Wait...you think that graph tells the future and what I'll open? Well s*** why didn't you say that sooner, I had no idea the person that made that graph was a freakin' prophet that knows what's in every pack.
The next time someone opens a pack with a $1 rare and nothing else of note you can show them that graph to make them feel better.
Wizards never intended the modern format to become as expensive as it is. When they threw the support in for the format because people wanted something free of the reserved list, the entire thing caught them off guard and they made a ton of adjustments based on their fears of possibly repeating chronicles again. The reason modern is failing as a market is because instead of doing the right thing from the start (printing the modern cards in normal or slightly increased price boosters, such as modern masters 2013), they got skittish and instead opted to do the elite baseball card route with the reprints. However, instead of nurturing a format of collectibles as was probably intended, they ended up throwing fuel to the fire and kept having to reprint the same cards over and over even at mythic.
I don't think you understand how badly Wizards screwed up here. What happened is that they not only artificially kept the prices high on cards because of how they reprinted them, they also burned all the reprint equity they had for modern cards like Tarmogoyfat the same time. Nothing in modern can be invested in, which at its core is the feature that makes high end collectibles attractive, and players have been complaining about prices of staple cards for ages. Also, despite what people might see locally, this has resulted in plenty of invested players leaving the game over the past few years. Nobody else uses WOTCs reprint strategy because they all know the only reason this game is even alive is pure momentum and not strategic financial genius.
We're all entitled to our opinions, but I greatly disagree with "can be invested in, which is at its core is the feature that makes high end collectibles attractive"... because I see that is the actual problem, especially nowadays. "Investment" implies the players can see the format as one they can enter to have their fun and then retire from the format while making a profit, which unfortunately from the way I've been observing the game a whole, something too much of the entire "playerbase" thinks they're entitled to.
That being said, I don't disagree with you when you said WotC dropped the ball on the reprints managing the market. My gripe is that the reprints are supposed to "drop" or more accurately, "manage" reprint equity. The actual problem is we have too few powerful individuals/organisations who have way too much confidence in their equity start cornering the market and end up wielding the actual power where prices are concerned. If WotC pretends the stock they hold doesn't exist (because they don't move) and reprints a tad too aggressively, they can easily threaten to outright crash reprint equity pretty much completely by releasing their own stocks (at a loss, but it's basically payment to demonstrate power).
I admit I'm jaded at this point (in fact after that last post I actually managed to quickly summarize it mentally rather crudely as "as long as there are fools who will keep buying risky primary product, it's not a war we can actually win"), but my visual image is WotC technically being held at gunpoint by the major hoarders that if they print enough devalue greatly, those hoarders will just add on to the reprints by releasing their stock, effectively "doubling" the already sufficient supply to overly abundant instead, outright crashing reprint equity and confidence... and guess what the general public would actually blame WotC for it (which is partially true) since these hoarders are better at hiding.
In fact I think WotC is precisely trying to play the hostage game back now, by reducing reprint equity, they want to play a game of attrition hoping these other parties will eventually give up on their stock and release it to the general public. Unfortunately this war of attrition will practically eradicate the smaller, actual players (those players you mentioned) before they can even potentially start to sting their actual targets, which where I think you thought I didn't understand how badly they screwed up... but my actual thought is... is it really that bad a screw up to them (not to us, it's obviously one of the worst scenarios for us) if they already took it into account and wrote it off as a deficit/sacrifice?
I really hate to say this... it technically has already become a case similar to the Reserved List, mainly because WotC screwed up from the start and gave the other side enough time to prep for the exact same strategy that plagued them for the Reserved List (in that even if they got past all the legal ramifications, which is RL-unique, I fundamentally believe they still won't reprint it due to this reason).
To simplify it down, it's basically 1)WotC makes initial mistake followed by 2)Some part of the Secondary Market immediately jumping on it to gain power to "threaten" WotC and then 3) WotC resorting to a war of attrition that basically grinds the game down along with it because they simply refuse to resolve the problem because it invokes the kind of bad PR they deemed worse then one from what's basically happening now.
Wait...you think that graph tells the future and what I'll open? Well s*** why didn't you say that sooner, I had no idea the person that made that graph was a freakin' prophet that knows what's in every pack.
The next time someone opens a pack with a $1 rare and nothing else of note you can show them that graph to make them feel better.
