You cannot have randomness without a nonzero amount of low-value "feelbads" cards. If every card in the set were worth more than the packs, then the sellers of those packs would hike up the prices (which is exactly what happened to the first Modern Masters). These are idea of putting massive value in a cheap product is fundamentally difficult or outright incompatible with business practices in a free, open market. Somebody IS going to make that money back by selling it at its "true market price," it's just a matter of who along the chain sees that profit.
This. The real problem is the Magic "playerbase" consists of a massive number of "players/collectors" who think they are entitled to that profit despite being essentially the last member of the chain. The freedom to re-sell to another "player/collector" is granted to essentially all end-consumers, so all because you happened to make a profit due to good market timing, it doesn't move you up a ladder in the chain. People like to imagine they are in the "sweet spot" between LGS and end-consumer, but in reality there's just too many of these "dreamers" and not enough actual "end-consumers" that we're all just end-consumers with a slight rebate perk at best.
Some even created yet another sub-level in between where they actively pit themselves against LGS claiming they are "better", while in reality they are just mutilating the concept that LGS suffer overhead costs to provide space for the community, in which they need to find ways to pay for it... by twisting it to the point they claim LGS are just plain greedy while completely ignoring to point out the benefits that the overhead costs LGS bear bring about, all just to preserve their own image. Sure, lower prices of a "major" seller does help the community, but you cannot pretend it's the only way and that the space provided to bring them together doesn't provide the same commitment in a different way and that it costs money to do that, all because you choose to use the internet (which while is a whole lot cheaper, cannot replicate the same effect of actual space provided).
Bluntly, this sizable portion of the "invested playerbase" as a whole is essentially a copy of WotC, a second version that lacks pretty much only the ability to outright print new cards and considering the amount of older cards they've hoarded as whole is probably enough to rival any new WotC print run due to the age of the game (that's why I say MTG is potentially just dying from sheer old age, it's actually a possible concept). I think if you actually gave a universal command for every non-WotC entity to sell their excess stock of a old card, the effect will be no less than if WotC themselves did a good reprint run... and what's threatening to WotC to the point they choose to err on the side of caution is that the "universal command" sort of exists on their panel, except ironically it fires off if they reprinted "the right amount".
To put it in really bad "math terms", if the demand for Goyf in the moving market is a 100 pieces, WotC cannot just reprint a 100 pieces, because it will hit that universal command button (more of a "panic WotC opened the gates button" from the other perspective), and "Alter-WotC" (the "invested" community with excess stock) will also start selling their excess stock into the market, likely creating a damaging surplus (aka bubble burst, consumer confidence crash) because it's hard to WotC to predict the actual numbers released given that the community is pretty much a chaotic mess than an actual rival organisation.
Sure, it's a valid complain to think/say WotC is probably only printing "20 Goyfs" and "Alter-WotC" isn't releasing their stock in response... in fact they're buying the 20 themselves so they can make more profits... but as much as we can blame WotC for predicting wrongly, it also goes to show how toxic "Alter-WotC" is as well... and every time WotC guesses wrongly, the statistics of "Alter-WotC" changes as well (because the total market and hoarded market in affected by the initial reprint) and WotC is back at the starting point of a guessing game.
Hence we end up with what is essentially the "Magic economical bubble". While I wouldn't say there isn't any merit to suggesting at bursting it directly considering how bad WotC is at guessing (and to be fair to them, also how unpredictable "Alter-WotC's" toxicity is), but it's a no-brainer that when it happens, the blame of consumer confidence crashing will be pinned solely on WotC because "Alter-WotC's" greatest asset is blending in together with the end-consumer, hence becoming both part of the problem but also the complainer, hence honestly WotC will probably just let the bubble naturally burst after they failed enough games of "guess the market toxicity response level", since there's the chance they find the perfect 70-30, 80-20 spot that actually meet demands if they keep trying. So in a fit of irony, WotC is also "cracking packs", except it's on a meta level against the Secondary Market.
There are hobbies that don't cost a lot of money, including casual Magic.
Do list them, I need a good laugh. Show all the hobbies that require next to no money.
Competitive Magic has never not been expensive.
Is that what this thread is about? The price of building a competitive deck? For a second I thought it was about this particular product. Like how it's not a good buy when it has $12+ boosters. You could at least stay on topic, and also not throw how much money you have in your face.
Please, take my apologies, m'lord, I know as a serf it is not my place to argue with a noble such as yourself in such a manner.
I'm sorry if that upsets you, but that's just the reality of this game, and has been since day one.
You're right, it has been expensive. Remember when Alpha released and the game had $10 and $14 boosters? I do!
Most of what I am able to do in this game is because I buy sealed product from time to time (especially rare or limited edition things) and resell them for profits. Then I use that profit to buy things like singles I need for Modern and Commander or more specialty products like Comic Con Walkers, Mythic Edition Ravnica, and now Ultimate Masters.
What does you making money from cards have anything to do with this topic? I'd ask if you want to stay on topic, but something tells me no.
It sounds like people just won't ever be happy until they get From The Vault: Staples. A set with a defined list of cards, all of which are the top 50 most played cards in each format, all cards are available in the box, and the MSRP is some ridiculous low price that crashes the entire market.
See that sounds like an idea I had few years ago. They should do "boosters", but more like little boxes, with fixed content, in the same way lcgs do, with modern staples divided per color.
You can still keep rarity by putting commons in 4x, uncommons in 2x and rares/mythic in 1x.
For example you could have a black "booster" with 2x fatal push, 2x inquisition of kozilek, 1x thoughtseize, liliana of the veil, dark confidant, goryo's vengeance.
You keep them constantly in printing. Would it kill the market? Sure! But I don't know you. I play mtg to have fun not to invest in cardboard.
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Huey, Dewey and Louie are always dressed in RUG. it is CLEARLY going to be the wedges block Pioneer: WURFaerie fires BRGDragons ModernBGElves WRBurn UR Fires Turns URGift Storm UG Twiddle Storm
It should cost less than normal booster. They are not spending time designing new cards and testing them. They are just copy pasting old stuff. When you sell old stuff it should be cheaper than the new stuff.
There are hobbies that don't cost a lot of money, including casual Magic. Competitive Magic has never not been expensive. I'm sorry if that upsets you, but that's just the reality of this game, and has been since day one.
