Interesting bit with these is that, as packaged, the order of the decks is predetermined, so the first game between the two is guaranteed to be playable with quality starting hands, minimal flooding out, and removal being drawn on time. This level of first-exposure product design is something not present in ANY existing Magic product.
Anyone complaining about the secondary market value of the contents of this product is completely missing the point of this product and that they are not intended the audience this product is for.
Specifically: This product is intentionally not designed for people who play Magic. If you are a Magic player, this product is not for you.
This product is intended to make people who don't know about Magic into players. That's why it's going to be sold at mass market stores where you will find people who don't know about Magic. The 30-card welcome decks are fundamentally not effective at drawing in new players given that you can only reach people who already willingly stumble into a comic book and card shop. Those decks only work on people who are already in the proximity of Magic being played, likely because they're already playing similarly complex games. This new product is trying to grab people who are not in that bubble, people who are not on forums, people who aren't going to a gaming shop. That is how you make players out of non players.
Turn 2:
P1: Mountain, attack with Devoted Hero (remember, you don't tap lands when attacking with creature, only when you cast it ), play Hulking Goblin, done.
P2: Swamp, play Storm Crow, done
...
The product offers more value than the equivalently-priced opening of four random boosters. The deck is affordable enough to compete with similar Pokemon products. It's not filled with valuable standard-legal cards, avoiding being savaged by enfranchised players ripping the product for cards.
How is this a problem? What does it matter who buys the product as long as it gets bought? And if the stores run out of product then wotc can just print moar.
I just don't get why wizards is so scared of making products that people actually want to buy.
This product better have a list on how the decks are ordered, in case someone wants to play the guided game again.
The step by step guide better be a comic featuring the same guy found in the 7th, 8th, and 9th edition starter core games.
Damn, good times. But if i m not wrong the 7th edition were 2 decks with 2 cards each (if I m not mistaken)
This in other hand is 2 decks with 60 cards.
Let's say that there was a card that had some sort of significant value (Chandra, Torch of Defiance in the mono red Challenger deck, for this example). Two things happened that upset some subset of players:
1) The product was not selling for MSRP and was selling out everywhere. The intended design for those challenger decks is to have an FNM playable deck at your LGS for players who want to play but don't have a deck. People were buying them out and selling them for higher values, basically "scalping" these products. WotC kept printing them, but it took some time until I was able to find them for MSRP. Chandra alone was $40, thus making the MSRP of the product just pure value for everyone.
2) People who bought Chandra, Torch of Defiance were upset that the value of their card starting to lose value. Mono Red aggro was and still is a top tier Standard deck. Imagine buying your copies of this card and immediately it loses its value. Gives players a "feels bad" moment. It also lowers the value of the card in the set that it comes out in. A lot of value that was locked in Kaladesh (besides the Inventions) was in a couple of card, and one of them is losing its value because its printed in a Challenger deck.
If this product has significantly more value than the MSRP has in it, the product won't reach the intended audience. It will go to scalpers and/or be stripped for the pricey cards, thus becoming harder to find for the intended players.
This Spellslinger deck is not meant for FNM play. It's meant to teach new players how to play. The mechanics in this product are not as complex as a challenger deck becuase they are both meant for 2 different audiences.
The Commander precons routinelly contain three times their MSRP and don't get hoarded unless WotC does something stupid like C13's distribution or C16's limited print run.
This product doesn't need to be worth $50 but it could at least contain it's MSRP worth of truly playable cards so that the people who learn to play with it don't have to immediatelly spend more money because the crap WotC shoved into their hands couldn't even beat a mediocre draft deck.
Commander precons have 100 cards in them. It's value will hold due to valuable reprints and unique commanders. It's value is spread throughout 100 cards in the set as well. I don't think comparing this to a Commander deck is the right call. I would compare this to the Challenger Decks or Planeswalker decks because both of those products are for players who are new to certain levels of Standard play. Commander is a totally different beast altogether.
They have put some value into the product already. Ghalta, Primal Hunger is 7-8 bucks after this announcement. Plus there is another rare from Guilds of Ravnica that hasn't been spoiled yet. So if you take that into account, you're paying for an 8 dollar card, plus 119 other cards worth of minuscule value, plus spindown dice for the other 7 dollars. It's not good value, but this product isn't intended for value, it's intended for new players who want to learn the game.
