Not to derail the thread but you can get the demon achievement now, although it's tedious. PLay with a mostly unlocked blue deck, you have a couple ways to steal creatures and 4 of those illusion clone creatures. Play against that demon deck with all the dudes that summon that demon. Steal it, clone it x 4, & win.
That being said. Did this version of DOTP NEED another exalted deck? And that one at that :(.
LOL, Wow, and WTH are three of the acronyms that first jumped to mind when I saw the full extend of the disdain wizards has for it's player-base. I was expecting it to be bad after the first day of spoilers, but not THAT bad. There are 2, TWO cards in this set anyone really cares about play wise. Scroll Rack, and Sylvan Library. The P3K cards, while nice, and I'm sure people think they are awesome, are only good because their actual print cards are expensive. This print run will not help that. The fact that both of them are lackluster only adds to the feeling like you finally got that ultra rare bottle of Crystal Pepsi only to realize that Crystal Pepsi is terrible.
Seriously. Cards that recently appeared in commander and Planechase are the cards they felt were the things most Commander players really wanted? Really? REALLY? IF people want those cards they can get them. Shoehorning them into this product feels about as forced as Al Bundy trying to get a size 14 into a size 5. In the end I'm glad this was so short-printed that only the most insane of us will get a set. The sad thign is the only thing in this entire pack that was pretty cool was the life counter. It's cool in that, man that would be neat to have, sort of way. But not so neat that I'll pay $75 to get it...
Wizards. Really... You could have just not put anything out this year in that Premium Deck slot, we're all busy buying RTR cards anyhow. This is truly for people that hate having money. Can't wait to see what is in that Gift-pack for Christmas, or Modern Masters now.
I'm guessing the Modern staples will be at all rarity levels but a good 2/3 of the cards will be modern cards that will help them pad out a set much like every other set printed has staples for standard and a lot of bad cards. Also using the Master sets as an example points to this. There were a lot of bad cards int eh old days and they padded out what people wanted (duals and a few choice rares and uncommons) with really terrible cards.
I say charge whatever you want for this stupid, stupid, product. 18 cards for $75 dollars from the company that manufactures the product is laughable, and sets a bad precedent where said company learns they can charge over-inflated prices for the good cards (look at the modern expansion next year).
So, while it's nice to see re-prints, the cost is just too damn high.
1. Players start buying the reprints and flock to Vintage or Legacy, whichever their format of choice is and old time collectors, out of disgust because their cards are now worth a fraction of what they were, leave the game. In the end, do we end up with more players or fewer players? In addition, what does this do to the trust that the public has in the game itself knowing that their cards could be worthless the next day.
The public loves them some call of duty games and Madden football games and those are near worthless as soon as the newer ones come out. People still buy them because they want the new stuff and they want to be able to play with everyone else that plays with the new stuff. The idea that Magic would die if the cards were made worthless after they rotated is not true. If anything it would allow for things like Vintage, Legacy, and Modern to become more of a thing because access to cards would be less about can you afford them?
2. Same as above except old time players don't leave. They'd rather play the game and have cards not worth as much than to not be able to play as eventually, the old formats WILL die without reprints as there are only so many cards to go around.
3. Nothing changes. Nobody really cares about the reprints. Or very few care. They would rather play standard or modern because the older formats intimidate them. After all, they are harder to master because of the larger card pool. But, because of the reprints, values of old cards go down and this pisses off the collectors. Gradually, they sell their cards and leave the game.
The collectors are doing nothing for the game or Wizards. So why does Wizards cater to them so much. The people who actually play the game fall into two camps. Re-print Everything, and Re-print nothing. The re-print nothing group tends to feel slighted that they just payed $75 for a Goyf that ends up being reprinted and it goes down in value. They aren't so much mad that they now have something that's worth LESS money, but that they feel they over-payed. This also seems like some crazy concept that's new to Magic players and collectible nuts in general. People assume that because you have something that the value should always go up, when the rest of what we all own does the exact opposite. My car's never going to go up in value, My computer isn't going to go up in value, the food I bought isn't going to go up in value.
