Well, I'm not sure he actually says that-- more he believes that because Magic won't kill itself, Magic can't die.
But, these economics problems prove that not everything is as rosy-looking as that.
In all likelihood, Magic killed itself 15-odd years ago with the Reserved List. That's the only reason I can think of that any of the Modern Legal cards are even worth anything:
That Reserved List is the basis for the Black Lotus and its fellows to have *real, serious* value. That Value in turn is the reason why tournaments can run real cash prizes. Because they hope to buy Reserved Listed Rares that are good in Vintage and Legacy.
Each tier down, the value is less and less, until Precon Duel Decks today very rarely rise above MSRP by a % that compensates for cost of resale.
Obviously, it's a CCG. A Collectible Card Game. And no matter what, that means the Rare cards will be worth more than the Commons, the Foil cards will be worth more, and the best cards that win tournaments will be worth even more.
Pokémon started pretty close to the same time as Magic, and I'm pretty sure there aren't any Pokémon cards that can rival they're MTG 'collector's rarity' equivalents. Don't know about the Yu-Gi-Oh! Market, but last I heard, they have chase crazy money cards doing things to the tournament scene like Jace, the Mind Sculptor, but I'm pretty sure that Exodia the Forbidden, from Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon, hasn't inflated much over time: He's always been something like $25-30 for a piece, +$100 for the Five. That's the effect of being a CCG/or TCG *at all*----
but when you get to MAGIC, we have this RESERVED List and you can compare Black Lotus to Flying Jennies-- incidentally, they actually reprinted the Inverted Jenny recently! And Vintage and Legacy and Commander suffer partially for it. WOTC itself wants the Reserved List to die, but they aren't sure how to kill it yet-- just ignoring it obtusely and Reprinting tons of sheets of Alpha, they clearly think would blow up in their face and possibly crash the entire secondary market for every card in the game....maybe. At least, that must be what they are afraid of and why they haven't taken that approach.
I am certain, from what I see, that nothing can kill MTG except maybe the Reserved List, and it begins to play out in incidents like the Elspeth v. Tezzeret Duel Decks; the Commander 2011 product, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and Modern Masters.
MAGIC cards aren't *just* a TCG- they're clearly far and away the most valuable one, and the distinction that Magic has compared to other TCGs is it's Reserved List. We see these Commander products getting only small inflation and we don't immediately think of the Reserved list because it's not that much different from Standard Inflation-- but Standard is nuts. Standard has been nutser than it used to be since Jace, although it looks like the Jace-effect has been reduced.
If I'm completely wrong that Magic is crazily more valuable than YGO or Pokémon, then ranting about the Reserved List is completely invalid and this just the nature of any TCG to do this with any special product that's pretty in-demand. But if the Reserved List really is making Magic crazy more profitable to flip than Pokémon and YGO, then I suspect that it will come to the List or the game:
I am probably every color-combination it is possible to be, though it's really hard to figure out what it would mean to be 4-colored....it doesn't seem logical to be 4-colored without being 5-colored.
im just here to report that my local game store is selling these off at msrp ($29.99) limit to one per customer for a bit until the fervor dies off. starting at midnight. thought that was pretty cool and i hope everyone else gets the same love
Federal Reserve Notes 2013 - NOT a limited print run, either!
Wizards has the ability to print money and devalue the secondary market as they deem necessary to keep profits up. If you've got anything invested in singles, be careful, Wizards is coming for their value. You can keep the cardboard and ink itself... they just want the value.
Yes, I know what limited means. I've worked in shops long enough. That also means I've worked in shops long enough to know that the 2011 claim was compete and utter BS. Those sets were limited in the first order, limited in the second order, and then almost impossible to find after unless you were buying them off the secondary market. It most certainly wasn't a case of "if vendors are ordering more, Wizards will print more."
It may have been regional. I didn't have any problems getting the first Commander sets in Northern California. The first couple of weeks, they were at higher than MSRP, but then they appeared in all of the big box stores and the local gaming stores were restocked. So, after a month or so, you could get them at all of the shops for MSRP. Maybe in smaller markets with fewer stores, the Commander sets were in short supply, but you should have still been able to buy them at Wal-mart and Target. Months after the release, I was buying Commander sets in those stores for Flusterstorm and Scavenging Ooze.