Interesting bit with these is that, as packaged, the order of the decks is predetermined, so the first game between the two is guaranteed to be playable with quality starting hands, minimal flooding out, and removal being drawn on time. This level of first-exposure product design is something not present in ANY existing Magic product.
Anyone complaining about the secondary market value of the contents of this product is completely missing the point of this product and that they are not intended the audience this product is for.
Specifically: This product is intentionally not designed for people who play Magic. If you are a Magic player, this product is not for you.
This product is intended to make people who don't know about Magic into players. That's why it's going to be sold at mass market stores where you will find people who don't know about Magic. The 30-card welcome decks are fundamentally not effective at drawing in new players given that you can only reach people who already willingly stumble into a comic book and card shop. Those decks only work on people who are already in the proximity of Magic being played, likely because they're already playing similarly complex games. This new product is trying to grab people who are not in that bubble, people who are not on forums, people who aren't going to a gaming shop. That is how you make players out of non players.
This 100%. This guy gets it. I don't plan on buying it, but I'm not the audience and neither are most of you on this forum.
The product offers more value than the equivalently-priced opening of four random boosters. The deck is affordable enough to compete with similar Pokemon products. It's not filled with valuable standard-legal cards, avoiding being savaged by enfranchised players ripping the product for cards.
How is this a problem? What does it matter who buys the product as long as it gets bought? And if the stores run out of product then wotc can just print moar.
I just don't get why wizards is so scared of making products that people actually want to buy.
If the product has value to a Magic player, it will never be on the shelf and therefore never be available for the intended audience of this product: People who don't play Magic.
There are dozens of products produced for Magic players yearly. I don't get why people want everything to be for them all the time.
If you think this product is going to flop, then don't buy it. If you think it will fail then this will be the only one they do ever.
Let's say that there was a card that had some sort of significant value (Chandra, Torch of Defiance in the mono red Challenger deck, for this example). Two things happened that upset some subset of players:
1) The product was not selling for MSRP and was selling out everywhere. The intended design for those challenger decks is to have an FNM playable deck at your LGS for players who want to play but don't have a deck. People were buying them out and selling them for higher values, basically "scalping" these products. WotC kept printing them, but it took some time until I was able to find them for MSRP. Chandra alone was $40, thus making the MSRP of the product just pure value for everyone.
2) People who bought Chandra, Torch of Defiance were upset that the value of their card starting to lose value. Mono Red aggro was and still is a top tier Standard deck. Imagine buying your copies of this card and immediately it loses its value. Gives players a "feels bad" moment. It also lowers the value of the card in the set that it comes out in. A lot of value that was locked in Kaladesh (besides the Inventions) was in a couple of card, and one of them is losing its value because its printed in a Challenger deck.
If this product has significantly more value than the MSRP has in it, the product won't reach the intended audience. It will go to scalpers and/or be stripped for the pricey cards, thus becoming harder to find for the intended players.
This Spellslinger deck is not meant for FNM play. It's meant to teach new players how to play. The mechanics in this product are not as complex as a challenger deck becuase they are both meant for 2 different audiences.
1. Then you print moar? Eventually the market will be flooded with chandras and the value would crash to 2 dollars or less. 15 dollar msrp duel decks will be left on the shelf for the few people who don't have their fifth playset of chandra.
2. This is a problem that wotc has created by themselves. They have cultivated this elitist card market environment where cards spike to ridiculous prices. Only way to solve this is to print moar. The "feel bad" of cards dropping wont so bad when their cardboard's value drops to 2 dollars from 5 dollars instead from 40 dollars.
Even if you want intro decks to have simple gameplay doesn't mean you can't put good cards in them. Tarmogoyf and lightning bolt aren't complex cards.
These are designed to work with welcome decks. The welcome deck for green comes with a single llanowar elf and this comes with three. It also benefits from the cards in the welcome decks, both red and green.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Then you print moar? Eventually the market will be flooded with chandras and the value would crash to 2 dollars or less. 15 dollar msrp duel decks will be left on the shelf for the few people who don't have their fifth playset of chandra.
Why go through the trouble of this intermediate phase of buyouts and restocking delays at all when it's entirely possible to skip it by not including the Chandra in the first place? That's incredibly inefficient. Making this product have zero secondary market appeal is intentional design to prevent people from buying them for the cards they contain. This product is not for Magic players and they don't want Magic players to buy it. It won't be available for non players if it contained reprints that made Magic players want to buy it.
