I hope their sales on yet another Masters set slump.
Product fatigue when they can't design new sets for crap isn't going to help them recover.
They're just cashing in and applying too much pressure to their base.
Going back to promos for FNM is nice but they have to be playable cards, and they need to do more to make people want to go to FNM again. They need to cancel the 'showdown' crap and divert all their product support to FNM for Standard.
No I dont want 'high priced cards', to me its a complete non-issue. I simply dont care about the price, and neither do most people who play.
Now the company doesnt support Modern? As I look back at all the decks I built full of reprints...hmm.
If Modern was 'affordable' to you, what do you think that would do to Standard?
Personally, I think that would kill Standard, fully.
I know,you are getting all these great reprints. They also know that the segment like the one you are a part of are fine with the high prices because otherwise you wouldn't buy the cards. That isn't the same as supporting a format though. Support means wanting to also let it grow with time, which is difficult with such high costs on the mana base. Also if modern kills standard, there is something wrong with standard that has nothing to do with price.
Pauper has proven a point: non rotating formats grow stale and have seasons. Modern can no more kill standard than pauper could, because at the end of the day it is about how a format plays.
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 results support your view. 2 months of no fire Standard in a large percentage of LGS across the nation with Modern events doing fine and even going way over the top participation wise. December at my store had 81 people play Modern with a no fire standard.
Maro has ruined standard. Period.
The 'new way' to design sets is an utter failure. Period.
Message to Maro... Go back or standard is dead!
Standard's pricing is whats killing it. Look at how ridiculous Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca 's pricing is. I doubt its because of casual or Modern apeal because Archangel Avacyn and Dragonlord Ojutai also reached or surpassed this pricing. So manye xpensive cards to build a deck that wil get outdated in a couple of months its just not worth the investment anymore. I'm sure you can brew budget decks but not everyone wants to use those type of decks and wants to use more expensive cards that suits their taste and styles more.
Remember when I made this thread a few years ago and people said that I was mad and cherrypicking and that Standard would never die 100% sure?
I hate to be the guy that says "I told you so" but... I told you so. This is nothing new. If you have been looking closely, you can clearly see this is a trend that starts with Theros almost four years ago. It looked like Tarkir would make the pendulum swing back, but nope. Not a chance.
The lopsided nature of rarity allocation of playable cards is definitely a contributor to the failings of standard, as is the massive discrepancy between printing ever-more powerful threats while choking access to decent answers.
No I dont want 'high priced cards', to me its a complete non-issue. I simply dont care about the price, and neither do most people who play.
Now the company doesnt support Modern? As I look back at all the decks I built full of reprints...hmm.
If Modern was 'affordable' to you, what do you think that would do to Standard?
Personally, I think that would kill Standard, fully.
Not if they printed good stuff in standard, More Dredge/affnity fun stuff less midrange creature/walk fest. In other words print blocks that create or carve out new deck arctypes in modern with minimal modifcation.
Modern could absolutely BURY Standard. The grave is dug, and Maro is standing behind Standard right now waiting for the Tragic Slip.
I dont know a single person who would play Standard, if Modern was as easy to get into.
Better gameplay.
Better cards.
More depth.
More variety.
NHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH this is the literal quote of every major Eternal format, like ALL of them. I don't know a person who would play Modern if Legacy was easy to get in too, better gameplay, better cards, more depth, more variety. You MIGHT convnice some people to play legacy over Vintage, but even then its the SAME argument for the most part. Legacy atleast has a CRAP ton of competive decks in the meta and the difference between T1 and T1.5 and T2 is more popularity issues then a power one, ie the meta matters more then the decks themselves. However even with that most would opt for Vintage. However ya thats the argument that every single eternal format uses.
Well I suppose when they put Modern up against Standard head to head...and the Twitch numbers show Modern crushing Standard...
Maybe it goes Standard < Modern < Legacy < Vintage...but I dont believe so.
It all comes back to Wizards just being absolutely terrible at solving their own problems and it always takes someone else to go banging on their door to get them to even flinch on anything. Every other format is beating standard right now except for Tiny Leaders... I didn't actually know that was still a thing, but apparently it is.
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’ m not sure if there’s anything wrong with the Standard format at the moment. If it was the case, the format would also suffer from low attendance online, which doesn’t seem to be the case.
To me, the biggest obstacle to play Standard is the price of paper cards and decks in that format.
Magic was never a cheap game to play, but it’s getting out of hand. Standard deck prices should be around where Pauper decks are right now.
People are asking extortionist prices for cards and decks, and that leads to the shutdown of the format.
