You're missing the fact that many people make their livelihood off of mtg. If local stores start regularly losing thousands of dollars because the value of their stock is being depreciated by Yugioh style reprints than those stores are going to stop dealing in magic cards. In Yugioh we have instances of cards that were once worth over a hundred dollars each dropping down to $5 almost over night. As someone who has played both games I can safely say that one of the main reasons that Yugioh has basically died out is because Konami did not care at all about the secondary market. Their reprint policies were shortsighted, everything was done to make a quick buck at the expense of the secondary market. The secondary market keeps the game afloat though. The game will fail without people willing to put money into it, without places to play, and without a reason to buy packs. When I played I never bought packs because any card I ever wanted was either dirt cheap or would be dirt cheap in a month due to their reprint policies with tons and such.
As much as I'd like to see a format that was like Reserveless Legacy, there is something to be said about how much I dislike that you pretty much play U or you lose that I don't like from Legacy. Now maybe by making 1 major Eternal format, maybe WOTC decides to regulate and test for it.. maybe that'd make it better. The main issues I see is that you'd be killing Modern and Legacy. Some folks who liked one but not the other would be unhappy but we'd have to see how it all shakes down in the end. I agree that WotC cares more about the secondary market value than Konami and that is a very good thing. It is part of the reason why we DO continue to get reprints of things like Goyf. Gotta keep printing it to keep it from being too hard to get a staple for multiple formats.
MtG isn't the stock market, it's a game. And games that are too expensive to attract players just don't last. With that in mind, I think Wizards pulling a page from YuGiOh's reprinting playbook is the best thing that could happen to eternal formats. We need a little less Money: The Gathering and a little more Magic: The Gathering.
I'd love an example of how this is true? What game died out from being too expensive? Some people just save up (me) over time and buy what they need. Also games that are too expensive, have you ever been to an NFL game? Way worth expensive now than 10 years ago and it goes up yearly, and thats not gona change. Anyone stop going to NFL games? Can't tell becasue they are still sold out weekly...
As much as I'd like to see a format that was like Reserveless Legacy, there is something to be said about how much I dislike that you pretty much play U or you lose that I don't like from Legacy. Now maybe by making 1 major Eternal format, maybe WOTC decides to regulate and test for it.. maybe that'd make it better. The main issues I see is that you'd be killing Modern and Legacy. Some folks who liked one but not the other would be unhappy but we'd have to see how it all shakes down in the end. I agree that WotC cares more about the secondary market value than Konami and that is a very good thing. It is part of the reason why we DO continue to get reprints of things like Goyf. Gotta keep printing it to keep it from being too hard to get a staple for multiple formats.
Modern is not an Eternal format. The only two Eternal formats are Vintage and Legacy. Vintage is already as dead as fried chicken (except on MTGO), and Modern is both supported and unaffected by the Reserved List. I'm not sure consolidating all three into one format is really the conversation... unless, of course, you're suggesting it should be. Based on your post though, I don't think you are.
I can't image that Classic-Reserved, or Reserve-less Legacy, or whatever we're calling it, would really impact Modern too much. They seem fundamentally different. Especially since it would provide Modern players an outlet for when their deck gets ban-hammered.
As much as I'd like to see a format that was like Reserveless Legacy, there is something to be said about how much I dislike that you pretty much play U or you lose that I don't like from Legacy. Now maybe by making 1 major Eternal format, maybe WOTC decides to regulate and test for it.. maybe that'd make it better. The main issues I see is that you'd be killing Modern and Legacy. Some folks who liked one but not the other would be unhappy but we'd have to see how it all shakes down in the end. I agree that WotC cares more about the secondary market value than Konami and that is a very good thing. It is part of the reason why we DO continue to get reprints of things like Goyf. Gotta keep printing it to keep it from being too hard to get a staple for multiple formats.
Modern is not an Eternal format. The only two Eternal formats are Vintage and Legacy. Vintage is already as dead as fried chicken (except on MTGO), and Modern is both supported and unaffected by the Reserved List. I'm not sure consolidating all three into one format is really the conversation... unless, of course, you're suggesting it should be. Based on your post though, I don't think you are.
I can't image that Classic-Reserved, or Reserve-less Legacy, or whatever we're calling it, would really impact Modern too much. They seem fundamentally different. Especially since it would provide Modern players an outlet for when their deck gets ban-hammered.
My worry is if they decide that a "new" format would be introduced and that format would be essentially Modern+EMA or something to that effect... I am worried of the Modern player base leaving and going to the new format. Personally I don't want to buy into Legacy, party because of cost and partly because of how much power blue has over all the other colors.
If this is simply a reprint of non-reserved list cards to help support Legacy, than I am all onboard with that.
I'd love an example of how this is true? What game died out from being too expensive? Some people just save up (me) over time and buy what they need. Also games that are too expensive, have you ever been to an NFL game? Way worth expensive now than 10 years ago and it goes up yearly, and thats not gona change. Anyone stop going to NFL games? Can't tell becasue they are still sold out weekly...
That's not quite the same circumstance though since a lot of people can watch NFL games effectively for free by watching on TV. It might not be their preferred method of experiencing a game, but it is more affordable. The fact that the stadiums are still sold out simply means that the price was too low in the past compared to the demand, but it also means that the type of person that goes to the game in person is changing from casual fans + super fans to rich casual fans + super fans that can afford the tickets.
Modern is not an Eternal format. The only two Eternal formats are Vintage and Legacy.
That is semantic hair splitting though. Regardless of how WotC defines these formats, a lot of people are just going to look at the English definition of "eternal" as lasting forever and apply that to any large pool, non-rotating formats. The fact that there is a shrinking percentage of sets in Vintage and Legacy that are not in Modern is not going to mean much in a few more years.
For reference there are 92 sets for Magic and of those sets 41 are only in Legacy and Vintage (this includes the Commander sets, Conspiracy, and Planechase 2012 since they have new cards that cannot be played in Modern). This means 44.6& of the sets in Legacy and Vintage are not usable in Modern and that number is going to go down every year. Modern is going to feel pretty "Eternal" despite what WotC claims.
I'm a little lukewarm about this set. We are basically talking about a bunch of cards that can only be used in Legacy, a format which is getting harder and harder to find. I'm in a big city and it's hard to find any Legacy action here. There will be some Modern cards in there but they admitted the focus is on Legacy. Modern will not get much from this set.
The reserved list, the way I look at it, is going to become an issue sooner or later given the chinese counterfeit market. Once the counterfeiters are able to crank out identical counterfeit versions of old and expensive cards like power and Mishra's Workshops and what not (they are getting close) and sell them at a fraction of the price I think collectors are going to be in a world of trouble one way or another. Reprinting some of these old cards with the new anti-counterfeit measures I believe would be healthier for the finance side of the game in the long-term anyhow.
To that end I think Wizards should just restructure the Reserved list, not remove it completely. There's a lot of cards on there that really don't need to be, and there are some cards on there begging for a reprint as we all know. Really what they should do is start slimming down the Reserved list, starting with the cards like Elephant Graveyard and other stuff that doesn't belong on there but also cheaper but still absurdly expensive cards to help out EDH and other eternal formats a little bit. Stuff like Gaea's Cradle, Lion's Eye Diamond, and Mox Diamond all of which (maybe not Cradle, but the other two) are pretty much sold out everywhere as a result of this announcement and are going to crank up in price again now for no reason other than scarcity. Cards like these have a spot in EDH too, so lopping some of the value off of them would help but also keep their prices fairly high as they are still used and people would be looking for them.
Keep Power on the list, possibly Mishra's Workshop and Bazaar and such, maybe even keep dualies on the list, but then do away with Vintage and Legacy as we know it and make a new eternal format with everything minus banned cards and stuff on the reserved list. The collectors get to keep their stuff at pretty crazy high prices still but without a tournament format for them to be legal in they will retain their value for what they should be: collectors items, rather than cards people are hunting for. If collectors are interested in them for the sake of collecting the cards and not monetary value for the sake of monetary value, then that's what Wizards should make them: collectors pieces. Without the demand for these cards prices will go down, but the natural scarcity of these cards will keep their values high after a momentary drop in price before heading back to appreciation over time. Will they? I doubt it, but I don't think that keeping the Reserved List in its current state is anything but bad for the game as well. If the bubble doesn't burst as someone said earlier once Legacy becomes a 'one player in one player out format' it will when well-made forty dollar Chinese forgery Mishra's Workshops start rolling off the presses, and Wizards can just skip all that headache and the stain counterfeiting brings to their business right now.
So you "just want to play the game" but are hoping for one of the most dangerous events come to pass?!
The crash only hurts me if it means so many people stop playing that I can't get an EDH game started. While the gambling/showing-off aspect unquestionably fuels interest in MTG, I suspect enough of us simply enjoy playing and would stick around.
The above assumes an apocalyptic crash. A market adjustment strikes me as more likely, though even then who knows when it'll happen.
I read comic books during and after the collapse of that market. I wasn't investing or expecting a return on investment, so it didn't hurt me. Life goes on.
I'd love an example of how this is true? What game died out from being too expensive? Some people just save up (me) over time and buy what they need. Also games that are too expensive, have you ever been to an NFL game? Way worth expensive now than 10 years ago and it goes up yearly, and thats not gona change. Anyone stop going to NFL games? Can't tell becasue they are still sold out weekly...
That's not quite the same circumstance though since a lot of people can watch NFL games effectively for free by watching on TV. It might not be their preferred method of experiencing a game, but it is more affordable. The fact that the stadiums are still sold out simply means that the price was too low in the past compared to the demand, but it also means that the type of person that goes to the game in person is changing from casual fans + super fans to rich casual fans + super fans that can afford the tickets.
For free, though? I was under the impression that a lot of people still had cable TV specifically because they wanted to watch sports and all the other stuff is added-on garbage. That's not "for free."
But that's a tangent. Back to CCGs, a lot of them have died over the years, probably because the market was pretty flooded early on, but I think a lot of it is due to the fact the random pack/single card model isn't what a lot of people want out of their card games. Netrunner, Game of Thrones, apparently Legend of the Five Rings soon... all of these things are turning to basically selling factory sets in chunks rather than having people run around buying single card in order to build competitive decks.
I don't think Magic ever needs to do this, though, because (a) they pay a lot of attention to the Limited game, which is in my mind the only good reason to have a random-pack model, and (b) there's a lot of casual players who don't really about competitive decks or single-card prices who will keep buying Magic cards as long as the mechanics are interesting and the art is entertaining.
Modern is not an Eternal format. The only two Eternal formats are Vintage and Legacy.
That is semantic hair splitting though. Regardless of how WotC defines these formats, a lot of people are just going to look at the English definition of "eternal" as lasting forever and apply that to any large pool, non-rotating formats. The fact that there is a shrinking percentage of sets in Vintage and Legacy that are not in Modern is not going to mean much in a few more years.
It's not semantic hair-splitting; it's the accepted definition of the term within the context of the game we're talking about. If you're going to say capital-E Eternal people are going to assume you're talking about Vintage, Legacy, EDH... formats that use all the cards ever minus a list of exceptions. There's pedantry and then there's being consistent with definitions for the sake of clarity and communication.
Can they print one land with "this card is all basic land types in any zone" that way it is fetchable for any color and you would only ever need to own 4 to fix any one 2 color deck.
I'm sure to avoid being strictly better City of Brass/Mana Confluence they'd tack on a "enters tapped if" clause.
Anyway, I'm excited about EMA but I won't be able to buy much. My area has many game stores, some will offer msrp presales and raise the prices gradually ever after, some will always be slightly higher than msrp but never restock, some will hoard, and at least one store I know will offer as many preorders as possible but after that will not have much inventory ever and only be able to run a few drafts and a few singles.
I won't be able to preorder boxes as my money is all tied up.
I won't be able to attend many drafts as I work all the time.
I may draft this set once or twice schedule and budget allowing but that will be my entire access until I can get the singles from the bulk box.
This set is very exciting, but like many of these special releases I can't afford to buy-in. I drafted mm2 once for $35 bucks opened goyf, primetime, and something janky I passed. My prizes we're like Etched Monstrosity level terribad. Horde of notions maybe. Even though I came out of that draft profitably and had a little extra cash on hand afterwards, it just wasn't that fun, that satisfying, and my schedule didn't permit. I believe it's still in stock around me, idk if it's inflated in price grossly or not, but I simply don't need more Sunforgers or Overwhelming Stampedes. I drafted Conspiracy twice and loved it, got a lot of cool reprints and both those drafts came out to be cheaper than one Mondern Masters 2015 draft. Conspiracy is nowhere to be found in my area, and there are no more events planned for it ever.
I would have loved to buy some premium deck series, some FTV, some EDH Arsenal, Planechase, Archnemesis, Duel deck Anthologies, and although I did pick up a couple PW duel decks and commander precons they just release this stuff too rapidly, it's available for too short of a window, and my budget/priorities/schedule is already taxed out. I don't have any reason to believe I'm the "average" player, I'm probably a bit of an oddity at almost 30 been playing for 20 years. I know I play more casually then I used to despite being hypercompetitive when I first started. I haven't been able to keep a collection long, and everytime I have to rebuild a collection from scratch it gets harder to access top tier cards. I think this set will allow me to obtain a handful of cards I want and can use in some great games but I don't have any hopes that EMA will suddenly put Eternal formats in my reach again. Still I want this set to be a success because it would mean more of this in the future.
Honestly, replacing modern with Reservless eteranal wouldn't be bad. If you have modern staples, adding the remaining staples isn't too tall an order budget wise. Legacy with modern's mana restraints is still a fun format, and would probably self regulate like a champ.
It wouldn't be as easy as copying and pasting Legacy's banned list though. There would have to be a period of experimentation to discover what exactly is broken, and what is not broken in Reserveless Eternal. I could see people getting all up and arms about bans just like we do in Modern.
Just off the top of my head, Price of Progress would be insane in a format with only Shocks and Fetches.
Would Wasteland and Brainstorm be considered too powerful here as well? Hard to say.
With all that said, it's definitely something that could happen. I don't see myself ever jumping to Legacy, but the thought of Reserveless makes we want to start hording some non-reserved list goodies!
Honestly, replacing modern with Reservless eteranal wouldn't be bad. If you have modern staples, adding the remaining staples isn't too tall an order budget wise. Legacy with modern's mana restraints is still a fun format, and would probably self regulate like a champ.
It wouldn't be as easy as copying and pasting Legacy's banned list though. There would have to be a period of experimentation to discover what exactly is broken, and what is not broken in Reserveless Eternal. I could see people getting all up and arms about bans just like we do in Modern.
Just off the top of my head, Price of Progress would be insane in a format with only Shocks and Fetches.
Would Wasteland and Brainstorm be considered too powerful here as well? Hard to say.
With all that said, it's definitely something that could happen. I don't see myself ever jumping to Legacy, but the thought of Reserveless makes we want to start hording some non-reserved list goodies!
It would be a pretty solid starting point though, likely more stable than the early modern format. I will admit that burn worries me.
They pretty much *have* to print something better than Shocklands if they want to create a new format that's worth a crap.
Burn: the Format doesn't sound appealing to me, and it would even get old with the Burn players, I'm sure.
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The reserved list, the way I look at it, is going to become an issue sooner or later given the chinese counterfeit market. Once the counterfeiters are able to crank out identical counterfeit versions of old and expensive cards like power and Mishra's Workshops and what not (they are getting close) and sell them at a fraction of the price I think collectors are going to be in a world of trouble one way or another. Reprinting some of these old cards with the new anti-counterfeit measures I believe would be healthier for the finance side of the game in the long-term anyhow.
To that end I think Wizards should just restructure the Reserved list, not remove it completely. There's a lot of cards on there that really don't need to be, and there are some cards on there begging for a reprint as we all know. Really what they should do is start slimming down the Reserved list, starting with the cards like Elephant Graveyard and other stuff that doesn't belong on there but also cheaper but still absurdly expensive cards to help out EDH and other eternal formats a little bit. Stuff like Gaea's Cradle, Lion's Eye Diamond, and Mox Diamond all of which (maybe not Cradle, but the other two) are pretty much sold out everywhere as a result of this announcement and are going to crank up in price again now for no reason other than scarcity. Cards like these have a spot in EDH too, so lopping some of the value off of them would help but also keep their prices fairly high as they are still used and people would be looking for them.
Keep Power on the list, possibly Mishra's Workshop and Bazaar and such, maybe even keep dualies on the list, but then do away with Vintage and Legacy as we know it and make a new eternal format with everything minus banned cards and stuff on the reserved list. The collectors get to keep their stuff at pretty crazy high prices still but without a tournament format for them to be legal in they will retain their value for what they should be: collectors items, rather than cards people are hunting for. If collectors are interested in them for the sake of collecting the cards and not monetary value for the sake of monetary value, then that's what Wizards should make them: collectors pieces. Without the demand for these cards prices will go down, but the natural scarcity of these cards will keep their values high after a momentary drop in price before heading back to appreciation over time. Will they? I doubt it, but I don't think that keeping the Reserved List in its current state is anything but bad for the game as well. If the bubble doesn't burst as someone said earlier once Legacy becomes a 'one player in one player out format' it will when well-made forty dollar Chinese forgery Mishra's Workshops start rolling off the presses, and Wizards can just skip all that headache and the stain counterfeiting brings to their business right now.
The Chinese fakes are a real problem and concern for sure, but seeing as the Chinese government doesn't care about other countries' copyright laws that is an issue far above and beyond magic and I'm not going to try to solve that. Hackers/Fakers/Rule Breakers will ALWAYS find a way. These new cards will be counterfeited someday too, its not the end all be all prevention of counterfeiting...
The issue with "revising" the reserve list is simple. Once you take cards off, no one will believe that anything left will be untouchable for long. A lot of Players have invested a lot to play these cards while others whine that they dont have them, work and go buy them. Secondly, anything that would stay on someone somewhere would be whining it should be off. Yes formats should be playable for everyone, but that is why they did Vintage Masters in MTGO.
Ya know, I really want baseball cards from the 60s but I cant afford them.
People, not everyone can have every card and play every format.
All I want to say is that you would need to ban wasteland,port and price of progress if you want a RL less legacy. Port and waste basically get a lava spike tacked on, good lord.
If you make people play shocklands, red delver is now basically unplayable, fetch, shock, daze my steam vents is 6 life. Shardless is also unplayable, you take too much damage from the mana base. Basically, all of our fair decks get pushed out of the format, burn loves it when its opponents either lose massive tempo, or need to bolt themselves twice.
I agree. You can't simply take a legacy deck and substitute in the shocklands. It would be like starting a game at 10 life. Daze would be unplayable for the scenario above.
Maybe they can make each player start with an emblem that says "lands entering the battlefield under your control can't cause you to take damage" or whatever it needs to be in order to avoid the 2 damage. That would get around the reserve list as you're not reprinting anything.
All I want to say is that you would need to ban wasteland,port and price of progress if you want a RL less legacy. Port and waste basically get a lava spike tacked on, good lord.
If you make people play shocklands, red delver is now basically unplayable, fetch, shock, daze my steam vents is 6 life. Shardless is also unplayable, you take too much damage from the mana base. Basically, all of our fair decks get pushed out of the format, burn loves it when its opponents either lose massive tempo, or need to bolt themselves twice.
I agree. You can't simply take a legacy deck and substitute in the shocklands. It would be like starting a game at 10 life. Daze would be unplayable for the scenario above.
Maybe they can make each player start with an emblem that says "lands entering the battlefield under your control can't cause you to take damage" or whatever it needs to be in order to avoid the 2 damage. That would get around the reserve list as you're not reprinting anything.
It would have to say "lands cannot cause loss of life", which would make fetches unusable.
All I want to say is that you would need to ban wasteland,port and price of progress if you want a RL less legacy. Port and waste basically get a lava spike tacked on, good lord.
If you make people play shocklands, red delver is now basically unplayable, fetch, shock, daze my steam vents is 6 life. Shardless is also unplayable, you take too much damage from the mana base. Basically, all of our fair decks get pushed out of the format, burn loves it when its opponents either lose massive tempo, or need to bolt themselves twice.
I agree. You can't simply take a legacy deck and substitute in the shocklands. It would be like starting a game at 10 life. Daze would be unplayable for the scenario above.
Maybe they can make each player start with an emblem that says "lands entering the battlefield under your control can't cause you to take damage" or whatever it needs to be in order to avoid the 2 damage. That would get around the reserve list as you're not reprinting anything.
That's a really clumsy fix. Decks would just have to adjust, just like they do in Modern. There's a reason why Thoughtseize sees less play than Inquisition of Kozilek in Modern. Some decks may not survive. Such is life I suppose. *stares at 4 Splinter Twins*..
Ya know, I really want baseball cards from the 60s but I cant afford them.
People, not everyone can have every card and play every format.
I'm not saying that people should have access to every card, though I don't think asking to be able to play every format in a game should be considered absurd, but what I am saying that it is clear that huge chunks of the Reserved List are an archaic leftover from a time they had no idea how big the game was going to get and a good decade or so before EDH was a thing. People have been whining about the reserved list forever, and yes they no doubt would after the restructuring, so what does bringing that up point out other than the number of people saying 'hey this is probably a problem' is getting more chorused and louder over time? Touching the reserved list once and slimming it to a group of 20-40 cards that are the most expensive and iconic and obviously would never get reprinted anyhow even without the reserved list would free up a lot of breathing room for WoTC, silence a lot of the people 'whining' as you put it about paying 130 bucks for a Gaea's Cradle for their EDH deck, and simultaneously keep the reserved list for all intents and purposes intact.
I myself am lucky enough to have some duals, a Cradle, and some other expensive stuff FWIW. It's not an issue of 'working to go buy them' when they cost as much as one month's rent. The key difference between a baseball card collection from the sixties and a MTG deck that requires Lion's Eye Diamonds or Tabernacle to function is that one still functions as a baseball card collection no matter if there are cards missing or not, while the other is not so lucky. You might not be able to sell the collection, but it was designed to be 'collected' and that's it. Magic also has the game aspect of 'CCG' involved, and if you're looking at the game (for that is what it is, unlike baseball cards) as a purely collector-based market then that is a purely one-sided view that does a great disservice to the people actually playing.
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I am worried of the Modern player base leaving and going to the new format.
I don' think that would be the case at all, it's sort of like thinking that all edh players turned into tiny leaders players... The new format would be it's own thing and it can coexist with other formats without "stealing" players.
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As much as I'd like to see a format that was like Reserveless Legacy, there is something to be said about how much I dislike that you pretty much play U or you lose that I don't like from Legacy. Now maybe by making 1 major Eternal format, maybe WOTC decides to regulate and test for it.. maybe that'd make it better. The main issues I see is that you'd be killing Modern and Legacy. Some folks who liked one but not the other would be unhappy but we'd have to see how it all shakes down in the end. I agree that WotC cares more about the secondary market value than Konami and that is a very good thing. It is part of the reason why we DO continue to get reprints of things like Goyf. Gotta keep printing it to keep it from being too hard to get a staple for multiple formats.
I'd love an example of how this is true? What game died out from being too expensive? Some people just save up (me) over time and buy what they need. Also games that are too expensive, have you ever been to an NFL game? Way worth expensive now than 10 years ago and it goes up yearly, and thats not gona change. Anyone stop going to NFL games? Can't tell becasue they are still sold out weekly...
I can't image that Classic-Reserved, or Reserve-less Legacy, or whatever we're calling it, would really impact Modern too much. They seem fundamentally different. Especially since it would provide Modern players an outlet for when their deck gets ban-hammered.
My worry is if they decide that a "new" format would be introduced and that format would be essentially Modern+EMA or something to that effect... I am worried of the Modern player base leaving and going to the new format. Personally I don't want to buy into Legacy, party because of cost and partly because of how much power blue has over all the other colors.
If this is simply a reprint of non-reserved list cards to help support Legacy, than I am all onboard with that.
That's not quite the same circumstance though since a lot of people can watch NFL games effectively for free by watching on TV. It might not be their preferred method of experiencing a game, but it is more affordable. The fact that the stadiums are still sold out simply means that the price was too low in the past compared to the demand, but it also means that the type of person that goes to the game in person is changing from casual fans + super fans to rich casual fans + super fans that can afford the tickets.
That is semantic hair splitting though. Regardless of how WotC defines these formats, a lot of people are just going to look at the English definition of "eternal" as lasting forever and apply that to any large pool, non-rotating formats. The fact that there is a shrinking percentage of sets in Vintage and Legacy that are not in Modern is not going to mean much in a few more years.
For reference there are 92 sets for Magic and of those sets 41 are only in Legacy and Vintage (this includes the Commander sets, Conspiracy, and Planechase 2012 since they have new cards that cannot be played in Modern). This means 44.6& of the sets in Legacy and Vintage are not usable in Modern and that number is going to go down every year. Modern is going to feel pretty "Eternal" despite what WotC claims.
EDH?
I loved Dual commander but yeah.. EDH isn't competitive. it's something you play for fun when you have friends who don't play competitively.
Spirits
To that end I think Wizards should just restructure the Reserved list, not remove it completely. There's a lot of cards on there that really don't need to be, and there are some cards on there begging for a reprint as we all know. Really what they should do is start slimming down the Reserved list, starting with the cards like Elephant Graveyard and other stuff that doesn't belong on there but also cheaper but still absurdly expensive cards to help out EDH and other eternal formats a little bit. Stuff like Gaea's Cradle, Lion's Eye Diamond, and Mox Diamond all of which (maybe not Cradle, but the other two) are pretty much sold out everywhere as a result of this announcement and are going to crank up in price again now for no reason other than scarcity. Cards like these have a spot in EDH too, so lopping some of the value off of them would help but also keep their prices fairly high as they are still used and people would be looking for them.
Keep Power on the list, possibly Mishra's Workshop and Bazaar and such, maybe even keep dualies on the list, but then do away with Vintage and Legacy as we know it and make a new eternal format with everything minus banned cards and stuff on the reserved list. The collectors get to keep their stuff at pretty crazy high prices still but without a tournament format for them to be legal in they will retain their value for what they should be: collectors items, rather than cards people are hunting for. If collectors are interested in them for the sake of collecting the cards and not monetary value for the sake of monetary value, then that's what Wizards should make them: collectors pieces. Without the demand for these cards prices will go down, but the natural scarcity of these cards will keep their values high after a momentary drop in price before heading back to appreciation over time. Will they? I doubt it, but I don't think that keeping the Reserved List in its current state is anything but bad for the game as well. If the bubble doesn't burst as someone said earlier once Legacy becomes a 'one player in one player out format' it will when well-made forty dollar Chinese forgery Mishra's Workshops start rolling off the presses, and Wizards can just skip all that headache and the stain counterfeiting brings to their business right now.
The crash only hurts me if it means so many people stop playing that I can't get an EDH game started. While the gambling/showing-off aspect unquestionably fuels interest in MTG, I suspect enough of us simply enjoy playing and would stick around.
The above assumes an apocalyptic crash. A market adjustment strikes me as more likely, though even then who knows when it'll happen.
I read comic books during and after the collapse of that market. I wasn't investing or expecting a return on investment, so it didn't hurt me. Life goes on.
For free, though? I was under the impression that a lot of people still had cable TV specifically because they wanted to watch sports and all the other stuff is added-on garbage. That's not "for free."
But that's a tangent. Back to CCGs, a lot of them have died over the years, probably because the market was pretty flooded early on, but I think a lot of it is due to the fact the random pack/single card model isn't what a lot of people want out of their card games. Netrunner, Game of Thrones, apparently Legend of the Five Rings soon... all of these things are turning to basically selling factory sets in chunks rather than having people run around buying single card in order to build competitive decks.
I don't think Magic ever needs to do this, though, because (a) they pay a lot of attention to the Limited game, which is in my mind the only good reason to have a random-pack model, and (b) there's a lot of casual players who don't really about competitive decks or single-card prices who will keep buying Magic cards as long as the mechanics are interesting and the art is entertaining.
It's not semantic hair-splitting; it's the accepted definition of the term within the context of the game we're talking about. If you're going to say capital-E Eternal people are going to assume you're talking about Vintage, Legacy, EDH... formats that use all the cards ever minus a list of exceptions. There's pedantry and then there's being consistent with definitions for the sake of clarity and communication.
I'm sure to avoid being strictly better City of Brass/Mana Confluence they'd tack on a "enters tapped if" clause.
Anyway, I'm excited about EMA but I won't be able to buy much. My area has many game stores, some will offer msrp presales and raise the prices gradually ever after, some will always be slightly higher than msrp but never restock, some will hoard, and at least one store I know will offer as many preorders as possible but after that will not have much inventory ever and only be able to run a few drafts and a few singles.
I won't be able to preorder boxes as my money is all tied up.
I won't be able to attend many drafts as I work all the time.
I may draft this set once or twice schedule and budget allowing but that will be my entire access until I can get the singles from the bulk box.
This set is very exciting, but like many of these special releases I can't afford to buy-in. I drafted mm2 once for $35 bucks opened goyf, primetime, and something janky I passed. My prizes we're like Etched Monstrosity level terribad. Horde of notions maybe. Even though I came out of that draft profitably and had a little extra cash on hand afterwards, it just wasn't that fun, that satisfying, and my schedule didn't permit. I believe it's still in stock around me, idk if it's inflated in price grossly or not, but I simply don't need more Sunforgers or Overwhelming Stampedes. I drafted Conspiracy twice and loved it, got a lot of cool reprints and both those drafts came out to be cheaper than one Mondern Masters 2015 draft. Conspiracy is nowhere to be found in my area, and there are no more events planned for it ever.
I would have loved to buy some premium deck series, some FTV, some EDH Arsenal, Planechase, Archnemesis, Duel deck Anthologies, and although I did pick up a couple PW duel decks and commander precons they just release this stuff too rapidly, it's available for too short of a window, and my budget/priorities/schedule is already taxed out. I don't have any reason to believe I'm the "average" player, I'm probably a bit of an oddity at almost 30 been playing for 20 years. I know I play more casually then I used to despite being hypercompetitive when I first started. I haven't been able to keep a collection long, and everytime I have to rebuild a collection from scratch it gets harder to access top tier cards. I think this set will allow me to obtain a handful of cards I want and can use in some great games but I don't have any hopes that EMA will suddenly put Eternal formats in my reach again. Still I want this set to be a success because it would mean more of this in the future.