There are other products that reprint cards and there are other products that print new and valuable cards. Nobody is making you buy this entry-level product, so I'm confused why you are complaining about it existing. If they wanted you (an established player) to buy it, they would have included a reason for you to do so. They don't want you to buy it and you're complaining that they're not catering to you...?
These are designed to work with welcome decks. The welcome deck for green comes with a single llanowar elf and this comes with three. It also benefits from the cards in the welcome decks, both red and green.
This brings up another great point. The decks not being tuned is also entirely intended. As long as there have been precons, the decks have intentionally included cards you could easily find that you'd want to change out. This makes customizing the deck easier because the choice of what to take out is less hard. This is especially needed for players who have only played a handful of games because this will be their literal first time experiencing a fundamental part of Magic.
In particular, I would assume the large number of 1- and 2-ofs is to make the out-of-the-box play experience have as much replayability as possible since it's likely that the target audience would be treating it as a fixed experience like monopoly, so having a greater variety of card combinations will prevent the base experience from getting stale too quickly.
I just don't get why wizards is so scared of making products that people actually want to buy.
This. This right here. This is where you're going wrong. Wizards makes a ton of products that people want to buy. They make different products for different demographics. What they don't want is the product they make for one demographic being bought by a different one. The classic example of this was a commander deck being bought out by legacy players. The intended audience of commander players didn't have access to a product designed for them because a different demographic bought them out. They've taken steps to avoid that happening since then. It's no different with this. They are designing this product entirely and completely for people who don't play Magic. This affects the card complexity, the way the decks come in a predetermined order with an on-rails experience, the on-shelf availability because nobody else will be buying it.
This is a tutorial product. Once you know how to play you don't need the tutorial anymore. Replaying the tutorial in a digital game requires trivial setup, but shipping a new copy of this to a shelf in a store is definitely not guaranteed and not at all immediate. Again, the prime place for these to be displayed to reach non players is mass market stores like Walmart. That's not at all the same as a game shop who will know their local player's willingness to buy a second or third print run of a master's set or the years's commander decks.
This. This right here. This is where you're going wrong. Wizards makes a ton of products that people want to buy. They make different products for different demographics. What they don't want is the product they make for one demographic being bought by a different one. The classic example of this was a commander deck being bought out by legacy players. The intended audience of commander players didn't have access to a product designed for them because a different demographic bought them out. They've taken steps to avoid that happening since then. It's no different with this. They are designing this product entirely and completely for people who don't play Magic. This affects the card complexity, the way the decks come in a predetermined order with an on-rails experience, the on-shelf availability because nobody else will be buying it.
The massively flawed logic of this is, that a product that has a monetary value will ALWAYS be sold out, as the product is pure money.
What WotC is doing is simply making the product intentionally so bad, and so terrible, that only total newbies will remotely buy it, for the sole reason that these people have no idea what they are buying in the first place ; they simply dont know the value of these decks anyway.
The moment you sell a product that is worth its money, it will ALWAYS be sold out. And thats not even remotely a bad thing, it simply means its a GREAT product, for absolutely everyone, as everyone that gets their hands on the product has pure gold.
A set that has great monetary value will be sold out everywhere, because it has that good value the cards are great too, everyone that gets the cards is happy.
The real answer to that is to print much MUCH more of it and satisfy the market.
If the WotC answer is to ensure that a set is never that good and nobody wants to buy product, then yes, you will always have enough around so a random person will buy it at some point ... but thats just 100% stupid, in every aspect.
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What WotC is completely failing is simply a process to ensure that a product is in enough quantity to satisfy a market , thats the only real issue the True-named-Nemesis Commander had, people wanted the product so badly for the card, that it sold out, while the other decks of the product line did not sell anywhere close to that ; and as stores have to buy sets of 1 of each of them, its the core of the problem.
Its sooooo easy to fail to identify the actual problem and take some completely non-existing ones as an excuse.
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Making GOOD product is universally good, makes everyone happy.
Making terrible product that can only really be stamped as a "mistake" to buy is just plain terrible.
And this product is just terrible, in all its trying to accomplish.
Its so niche that it simply has no reason to exist at all and theres already product around that accomplishes it better, and more important, totally free.
What is terrible about this product? It's an entry level product for players who never played magic that they can buy at Wal-Mart and Target.