Wrong, sorry. Standard magic was not expensive from when they invented Standard (Type II) in 98 or so. It stayed relatively inexpensive with flavor-of-the-cycle dual lands being between $5 and $10, and the chase rare of the set being about $20. That didn't change all that much until the days mythic rares and planeswalkers.
You're wrong if you're trying to compare modern Standard to old Type I (or legacy, to you kiddos) or even modern Modern to old Extended. Hell, modern Modern is more expensive than Type I was with its Moxen and Juzams and Library of Alexandria was back then. You only needed 10 of those bastages, not full sets of fetchlands which are about as much now as power was then.
Catering to whales is relatively new, as in less than half of Magic's lifetime. It just seems worse because every other gaming genre is on this bandwagon and has been for over a decade. As everyone with a brain has said until they're blue in the face, increasing the entry barrier to fun only diminishes the player base. Fewer players means less fun, and less of a market for your precious high-price cards. Too much disparity between whales and the general population diminishes the quality of the game, and when the general population notices, they leave. When the people to beat up on leave, the whales do too which is why P2W video games generally last 2 to 3 years before folding. We're only lasting longer because of the pre-existing investment and because Hasbro is actually a little slower on the P2W path than other genres. However the end conclusion is the same. You will exclusive yourself out of a pass time eventually.
It should cost less than normal booster. They are not spending time designing new cards and testing them. They are just copy pasting old stuff. When you sell old stuff it should be cheaper than the new stuff.
Not exactly. They can't print a card worth 80 bucks and charge an msrp price similar or lower than a set that has less than 80 bucks ev. Compound that with a limited print run, as all masters products have been, it makes the packs a commodity and increasingly more worth it. Literally every masters set has sold out over time after it has stopped being printed and distributed. It did it with all three Modern Masters, Eternal, and after a certain point it's going to happen to Iconic and 25th. There hits a certain point when the medium ($5-$10) rares and uncommons become worth it to buy in high volumes. The same thing can happen after a momentous unbanning. (Case in point, EMA just selling out after Bloodbraid and Jace were reinstated in modern) The cards in these masters sets slowly reset to what they were around the time they are "spoiled" and then the price tag becomes worth the risk. I wholeheartedly agree the price tags need to come down and they need to print more liberally; but wizards seems to be okay dangling this product line carrot in front of the donkey that is the consumer base.
They have said that they are putting this product line on hold for the foreseeable future. You can take that for what you will; yet they said the same thing about core sets and 3 block sets, and they came back. So it is what it is, people are both going to buy and complain at the same time, and others are going to be content regardless. For me they printed a handful of foils/reprints that I've been waiting for so they've got my money on the preorders of said foils/reprints. They are going to, in some form or another, continue to do this, I just wish the price and quantities were better.
There are hobbies that don't cost a lot of money, including casual Magic. Competitive Magic has never not been expensive. I'm sorry if that upsets you, but that's just the reality of this game, and has been since day one.
Wrong, sorry. Standard magic was not expensive from when they invented Standard (Type II) in 98 or so. It stayed relatively inexpensive with flavor-of-the-cycle dual lands being between $5 and $10, and the chase rare of the set being about $20. That didn't change all that much until the days mythic rares and planeswalkers.
You're wrong if you're trying to compare modern Standard to old Type I (or legacy, to you kiddos) or even modern Modern to old Extended. Hell, modern Modern is more expensive than Type I was with its Moxen and Juzams and Library of Alexandria was back then. You only needed 10 of those bastages, not full sets of fetchlands which are about as much now as power was then.
Catering to whales is relatively new, as in less than half of Magic's lifetime. It just seems worse because every other gaming genre is on this bandwagon and has been for over a decade. As everyone with a brain has said until they're blue in the face, increasing the entry barrier to fun only diminishes the player base. Fewer players means less fun, and less of a market for your precious high-price cards. Too much disparity between whales and the general population diminishes the quality of the game, and when the general population notices, they leave. When the people to beat up on leave, the whales do too which is why P2W video games generally last 2 to 3 years before folding. We're only lasting longer because of the pre-existing investment and because Hasbro is actually a little slower on the P2W path than other genres. However the end conclusion is the same. You will exclusive yourself out of a pass time eventually.
It's actually due to a lot of reasons, but mythic rare is one of them. The big events that pushed the game to where it is include the evolution of limited, the internet boom, the mythic rarity, and the secondary market shopping experience.
1) The first major event for pre-release happened in 1996 with Mirage. There was some murmuring that Pacific Coast Legends had seen the set before the pre-release pro-tour that led to some drama. They kept evolving this going forward with Ice Age and beyond. Draft actually started a year later in 1997 as an after event game, cracking packs and passing packs around to make decks. Back then, synergy was basically non-existent in drafts since the sets were more about cool cards and building constructed decks from a pool of cards. Eventually, sets started getting built around drafting archetypes, leading to the need to have many filler cards made to make this possible. By 2004, drafting had become a standard feature of magic the gathering.
2) The internet boom made cards far more accessible online. Box openers could crack booster boxes and sell singles to players on a nationwide scale, which enabled more players to assemble the same kinds of decks. This combined with group think tanks posting deck lists eventually led to the established decks and net decking culture we have today. The game went from being a jungle to becoming more of a zoo with exhibits.
3) Mythic Rarity came about shortly after the horrible drafting experience in Lorwyn / Shadowmoor along with poor sales from the great recession. They largely did this to highlight certain cards and to make them more collectible, to mixed results. The original idea was to make cool, but niche cards mythic rares, but players cared less about the mythics than they did the dual lands, especially in 2008-2009 era. They solved this problem partly by putting Planeswalkers as mythics, which were just invented in Lorwyn. However, they eventually decided the best idea was to put cards that were absolutely certain to see tournament play at mythic, which greatly boosted the cost of decks. They still left some "cool" cards at mythic, but looking back they only recently started putting a bit of a break on the mythic powerhouse tournament hording.
However, all of this was really just the set up for what really made Magic the Gathering expensive: Modern taking off with the launch of Modern Masters in 2013. Getting official support from wizards really changed how the game ended up being played and it also caused a lot of changes to happen later with how wizards designed products. First, because the secondary market allowed easy selling of singles, putting cards that were popular in modern in a product resulted in a lot of arbitrage and hardly anything making it to the player, so they reconfigured products to make them less appealing to the box openers. The other thing they did was rework future masters sets to be "premium draft" experiences, largely because they felt they undervalued the first one. Modern Masters 2015 was a disaster because of this rework on release, because the core audience expected to see 20-30 dollar cards in a standard set, not a box costing twice as much as a regular box.