They don’t seem to get that there are many other entertainment options out there that don’t cost nowhere near as much as Magic does, and if they don’t do anything about it, they are going to lose the players.
If paper Standard is dying that also means there is no new blood entering the game, and that is also very worrying for the longevity of the game.
Maybe the game in paper just doesn’t appeal to the newer generations.
Maybe the game in paper just doesn’t appeal to the newer generations.
I'm sure Wizards marketing is looking at this trend closely, and why they have been really focusing on Magic Arena. After all, every lay person pretty much thinks Magic Arena is Hasbro's answer to Hearthstone. If MTG online gaming grows really well compared to paper, Hasbro may actually divest resources from paper Magic production.
You guys realize the paper vs digital is the same design?
The reason no one is playing standard is because it's designed poorly. That is the reason for decline.
Expensive + crappy + no one else playing = why bother?
MTGO is so old and such a crap interface there are a lot of players who refuse to use it. They are not planning to get rid of paper but they are planning to push the crap out of Arena.
I'd probably differentiate arena from the paper game. Arena can't solve issues that it isn't intended to address, and the conditions in the paper market are among those things. The game is meant to address the issue of when paper gaming goes dormant again. Wizards wants to make sure it stays afloat in the long run.
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 talked with some of my friends at my LGS about Pauper where they don't feel that it's a real viable format capable of replacing Standard when consumer demand would eventually make it unaffordable for players to break into the more popular it gets. The reason why Frontier failed as a format was due to the fact that the set pool wasn't deep enough when they started pushing it, so it felt more like an Extended Standard. EDH/Commander stole Pauper's thunder years before Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro took any serious consideration of officially sanctioning it as an MTG format.
As to why they took this long to officially sanction Pauper I have no idea, though I think it had a lot to do with Standard being relatively affordable at a time when there wasn't a need to officially sanction Pauper. Yet players still complain because they don't want to feel obligated to lower their standards for people who can't afford to play MTG competitively since they don't want to be pushed into not being able to run rares and mythics especially If they have no interest in EDH/Commander. So Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro would rather take the easy route by sanctioning Pauper instead of fixing Standard.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I talked with some of my friends at my LGS about Pauper where they don't feel that it's a real viable format capable of replacing Standard when consumer demand would eventually make it unaffordable for players to break into the more popular it gets. The reason why Frontier failed as a format was due to the fact that the set pool wasn't deep enough when they started pushing it, so it felt more like an Extended Standard. EDH/Commander stole Pauper's thunder years before Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro took any serious consideration of officially sanctioning it as an MTG format.
As to why they took this long to officially sanction Pauper I have no idea, though I think it had a lot to do with Standard being relatively affordable at a time when there wasn't a need to officially sanction Pauper. Yet players still complain because they don't want to feel obligated to lower their standards for people who can't afford to play MTG competitively since they don't want to be pushed into not being able to run rares and mythics especially If they have no interest in EDH/Commander. So Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro would rather take the easy route by sanctioning Pauper instead of fixing Standard.
It's never going to get that expensive, though. Commons are the back bone to the game and are the easiest thing to reprint. It's basically impossible for the price to jump to a point where it would be unfeasible even for a guy with only a few dollars to spare to actually play the format. There are very precious few commons on the RL that show up in pauper, and many of the most expensive commons are not really that way because of pauper, but modern and other formats. I could see a deck going to 150 if it was made of the most costly cards in the format, but that's an exception more than a rule.
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!
Gush is one I'm hoping to see in Masters 25 along with maybe Chainer's Edict. To be frank, that's the card I was hoping would have shown up in Amonkhet when they introduced Kefnet the Mindful. I actually have quite a few Gush in my basement bin since it was super easy to come by back in the day from just cracking packs, but getting some new border versions would be nice.
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!
You'd think that, but actually people just want the modern border version.
To give clarity on the subject of reprints and support, WoTC is very bad when it comes to card equity. They are worried about the collectible nature of the card while ignoring the actual demand of the card, which has resulted in reprint avoidance tactics when it comes to secondary product lines. They will price products to a certain percentage of the perceived market value of the cards printed in the set and will avoid reprinting any card, regardless of demand, that exceeds that threshold. This is why snap caster mage and lotv are reprinted so scantly while pain lands will get printed for days. This results in high demand cards never getting reprinted at reasonable prices while underplayed cards will get printed to oblivion. It is a bad system that needs to go away.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I can't help but wonder If the biggest reason for why Magic attendance and sales are dropping is due to people who are waking up to the reality that Magic is a dangerous psychological addiction in much the same way as crystal meth and heroin. When you put it that way Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro are no different than tobacco companies who are only out to benefit themselves. The consumers on the other hand are being spoon fed with the "illusion" of instant gratification releasing endorphins in the brain that's associated with Maslow's hierarchy of needs particularly in regards to Esteem as a way to gain recognition through hobbies.
