The fact that we don't know what's in it is my major holdup... Thing is that we aren't likely to get spoilers for MM for a long time. Part of me is curious to see how much I could maybe make off buying some more but I'll be honest and admit I am not fan of speculating on Magic on principle: making money off other fans and players isn't bad/evil but it's not something I'd be proud of either; wouldn't mind the extra dough if it pays off however and could very well kick myself hard if it doesn't work (and be out a considerable amount of money).
I think I'm going to sit tight until we get some more official/LGS information about print run/availability.
I like how they dont give refunds on those, but if the boxes where so short supplied that it cost them $500 to get you a box they would back out.
Yea it sucks for people preordering and having to pay fees on the credit cards to find out they do not get their product. I always find it shady when a place preorders without information being known. Pretty much the company gets your money, they get to use it in the mean time to order product and pay their employees, then goes oh sorry no product here you can have it back. In that time they made money off you, kind of like you loaning them money.
Yea it sucks for people preordering and having to pay fees on the credit cards to find out they do not get their product. I always find it shady when a place preorders without information being known. Pretty much the company gets your money, they get to use it in the mean time to order product and pay their employees, then goes oh sorry no product here you can have it back. In that time they made money off you, kind of like you loaning them money.
I'm very bad with money but my understanding of interest (at least in Canada) is if you pay the full amount of a purchase within a certain period of time (21 days I think) then you are cleared from the interest on that specific amount (not on the whole balance of the account though!)
I've already taken care of that fopr the two boxes I preordered but I'm not willing to take a huge gamble if I decide to order more boxes!
My rep is usually pretty good with inside information so im assuming he knows what hes talking about or at least is in the ballpark when he tells me the estimate of our allocation. To be fair he did say it could be more but he thinks that is what its going to be.
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i received disturbing news from my distributor that I can expect our MM allocation to be about 3 cases if were lucky. To put this in context I had 8 cases of GTC at release so this is not a small non advance level store. I hope the estimate is wrong but they usually seem to be right on the money with it. If so this is a huge disappointment.
Assuming you can also get from other distributors as well, that's not so bad. We have at least three distributors where we can get product from in addition to Wizards direct.
Also, keep in mind that since a box is only 24 packs instead of 36, there may be more boxes in a case. Assuming the same booster-to-case ratio, there'd be 9 boxes in a case instead of 6.
I'm not sure if this is a gross/offensive generalization (I apologize in advance if it is the latter), but I'm of the impression that Yugioh's player populace is younger than Magic's on average and is therefore less savvy about the financial aspect of CCGs beyond face value of a particular card, as well as being less discriminating about their expenditures in general.
I'd also like to see what impact the devaluing of big money rares has had on the game's overall sales, if any. From what I can tell the game remains popular, but my perception is that its popularity has trailed off since its peak and has stopped growing. If anyone has data to support/refute this, do share.
Wizards does not maintain second market prices, but they can easily deflate them through reprints. Stores and players know this, of course, but that is beside the point; such an action could be interpreted as hostile, or a punishment after years of loyalty. Moreover, when you deflate second market prices, you deflate the value of sealed product. Wizards can't charge $7 per booster for MM if they print the set in huge quantities. People in this thread are buying boxes on the notion that the average pack's value will be higher than the price they're paying. When the value incentive is lower, less product sells and players could leave the game (as they have with Yugioh) because their decks/binders can be made worthless overnight with a new product announcement.
I am not suggesting that investor/collectors are more important than casuals; I suspect that casuals alone could sustain Magic in some form, at the expense of record-breaking profits. I think it could survive a switch to the Yugioh business model, and personally, I welcome an environment where staples are cheap and market-cornering strategies are too financially risky to be viable (I hate this trend we're seeing with EDH/Modern speculation). Having said that, I also believe that investor/collectors contribute to the game's success in perhaps less obvious ways than "pure" players, and to claim that ignoring that population "for the good of the game" is short-sighted. Every type of player plays a significant role in Magic's growth and its continued success.