Whether it was a $14 booster or a $3 booster, there’s always been a risk of any given pack not containing even 10% of its face value. This isn’t new to this set just because the price point is higher. Packs are always lotteries. Lotteries don’t make sure everyone exits with a winning ticket.
Wait...you think that graph tells the future and what I'll open? Well s*** why didn't you say that sooner, I had no idea the person that made that graph was a freakin' prophet that knows what's in every pack.
The next time someone opens a pack with a $1 rare and nothing else of note you can show them that graph to make them feel better.
Whether it was a $14 booster or a $3 booster, there’s always been a risk of any given pack not containing even 10% of its face value. This isn’t new to this set just because the price point is higher. Packs are always lotteries. Lotteries don’t make sure everyone exits with a winning ticket.
To play Devil's Advocate, why isn't Magic regulated like the gambling/gaming industry then?
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Wait...you think that graph tells the future and what I'll open? Well s*** why didn't you say that sooner, I had no idea the person that made that graph was a freakin' prophet that knows what's in every pack.
The next time someone opens a pack with a $1 rare and nothing else of note you can show them that graph to make them feel better.
Whether it was a $14 booster or a $3 booster, there’s always been a risk of any given pack not containing even 10% of its face value. This isn’t new to this set just because the price point is higher. Packs are always lotteries. Lotteries don’t make sure everyone exits with a winning ticket.
To play Devil's Advocate, why isn't Magic regulated like the gambling/gaming industry then?
Because you always get something, and Wizards does not acknowledge the secondary market.
To them, Liliana is just as valuable as Healer's Hawk.
Wait...you think that graph tells the future and what I'll open? Well s*** why didn't you say that sooner, I had no idea the person that made that graph was a freakin' prophet that knows what's in every pack.
The next time someone opens a pack with a $1 rare and nothing else of note you can show them that graph to make them feel better.
Whether it was a $14 booster or a $3 booster, there’s always been a risk of any given pack not containing even 10% of its face value. This isn’t new to this set just because the price point is higher. Packs are always lotteries. Lotteries don’t make sure everyone exits with a winning ticket.
To play Devil's Advocate, why isn't Magic regulated like the gambling/gaming industry then?
Because you always get something, and Wizards does not acknowledge the secondary market.
To them, Liliana is just as valuable as Healer's Hawk.
Thats BS. Of course they acknowledge it but don't say it oficially to avoid gambling laws. After all of these years i can't believe that you believe that.
Because you always get something, and Wizards does not acknowledge the secondary market.
To them, Liliana is just as valuable as Healer's Hawk.
Funny stuff. They most definitely pander to the secondary market and if Lily and HH were on equal footing where is that borderless near full art box topper Hawk? Plus I get a slip of paper when I play the Lotto. I get the "thrill" of the gamble when I play the slots or Roulette.
My contention is where is that expectation of return in a "random" pack of Magic cards? And how can a 50 cent rare be considered "premium" in a 14 dollar MSRP "Ulitmate" pack. I can't say I actually blame them if people put the money out for buying these. Where does it end though?
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
lol I dont think they REALLY have no idea, but yes, they intentionally do not OFFICIALLY recognize the secondary market, as I said.
Aware != Acknowledge.
And ignore, skirt around and manipulate does not equal awareness.
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():
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
My contention is where is that expectation of return in a "random" pack of Magic cards? And how can a 50 cent rare be considered "premium" in a 14 dollar MSRP "Ulitmate" pack. I can't say I actually blame them if people put the money out for buying these. Where does it end though?
Name a set in the past 25 years that didn't have risks of pulling less than the value of a pack, or even worthless jank. From Alpha to UMA, are there any sure fire bets? We'll wait.
What you seem to want is guaranteed value, which is something you will only ever get in sealed product with published, listed contents. You will never get that from any randomizes sealed product, and expecting as much will only set you up for the inevitable frustration you are expressing now.
People.... the Lottery wishes it was like MTG. The capacity to exploit the nature of gambling without any legal repercussions simply because the Secondary Market exists. The true wonder of MTG was how it actually got away with this for 20 years and is still going on, where as once other games realize how profitable this system was and tried to replicate it via Gacha Systems and Lootboxes, their communities retaliated a lot harder.