Can I get free intro decks at Wal-Mart? Can I learn to play Magic anywhere else that isn't a LGS? Do I know even know what a LGS is? If the answer is no to all of these 3 questions, then this product can introduce you to MTG.
This product is like training wheels. Useful when learning how to play, easily discarded (or assembled into your collection for future use) when you don't need it, and some people can skip it or don't need it. Are training wheels bad for bikes? No, they help people learn how to ride the bike. And for $15, it's not a bad deal to learn how to play. Pokemon and Force of Will charge more for their intro product, and the Force of Will one doesn't come with 2 decks.
These decks are meant to be played against each other for learning the basics of Magic. Nothing more and nothing less. The decks are preassembled so you can just play straight out of the box and get a taste of Magic. No need to go to a store to learn, no need for someone to explain it to you (and possibly overwhelm you in information), and no need to ask the question "where do I start?".
Let me tell you a terrible product: Planeswalker decks. Planeswalker decks are terrible. They don't teach you how to play, they don't give you a competitive to play at a local event, they don't give you play sets of rares and mythics. Their planeswalker cards are "watered down" so they don't become powerhouses in constructed formats. And it only comes with 1 deck, so your friend who wants to learn how to play has to buy one as well.
Where do you start in Magic? Let's say you are a random older kid/young teenager who stumbles upon Magic at your Wal-Mart while grocery shopping with your parents. What product do you buy? Booster packs, Two player booster battle kit, planeswalker deck, challenger decks, "bundle" box, deckbuilder's toolkit, commander preconstructed deck, MJ Holdings "cube of random crap"? With just what on display at Wal-Mart, where would you start? This product is to answer that question. This is the product to start with learning the game.
It's a good product for someone who's never played Magic before. It doesn't need to be full of financial value, have playsets of cards, be FNM/PPTQ ready out of the box. It's meant to teach the game to people who don't know how to play.
What is terrible about this product? It's an entry level product for players who never played magic that they can buy at Wal-Mart and Target.
Can I get free intro decks at Wal-Mart? Can I learn to play Magic anywhere else that isn't a LGS? Do I know even know what a LGS is? If the answer is no to all of these 3 questions, then this product can introduce you to MTG.
This product is like training wheels. Useful when learning how to play, easily discarded (or assembled into your collection for future use) when you don't need it, and some people can skip it or don't need it. Are training wheels bad for bikes? No, they help people learn how to ride the bike. And for $15, it's not a bad deal to learn how to play. Pokemon and Force of Will charge more for their intro product, and the Force of Will one doesn't come with 2 decks.
These decks are meant to be played against each other for learning the basics of Magic. Nothing more and nothing less. The decks are preassembled so you can just play straight out of the box and get a taste of Magic. No need to go to a store to learn, no need for someone to explain it to you (and possibly overwhelm you in information), and no need to ask the question "where do I start?".
Let me tell you a terrible product: Planeswalker decks. Planeswalker decks are terrible. They don't teach you how to play, they don't give you a competitive to play at a local event, they don't give you play sets of rares and mythics. Their planeswalker cards are "watered down" so they don't become powerhouses in constructed formats. And it only comes with 1 deck, so your friend who wants to learn how to play has to buy one as well.
Where do you start in Magic? Let's say you are a random older kid/young teenager who stumbles upon Magic at your Wal-Mart while grocery shopping with your parents. What product do you buy? Booster packs, Two player booster battle kit, planeswalker deck, challenger decks, "bundle" box, deckbuilder's toolkit, commander preconstructed deck, MJ Holdings "cube of random crap"? With just what on display at Wal-Mart, where would you start? This product is to answer that question. This is the product to start with learning the game.
It's a good product for someone who's never played Magic before. It doesn't need to be full of financial value, have playsets of cards, be FNM/PPTQ ready out of the box. It's meant to teach the game to people who don't know how to play.
To be fair there is a pokemon equivalent to this product that's $9.99, I think that past incarnations even had a play in this order numbered kind of way. I do disagree that the planeswalker decks are a bad idea. They are trying to brand their product with planeswalkers yet they are genreally the rarest cards in each set. I think some of them will have a little play in EDH. Both Ajani's and Tezzerets I think have useful abilities and I really like the mono-blue tezz's ultimate.