It is an over gross generalization. At the competitive level, most people are beteen 18 and 24, with a sizable outlier in the over 24 category. At casual levels, the numbers spread a bit, but still maintain strength in the 16-22 range. The model of secret staple crashing has been highly profitable for Konami. Look at tour guide of the underworld (the big offender when I quit). It ran for 8+ months at between 250 and 300 a copy, and if you didn't play 3, you lost. They then printed a whole new pack to drop the price, and even then, it only dropped to 60. It has since been reprinted AGAIN, as I understand, and crashed the price some more. All of these reprintings do 2 things: first and foremost, sell product, which generates profit for both lgs, and the producers. The second thing it does is increase availability to players, FURTHER driving profit. It is a ***** to profiteers and speculators, but let's face reality, they do NOT drive sales at the sealed level.
If you are spending 2000 month on moxen, etc, how in the hell do you have money for sealed product? How is it worth your time to dig through the junk to find the gold? It isn't. This is why collectors tend toward legacy and vintage, rather than formats that actually support the game. Oh, sure, a card like deathrite shaman comes along once in a while that you will buy as singles, but again. Wizards doesn't see a penny. Collectors have a niche, yes, and I'm not saying to burn them all at the stake. What I'm saying is that the 1% of magic shouldn't be making all the decisions about the future of the game, and how everyone else plays it. As it is, they do. Changes NEED to be made for the health of the environment of our game. Reprints are one small step, but backing off of the all but in name reserve list cards like mind sculptor, mana vault, crucible of worlds, etc and allowing the community at large access to these cards (reprints being one fantastic and profitable method) is a bigger step. Stop being afraid of the backlash of the collectors market. They don't buy sealed, and they admit it freely. Tell the collectors "look, you have the reserve list. We didn't want to do it, but we did, and it was horrendous for the game. Shove off, and ply your virtual dollar theories elsewhere. This isn't a game interested in YOUR profits. It is a game interested in ours." I didn't say anything about purity. I'm looking for equality and reality to be the ideas of the age. Micro-minorities cannot continue to control the market. We've seen what it does in real life, and it is utterly feasible for it to happen in a smaller environment too.
Modern masters could be fantastic, but it could also be atrocious. The low run distribution will do little to entice players into the modern format, while driving prices further out of reach than before. Sure, chronicles was poorly received. Then again, it was a terrible set, and it over saturated the market. There has to be a middle ground, and if wizards doesn't test the waters, it will NEVER be found.
This post is likely replete with spelling errors, and for that I apologize.
It is an over gross generalization. At the competitive level, most people are beteen 18 and 24, with a sizable outlier in the over 24 category. At casual levels, the numbers spread a bit, but still maintain strength in the 16-22 range. The model of secret staple crashing has been highly profitable for Konami. Look at tour guide of the underworld (the big offender when I quit). It ran for 8+ months at between 250 and 300 a copy, and if you didn't play 3, you lost. They then printed a whole new pack to drop the price, and even then, it only dropped to 60. It has since been reprinted AGAIN, as I understand, and crashed the price some more. All of these reprintings do 2 things: first and foremost, sell product, which generates profit for both lgs, and the producers. The second thing it does is increase availability to players, FURTHER driving profit. It is a ***** to profiteers and speculators, but let's face reality, they do NOT drive sales at the sealed level.
If you are spending 2000 month on moxen, etc, how in the hell do you have money for sealed product? How is it worth your time to dig through the junk to find the gold? It isn't. This is why collectors tend toward legacy and vintage, rather than formats that actually support the game. Oh, sure, a card like deathrite shaman comes along once in a while that you will buy as singles, but again. Wizards doesn't see a penny. Collectors have a niche, yes, and I'm not saying to burn them all at the stake. What I'm saying is that the 1% of magic shouldn't be making all the decisions about the future of the game, and how everyone else plays it. As it is, they do. Changes NEED to be made for the health of the environment of our game. Reprints are one small step, but backing off of the all but in name reserve list cards like mind sculptor, mana vault, crucible of worlds, etc and allowing the community at large access to these cards (reprints being one fantastic and profitable method) is a bigger step. Stop being afraid of the backlash of the collectors market. They don't buy sealed, and they admit it freely. Tell the collectors "look, you have the reserve list. We didn't want to do it, but we did, and it was horrendous for the game. Shove off, and ply your virtual dollar theories elsewhere. This isn't a game interested in YOUR profits. It is a game interested in ours." I didn't say anything about purity. I'm looking for equality and reality to be the ideas of the age. Micro-minorities cannot continue to control the market. We've seen what it does in real life, and it is utterly feasible for it to happen in a smaller environment too.
