Lately i have heard a lot of anger from friends and other players about wizards. Many are contemplating quitting. The main issue is with the reprints of modern staples not coming as needed, and the low availability of the masters sets. What are your thoughts on wizards refusing to reprint needed cards and their lack of selling a precon worth a crap in the last few years. I am getting tired of them stringing us along and sucking money from our wallets without really helping the community by lowering these ridiculous secondary market prices.
Lately i have heard a lot of anger from friends and other players about wizards.
Yup, there lot of Magic players who complain about things.
Many are contemplating quitting.
Can I buy their cards?
The main issue is with the reprints of modern staples not coming as needed,
What would you consider "as needed"?
and the low availability of the masters sets.
All of which are for sale on Amazon currently. I can buy cases if I want to.
What are your thoughts on wizards refusing to reprint needed cards
Yeah, like Onslaught Fetches. And Those Masters sets. And Expeditions. And so on. Refusing is probably a bit strong here.
and their lack of selling a precon worth a crap in the last few years.
Which precon was worth a crap on purpose? They aren't supposed to be worth so much that new players never get to see them. No free skullclamps and Jittes for you.
I am getting tired of them stringing us along and sucking money from our wallets
If you feel that Wizard's is taking your money without your consent, contact local law enforcement.
without really helping the community by lowering these ridiculous secondary market prices.
The cards are going to sell for what people will pay for them.
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MTGSalvation; Where the whining is a time honored tradition, and enjoying the game is trolling.
And then you have people like you defending them. How about a reprint of damnation, or serum visions, how about the masters sets not costing 10 dollars a pack and having a limited print run, The duel decks used to be fun to play and had some decent cards in them, the most recent duel decks are horrible. The blind loyalty from you and other players to this brand is a problem. I love magic, but there has to be a tipping point. Wizards worries about over printing and driving away players, but they may be driving away players for the exact opposite reason. So instead of just blindly defending their decisions, perhaps it is time to take off the rose(water) colored glasses and ask if what they are doing is in the best interested of the players, the business, and the game as a whole.
Even though Bauer and I generally disagree, the above reply was comedy gold.
To the OP: The unfortunate truth is that people who see a problem with WotC's current design philosophy, reprint policy and general product quality are a minority within the larger community (and I say that as a member of said minority). Most players are content to pay money for subpar output, like many comic book film fans are content to give passing grades to poorly executed films.
The good news for DCEU and Transformers fans is that there's enough competition to force course correction from companies like WB, Fox and Paramount. With WotC, however, there's really nothing but fan disapproval to stop them from making--and sticking to--unpopular decisions. Who's gonna challenge their market share? Konami? Bandai? UpperDeck? Blizzard? Not likely.
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I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
Learn to draft well at your LGS, win free packs. Ask if you can use those packs instead of paying for entry (sometimes you may be asked to throw in 1-2 more packs for your part of the prize support). Draft well again and repeat as long as you can. See if your LGS has any specials like 3 packs for $10 and only buy when you can. Trade, trade, trade for cards you need. Buy cards individually versus pack lotteries. Use store credit to your advantage. Memorize cards or learn Spanish (not sure why, but they seem to be the cheapest for singles and boxes online go for about 20% less than usual). If you have a big box store like Target or Walmart, go buy out their Clash packs with the Collected Company and Windswept Heaths, trade the rest.
If there are things that you truly want, there are ways to get them but they will take time if you can't afford it with money right away.
Even if they do reprint things to increase supply, like they have in the past with Masters sets you will notice that prices didn't drop for the cards that mattered. There were just more cards for stores to sell at that current price while the older versions went up 10%. Wizards learned from their mistake with Chronicles concerning the secondary market. What most people like this are suggesting is similar to why is unpopular in other card games where Ultra Rares from one set become commons in the next. Dollars to donuts, we will not see Tarmogoyf or Fetchlands at common or uncommon, as that is what would need to happen for a price tank.