I do think that they need to streamline the intro products a little bit. They have welcome decks, deckbuilder toolkit, this new deck, planeswalker decks. Out of all of these they should probably axe the toolkit.
I think that people need to understand too is that to an extent all magic players are voracious. I've been mostly kitchen table the last two years and I still buy product even when I'm really not into the game as I used to be. I'll probably get it if the GRN cards are cool.
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Embrace the dark you call a home,
Gaze upon an empty, white throne
A legacy of lies,
A familiar disguise
Sing with me a song of conquest and fate
The black pillar cracks beneath its weight
Night breaks through the day, hard as a stone
Lost in thoughts all alone
The main thing that this product does differently is that it has the pre-shuffled, built-in tutorial to teach people how to play. People do't realize that MTG is a very complex game compared to braindead tripe like Hearthstone and its other modern competitors. Plenty of other games have a product like this. Stop crying lmao
I'm guessing most of the commenters/lurkers here aren't old enough (or haven't been playing long enough) to remember the original 'on rails' Magic starter kit. They tried it a couple of times, and Portal was probably the most successful version of this.
It was fantastic. the first game you play, you don't shuffle. It walks you through a game step by step. Perfect! Then of course, you shuffle up and play a more variable game, and then later you can add more cards of your own choosing to create a personal deck.
can't think of a better way to start really. MTG is a complex game, and this sort of product is a sorely needed piece of the puzzle that was absent for a long time.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
I just don't get why wizards is so scared of making products that people actually want to buy.
This. This right here. This is where you're going wrong. Wizards makes a ton of products that people want to buy.
I disagree. Today I went to my flgs and I saw precontructed decks just sitting on the shelf. There was a full stack of all the challenger decks, latest dual decks (the chinese one, new elfs vs goblins and barbarians vs bad storm) intro decks and even older stuff like Kynaios and Tiro commander precon. I see this every time I go to my flgs. Last Friday when it was the release for the new commanders there were two people with a new precon.
The fact that wotc keeps cancelling these products should be a sign to see that maybe they aren't selling.
My LGS still has Dragon's Maze boosters despite selling them for $1.99.
WotC does make a lot of products with such a little market that "I'm not the target audience" is not an excuse anymore. They're wasting paper, time, product slots and storage space.
Interesting bit with these is that, as packaged, the order of the decks is predetermined, so the first game between the two is guaranteed to be playable with quality starting hands, minimal flooding out, and removal being drawn on time. This level of first-exposure product design is something not present in ANY existing Magic product.
Really? Shouldn't they have a digital tutorial product by now? I am quite certain at least part of vthe first Gideon campaign of Magic Duels was not randomized.
But that's what this is: A physical tutorial product. That's why it's called a Starter Kit. It's not an ideal product, but it serves.
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
I think this is a great product... so long as they make it abundently clear that it is not for current players. I feel it is a good product for gauging how good are they at marketing to the younger crowd, i.e. fresh blood. If this product tanks... i think magic is in a bad shape, since it means no one outside of already-with-vested-interest players is interested in magic.
The product offers more value than the equivalently-priced opening of four random boosters. The deck is affordable enough to compete with similar Pokemon products. It's not filled with valuable standard-legal cards, avoiding being savaged by enfranchised players ripping the product for cards.
How is this a problem? What does it matter who buys the product as long as it gets bought? And if the stores run out of product then wotc can just print moar.
I just don't get why wizards is so scared of making products that people actually want to buy.
It is a problem because it doesn't bring in new players. Which is the entire point of this product: To bring in new players.
New players = larger customer base.
Larger customer base = more money for WotC.
More money for WotC = WotC is more likely to be willing to take a risk on a future magic product.
WotC being more likely to be willing to take a risk on a future magic product = more playable cards/reprints for us.
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It's about time for the reserved list to die, for the sake of Vintage and Legacy (And Commander).
Interesting bit with these is that, as packaged, the order of the decks is predetermined, so the first game between the two is guaranteed to be playable with quality starting hands, minimal flooding out, and removal being drawn on time. This level of first-exposure product design is something not present in ANY existing Magic product.
Anyone complaining about the secondary market value of the contents of this product is completely missing the point of this product and that they are not intended the audience this product is for.
Specifically: This product is intentionally not designed for people who play Magic. If you are a Magic player, this product is not for you.
