It seems like right now, the current avenues for reprinting old cards are:
- Flashback drafts. You can pay straight tickets (to create and open completely new out of print packs) or use up existing (out of print) product. These are available sporadically, and last one week per block.
- Modern Masters. These are hand-selected cards by Wizards used both as a limited format and to increase supply of targeted cards for constructed. Vintage Masters is coming soon.
- Promos. These are very arbitrary, but often target the highest value out-of-print cards like Lion's Eye Diamond and Force of Will. The cost of these is having to participate in expensive or just many tournaments.
With Modern Masters, they halted the crazy price rocketing of many modern staples, and in many cases caused the price of those cards to crash hard. The flashback drafts seem to generally depress the price of the entire block as a whole for a while, but the effect doesn't seem to be huge (maybe 5-20%?). Promos seem to have a sizable effect on cards lucky (or unlucky) enough to be featured.
My question is: does this system work? I honestly have no clue.
There are still some crazy expensive cards, which makes entry into competitive modern to be a significant (and often unfeasible) investment. However, one reason people are willing to spend so much on cards is having that chance for value appreciation - having people feel that cards are actually worth something is healthy for the game as a whole. And it tops out around 100 tix, which is still way less than paper's elites.
With this fairly haphazard system, you have way more uncertainty than paper players as to how your collection's value will fare, since they only have to consider actual reprints in new sets and metagame changes, and not the whims of MTGO reprints. But perhaps having a nebulous idea that cards are valuable is a good thing, since you don't feel too pressured to dump your cards immediately when you're done with them, but on the other end of the spectrum, heavy speculation is discouraged because it can backfire hard?
Anyway, what are your thoughts? If you could be in charge of MTGO, would you do anything differently, and if so, what?
a) Want to play competitively? (dailies, premiers and the likes)
Same type as now, you have to buy all cards on the free market.
b) Dont want to play competitively?
Pay a monthly fee and have access to the entire pool of cards. Caveat is you cannot access tournaments or tournament preparation rooms.
Did you mean casually for the second one? Because I would pay like $10 bucks a month at most for unlimited casual play with access to the entire card pool. And I currently spend a LOT more than that on average to not play in any tournaments.
The reason I say this is because, card scarcity makes magic a bit more interesting.
- Flashback drafts. You can pay straight tickets (to create and open completely new out of print packs) or use up existing (out of print) product. These are available sporadically, and last one week per block.
- Modern Masters. These are hand-selected cards by Wizards used both as a limited format and to increase supply of targeted cards for constructed. Vintage Masters is coming soon.
- Promos. These are very arbitrary, but often target the highest value out-of-print cards like Lion's Eye Diamond and Force of Will. The cost of these is having to participate in expensive or just many tournaments.
With Modern Masters, they halted the crazy price rocketing of many modern staples, and in many cases caused the price of those cards to crash hard. The flashback drafts seem to generally depress the price of the entire block as a whole for a while, but the effect doesn't seem to be huge (maybe 5-20%?). Promos seem to have a sizable effect on cards lucky (or unlucky) enough to be featured.
My question is: does this system work? I honestly have no clue.
There are still some crazy expensive cards, which makes entry into competitive modern to be a significant (and often unfeasible) investment. However, one reason people are willing to spend so much on cards is having that chance for value appreciation - having people feel that cards are actually worth something is healthy for the game as a whole. And it tops out around 100 tix, which is still way less than paper's elites.
With this fairly haphazard system, you have way more uncertainty than paper players as to how your collection's value will fare, since they only have to consider actual reprints in new sets and metagame changes, and not the whims of MTGO reprints. But perhaps having a nebulous idea that cards are valuable is a good thing, since you don't feel too pressured to dump your cards immediately when you're done with them, but on the other end of the spectrum, heavy speculation is discouraged because it can backfire hard?
Anyway, what are your thoughts? If you could be in charge of MTGO, would you do anything differently, and if so, what?
a) Want to play competitively? (dailies, premiers and the likes)
Same type as now, you have to buy all cards on the free market.
b) Dont want to play competitively?
Pay a monthly fee and have access to the entire pool of cards. Caveat is you cannot access tournaments or tournament preparation rooms.
Did you mean casually for the second one? Because I would pay like $10 bucks a month at most for unlimited casual play with access to the entire card pool. And I currently spend a LOT more than that on average to not play in any tournaments.
The reason I say this is because, card scarcity makes magic a bit more interesting.
Yes...