There are plenty of budget decks that are viable in each format that are a great place to start to accumulate winnings. You may not like playing WG fatty aggro or Mono-Red Burn, but you should learn how to play them so you know how to play against them later. We all started somewhere, maybe getting a pack a week or rummaging through bulk bins for secret treasures that might have spiked (heritage druid, looking at you), but eventually we all reach a point where we can either invest in the hobby we love or realize that "going competative" just isn't in the cards...*pun intended*
For each person that quits, there will be someone to buy their collection on the cheap. I have sold four collections over 20 years, but I just come back harder each time (twice because I was young and dumb and wanted cash, twice because it was able to pay for a couple months worth of rent). Wizards understands their audience, otherwise we would not play the game. Every year more and more people learn to play, people who started 10 years ago are teaching their children to play or their significant other. People play in schools, bus stops, library, and cars when they get a chance.
It costs money to print product, and that doesn't even take into account business overheads. They have stated that printing DFC cards are also more expensive because of the logistics for making sure backs match fronts and we still got a return to Innistrad that is currently on track to sell more than Zendikar block (and that had Expeditions to help pad sales for a weak block).
Well, that is not really a fair assessment of the situations.
Of course they do reprints, but mythic rarity reprints only marginally increase the supply.
The Master Series as a whole is not a good way to supply the market with reprints and this is by design, because Wizards does not want to repeat the Chronicles disaster.
All in all Wizards knows that Modern starts to go the Legacy route and becomes unaffordable for most players.
A good test how affordable a format is, is the Burn Test.
Burn is a viable archetype in most formats and it is usually one of the cheapest decks you can put together in a format.
Modern Burn is currently at about ~900$, and as I said Burn is usually cheap.
If are interested in joining Modern right now, but you are not willing to spend 1000$+ on one deck... Modern is not for you.
Of course, you have the people who played the stuff in Standard and did not have to spend these sums, but the number of these people just decrease not increase.
And the number of people who are willing to spend a grand on a deck is also not very high.
From these observations you can safely predict that Modern will see less and less play over the time.
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Drop your knees to the floor
Hands to the sky
Give a round of applause
For the great Miss Y!
Not directly, but the low print run of products like Eternal Masters or Modern Masters doesn't help to reduce the cost of the chase cards they reprint that much. So sad that they prefer to side with collectors instead of players...
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"De potentia juvenis somniabat, nunc de Mundo somniat..."
I have been playing since onslaught and i have all the modern staples i need, but my concern is the number of players i am seeing leave due to not the cost of the cards but the feeling that WOTC is just screwing its players over recently. I have been playing all of this time and i have never seen this level of disappointment,and sadness in players, the players i know feel betrayed in a way. I am worried this is a domino is a chain reaction that could crash this great game of ours. This is not the normal complaining that has always been the norm within the community.
I have been playing since onslaught and i have all the modern staples i need, but my concern is the number of players i am seeing leave due to not the cost of the cards but the feeling that WOTC is just screwing its players over recently. I have been playing all of this time and i have never seen this level of disappointment,and sadness in players, the players i know feel betrayed in a way. I am worried this is a domino is a chain reaction that could crash this great game of ours. This is not the normal complaining that has always been the norm within the community.
Even if Wizards somehow managed to kill Magic, it is beyond the point of dying out. Too many fans make sets and too many companies run tournaments. All it would take is SCG to keep running tournaments with their own rule sets for their own formats and issuing their own cards. We could even see something similar to what ended up happening with Decipher and the old Star Wars game where you can print out errata'd cards and sleeve them up.
All you need is a deck and a friend, not every card in existence for your collection. But hey, that is what proxies are for.
Yeah, Mark Rosewater has explicitly written that they're playing it safe with reprints. They're apparently worried about Chronicles devaluation and outrage happening again. Rosewater claims they're working on the problem of high prices. Fundamentally, WotC as a corporation has different interests from players who want cheap cards. Now, there's presumably a point at which high prices hurt WotC profits, but it's unclear where that point is and some of us players want much, much lower prices in any case.
Yup, there lot of Magic players who complain about things.
Can I buy their cards?
What would you consider "as needed"?
All of which are for sale on Amazon currently. I can buy cases if I want to.
Yeah, like Onslaught Fetches. And Those Masters sets. And Expeditions. And so on. Refusing is probably a bit strong here.
Which precon was worth a crap on purpose? They aren't supposed to be worth so much that new players never get to see them. No free skullclamps and Jittes for you.
If you feel that Wizard's is taking your money without your consent, contact local law enforcement.
The cards are going to sell for what people will pay for them.
To the OP: The unfortunate truth is that people who see a problem with WotC's current design philosophy, reprint policy and general product quality are a minority within the larger community (and I say that as a member of said minority). Most players are content to pay money for subpar output, like many comic book film fans are content to give passing grades to poorly executed films.
The good news for DCEU and Transformers fans is that there's enough competition to force course correction from companies like WB, Fox and Paramount. With WotC, however, there's really nothing but fan disapproval to stop them from making--and sticking to--unpopular decisions. Who's gonna challenge their market share? Konami? Bandai? UpperDeck? Blizzard? Not likely.
I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
Cubes:
Modern Banlist Cube
Monocolor Budget Cube
If there are things that you truly want, there are ways to get them but they will take time if you can't afford it with money right away.
Even if they do reprint things to increase supply, like they have in the past with Masters sets you will notice that prices didn't drop for the cards that mattered. There were just more cards for stores to sell at that current price while the older versions went up 10%. Wizards learned from their mistake with Chronicles concerning the secondary market. What most people like this are suggesting is similar to why is unpopular in other card games where Ultra Rares from one set become commons in the next. Dollars to donuts, we will not see Tarmogoyf or Fetchlands at common or uncommon, as that is what would need to happen for a price tank.
There are plenty of budget decks that are viable in each format that are a great place to start to accumulate winnings. You may not like playing WG fatty aggro or Mono-Red Burn, but you should learn how to play them so you know how to play against them later. We all started somewhere, maybe getting a pack a week or rummaging through bulk bins for secret treasures that might have spiked (heritage druid, looking at you), but eventually we all reach a point where we can either invest in the hobby we love or realize that "going competative" just isn't in the cards...*pun intended*
For each person that quits, there will be someone to buy their collection on the cheap. I have sold four collections over 20 years, but I just come back harder each time (twice because I was young and dumb and wanted cash, twice because it was able to pay for a couple months worth of rent). Wizards understands their audience, otherwise we would not play the game. Every year more and more people learn to play, people who started 10 years ago are teaching their children to play or their significant other. People play in schools, bus stops, library, and cars when they get a chance.
It costs money to print product, and that doesn't even take into account business overheads. They have stated that printing DFC cards are also more expensive because of the logistics for making sure backs match fronts and we still got a return to Innistrad that is currently on track to sell more than Zendikar block (and that had Expeditions to help pad sales for a weak block).
DracoBall: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/casual-related-formats/homebrew-variant-formats/598529-dracoball-updated-3-24-15
Fantastic Fours: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/casual-related-formats/homebrew-variant-formats/603605-fantastic-fours
Of course they do reprints, but mythic rarity reprints only marginally increase the supply.
The Master Series as a whole is not a good way to supply the market with reprints and this is by design, because Wizards does not want to repeat the Chronicles disaster.
All in all Wizards knows that Modern starts to go the Legacy route and becomes unaffordable for most players.
A good test how affordable a format is, is the Burn Test.
Burn is a viable archetype in most formats and it is usually one of the cheapest decks you can put together in a format.
Modern Burn is currently at about ~900$, and as I said Burn is usually cheap.
If are interested in joining Modern right now, but you are not willing to spend 1000$+ on one deck... Modern is not for you.
Of course, you have the people who played the stuff in Standard and did not have to spend these sums, but the number of these people just decrease not increase.
And the number of people who are willing to spend a grand on a deck is also not very high.
From these observations you can safely predict that Modern will see less and less play over the time.
Hands to the sky
Give a round of applause
For the great Miss Y!
C Long Live Eldrazi C
Even if Wizards somehow managed to kill Magic, it is beyond the point of dying out. Too many fans make sets and too many companies run tournaments. All it would take is SCG to keep running tournaments with their own rule sets for their own formats and issuing their own cards. We could even see something similar to what ended up happening with Decipher and the old Star Wars game where you can print out errata'd cards and sleeve them up.
All you need is a deck and a friend, not every card in existence for your collection. But hey, that is what proxies are for.
DracoBall: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/casual-related-formats/homebrew-variant-formats/598529-dracoball-updated-3-24-15
Fantastic Fours: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/casual-related-formats/homebrew-variant-formats/603605-fantastic-fours
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!