This product is intended to make people who don't know about Magic into players. That's why it's going to be sold at mass market stores where you will find people who don't know about Magic. The 30-card welcome decks are fundamentally not effective at drawing in new players given that you can only reach people who already willingly stumble into a comic book and card shop. Those decks only work on people who are already in the proximity of Magic being played, likely because they're already playing similarly complex games. This new product is trying to grab people who are not in that bubble, people who are not on forums, people who aren't going to a gaming shop. That is how you make players out of non players.
Older Magic as a Board Game: Panglacial Wurm , Mill
Turn 1:
P1: Plains, play Devoted Hero, done
P2: Island, done
Turn 2:
P1: Mountain, attack with Devoted Hero (remember, you don't tap lands when attacking with creature, only when you cast it ), play Hulking Goblin, done.
P2: Swamp, play Storm Crow, done
...
This brings back many fond memories.
How is this a problem? What does it matter who buys the product as long as it gets bought? And if the stores run out of product then wotc can just print moar.
I just don't get why wizards is so scared of making products that people actually want to buy.
The step by step guide better be a comic featuring the same guy found in the 7th, 8th, and 9th edition starter core games.
Damn, good times. But if i m not wrong the 7th edition were 2 decks with 2 cards each (if I m not mistaken)
This in other hand is 2 decks with 60 cards.
1) The product was not selling for MSRP and was selling out everywhere. The intended design for those challenger decks is to have an FNM playable deck at your LGS for players who want to play but don't have a deck. People were buying them out and selling them for higher values, basically "scalping" these products. WotC kept printing them, but it took some time until I was able to find them for MSRP. Chandra alone was $40, thus making the MSRP of the product just pure value for everyone.
2) People who bought Chandra, Torch of Defiance were upset that the value of their card starting to lose value. Mono Red aggro was and still is a top tier Standard deck. Imagine buying your copies of this card and immediately it loses its value. Gives players a "feels bad" moment. It also lowers the value of the card in the set that it comes out in. A lot of value that was locked in Kaladesh (besides the Inventions) was in a couple of card, and one of them is losing its value because its printed in a Challenger deck.
If this product has significantly more value than the MSRP has in it, the product won't reach the intended audience. It will go to scalpers and/or be stripped for the pricey cards, thus becoming harder to find for the intended players.
This Spellslinger deck is not meant for FNM play. It's meant to teach new players how to play. The mechanics in this product are not as complex as a challenger deck becuase they are both meant for 2 different audiences.
Standard: Risky Burn, Aggro/Burn, Tempo
Modern: Goblins, Budget 8 Rack, Soul Sisters, 42 Land Swan Hunt, Stompy, Burn
Pauper: Miracles, Madness
This product doesn't need to be worth $50 but it could at least contain it's MSRP worth of truly playable cards so that the people who learn to play with it don't have to immediatelly spend more money because the crap WotC shoved into their hands couldn't even beat a mediocre draft deck.
They have put some value into the product already. Ghalta, Primal Hunger is 7-8 bucks after this announcement. Plus there is another rare from Guilds of Ravnica that hasn't been spoiled yet. So if you take that into account, you're paying for an 8 dollar card, plus 119 other cards worth of minuscule value, plus spindown dice for the other 7 dollars. It's not good value, but this product isn't intended for value, it's intended for new players who want to learn the game.
This 100%. This guy gets it. I don't plan on buying it, but I'm not the audience and neither are most of you on this forum.
Standard: Risky Burn, Aggro/Burn, Tempo
Modern: Goblins, Budget 8 Rack, Soul Sisters, 42 Land Swan Hunt, Stompy, Burn
Pauper: Miracles, Madness
There are dozens of products produced for Magic players yearly. I don't get why people want everything to be for them all the time.
If you think this product is going to flop, then don't buy it. If you think it will fail then this will be the only one they do ever.
Older Magic as a Board Game: Panglacial Wurm , Mill
1. Then you print moar? Eventually the market will be flooded with chandras and the value would crash to 2 dollars or less. 15 dollar msrp duel decks will be left on the shelf for the few people who don't have their fifth playset of chandra.
2. This is a problem that wotc has created by themselves. They have cultivated this elitist card market environment where cards spike to ridiculous prices. Only way to solve this is to print moar. The "feel bad" of cards dropping wont so bad when their cardboard's value drops to 2 dollars from 5 dollars instead from 40 dollars.