It's basically a way of using instant gratification to turn a profit which in a sense is the Entertainment Industry in a nutshell. While it's something that's completely unavoidable there is a way to achieve balance through moderation. In my case changing my addiction from Video Games to Trading Card Games/Collectible Card Games over the years not only rewarded me with more direct social interaction with my friends that I wasn't able to get out of playing Video Games however the current ongoing trends in today's society seem to suggest that nobody wants to be a part of that anymore. They feel as though it's become too much of a burden on them as it's gotten in the way of everything else in life.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I can't help but wonder If the biggest reason for why Magic attendance and sales are dropping is due to people who are waking up to the reality that Magic is a dangerous psychological addiction in much the same way as crystal meth and heroin. When you put it that way Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro are no different than tobacco companies who are only out to benefit themselves. The consumers on the other hand are being spoon fed with the "illusion" of instant gratification releasing endorphins in the brain that's associated with Maslow's hierarchy of needs particularly in regards to Esteem as a way to gain recognition through hobbies.
It's basically a way of using instant gratification to turn a profit which in a sense is the Entertainment Industry in a nutshell. While it's something that's completely unavoidable there is a way to achieve balance through moderation. In my case changing my addiction from Video Games to Trading Card Games/Collectible Card Games over the years not only rewarded me with more direct social interaction with my friends that I wasn't able to get out of playing Video Games however the current ongoing trends in today's society seem to suggest that nobody wants to be a part of that anymore. They feel as though it's become too much of a burden on them as it's gotten in the way of everything else in life.
This might have been a problem in the past, but ironically, due to WotC making the value of packs so low monetarily and in terms of the collectability of the contents, the actual problem is coming from a "need" for specific singles that isn't being addressed. If someones deck requires 4x snapcaster mage and it costs 50+ dollars per card, they are going to have to go buy those cards off the secondary market at those prices whether they like it or not, grumbling all the way and having to make cuts in their life to make it work. That high price is being created by a faulty distribution and reprinting system that is geared towards casual collectible gaming rather than competitive gaming. The fact the player base of modern has put up with this for so long is commendable to say the least and a demonstration of how much the game means to them, but this way of reprinting cards has to end if the game is to be playable by a larger audience.
And no, I'm not saying that Snapcaster Mage should be printed so much that it only costs sub 10 dollars a card and can be found in a walmart bargain bin. What needs to happen is a differentiation between a collectible card and a playing card. Non-foil, ho-hum cards are not really collectible cards: They are the most common form of any single card in the game of magic. The reason for this is that the TCG model needed a form that could be used to satisfy the demand of the player base without devaluing the cards picked up by the collectors. Some games took this a bit too far and made multiple collectible versions (caugh, Force of Will company, caugh), but in WoTCs case the issue is they basically never do it except once in a blue moon. This actually may change in the near future, though, as I don't think we are done seeing masterpieces this year.
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 can't help but wonder If the biggest reason for why Magic attendance and sales are dropping is due to people who are waking up to the reality that Magic is a dangerous psychological addiction in much the same way as crystal meth and heroin. When you put it that way Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro are no different than tobacco companies who are only out to benefit themselves. The consumers on the other hand are being spoon fed with the "illusion" of instant gratification releasing endorphins in the brain that's associated with Maslow's hierarchy of needs particularly in regards to Esteem as a way to gain recognition through hobbies.
It's basically a way of using instant gratification to turn a profit which in a sense is the Entertainment Industry in a nutshell. While it's something that's completely unavoidable there is a way to achieve balance through moderation. In my case changing my addiction from Video Games to Trading Card Games/Collectible Card Games over the years not only rewarded me with more direct social interaction with my friends that I wasn't able to get out of playing Video Games however the current ongoing trends in today's society seem to suggest that nobody wants to be a part of that anymore. They feel as though it's become too much of a burden on them as it's gotten in the way of everything else in life.
That's an interesting line of thought. However, I don't think players are thinking that deeply.
I could also just as easily say that Paper Magic faces stiff competition from other entertainment options that might provide more entertainment value for the buck. And some of these other entertainment options could be accused of using the same strategies to addict people.