How does it work? Simple. WotC has never provided the "payouts" for their "Lottery" (and obviously they never announced boosters as such, from the very start they practically announced it as selling 50cents worth of cardboard for 4 dollars). The Secondary Market which assigns prices they don't "acknowledge" (FYI, I define acknowledgement strictly in the meaning of "statement" and it's distinct from awareness which needs no communication) and guess what, only the playerbase chooses to recognize it as a "payout".
We cannot argue that having only "randomness" in a product would render the company manufacturing it to be accountable under gambling laws... because that would intrinsically mean even candies (like Skittles/M&Ms) will be considered "gambling" as silly as it sounds. Combine that with that we cannot reasonably hold companies responsible for the Secondary Markets they generate but don't acknowledge because well I can imagine every industry instantaneously getting billions of lawsuits for literally anything and everything that happens and we have the perfect loophole - turns out all you have to do is generate a product that relies on only randomness, coat it with the flavor of a good game and you'll hook up enough "fools" who will create a market that assigns values and provides payouts for a lottery system you can legally claim has nothing to do with you, because if the law wants to claim anything it has to either make it that companies are responsible for the behavior of their customers (which is ridiculous because I can assure you it means there will be no such thing as a restaurant after that) or the company in question released a statement that alludes to their acknowledgement of the product (e.g. WotC advertising you can potentially get a $100 Back to Basics from a $14 booster).
Is it shady, manipulative, exploitative? Absolutely. But at the same time it has been running for 20 years so well I'm also inclined to acknowledge the "genius" part where they made a game so good it convinced enough of its playerbase to willingly suffer under said system in the first place (either that or I have to say MTG players are more stupid than video-gamers if their responses to similar systems in their games are any indicator).
Long story cut short, unfortunately for us, awareness (and manipulation from said awareness) does not equate to responsibility in legal terms. So as long as WotC says with a straight face "we believe we can sell 50 cents of cardboard for $14" without alluding to the entire intricate system behind (which as long as they don't acknowledge with a statement, is essentially a system recognized as "created" by the Secondary Market legally), they can get away with it. That is the unfortunate fact and arguing that it is morally wrong or legally right (Which it is both simultaneously to me) won't make a difference because being right/wrong in one category doesn't automatically being the same in the other.
Packs are always lotteries. Lotteries don’t make sure everyone exits with a winning ticket.
I'd like to know lotteries with 15$ tickets. In my country the most expensive are 5€, but you usually bet 1-2€. Guess why.
Spending 4$ with only 50% chance of pulling something with a 4$+ value isn't the same of spending 14$ with only 50% chence of pulling something with 14$+ value, simply because the initial investment is way more riskier.
I know of lotteries with $100 tickets. Here’s an annual local one for me.
Wait...you think that graph tells the future and what I'll open? Well s*** why didn't you say that sooner, I had no idea the person that made that graph was a freakin' prophet that knows what's in every pack.
The next time someone opens a pack with a $1 rare and nothing else of note you can show them that graph to make them feel better.
Whether it was a $14 booster or a $3 booster, there’s always been a risk of any given pack not containing even 10% of its face value. This isn’t new to this set just because the price point is higher. Packs are always lotteries. Lotteries don’t make sure everyone exits with a winning ticket.
Difference being I'm okay with a $1 card in a $4 pack because that was a quick impulse buy while a $1 card in a $10 pack means I just literally just wasted the equivalent of what it costs to buy dinner at a restaurant to get bread and water.
If I can find the same card in a Core Set, which many of these cards could be in, why would I want to buy it at an increased price?
Converting 14 dollars to the currency of my country... 14$ is equivalent to about a month's worth that I spend on normal lottery. Well, that's a lot... so I can really just afford one or two booster packs, once the set is released.
My contention is where is that expectation of return in a "random" pack of Magic cards? And how can a 50 cent rare be considered "premium" in a 14 dollar MSRP "Ulitmate" pack. I can't say I actually blame them if people put the money out for buying these. Where does it end though?
Name a set in the past 25 years that didn't have risks of pulling less than the value of a pack, or even worthless jank. From Alpha to UMA, are there any sure fire bets? We'll wait.
What you seem to want is guaranteed value, which is something you will only ever get in sealed product with published, listed contents. You will never get that from any randomizes sealed product, and expecting as much will only set you up for the inevitable frustration you are expressing now.
