 actions and any of them can be a draw. Way less reliance on top decking, getting lucky with variance or being blue to have a deep game.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
EDH RRGrenzo plays your deck, GGYeva's mono green control, WW9-tails trys desperately for monowhite not to suck RWBUTymna and Kraum's saboteur tribal, UWG Kestia's Enchantress Aggro, RUB Jeleva casts big dumb spells, RGB Vaevictis' big critters can kill your critters hard
Second Rant: Mark Rosewater, energy, and the current standard. People are getting tired of energy and there's no winning this: if they don't do anything Energy is just going to stick around until rotation when all the cards rotate out, and if they ban something I think a number of people will just outright not play standard. I am praying for all the sanity in the world that if wizards ends up making a new start point for a non-rotating format they don't include Kaladesh, because holy smokes I stopped playing frontier because of Saheeli cat combo, energy, and vehicles in general.
I'll admit that energy is a parasitic mechanic, but your complaint doesn't seem to say anything about it other that "wah, energy bad!"
Further, the energy cards that are problematic in competitive environments are independent of the mechanic's parasitic nature. Cards like Aetherworks Marvel fuel themselves, and it wouldn't make that much of a difference if they used charge counters instead of energy counters.
First, don't ever try pulling the "I've played the game longer than you" card on this forum. I've played since Chronicles was around and there are people here who have played even longer than I have.
Uh... you are aware that Chronicles is 22 years old, not 24, right? And that Alpha is 24 years old?
Not only are "we" not the target demographic for gift boxes, but (I believe) WotC intentionally designeds them to be "bad" in order to dissuade "us" from buying it. Realitively limited retail productions of "good" products invite scalpers to swoop in and foment a secondary market with prices so high that they drive away potential new players.
None of this changes the fact that it's overpriced garbage.
Hasbro's greed is slowly strangling my love for the best card game in the history of the world.
Are you being sarcastic here?
Those very same scalpers and "investors" are also strangling Magic as well. Am I the only one that believes that $5,000-$10,000 for a single card is completely nuts?
Lands. They are a ***** mechanic that adds nothing of value to the game. Also the inflexible turn structure and the way priority etc work for online play is clunky as hell.
In Cthulhu, you draw two cards a turn and anything can be a land. In Netrunner, you get 3-4 actions and any of them can be a draw. Way less reliance on top decking, getting lucky with variance or being blue to have a deep game.
I guess it's obvious how tricked out blue has been in the game's history, isn't it?
I'll admit that energy is a parasitic mechanic, but your complaint doesn't seem to say anything about it other that "wah, energy bad!"
Further, the energy cards that are problematic in competitive environments are independent of the mechanic's parasitic nature. Cards like Aetherworks Marvel fuel themselves, and it wouldn't make that much of a difference if they used charge counters instead of energy counters.
I agree that energy isn't the main issue. Sure, you can't normally interact with the energy counters, so your opponent can rack up 6 - 10 energy at their heart's content to buff up Longtusk Cub and Bristling Hydra to insane stats (and giving the latter hexproof for the turn, because OK), but that isn't the fault of energy in and of itself. It's partly the fault of making the energy counters too easy to accumulate, or alternatively making the energy costs too low.
Uh... you are aware that Chronicles is 22 years old, not 24, right? And that Alpha is 24 years old?
You know, I didn't actually think about that part. Dang, that means I've been playing this game almost since it came out.
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!
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First Rant: walked into the local walmart and saw the gift pack for Magic the Gathering and thought it looked pretty good, until I saw the price of 20 usd for the box... that had 5 foil basics, two basically worthless rares that didn't even have any unique art, and the distinct lack of a Ragavan Token for Kari Zev. And only three booster packs. Picked up a pokemon TCG pack that is basically doing the same thing and compared... I think wizards has no idea how this is supposed to work.