Also, as time marched on the price of cards kept rising until hitting the 40-50 dollar mark, with some staples reaching 100+ thanks to the cost of these masters boxes and the insane pressure put on the secondary market from collectors, speculators, and occasionally, players. To be frank, masters sets were bound to fail, eventually. Even if Wizards didn't fumble last year with the 25th anniversary, the values would eventually have to collapse on the super expensive cards even if they were always printed at mythic.
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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!
Do list them, I need a good laugh. Show all the hobbies that require next to no money.
Go fish out piles of commons from your LGS donation pile and make decks to play against each other. Play Pack Wars. Write card names on a piece of paper. As far as non-Magic related things, board games in general offer significant use and replayability for less than the price of a single Teferi, Hero of Dominaria. I could list many of the board games I have that I play with the wife and friends if you like. There are a lot of really good ones.
What does you making money from cards have anything to do with this topic? I'd ask if you want to stay on topic, but something tells me no.
Because I make most of my hobby money on things that have guaranteed value. I usually the yearly SDCC cards (got 4 sets this year, 2 of them signed. Sold 3 of them for total of more than $1,000, or enough profit for two GRN Mythic Edition boxes with some leftover). Then this year, the Ravnica Mythic Editions were nice additions (selling individual cards one by one; not much profit, but already made money back, while still holding onto Teferis and Lilis). The rest I make by selling off random cards I am no longer using from a large collection of Modern and Commander staples. I am able to support my hobby because the things I am buying have value.
If I were buying things outright, and not with recycled sales profits, I might think differently on prices overall. I justify the costs because the cards I get have value. That value can then be turned into other things (including cash if I am ever in a financial bind).
I just wish people's narrative and arguments would take into consideration the continued existence, distribution and price of standard. Things you might want to consider before putting forth an argument:
Standard boosters cost 4$.
Standard cards have a built-in expiry date, yet people buy into them.
Standard cards have a built-in expiry date, yet some of them are worth more than 40$. (Jace once hit near 100$ while in standard, IIRC)
Standard cards are printed in high volume, to-demand, are wildly open, yet in-demand cards retain value while they see play.
Standard (and its related limited formats, draft and sealed) is the most widely played format.
And yet I see plenty of argument that X could not possibly be done in modern, when X already happens in standard.
As for the discussion about low-price rares, it seems obvious to me that card price would go down further if there were no 1$ rares in the set. As I count now on the store I use to check prices, there are 8 such cards, and the set is not even out yet. (And that's in cnd$. So more like 75 US cents cards.) 8 more are 2cnd$.
1) The first major event for pre-release happened in 1996 with Mirage. There was some murmuring that Pacific Coast Legends had seen the set before the pre-release pro-tour that led to some drama. They kept evolving this going forward with Ice Age and beyond. Draft actually started a year later in 1997 as an after event game, cracking packs and passing packs around to make decks. Back then, synergy was basically non-existent in drafts since the sets were more about cool cards and building constructed decks from a pool of cards. Eventually, sets started getting built around drafting archetypes, leading to the need to have many filler cards made to make this possible. By 2004, drafting had become a standard feature of magic the gathering.
Attributing filler to limited is a little disingenuous given that even Alpha had junk, even though nowadays limited gets brought up whenever the topic of bad cards does. Varied card quality owes much more to the booster pack business model than anything else.
There are hobbies that don't cost a lot of money, including casual Magic.
Do list them, I need a good laugh. Show all the hobbies that require next to no money.
Competitive Magic has never not been expensive.
Is that what this thread is about? The price of building a competitive deck? For a second I thought it was about this particular product. Like how it's not a good buy when it has $12+ boosters. You could at least stay on topic, and also not throw how much money you have in your face.
Please, take my apologies, m'lord, I know as a serf it is not my place to argue with a noble such as yourself in such a manner.
I'm sorry if that upsets you, but that's just the reality of this game, and has been since day one.
You're right, it has been expensive. Remember when Alpha released and the game had $10 and $14 boosters? I do!
Most of what I am able to do in this game is because I buy sealed product from time to time (especially rare or limited edition things) and resell them for profits. Then I use that profit to buy things like singles I need for Modern and Commander or more specialty products like Comic Con Walkers, Mythic Edition Ravnica, and now Ultimate Masters.
What does you making money from cards have anything to do with this topic? I'd ask if you want to stay on topic, but something tells me no.
You going to show us where you can buy Alpha boosters for MSRP? Because that’s a pretty big hit to your argument if you want to stick with it.
Hey, News Flash: old things that are in demand have a value attached to them, normally exceeding, by a large margin, that of the initial asking price. That should be a feature, not a bug. This is just old man screams at clouds, “back in my day”, “Hey, I want to play too so make it that way” nonsense.
It’s easy, printing this is miles better than not getting reprints at all. Considering that most, if not all, of these cards will never see a reprint in Standard for well established reasons.
Speaking of asking for things that don’t make sense, my ‘78 Trans Am is in need of doors and replacement T-Tops. $800 for used doors is really out of my price range, so naturally I want GM to flood the market with more GEN II Trans Ams, or start using those doors on newer model Chevrolet’s so I can pick them up for cheap.
A lot of people are letting the high average/mean value of this set skew what happens most of the time. Median value of this set if far more telling. Its says there will be a lot more feel bad pack opening than feel good ones. Open enough and the mean will work out, open a few and you are staring the median right in the face.
Again, I'll let others take the hit and pick up singles.
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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."
A lot of people are letting the high average/mean value of this set skew what happens most of the time. Median value of this set if far more telling. Its says there will be a lot more feel bad pack opening than feel good ones. Open enough and the mean will work out, open a few and you are staring the median right in the face.
That's what a lot of us have been saying the whole time.
If you're buying and opening a handful of packs, you are going to feel bad most of the time for any set you will ever open; even ABUR boosters, Urza's block, etc. Just imagine paying $70 or something for a single Urza's Saga pack, and your rare is Rune of Protection: Lands? Or couple hundred dollars for a pack of Revised, and your rare is Purelace? Woof.
A lot of people are letting the high average/mean value of this set skew what happens most of the time. Median value of this set if far more telling. Its says there will be a lot more feel bad pack opening than feel good ones. Open enough and the mean will work out, open a few and you are staring the median right in the face.
