Hierarchs are going for 40-50 U.S. on some Ebay sales, so prices are dropping.
My biggest hope is for some needed EDH reprints, like Three Visits, Council's Judgment, Tooth & Nail and such.
Not betting the farm on those, but 3visits would be an amazing boon.
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The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
Sadly I fear it will tank the stuff that's more rare and not played much, but won't have much effect on high priced staples.
The idea of this set making a significant dent in the high priced staples is a pipe dream. Not at the $14 a pack price point. Tarmogoyf has been consistently reprinted (all 3 modern masters sets) and is still a $60 card. And I suspect the reason he's down to $60 from his old average of around $100 has more to do with the dominance of Delve spells and Fatal Push than any increase in availability.
Even if there's still a ton of incredible cards that get reprinted in this set, the MSRP doesn't give significant room for the prices on those cards to drop. The EV on a box may be worth the exorbitant price, but unless the box toppers hold insane levels of value, the cards have to keep the prices up, or the EV drops to the point that no on opens any of the product, and then their isn't an influx of singles lowering their prices. Besides, the most likely cards to see their prices drop are the marginal ones. Things like Balefire Dragon, Platinum Emperion and other marginal (although currently above pack price) Mythics will get hit hardest, while sought after things like Karn Liberated may see slight dips that promptly disappear quickly.
Look at things like Leovald, Emissary of Trest. Reprints in Masters sets don't cause prices to drop, bannings (Banned in commander, Deathrite banned in Legacy) are what cut his value in half.
The way wizards is pricing (as well as printing levels), these reprints aren't the difference in taking $40 cards down to $20. They are the difference between $40 cards being out of stock vs available for purchase. It's better than nothing, but hard to get excited about.
But the fact is there are so many high value cards here, it's not like the past couple MM sets where it was largely Tarmo-or-bust. There'a a lot more spread here to soak up value that it's not like they increased the price of the MM2 Tarmo lotto ticket by 40% without increasing payouts. There's a *lot* of different payouts here other than Tarmo. People aren't dependent on their box having a Tarmo to break even.
Past MM sets also weren't sold at bundle-discount at Walmart either.
If you pull a foil of one of the top dollar cards (not including the box topper) you've pretty much made a good chuck of if not all of your money back by that alone.
I never got into the *Masters sets other than a Modern Masters II (pulled a Tezzeret!) but this one I might delve into. Depends on what else is in it before making that decision. If push comes to shove I'd rather just spend the money on the originals.
'buster
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'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset. Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
I'm cynical that the "MSRP and valuation to match" system is one purposely engineered to precisely not reduce secondary market prices in the longer run, which in turn elevates the pricing of the primary product... I mean we do have evidence now the MSRP of Masters are only heading in one direction... and it's not down.
That they printed deathrite shaman in a pre-con once it was banned in all relevant formats is all you need to know to confirm that they use the secondary value of cards to drive they product design choices. The Golgari guild pre-con would never have contained the shaman without it being banned.
Maybe there will be some shops that will sell you a box at a discount if you agree on giving them back the topper? Given volume, they can figure the average EV of the topper and make the box price reasonable again. (Toppers have a built-in > x24 multiplier on rarity for the rare and mythic ones, so the price of the non-crappy ones should be high enough to give a nice average value.) Can we hope of MSRP-MT of 240$? That would be a nice price given the nice set of known rares and mythics.
Just a heads-up: many stores seem to be getting these at a very low Buy price. This set seems to be more of "We're sorry" from WotC to LGSs after the horribleness of Mythic Edition, allowing the LGS to charge up to the "Retail" price if they want to make a large profit on this product. Here's hoping we can all get one of these for around $250 instead, which is an extremely good price, IMO!
Wotc does not sell direct to stores anymore, they are not getting them at low buy prices from wotc. the distributers selling to lgs may have a fire sale because they thing they cant move it, but thats a different story, it costs us 177.63 a box to order. so not a great discount just a touch under 50% percent which is our normal discount.