Modern masters could be fantastic, but it could also be atrocious. The low run distribution will do little to entice players into the modern format, while driving prices further out of reach than before. Sure, chronicles was poorly received. Then again, it was a terrible set, and it over saturated the market. There has to be a middle ground, and if wizards doesn't test the waters, it will NEVER be found.
This post is likely replete with spelling errors, and for that I apologize.
I can't comment on the Yugioh stuff, so I'll have to take your word at face value and assume it's not all anecdotal.
With respect to Magic, though, from what I understand sealed product margins are quite low and that most specialty sellers make their bank off of singles sales. Sellers are easily the biggest investors in Magic from a money perspective, and it would be very hard to for Wizards/Hasbro to convince them that crashing the singles market is a good thing unless they could guarantee increased profits. They can't simply point to Yugioh's success and assume the same model would work for Magic, especially when the existing business model is doing spectacularly for both parties. I also think it's erroneous to assume that players would buy more product if Wizards reprinted expensive cards at their whim, considering the historical example we have in Chronicles.
It is an over gross generalization. At the competitive level, most people are beteen 18 and 24, with a sizable outlier in the over 24 category. At casual levels, the numbers spread a bit, but still maintain strength in the 16-22 range. The model of secret staple crashing has been highly profitable for Konami. Look at tour guide of the underworld (the big offender when I quit). It ran for 8+ months at between 250 and 300 a copy, and if you didn't play 3, you lost. They then printed a whole new pack to drop the price, and even then, it only dropped to 60. It has since been reprinted AGAIN, as I understand, and crashed the price some more. All of these reprintings do 2 things: first and foremost, sell product, which generates profit for both lgs, and the producers. The second thing it does is increase availability to players, FURTHER driving profit. It is a ***** to profiteers and speculators, but let's face reality, they do NOT drive sales at the sealed level.
Tour guide wasn't 250-300 ever and capped at 160. There are a lot of issues with konami and as a guy who works at a game store I can say I never ever want WotC to switch to their model. LGS are heavily allocated on what we can get and they never do a secondary print run save for their special editions. The intentionally increase rarities from japan to america to cash in on extra money and make up rulings so that it helps better sell the product. Case in point is actually Tour guide, where the made rulings that were the exact opposite of what was already dictated in japan, they even held their ground that this ruling would remain what they had ruled even though publications said the opposite. Finally they reversed the ruling...once they sold out of the product Tour guide was in. Additionally stores have to pay for all prize support which is to last us for an unknown number of months, if newer stuff comes out we can't return the old packs to get new ones and if we're stuck with a ton of crappy promotional material no one wants then that's our problem. Don't get me on how they only have 1 guy handling all the sanctioning for their events in North America. We had issues getting our stuff sanctioned, and when we weren't able to get any tournaments through for a month we e-mailed them only to be chewed out and told if we didn't do anything soon we'd have sneak peeks taken away. They don't enforce enough of their policies at events, like keeping the players from buying and selling amongst each other and the stipulate the prices at which vendors are allowed to sell cards at their events.
Got so side tracked I forgot where I was going. Konami's model for Yu-Gi-Oh! is weird, it seems to have a system of hyping up cards by creating things that are over powered or far more consistent then previous decks. The shortages help drive up the price for Konami, and then they swoop in seeming like a good guy to the casual player ( where they make the most money as these are the ones that like to buy sealed product) for printing the "overpriced staples". They eventually rotate out older decks by banning key cards citing that these decks were " too powerful", well of course they were, you made them that way. It's a vicious cycle and I don't think it would be good for WotC to print a tin where you definitely get duals or mox or other power.
i received disturbing news from my distributor that I can expect our MM allocation to be about 3 cases if were lucky. To put this in context I had 8 cases of GTC at release so this is not a small non advance level store. I hope the estimate is wrong but they usually seem to be right on the money with it. If so this is a huge disappointment.
Seems pretty good to me if I am reading this right. You are basically saying MM will be 1/6 or so of the first GTC print run? Just guessing here, but thinking at least half the first print run sales are pre-orders.
I didn't pay attention for GTC but I know my local store cracks 100 or more boxes for singles and for RTR I saw them sell over 200 boxes in pre-sales.