Yes I do want some expectation of value in a pack via leaving chaff cards out. Getting a quarter rare out of a 4 dollar pack is bad enough. Getting a quarter rare out of a freaking 14 dollar pack is inexcusable. And yes Talrand the Scummoner is well on his way to becoming a quarter card as you can preorder it for 50 cents right now. They intentionally put these pieces of crap in because they are absolutely aware of the secondary market and EV. It is not right period. I don't want a Black Lotus in every pack, all I want is the utter refuse to be left out.
And PS, take a look at the price of Manamorphose a flipping common. This is what happens when they don't reprint the right cards at all levels of a set. Thank goodness it will have a robust draft experience so we can pay 25 bucks for a common level card.
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():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
My contention is where is that expectation of return in a "random" pack of Magic cards? And how can a 50 cent rare be considered "premium" in a 14 dollar MSRP "Ulitmate" pack. I can't say I actually blame them if people put the money out for buying these. Where does it end though?
Name a set in the past 25 years that didn't have risks of pulling less than the value of a pack, or even worthless jank. From Alpha to UMA, are there any sure fire bets? We'll wait.
What you seem to want is guaranteed value, which is something you will only ever get in sealed product with published, listed contents. You will never get that from any randomizes sealed product, and expecting as much will only set you up for the inevitable frustration you are expressing now.
Yes I do want some expectation of value in a pack via leaving chaff cards out. Getting a quarter rare out of a 4 dollar pack is bad enough. Getting a quarter rare out of a freaking 14 dollar pack is inexcusable. And yes Talrand the Scummoner is well on his way to becoming a quarter card as you can preorder it for 50 cents right now. They intentionally put these pieces of crap in because they are absolutely aware of the secondary market and EV. It is not right period. I don't want a Black Lotus in every pack, all I want is the utter refuse to be left out.
And PS, take a look at the price of Manamorphose a flipping common. This is what happens when they don't reprint the right cards at all levels of a set. Thank goodness it will have a robust draft experience so we can pay 25 bucks for a common level card.
I believe this is the exact reason they are moving away from masters sets. Even though they calculate the box EVs out when making them (and I'm pretty sure that M25 and Iconic were mistakes due to Hasbro and a rushed production), fitting multiple 50 dollar cards into a box is insanely hard without turning packs into a major gamble. Plus, they really are only accounting for an entire box of packs being opened: They are not typically looking at single packs being opened from someone doing a walk in. To make packs walk in friendly, they need to at least try to minimize the number of feel bad packs to the point that a loss is only a slight loss, rather than an epic loss.
In my mind the only really good way they have to release cards back into the wild is standard for a lot of reasons.
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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!
He makes it sound like the court law stemming from baseball cards (which pre-dated Magic for being the originators of loot crates) indicates that judges were leaning toward intent (collectibility vs prize seeking) as a differentiator in determinting if the game is gambling or not. He also mentions that there wasn’t really any precedent on the topic, since the 90’s court cases targeting baseball cards was a RICO suit and dismissed on those grounds.
I did find it interesting that the inclusion of high-dollar speciality cards, like Masterpieces, was considered “promotional content” and not a gambling incentive as it pertained to collectible games.
Difference being I'm okay with a $1 card in a $4 pack because that was a quick impulse buy while a $1 card in a $10 pack means I just literally just wasted the equivalent of what it costs to buy dinner at a restaurant to get bread and water.
If I can find the same card in a Core Set, which many of these cards could be in, why would I want to buy it at an increased price?
Yes I do want some expectation of value in a pack via leaving chaff cards out. Getting a quarter rare out of a 4 dollar pack is bad enough. Getting a quarter rare out of a freaking 14 dollar pack is inexcusable. And yes Talrand the Scummoner is well on his way to becoming a quarter card as you can preorder it for 50 cents right now. They intentionally put these pieces of crap in because they are absolutely aware of the secondary market and EV. It is not right period. I don't want a Black Lotus in every pack, all I want is the utter refuse to be left out.
And PS, take a look at the price of Manamorphose a flipping common. This is what happens when they don't reprint the right cards at all levels of a set. Thank goodness it will have a robust draft experience so we can pay 25 bucks for a common level card.