Again, I'll let others take the hit and pick up singles.
It only took you 9+ pages to acknowledge this has been the point since the beginning? Lol.
As to your last point, maybe others like to obtain hundreds of pieces of cardboard for ~$250, instead of a handful. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, who’s really doing it wrong? The guy rolling the dice to break even, more often than not, or you, who will always lose?(by buying singles that is).
1) The first major event for pre-release happened in 1996 with Mirage. There was some murmuring that Pacific Coast Legends had seen the set before the pre-release pro-tour that led to some drama. They kept evolving this going forward with Ice Age and beyond. Draft actually started a year later in 1997 as an after event game, cracking packs and passing packs around to make decks. Back then, synergy was basically non-existent in drafts since the sets were more about cool cards and building constructed decks from a pool of cards. Eventually, sets started getting built around drafting archetypes, leading to the need to have many filler cards made to make this possible. By 2004, drafting had become a standard feature of magic the gathering.
Attributing filler to limited is a little disingenuous given that even Alpha had junk, even though nowadays limited gets brought up whenever the topic of bad cards does. Varied card quality owes much more to the booster pack business model than anything else.
Can someone call a card filler when the person building the game doesn't even know what qualifies as filler yet? The early editions were mostly the game designers finding out about what works or not.
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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!
There are hobbies that don't cost a lot of money, including casual Magic.
Do list them, I need a good laugh. Show all the hobbies that require next to no money.
Competitive Magic has never not been expensive.
Is that what this thread is about? The price of building a competitive deck? For a second I thought it was about this particular product. Like how it's not a good buy when it has $12+ boosters. You could at least stay on topic, and also not throw how much money you have in your face.
Please, take my apologies, m'lord, I know as a serf it is not my place to argue with a noble such as yourself in such a manner.
I'm sorry if that upsets you, but that's just the reality of this game, and has been since day one.
You're right, it has been expensive. Remember when Alpha released and the game had $10 and $14 boosters? I do!
Most of what I am able to do in this game is because I buy sealed product from time to time (especially rare or limited edition things) and resell them for profits. Then I use that profit to buy things like singles I need for Modern and Commander or more specialty products like Comic Con Walkers, Mythic Edition Ravnica, and now Ultimate Masters.
What does you making money from cards have anything to do with this topic? I'd ask if you want to stay on topic, but something tells me no.
I think at this point we may as well give up with some people trying to see our point. We get theirs as legitimate but some refuse to see ours as legitimate. Some people are okay with "good enough". Looks like we aren't. If good enough is whatever you wish for, that is what you will get. I think our position will be shown to the correct one over time for the health of the game. Lets hope the next Masters like set is more to our standards.
It only took you 9+ pages to acknowledge this has been the point since the beginning? Lol.
I usually get infracted for troll posts of this nature. I'm not rising to the bait.
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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."
I think at this point we may as well give up with some people trying to see our point. We get theirs as legitimate but some refuse to see ours as legitimate. Some people are okay with "good enough". Looks like we aren't. If good enough is whatever you wish for, that is what you will get. I think our position will be shown to the correct one over time for the health of the game. Lets hope the next Masters like set is more to our standards.
No, many of us completely get the point. But we also understand that those kinds of products cannot and will not exist as intended in a free and open market, for all the reasons discussed over the past several pages. This set is not only "good enough" but is better than every other Masters set ever made. Iconic Masters and M25 were failures. They learned from that and came back with this powerhouse.
However, you will never see value like this in a Battlebond or Conspiracy set. Or if you do, it will only be sprinkled throughout, as little pieces here and there. One of the big reasons you DO see value reprints in CNS/BBD is because all the new cards in the set are essentially worthless unless they become Commander staples or are accidentally good in Legacy. Because nobody would buy a set that's not worth anything (ever wonder why those gorgeous full art lands appear in Unsets? Sets with cards not legal anywhere? That's why).
I think at this point we may as well give up with some people trying to see our point. We get theirs as legitimate but some refuse to see ours as legitimate. Some people are okay with "good enough". Looks like we aren't. If good enough is whatever you wish for, that is what you will get. I think our position will be shown to the correct one over time for the health of the game. Lets hope the next Masters like set is more to our standards.
No, many of us completely get the point. But we also understand that those kinds of products cannot and will not exist as intended in a free and open market, for all the reasons discussed over the past several pages. This set is not only "good enough" but is better than every other Masters set ever made. Iconic Masters and M25 were failures. They learned from that and came back with this powerhouse.
However, you will never see value like this in a Battlebond or Conspiracy set. Or if you do, it will only be sprinkled throughout, as little pieces here and there. One of the big reasons you DO see value reprints in CNS/BBD is because all the new cards in the set are essentially worthless unless they become Commander staples or are accidentally good in Legacy. Because nobody would buy a set that's not worth anything (ever wonder why those gorgeous full art lands appear in Unsets? Sets with cards not legal anywhere? That's why).
Well, one can argue price until ones blue in the face, but the stark reality is that Wizards of the Coast is basically repackaging a bunch of decade old strategies that everyone has done to death and charging people highway robbery levels of money for it. Why? Because the cards are ancient relics that they decided to not print for eons in any form and the secondary market hates life. There's not even an ounce of nostalgia or memorabilia in this set and they are going for the magpies with shiny full art cards.
I mean, we're getting our moneys worth out of the set, but I have to say it like it is with this thing. And yeah, you know I bought a box of it, too. I'm a sucker for value and this thing screams it with the power of the Coolaid man. This is exactly why WoTC said it is not a product for everyone, and I'm totally fine with that.
However, this crap has to stop. If they want to bring an old dead horse back to life for new people to try out, then they can do it in a normally priced box set that people can actually play. They royally screwed up this entire game and turned it into the domain of players turned speculators since everyone has to keep scouring the damn internet just to make sure they are paying the lowest possible price on a card, because they can cost 60+ dollars a piece and have the ability to spike in price so fast that it's like someone playing with a jack in the box.
Of all of the MTG subscribed youtube channels I have, 3/5 are MTG Market Watch channels and the fourth one does market advice on the side because it is baked into the game itself now.
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!