And no, I'm not saying that Snapcaster Mage should be printed so much that it only costs sub 10 dollars a card and can be found in a walmart bargain bin. What needs to happen is a differentiation between a collectible card and a playing card. Non-foil, ho-hum cards are not really collectible cards: They are the most common form of any single card in the game of magic. The reason for this is that the TCG model needed a form that could be used to satisfy the demand of the player base without devaluing the cards picked up by the collectors. Some games took this a bit too far and made multiple collectible versions (caugh, Force of Will company, caugh), but in WoTCs case the issue is they basically never do it except once in a blue moon. This actually may change in the near future, though, as I don't think we are done seeing masterpieces this year.
I would be happy if Snapcaster ends up being $10. If a card is really played a lot in tournaments, it will hold some value, even if printed at high numbers. Shocklands are still holding at around $10 for most of them.
Force of Will company's early expansions allowed players to get a rare and a super rare in the same pack. I no longer collect their cards, but I thought that model was a good one that Wizards' should employ. I dislike how the rare slot of a pack is replaced with the mythic rare. Sometimes, I do want the rare.
It would be very hard to get him down that low even if they reprinted him to the heavens via several supplementary products and ran him through standard again. My guess is he would probably be a 15-20 dollar card given he is a multi-format all-star.
Also do not worry about shocklands. It's incredibly likely they are going to be reprinting them in full during the fall as the story is pointing at Ravnica again.
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!
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Product fatigue when they can't design new sets for crap isn't going to help them recover.
They're just cashing in and applying too much pressure to their base.
Going back to promos for FNM is nice but they have to be playable cards, and they need to do more to make people want to go to FNM again. They need to cancel the 'showdown' crap and divert all their product support to FNM for Standard.
I know,you are getting all these great reprints. They also know that the segment like the one you are a part of are fine with the high prices because otherwise you wouldn't buy the cards. That isn't the same as supporting a format though. Support means wanting to also let it grow with time, which is difficult with such high costs on the mana base. Also if modern kills standard, there is something wrong with standard that has nothing to do with price.
Pauper has proven a point: non rotating formats grow stale and have seasons. Modern can no more kill standard than pauper could, because at the end of the day it is about how a format plays.
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 dont know a single person who would play Standard, if Modern was as easy to get into.
Better gameplay.
Better cards.
More depth.
More variety.
Spirits
Maro has ruined standard. Period.
The 'new way' to design sets is an utter failure. Period.
Message to Maro... Go back or standard is dead!
I hate to be the guy that says "I told you so" but... I told you so. This is nothing new. If you have been looking closely, you can clearly see this is a trend that starts with Theros almost four years ago. It looked like Tarkir would make the pendulum swing back, but nope. Not a chance.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
Spirits
Not if they printed good stuff in standard, More Dredge/affnity fun stuff less midrange creature/walk fest. In other words print blocks that create or carve out new deck arctypes in modern with minimal modifcation.
NHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH this is the literal quote of every major Eternal format, like ALL of them. I don't know a person who would play Modern if Legacy was easy to get in too, better gameplay, better cards, more depth, more variety. You MIGHT convnice some people to play legacy over Vintage, but even then its the SAME argument for the most part. Legacy atleast has a CRAP ton of competive decks in the meta and the difference between T1 and T1.5 and T2 is more popularity issues then a power one, ie the meta matters more then the decks themselves. However even with that most would opt for Vintage. However ya thats the argument that every single eternal format uses.
Maybe it goes Standard < Modern < Legacy < Vintage...but I dont believe so.
Spirits
It all comes back to Wizards just being absolutely terrible at solving their own problems and it always takes someone else to go banging on their door to get them to even flinch on anything. Every other format is beating standard right now except for Tiny Leaders... I didn't actually know that was still a thing, but apparently it is.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
To me, the biggest obstacle to play Standard is the price of paper cards and decks in that format.
Magic was never a cheap game to play, but it’s getting out of hand. Standard deck prices should be around where Pauper decks are right now.
People are asking extortionist prices for cards and decks, and that leads to the shutdown of the format.
They don’t seem to get that there are many other entertainment options out there that don’t cost nowhere near as much as Magic does, and if they don’t do anything about it, they are going to lose the players.
If paper Standard is dying that also means there is no new blood entering the game, and that is also very worrying for the longevity of the game.
Maybe the game in paper just doesn’t appeal to the newer generations.
I'm sure Wizards marketing is looking at this trend closely, and why they have been really focusing on Magic Arena. After all, every lay person pretty much thinks Magic Arena is Hasbro's answer to Hearthstone. If MTG online gaming grows really well compared to paper, Hasbro may actually divest resources from paper Magic production.
The reason no one is playing standard is because it's designed poorly. That is the reason for decline.
Expensive + crappy + no one else playing = why bother?
MTGO is so old and such a crap interface there are a lot of players who refuse to use it. They are not planning to get rid of paper but they are planning to push the crap out of Arena.