If they get the same ratio you get they would get 100 cases. Seems like a good ratio of product to make it available. There will also be a lot of small stores with 2-3 cases and a few bigger stores with 50 plus cases. This is for Japan, Tokyo area.
Yeah I don't think we can get into the whole "Yu Gi Oh" thing here because WOTC and Konami are different companies with a different playerbase.
This being said... I think we can all agree that distributors have NO CLUE on how much they are getting right now, and really shouldn't be taking preorders. If you get a preorder, don't be shocked if you don't get the product. If you didn't preorder, don't be shocked if you don't get the product.
Tour guide wasn't 250-300 ever and capped at 160. There are a lot of issues with konami and as a guy who works at a game store I can say I never ever want WotC to switch to their model. LGS are heavily allocated on what we can get and they never do a secondary print run save for their special editions. The intentionally increase rarities from japan to america to cash in on extra money and make up rulings so that it helps better sell the product. Case in point is actually Tour guide, where the made rulings that were the exact opposite of what was already dictated in japan, they even held their ground that this ruling would remain what they had ruled even though publications said the opposite. Finally they reversed the ruling...once they sold out of the product Tour guide was in. Additionally stores have to pay for all prize support which is to last us for an unknown number of months, if newer stuff comes out we can't return the old packs to get new ones and if we're stuck with a ton of crappy promotional material no one wants then that's our problem. Don't get me on how they only have 1 guy handling all the sanctioning for their events in North America. We had issues getting our stuff sanctioned, and when we weren't able to get any tournaments through for a month we e-mailed them only to be chewed out and told if we didn't do anything soon we'd have sneak peeks taken away. They don't enforce enough of their policies at events, like keeping the players from buying and selling amongst each other and the stipulate the prices at which vendors are allowed to sell cards at their events.
Got so side tracked I forgot where I was going. Konami's model for Yu-Gi-Oh! is weird, it seems to have a system of hyping up cards by creating things that are over powered or far more consistent then previous decks. The shortages help drive up the price for Konami, and then they swoop in seeming like a good guy to the casual player ( where they make the most money as these are the ones that like to buy sealed product) for printing the "overpriced staples". They eventually rotate out older decks by banning key cards citing that these decks were " too powerful", well of course they were, you made them that way. It's a vicious cycle and I don't think it would be good for WotC to print a tin where you definitely get duals or mox or other power.
Just lol. The denial right here is plain stupid. If it had been as low as 160, I'd've snapped them up without effort. The secrets after battle pack went for that little sure, but not before. Reality check dude. In its prime, it sold for 250 easy, 300 high. Having played competitively, and judged for years, the numbers game was a major part of what I did. What you are saying is like making the claim that teledad wasn't a 2000 deck. Or that pot of duality wasn't 200 prior to reprint.
Other responses: how many cases does your average retailer open of any given pack? I have no idea about YOUR store, but mine opened 2 boxes of gatecrash, total. That is NOT a major investment through wizards. Know what is? The 8 cases they sold to players to open. Stores get their singles from folks like me, who actually open product, at severely deflated values, to resell at higher values. This happens in ANY resale environment. Wizards. Does. Not. See. A. Dime. From. The. Secondary. Market.
Other responses: how many cases does your average retailer open of any given pack? I have no idea about YOUR store, but mine opened 2 boxes of gatecrash, total. That is NOT a major investment through wizards. Know what is? The 8 cases they sold to players to open. Stores get their singles from folks like me, who actually open product, at severely deflated values, to resell at higher values. This happens in ANY resale environment. Wizards. Does. Not. See. A. Dime. From. The. Secondary. Market.
My contention is that the secondary market influences the attractiveness of a product, which directly impacts sales, which affects Wizards' bottom line. MM would not be as attractive if not for Tarmogoyf and other pricey goodies thought to be included, at least not at $7 a pack.
Got so side tracked I forgot where I was going. Konami's model for Yu-Gi-Oh! is weird, it seems to have a system of hyping up cards by creating things that are over powered or far more consistent then previous decks. The shortages help drive up the price for Konami, and then they swoop in seeming like a good guy to the casual player ( where they make the most money as these are the ones that like to buy sealed product) for printing the "overpriced staples". They eventually rotate out older decks by banning key cards citing that these decks were " too powerful", well of course they were, you made them that way. It's a vicious cycle and I don't think it would be good for WotC to print a tin where you definitely get duals or mox or other power.