In the end making the game stress collectible more than game leads to situations where people buy things up at a low price then just sell it back to you at a high price, and how does that help Wizards attract people to a format? In the end the collectors actually do more harm to this game than anything else. They create an artificial value on cards by increasing the scarcity of the product, they don't contribute to the game and by raising prices actually deter people from playing, and they usually could care less about the health of the game and only about the health of their collection.
With a couple exceptions, a lot of what was in P3K, while rare, isn't as spectacular as people tend to think it is. On MTGO people have full access to Retainers and old One Eye. Retainers is 10 cents and One Eye is 6 cents. They are both fun, yes, and I feel that their abilities are unique, but neither are worth the over-inflated price tag that's been given them. It's a nice thought that there will now be more Retainers in circulation, but it's not like they are being dropped into a big set to matter. The price will still stay somewhat high, and I still don't understand why. Rarity alone shouldn't dictate if something is worth more money, the card also needs to be good.
Well, good on those that wanted these cards in paper. The retainers are a good addition, I don't understand ANY of the others. SO far there's 2 good cards that people really wanted and were in high demand and the rest is pretty bad.
Timmy =/= Noob
Timmy doesn't mean a fetish for big things;
Timmies play for getting an experience.
It could be playing with big spells / achieving a huge board presence in the game. (Power Gamers)
Playing a very luck-based deck with cards like Stitch in Time (Adrenalin Gamers).
Or even watching you rage as he counters each of your spells/discards your whole hand (Griefer Timmies).
Timmy's also tend to value big creatures over many other things so I get what your saying, and I wasn't saying they were noobs, but it's easier to give them a bad trade if the bad trade involves a big spell or creature they find interesting, regardless it's $$value.
I think a lot of people that come to this site assume everyone that plays the game is like them (myself included likely). Not everyone enjoys trading.
You're not spending the extra money on the foil, you're spending on the cards as a whole. Since this set will contain staples and the best cards used in modern, you're paying for the chance of getting all good cards, from common to the rare. You could get Aether Vial and Tarmogoyf and Lightning Helix all in the same pack. That's if those cards are in the set. It was just an example. But you understand.
That kind of sets a terrible precedent on several levels. First allowing them to charge you more just because the cards are better admits that most cards in magic are in fact terrible and if you want better cards, even wizards is going to charge you more. Second if in fact this is something they do bi-annually or something, and your focus is eternal formats, why bother buying regular packs ever again? Why trudge through all the terrible they print year in and year out and just buy the "good cards" sure you'd miss out on standard, but if modern becomes a format everyone wants to play, then just get singles you like and wait for this modern stuff to come around again.
Just paying wizards more money because the cards are guaranteed better is not a good move. FTV and such get a pass because they go a bit of the extra mile on those and foil them in a certain way and that matters to some people. Besides Wizards has said time and time again that the motivation they have for making cards a certain rarity isn't money based (that's a whole different lie but they say it and we buy it). Charging more for cards you know is better points at that "mission statement" and laughs in it's face.
Still a bit shocked that this is 2 weeks away, and we have no spoiler. For something you needed to get your reserve in on a long time ago, they aren't tossing anyone a bone to let them know what they are actually paying for. Right now, all we have is 1 card, a bunch of oversized cards people likely don't care too much about, and a bunch of plastic bits that, while cool, aren't worth the price tag. If they have great cards in there, great, but they sort of hung this thing on a pretty big trust hook and it's now only being sold to speculators. Kind of crummy.
Realize that the "bad old days" of trading are actually long behind us for the most part. Now that the internet is on every device on the planet and sites like magiccards.info update their prices instantaneously. You will always get market value on the card you trade for at that time. A smart trader can still get extra value out of you by using a multitude of tactics but the days of having a guy give up a 25 dollar card and trading him a 1 dollar card in return are pretty much long gone.
How wrong you are. While there are people that go to the stores with every bit of knowledge of the cards as they can get, there's still a large number of people, casual players, that have no freaking clue. They see things like Shiny demon that makes my opponent sac a creature to stop it from attacking as a better card than a stupid land that deals damage to me when it comes into play.