No, Card Sphere is a hell of a drug. Seriously, more people need to use that place because it beats TCGPlayer and Ebay by miles.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
Well, one can argue price until ones blue in the face, but the stark reality is that Wizards of the Coast is basically repackaging a bunch of decade old strategies that everyone has done to death and charging people highway robbery levels of money for it. Why? Because the cards are ancient relics that they decided to not print for eons in any form and the secondary market hates life. There's not even an ounce of nostalgia or memorabilia in this set and they are going for the magpies with shiny full art cards.
I mean, we're getting our moneys worth out of the set, but I have to say it like it is with this thing. And yeah, you know I bought a box of it, too. I'm a sucker for value and this thing screams it with the power of the Coolaid man. This is exactly why WoTC said it is not a product for everyone, and I'm totally fine with that.
However, this crap has to stop. If they want to bring an old dead horse back to life for new people to try out, then they can do it in a normally priced box set that people can actually play. They royally screwed up this entire game and turned it into the domain of players turned speculators since everyone has to keep scouring the damn internet just to make sure they are paying the lowest possible price on a card, because they can cost 60+ dollars a piece and have the ability to spike in price so fast that it's like someone playing with a jack in the box.
Of all of the MTG subscribed youtube channels I have, 3/5 are MTG Market Watch channels and the fourth one does market advice on the side because it is baked into the game itself now.
My issue is I don't even think they're bothering to dig out the old relics for new players to try out at all - I don't think the intention is even there to begin with. We hope that products like Masters would be the kind of introductory product for new players to older cards/formats, but in reality it basically wasn't intended for that completely at all.
I'd say technically the entire Masters Series is just to string the speculation market along to make some quick money and nothing more and callously speaking, from a business perspective, it's not a "wrong" decision - why crash the market to make older formats cheaper and more accessible to newer players when it carries so much risks* where there is a hard-working group of "invested speculators" making sure you can string along them for easier and safer profits?
*FYI, more players doesn't automatically equate to more profits and I honestly think R&D still has the fear that if a nonrotating format becomes the most dominant format (especially because it is cheap and accessible), it just makes their job harder for them (they must think of ways to always keep Standard interesting, which we all know they apparently cannot... or they make Modern the main format and powercreep it to oblivion instead). So bluntly put, the scenario we want jeopardizes their job security and well since the job gives them the power to manage said security...
As a player myself, I understand what a lot of you are trying to point out and I also wish the crap would stop. But the real question is how does WotC exactly stop the crap? The game has aged to the point (along with the many other clumsy mistakes WotC made along the way) where the Secondary Market hoarders technically hold more stock than WotC when it comes to reprints (even if we're talking Standard sets). They print too little, the hoarders continue to hoard, not solving the problem and potentially making it worse. They print "too much**" and the hoarders release the floodgates and the blame for the crash will be pinned onto solely WotC (** "too much" doesn't mean "WotC prints over-demand", it means "WotC prints enough for hoarders to actually release their stocks, which makes the total number of cards entering the market over-demand")
I can see clear as day and legitimately how good it would be for the game we got the ideal scenario we want (like I said I may make a lot of counterarguments because I'm jaded, but fundamentally as a player I'm not against the idealistic scenario), but I cannot recognize it as "legitimate" because it does not address the "how does WotC do it, what problems would WotC run along the way and what are the potential solutions to those". Sure, many of these "problems" are exclusive to them and not to us, but at end of the day, if you want them to fix the problem we need to recognize what they see as problems from their perspective, not ours.
I mean alternatively I could just suggest the Secondary Market unite and agree to price every Mythic/Rare at $4 and I guarantee you WotC would just follow suit and the problem would actually also be solved. (I'm just citing a extremely ridiculous (and impossible) scenario to hammer the point that it's easy to suggest solutions without taking into account problems to the entity involved, please don't take me for a fool or make one of yourself by actually going to details about this "example".)
The reprint problem goes back to the 90s where stores literally ordered extra boxes and always kept those extra boxes as a form of retirement fund, as at the time it was a common tactic with trading cards and not just trading card games.
The thing is that crashing the old card market is not nearly as bad as they think it is. They largely just need a new format for tournaments with proper price management and then blow away modern by chronicles. If there is no way to avoid them dumping cards, just make them do it when you are ready for it.
Wotc has no chains binding them financially to the old guard. The main issue is the chains binding them to the stockholders. The only reason the company continued masters sets is to take the free money they found under the placemats on the table, not knowing who or what force left it there or what it truly supported.
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!
I could list many of the board games I have that I play with the wife and friends if you like. There are a lot of really good ones.
You could list them, but considering you did not do that the first time and instead talked about something else I'm going to, yet again, assume that you will not.
Because I make most of my hobby money on things that have guaranteed value. I usually the yearly SDCC cards (got 4 sets this year, 2 of them signed. Sold 3 of them for total of more than $1,000, or enough profit for two GRN Mythic Edition boxes with some leftover). Then this year, the Ravnica Mythic Editions were nice additions (selling individual cards one by one; not much profit, but already made money back, while still holding onto Teferis and Lilis). The rest I make by selling off random cards I am no longer using from a large collection of Modern and Commander staples. I am able to support my hobby because the things I am buying have value.
If I were buying things outright, and not with recycled sales profits, I might think differently on prices overall. I justify the costs because the cards I get have value. That value can then be turned into other things (including cash if I am ever in a financial bind).
Again, I'm going to ask, how does you making money from the game have ANYTHING to do with the topic of this set? I was right, you would not stay on topic, but good for you for doing it again, I guess. This may come as a shock to you, but I don't care how you sell cards. I really don't.
Honestly, I didn't even read most of this quoted section as it has nothing to do with anything.
When boosters are $12+ the set gets worse. For all of your talk of "you can find it for way less than MSRP" two bucks less per pack isn't insane. $12+ just means I have to open up even more cash to make this set feel worth it and makes those $1 rares feel even worse than in $10 packs.
See, unlike you I'm fully prepared to fail and lose, as it was designed, not wish on four leaf clovers that everything will turn out for the best. A lot more likely you end up with chaff than anything useful.
This. The real problem is the Magic "playerbase" consists of a massive number of "players/collectors" who think they are entitled to that profit despite being essentially the last member of the chain. The freedom to re-sell to another "player/collector" is granted to essentially all end-consumers, so all because you happened to make a profit due to good market timing, it doesn't move you up a ladder in the chain. People like to imagine they are in the "sweet spot" between LGS and end-consumer, but in reality there's just too many of these "dreamers" and not enough actual "end-consumers" that we're all just end-consumers with a slight rebate perk at best.
