you guys might be interested in an article i've written looking at how bad pack prices have been for the past ~2 years by historical comparison. I also speculate on the causes of it (the most likely candidate is NOT the redemption fee increase imo) and suggest solution.
I'm not on twitter, if anyone thinks this article has merit, it's probably worth a tweet in someone at WoTC's direction because the problem has become entrenched. Since I published the article, KTK has sunk further to 2.2 which is unheard of for a fall set. Something has to be done...
When packs decline in value - and there does seem to be a structural decline in the secondary market value of packs in recent years - tournaments become less attractive. This is not good for players, and it's not even good for WoTC because it's not like they're making any extra money from the fact that there's now a 2tix+ gap between retail and secondary market prices instead of a ~1tix or less gap. Because of this, less players are entering tournaments than otherwise would which means less players are having fun in these competitive events and less players are paying entry fees to WoTC. ie. Unhappy customers and less revenue.
Standard and modern DEs are now reaching the cap limit of 128 players. Daily events are more popular than in the past 6 months. I can't comment on low pack prices affecting the on demand queues.
What bot chain do you use to sell boosters? Clan team and goatbots have KTK for 2.45/2.54 and 2.5/2.54.
The booster economy is very complex. It'll take a multiple part article to tackle it all. You glossed over some analysis.
Why is JOU worth 4 tickets? You say it's an anomaly but you didn't break it down with comparing the pay out ratio or talk about supplementary draft products. Why are FRF boosters worth 3.95 now? You didn't go into a deep explanation of how retro drafts and cube drafts affect booster prices of current sets. You didn't use the graphs to support your claim that cube caused booster X to drop in value. Ideally you would have analyzed each graph and showed when new draft formats were being offered and pointed out a price fluctuation (which would prompt a multi part article). As I don't think ISD was solely offered by itself. I tried to get mtggoldfish to document retro drafts, but they didn't have much interest at the time. https://twitter.com/rickster___/status/544532765274693632
I'm glad someone wrote an article about this. I've gradually lost interest in playing in Dailies ever since KTK values dropped below 2.7, it just starts feeling like a waste of time after a while.
Unfortunately I'm not convinced that WOTC considers this a big problem for them. They seem to take action in removing queues and tournaments that they find are a "good deal" for grinders. And like rickster said, daily events still fill up just fine. People are definitely willing to play in these events for little to no value, and queues are still the best way to play against competitive decks/players on Magic Online.
Some of the solutions you mentioned (reduce the redemption fee, have WOTC buy back boosters from players) basically seems like it reduces WOTC's bottom line. Hard to convince them to do that as long as events are still firing.
WotC remove over-grinded events in part because they lower pack prices.
Constructed grinders destroy tickets and create packs. Limited grinders destroy packs (and a couple tix) and create singles. Redeemers destroy singles and remove them from the economy. Redeemers also often buy tix from the store, adding them to the economy. And then there's people without knowledge of the MTGO economy who do all sorts of silly things, like opening boosters.
The low overall price for packs is caused by the redemption changes making draft less appealing (more precisely, by lowering the value of mythics with little or no play demand), and consequentially some Limited players migrating to Constructed play. That is why a draft set of in-print sets is so much cheaper than throughout MTGO history.
The imbalance between packs may be a deliberate WotC strategy to sell packs - JOU is sensible to buy from the store at present. WotC have total control over the relative abundance of packs and could, if they desired, simply eradicate this discrepancy by a week of having 2 player queues pay out in JOU or M15. But if they do that, noone that understands the economy would buy boosters at all.
The low overall price for packs is caused by the redemption changes making draft less appealing (more precisely, by lowering the value of mythics with little or no play demand), and consequentially some Limited players migrating to Constructed play. That is why a draft set of in-print sets is so much cheaper than throughout MTGO history.
The imbalance between packs may be a deliberate WotC strategy to sell packs - JOU is sensible to buy from the store at present. WotC have total control over the relative abundance of packs and could, if they desired, simply eradicate this discrepancy by a week of having 2 player queues pay out in JOU or M15. But if they do that, noone that understands the economy would buy boosters at all.
Once FRF becomes redeemable do you think the price will drop below 4 tix?
Why is JOU worth a lot? If redemption lowers prices, why is JOU over 4 tix? Isn't it because of the payout ratio?
If we could figure out how much
pay out ratios
redemption
&
retro drafts
affect booster prices it would be easier to predict booster price trends.
The low overall price for packs is caused by the redemption changes making draft less appealing (more precisely, by lowering the value of mythics with little or no play demand), and consequentially some Limited players migrating to Constructed play. That is why a draft set of in-print sets is so much cheaper than throughout MTGO history.
The imbalance between packs may be a deliberate WotC strategy to sell packs - JOU is sensible to buy from the store at present. WotC have total control over the relative abundance of packs and could, if they desired, simply eradicate this discrepancy by a week of having 2 player queues pay out in JOU or M15. But if they do that, noone that understands the economy would buy boosters at all.
Once FRF becomes redeemable do you think the price will drop below 4 tix?
Why is JOU worth a lot? If redemption lowers prices, why is JOU over 4 tix? Isn't it because of the payout ratio?
If we could figure out how much
pay out ratios
redemption
&
retro drafts
affect booster prices it would be easier to predict booster price trends.
My analysis only looks at the price of a draft set, not a single pack.
FKK and JBT are considerably less per set than I recall Scars block being.
I don't think we're ever going to be able to figure out the cause. Only WoTC can do that, there's too many moving parts and we don't have enough data. I'm far less interested in the cause, and more interested in identifying this as a long-term problem for players which should be on WoTC's radar.
http://puremtgo.com/articles/around-block-62-mtgo-constructed-prize-payouts-are-broken
I'm not on twitter, if anyone thinks this article has merit, it's probably worth a tweet in someone at WoTC's direction because the problem has become entrenched. Since I published the article, KTK has sunk further to 2.2 which is unheard of for a fall set. Something has to be done...
Standard and modern DEs are now reaching the cap limit of 128 players. Daily events are more popular than in the past 6 months. I can't comment on low pack prices affecting the on demand queues.
What bot chain do you use to sell boosters? Clan team and goatbots have KTK for 2.45/2.54 and 2.5/2.54.
The booster economy is very complex. It'll take a multiple part article to tackle it all. You glossed over some analysis.
Why is JOU worth 4 tickets? You say it's an anomaly but you didn't break it down with comparing the pay out ratio or talk about supplementary draft products. Why are FRF boosters worth 3.95 now? You didn't go into a deep explanation of how retro drafts and cube drafts affect booster prices of current sets. You didn't use the graphs to support your claim that cube caused booster X to drop in value. Ideally you would have analyzed each graph and showed when new draft formats were being offered and pointed out a price fluctuation (which would prompt a multi part article). As I don't think ISD was solely offered by itself. I tried to get mtggoldfish to document retro drafts, but they didn't have much interest at the time. https://twitter.com/rickster___/status/544532765274693632
Unfortunately I'm not convinced that WOTC considers this a big problem for them. They seem to take action in removing queues and tournaments that they find are a "good deal" for grinders. And like rickster said, daily events still fill up just fine. People are definitely willing to play in these events for little to no value, and queues are still the best way to play against competitive decks/players on Magic Online.
Some of the solutions you mentioned (reduce the redemption fee, have WOTC buy back boosters from players) basically seems like it reduces WOTC's bottom line. Hard to convince them to do that as long as events are still firing.
Constructed grinders destroy tickets and create packs. Limited grinders destroy packs (and a couple tix) and create singles. Redeemers destroy singles and remove them from the economy. Redeemers also often buy tix from the store, adding them to the economy. And then there's people without knowledge of the MTGO economy who do all sorts of silly things, like opening boosters.
The low overall price for packs is caused by the redemption changes making draft less appealing (more precisely, by lowering the value of mythics with little or no play demand), and consequentially some Limited players migrating to Constructed play. That is why a draft set of in-print sets is so much cheaper than throughout MTGO history.
The imbalance between packs may be a deliberate WotC strategy to sell packs - JOU is sensible to buy from the store at present. WotC have total control over the relative abundance of packs and could, if they desired, simply eradicate this discrepancy by a week of having 2 player queues pay out in JOU or M15. But if they do that, noone that understands the economy would buy boosters at all.
Once FRF becomes redeemable do you think the price will drop below 4 tix?
Why is JOU worth a lot? If redemption lowers prices, why is JOU over 4 tix? Isn't it because of the payout ratio?
If we could figure out how much
pay out ratios
redemption
&
retro drafts
affect booster prices it would be easier to predict booster price trends.
My analysis only looks at the price of a draft set, not a single pack.
FKK and JBT are considerably less per set than I recall Scars block being.