Second Rant: Mark Rosewater, energy, and the current standard. People are getting tired of energy and there's no winning this: if they don't do anything Energy is just going to stick around until rotation when all the cards rotate out, and if they ban something I think a number of people will just outright not play standard. I am praying for all the sanity in the world that if wizards ends up making a new start point for a non-rotating format they don't include Kaladesh, because holy smokes I stopped playing frontier because of Saheeli cat combo, energy, and vehicles in general.
Third Rant: Two masters sets in the same year with a new unglued set and somehow they still are fitting Rivals of Ixalan into this. I'm seriously worried that this is going to be how wizards is going to reprint all the high value cards from now on and nothing of value will ever be in a constructed product again, let alone 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!
What do you mean by this? Nothing in the preceeding paragraph lead up to it.
If you're complaining about worthless rares, it is mathemically impossible (unless they're identical) to make all cards playable. Some cards _will_ suck and there will be a lot of cards that are not competitive more common formats.
The releases are in part in recognition that mtg players play for different reasons. In your specific example above, what do you propose? Remove the unsets? Sure, that will make constructed players happy, but not the people who want unsets. Unsets aren't even playable in constructed so they don't overlap much for customers. Remove some of the next set? Standard and limited players will be unhappy because of the lack of change in the meta. Remove the masters sets? That will make modern players unhappy.
To put simply: some of these sets are not for you. They're for more niche markets. IF you play standard, then don't buy un-sets or masters sets. If you play strictly modern, the the masters sets will be a godsend, not so much the standard sets. ETc.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
The problem I have with the gift box is that it contains nothing unique of value to the majority of players and is actually worse than the gift boxes they originally were giving out. Pokemon gives full art foil cards, typically more booster packs per box, collectible pins and figures, and an online code to redeem the contents online. The only thing in the gift box to justify the cost is the foil lands, and those only have good value to those who are collecting the shooting star lands. Maybe if they had an additional booster pack? I'm not really sure, but they need to go all the way with these gift packs if they want them to sell well.
Also, my problem with the masters sets is that they aren't really good for players at all. The primary reason they are printed is to make the company money by feeding off the secondary market prices, and while they offer players a way to gamble on getting modern level cards, it's at 10 msrp a pack (its actually 170 dollars a box if someone is pre-ordering right now, which is well below msrp). Basically, a person is arguably paying twice the amount per box for 24 packs instead of 36 packs. If it was for a full 36 packs that would be a different story. Right now at msrp, to match the same number of packs would put the cost at 320 usd. So, really these are actually even more costly than they appear to be. So assuming a rough discount similar to the pre-order, to match the same kind of value in one booster box of standard, one would have to pay three times the cost roughly of a booster box.
Well, if sellers had a 36 card box and it was 320 msrp, it would probably be around 255-270 dollars on pre-order right now given the discount on the current box compared to ixalan, which is going at around 85 minimum from some shady dealers to 100 usd a box. But that should give a good idea of why I'm not a fan of now having two of these sets in a year and most major high cost reprints now being all moved into these sets.
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 think the major flaw in your argument is that you assume the masters sets are printed to make money by feeding off the secondary market... and you kinda ran from that flawed point with some kind of crazy math formula to back your own claims
i've been playing this game for 24 years, if you think the current mtg environment is failing, or the plague, or however it is you choose to describe it... well you straight up have no idea what you're talking about and need to step back for a little bit, and maybe consider that you are not the audience for every single product released, nor do you have to buy every single product released.
First, don't ever try pulling the "I've played the game longer than you" card on this forum. I've played since Chronicles was around and there are people here who have played even longer than I have. Second, no one is buying every single product wizards is putting out because they don't all target the same group and it's basically financially impossible to do so. The reason I'm singling out the new shooting star foil land pack is that it's not a good product and it's falling into the same line of problem products as the planechase anthology. They are asking for too much for too little at the msrp they set it at. Can they fix it so the next one is better? Definitely. If they put a quality item in the box like a collectors pin (not the cheap ones either, one with an actually good clasp), that's a Ravnica guild symbol, a set symbol, etc, an additional booster pack, and made the promo rares alternate art cards (and not forget the token that the rare promo actually needs), it would be miles better. The spin down is just okay as those are already a dime a dozen due to the fat packs having them.