Some even created yet another sub-level in between where they actively pit themselves against LGS claiming they are "better", while in reality they are just mutilating the concept that LGS suffer overhead costs to provide space for the community, in which they need to find ways to pay for it... by twisting it to the point they claim LGS are just plain greedy while completely ignoring to point out the benefits that the overhead costs LGS bear bring about, all just to preserve their own image. Sure, lower prices of a "major" seller does help the community, but you cannot pretend it's the only way and that the space provided to bring them together doesn't provide the same commitment in a different way and that it costs money to do that, all because you choose to use the internet (which while is a whole lot cheaper, cannot replicate the same effect of actual space provided).
Bluntly, this sizable portion of the "invested playerbase" as a whole is essentially a copy of WotC, a second version that lacks pretty much only the ability to outright print new cards and considering the amount of older cards they've hoarded as whole is probably enough to rival any new WotC print run due to the age of the game (that's why I say MTG is potentially just dying from sheer old age, it's actually a possible concept). I think if you actually gave a universal command for every non-WotC entity to sell their excess stock of a old card, the effect will be no less than if WotC themselves did a good reprint run... and what's threatening to WotC to the point they choose to err on the side of caution is that the "universal command" sort of exists on their panel, except ironically it fires off if they reprinted "the right amount".
To put it in really bad "math terms", if the demand for Goyf in the moving market is a 100 pieces, WotC cannot just reprint a 100 pieces, because it will hit that universal command button (more of a "panic WotC opened the gates button" from the other perspective), and "Alter-WotC" (the "invested" community with excess stock) will also start selling their excess stock into the market, likely creating a damaging surplus (aka bubble burst, consumer confidence crash) because it's hard to WotC to predict the actual numbers released given that the community is pretty much a chaotic mess than an actual rival organisation.
Sure, it's a valid complain to think/say WotC is probably only printing "20 Goyfs" and "Alter-WotC" isn't releasing their stock in response... in fact they're buying the 20 themselves so they can make more profits... but as much as we can blame WotC for predicting wrongly, it also goes to show how toxic "Alter-WotC" is as well... and every time WotC guesses wrongly, the statistics of "Alter-WotC" changes as well (because the total market and hoarded market in affected by the initial reprint) and WotC is back at the starting point of a guessing game.
Hence we end up with what is essentially the "Magic economical bubble". While I wouldn't say there isn't any merit to suggesting at bursting it directly considering how bad WotC is at guessing (and to be fair to them, also how unpredictable "Alter-WotC's" toxicity is), but it's a no-brainer that when it happens, the blame of consumer confidence crashing will be pinned solely on WotC because "Alter-WotC's" greatest asset is blending in together with the end-consumer, hence becoming both part of the problem but also the complainer, hence honestly WotC will probably just let the bubble naturally burst after they failed enough games of "guess the market toxicity response level", since there's the chance they find the perfect 70-30, 80-20 spot that actually meet demands if they keep trying. So in a fit of irony, WotC is also "cracking packs", except it's on a meta level against the Secondary Market.
|| 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 ||
Do list them, I need a good laugh. Show all the hobbies that require next to no money.
Is that what this thread is about? The price of building a competitive deck? For a second I thought it was about this particular product. Like how it's not a good buy when it has $12+ boosters. You could at least stay on topic, and also not throw how much money you have in your face.
Please, take my apologies, m'lord, I know as a serf it is not my place to argue with a noble such as yourself in such a manner.
You're right, it has been expensive. Remember when Alpha released and the game had $10 and $14 boosters? I do!
What does you making money from cards have anything to do with this topic? I'd ask if you want to stay on topic, but something tells me no.
See that sounds like an idea I had few years ago. They should do "boosters", but more like little boxes, with fixed content, in the same way lcgs do, with modern staples divided per color.
You can still keep rarity by putting commons in 4x, uncommons in 2x and rares/mythic in 1x.
For example you could have a black "booster" with 2x fatal push, 2x inquisition of kozilek, 1x thoughtseize, liliana of the veil, dark confidant, goryo's vengeance.
You keep them constantly in printing. Would it kill the market? Sure! But I don't know you. I play mtg to have fun not to invest in cardboard.
Pioneer: WURFaerie fires BRGDragons
ModernBGElves WRBurn UR Fires Turns URGift Storm UG Twiddle Storm
Wrong, sorry. Standard magic was not expensive from when they invented Standard (Type II) in 98 or so. It stayed relatively inexpensive with flavor-of-the-cycle dual lands being between $5 and $10, and the chase rare of the set being about $20. That didn't change all that much until the days mythic rares and planeswalkers.
You're wrong if you're trying to compare modern Standard to old Type I (or legacy, to you kiddos) or even modern Modern to old Extended. Hell, modern Modern is more expensive than Type I was with its Moxen and Juzams and Library of Alexandria was back then. You only needed 10 of those bastages, not full sets of fetchlands which are about as much now as power was then.
Catering to whales is relatively new, as in less than half of Magic's lifetime. It just seems worse because every other gaming genre is on this bandwagon and has been for over a decade. As everyone with a brain has said until they're blue in the face, increasing the entry barrier to fun only diminishes the player base. Fewer players means less fun, and less of a market for your precious high-price cards. Too much disparity between whales and the general population diminishes the quality of the game, and when the general population notices, they leave. When the people to beat up on leave, the whales do too which is why P2W video games generally last 2 to 3 years before folding. We're only lasting longer because of the pre-existing investment and because Hasbro is actually a little slower on the P2W path than other genres. However the end conclusion is the same. You will exclusive yourself out of a pass time eventually.
They have said that they are putting this product line on hold for the foreseeable future. You can take that for what you will; yet they said the same thing about core sets and 3 block sets, and they came back. So it is what it is, people are both going to buy and complain at the same time, and others are going to be content regardless. For me they printed a handful of foils/reprints that I've been waiting for so they've got my money on the preorders of said foils/reprints. They are going to, in some form or another, continue to do this, I just wish the price and quantities were better.
(W/U)(B/R)GForm of Progenitus, Shape of a Scrubland
BRGJund Tokens with Prossh, the Magic Dragon Foil
URGAnimar, the RUG CleanerFoil
RRRFeldon of the Third Path 2.0 Foil
BG(B/G)Not Another Meren DeckFoil
UR(U/R)Mizzix, Y Control and X Burn Spells
(W/U)(B/R)GHarold Ramos - The 35 Foot Long Twinkie (In +1/+1 counters)
UB(U/B)Dragonlord Silumgar
It's actually due to a lot of reasons, but mythic rare is one of them. The big events that pushed the game to where it is include the evolution of limited, the internet boom, the mythic rarity, and the secondary market shopping experience.