Is there any point in checking Target or Wal-Mart at midnight for these things? Or will they be stocked at some point in the middle of the day tomorrow?
It may have been regional. I didn't have any problems getting the first Commander sets in Northern California. The first couple of weeks, they were at higher than MSRP, but then they appeared in all of the big box stores and the local gaming stores were restocked. So, after a month or so, you could get them at all of the shops for MSRP. Maybe in smaller markets with fewer stores, the Commander sets were in short supply, but you should have still been able to buy them at Wal-mart and Target. Months after the release, I was buying Commander sets in those stores for Flusterstorm and Scavenging Ooze.
Totally agree, by the way. My friend and I were able to get four different ones the day of release. Eventually, all five were available at Walmart/Target after a few weeks. But I live in a big city.
Is there any point in checking Target or Wal-Mart at midnight for these things? Or will they be stocked at some point in the middle of the day tomorrow?
They won't be up at midnight. They might possibly be up by the next day but most players avoid buying from non-LGS retailers, so there's not really a lot of demand normally in the card sections of such places.
They won't be up at midnight. They might possibly be up by the next day but most players avoid buying from non-LGS retailers, so there's not really a lot of demand normally in the card sections of such places.
It depends, recently WalMart and Target in my area have previously put out products the day before the official release. From my understanding, however, WotC has issued warnings that they would stop selling to the big box stores that keep doing it.
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
Yes, I know what limited means. I've worked in shops long enough. That also means I've worked in shops long enough to know that the 2011 claim was compete and utter BS. Those sets were limited in the first order, limited in the second order, and then almost impossible to find after unless you were buying them off the secondary market. It most certainly wasn't a case of "if vendors are ordering more, Wizards will print more."
You must have been in a bad area or another country then. Out here in Oregon, our shop was able to order a ton of them for the release, and the 2nd print run we ordered at least another 60 sets. And were able to order at least twice more in the months running up until wizards finally OOP'd them approx. 6 months after their release, after demand had started to cool for them. The problem was, a lot of people assumed that a non-limited release, meant wizards would keep printing them forever. Once demand cooled and wizards decided to finally OOP them, a lot of people were caught by surprise, because they thought they had plenty of time to be able to pick them up without issue. Suddenly demand spiked again and the supply remaining quickly diminished and began the inevitable price climb in the product we've seen to this day.
The 2011 commander products were kept in print for as long as there was strong demand to warrant it, which waned at around the 6 month mark prompting them to finally OOP it. Anytime before that, our shop was able to get more of the commander decks with relative ease from either wizards or our distributors depending upon when we were looking to get more. Over the course of the print run of the 2011 commander decks, the shop sold well over 100 sets, and still had over 20 sets left over after it was OOP'd. I, as the magic singles owner for the shop, opened approx. 40 of each deck for singles for the shop to cover any demand needs there. In total I would estimate that we were able to easily purchase over 200 sets of the commander decks over the entire print run of the decks, and could have gotten more if we had been interested.
I expect the 2013 print setup to run in a similar fashion with similar or greater availability, in addition of course to the ability to get them from big box stores at msrp. A lot of stores have been pre-selling these online, and a lot still have a decent number available, even if they may be above msrp at the moment. Once we hit the release day (tomorrow on the 1st), the supply available should increase significantly. And then after that, once the 2nd print run hits, the supply will once again spike significantly. Wizards like plenty of other suppliers of products, will tend to err on the side of caution. Its better to, knowing you will have subsequent print runs within a reasonable period of time, print what you know you can sell initially, and then let the demand lead to the printing of additional runs of the product. Wizards also has limits to how much product they can have printing from the companies they have printing for them at any one time. They have a lot more than just this commander product to worry about right now. For some this may mean they will have to have some patience in getting their product if they want to get it at or closer to msrp.
Both the walmarts in my area had them out tonight (my friend picked up a mind seize and evasive maneuvers from one and another friend picked up a deck from the other). So it seems like it'll be easy to get them after the "rush" is over in a few weeks.