How well does Yugioh sell at your store in spite of what reeks of shenanigans from the guys at Konami?
Assuming you can also get from other distributors as well, that's not so bad. We have at least three distributors where we can get product from in addition to Wizards direct.
Also, keep in mind that since a box is only 24 packs instead of 36, there may be more boxes in a case. Assuming the same booster-to-case ratio, there'd be 9 boxes in a case instead of 6.
Yes this is true that was just one of our distributors but you are right on the case thing not sure if 6 or 9 boxes in a case
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Just lol. The denial right here is plain stupid. If it had been as low as 160, I'd've snapped them up without effort. The secrets after battle pack went for that little sure, but not before. Reality check dude. In its prime, it sold for 250 easy, 300 high. Having played competitively, and judged for years, the numbers game was a major part of what I did. What you are saying is like making the claim that teledad wasn't a 2000 deck. Or that pot of duality wasn't 200 prior to reprint.
Other responses: how many cases does your average retailer open of any given pack? I have no idea about YOUR store, but mine opened 2 boxes of gatecrash, total. That is NOT a major investment through wizards. Know what is? The 8 cases they sold to players to open. Stores get their singles from folks like me, who actually open product, at severely deflated values, to resell at higher values. This happens in ANY resale environment. Wizards. Does. Not. See. A. Dime. From. The. Secondary. Market.
The secondary market is an important product outlet for WOTC. They do not make any money directly from a foil Geist of Saint Traft that I buy, but consider how many boxes you opened to get this sought after foil mythic to sell to me.
It is true that when I buy an out-of-print card then they don't see any of that money directly - but when I decide that, in addition to an older version of Sylvan Library that I bought for my EDH deck, I now also want a foil Sylvan Primordial, I am influencing the number of in-print-boxes being opened.
When I win an auction for a fresh Domri Rade foil, it becomes lucrative for you as a primary reseller to crack more boxes. When I win this auction from an individual person who happened to open this card at prerelease/FNM, I am directly/indirectly supporting his continued game play (which clearly involves activities involving opening new packs).
My contention is that the secondary market influences the attractiveness of a product, which directly impacts sales, which affects Wizards' bottom line. MM would not be as attractive if not for Tarmogoyf and other pricey goodies thought to be included, at least not at $7 a pack.
How well does Yugioh sell at your store in spite of what reeks of shenanigans from the guys at Konami?
Well it's meant to be a premium product and it's purpose is to allow newer modern players to have accessibility to, like a core set but without the absurd availability to maintain value for the secondary market.
Yugioh sells decently in our area but there are reasons for that. As compared to magic which has maybe 12-16 stores in our city there are only 4-5 stores that actively deal with Yugioh. This is due to several reasons, like the stuff I mentioned with konami but also several stores have actually been broken into, had hundreds of dollars of cards ripped off, and had staff held up for their Yugioh product. While we do sell sealed product well it's no where near as good as it used to be.
Just lol. The denial right here is plain stupid. If it had been as low as 160, I'd've snapped them up without effort. The secrets after battle pack went for that little sure, but not before. Reality check dude. In its prime, it sold for 250 easy, 300 high. Having played competitively, and judged for years, the numbers game was a major part of what I did. What you are saying is like making the claim that teledad wasn't a 2000 deck. Or that pot of duality wasn't 200 prior to reprint.
maybe a playset? I've never seen a playset of secret tour guides go for more than 600. They topped out around 160 maybe in some cases a little higher but not much.
What do people see the effect of modern masters being on mtgo? Assuming that there are drafts with reasonable payouts, a lot of packs will be opened. Without redemption to channel cards offline, I think prices will drop a lot. Anyone else have thoughts?
What do people see the effect of modern masters being on mtgo? Assuming that there are drafts with reasonable payouts, a lot of packs will be opened. Without redemption to channel cards offline, I think prices will drop a lot. Anyone else have thoughts?
With packs being (presumably) $7 a pop I don't see a $23 draft format being hugely popular. Prices will drop a bit but not much, I think.
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Received some more info from one of my guys working with local distributors. Looks like what will happen (at least in my area), is that WOTC gives X amount of cases to the distributor... and it's up to them to distribute to shops. So if someone comes in and has a huge account with said distributor, they likely will have more than the little shop that buys a couple of boxes of product every two weeks.