On the subject of the masters sets: This is a pretty deep subject to talk about. I'll try to explain things a bit more clearly, but if you're new to the whole past discussion on the shifting of high value cards out of precon products (not to mention the true name nemesis debacle and the under printing of modern masters 1) than it's going to take a bit of back treading.
Basically, it goes back to the true name nemesis incident and the secondary market reaction to the original Modern Masters release. The idea they had was to reprint the high value cards in booster boxes and match the msrp so people trying to buy preconstructed products wouldn't get stuck fighting with scalpers and investors. They had some issues during this time such as underestimating demand for the masters set and actually causing prices to violently snap back on the secondary market for modern masters cards. Then we went through the years of the Kahns->BFZ->SOI where wizards started pulling high value cards from non-booster pack products and also declared they were removing core sets. This lead to things like Mind vs Might, the Planechase Anthology, and the wave 2 eternal masters issue.
Now, wizards has been reprinting more cards in standard. We've seen Essence Scatter, Spell Pierce, and Opt appear now in standard along with the allied check lands. We've also seen some reprints in the commander set as well, but what people are not noticing is the age of the cards they are reprinting. Zendikar Resurgent is an example from the latest commander set, Master of the Pearl Trident and Master of Waves in Merfolk vs Goblins, etc. Now Spell pierce is an older card as that dates back to Zendikar, but it's value is relatively low and the other cards are a bit more questionable. Why Master of the pearl trident instead of Lord of Atlantis? Why reprint Zendikar Resurgent when that was a card that just rotated?
What I think is happening is that wizards of the coast has decided they are going to reprint older and expensive cards exclusively in the masters sets. What does this mean for people who play the formats these cater to? It's probably going to make things more expensive in the long run, but prices will be more level across cards assuming they can keep reprinting the cards.
Basically, super simple math here: player A plays standard and buys two booster boxes for a total of 72 packs. For player B to get the same number of packs for the non-standard masters sets, they have to buy three booster boxes because they only have 24 packs per box. To keep things from getting too complicated, sticking with msrp those standard booster boxes are 120 msrp, while the masters boxes are 240 msrp. So, player A is paying 240 msrp for 72 packs of standard while player B is paying 720 msrp for the same number of packs. Can you see the issue now? It may look like masters sets are really 2x the price of a standard set, but they really are more expensive than that. On top of which the runs are limited. I don't mind if wizards wants modern, legacy, and commander players to pay a premium, but that premium seems rather high, and if the plan is to put all the cards that get just a bit too spicy on price in the masters sets and not reprint them in standard or secondary products, that's starting to take things even more over the top.
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!
On the Gift Boxes - I think I mentioned it to you before regarding Archenemy: Bolas, it's purposely designed that way because of the target demographic - it's not meant as incentive for enfranchised players to buy them, it's actually meant for non-players to stumble across it and buy them as gifts for their family/friends whom they know play Magic. For that to happen by chance it has to stay on shelves longer than other products (other than Standard Boosters, but that's where the whole packaging concept is for in the first place) and well, to do that it obviously wouldn't contain cards of (much, if any) value.
Note here I'm not actually disagreeing with how bad the product is, as an enfranchised player I can outright say it's a bad product value-wise and it will hold true even if I had great interest in the foil lands (which I don't). What I'm quite annoyed is "bad products" like this doesn't automatically equate to "Wizards doesn't know what they're doing". Seriously, you think a company like Wizards doesn't actually specifically plan their products, target demographics and how to ward off frenzy-buying (especially since the Mind Sieze incident only happened once, Atraxa doesn't count because its root cause was popularity within the target demographic).