Even if you want intro decks to have simple gameplay doesn't mean you can't put good cards in them. Tarmogoyf and lightning bolt aren't complex cards.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
There are other products that reprint cards and there are other products that print new and valuable cards. Nobody is making you buy this entry-level product, so I'm confused why you are complaining about it existing. If they wanted you (an established player) to buy it, they would have included a reason for you to do so. They don't want you to buy it and you're complaining that they're not catering to you...? This brings up another great point. The decks not being tuned is also entirely intended. As long as there have been precons, the decks have intentionally included cards you could easily find that you'd want to change out. This makes customizing the deck easier because the choice of what to take out is less hard. This is especially needed for players who have only played a handful of games because this will be their literal first time experiencing a fundamental part of Magic.
In particular, I would assume the large number of 1- and 2-ofs is to make the out-of-the-box play experience have as much replayability as possible since it's likely that the target audience would be treating it as a fixed experience like monopoly, so having a greater variety of card combinations will prevent the base experience from getting stale too quickly.
This. This right here. This is where you're going wrong. Wizards makes a ton of products that people want to buy. They make different products for different demographics. What they don't want is the product they make for one demographic being bought by a different one. The classic example of this was a commander deck being bought out by legacy players. The intended audience of commander players didn't have access to a product designed for them because a different demographic bought them out. They've taken steps to avoid that happening since then. It's no different with this. They are designing this product entirely and completely for people who don't play Magic. This affects the card complexity, the way the decks come in a predetermined order with an on-rails experience, the on-shelf availability because nobody else will be buying it.
This is a tutorial product. Once you know how to play you don't need the tutorial anymore. Replaying the tutorial in a digital game requires trivial setup, but shipping a new copy of this to a shelf in a store is definitely not guaranteed and not at all immediate. Again, the prime place for these to be displayed to reach non players is mass market stores like Walmart. That's not at all the same as a game shop who will know their local player's willingness to buy a second or third print run of a master's set or the years's commander decks.
Older Magic as a Board Game: Panglacial Wurm , Mill
The massively flawed logic of this is, that a product that has a monetary value will ALWAYS be sold out, as the product is pure money.
What WotC is doing is simply making the product intentionally so bad, and so terrible, that only total newbies will remotely buy it, for the sole reason that these people have no idea what they are buying in the first place ; they simply dont know the value of these decks anyway.
The moment you sell a product that is worth its money, it will ALWAYS be sold out. And thats not even remotely a bad thing, it simply means its a GREAT product, for absolutely everyone, as everyone that gets their hands on the product has pure gold.
A set that has great monetary value will be sold out everywhere, because it has that good value the cards are great too, everyone that gets the cards is happy.
The real answer to that is to print much MUCH more of it and satisfy the market.
If the WotC answer is to ensure that a set is never that good and nobody wants to buy product, then yes, you will always have enough around so a random person will buy it at some point ... but thats just 100% stupid, in every aspect.
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What WotC is completely failing is simply a process to ensure that a product is in enough quantity to satisfy a market , thats the only real issue the True-named-Nemesis Commander had, people wanted the product so badly for the card, that it sold out, while the other decks of the product line did not sell anywhere close to that ; and as stores have to buy sets of 1 of each of them, its the core of the problem.
Its sooooo easy to fail to identify the actual problem and take some completely non-existing ones as an excuse.
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Making GOOD product is universally good, makes everyone happy.
Making terrible product that can only really be stamped as a "mistake" to buy is just plain terrible.
And this product is just terrible, in all its trying to accomplish.
Its so niche that it simply has no reason to exist at all and theres already product around that accomplishes it better, and more important, totally free.
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Can I get free intro decks at Wal-Mart? Can I learn to play Magic anywhere else that isn't a LGS? Do I know even know what a LGS is? If the answer is no to all of these 3 questions, then this product can introduce you to MTG.
This product is like training wheels. Useful when learning how to play, easily discarded (or assembled into your collection for future use) when you don't need it, and some people can skip it or don't need it. Are training wheels bad for bikes? No, they help people learn how to ride the bike. And for $15, it's not a bad deal to learn how to play. Pokemon and Force of Will charge more for their intro product, and the Force of Will one doesn't come with 2 decks.
