He also said that we'd never see crossovers in Magic years ago too, 'cause it wouldn't make sense, and yet here we are with 5 UB sets/SLs within a couple years and now he says "well you can give a sword to a squirrel and block an eldritch horror" as a reason why UB should happen. You see the problem with quoting a man that has said two very contradicting things? Unfortunately, he changes his mind often. Change happens and it's almost never for the better.
If they wanted to get rid of the Reserved List they can do it at any time and has been for some time now. The potential legal fallout (which I don't think there would be much of, personally) will come nowhere close to the profits they'd make printing Mox and Black Lotus or the myriad of other RL cards.
That seems like a weird agreement. They'd be using only their own IP, on a card which they designed in their system. And no one at Wizards has said "Oh, we can't do that because of the licensing agreement," even though that would be a straightforward and simple explanation if it were true.
The reason they added foils was because they were actively seeking to circumvent the reserved list and people got mad. It was fallout from Wizards clearly demonstrating their dislike of it.
And as soon as someone even made one small peep about it what did they do? They didn't grow a spine and kept doing it, but instead decided to reinforce the Reserved List further. If they don't like it they can get rid of it at any time, which has always been the case. Literally nothing is stopping them and any random lawsuit will be peanuts compared to how much they'd make.
They hate the RL like I hate myself being overweight. If I don't do anything about it to make myself healthier then do I really hate it or am I just looking to complain and give the illusion that I care? Have they tried to go around it? Yes, but then they back right off at first sign of trouble like a skittish cat.
Why not go a step further to ensure that ALL cards reprinted via "The List" are guaranteed one in every pack instead of being a 25% chance of pulling it from a booster pack? Every pack containing a card from "The List" makes these cards more accessible to players instead of just being collectors pieces for those who aren't investing in Reserve List singles which are guaranteed never to be reprinted again in a functionally identical form. There are loop holes to this such as printing Lion's Eye Diamond as Diamond Lion and the Magus cycle recycling abilities from Reserve List cards. Only catch is that I would put these reprints in Set Boosters instead of Collectors Boosters where you're having to pay $25 a booster pack which is unfair IMO.
Not pulling a "The List" card from a Set Booster kinda feels like I've been cheated out of something that would've made my money worthwhile especially If I end up pulling a Junk Rare or Mythic where the Secondary Market price is hot garbage. Not trying to be a cheapskate here, I'm aware that Wizards of the Coast HAS to set up booster packs as a lottery otherwise they'd probably get sued like no tomorrow regardless of how big of a corporate conglomerate Hasbro is. At least the pull rates for Set Boosters in Modern Horizons 2 looks promising with one of my friends who bought a box last Saturday ended up pulling 5+ Enemy Fetches compared to pulling less out of a box If they had been reprinted at Mythic instead.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
America Bless Christ Jesus
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Without intentionally creating artificial scarcity through limited printing and distribution in packs, cards from "The List" (or the reserved list) wouldn't feel nearly as special as they do now to all us of, especially those among us who already have and cherish such treasures.
Cards like these, Masterpieces, and Expeditions are supposed to feel like unexpected hidden gems you find while rummaging through a coal mine, not a regular happenstance or anticipated occurrence. Wizards does guaranteed box-toppers for some sets, but guaranteed pack-toppers like you ask for would be shall we say over the top. Just be thankful we can now buy packs which guarantee foils in every pack, which wasn't a thing until recently (except for those weird all-foil Alara packs which came out during my hiatus). Were those technically the first "Collector packs"?
Players can also get many foil or full-art lands at once more easily in bundles which used to take much more time to accumulate.
Perhaps most importantly, new players have many options, and are no longer being baited with purchasing starter packs which had few, often bad rares with no synergy whatsoever to start building with. What I would have given for intro decks back when I started during Revised and was completely at a loss with what to build after opening my first starter and a few boosters (beyond the fact that I was probably building Naya due to my initial mana base).
Consider this... Gold has many uses, but would diamonds (or lion's eye diamonds) have any special meaning or a high value if they were found in abundance all over the place? How many practical purposes (or deck archtypes) do they truly usefully serve?
Would that rare fruit you can't always enjoy off season taste as exotic and enjoyable as it does when you get to finally eat it after waiting in anticipation? Take fiddleheads for example. They're only available in May, high in demand, low in supply, priced up as a result, and then they're gone in the blink of an eye until next year. If they were around all year and cheaper, I might be happier at first, but then the novelty would wear off, I wouldn't look forward to them knowing I could get them anytime, and they wouldn't be as satisfying each time I did.