1) The first major event for pre-release happened in 1996 with Mirage. There was some murmuring that Pacific Coast Legends had seen the set before the pre-release pro-tour that led to some drama. They kept evolving this going forward with Ice Age and beyond. Draft actually started a year later in 1997 as an after event game, cracking packs and passing packs around to make decks. Back then, synergy was basically non-existent in drafts since the sets were more about cool cards and building constructed decks from a pool of cards. Eventually, sets started getting built around drafting archetypes, leading to the need to have many filler cards made to make this possible. By 2004, drafting had become a standard feature of magic the gathering.
2) The internet boom made cards far more accessible online. Box openers could crack booster boxes and sell singles to players on a nationwide scale, which enabled more players to assemble the same kinds of decks. This combined with group think tanks posting deck lists eventually led to the established decks and net decking culture we have today. The game went from being a jungle to becoming more of a zoo with exhibits.
3) Mythic Rarity came about shortly after the horrible drafting experience in Lorwyn / Shadowmoor along with poor sales from the great recession. They largely did this to highlight certain cards and to make them more collectible, to mixed results. The original idea was to make cool, but niche cards mythic rares, but players cared less about the mythics than they did the dual lands, especially in 2008-2009 era. They solved this problem partly by putting Planeswalkers as mythics, which were just invented in Lorwyn. However, they eventually decided the best idea was to put cards that were absolutely certain to see tournament play at mythic, which greatly boosted the cost of decks. They still left some "cool" cards at mythic, but looking back they only recently started putting a bit of a break on the mythic powerhouse tournament hording.
However, all of this was really just the set up for what really made Magic the Gathering expensive: Modern taking off with the launch of Modern Masters in 2013. Getting official support from wizards really changed how the game ended up being played and it also caused a lot of changes to happen later with how wizards designed products. First, because the secondary market allowed easy selling of singles, putting cards that were popular in modern in a product resulted in a lot of arbitrage and hardly anything making it to the player, so they reconfigured products to make them less appealing to the box openers. The other thing they did was rework future masters sets to be "premium draft" experiences, largely because they felt they undervalued the first one. Modern Masters 2015 was a disaster because of this rework on release, because the core audience expected to see 20-30 dollar cards in a standard set, not a box costing twice as much as a regular box.
Also, as time marched on the price of cards kept rising until hitting the 40-50 dollar mark, with some staples reaching 100+ thanks to the cost of these masters boxes and the insane pressure put on the secondary market from collectors, speculators, and occasionally, players. To be frank, masters sets were bound to fail, eventually. Even if Wizards didn't fumble last year with the 25th anniversary, the values would eventually have to collapse on the super expensive cards even if they were always printed at mythic.
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!
Go fish out piles of commons from your LGS donation pile and make decks to play against each other. Play Pack Wars. Write card names on a piece of paper. As far as non-Magic related things, board games in general offer significant use and replayability for less than the price of a single Teferi, Hero of Dominaria. I could list many of the board games I have that I play with the wife and friends if you like. There are a lot of really good ones.
Because I make most of my hobby money on things that have guaranteed value. I usually the yearly SDCC cards (got 4 sets this year, 2 of them signed. Sold 3 of them for total of more than $1,000, or enough profit for two GRN Mythic Edition boxes with some leftover). Then this year, the Ravnica Mythic Editions were nice additions (selling individual cards one by one; not much profit, but already made money back, while still holding onto Teferis and Lilis). The rest I make by selling off random cards I am no longer using from a large collection of Modern and Commander staples. I am able to support my hobby because the things I am buying have value.
If I were buying things outright, and not with recycled sales profits, I might think differently on prices overall. I justify the costs because the cards I get have value. That value can then be turned into other things (including cash if I am ever in a financial bind).
But lastly: Can we put to rest the misguided view that Ultimate Masters is anything but a massive value hit yet?
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
And yet I see plenty of argument that X could not possibly be done in modern, when X already happens in standard.
As for the discussion about low-price rares, it seems obvious to me that card price would go down further if there were no 1$ rares in the set. As I count now on the store I use to check prices, there are 8 such cards, and the set is not even out yet. (And that's in cnd$. So more like 75 US cents cards.) 8 more are 2cnd$.
Attributing filler to limited is a little disingenuous given that even Alpha had junk, even though nowadays limited gets brought up whenever the topic of bad cards does. Varied card quality owes much more to the booster pack business model than anything else.
The set has MULTIPLE staples, across all rarity.
The art is good, on most of the cards.
If I wasnt out of Modern, I likely would have bought a box.
Spirits
You going to show us where you can buy Alpha boosters for MSRP? Because that’s a pretty big hit to your argument if you want to stick with it.
Hey, News Flash: old things that are in demand have a value attached to them, normally exceeding, by a large margin, that of the initial asking price. That should be a feature, not a bug. This is just old man screams at clouds, “back in my day”, “Hey, I want to play too so make it that way” nonsense.
It’s easy, printing this is miles better than not getting reprints at all. Considering that most, if not all, of these cards will never see a reprint in Standard for well established reasons.
Speaking of asking for things that don’t make sense, my ‘78 Trans Am is in need of doors and replacement T-Tops. $800 for used doors is really out of my price range, so naturally I want GM to flood the market with more GEN II Trans Ams, or start using those doors on newer model Chevrolet’s so I can pick them up for cheap.
Again, I'll let others take the hit and pick up singles.
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."
That's what a lot of us have been saying the whole time.
If you're buying and opening a handful of packs, you are going to feel bad most of the time for any set you will ever open; even ABUR boosters, Urza's block, etc. Just imagine paying $70 or something for a single Urza's Saga pack, and your rare is Rune of Protection: Lands? Or couple hundred dollars for a pack of Revised, and your rare is Purelace? Woof.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
It only took you 9+ pages to acknowledge this has been the point since the beginning? Lol.
As to your last point, maybe others like to obtain hundreds of pieces of cardboard for ~$250, instead of a handful. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, who’s really doing it wrong? The guy rolling the dice to break even, more often than not, or you, who will always lose?(by buying singles that is).