Wizards knows exactly what it is doing and I'm not "defending" Wizards when I'm saying that - I'm pointing out Wizards, as a company definitely had a planned direction and any statement that just writes that off when trying to criticize a product honestly just unsubstantiates their own criticism. You can argue that the direction they're headed is wrong, but to phrase it in a way that implies that they literally don't know anything at all ("has no idea how this is supposed to work" is a statement I personally thought had phrased in that way, but mileage may vary with other readers) feels like nothing more than discrediting the work put behind the product and at the same time discrediting one's own efforts of research/inferred assumptions behind their statement/criticism.
I know this is getting awfully close to feeling like I'm targeting you, but I like to disclaim that it was not intended at you (threadstarter) specifically and that there are many, many statements for similar or not subjects on this forum alone that have a similar flaw - eventually I would have to point out this point somewhere and given the structure of the forums, it would most likely be in context of the thread and hence feel like it was targeted. I won't deny that the main trigger for me choosing this thread to post this statement was specific to you (as I said above I remembered a similar statement situation regarding Archenemy), but the statement itself doesn't exclusively apply to you (although the trigger does mean I have the impression you tend to be more prone to this, admittedly).
It'll be unfair for me to just go on about the general issue without going into the context (that'll be really too close to targeting), but in context let's put it this way - "bad products" like this (and arguably Archenemy since I still see it on shelves) have always followed the "for the general "uneducated (in Magic)" public" direction and were specifically planned out to be "bad", therefore the direction in itself is always going to be a "bad" one for us, but from a business perspective I don't see them ever dropping the direction itself off because it essentially falls under product marketing, an essential part for any franchise.
So, bluntly put, for as long as that direction exists, we will basically continue to see subpar/bad products churned out for the shelves. There's a point for contention that whether they churn out those too frequently, but your statement this time is about one of the products (mixed with other topics that don't fall under the same umbrella of that direction) and not about the direction in whole, so I'm not going into the topic.
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!
look, basically super simple here, you're salty that you're not getting valuable things in your packs/precons and that you feel forced into buying masters sets in order to get reprints of worth
the solution here is the same as it ever has been.
stop buying packs.
stop buying the supplemental products you feel aren't worth your money.
your entire problem with magic boils down to: i want expensive cards in my packs/products
we all do.
oh, and get down off your high horse for a moment and realize that the argument "i've been playing this game for longer than you" is valid in this instance when several things aren't happening. attendance for events hasn't completely tanked, and the secondary market hasn't completely collapsed. both of which have happened in the past. so yes. i have been playing longer than you. and yes. this is a valid argument here because of your original doom and gloom posting.
chill out with the math proving your point that the products aren't worth the investment (this is generally fact many times over), and take a step back from the game for a little bit.
I don't buy packs. That doesn't mean I'm not going to call them out on bad form.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
You're going off tangent here - it's only considered a direct competitor when they have the same target demographic. What you're describing of these "collector's tins" implies that product's target demographic in the first place are their "Standard Players" rather than "General Public" (I also don't play the game, but your description and the product's title give very strong inference support).
MTG doesn't have such a product in the first place, so technically we just lose by default. A direction that Wizards didn't consider taking that it should is a statement I can stay behind, but your comparison between two products with different markets is quite way off-track to be valid.
I would actually argue that the actual competitor for the Gift Boxes would be the EX/GX Boxes I've seen laying in stores for quite some time, giving me the impression they aren't as loaded as the Collector's tins and their naming is more in line with the Gift Boxes to represent the target demographic.
Your suggestion of the Collector's Tin for MTG isn't a bad idea at all, but since you associated it with the Gift Box because you didn't actually classify the demographics correctly your entire statement becomes a lot messier and inaccurate. Just suggesting Collector's Tins to replace the Gift Boxes is essentially asking Wizards to scrap the entire "General Public" as a demographic and only focus on "Standard/Enfranchised Players", which may not be what you intended (if you did I refer you to the "General Public is a demographic they will never abandon" paragraph in my previous post), but you just used the wrong comparisons in the following supports, essentially making your own suggestion invalid.