While a lot of us can see the bad trade there, the new player, or timmy player, can't or doesn't care and while you can say that's their fault, it's not. It's also a different discussion entirely. I'm kind of sorry for bringing it up.
unrelated @ FracturedOrb - Not everyone that has all foil decks is good. I only know of one pro that does that. Having a foil in every pack is a good way to recoup some of the pack cost if you don't want your foils; eBay, my friend.
I play MTGO and not paper these days as I moved to a smaller market and it's just easier to get games on there. While we will have a larger supply of cards than the rest of you on there, foils are near worthless online. People charge what they feel foils are worth but they are extremely hard to get rid of if your trying to get rid of them. And foils in packs of cards have the same stigma as foils online to some extent. Great if you got a foil that people care about, terrible if you didn't. In regular packs though it's just a fun little bonus at times and doesn't affect the price by much because it's random. Now we're guaranteed a foil and we have to pay more for it. This is less exciting, and kind of dumb. The all foil Alara packs sat on my old card shop's shelves the entire time they were there and he sold a couple when they first came out and then like 3 a month or something extremely dumb.
In the end things like the reserve list and foils really only cater to people who have a vested interest in the aspects of the game that aren't a game. I buy a lot of board games, video games, and miniatures. I don't see ANY of them as an investment. I see them as what they are, a fun way to pass the time with friends. Do I trade Magic cards? Yes, do I enjoy it? Never. Trading is kind of a pain in the ass. People who are good at pulling one over on the other guy enjoy it, and the rest of us, that just want the cards we want, usually get ripped off out of a deal because we can't fractionalise the values of cards to the extent that good traders are.
In the end this insert of a foil just seems like a cash grab. Every reason Aaron gave for justifying the price just reminds me of the kinds of reasons people give you when trying to convince you a bad deal, is a good deal.
Why are they putting a foil in every pack? If the idea is to get cards to players so that they can play modern, then why not just leave that kind of money grabbing at the curb and just sell them for regular price. The amount of people that want to pay the extra three bucks just to get a foil I'm hoping is far surpassed by the amount of people that don't want to pay seven dollars for a pack of random cards.
Personally I am a bit biased, I hate foils. They added another rarity that a game doesn't need and while it's cool at times to open a pack and get a foil rare or what not, more often than not they just feed into the excuse to charge more for cards. Foils are generally harder to trade if you don't live in a major market where people want them for commander decks and the like. Online they are damn near impossible to get rid of as bots won't take them and humans don't want to trade more for a fake shiny object.
All they ever did for me was teach me who to avoid playing against. Look, he has an all foil deck, he must have more money than he knows what to do with, no thanks.
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That being said. Did this version of DOTP NEED another exalted deck? And that one at that :(.
Seriously. Cards that recently appeared in commander and Planechase are the cards they felt were the things most Commander players really wanted? Really? REALLY? IF people want those cards they can get them. Shoehorning them into this product feels about as forced as Al Bundy trying to get a size 14 into a size 5. In the end I'm glad this was so short-printed that only the most insane of us will get a set. The sad thign is the only thing in this entire pack that was pretty cool was the life counter. It's cool in that, man that would be neat to have, sort of way. But not so neat that I'll pay $75 to get it...
Wizards. Really... You could have just not put anything out this year in that Premium Deck slot, we're all busy buying RTR cards anyhow. This is truly for people that hate having money. Can't wait to see what is in that Gift-pack for Christmas, or Modern Masters now.
So, while it's nice to see re-prints, the cost is just too damn high.
The public loves them some call of duty games and Madden football games and those are near worthless as soon as the newer ones come out. People still buy them because they want the new stuff and they want to be able to play with everyone else that plays with the new stuff. The idea that Magic would die if the cards were made worthless after they rotated is not true. If anything it would allow for things like Vintage, Legacy, and Modern to become more of a thing because access to cards would be less about can you afford them?
Sounds good to me.
The collectors are doing nothing for the game or Wizards. So why does Wizards cater to them so much. The people who actually play the game fall into two camps. Re-print Everything, and Re-print nothing. The re-print nothing group tends to feel slighted that they just payed $75 for a Goyf that ends up being reprinted and it goes down in value. They aren't so much mad that they now have something that's worth LESS money, but that they feel they over-payed. This also seems like some crazy concept that's new to Magic players and collectible nuts in general. People assume that because you have something that the value should always go up, when the rest of what we all own does the exact opposite. My car's never going to go up in value, My computer isn't going to go up in value, the food I bought isn't going to go up in value.