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!
As to why they took this long to officially sanction Pauper I have no idea, though I think it had a lot to do with Standard being relatively affordable at a time when there wasn't a need to officially sanction Pauper. Yet players still complain because they don't want to feel obligated to lower their standards for people who can't afford to play MTG competitively since they don't want to be pushed into not being able to run rares and mythics especially If they have no interest in EDH/Commander. So Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro would rather take the easy route by sanctioning Pauper instead of fixing Standard.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
It's never going to get that expensive, though. Commons are the back bone to the game and are the easiest thing to reprint. It's basically impossible for the price to jump to a point where it would be unfeasible even for a guy with only a few dollars to spare to actually play the format. There are very precious few commons on the RL that show up in pauper, and many of the most expensive commons are not really that way because of pauper, but modern and other formats. I could see a deck going to 150 if it was made of the most costly cards in the format, but that's an exception more than a rule.
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!
Spirits
Gush is one I'm hoping to see in Masters 25 along with maybe Chainer's Edict. To be frank, that's the card I was hoping would have shown up in Amonkhet when they introduced Kefnet the Mindful. I actually have quite a few Gush in my basement bin since it was super easy to come by back in the day from just cracking packs, but getting some new border versions would be nice.
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!
Spirits
You'd think that, but actually people just want the modern border version.
To give clarity on the subject of reprints and support, WoTC is very bad when it comes to card equity. They are worried about the collectible nature of the card while ignoring the actual demand of the card, which has resulted in reprint avoidance tactics when it comes to secondary product lines. They will price products to a certain percentage of the perceived market value of the cards printed in the set and will avoid reprinting any card, regardless of demand, that exceeds that threshold. This is why snap caster mage and lotv are reprinted so scantly while pain lands will get printed for days. This results in high demand cards never getting reprinted at reasonable prices while underplayed cards will get printed to oblivion. It is a bad system that needs to go away.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
It's basically a way of using instant gratification to turn a profit which in a sense is the Entertainment Industry in a nutshell. While it's something that's completely unavoidable there is a way to achieve balance through moderation. In my case changing my addiction from Video Games to Trading Card Games/Collectible Card Games over the years not only rewarded me with more direct social interaction with my friends that I wasn't able to get out of playing Video Games however the current ongoing trends in today's society seem to suggest that nobody wants to be a part of that anymore. They feel as though it's become too much of a burden on them as it's gotten in the way of everything else in life.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
This might have been a problem in the past, but ironically, due to WotC making the value of packs so low monetarily and in terms of the collectability of the contents, the actual problem is coming from a "need" for specific singles that isn't being addressed. If someones deck requires 4x snapcaster mage and it costs 50+ dollars per card, they are going to have to go buy those cards off the secondary market at those prices whether they like it or not, grumbling all the way and having to make cuts in their life to make it work. That high price is being created by a faulty distribution and reprinting system that is geared towards casual collectible gaming rather than competitive gaming. The fact the player base of modern has put up with this for so long is commendable to say the least and a demonstration of how much the game means to them, but this way of reprinting cards has to end if the game is to be playable by a larger audience.
And no, I'm not saying that Snapcaster Mage should be printed so much that it only costs sub 10 dollars a card and can be found in a walmart bargain bin. What needs to happen is a differentiation between a collectible card and a playing card. Non-foil, ho-hum cards are not really collectible cards: They are the most common form of any single card in the game of magic. The reason for this is that the TCG model needed a form that could be used to satisfy the demand of the player base without devaluing the cards picked up by the collectors. Some games took this a bit too far and made multiple collectible versions (caugh, Force of Will company, caugh), but in WoTCs case the issue is they basically never do it except once in a blue moon. This actually may change in the near future, though, as I don't think we are done seeing masterpieces this year.
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!
That's an interesting line of thought. However, I don't think players are thinking that deeply.
I could also just as easily say that Paper Magic faces stiff competition from other entertainment options that might provide more entertainment value for the buck. And some of these other entertainment options could be accused of using the same strategies to addict people.
I would be happy if Snapcaster ends up being $10. If a card is really played a lot in tournaments, it will hold some value, even if printed at high numbers. Shocklands are still holding at around $10 for most of them.
Force of Will company's early expansions allowed players to get a rare and a super rare in the same pack. I no longer collect their cards, but I thought that model was a good one that Wizards' should employ. I dislike how the rare slot of a pack is replaced with the mythic rare. Sometimes, I do want the rare.
Also do not worry about shocklands. It's incredibly likely they are going to be reprinting them in full during the fall as the story is pointing at Ravnica again.
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!