Bluntly put, you should have just suggested a parallel competitor from MTG to Pokemon's Collector's Tins, rather than listing the Gift Box as the current competitor of some sort, because once you get into researching and analyzing their target demographics it quickly becomes obvious they don't have the same target demographics and therefore aren't direct competitors (and Pokemon does sort of have another product that's the actual direct competitor, so...)
In other words, you don't want te printed at all.
Without reprints, the cards would COST MORE or be completely unavailable. The reprints make cards COST LESS.
So, you're comepltely off-base.
And, once again, THESE PRODCUTS ARE NOT FOR YOU, They're for people who DO NOT have modern cards but want them anyway.
Honestly, this is like complaining about the high cost of jewelry, when you don't buy jewelry, and the increase in supply is driving the cost of jewelry down.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
1) Actually, I'd just be happy if the company would at least give the people spending 240 msrp on a box of masters the same number of packs as a standard set per box. There is such a thing as wanting a compromise instead of a binary mode of existence and non-existence.
2) Wow, is that it on the gift boxes? Oh, the only reason I'm complaining is that I'm not the target audience. Okay then, what is the target audience then? Star lands collectors? I can tell you right now that a strict casual player is going to go get the booster packs because for that same price they can get 5-6 depending if they are on sale at the store still. If they wanted something more substantial with a dice and possible poster they'd get a fat pack (err, Bundle). You're completely missing the point in this: The product they modeled it after gives significantly more value to the kind of people likely to buy them than the current configuration of the existing gift pack.
Also, while casual players and standard / modern players may have some different tastes, casual players are driven by the successes of those who play tournament events and post results. People across the board want good cards, and when a deck succeeds, those cards get marked as being good in the respective format and more people go to chase those cards. Saffron Olive, the Command Zone, the Professor, and other figures in the Magic community also drive casual audiences. So yes, there is a significant overlap between the demands of most casual players and tournament players. The entire point of the pokemon tins was to help casual players get cards that are hot in tournament play at fair prices by keeping them from spiking out of control, or offering those casual players alternative art cards of casual staples that are popular. The Gift box in it's current configuration does neither and costs a premium over other kinds of products those players would go after.
This is a good product:
Beedrill deluxe collectors edition case
This is a watered down knock off...
Magic the Gathering Gift Pack
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!
In short, yes. YOU ARE NOT THE TARGET AUDIENCE FOR THE GIFT BOXES.
Read the name: GIFT boxes. The target audience of this is someone who may or may not play the game to someone who likely isn't a competitive player. The box is spiffy. It has stuff in there that are useful. It looks great on shelf, or to just hold bulk cards. And someone getting it is not going to whine that the contents aren't great because, you know, it was a gift (ie free).
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/magic-holiday-gift-guide-and-holiday-buy-box-promotion-2016-11-21
Here's the blurb for it:
"Whether you're a gamer yourself or just love one (or draw them in Secret Santa), it can be hard to know if Audrey could really use a Bundle Box or if Jack is jonesing for Planeswalker Decks and booster packs."
Look at the rest of the article and see how they divide the products. The gift box falls under the "for someone who plays now and then" as opposed to someone who "lives and breathes magic", which they suggest getting boosters instead.
Of course you're not happy with the gift boxes. Because you look a product then then tries to compute if it is worth the price tag. You don't do that to things that are supposed to be gifts.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
I think this is their way of competing with the Pokemon gift boxes (Which I think looks super Gaudy, and I do not play pokemon)
But I think it is important to understand Pokemon and MTG are different games and have slightly different audiences. I think that MTG is trying to use this as a method to attract Pokemon players since the products are sort of similar.
Mostly I want the foil lands...so I will shell out the money even if I think the packaging is corny and Pokemon-like. I am not worried about "Well I could get 6 boosters instead of 3 if I just bought boosters", there will be crap in 6 or 3, there will just be more crap in 6. I dont buy boosters because I think i will get good cards consistently. It is like playing Scratch offs, something to do. I mostly buy singles if I am looking for an actual card.