So essentially your argument is: this is a game that was created for profit, but only those who own the game should profit? Do you also have a problem with used car salesman? What about people who sell antique cars for a profit they bought when they were younger? Does that also make you sick?
What context did I say sickened me? Buying new product with intention of re-selling directly to make a profit. Generally the product is meant to be used for play or collection. That doesn't happen if people buys a bulk so they'll never see the light of day until prices have inflated enough so he finds it attractive to sell his "investment".
I know that's generally how normal distribution-factions work but in terms of MTG we have LGSs and online stores to create distribution networks. To link up another chain on new product is whats sickening to me.
I have no problem with used cars salesmen as they function as a re-distribution of functional cars where a lot of resources would otherwise go to waste (you cannot draw the same parallel to MtG's cardboard). Likewise I have no problem with LGSs who re-sells singles.
And that's the context used cars salesmen have in this discussion. They are very much closer in function to LGSs than a private speculator who buys a lot of product and then proceeds to stuff a fat mark-up and sell to people who either didn't manage to get one in the first place or simply less informed.
im just here to report that my local game store is selling these off at msrp ($29.99) limit to one per customer for a bit until the fervor dies off. starting at midnight. thought that was pretty cool and i hope everyone else gets the same love
Really appreciate those stores.
My stores don't do pre-orders so I'll have to wait a little for them to put a price up and judge their behavior. Usually they're pricing acceptably for sealed products but you never know for sure.
Still I expect I could have got them cheaper from eBay or MagicCardMarket.eu considering taxes.
Picked up all 5 today at 10% off MSRP. That was preorder at a brick store who literally only has the Naya deck left (and only 1 at that!).
More are expected come Jan apparently. Don't get scammed by horrible stores charging anything more than MSRP.
[edit]
Just been through my decks, and one of them had an extra card in. check your decks in case you're missing anything, or have "extras"! (I had a second spinal embrace in eternal bargain, it made itself obvious because it was back to front.)
Heh, doesn't surprise me that Naya is one, if not the most unwanted deck of the cycle.
Marath seems somewhat interesting but still not very interesting. The other (I even forgot his name) is just poor. Fit for a token deck or if people want to lulz it for a political deck - who runs political in Naya-colors? The often most aggressive and pushed creature-shard of them all and we're supposed to run politics?
The deck itself doesn't seem very interesting either. Wrath of God reprint is the most valuable single in the deck and I believe it hints away a deck who didn't get anything interesting new stuff.
Pretty much. All the other decks have multiple desirable cards, both new and reprinted. My overall favourite of the five has to be Power Hungry, purely because Shattergang Brothers is literally the general I've always wanted, in the right colours. I love some grave pact effects to spoil those indestructible/hexproof shenanigans.
went to 3 Walmarts and a Target the morning in Colorado Springs. Nothing at any of them and found the vendor stocking at Walmart this morning who said they weren't going to get them. Do you think it's the Reps responsibility to have ordered them?
went to 3 Walmarts and a Target the morning in Colorado Springs. Nothing at any of them and found the vendor stocking at Walmart this morning who said they weren't going to get them. Do you think it's the Reps responsibility to have ordered them?
give it a week. they'll be there.went through a similar experience with planechase 2 and izzet v. golgari a week later they had damn near infinite amounts. the rep probably just gave you a generic response because they didnt know or wanted to be left alone.
My store has put them out for MSRP. The only 'checks' we have on buying is a limit of one of each deck per customer, unless you're one of our regulars. I'd prefer that someone didn't 'fish us out' of a particular deck to give our regular folks a chance to get it, but am leaving the door open for one of our legacy players who might need a couple copies of something.
Just for today, though- after that, folks can get what they like.
went to 3 Walmarts and a Target the morning in Colorado Springs. Nothing at any of them and found the vendor stocking at Walmart this morning who said they weren't going to get them. Do you think it's the Reps responsibility to have ordered them?
Same story in the South Denver Metro area. No one's got nuttin.
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Exactly my point, really. The scalping metaphor is a very eloquent way of putting it.
But, these economics problems prove that not everything is as rosy-looking as that.