Can't speak for every market naturally, but this makes sense for our area where we have several shops in town and they all get WOTC product from the same place (with exception of the largest shop, who gets their stuff direct from WOTC).
Received some more info from one of my guys working with local distributors. Looks like what will happen (at least in my area), is that WOTC gives X amount of cases to the distributor... and it's up to them to distribute to shops. So if someone comes in and has a huge account with said distributor, they likely will have more than the little shop that buys a couple of boxes of product every two weeks.
So basically you have no real info as that is how distributors have always worked and will continue to work. No one has a clue yet about how much of this product will be released, and no store can say anything about anything it yet because that information just doesn't exist. Wait till after Dragon's Maze and you may start actually seeing ACTUAL information popping up.
So basically you have no real info as that is how distributors have always worked and will continue to work. No one has a clue yet about how much of this product will be released, and no store can say anything about anything it yet because that information just doesn't exist. Wait till after Dragon's Maze and you may start actually seeing ACTUAL information popping up.
The information I provided is new for those who have no clue how the distribution of this product works, which is a pretty sizable bunch of people considering how many posts on this thread is basically "my uncle who works for a guy who has a kid who knows MaRo's son says that they'll get ten cases of product." At least here, people will know something realistic and concrete until we have those real answers.
I think this is good for modern. It will lower the price so more players will play it and it also lowers the price for some cards that are used in legacy.
But once more and more players start playing I guess maybe the price of cards will go back up because they will be harder to get. Maybe? Idk if this will happen to be honest. Maybe the prices will just stay lower.
The information I provided is new for those who have no clue how the distribution of this product works, which is a pretty sizable bunch of people considering how many posts on this thread is basically "my uncle who works for a guy who has a kid who knows MaRo's son says that they'll get ten cases of product." At least here, people will know something realistic and concrete until we have those real answers.
I appreciate your info
Especially since I've already committed 400 dollars to MM it's nice to get some concrete distribution information.
I'm hoping we get some actual, reliable numbers soon cause the place I preordered from is not replying to my requests for more information...
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I like how they dont give refunds on those, but if the boxes where so short supplied that it cost them $500 to get you a box they would back out.
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
I'm assuming the no refund is if you change your mind
I can't imagine they'd keep the money if they cannot fill the preorder
If they try something like that then I'm going to find out what I'm made of!
I'm very bad with money but my understanding of interest (at least in Canada) is if you pay the full amount of a purchase within a certain period of time (21 days I think) then you are cleared from the interest on that specific amount (not on the whole balance of the account though!)
I've already taken care of that fopr the two boxes I preordered but I'm not willing to take a huge gamble if I decide to order more boxes!
NYSPORTSMAGIC
Also, keep in mind that since a box is only 24 packs instead of 36, there may be more boxes in a case. Assuming the same booster-to-case ratio, there'd be 9 boxes in a case instead of 6.
It is an over gross generalization. At the competitive level, most people are beteen 18 and 24, with a sizable outlier in the over 24 category. At casual levels, the numbers spread a bit, but still maintain strength in the 16-22 range. The model of secret staple crashing has been highly profitable for Konami. Look at tour guide of the underworld (the big offender when I quit). It ran for 8+ months at between 250 and 300 a copy, and if you didn't play 3, you lost. They then printed a whole new pack to drop the price, and even then, it only dropped to 60. It has since been reprinted AGAIN, as I understand, and crashed the price some more. All of these reprintings do 2 things: first and foremost, sell product, which generates profit for both lgs, and the producers. The second thing it does is increase availability to players, FURTHER driving profit. It is a ***** to profiteers and speculators, but let's face reality, they do NOT drive sales at the sealed level.