I think this is WoTC cashing out of directly supporting older formats and they are setting the price high because they don't want to burn all their equity at once on these older cards. The company actually wants the cards expensive because it is the stick to their standard carrot. They are trying to say "buy cards when they are in standard or rotate out, or this will happen when you leave the game for 2 or 3 years." It's effectively a way to keep players who are dedicated in the game even when the game is not doing well.
I've been burned horribly on my first ever masters set and I'm going to say this now: it's better to not buy this at 250 dollars blind. There is a good chance this might have been the best the set has to offer and they threw the box topper in there to try and float the boxes. They don't want the prices to collapse down to sub 200 dollars either like the last two sets, so they raised the MSRP to a level where the distributors are going to be selling these at 180-190 a box if someone is lucky to 200-220 dollars a box for the unfortunate.
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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!
So instead of breaking up their sponsorship with Star City Games and Channel Fireball in order to avoid more insider trading, Wizards of the Coast decided to release Ultimate Masters in another attempt to devalue Modern legal cards to the point where Magic becomes more of a consumer friendly game when the problem is that it wasn't enough to tank the value of these cards within the Secondary Market. There's simply not enough supply to meet the actual demand for these cards since the more high value reprints they cram into a supplementary product like Ultimate Masters, the more expensive the MSRP and booster pack price point becomes.
The only way for the LGS to be able to turn a profit on these supplementary products is by reducing the amount of high value reprints in order to lower the MSRP and the cost of a booster pack. What we continue to see time and time again with these Masters sets is that Wizards of the Coast is trying to put all their eggs in one basket in the hopes that it will sell when it doesn't. This is why a lot of their customers cater more toward Singles Sellers where they're not paying as much for the cards they need even though the demand for the cards say otherwise. I think the Spellbook series was a step in the right direction for how they should be distributing high value reprints in small quantities.
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"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
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Worth noting--boxes on TCGP have been falling by $10 each day since the announcement. Stores either know something we don't or are very pessimistic.
I also think it's quite amusing to see people surprised that the MSRP has gone up.
MM1, $8.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
MM2, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
EMA, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
MM3, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
IMA, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought enough
M25, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought enough
MED, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
UMA, $14.00/pack MSRP, people will buy it out
Why would WotC/Hasbro have any incentive to start reducing prices?
I have not looked at he full spoiler yet. Is there anything in the set on the level of Tree of Redemption, Channel or Triskaidekaphobia? Having pulled all three, I am super wary of any Masters set that includes such awful junk rares/mythics (well Channel is not junk but it is banned in all the formats I play and therefore is worthless to me).
I have not looked at he full spoiler yet. Is there anything in the set on the level of Tree of Redemption, Channel or Triskaidekaphobia? Having pulled all three, I am super wary of any Masters set that includes such awful junk rares/mythics (well Channel is not junk but it is banned in all the formats I play and therefore is worthless to me).
We're 213 cards away from the full spoiler. Will be out around 19th/20th/21st this month though.
I have not looked at he full spoiler yet. Is there anything in the set on the level of Tree of Redemption, Channel or Triskaidekaphobia? Having pulled all three, I am super wary of any Masters set that includes such awful junk rares/mythics (well Channel is not junk but it is banned in all the formats I play and therefore is worthless to me).
We're 213 cards away from the full spoiler. Will be out around 19th/20th/21st this month though.
We have been told that the box topper 40 contains all (20) of the set's Mythics. So at the very least, we know that there won't be a Channel or Tree level Mythic dud. It looks like the lowest value Mythics in the set are currently ~$15 (Balefire Dragon, Lord of Extinction, Sigarda)
Of the 19 rares we know about so far, only three are sub-$15 at present, though it is expected that there will be plenty more.
I have not looked at he full spoiler yet. Is there anything in the set on the level of Tree of Redemption, Channel or Triskaidekaphobia? Having pulled all three, I am super wary of any Masters set that includes such awful junk rares/mythics (well Channel is not junk but it is banned in all the formats I play and therefore is worthless to me).
We're 213 cards away from the full spoiler. Will be out around 19th/20th/21st this month though.