So the ideal gift box for a casual player should include a spin down that is a common include in pre-release packs, bundles, and sometimes event decks, two regular foil rare cards that if the person intended to use in a commander deck or casual deck would have to purchase a token for or make their own, and five foil basic lands that are not even full art?
The problem with your argument is that you are too focused on accusing the poster of nonsense instead of looking at the product and thinking if this is something I would buy for a loved one casually interested in magic. The only way I'd buy this for someone is if they love the land art. A gift box needs to have many unique includes to make it effective, as the person buying the gift may have very little information to work with. That's why the Pokemon gift collections work and why this one doesn't.
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 gift box falls short in that department, and the flashiness of the box should not serve as an excuse for poor content, especially since there are direct TCG competitors with almost identical type of boxes with better bang for the buck.
None of this changes the fact that it's overpriced garbage.
Hasbro's greed is slowly strangling my love for the best card game in the history of the world.
I think the real issue with your analysis of the gift box is your perception of "casual" players. There are a good number of people who play Magic only once in a while and do not keep up with tournaments at all, or streamers, or any part of Magic other than the cards that they own and their immediate friends that they play with. I know as I was once one of these people, for a number of years, along with my group of friends who played. All we knew was the cards we had and we bought booster packs and intro decks (which are almost as bad as the gift box and maybe worse as they only had 1 booster at the time.) from Walmart when we could to try to add to our very casual decks (think 80+ random "cool" cards). They have very little idea of what is "good" or value. These are the people that this gift box is meant for.
BWTokens
GCollected Stompany
BWGUSeance Insanity
URUR Bloo
That is exactly why the box is a bad gift box. A good gift box has to account for a large number of unknowns because the gifter may not know the giftee all that well in regard to their interests. That means placing many unique items in the gift box that can't be found elsewhere. The gift box falls at this because the contents are common and shared between many products compared to the Pokemon example that has alternate foils, a promo pin and flip coin, oversized card, etc. The only unique thing in the box is the star land foils and that is very limited in appeal.
Mind Vs might would actually be a better gift simply because of the alternate art cards, the playable decks, etc.
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!
Lands. They are a ***** mechanic that adds nothing of value to the game. Also the inflexible turn structure and the way priority etc work for online play is clunky as hell.
In Cthulhu, you draw two cards a turn and anything can be a land. In Netrunner, you get 3-4 actions and any of them can be a draw. Way less reliance on top decking, getting lucky with variance or being blue to have a deep game.
RRGrenzo plays your deck, GGYeva's mono green control, WW9-tails trys desperately for monowhite not to suck
RWBUTymna and Kraum's saboteur tribal, UWG Kestia's Enchantress Aggro, RUB Jeleva casts big dumb spells, RGB Vaevictis' big critters can kill your critters hard
Arena Standard
UUUU Tempo, since before it was cool
Various Wx decks running Fountain of Renewal and Day of Glory
Anything I can cram Chaos Wand in to
Further, the energy cards that are problematic in competitive environments are independent of the mechanic's parasitic nature. Cards like Aetherworks Marvel fuel themselves, and it wouldn't make that much of a difference if they used charge counters instead of energy counters.
Uh... you are aware that Chronicles is 22 years old, not 24, right? And that Alpha is 24 years old?
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Are you being sarcastic here?
Those very same scalpers and "investors" are also strangling Magic as well. Am I the only one that believes that $5,000-$10,000 for a single card is completely nuts?
I guess it's obvious how tricked out blue has been in the game's history, isn't it?
I agree that energy isn't the main issue. Sure, you can't normally interact with the energy counters, so your opponent can rack up 6 - 10 energy at their heart's content to buff up Longtusk Cub and Bristling Hydra to insane stats (and giving the latter hexproof for the turn, because OK), but that isn't the fault of energy in and of itself. It's partly the fault of making the energy counters too easy to accumulate, or alternatively making the energy costs too low.
You know, I didn't actually think about that part. Dang, that means I've been playing this game almost since it came out.
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!