If you are spending 2000 month on moxen, etc, how in the hell do you have money for sealed product? How is it worth your time to dig through the junk to find the gold? It isn't. This is why collectors tend toward legacy and vintage, rather than formats that actually support the game. Oh, sure, a card like deathrite shaman comes along once in a while that you will buy as singles, but again. Wizards doesn't see a penny. Collectors have a niche, yes, and I'm not saying to burn them all at the stake. What I'm saying is that the 1% of magic shouldn't be making all the decisions about the future of the game, and how everyone else plays it. As it is, they do. Changes NEED to be made for the health of the environment of our game. Reprints are one small step, but backing off of the all but in name reserve list cards like mind sculptor, mana vault, crucible of worlds, etc and allowing the community at large access to these cards (reprints being one fantastic and profitable method) is a bigger step. Stop being afraid of the backlash of the collectors market. They don't buy sealed, and they admit it freely. Tell the collectors "look, you have the reserve list. We didn't want to do it, but we did, and it was horrendous for the game. Shove off, and ply your virtual dollar theories elsewhere. This isn't a game interested in YOUR profits. It is a game interested in ours." I didn't say anything about purity. I'm looking for equality and reality to be the ideas of the age. Micro-minorities cannot continue to control the market. We've seen what it does in real life, and it is utterly feasible for it to happen in a smaller environment too.
Modern masters could be fantastic, but it could also be atrocious. The low run distribution will do little to entice players into the modern format, while driving prices further out of reach than before. Sure, chronicles was poorly received. Then again, it was a terrible set, and it over saturated the market. There has to be a middle ground, and if wizards doesn't test the waters, it will NEVER be found.
This post is likely replete with spelling errors, and for that I apologize.
EDH is a CASUAL format. Get with the program, or GTFO.
I can't comment on the Yugioh stuff, so I'll have to take your word at face value and assume it's not all anecdotal.
With respect to Magic, though, from what I understand sealed product margins are quite low and that most specialty sellers make their bank off of singles sales. Sellers are easily the biggest investors in Magic from a money perspective, and it would be very hard to for Wizards/Hasbro to convince them that crashing the singles market is a good thing unless they could guarantee increased profits. They can't simply point to Yugioh's success and assume the same model would work for Magic, especially when the existing business model is doing spectacularly for both parties. I also think it's erroneous to assume that players would buy more product if Wizards reprinted expensive cards at their whim, considering the historical example we have in Chronicles.
meat's Trade Corner
Tour guide wasn't 250-300 ever and capped at 160. There are a lot of issues with konami and as a guy who works at a game store I can say I never ever want WotC to switch to their model. LGS are heavily allocated on what we can get and they never do a secondary print run save for their special editions. The intentionally increase rarities from japan to america to cash in on extra money and make up rulings so that it helps better sell the product. Case in point is actually Tour guide, where the made rulings that were the exact opposite of what was already dictated in japan, they even held their ground that this ruling would remain what they had ruled even though publications said the opposite. Finally they reversed the ruling...once they sold out of the product Tour guide was in. Additionally stores have to pay for all prize support which is to last us for an unknown number of months, if newer stuff comes out we can't return the old packs to get new ones and if we're stuck with a ton of crappy promotional material no one wants then that's our problem. Don't get me on how they only have 1 guy handling all the sanctioning for their events in North America. We had issues getting our stuff sanctioned, and when we weren't able to get any tournaments through for a month we e-mailed them only to be chewed out and told if we didn't do anything soon we'd have sneak peeks taken away. They don't enforce enough of their policies at events, like keeping the players from buying and selling amongst each other and the stipulate the prices at which vendors are allowed to sell cards at their events.
Got so side tracked I forgot where I was going. Konami's model for Yu-Gi-Oh! is weird, it seems to have a system of hyping up cards by creating things that are over powered or far more consistent then previous decks. The shortages help drive up the price for Konami, and then they swoop in seeming like a good guy to the casual player ( where they make the most money as these are the ones that like to buy sealed product) for printing the "overpriced staples". They eventually rotate out older decks by banning key cards citing that these decks were " too powerful", well of course they were, you made them that way. It's a vicious cycle and I don't think it would be good for WotC to print a tin where you definitely get duals or mox or other power.
Seems pretty good to me if I am reading this right. You are basically saying MM will be 1/6 or so of the first GTC print run? Just guessing here, but thinking at least half the first print run sales are pre-orders.
I didn't pay attention for GTC but I know my local store cracks 100 or more boxes for singles and for RTR I saw them sell over 200 boxes in pre-sales.
If they get the same ratio you get they would get 100 cases. Seems like a good ratio of product to make it available. There will also be a lot of small stores with 2-3 cases and a few bigger stores with 50 plus cases. This is for Japan, Tokyo area.