We have been told that the box topper 40 contains all (20) of the set's Mythics. So at the very least, we know that there won't be a Channel or Tree level Mythic dud. It looks like the lowest value Mythics in the set are currently ~$15 (Balefire Dragon, Lord of Extinction, Sigarda)
Of the 19 rares we know about so far, only three are sub-$15 at present, though it is expected that there will be plenty more.
So instead of breaking up their sponsorship with Star City Games and Channel Fireball in order to avoid more insider trading, Wizards of the Coast decided to release Ultimate Masters in another attempt to devalue Modern legal cards to the point where Magic becomes more of a consumer friendly game when the problem is that it wasn't enough to tank the value of these cards within the Secondary Market. There's simply not enough supply to meet the actual demand for these cards since the more high value reprints they cram into a supplementary product like Ultimate Masters, the more expensive the MSRP and booster pack price point becomes.
The only way for the LGS to be able to turn a profit on these supplementary products is by reducing the amount of high value reprints in order to lower the MSRP and the cost of a booster pack. What we continue to see time and time again with these Masters sets is that Wizards of the Coast is trying to put all their eggs in one basket in the hopes that it will sell when it doesn't. This is why a lot of their customers cater more toward Singles Sellers where they're not paying as much for the cards they need even though the demand for the cards say otherwise. I think the Spellbook series was a step in the right direction for how they should be distributing high value reprints in small quantities.
Worth noting--boxes on TCGP have been falling by $10 each day since the announcement. Stores either know something we don't or are very pessimistic.
Well, I mean, they COULD consider not basing the MSRP on the secondary market value of the reprints, and just not make it a limited print-run product. That'd be another way to not have an insane MSRP.
As for stores, well, they know this:
Product got announced this week.
Product releases in December.
Product has a ridiculous MSRP.
I know my store's management is just absolutely confused/irritated by this product and doesn't know how much or even if they should order any. It likely won't sit, but it's not going to be flying off the shelves, either. Stores have to order this basically now, based on knowing nothing but the Box-Topper cards, and that it has a ridiculously higher MSRP just in time for the Christmas shopping season.
I also think it's quite amusing to see people surprised that the MSRP has gone up.
MM1, $8.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
MM2, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
EMA, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
MM3, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
IMA, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought enough
M25, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought enough
MED, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
UMA, $14.00/pack MSRP, people will buy it out
Why would WotC/Hasbro have any incentive to start reducing prices?
MED is the Ravnica Mythic Edition? That doesn't count.
They may not need to reduce but there's no real need to increase, either. There's no progressive increases in MSRP. Maybe if they climbed over time, sure. But it went from 8 to 10 and sat there for years. Then suddenly 14.
Not to mention there's a huge difference between what stores order and what people actually buy. I guarantee there are stores still sitting on Iconic and M25. Saying "People bought it out/bought enough" is kind of pointless.
Seeing people complain about this on Facebook is so annoying. Go play Yugioh. You'll get hammered into oblivion just trying and Konami will spit in your face for it. No one is obligated to buy this product. It's only a plus to have these cards available to those who can and will, rather than not. Because if we didn't have some promise of reprints, some addition to the card pool, then the secondary market will run wild with its prices. And at that point, who does everyone blame? Never the hoarders or scalpers, it'll be WOTC fault for not reprinting more. And if the reprints are too accessible? Their fault again for not honoring MTG as a collector's game. It's hilarious to me that the complaints are that these reprints may not lower the price of the secondary market cards - MAY NOT, neglecting the fact it's a valid possibility it may - and neglecting the fact those secondary market prices are the fault of the losers who establish them because MTG isn't a game, but an investment to them.
I don't know about the US or the EU, but here in Canada boxes are being limited to 1 booster box per person and by some of the biggest lgs in all of canada. Don't know if it's due to a small print run or the distributor hoarding them. Prices are staying steady at $400 for now anyways
A masters set is great for everybody, just so long as you're not the chump who buys it. Anything that increases the supply of great cards while decreasing their value is a good thing in my book.
Masters sets are the best products to never buy. High card values are the greatest enemy of the game, and masters sets helped that. I'm sad to see them go, but obviously I'm not shelling out fourteen bucks a pack for a fool's purchase like this.