It wouldn't be as easy as copying and pasting Legacy's banned list though. There would have to be a period of experimentation to discover what exactly is broken, and what is not broken in Reserveless Eternal. I could see people getting all up and arms about bans just like we do in Modern.
Just off the top of my head, Price of Progress would be insane in a format with only Shocks and Fetches.
Would Wasteland and Brainstorm be considered too powerful here as well? Hard to say.
With all that said, it's definitely something that could happen. I don't see myself ever jumping to Legacy, but the thought of Reserveless makes we want to start hording some non-reserved list goodies!
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It would be a pretty solid starting point though, likely more stable than the early modern format. I will admit that burn worries me.
Burn: the Format doesn't sound appealing to me, and it would even get old with the Burn players, I'm sure.
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW
WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/no-reserved-list-legacy
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The Chinese fakes are a real problem and concern for sure, but seeing as the Chinese government doesn't care about other countries' copyright laws that is an issue far above and beyond magic and I'm not going to try to solve that. Hackers/Fakers/Rule Breakers will ALWAYS find a way. These new cards will be counterfeited someday too, its not the end all be all prevention of counterfeiting...
The issue with "revising" the reserve list is simple. Once you take cards off, no one will believe that anything left will be untouchable for long. A lot of Players have invested a lot to play these cards while others whine that they dont have them, work and go buy them. Secondly, anything that would stay on someone somewhere would be whining it should be off. Yes formats should be playable for everyone, but that is why they did Vintage Masters in MTGO.
Ya know, I really want baseball cards from the 60s but I cant afford them.
People, not everyone can have every card and play every format.
I agree. You can't simply take a legacy deck and substitute in the shocklands. It would be like starting a game at 10 life. Daze would be unplayable for the scenario above.
Maybe they can make each player start with an emblem that says "lands entering the battlefield under your control can't cause you to take damage" or whatever it needs to be in order to avoid the 2 damage. That would get around the reserve list as you're not reprinting anything.
It would have to say "lands cannot cause loss of life", which would make fetches unusable.
That's a really clumsy fix. Decks would just have to adjust, just like they do in Modern. There's a reason why Thoughtseize sees less play than Inquisition of Kozilek in Modern. Some decks may not survive. Such is life I suppose. *stares at 4 Splinter Twins*..
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I'm not saying that people should have access to every card, though I don't think asking to be able to play every format in a game should be considered absurd, but what I am saying that it is clear that huge chunks of the Reserved List are an archaic leftover from a time they had no idea how big the game was going to get and a good decade or so before EDH was a thing. People have been whining about the reserved list forever, and yes they no doubt would after the restructuring, so what does bringing that up point out other than the number of people saying 'hey this is probably a problem' is getting more chorused and louder over time? Touching the reserved list once and slimming it to a group of 20-40 cards that are the most expensive and iconic and obviously would never get reprinted anyhow even without the reserved list would free up a lot of breathing room for WoTC, silence a lot of the people 'whining' as you put it about paying 130 bucks for a Gaea's Cradle for their EDH deck, and simultaneously keep the reserved list for all intents and purposes intact.
I myself am lucky enough to have some duals, a Cradle, and some other expensive stuff FWIW. It's not an issue of 'working to go buy them' when they cost as much as one month's rent. The key difference between a baseball card collection from the sixties and a MTG deck that requires Lion's Eye Diamonds or Tabernacle to function is that one still functions as a baseball card collection no matter if there are cards missing or not, while the other is not so lucky. You might not be able to sell the collection, but it was designed to be 'collected' and that's it. Magic also has the game aspect of 'CCG' involved, and if you're looking at the game (for that is what it is, unlike baseball cards) as a purely collector-based market then that is a purely one-sided view that does a great disservice to the people actually playing.
Then again, I've been wanting those for years and am still unsatisfied...
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW
WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
Marath, Will of the Wild
Friendly Kess Twin Combo
Tatyova - Sir Bounce A Lot
Gonti's Luxury Pie
Prime (Eldrazi) Speaker Zegana (Retired)
I don' think that would be the case at all, it's sort of like thinking that all edh players turned into tiny leaders players... The new format would be it's own thing and it can coexist with other formats without "stealing" players.