Can someone call a card filler when the person building the game doesn't even know what qualifies as filler yet? The early editions were mostly the game designers finding out about what works or not.
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!
I think at this point we may as well give up with some people trying to see our point. We get theirs as legitimate but some refuse to see ours as legitimate. Some people are okay with "good enough". Looks like we aren't. If good enough is whatever you wish for, that is what you will get. I think our position will be shown to the correct one over time for the health of the game. Lets hope the next Masters like set is more to our standards.
I usually get infracted for troll posts of this nature. I'm not rising to the bait.
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."
No, many of us completely get the point. But we also understand that those kinds of products cannot and will not exist as intended in a free and open market, for all the reasons discussed over the past several pages. This set is not only "good enough" but is better than every other Masters set ever made. Iconic Masters and M25 were failures. They learned from that and came back with this powerhouse.
However, you will never see value like this in a Battlebond or Conspiracy set. Or if you do, it will only be sprinkled throughout, as little pieces here and there. One of the big reasons you DO see value reprints in CNS/BBD is because all the new cards in the set are essentially worthless unless they become Commander staples or are accidentally good in Legacy. Because nobody would buy a set that's not worth anything (ever wonder why those gorgeous full art lands appear in Unsets? Sets with cards not legal anywhere? That's why).
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Well, one can argue price until ones blue in the face, but the stark reality is that Wizards of the Coast is basically repackaging a bunch of decade old strategies that everyone has done to death and charging people highway robbery levels of money for it. Why? Because the cards are ancient relics that they decided to not print for eons in any form and the secondary market hates life. There's not even an ounce of nostalgia or memorabilia in this set and they are going for the magpies with shiny full art cards.
I mean, we're getting our moneys worth out of the set, but I have to say it like it is with this thing. And yeah, you know I bought a box of it, too. I'm a sucker for value and this thing screams it with the power of the Coolaid man. This is exactly why WoTC said it is not a product for everyone, and I'm totally fine with that.
However, this crap has to stop. If they want to bring an old dead horse back to life for new people to try out, then they can do it in a normally priced box set that people can actually play. They royally screwed up this entire game and turned it into the domain of players turned speculators since everyone has to keep scouring the damn internet just to make sure they are paying the lowest possible price on a card, because they can cost 60+ dollars a piece and have the ability to spike in price so fast that it's like someone playing with a jack in the box.
Of all of the MTG subscribed youtube channels I have, 3/5 are MTG Market Watch channels and the fourth one does market advice on the side because it is baked into the game itself now.
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!
Spirits
No, Card Sphere is a hell of a drug. Seriously, more people need to use that place because it beats TCGPlayer and Ebay by miles.
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!
My issue is I don't even think they're bothering to dig out the old relics for new players to try out at all - I don't think the intention is even there to begin with. We hope that products like Masters would be the kind of introductory product for new players to older cards/formats, but in reality it basically wasn't intended for that completely at all.
I'd say technically the entire Masters Series is just to string the speculation market along to make some quick money and nothing more and callously speaking, from a business perspective, it's not a "wrong" decision - why crash the market to make older formats cheaper and more accessible to newer players when it carries so much risks* where there is a hard-working group of "invested speculators" making sure you can string along them for easier and safer profits?
*FYI, more players doesn't automatically equate to more profits and I honestly think R&D still has the fear that if a nonrotating format becomes the most dominant format (especially because it is cheap and accessible), it just makes their job harder for them (they must think of ways to always keep Standard interesting, which we all know they apparently cannot... or they make Modern the main format and powercreep it to oblivion instead). So bluntly put, the scenario we want jeopardizes their job security and well since the job gives them the power to manage said security...
As a player myself, I understand what a lot of you are trying to point out and I also wish the crap would stop. But the real question is how does WotC exactly stop the crap? The game has aged to the point (along with the many other clumsy mistakes WotC made along the way) where the Secondary Market hoarders technically hold more stock than WotC when it comes to reprints (even if we're talking Standard sets). They print too little, the hoarders continue to hoard, not solving the problem and potentially making it worse. They print "too much**" and the hoarders release the floodgates and the blame for the crash will be pinned onto solely WotC (** "too much" doesn't mean "WotC prints over-demand", it means "WotC prints enough for hoarders to actually release their stocks, which makes the total number of cards entering the market over-demand")
I can see clear as day and legitimately how good it would be for the game we got the ideal scenario we want (like I said I may make a lot of counterarguments because I'm jaded, but fundamentally as a player I'm not against the idealistic scenario), but I cannot recognize it as "legitimate" because it does not address the "how does WotC do it, what problems would WotC run along the way and what are the potential solutions to those". Sure, many of these "problems" are exclusive to them and not to us, but at end of the day, if you want them to fix the problem we need to recognize what they see as problems from their perspective, not ours.
I mean alternatively I could just suggest the Secondary Market unite and agree to price every Mythic/Rare at $4 and I guarantee you WotC would just follow suit and the problem would actually also be solved. (I'm just citing a extremely ridiculous (and impossible) scenario to hammer the point that it's easy to suggest solutions without taking into account problems to the entity involved, please don't take me for a fool or make one of yourself by actually going to details about this "example".)
The thing is that crashing the old card market is not nearly as bad as they think it is. They largely just need a new format for tournaments with proper price management and then blow away modern by chronicles. If there is no way to avoid them dumping cards, just make them do it when you are ready for it.
Wotc has no chains binding them financially to the old guard. The main issue is the chains binding them to the stockholders. The only reason the company continued masters sets is to take the free money they found under the placemats on the table, not knowing who or what force left it there or what it truly supported.
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!
You could list them, but considering you did not do that the first time and instead talked about something else I'm going to, yet again, assume that you will not.
Again, I'm going to ask, how does you making money from the game have ANYTHING to do with the topic of this set? I was right, you would not stay on topic, but good for you for doing it again, I guess. This may come as a shock to you, but I don't care how you sell cards. I really don't.
Honestly, I didn't even read most of this quoted section as it has nothing to do with anything.
When boosters are $12+ the set gets worse. For all of your talk of "you can find it for way less than MSRP" two bucks less per pack isn't insane. $12+ just means I have to open up even more cash to make this set feel worth it and makes those $1 rares feel even worse than in $10 packs.
See, unlike you I'm fully prepared to fail and lose, as it was designed, not wish on four leaf clovers that everything will turn out for the best. A lot more likely you end up with chaff than anything useful.