Anyone else notice that the wording is different on the ruling for Dark Depths about creating a Legendary token, than our most recent iteration of a Legendary-token producer (reprint) of Tolsimir Wolfblood? Instead of saying "creat a token, named" it simply states the name, and all the rulings that come with said token.
Anyone else notice that the wording is different on the ruling for Dark Depths about creating a Legendary token, than our most recent iteration of a Legendary-token producer (reprint) of Tolsimir Wolfblood? Instead of saying "creat a token, named" it simply states the name, and all the rulings that come with said token.
Dark Depths follows the new templating of Verix Bladewing. Not sure why Tolsimir abandons that template, but it might just be that they had sent off the Guild decks to be printed before Dominaria was printed? That seems unlikely, but I can't think of a better reason.
Seeing people complain about this on Facebook is so annoying. Go play Yugioh. You'll get hammered into oblivion just trying and Konami will spit in your face for it. No one is obligated to buy this product. It's only a plus to have these cards available to those who can and will, rather than not. Because if we didn't have some promise of reprints, some addition to the card pool, then the secondary market will run wild with its prices. And at that point, who does everyone blame? Never the hoarders or scalpers, it'll be WOTC fault for not reprinting more. And if the reprints are too accessible? Their fault again for not honoring MTG as a collector's game. It's hilarious to me that the complaints are that these reprints may not lower the price of the secondary market cards - MAY NOT, neglecting the fact it's a valid possibility it may - and neglecting the fact those secondary market prices are the fault of the losers who establish them because MTG isn't a game, but an investment to them.
An investment.
Laughable.
I agree. Everyone is complaining because it's so expensive to buy a box, but the why the crap do people even buy boxes in the first place? Such a waste of money. THIS IS A GAME – IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE FUN.
I'm going to enjoy myself by doing either one or two UMA drafts, and if I open something sweet, great! If I win, even better! Sure it's more expensive than a regular draft, but I'm willing to fork out that little bit of extra money for the experience.
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My biggest hope is for some needed EDH reprints, like Three Visits, Council's Judgment, Tooth & Nail and such.
Not betting the farm on those, but 3visits would be an amazing boon.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
The idea of this set making a significant dent in the high priced staples is a pipe dream. Not at the $14 a pack price point. Tarmogoyf has been consistently reprinted (all 3 modern masters sets) and is still a $60 card. And I suspect the reason he's down to $60 from his old average of around $100 has more to do with the dominance of Delve spells and Fatal Push than any increase in availability.
Even if there's still a ton of incredible cards that get reprinted in this set, the MSRP doesn't give significant room for the prices on those cards to drop. The EV on a box may be worth the exorbitant price, but unless the box toppers hold insane levels of value, the cards have to keep the prices up, or the EV drops to the point that no on opens any of the product, and then their isn't an influx of singles lowering their prices. Besides, the most likely cards to see their prices drop are the marginal ones. Things like Balefire Dragon, Platinum Emperion and other marginal (although currently above pack price) Mythics will get hit hardest, while sought after things like Karn Liberated may see slight dips that promptly disappear quickly.
Look at things like Leovald, Emissary of Trest. Reprints in Masters sets don't cause prices to drop, bannings (Banned in commander, Deathrite banned in Legacy) are what cut his value in half.
The way wizards is pricing (as well as printing levels), these reprints aren't the difference in taking $40 cards down to $20. They are the difference between $40 cards being out of stock vs available for purchase. It's better than nothing, but hard to get excited about.
Past MM sets also weren't sold at bundle-discount at Walmart either.
I never got into the *Masters sets other than a Modern Masters II (pulled a Tezzeret!) but this one I might delve into. Depends on what else is in it before making that decision. If push comes to shove I'd rather just spend the money on the originals.
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset.
Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
That they printed deathrite shaman in a pre-con once it was banned in all relevant formats is all you need to know to confirm that they use the secondary value of cards to drive they product design choices. The Golgari guild pre-con would never have contained the shaman without it being banned.