These decks are meant to be played against each other for learning the basics of Magic. Nothing more and nothing less. The decks are preassembled so you can just play straight out of the box and get a taste of Magic. No need to go to a store to learn, no need for someone to explain it to you (and possibly overwhelm you in information), and no need to ask the question "where do I start?".
Let me tell you a terrible product: Planeswalker decks. Planeswalker decks are terrible. They don't teach you how to play, they don't give you a competitive to play at a local event, they don't give you play sets of rares and mythics. Their planeswalker cards are "watered down" so they don't become powerhouses in constructed formats. And it only comes with 1 deck, so your friend who wants to learn how to play has to buy one as well.
Where do you start in Magic? Let's say you are a random older kid/young teenager who stumbles upon Magic at your Wal-Mart while grocery shopping with your parents. What product do you buy? Booster packs, Two player booster battle kit, planeswalker deck, challenger decks, "bundle" box, deckbuilder's toolkit, commander preconstructed deck, MJ Holdings "cube of random crap"? With just what on display at Wal-Mart, where would you start? This product is to answer that question. This is the product to start with learning the game.
It's a good product for someone who's never played Magic before. It doesn't need to be full of financial value, have playsets of cards, be FNM/PPTQ ready out of the box. It's meant to teach the game to people who don't know how to play.
Standard: Risky Burn, Aggro/Burn, Tempo
Modern: Goblins, Budget 8 Rack, Soul Sisters, 42 Land Swan Hunt, Stompy, Burn
Pauper: Miracles, Madness
To be fair there is a pokemon equivalent to this product that's $9.99, I think that past incarnations even had a play in this order numbered kind of way. I do disagree that the planeswalker decks are a bad idea. They are trying to brand their product with planeswalkers yet they are genreally the rarest cards in each set. I think some of them will have a little play in EDH. Both Ajani's and Tezzerets I think have useful abilities and I really like the mono-blue tezz's ultimate.
I do think that they need to streamline the intro products a little bit. They have welcome decks, deckbuilder toolkit, this new deck, planeswalker decks. Out of all of these they should probably axe the toolkit.
I think that people need to understand too is that to an extent all magic players are voracious. I've been mostly kitchen table the last two years and I still buy product even when I'm really not into the game as I used to be. I'll probably get it if the GRN cards are cool.
Gaze upon an empty, white throne
A legacy of lies,
A familiar disguise
Sing with me a song of conquest and fate
The black pillar cracks beneath its weight
Night breaks through the day, hard as a stone
Lost in thoughts all alone
I'm guessing most of the commenters/lurkers here aren't old enough (or haven't been playing long enough) to remember the original 'on rails' Magic starter kit. They tried it a couple of times, and Portal was probably the most successful version of this.
It was fantastic. the first game you play, you don't shuffle. It walks you through a game step by step. Perfect! Then of course, you shuffle up and play a more variable game, and then later you can add more cards of your own choosing to create a personal deck.
can't think of a better way to start really. MTG is a complex game, and this sort of product is a sorely needed piece of the puzzle that was absent for a long time.
I disagree. Today I went to my flgs and I saw precontructed decks just sitting on the shelf. There was a full stack of all the challenger decks, latest dual decks (the chinese one, new elfs vs goblins and barbarians vs bad storm) intro decks and even older stuff like Kynaios and Tiro commander precon. I see this every time I go to my flgs. Last Friday when it was the release for the new commanders there were two people with a new precon.
The fact that wotc keeps cancelling these products should be a sign to see that maybe they aren't selling.
WotC does make a lot of products with such a little market that "I'm not the target audience" is not an excuse anymore. They're wasting paper, time, product slots and storage space.
Really? Shouldn't they have a digital tutorial product by now? I am quite certain at least part of vthe first Gideon campaign of Magic Duels was not randomized.
But that's what this is: A physical tutorial product. That's why it's called a Starter Kit. It's not an ideal product, but it serves.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
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Oooh Dicey:
[dice=1]100[/dice]
It is a problem because it doesn't bring in new players. Which is the entire point of this product: To bring in new players.
New players = larger customer base.
Larger customer base = more money for WotC.
More money for WotC = WotC is more likely to be willing to take a risk on a future magic product.
WotC being more likely to be willing to take a risk on a future magic product = more playable cards/reprints for us.
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Numquam evolutioni obstes. Solum conculceris.
Pascite draconem, evolvite aut morimini.
They put "Starter Kit" in its name. I assume that's not abundant enough. What else?
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO