You can always run blooming marsh instead of black cleave cliffs great alternative
it's not in anyway, the advantage of of blackcleave cliffs is the ability to bolt or discard turn 1, for no life. I can't think of any deck that needs green on turn 1 for no life that also needs discard. Some sort of BUG midrange with dorks maybe? Lantern? But they don't need red.
BGx Elves often runs a full set of Blooming Marsh, but that's all that comes to mind immediately. Maybe Living End has a few as well?
But yeah, Blackcleave is super important for the reasons you noted.
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Playing UX Mana Denial until Modern gets the answers it needs.
WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
Okay, I know it is a competitive point, but there is a huge difference between having the best jund deck and a jund deck. If someone doesn't want to drop $45 on a playset of cliffs, I think it is generally best to just say "look, you're right you can do that, but you'll sometimes lose games you would have won with turn 1 blackcleave cliffs."
It isn't unusual to play a suboptimal manabase in paper to get a feel for the deck and test run it at local events before deciding whether to drop potentially hundreds more. It is also important to realize that the downside only matters in a handful of specific circumstances that are never guaranteed to happen.
For the record, I'm not playing Jund either. I would say there is easier workarounds in Jund, but in the case of Hollow one and Mardu Pyromancer there is no real alternative for it. I was literally thinking of playing 4c pyro because it'd be cheaper simply because of cliffs.
i figured black would be the spec color of choice. i didnt really spec, but i grabbed deltas and mires without a second thought even though i wasnt planning to play them much. black is a close second in legacy, and discard has always been powerful in modern.
Makes sense. If somebody came to me and said "I want to play modern, I have no staples, but cash to burn," I would first ask them what deck they wanted to build. If they didn't know, and just wanted to get a collection started while they decided, I'd tell them to buy fetches, then shocks, then fastlands, then zendikar manlands. Real estate is king, bro.
Did not see your post yesterday. Yeah, I have to agree. Real estate is king.
The purchases I did at SCG that has some sort of fetch land or useful fastland paid off. The land would rise in price.. in that way... the land would eventually "pay" for the shipping cost and customs storage fee that I had to pay. Although of course.. for best results, the purchase would have to be done while the land is still low in price.
i figured black would be the spec color of choice. i didnt really spec, but i grabbed deltas and mires without a second thought even though i wasnt planning to play them much. black is a close second in legacy, and discard has always been powerful in modern.
Makes sense. If somebody came to me and said "I want to play modern, I have no staples, but cash to burn," I would first ask them what deck they wanted to build. If they didn't know, and just wanted to get a collection started while they decided, I'd tell them to buy fetches, then shocks, then fastlands, then zendikar manlands. Real estate is king, bro.
Definitely solid pieces of advice. Having the mana base necessary to theoretically build any Modern deck is a nice reassurance and simplifies the decision making process when it comes to changing decks or choosing to build additional ones.
I'd expect all the tournament staples to hold or go up in price. As the mtg population shrinks, the more financial burden the competitive cards have to shoulder since the most dedicated players gravitate to whatever is best in class.
We are seeing multiple decks go over the 2000 dollar mark now or approaching that point.
Shrink? Wouldn't that lower prices? Not drive them up as players dump their cards onto the market?
Yes, it would. More demand = increase in prices, not less.
This is like 'prices are increasing, sell now' a few pages back...
Because the sellers are the ones who need to make money and they can't make money on cards that have no demand. So the natural thing to do is put the cost on the cards that people are still buying. That is why the price goes up. If all groups of customers were dropping in equal number than this wouldn't happen, but the people who typically leave first are casual players and thus drop the demand on a larger number of cards. Meanwhile, people who are dedicated (i.e. most likely people in this very forum), don't tune out and are willing to pay a premium for the cream of the crop.