Maybe there will be some shops that will sell you a box at a discount if you agree on giving them back the topper? Given volume, they can figure the average EV of the topper and make the box price reasonable again. (Toppers have a built-in > x24 multiplier on rarity for the rare and mythic ones, so the price of the non-crappy ones should be high enough to give a nice average value.) Can we hope of MSRP-MT of 240$? That would be a nice price given the nice set of known rares and mythics.
this is people who have no faith in the product.
I've been burned horribly on my first ever masters set and I'm going to say this now: it's better to not buy this at 250 dollars blind. There is a good chance this might have been the best the set has to offer and they threw the box topper in there to try and float the boxes. They don't want the prices to collapse down to sub 200 dollars either like the last two sets, so they raised the MSRP to a level where the distributors are going to be selling these at 180-190 a box if someone is lucky to 200-220 dollars a box for the unfortunate.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The only way for the LGS to be able to turn a profit on these supplementary products is by reducing the amount of high value reprints in order to lower the MSRP and the cost of a booster pack. What we continue to see time and time again with these Masters sets is that Wizards of the Coast is trying to put all their eggs in one basket in the hopes that it will sell when it doesn't. This is why a lot of their customers cater more toward Singles Sellers where they're not paying as much for the cards they need even though the demand for the cards say otherwise. I think the Spellbook series was a step in the right direction for how they should be distributing high value reprints in small quantities.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I also think it's quite amusing to see people surprised that the MSRP has gone up.
MM1, $8.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
MM2, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
EMA, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
MM3, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
IMA, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought enough
M25, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought enough
MED, $10.00/pack MSRP, people bought it out
UMA, $14.00/pack MSRP, people will buy it out
Why would WotC/Hasbro have any incentive to start reducing prices?
We have been told that the box topper 40 contains all (20) of the set's Mythics. So at the very least, we know that there won't be a Channel or Tree level Mythic dud. It looks like the lowest value Mythics in the set are currently ~$15 (Balefire Dragon, Lord of Extinction, Sigarda)
Of the 19 rares we know about so far, only three are sub-$15 at present, though it is expected that there will be plenty more.
Well that's really exciting!
Well, I mean, they COULD consider not basing the MSRP on the secondary market value of the reprints, and just not make it a limited print-run product. That'd be another way to not have an insane MSRP.
As for stores, well, they know this:
Product got announced this week.
Product releases in December.
Product has a ridiculous MSRP.
I know my store's management is just absolutely confused/irritated by this product and doesn't know how much or even if they should order any. It likely won't sit, but it's not going to be flying off the shelves, either. Stores have to order this basically now, based on knowing nothing but the Box-Topper cards, and that it has a ridiculously higher MSRP just in time for the Christmas shopping season.
MED is the Ravnica Mythic Edition? That doesn't count.
They may not need to reduce but there's no real need to increase, either. There's no progressive increases in MSRP. Maybe if they climbed over time, sure. But it went from 8 to 10 and sat there for years. Then suddenly 14.
Not to mention there's a huge difference between what stores order and what people actually buy. I guarantee there are stores still sitting on Iconic and M25. Saying "People bought it out/bought enough" is kind of pointless.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
An investment.
Laughable.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
Pass.
Masters sets are the best products to never buy. High card values are the greatest enemy of the game, and masters sets helped that. I'm sad to see them go, but obviously I'm not shelling out fourteen bucks a pack for a fool's purchase like this.
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EDH DECKS
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MAGECRAFT STORM
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Dark Depths follows the new templating of Verix Bladewing. Not sure why Tolsimir abandons that template, but it might just be that they had sent off the Guild decks to be printed before Dominaria was printed? That seems unlikely, but I can't think of a better reason.
I agree. Everyone is complaining because it's so expensive to buy a box, but the why the crap do people even buy boxes in the first place? Such a waste of money. THIS IS A GAME – IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE FUN.
I'm going to enjoy myself by doing either one or two UMA drafts, and if I open something sweet, great! If I win, even better! Sure it's more expensive than a regular draft, but I'm willing to fork out that little bit of extra money for the experience.