In all likelihood, Magic killed itself 15-odd years ago with the Reserved List. That's the only reason I can think of that any of the Modern Legal cards are even worth anything:
That Reserved List is the basis for the Black Lotus and its fellows to have *real, serious* value. That Value in turn is the reason why tournaments can run real cash prizes. Because they hope to buy Reserved Listed Rares that are good in Vintage and Legacy.
Each tier down, the value is less and less, until Precon Duel Decks today very rarely rise above MSRP by a % that compensates for cost of resale.
Obviously, it's a CCG. A Collectible Card Game. And no matter what, that means the Rare cards will be worth more than the Commons, the Foil cards will be worth more, and the best cards that win tournaments will be worth even more.
Pokémon started pretty close to the same time as Magic, and I'm pretty sure there aren't any Pokémon cards that can rival they're MTG 'collector's rarity' equivalents. Don't know about the Yu-Gi-Oh! Market, but last I heard, they have chase crazy money cards doing things to the tournament scene like Jace, the Mind Sculptor, but I'm pretty sure that Exodia the Forbidden, from Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon, hasn't inflated much over time: He's always been something like $25-30 for a piece, +$100 for the Five. That's the effect of being a CCG/or TCG *at all*----
but when you get to MAGIC, we have this RESERVED List and you can compare Black Lotus to Flying Jennies-- incidentally, they actually reprinted the Inverted Jenny recently! And Vintage and Legacy and Commander suffer partially for it. WOTC itself wants the Reserved List to die, but they aren't sure how to kill it yet-- just ignoring it obtusely and Reprinting tons of sheets of Alpha, they clearly think would blow up in their face and possibly crash the entire secondary market for every card in the game....maybe. At least, that must be what they are afraid of and why they haven't taken that approach.
I am certain, from what I see, that nothing can kill MTG except maybe the Reserved List, and it begins to play out in incidents like the Elspeth v. Tezzeret Duel Decks; the Commander 2011 product, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and Modern Masters.
MAGIC cards aren't *just* a TCG- they're clearly far and away the most valuable one, and the distinction that Magic has compared to other TCGs is it's Reserved List. We see these Commander products getting only small inflation and we don't immediately think of the Reserved list because it's not that much different from Standard Inflation-- but Standard is nuts. Standard has been nutser than it used to be since Jace, although it looks like the Jace-effect has been reduced.
If I'm completely wrong that Magic is crazily more valuable than YGO or Pokémon, then ranting about the Reserved List is completely invalid and this just the nature of any TCG to do this with any special product that's pretty in-demand. But if the Reserved List really is making Magic crazy more profitable to flip than Pokémon and YGO, then I suspect that it will come to the List or the game:
one of them must die.
People need to read this fanfiction, though:
www.hpmor.com
I am probably every color-combination it is possible to be, though it's really hard to figure out what it would mean to be 4-colored....it doesn't seem logical to be 4-colored without being 5-colored.
So the only reason Sphinx's Revelation is a 20+ dollar card is because of the Reserved List?
Hahaha
Wizards has the ability to print money and devalue the secondary market as they deem necessary to keep profits up. If you've got anything invested in singles, be careful, Wizards is coming for their value. You can keep the cardboard and ink itself... they just want the value.
.
It may have been regional. I didn't have any problems getting the first Commander sets in Northern California. The first couple of weeks, they were at higher than MSRP, but then they appeared in all of the big box stores and the local gaming stores were restocked. So, after a month or so, you could get them at all of the shops for MSRP. Maybe in smaller markets with fewer stores, the Commander sets were in short supply, but you should have still been able to buy them at Wal-mart and Target. Months after the release, I was buying Commander sets in those stores for Flusterstorm and Scavenging Ooze.
Totally agree, by the way. My friend and I were able to get four different ones the day of release. Eventually, all five were available at Walmart/Target after a few weeks. But I live in a big city.
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They won't be up at midnight. They might possibly be up by the next day but most players avoid buying from non-LGS retailers, so there's not really a lot of demand normally in the card sections of such places.