I think there are some fundamental disconnects in expectations for sets like these:
Many of these cards would absolutely ruin Standard; possibly for several years. We all love that Fetchlands were in Standard, but we also remember it helped cause some of the worst times in its recent history, especially when paired with fetchable duals. I would love reprints in Standard too, but not if it means making another 2-4 years of awful Standard.
The complaints about value are not scaling cost:value, and instead, blindly complaining about cost while ignoring the proportional added value (I try to hammer home this concept to 7th graders in my math classes, as concepts of proportionality are the biggest state standard in math for that year. Given the views many people hold with regards to buying things, teachers as a whole need to continue to work on this).
With proportionality, yes it is more expensive. But it also contains considerably more value in every measurable category.
Assumptions are being made that people are paying $14 for a pack. Nobody is doing this. Boxes are available all day $75 (or more) under MSRP.
Assumptions are being made that buying a small number of loose packs will result in feelbads. This is exactly true, and true for EVERY SET EVER.
Box EV is being ignored, as well as the concept that opening packs in bulk will give you a higher likelihood to reach EV with less variance.
People are just looking for things to be mad about: (Too expensive! Doesn't include pet card! Other cards going up!)
People unable to face reality that NO SET EVER will have EVERY CARD THEY WANT, and that's simply the nature of a game that sells its product in randomized booster packs.
People are TOTALLY IGNORING the huge (though temporary) impact this will have on singles prices for everything included. Prices have already plummeted and those interested in buying singles only (no filthy sealed boosters) ALL get to benefit from price drops without ever having to buy a booster
Wizards just printed the most value-packet set ever, and people still complaining. Literally nothing they could do would please some people.
Edit: While I did not go as in depth into price block breakdowns as I did for UMA, here's a brief look at value for every currently-Standard legal set in terms of cards above $4 and under $1:
GRN
14 cards above $4 pack price (5.4%)
220 cards less than $1 (84.9%)
DOM
11 cards above $4 pack price (4.1%)
237 cards less than $1 (88.1%)
M19
14 cards above $4 pack price (5%)
248 cards less than $1 (88.5%)
RIX
13 cards above $4 pack price (6.6%)
163 cards less than $1 (83.2%)
XLN
13 cards above $4 pack price (4.7%)
239 cards less than $1 (85.6%)
Meanwhile, UMA has 30 cards (11.8%) above the $14 pack price, which is more than double all current Standard legal sets, as well as categorically more value than every other Master's set.
Wait...you think that graph tells the future and what I'll open? Well s*** why didn't you say that sooner, I had no idea the person that made that graph was a freakin' prophet that knows what's in every pack.
The next time someone opens a pack with a $1 rare and nothing else of note you can show them that graph to make them feel better.
We're all entitled to our opinions, but I greatly disagree with "can be invested in, which is at its core is the feature that makes high end collectibles attractive"... because I see that is the actual problem, especially nowadays. "Investment" implies the players can see the format as one they can enter to have their fun and then retire from the format while making a profit, which unfortunately from the way I've been observing the game a whole, something too much of the entire "playerbase" thinks they're entitled to.
That being said, I don't disagree with you when you said WotC dropped the ball on the reprints managing the market. My gripe is that the reprints are supposed to "drop" or more accurately, "manage" reprint equity. The actual problem is we have too few powerful individuals/organisations who have way too much confidence in their equity start cornering the market and end up wielding the actual power where prices are concerned. If WotC pretends the stock they hold doesn't exist (because they don't move) and reprints a tad too aggressively, they can easily threaten to outright crash reprint equity pretty much completely by releasing their own stocks (at a loss, but it's basically payment to demonstrate power).
I admit I'm jaded at this point (in fact after that last post I actually managed to quickly summarize it mentally rather crudely as "as long as there are fools who will keep buying risky primary product, it's not a war we can actually win"), but my visual image is WotC technically being held at gunpoint by the major hoarders that if they print enough devalue greatly, those hoarders will just add on to the reprints by releasing their stock, effectively "doubling" the already sufficient supply to overly abundant instead, outright crashing reprint equity and confidence... and guess what the general public would actually blame WotC for it (which is partially true) since these hoarders are better at hiding.