This being said... I think we can all agree that distributors have NO CLUE on how much they are getting right now, and really shouldn't be taking preorders. If you get a preorder, don't be shocked if you don't get the product. If you didn't preorder, don't be shocked if you don't get the product.
Just lol. The denial right here is plain stupid. If it had been as low as 160, I'd've snapped them up without effort. The secrets after battle pack went for that little sure, but not before. Reality check dude. In its prime, it sold for 250 easy, 300 high. Having played competitively, and judged for years, the numbers game was a major part of what I did. What you are saying is like making the claim that teledad wasn't a 2000 deck. Or that pot of duality wasn't 200 prior to reprint.
Other responses: how many cases does your average retailer open of any given pack? I have no idea about YOUR store, but mine opened 2 boxes of gatecrash, total. That is NOT a major investment through wizards. Know what is? The 8 cases they sold to players to open. Stores get their singles from folks like me, who actually open product, at severely deflated values, to resell at higher values. This happens in ANY resale environment. Wizards. Does. Not. See. A. Dime. From. The. Secondary. Market.
EDH is a CASUAL format. Get with the program, or GTFO.
My contention is that the secondary market influences the attractiveness of a product, which directly impacts sales, which affects Wizards' bottom line. MM would not be as attractive if not for Tarmogoyf and other pricey goodies thought to be included, at least not at $7 a pack.
How well does Yugioh sell at your store in spite of what reeks of shenanigans from the guys at Konami?
meat's Trade Corner
Yes this is true that was just one of our distributors but you are right on the case thing not sure if 6 or 9 boxes in a case
NYSPORTSMAGIC
The secondary market is an important product outlet for WOTC. They do not make any money directly from a foil Geist of Saint Traft that I buy, but consider how many boxes you opened to get this sought after foil mythic to sell to me.
It is true that when I buy an out-of-print card then they don't see any of that money directly - but when I decide that, in addition to an older version of Sylvan Library that I bought for my EDH deck, I now also want a foil Sylvan Primordial, I am influencing the number of in-print-boxes being opened.
When I win an auction for a fresh Domri Rade foil, it becomes lucrative for you as a primary reseller to crack more boxes. When I win this auction from an individual person who happened to open this card at prerelease/FNM, I am directly/indirectly supporting his continued game play (which clearly involves activities involving opening new packs).
Well it's meant to be a premium product and it's purpose is to allow newer modern players to have accessibility to, like a core set but without the absurd availability to maintain value for the secondary market.
Yugioh sells decently in our area but there are reasons for that. As compared to magic which has maybe 12-16 stores in our city there are only 4-5 stores that actively deal with Yugioh. This is due to several reasons, like the stuff I mentioned with konami but also several stores have actually been broken into, had hundreds of dollars of cards ripped off, and had staff held up for their Yugioh product. While we do sell sealed product well it's no where near as good as it used to be.
maybe a playset? I've never seen a playset of secret tour guides go for more than 600. They topped out around 160 maybe in some cases a little higher but not much.
With packs being (presumably) $7 a pop I don't see a $23 draft format being hugely popular. Prices will drop a bit but not much, I think.
the fire - I will become the flame." - Lim-Dûl, the Necromancer
Can't speak for every market naturally, but this makes sense for our area where we have several shops in town and they all get WOTC product from the same place (with exception of the largest shop, who gets their stuff direct from WOTC).
So basically you have no real info as that is how distributors have always worked and will continue to work. No one has a clue yet about how much of this product will be released, and no store can say anything about anything it yet because that information just doesn't exist. Wait till after Dragon's Maze and you may start actually seeing ACTUAL information popping up.
The information I provided is new for those who have no clue how the distribution of this product works, which is a pretty sizable bunch of people considering how many posts on this thread is basically "my uncle who works for a guy who has a kid who knows MaRo's son says that they'll get ten cases of product." At least here, people will know something realistic and concrete until we have those real answers.
But once more and more players start playing I guess maybe the price of cards will go back up because they will be harder to get. Maybe? Idk if this will happen to be honest. Maybe the prices will just stay lower.
I appreciate your info
Especially since I've already committed 400 dollars to MM it's nice to get some concrete distribution information.
I'm hoping we get some actual, reliable numbers soon cause the place I preordered from is not replying to my requests for more information...