People sell Hydroblasts all day for over a dollar even though there are insane numbers of them out there. Why do they do this? Because they can and it keeps the lights on. It isn't always about your supply and demand, albeit it always is a factor.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Muay Thai (literally) kicked my ass tonight, I dont have it in me to think about what you are saying here.
dunno it seems to be about a bunch of dedicated players who arent jumping ship on a shrinking format deciding to buy into staples that they dont own already for whatever reason so they can play decks that arent especially good; meanwhile the casuals were all playing garbage decks that didnt include any format staples so none re-enter circulation.
ipso facto hydroblasts keep the lights on.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Muay Thai (literally) kicked my ass tonight, I dont have it in me to think about what you are saying here.
dunno it seems to be about a bunch of dedicated players who arent jumping ship on a shrinking format deciding to buy into staples that they dont own already for whatever reason so they can play decks that arent especially good; meanwhile the casuals were all playing garbage decks that didnt include any format staples so none re-enter circulation.
ipso facto hydroblasts keep the lights on.
I'll say it before someone else does, HUH? What?
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Muay Thai (literally) kicked my ass tonight, I dont have it in me to think about what you are saying here.
dunno it seems to be about a bunch of dedicated players who arent jumping ship on a shrinking format deciding to buy into staples that they dont own already for whatever reason so they can play decks that arent especially good; meanwhile the casuals were all playing garbage decks that didnt include any format staples so none re-enter circulation.
ipso facto hydroblasts keep the lights on.
Was using the last card as an example of a card that has a price that doesn't really reflect the supply vs demand curve. Also, the other part is that people shift to whatever format looks best when things go bad. Modern has been much healthier than standard for ages, so while some players are leaving, others are also going into modern as well. Hence why I said supply and demand are still a factor.
Probably should have just said "stores like to speculate, too". Honestly, I'm not sure why this always seems to happen when games or popular collectibles with multiple audiences go through a decline. Even when they shift prices like this, if the demand isn't there they can't hold the price long term so it just drops. Not to mention the card market in this game is far deeper than others, so it's not like that can be used as an excuse.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'm pretty skeptical about this "huge shrink" in the mtg community. If anything, I'd say it's really only relevant to standard. Modern and EDH are BOOMING, and the latter is something that would be extremely hard for a corporation like Hasboro to track actual numbers on.
Moving on from that, I'm curious what you guys think about investments in foil lands when comparing original/DCI/expeditions. I'm looking to move some money into this, but unsure what the best investments will be, especially when looking at things like
Foil OG Shock lands vs Expedition
DCI ONS fetches vs Expedition ONS fetches
I'd expect all the tournament staples to hold or go up in price. As the mtg population shrinks, the more financial burden the competitive cards have to shoulder since the most dedicated players gravitate to whatever is best in class.
We are seeing multiple decks go over the 2000 dollar mark now or approaching that point.
Shrink? Wouldn't that lower prices? Not drive them up as players dump their cards onto the market?
Yes, it would. More demand = increase in prices, not less.
This is like 'prices are increasing, sell now' a few pages back...
Because the sellers are the ones who need to make money and they can't make money on cards that have no demand. So the natural thing to do is put the cost on the cards that people are still buying. That is why the price goes up. If all groups of customers were dropping in equal number than this wouldn't happen, but the people who typically leave first are casual players and thus drop the demand on a larger number of cards. Meanwhile, people who are dedicated (i.e. most likely people in this very forum), don't tune out and are willing to pay a premium for the cream of the crop.
People sell Hydroblasts all day for over a dollar even though there are insane numbers of them out there. Why do they do this? Because they can and it keeps the lights on. It isn't always about your supply and demand, albeit it always is a factor.
It's a little hard for me to put together what you're trying to say here. Do you mean the Casual players leave, but the Spikes remain who keep buying expensive cards - so the cards remain expensive?
Is that what you're trying to say with the one dollar Hydroblast example?
I'm pretty skeptical about this "huge shrink" in the mtg community. If anything, I'd say it's really only relevant to standard. Modern and EDH are BOOMING, and the latter is something that would be extremely hard for a corporation like Hasboro to track actual numbers on.
Moving on from that, I'm curious what you guys think about investments in foil lands when comparing original/DCI/expeditions. I'm looking to move some money into this, but unsure what the best investments will be, especially when looking at things like
Foil OG Shock lands vs Expedition
DCI ONS fetches vs Expedition ONS fetches
Thoughts?
As sad as I am to say it, I think the Expeditions are better long term. Since I loved the way that the foil OG lands looked, I bought a BUNCH of them when my unbanning specs prevailed, but now I wish I had just gotten Expeditions, now sold them into the spike and gotten the ones I wanted all along. I could have had a lot of extra funds.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I'd expect all the tournament staples to hold or go up in price. As the mtg population shrinks, the more financial burden the competitive cards have to shoulder since the most dedicated players gravitate to whatever is best in class.
We are seeing multiple decks go over the 2000 dollar mark now or approaching that point.
Shrink? Wouldn't that lower prices? Not drive them up as players dump their cards onto the market?
Yes, it would. More demand = increase in prices, not less.
This is like 'prices are increasing, sell now' a few pages back...
Because the sellers are the ones who need to make money and they can't make money on cards that have no demand. So the natural thing to do is put the cost on the cards that people are still buying. That is why the price goes up. If all groups of customers were dropping in equal number than this wouldn't happen, but the people who typically leave first are casual players and thus drop the demand on a larger number of cards. Meanwhile, people who are dedicated (i.e. most likely people in this very forum), don't tune out and are willing to pay a premium for the cream of the crop.
People sell Hydroblasts all day for over a dollar even though there are insane numbers of them out there. Why do they do this? Because they can and it keeps the lights on. It isn't always about your supply and demand, albeit it always is a factor.
It's a little hard for me to put together what you're trying to say here. Do you mean the Casual players leave, but the Spikes remain who keep buying expensive cards - so the cards remain expensive?
Is that what you're trying to say with the one dollar Hydroblast example?
Well, the hydro blast example is a little bit misleading and I chalk that up to me posting at the waning hours of a Friday night. I had two ideas going through my mind at once when that post was going on:
1) A bunch of people are going "people leave game, demand drops, prices go up? Does not compute!" How do I explain this?
2) People are jumping back onto the supply and demand bandwagon train in a game that reprints things to death.
The thing is that big time sellers like CFB and SCG have a huge stockpile of cards thanks to aggressive buylisting and such. So lets say that one of these places did a big buy in on a bunch of staples for commander and offered 2 dollars a trade in on some staple card, thinking that it will sell for about 4-5 dollars each when all is said and done. Then the player population interested in commander drops off and now no one is buying the card. Imagine if this happened with entire sets worth of cards that they bought into. If places like that need to make money and the cards aren't selling, they aren't going to just fire sale the cards unless they think it is going to get reprinted soon because it's better to sit on them and wait. Normally this is kind of a waxing and waning of the seasons: More people play modern during modern season, more people play commander during the summer, more people play standard during other points of the year, etc. However, if the entire player population is shrinking for a format, than those cards they bought may never sell at the price point they tried to buy into.
So what happens next for companies in that position? Well, why not focus more on the formats that are still relatively healthy and have a dedicated fan base? People here will grumble about price increases, but if they think the price isn't going to come down they will pay it. Now if Dominaria and the next few sets are all strong showings maybe standard takes off again and the companies will take the pressure off the other formats. Maybe they speculate and the pressure comes off even sooner.
So supply and demand are a factor, but it's actually more nuanced.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
i dont think anyone is arguing that there arent multiple factors that go into pricing. the issue is your initial hypothesis is built on a pretty long list of assumptions, all of which have to be true. whereas the alternative is built on one - supply and demand. its a simple application of occam's razor.
what you describe isnt unheard of. to simplify it in an example its when a store has products A, B, and C. A and B aren't selling as well, but people are still buying C; therefore you raise the price of C to make up the loss of putting A and B on the shelf in the first place.
there is a certain amount of price elasticity in mtg cards, which can be seen in places like starcity generally having higher prices than alternatives but they still make good business. they may artificially inflate the price of cards resulting in others following suit, however the card economy is still relatively open and supply and demand is still a fundamental market force. they cant just ignore competition.
less people are playing modern, therefore the cost of playing modern will increase
just look at how you are bending over backwards to explain how this is possible, all of which hinges on your speculatory explanation of how events might play out.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
just look at how you are bending over backwards to explain how this is possible, all of which hinges on your speculatory explanation of how events might play out.
Legacy is a good example of this in action. Because fewer people play it, there is much less innovation in decks. The format is far from solved, but it also evolves very slowly because those who remain are funneled into the top 20 or so decks in the meta.
My last 3 modern outings i played against a lot of new people, less than 2 months experience. i'd say modern is growing
Because no one trusts Wizards to make standard actually good anymore.
I mean we just had a company turn standard into a nuclear wasteland and then screw up a masters set not once, but twice for two different reasons. The last thing anyone wants to do is pretend they are going to do something magically right in the next few sets. People are at the point that they need to see something positive, not just read it from some PR article. It's not just modern either: Pauper is the little brother now until the reserved list consumes us all in a fiery conflagration.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
well we better hope modern gets more players soon so prices go down.
Okay this has to be said now: it's fine to point out a flaw in an argument, it's not fine to press into it constantly and making a bigger issue out of a small one, turning it into a spectacle and starting a war with someone.
Prices of a format can go up when the player base for the format is decreasing: It's happened with other collectible markets before. The reason it happens is that if a collectible has multiple different purchasing groups, stores will push the weight of the costs onto whatever group they believe will still sell. That doesn't mean the price is going to hold at that point, it just means the price will be up for a while and then collapse when it can't hold. Does that mean that is what is happening with Magic and Modern? Maybe / maybe not. I don't see you or anyone else have any kind of evidence that is anything but anecdotal, the few pieces I've seen people present are just hasbro numbers that are a product line blanket statement, and there are factors in those numbers that go beyond people playing the game since WotC is actually selling to distributors, who, btw, are dealing with a dozen or more different product lines and don't necessarily follow exactly what the players are doing since they just sell to stores. The only time the distributors care is if the stores decide they don't want the product, which then bubbles up to WoTC / Hasbro and gets them stuck with product in the warehouses.
Now if you want to keep rubbing more salt my way, go ahead, but I'm not the one starting a flaming war in the financial thread. You guys had your chance to explain your reasoning just like I did mine and did so.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'm pretty skeptical about this "huge shrink" in the mtg community. If anything, I'd say it's really only relevant to standard. Modern and EDH are BOOMING, and the latter is something that would be extremely hard for a corporation like Hasboro to track actual numbers on.
Moving on from that, I'm curious what you guys think about investments in foil lands when comparing original/DCI/expeditions. I'm looking to move some money into this, but unsure what the best investments will be, especially when looking at things like
Foil OG Shock lands vs Expedition
DCI ONS fetches vs Expedition ONS fetches
Thoughts?
As sad as I am to say it, I think the Expeditions are better long term. Since I loved the way that the foil OG lands looked, I bought a BUNCH of them when my unbanning specs prevailed, but now I wish I had just gotten Expeditions, now sold them into the spike and gotten the ones I wanted all along. I could have had a lot of extra funds.
That's sort of what I was thinking since the DCI ONS fetches really haven't gone up much in the past 5 or so years. It's surprising to me personally since I also like the older art but I guess not everyone has the same nostalgic feeling.
well we better hope modern gets more players soon so prices go down.
That's a distortion of the argument, if the meta evolves slower (which happens with fewer players, but isn't the only cause), then people stagnate into the same few successful decks and prices on those cards increase while everything else drops.
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But yeah, Blackcleave is super important for the reasons you noted.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
It isn't unusual to play a suboptimal manabase in paper to get a feel for the deck and test run it at local events before deciding whether to drop potentially hundreds more. It is also important to realize that the downside only matters in a handful of specific circumstances that are never guaranteed to happen.
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
Did not see your post yesterday. Yeah, I have to agree. Real estate is king.
The purchases I did at SCG that has some sort of fetch land or useful fastland paid off. The land would rise in price.. in that way... the land would eventually "pay" for the shipping cost and customs storage fee that I had to pay. Although of course.. for best results, the purchase would have to be done while the land is still low in price.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Definitely solid pieces of advice. Having the mana base necessary to theoretically build any Modern deck is a nice reassurance and simplifies the decision making process when it comes to changing decks or choosing to build additional ones.
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
Because the sellers are the ones who need to make money and they can't make money on cards that have no demand. So the natural thing to do is put the cost on the cards that people are still buying. That is why the price goes up. If all groups of customers were dropping in equal number than this wouldn't happen, but the people who typically leave first are casual players and thus drop the demand on a larger number of cards. Meanwhile, people who are dedicated (i.e. most likely people in this very forum), don't tune out and are willing to pay a premium for the cream of the crop.
People sell Hydroblasts all day for over a dollar even though there are insane numbers of them out there. Why do they do this? Because they can and it keeps the lights on. It isn't always about your supply and demand, albeit it always is a factor.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Spirits
dunno it seems to be about a bunch of dedicated players who arent jumping ship on a shrinking format deciding to buy into staples that they dont own already for whatever reason so they can play decks that arent especially good; meanwhile the casuals were all playing garbage decks that didnt include any format staples so none re-enter circulation.
ipso facto hydroblasts keep the lights on.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I'll say it before someone else does, HUH? What?
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Was using the last card as an example of a card that has a price that doesn't really reflect the supply vs demand curve. Also, the other part is that people shift to whatever format looks best when things go bad. Modern has been much healthier than standard for ages, so while some players are leaving, others are also going into modern as well. Hence why I said supply and demand are still a factor.
Probably should have just said "stores like to speculate, too". Honestly, I'm not sure why this always seems to happen when games or popular collectibles with multiple audiences go through a decline. Even when they shift prices like this, if the demand isn't there they can't hold the price long term so it just drops.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Spirits
Moving on from that, I'm curious what you guys think about investments in foil lands when comparing original/DCI/expeditions. I'm looking to move some money into this, but unsure what the best investments will be, especially when looking at things like
Foil OG Shock lands vs Expedition
DCI ONS fetches vs Expedition ONS fetches
Thoughts?
Retired
Legacy:
GRUB Lands
Modern:
U Tron
RG Tron
RG Ponza
It's a little hard for me to put together what you're trying to say here. Do you mean the Casual players leave, but the Spikes remain who keep buying expensive cards - so the cards remain expensive?
Is that what you're trying to say with the one dollar Hydroblast example?
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
As sad as I am to say it, I think the Expeditions are better long term. Since I loved the way that the foil OG lands looked, I bought a BUNCH of them when my unbanning specs prevailed, but now I wish I had just gotten Expeditions, now sold them into the spike and gotten the ones I wanted all along. I could have had a lot of extra funds.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Well, the hydro blast example is a little bit misleading and I chalk that up to me posting at the waning hours of a Friday night. I had two ideas going through my mind at once when that post was going on:
1) A bunch of people are going "people leave game, demand drops, prices go up? Does not compute!" How do I explain this?
2) People are jumping back onto the supply and demand bandwagon train in a game that reprints things to death.
The thing is that big time sellers like CFB and SCG have a huge stockpile of cards thanks to aggressive buylisting and such. So lets say that one of these places did a big buy in on a bunch of staples for commander and offered 2 dollars a trade in on some staple card, thinking that it will sell for about 4-5 dollars each when all is said and done. Then the player population interested in commander drops off and now no one is buying the card. Imagine if this happened with entire sets worth of cards that they bought into. If places like that need to make money and the cards aren't selling, they aren't going to just fire sale the cards unless they think it is going to get reprinted soon because it's better to sit on them and wait. Normally this is kind of a waxing and waning of the seasons: More people play modern during modern season, more people play commander during the summer, more people play standard during other points of the year, etc. However, if the entire player population is shrinking for a format, than those cards they bought may never sell at the price point they tried to buy into.
So what happens next for companies in that position? Well, why not focus more on the formats that are still relatively healthy and have a dedicated fan base? People here will grumble about price increases, but if they think the price isn't going to come down they will pay it. Now if Dominaria and the next few sets are all strong showings maybe standard takes off again and the companies will take the pressure off the other formats. Maybe they speculate and the pressure comes off even sooner.
So supply and demand are a factor, but it's actually more nuanced.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
what you describe isnt unheard of. to simplify it in an example its when a store has products A, B, and C. A and B aren't selling as well, but people are still buying C; therefore you raise the price of C to make up the loss of putting A and B on the shelf in the first place.
there is a certain amount of price elasticity in mtg cards, which can be seen in places like starcity generally having higher prices than alternatives but they still make good business. they may artificially inflate the price of cards resulting in others following suit, however the card economy is still relatively open and supply and demand is still a fundamental market force. they cant just ignore competition.
less people are playing modern, therefore the cost of playing modern will increase
just look at how you are bending over backwards to explain how this is possible, all of which hinges on your speculatory explanation of how events might play out.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Legacy is a good example of this in action. Because fewer people play it, there is much less innovation in decks. The format is far from solved, but it also evolves very slowly because those who remain are funneled into the top 20 or so decks in the meta.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)lol....
Spirits
Because no one trusts Wizards to make standard actually good anymore.
I mean we just had a company turn standard into a nuclear wasteland and then screw up a masters set not once, but twice for two different reasons. The last thing anyone wants to do is pretend they are going to do something magically right in the next few sets. People are at the point that they need to see something positive, not just read it from some PR article. It's not just modern either: Pauper is the little brother now until the reserved list consumes us all in a fiery conflagration.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Okay this has to be said now: it's fine to point out a flaw in an argument, it's not fine to press into it constantly and making a bigger issue out of a small one, turning it into a spectacle and starting a war with someone.
Prices of a format can go up when the player base for the format is decreasing: It's happened with other collectible markets before. The reason it happens is that if a collectible has multiple different purchasing groups, stores will push the weight of the costs onto whatever group they believe will still sell. That doesn't mean the price is going to hold at that point, it just means the price will be up for a while and then collapse when it can't hold. Does that mean that is what is happening with Magic and Modern? Maybe / maybe not. I don't see you or anyone else have any kind of evidence that is anything but anecdotal, the few pieces I've seen people present are just hasbro numbers that are a product line blanket statement, and there are factors in those numbers that go beyond people playing the game since WotC is actually selling to distributors, who, btw, are dealing with a dozen or more different product lines and don't necessarily follow exactly what the players are doing since they just sell to stores. The only time the distributors care is if the stores decide they don't want the product, which then bubbles up to WoTC / Hasbro and gets them stuck with product in the warehouses.
Now if you want to keep rubbing more salt my way, go ahead, but I'm not the one starting a flaming war in the financial thread. You guys had your chance to explain your reasoning just like I did mine and did so.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
That's sort of what I was thinking since the DCI ONS fetches really haven't gone up much in the past 5 or so years. It's surprising to me personally since I also like the older art but I guess not everyone has the same nostalgic feeling.
Retired
Legacy:
GRUB Lands
Modern:
U Tron
RG Tron
RG Ponza
That's a distortion of the argument, if the meta evolves slower (which happens with fewer players, but isn't the only cause), then people stagnate into the same few successful decks and prices on those cards increase while everything else drops.