In fact I think WotC is precisely trying to play the hostage game back now, by reducing reprint equity, they want to play a game of attrition hoping these other parties will eventually give up on their stock and release it to the general public. Unfortunately this war of attrition will practically eradicate the smaller, actual players (those players you mentioned) before they can even potentially start to sting their actual targets, which where I think you thought I didn't understand how badly they screwed up... but my actual thought is... is it really that bad a screw up to them (not to us, it's obviously one of the worst scenarios for us) if they already took it into account and wrote it off as a deficit/sacrifice?
I really hate to say this... it technically has already become a case similar to the Reserved List, mainly because WotC screwed up from the start and gave the other side enough time to prep for the exact same strategy that plagued them for the Reserved List (in that even if they got past all the legal ramifications, which is RL-unique, I fundamentally believe they still won't reprint it due to this reason).
To simplify it down, it's basically 1)WotC makes initial mistake followed by 2)Some part of the Secondary Market immediately jumping on it to gain power to "threaten" WotC and then 3) WotC resorting to a war of attrition that basically grinds the game down along with it because they simply refuse to resolve the problem because it invokes the kind of bad PR they deemed worse then one from what's basically happening now.
Through the breach new art is so epic looking! Emrakul.
Anger now looks like a villain from Batman. I guess that's an improvement.
New Fecundity art... looks so vibrant and alive.
Vengeful Rebirth just awesome.
Ulamog's Crusher looks like he can really crush things now with those fists.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
On top of that the flavor has faulty information
It was next to instatanious when the minors disappeared the moment they died
But im still certain ulamog, Kozilek and emrakul are not the only eldrazi titans
Whether it was a $14 booster or a $3 booster, there’s always been a risk of any given pack not containing even 10% of its face value. This isn’t new to this set just because the price point is higher. Packs are always lotteries. Lotteries don’t make sure everyone exits with a winning ticket.
To play Devil's Advocate, why isn't Magic regulated like the gambling/gaming industry then?
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Because you always get something, and Wizards does not acknowledge the secondary market.
To them, Liliana is just as valuable as Healer's Hawk.
Spirits
Source please, where they talk about the cost of cards that they must somehow avoid putting in Standard?
Spirits
Thats BS. Of course they acknowledge it but don't say it oficially to avoid gambling laws. After all of these years i can't believe that you believe that.
Funny stuff. They most definitely pander to the secondary market and if Lily and HH were on equal footing where is that borderless near full art box topper Hawk? Plus I get a slip of paper when I play the Lotto. I get the "thrill" of the gamble when I play the slots or Roulette.
My contention is where is that expectation of return in a "random" pack of Magic cards? And how can a 50 cent rare be considered "premium" in a 14 dollar MSRP "Ulitmate" pack. I can't say I actually blame them if people put the money out for buying these. Where does it end though?
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Aware != Acknowledge.
Spirits
And ignore, skirt around and manipulate does not equal awareness.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Name a set in the past 25 years that didn't have risks of pulling less than the value of a pack, or even worthless jank. From Alpha to UMA, are there any sure fire bets? We'll wait.
What you seem to want is guaranteed value, which is something you will only ever get in sealed product with published, listed contents. You will never get that from any randomizes sealed product, and expecting as much will only set you up for the inevitable frustration you are expressing now.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
How does it work? Simple. WotC has never provided the "payouts" for their "Lottery" (and obviously they never announced boosters as such, from the very start they practically announced it as selling 50cents worth of cardboard for 4 dollars). The Secondary Market which assigns prices they don't "acknowledge" (FYI, I define acknowledgement strictly in the meaning of "statement" and it's distinct from awareness which needs no communication) and guess what, only the playerbase chooses to recognize it as a "payout".
We cannot argue that having only "randomness" in a product would render the company manufacturing it to be accountable under gambling laws... because that would intrinsically mean even candies (like Skittles/M&Ms) will be considered "gambling" as silly as it sounds. Combine that with that we cannot reasonably hold companies responsible for the Secondary Markets they generate but don't acknowledge because well I can imagine every industry instantaneously getting billions of lawsuits for literally anything and everything that happens and we have the perfect loophole - turns out all you have to do is generate a product that relies on only randomness, coat it with the flavor of a good game and you'll hook up enough "fools" who will create a market that assigns values and provides payouts for a lottery system you can legally claim has nothing to do with you, because if the law wants to claim anything it has to either make it that companies are responsible for the behavior of their customers (which is ridiculous because I can assure you it means there will be no such thing as a restaurant after that) or the company in question released a statement that alludes to their acknowledgement of the product (e.g. WotC advertising you can potentially get a $100 Back to Basics from a $14 booster).