In the end making the game stress collectible more than game leads to situations where people buy things up at a low price then just sell it back to you at a high price, and how does that help Wizards attract people to a format? In the end the collectors actually do more harm to this game than anything else. They create an artificial value on cards by increasing the scarcity of the product, they don't contribute to the game and by raising prices actually deter people from playing, and they usually could care less about the health of the game and only about the health of their collection.
More than likely.
TO help justify the insane-o price tag.
Timmy's also tend to value big creatures over many other things so I get what your saying, and I wasn't saying they were noobs, but it's easier to give them a bad trade if the bad trade involves a big spell or creature they find interesting, regardless it's $$value.
I think a lot of people that come to this site assume everyone that plays the game is like them (myself included likely). Not everyone enjoys trading.
That kind of sets a terrible precedent on several levels. First allowing them to charge you more just because the cards are better admits that most cards in magic are in fact terrible and if you want better cards, even wizards is going to charge you more. Second if in fact this is something they do bi-annually or something, and your focus is eternal formats, why bother buying regular packs ever again? Why trudge through all the terrible they print year in and year out and just buy the "good cards" sure you'd miss out on standard, but if modern becomes a format everyone wants to play, then just get singles you like and wait for this modern stuff to come around again.
Just paying wizards more money because the cards are guaranteed better is not a good move. FTV and such get a pass because they go a bit of the extra mile on those and foil them in a certain way and that matters to some people. Besides Wizards has said time and time again that the motivation they have for making cards a certain rarity isn't money based (that's a whole different lie but they say it and we buy it). Charging more for cards you know is better points at that "mission statement" and laughs in it's face.
How wrong you are. While there are people that go to the stores with every bit of knowledge of the cards as they can get, there's still a large number of people, casual players, that have no freaking clue. They see things like Shiny demon that makes my opponent sac a creature to stop it from attacking as a better card than a stupid land that deals damage to me when it comes into play.
While a lot of us can see the bad trade there, the new player, or timmy player, can't or doesn't care and while you can say that's their fault, it's not. It's also a different discussion entirely. I'm kind of sorry for bringing it up.
I play MTGO and not paper these days as I moved to a smaller market and it's just easier to get games on there. While we will have a larger supply of cards than the rest of you on there, foils are near worthless online. People charge what they feel foils are worth but they are extremely hard to get rid of if your trying to get rid of them. And foils in packs of cards have the same stigma as foils online to some extent. Great if you got a foil that people care about, terrible if you didn't. In regular packs though it's just a fun little bonus at times and doesn't affect the price by much because it's random. Now we're guaranteed a foil and we have to pay more for it. This is less exciting, and kind of dumb. The all foil Alara packs sat on my old card shop's shelves the entire time they were there and he sold a couple when they first came out and then like 3 a month or something extremely dumb.
In the end things like the reserve list and foils really only cater to people who have a vested interest in the aspects of the game that aren't a game. I buy a lot of board games, video games, and miniatures. I don't see ANY of them as an investment. I see them as what they are, a fun way to pass the time with friends. Do I trade Magic cards? Yes, do I enjoy it? Never. Trading is kind of a pain in the ass. People who are good at pulling one over on the other guy enjoy it, and the rest of us, that just want the cards we want, usually get ripped off out of a deal because we can't fractionalise the values of cards to the extent that good traders are.
In the end this insert of a foil just seems like a cash grab. Every reason Aaron gave for justifying the price just reminds me of the kinds of reasons people give you when trying to convince you a bad deal, is a good deal.
Sorry for the sort of rant.
Personally I am a bit biased, I hate foils. They added another rarity that a game doesn't need and while it's cool at times to open a pack and get a foil rare or what not, more often than not they just feed into the excuse to charge more for cards. Foils are generally harder to trade if you don't live in a major market where people want them for commander decks and the like. Online they are damn near impossible to get rid of as bots won't take them and humans don't want to trade more for a fake shiny object.
All they ever did for me was teach me who to avoid playing against. Look, he has an all foil deck, he must have more money than he knows what to do with, no thanks.