It depends, recently WalMart and Target in my area have previously put out products the day before the official release. From my understanding, however, WotC has issued warnings that they would stop selling to the big box stores that keep doing it.
Cube on Cubetutor
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You must have been in a bad area or another country then. Out here in Oregon, our shop was able to order a ton of them for the release, and the 2nd print run we ordered at least another 60 sets. And were able to order at least twice more in the months running up until wizards finally OOP'd them approx. 6 months after their release, after demand had started to cool for them. The problem was, a lot of people assumed that a non-limited release, meant wizards would keep printing them forever. Once demand cooled and wizards decided to finally OOP them, a lot of people were caught by surprise, because they thought they had plenty of time to be able to pick them up without issue. Suddenly demand spiked again and the supply remaining quickly diminished and began the inevitable price climb in the product we've seen to this day.
The 2011 commander products were kept in print for as long as there was strong demand to warrant it, which waned at around the 6 month mark prompting them to finally OOP it. Anytime before that, our shop was able to get more of the commander decks with relative ease from either wizards or our distributors depending upon when we were looking to get more. Over the course of the print run of the 2011 commander decks, the shop sold well over 100 sets, and still had over 20 sets left over after it was OOP'd. I, as the magic singles owner for the shop, opened approx. 40 of each deck for singles for the shop to cover any demand needs there. In total I would estimate that we were able to easily purchase over 200 sets of the commander decks over the entire print run of the decks, and could have gotten more if we had been interested.
I expect the 2013 print setup to run in a similar fashion with similar or greater availability, in addition of course to the ability to get them from big box stores at msrp. A lot of stores have been pre-selling these online, and a lot still have a decent number available, even if they may be above msrp at the moment. Once we hit the release day (tomorrow on the 1st), the supply available should increase significantly. And then after that, once the 2nd print run hits, the supply will once again spike significantly. Wizards like plenty of other suppliers of products, will tend to err on the side of caution. Its better to, knowing you will have subsequent print runs within a reasonable period of time, print what you know you can sell initially, and then let the demand lead to the printing of additional runs of the product. Wizards also has limits to how much product they can have printing from the companies they have printing for them at any one time. They have a lot more than just this commander product to worry about right now. For some this may mean they will have to have some patience in getting their product if they want to get it at or closer to msrp.
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
I know that's generally how normal distribution-factions work but in terms of MTG we have LGSs and online stores to create distribution networks. To link up another chain on new product is whats sickening to me.
I have no problem with used cars salesmen as they function as a re-distribution of functional cars where a lot of resources would otherwise go to waste (you cannot draw the same parallel to MtG's cardboard). Likewise I have no problem with LGSs who re-sells singles.
And that's the context used cars salesmen have in this discussion. They are very much closer in function to LGSs than a private speculator who buys a lot of product and then proceeds to stuff a fat mark-up and sell to people who either didn't manage to get one in the first place or simply less informed.
Edit: Really appreciate those stores.
My stores don't do pre-orders so I'll have to wait a little for them to put a price up and judge their behavior. Usually they're pricing acceptably for sealed products but you never know for sure.
Still I expect I could have got them cheaper from eBay or MagicCardMarket.eu considering taxes.
More are expected come Jan apparently. Don't get scammed by horrible stores charging anything more than MSRP.
[edit]
Just been through my decks, and one of them had an extra card in. check your decks in case you're missing anything, or have "extras"! (I had a second spinal embrace in eternal bargain, it made itself obvious because it was back to front.)
Marath seems somewhat interesting but still not very interesting. The other (I even forgot his name) is just poor. Fit for a token deck or if people want to lulz it for a political deck - who runs political in Naya-colors? The often most aggressive and pushed creature-shard of them all and we're supposed to run politics?
The deck itself doesn't seem very interesting either. Wrath of God reprint is the most valuable single in the deck and I believe it hints away a deck who didn't get anything interesting new stuff.
give it a week. they'll be there.went through a similar experience with planechase 2 and izzet v. golgari a week later they had damn near infinite amounts. the rep probably just gave you a generic response because they didnt know or wanted to be left alone.
Just for today, though- after that, folks can get what they like.
Same story in the South Denver Metro area. No one's got nuttin.