I want to feel the gravity of every rarer-than-mythic rare that I open in a pack (not that I open many packs since I always opt buy singles instead, unless I'm drafting or doing a sealed deck at prerelease, which effectively makes seeing any such rewards that much rarer for me). I want a Kozilek right now which is on "The List", but do I honestly want to know that I could potentially open one in every pack? No, because that may only encourage me to gamble more on pack opening, which isn't my style, nor do I want it to be. All opening packs with certain expectations does is disappoint and offer diminishing returns. Therefore, I'll either wait to find someone to trade with, or get one from a store the next time he drops. I'm patient, and have plenty of strong placeholders for the deck I want him in.
Never feel "cheated" by the card you wanted and hoped for but didn't open.
Instead, don't delude yourself with such idealisms or wishful thinking fantasies.
Know and accept in advance (reluctantly if you must) that every booster pack you open is virtually a guaranteed loss which will almost certainly yield diminishing returns.
Expecting to break even or turn a profit on any pack you open is frankly naive and unrealistic. If that's an issue, only buy the singles you want and remove the gambling element completely. Trying to hedge your bets on boxes or cases instead of individual packs may create the illusion of a law of averages, but you will still lose purchasing at retail prices. Know this to be true.
Then, and only then, will you be pleasantly surprised when you open a pack and randomly see something free and extra which is rare in the true sense of the word (since you won't find one such card in every pack), and/or of secondary market value which you didn't suspect or take for granted was always inside waiting for you for find.
Also remember...At the end of the day, nobody has to buy the Magic cash cows and whoever want to can get their milk from a Cockatrice for free
It just won't look or taste as good.
Expecting to break even or turn a profit on any pack you open is frankly naive and unrealistic. If that's an issue, only buy the singles you want and remove the gambling element completely.
Problem is when you have whales hoarding countless amounts of sealed product containing reprints from "The List" that ends up shrinking the supply while increasing demand causing the price of singles to increase to an absurd amount. It's much harder on reprints from "The List" that have only had one or two reprints that either haven't had very many print runs or they were completely bought out and used for EDH / Commander decks. If you think Reserve List cards becoming more scarce was a pain, highly sought after cards that aren't on the Reserve List are becoming more scarce as well. Wizards of the Coast takes advantage of this through the total EV of these reprints to help double their profit margins for Hasbro.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
America Bless Christ Jesus
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
would diamonds (or lion's eye diamonds) have any special meaning or a high value if they were found in abundance all over the place? How many practical purposes (or deck archtypes) do they truly usefully serve?
Diamonds ARE found in abundance. Their "scarcity" is artificial, created by a monopoly by the DeBeers corporation. They aren't special at all, and are intrinsically pretty much worthless.
Diamond (usually lab-made) is used as a hardening agent for many types of tools (often drill bits). A drill bit with diamond in it can cut through much harder materials than your standard steel drill bit.
I know, that's not the point you were making, but if you're going to illustrate a point, use an example that doesn't directly contradict your point.
would diamonds (or lion's eye diamonds) have any special meaning or a high value if they were found in abundance all over the place? How many practical purposes (or deck archtypes) do they truly usefully serve?
Diamonds ARE found in abundance. Their "scarcity" is artificial, created by a monopoly by the DeBeers corporation. They aren't special at all, and are intrinsically pretty much worthless.
Diamond (usually lab-made) is used as a hardening agent for many types of tools (often drill bits). A drill bit with diamond in it can cut through much harder materials than your standard steel drill bit.
I know, that's not the point you were making, but if you're going to illustrate a point, use an example that doesn't directly contradict your point.
Can you explain in what sense you mean that Diamonds are "intrinsically pretty much worthless" when you say below that " is used as a hardening agent for many types of tools (often drill bits). A drill bit with diamond in it can cut through much harder materials than your standard steel drill bit."?
Doesn't seems that intrinsically worthless. Unless you give the word "intrinsic" and "worthless" a very different meaning from what it's wrote on the dictionaries.
I think he was specifically referring to their monetary value. In this context "intrinsic" would imply that the worth, monetary value, whatever, exists only because of artificial or external factors.
I think he was specifically referring to their monetary value. In this context "intrinsic" would imply that the worth, monetary value, whatever, exists only because of artificial or external factors.
I mean, unless Diamonds are something that cheap, free and easy to find as leafs, stones, sea water or sand, I don't think "intrinsecally worthless" is a correct terminology to define them. They sure have their own monetary value and use, even if they're not worth 1 billion dollars each. It's just the use of unnecessary and misleading hyperboles that irks me (in pretty much the same way people use to say every new card is a "strictly better" version of a past card even if this isn't true in the 99% of cases). Let's use words in the proper way or language becomes confusing and meaningless.
Those things arguably have far more intrinsic value, despite also being patently more common; both water and the photosynthetic properties of common vegetation are essential to the survival of the human race, as they have been from time immemorial. Diamonds are valuable only because a) they have subjective aesthetic appeal and b) are artificially scarce. Those are 100% extrinsic qualities - I find nothing hyperbolic about the statement.
Diamonds are valuable only because a) they have subjective aesthetic appeal and b) are artificially scarce.
They are also the hardest material in the whole world, and thats why the same user that said that they were "intrinsecally worthless" also said that are "used as a hardening agent for many types of tools". As I noticed, that's very far from something being "intrinsecally worthless" So saying diamonds are valuable only because they are pretty or artifically scarce seems fallacious to me.
Comparing something that can be had for less than $10 on amazon to a precious gem that often costs in the thousands of dollars seems fallacious to me. Personally, I don't think you're giving MrMoustache a very charitable reading.
Depends on the diamond. Colored diamonds that are Flawless or Internally Flawless and of a high carat weight (which in turn are expertly cut) are worth millions, and rightfully so. Most have inflated prices due to a monopoly creating artificial scarcity and rarely if ever deserve a fraction of what they're sold for. They are not worthless, but are an unwise investment. Gold on the other hand, is a wise investment. Genuine scarcity of gold dictates its market value, at least partially. Economics can in part influence its price as well for example. Precious stones such as rubies, sapphires and emeralds are far superior investments, because they are naturally scarce in high quality. Diamonds are really the product of a monopoly and tactical marketing. The processes of mining natural stones itself justifies at least some of their value, but not all of it. That said, the Blue Moon diamond is one of the most gorgeous stones I've ever seen.
He also said that we'd never see crossovers in Magic years ago too, 'cause it wouldn't make sense, and yet here we are with 5 UB sets/SLs within a couple years and now he says "well you can give a sword to a squirrel and block an eldritch horror" as a reason why UB should happen. You see the problem with quoting a man that has said two very contradicting things? Unfortunately, he changes his mind often. Change happens and it's almost never for the better.
If they wanted to get rid of the Reserved List they can do it at any time and has been for some time now. The potential legal fallout (which I don't think there would be much of, personally) will come nowhere close to the profits they'd make printing Mox and Black Lotus or the myriad of other RL cards.
And as soon as someone even made one small peep about it what did they do? They didn't grow a spine and kept doing it, but instead decided to reinforce the Reserved List further. If they don't like it they can get rid of it at any time, which has always been the case. Literally nothing is stopping them and any random lawsuit will be peanuts compared to how much they'd make.
They hate the RL like I hate myself being overweight. If I don't do anything about it to make myself healthier then do I really hate it or am I just looking to complain and give the illusion that I care? Have they tried to go around it? Yes, but then they back right off at first sign of trouble like a skittish cat.
Not pulling a "The List" card from a Set Booster kinda feels like I've been cheated out of something that would've made my money worthwhile especially If I end up pulling a Junk Rare or Mythic where the Secondary Market price is hot garbage. Not trying to be a cheapskate here, I'm aware that Wizards of the Coast HAS to set up booster packs as a lottery otherwise they'd probably get sued like no tomorrow regardless of how big of a corporate conglomerate Hasbro is. At least the pull rates for Set Boosters in Modern Horizons 2 looks promising with one of my friends who bought a box last Saturday ended up pulling 5+ Enemy Fetches compared to pulling less out of a box If they had been reprinted at Mythic instead.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Cards like these, Masterpieces, and Expeditions are supposed to feel like unexpected hidden gems you find while rummaging through a coal mine, not a regular happenstance or anticipated occurrence. Wizards does guaranteed box-toppers for some sets, but guaranteed pack-toppers like you ask for would be shall we say over the top. Just be thankful we can now buy packs which guarantee foils in every pack, which wasn't a thing until recently (except for those weird all-foil Alara packs which came out during my hiatus). Were those technically the first "Collector packs"?
Players can also get many foil or full-art lands at once more easily in bundles which used to take much more time to accumulate.
Perhaps most importantly, new players have many options, and are no longer being baited with purchasing starter packs which had few, often bad rares with no synergy whatsoever to start building with. What I would have given for intro decks back when I started during Revised and was completely at a loss with what to build after opening my first starter and a few boosters (beyond the fact that I was probably building Naya due to my initial mana base).
Consider this... Gold has many uses, but would diamonds (or lion's eye diamonds) have any special meaning or a high value if they were found in abundance all over the place? How many practical purposes (or deck archtypes) do they truly usefully serve?
Would that rare fruit you can't always enjoy off season taste as exotic and enjoyable as it does when you get to finally eat it after waiting in anticipation? Take fiddleheads for example. They're only available in May, high in demand, low in supply, priced up as a result, and then they're gone in the blink of an eye until next year. If they were around all year and cheaper, I might be happier at first, but then the novelty would wear off, I wouldn't look forward to them knowing I could get them anytime, and they wouldn't be as satisfying each time I did.
I want to feel the gravity of every rarer-than-mythic rare that I open in a pack (not that I open many packs since I always opt buy singles instead, unless I'm drafting or doing a sealed deck at prerelease, which effectively makes seeing any such rewards that much rarer for me). I want a Kozilek right now which is on "The List", but do I honestly want to know that I could potentially open one in every pack? No, because that may only encourage me to gamble more on pack opening, which isn't my style, nor do I want it to be. All opening packs with certain expectations does is disappoint and offer diminishing returns. Therefore, I'll either wait to find someone to trade with, or get one from a store the next time he drops. I'm patient, and have plenty of strong placeholders for the deck I want him in.
Never feel "cheated" by the card you wanted and hoped for but didn't open.
Instead, don't delude yourself with such idealisms or wishful thinking fantasies.
Know and accept in advance (reluctantly if you must) that every booster pack you open is virtually a guaranteed loss which will almost certainly yield diminishing returns.
Expecting to break even or turn a profit on any pack you open is frankly naive and unrealistic. If that's an issue, only buy the singles you want and remove the gambling element completely. Trying to hedge your bets on boxes or cases instead of individual packs may create the illusion of a law of averages, but you will still lose purchasing at retail prices. Know this to be true.
Then, and only then, will you be pleasantly surprised when you open a pack and randomly see something free and extra which is rare in the true sense of the word (since you won't find one such card in every pack), and/or of secondary market value which you didn't suspect or take for granted was always inside waiting for you for find.
Also remember...At the end of the day, nobody has to buy the Magic cash cows and whoever want to can get their milk from a Cockatrice for free
It just won't look or taste as good.
I used to be a demigod, but now I'm an omnimage
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Diamonds ARE found in abundance. Their "scarcity" is artificial, created by a monopoly by the DeBeers corporation. They aren't special at all, and are intrinsically pretty much worthless.
Diamond (usually lab-made) is used as a hardening agent for many types of tools (often drill bits). A drill bit with diamond in it can cut through much harder materials than your standard steel drill bit.
I know, that's not the point you were making, but if you're going to illustrate a point, use an example that doesn't directly contradict your point.
Can you explain in what sense you mean that Diamonds are "intrinsically pretty much worthless" when you say below that " is used as a hardening agent for many types of tools (often drill bits). A drill bit with diamond in it can cut through much harder materials than your standard steel drill bit."?
Doesn't seems that intrinsically worthless. Unless you give the word "intrinsic" and "worthless" a very different meaning from what it's wrote on the dictionaries.
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
I mean, unless Diamonds are something that cheap, free and easy to find as leafs, stones, sea water or sand, I don't think "intrinsecally worthless" is a correct terminology to define them. They sure have their own monetary value and use, even if they're not worth 1 billion dollars each. It's just the use of unnecessary and misleading hyperboles that irks me (in pretty much the same way people use to say every new card is a "strictly better" version of a past card even if this isn't true in the 99% of cases). Let's use words in the proper way or language becomes confusing and meaningless.
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
They are also the hardest material in the whole world, and thats why the same user that said that they were "intrinsecally worthless" also said that are "used as a hardening agent for many types of tools". As I noticed, that's very far from something being "intrinsecally worthless" So saying diamonds are valuable only because they are pretty or artifically scarce seems fallacious to me.
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
|| 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 ||