Is it shady, manipulative, exploitative? Absolutely. But at the same time it has been running for 20 years so well I'm also inclined to acknowledge the "genius" part where they made a game so good it convinced enough of its playerbase to willingly suffer under said system in the first place (either that or I have to say MTG players are more stupid than video-gamers if their responses to similar systems in their games are any indicator).
Long story cut short, unfortunately for us, awareness (and manipulation from said awareness) does not equate to responsibility in legal terms. So as long as WotC says with a straight face "we believe we can sell 50 cents of cardboard for $14" without alluding to the entire intricate system behind (which as long as they don't acknowledge with a statement, is essentially a system recognized as "created" by the Secondary Market legally), they can get away with it. That is the unfortunate fact and arguing that it is morally wrong or legally right (Which it is both simultaneously to me) won't make a difference because being right/wrong in one category doesn't automatically being the same in the other.
EDIT: Spelling
I know of lotteries with $100 tickets. Here’s an annual local one for me.
https://dreamofalifetime.ca/en/
Difference being I'm okay with a $1 card in a $4 pack because that was a quick impulse buy while a $1 card in a $10 pack means I just literally just wasted the equivalent of what it costs to buy dinner at a restaurant to get bread and water.
If I can find the same card in a Core Set, which many of these cards could be in, why would I want to buy it at an increased price?
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Yes I do want some expectation of value in a pack via leaving chaff cards out. Getting a quarter rare out of a 4 dollar pack is bad enough. Getting a quarter rare out of a freaking 14 dollar pack is inexcusable. And yes Talrand the Scummoner is well on his way to becoming a quarter card as you can preorder it for 50 cents right now. They intentionally put these pieces of crap in because they are absolutely aware of the secondary market and EV. It is not right period. I don't want a Black Lotus in every pack, all I want is the utter refuse to be left out.
And PS, take a look at the price of Manamorphose a flipping common. This is what happens when they don't reprint the right cards at all levels of a set. Thank goodness it will have a robust draft experience so we can pay 25 bucks for a common level card.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I believe this is the exact reason they are moving away from masters sets. Even though they calculate the box EVs out when making them (and I'm pretty sure that M25 and Iconic were mistakes due to Hasbro and a rushed production), fitting multiple 50 dollar cards into a box is insanely hard without turning packs into a major gamble. Plus, they really are only accounting for an entire box of packs being opened: They are not typically looking at single packs being opened from someone doing a walk in. To make packs walk in friendly, they need to at least try to minimize the number of feel bad packs to the point that a loss is only a slight loss, rather than an epic loss.
In my mind the only really good way they have to release cards back into the wild is standard for a lot of reasons.
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!
https://youtu.be/EMRNQ7_xJes
He makes it sound like the court law stemming from baseball cards (which pre-dated Magic for being the originators of loot crates) indicates that judges were leaning toward intent (collectibility vs prize seeking) as a differentiator in determinting if the game is gambling or not. He also mentions that there wasn’t really any precedent on the topic, since the 90’s court cases targeting baseball cards was a RICO suit and dismissed on those grounds.
I did find it interesting that the inclusion of high-dollar speciality cards, like Masterpieces, was considered “promotional content” and not a gambling incentive as it pertained to collectible games.
I think there are some fundamental disconnects in expectations for sets like these:
Wizards just printed the most value-packet set ever, and people still complaining. Literally nothing they could do would please some people.
Edit: While I did not go as in depth into price block breakdowns as I did for UMA, here's a brief look at value for every currently-Standard legal set in terms of cards above $4 and under $1:
GRN
14 cards above $4 pack price (5.4%)
220 cards less than $1 (84.9%)
DOM
11 cards above $4 pack price (4.1%)
237 cards less than $1 (88.1%)
M19
14 cards above $4 pack price (5%)
248 cards less than $1 (88.5%)
RIX
13 cards above $4 pack price (6.6%)
163 cards less than $1 (83.2%)
XLN
13 cards above $4 pack price (4.7%)
239 cards less than $1 (85.6%)
Meanwhile, UMA has 30 cards (11.8%) above the $14 pack price, which is more than double all current Standard legal sets, as well as categorically more value than every other Master's set.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate