Most mechanics are mechanics that they’d want to print enough depth in to make it a draft archetype. They don’t want to just have Noble Hierarch - they want you to be able to draft the ‘go tall rather than wide’ exalted deck so they have to print enough Exalted cards to make that playable. They won’t just have Snapcaster Mage, they’ll want a draftable Flashback deck. They won’t just drop in Mox Opal, they’ll want Metalcraft to be an ideal you can draft for and play in limited. They not only want to keep the quantity of mechanics down for the sake of complexity, but for the sake of draft cohesiveness.
Sure, but I'm willing to bet they're a little more concerned about Modern right now. Also, that's a fine mentality for printing, but it's also what prevents things like Noble Hierarch from being reprinted. "Not the right set", "didn't include exalted as a theme this year"; how many other cards suffer this fate and can't be printed in a set because some other card got in and created a theme? If they intend to solve this issue and give the community the adequate amount of reprints they desire (or as economically viable as possible), they're going to have to increase the velocity of valued reprints. Doing this is going to require some loosening of that mentality.
We may just get Hierarch as the only Exalted card in a set; it's still very playable in a draft setting as a solo Exalted creature. Hierarch may also just be an incredibly good talking point, you mention Opal as requiring a more build around setting and I can agree that not all cards can be jammed into a set so haphazardly. Though, I still think that in order to increase the velocity of reprints the way I think WotC seems to be thinking, then they'll have to loosen the reins on themes a bit. What's the alternative? More masters sets in a year?
I guess it boils down to what you think the recent survey really means to Modern. If a modern centric set is released, do you think they'll build it for draft first? Or modern first? Given next to none of that survey seemed to care about draft in a serious fashion, I'm inclined to think they'll build it for modern first, then fill in the rest of the 80 to 90ish% of the set with draft supporting cards.
It'll be interesting no matter what WotC decides to do. It's certainly another pivot point for the company.
Man, I'm really starting to wonder where noble heirarch is getting a reprint. The price is so massive on it from all the humans players along with that crazy ancient ziggurat. That later one feels like it could easily get supplanted by something else, though.
If it ever gets another printing, it will be in a Masters set, and it will continue the trend of rares in previous Masters sets being bumped to Mythic solely on price. Wizards behavior is absolutely shameful
I don't think they are doing masters sets anytime soon. I'm assuming they will be running reprints across the year in the standard sets and whatever supplementary sets they come up with. I'm seriously hoping for them going through with a modern focused supplementary set similar to Battlebond or Conspiracy.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
Most mechanics are mechanics that they’d want to print enough depth in to make it a draft archetype. They don’t want to just have Noble Hierarch - they want you to be able to draft the ‘go tall rather than wide’ exalted deck so they have to print enough Exalted cards to make that playable. They won’t just have Snapcaster Mage, they’ll want a draftable Flashback deck. They won’t just drop in Mox Opal, they’ll want Metalcraft to be an ideal you can draft for and play in limited. They not only want to keep the quantity of mechanics down for the sake of complexity, but for the sake of draft cohesiveness.
Sure, but I'm willing to bet they're a little more concerned about Modern right now. Also, that's a fine mentality for printing, but it's also what prevents things like Noble Hierarch from being reprinted. "Not the right set", "didn't include exalted as a theme this year"; how many other cards suffer this fate and can't be printed in a set because some other card got in and created a theme? If they intend to solve this issue and give the community the adequate amount of reprints they desire (or as economically viable as possible), they're going to have to increase the velocity of valued reprints. Doing this is going to require some loosening of that mentality.
We may just get Hierarch as the only Exalted card in a set; it's still very playable in a draft setting as a solo Exalted creature. Hierarch may also just be an incredibly good talking point, you mention Opal as requiring a more build around setting and I can agree that not all cards can be jammed into a set so haphazardly. Though, I still think that in order to increase the velocity of reprints the way I think WotC seems to be thinking, then they'll have to loosen the reins on themes a bit. What's the alternative? More masters sets in a year?
I guess it boils down to what you think the recent survey really means to Modern. If a modern centric set is released, do you think they'll build it for draft first? Or modern first? Given next to none of that survey seemed to care about draft in a serious fashion, I'm inclined to think they'll build it for modern first, then fill in the rest of the 80 to 90ish% of the set with draft supporting cards.
It'll be interesting no matter what WotC decides to do. It's certainly another pivot point for the company.
The problem we are seeing in the market is the more enfranchised players are still here while the casual and fair weather crowd left. Wotc knows we will weather the storm and wait for the relief, which is why they are so new player focused.
I've been joking that they got three rav sets in order to print modern fetch and shock in standard. Ironically, it would give alpine moon a purpose.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
Most mechanics are mechanics that they’d want to print enough depth in to make it a draft archetype. They don’t want to just have Noble Hierarch - they want you to be able to draft the ‘go tall rather than wide’ exalted deck so they have to print enough Exalted cards to make that playable. They won’t just have Snapcaster Mage, they’ll want a draftable Flashback deck. They won’t just drop in Mox Opal, they’ll want Metalcraft to be an ideal you can draft for and play in limited. They not only want to keep the quantity of mechanics down for the sake of complexity, but for the sake of draft cohesiveness.
Sure, but I'm willing to bet they're a little more concerned about Modern right now. Also, that's a fine mentality for printing, but it's also what prevents things like Noble Hierarch from being reprinted. "Not the right set", "didn't include exalted as a theme this year"; how many other cards suffer this fate and can't be printed in a set because some other card got in and created a theme? If they intend to solve this issue and give the community the adequate amount of reprints they desire (or as economically viable as possible), they're going to have to increase the velocity of valued reprints. Doing this is going to require some loosening of that mentality.
We may just get Hierarch as the only Exalted card in a set; it's still very playable in a draft setting as a solo Exalted creature. Hierarch may also just be an incredibly good talking point, you mention Opal as requiring a more build around setting and I can agree that not all cards can be jammed into a set so haphazardly. Though, I still think that in order to increase the velocity of reprints the way I think WotC seems to be thinking, then they'll have to loosen the reins on themes a bit. What's the alternative? More masters sets in a year?
I guess it boils down to what you think the recent survey really means to Modern. If a modern centric set is released, do you think they'll build it for draft first? Or modern first? Given next to none of that survey seemed to care about draft in a serious fashion, I'm inclined to think they'll build it for modern first, then fill in the rest of the 80 to 90ish% of the set with draft supporting cards.
It'll be interesting no matter what WotC decides to do. It's certainly another pivot point for the company.
The problem we are seeing in the market is the more enfranchised players are still here while the casual and fair weather crowd left. Wotc knows we will weather the storm and wait for the relief, which is why they are so new player focused.
I've been joking that they got three rav sets in order to print modern fetch and shock in standard. Ironically, it would give alpine moon a purpose.
Data for this? Wizards has been touting that Dominaria was right up there with Khans in terms of success and popularity.
Most mechanics are mechanics that they’d want to print enough depth in to make it a draft archetype. They don’t want to just have Noble Hierarch - they want you to be able to draft the ‘go tall rather than wide’ exalted deck so they have to print enough Exalted cards to make that playable. They won’t just have Snapcaster Mage, they’ll want a draftable Flashback deck. They won’t just drop in Mox Opal, they’ll want Metalcraft to be an ideal you can draft for and play in limited. They not only want to keep the quantity of mechanics down for the sake of complexity, but for the sake of draft cohesiveness.
Sure, but I'm willing to bet they're a little more concerned about Modern right now. Also, that's a fine mentality for printing, but it's also what prevents things like Noble Hierarch from being reprinted. "Not the right set", "didn't include exalted as a theme this year"; how many other cards suffer this fate and can't be printed in a set because some other card got in and created a theme? If they intend to solve this issue and give the community the adequate amount of reprints they desire (or as economically viable as possible), they're going to have to increase the velocity of valued reprints. Doing this is going to require some loosening of that mentality.
We may just get Hierarch as the only Exalted card in a set; it's still very playable in a draft setting as a solo Exalted creature. Hierarch may also just be an incredibly good talking point, you mention Opal as requiring a more build around setting and I can agree that not all cards can be jammed into a set so haphazardly. Though, I still think that in order to increase the velocity of reprints the way I think WotC seems to be thinking, then they'll have to loosen the reins on themes a bit. What's the alternative? More masters sets in a year?
I guess it boils down to what you think the recent survey really means to Modern. If a modern centric set is released, do you think they'll build it for draft first? Or modern first? Given next to none of that survey seemed to care about draft in a serious fashion, I'm inclined to think they'll build it for modern first, then fill in the rest of the 80 to 90ish% of the set with draft supporting cards.
It'll be interesting no matter what WotC decides to do. It's certainly another pivot point for the company.
The problem we are seeing in the market is the more enfranchised players are still here while the casual and fair weather crowd left. Wotc knows we will weather the storm and wait for the relief, which is why they are so new player focused.
I've been joking that they got three rav sets in order to print modern fetch and shock in standard. Ironically, it would give alpine moon a purpose.
Data for this? Wizards has been touting that Dominaria was right up there with Khans in terms of success and popularity.
I can't really take credit for this observation because Kevin over at Rogue Deckbuilder was the one who actually made this observation and he owns a shop and monitors things way better than I can. Same with people like Rudy and the MTG Finance Crowd. However, you are in luck because I DID look into this during my lunch break.
First, MTGGoldfish published an article talking about the increase of modern deck prices by about 25-26%. This was linked earlier in the thread...
Similarly, if one goes to EDH rec and looks at the pricing trends on the most played cards you can see those cards are also rising in price. https://edhrec.com/top
In particular, the tutors are a staple to more hardcore commander players along with Cyclonic Rift.
In the meantime I've asked around about how things were going at my LGS and elsewhere. Surprisingly, my own LGS sold out of Commander 2018, but the reason they sold out is that they had a much smaller order than usual because draft and standard were both down, so a lot less people were buying sealed stuff. The same story was echoed at other places that I asked in my area, which, while a small sample size of maybe 5 stores, is given some legitimacy by the fact wizards is very into the new player experience at the moment. We just found out they rebranded the duel decks and reforged them with new players in mind with the Spellslingers series. There was a similar product released in the spring or fall, but it was more of a repackaging of old welcome decks with some dice thrown in. These have some notable reprints like Ghalta, Primal Hunger and m19 Llanowar elves (because for some reason collectors really liked the welcome deck ones...).
On top of which, monitoring channels like Desolator Magic and similar casual "vlog" style channels, the general mood is still very negative and has been for a while as far as standard is concerned. That and unless youtube is doing some really wierd stuff again the view counts have been down on these channels.
What this tells me is that wizards is going to do this new player thing, see the prices of modern go up like crazy, and then over correct and print the bejesus out of modern staples. Mark my words, we're going to be showering in reprint announcements or at least some kind of new modern focused product in 2019. Unfortunately, we got to sit through probably one of the biggest reprint droughts in ages.
Also, being down to earth here it seems like Wizards of the Coast has no idea what the heck card equity is. They are always going "we must be super careful about reprinting too many cards" and then reprint cards that are worthless to people trying to play a format they basically pushed. You have to hand it to a company to be able to screw up so badly that everyone is now confident they can't reprint anything and hence we got this bullish market. Thankfully the RL buyouts are slowing down.
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 standard gets hate because it is long. They really should have stuck with the twice per year rotation plan. Then you don't have time for a deck or two to annoy the crap out of everyone.
Reprint equity, if I understand correctly, really only applies to the number of cards reprinted, with a significantly lower factor being the number of times any particular card is reprinted. Thus, I'd rather a reprint set have more of an impact than having three reprint sets in a year. And by "impact," I mean an increase in production. I wasn't playing when the original masters set was released, but I read enough to know it was in super short supply and at a lower MSRP, but it got bought out so quickly that vendors started upping the price. So WOTC increased the MSRP. All that did, though, was give them a bigger piece of the pie. Given that they are in control of supply 100%, they also could have corrected this by increasing their production numbers.
Plus, good reprint sets have effects beyond just "oh there's more now." The threat of reprints kept a lot of these cards in check. WOTC screwed the pooch so badly this year that investors and speculators no longer fear their cards being reprinted. That's why stuff shot up so much - confidence in WOTC's complete and total ineptitude.
Well standard gets hate because it is long. They really should have stuck with the twice per year rotation plan. Then you don't have time for a deck or two to annoy the crap out of everyone.
Reprint equity, if I understand correctly, really only applies to the number of cards reprinted, with a significantly lower factor being the number of times any particular card is reprinted. Thus, I'd rather a reprint set have more of an impact than having three reprint sets in a year. And by "impact," I mean an increase in production. I wasn't playing when the original masters set was released, but I read enough to know it was in super short supply and at a lower MSRP, but it got bought out so quickly that vendors started upping the price. So WOTC increased the MSRP. All that did, though, was give them a bigger piece of the pie. Given that they are in control of supply 100%, they also could have corrected this by increasing their production numbers.
Plus, good reprint sets have effects beyond just "oh there's more now." The threat of reprints kept a lot of these cards in check. WOTC screwed the pooch so badly this year that investors and speculators no longer fear their cards being reprinted. That's why stuff shot up so much - confidence in WOTC's complete and total ineptitude.
The issue wizards has with modern is that people are merging creatures from the last five years with spells that haven't been around for a decade and have been unwilling to reprint those decade old cards outside of a masters product. The cost of modern is not on the secondary market, but on wizards shoulders.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
Plus, good reprint sets have effects beyond just "oh there's more now." The threat of reprints kept a lot of these cards in check. WOTC screwed the pooch so badly this year that investors and speculators no longer fear their cards being reprinted. That's why stuff shot up so much - confidence in WOTC's complete and total ineptitude.
Polluted Delta looks like a solid buy at $15-16. I'm not really looking at this from a speculation POV. I just think a meta shift to grixis shadow or a new deck emerging with sets over the next year in UBx. Hell, legacy shadow's run at the pro tour alone makes me think people might start buying this and push it to $20.
EDIT: Hell I just picked up three to finish my playset at $14.25 apiece. Seriously this feels like a good one and I rarely like to make these sorts of calls.
I'm surprised the Khans fetches have held as low as they have for as long as they have. I mean Heath is no surprise because of the event deck saturating the market for that specific card, but I expected all four of the others to be above $20 by now, when only the two red ones actually are (and not by a whole heck of a lot). I can't imagine Delta or Strand going notably lower than they are now, and if Blue ever has anywhere near the level of breakthrough success Red has had recently they could spike fast.
I'm surprised the Khans fetches have held as low as they have for as long as they have. I mean Heath is no surprise because of the event deck saturating the market for that specific card, but I expected all four of the others to be above $20 by now, when only the two red ones actually are (and not by a whole heck of a lot). I can't imagine Delta or Strand going notably lower than they are now, and if Blue ever has anywhere near the level of breakthrough success Red has had recently they could spike fast.
isnt blood stained mire the most expensive khans fetch now?
This thread is full of idiots... Lightning Bolt is NOT being reprinted.
Many times has a writer in Wizards said so, because of the plain and simple fact that it's too powerful for what it costs. x/3 creatures shouldn't be able to die at instant speed for one mana without a signifigant drawback. (like PTE giving you a land)
I absolutely guarantee that LB will not be printed in M10, and you can quote me on that.
I'm surprised the Khans fetches have held as low as they have for as long as they have. I mean Heath is no surprise because of the event deck saturating the market for that specific card, but I expected all four of the others to be above $20 by now, when only the two red ones actually are (and not by a whole heck of a lot). I can't imagine Delta or Strand going notably lower than they are now, and if Blue ever has anywhere near the level of breakthrough success Red has had recently they could spike fast.
isnt blood stained mire the most expensive khans fetch now?
Wooded Foothills and Bloodstained Mire have been jockeying for position for a while around $22 per copy. Foothills has always been relatively expensive, but Mire was in the mid teens before hollow one and pyromancer decks showed up.
EDIT: MTGGoldfish has delta as the 2nd to last played fetchland period, barely ahead of marsh flats. 30th most played land in modern. But it is the 2nd most played land in legacy after wasteland...
Polluted delta is a victim of demir being underpowered in terms of color combination. Sultai is even worse. Legacy has the spells needed to make blue competitive.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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 agree that fetchlands seem like solid pickups. I think that some people are trying to lean harder on quick gainers and then dump them than the slow, grindy gainers, (lol).
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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)
Well yeah legacy makes blue better. I realize that. I also think that legacy is more prone to slow shifts both in meta and pricing because people pay way more for a deck. If UB Shadow over there gets more popular (and I bet it will, given that it is a reasonably priced deck for an expensive format), delta will go up. Hell, if the next ravnica set brings us shocks, I would assume fetch prices go up as people either figure its a good cheap time to work on modern manabases or standard players go "well I have three steam vents may as well pick up a couple fetches for modern."
That being said, and I think its worth bringing up given we are about two months away, I don't think shocks will be reprinted. I bet WOTC acknowledges it early and gives some bs about wanting standard to be about new innovative design instead of redoing a cycle which has been printed twice in standard.
That being said, and I think its worth bringing up given we are about two months away, I don't think shocks will be reprinted. I bet WOTC acknowledges it early and gives some bs about wanting standard to be about new innovative design instead of redoing a cycle which has been printed twice in standard.
I personally feel they *shouldn't* reprint shocks in Ravnica (except as Masterpieces; give us Materpieces again Wizards!). MaRo mentioned last time they reprinted them, they were meant to be able to reprint them anywhere and they just happened to do so in Ravnica. At some point, they need to break the trend or Ravnica will always be the "Shock Lands Set". And, I don't think creating that expectation is good for each subsequent return. They need to break it eventually and I would rather see it sooner than later and then let them reprint them in a Core set somewhere along the line.
Polluted delta is a victim of demir being underpowered in terms of color combination. Sultai is even worse. Legacy has the spells needed to make blue competitive.
Yeah Jim Davies had some good comments in a recent video on why Sultai doesn't work well but I think he missed that point that specifically beyond counters and discard not going great together that Sultai suffers that while Golgari is strong...Dimir and Simic don't really pull their weight as color combos outside of EDH.
Sure in a Vacuum Blue, Black and Green are probably the strongest colors but all together they tend to end up less then the sum of their considerable parts because while the monocolor cards are great the dual color cards besides Golgari leave something to be desired. Golgari would rather get Red and Dimir would rather get Red or White and Simic doesn't even want to be together outside of Infect.
I agree that fetchlands seem like solid pickups. I think that some people are trying to lean harder on quick gainers and then dump them than the slow, grindy gainers, (lol).
The checkland cycle suggests to me that we're getting a land with land types on it. It might not be shocks though. The best case scenario is likely something that's not shocks, but that sees play alongside them.
I agree that fetchlands seem like solid pickups. I think that some people are trying to lean harder on quick gainers and then dump them than the slow, grindy gainers, (lol).
The checkland cycle suggests to me that we're getting a land with land types on it. It might not be shocks though. The best case scenario is likely something that's not shocks, but that sees play alongside them.
No. New mana can create new decks and competing cards still brings down the price. Shockland reprints only bring down the price.
Of course, the worst case scenario is a land that's a strictly better shockland, and shocks go obsolete. That would put a very high price ceiling on the new land.
No. New mana can create new decks and competing cards still brings down the price. Shockland reprints only bring down the price.
Of course, the worst case scenario is a land that's a strictly better shockland, and shocks go obsolete. That would put a very high price ceiling on the new land.
The power creep in magic happened with creatures and they went through a brief period of nerfing lands. I'm firmly in the camp that we will see shocklands get reprinted, but the other possibilities are the enemy cycle of SOI block lands, the enemy cycle of the BFZ lands, or any number of new lands like ones that come into play untapped if you have a permanent of a specific color. At the end of the day the only ones that will matter to modern players are shocks and fetches, or any number of specialty lands that see heavy play.
If they print shocks, we probably wont see fetches. If we see fetches, we probably aren't seeing basic land types on the next land cycle.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
No. New mana can create new decks and competing cards still brings down the price. Shockland reprints only bring down the price.
Of course, the worst case scenario is a land that's a strictly better shockland, and shocks go obsolete. That would put a very high price ceiling on the new land.
I mean...not really? Take the enemy fastlands. They helped some decks by creating lands to run in addition to shocks and to mitigate life loss, but the only land that has legitimately spawned a new deck is unclaimed territory.
Fetchlands set the bar - period. That tutoring is incredibly strong. Thus, for real competition to emerge one of two things needs to happen:
1. New dual lands come out with some sort of condition that lets them enter untapped. That's why stomping ground is better than cinder glade. That's why Hallowed Fountain is better than Irrigated Farmland. To have any chance, there has to be a condition met to let the land enter untapped.
2. New multi-color lands without basic typing must be released with little to no restriction and entering untapped. Fastlands cover the most critical portion of games in eternal formats, the early turns, without restriction. That's why they work. A new cycle would need them to at least be able to enter untapped to start a game virtually 100%.
If they print shocks, we probably wont see fetches. If we see fetches, we probably aren't seeing basic land types on the next land cycle.
I doubt we will ever see fetches again in a Standard legal set. However, I do think it's possible that we see something that's of a similar power level one day like "tap, sac: look 10 deep, put a mountain, swamp, or island into play, put the rest on the bottom of your library". Basically, something that's strong/appealing but that eliminates shuffling.
If they print shocks, we probably wont see fetches. If we see fetches, we probably aren't seeing basic land types on the next land cycle.
I doubt we will ever see fetches again in a Standard legal set. However, I do think it's possible that we see something that's of a similar power level one day like "tap, sac: look 10 deep, put a mountain, swamp, or island into play, put the rest on the bottom of your library". Basically, something that's strong/appealing but that eliminates shuffling.
I think we will see shocks in the next few sets. If they are trying for the glory days, they will want it to get people playing again.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
We may just get Hierarch as the only Exalted card in a set; it's still very playable in a draft setting as a solo Exalted creature. Hierarch may also just be an incredibly good talking point, you mention Opal as requiring a more build around setting and I can agree that not all cards can be jammed into a set so haphazardly. Though, I still think that in order to increase the velocity of reprints the way I think WotC seems to be thinking, then they'll have to loosen the reins on themes a bit. What's the alternative? More masters sets in a year?
I guess it boils down to what you think the recent survey really means to Modern. If a modern centric set is released, do you think they'll build it for draft first? Or modern first? Given next to none of that survey seemed to care about draft in a serious fashion, I'm inclined to think they'll build it for modern first, then fill in the rest of the 80 to 90ish% of the set with draft supporting cards.
It'll be interesting no matter what WotC decides to do. It's certainly another pivot point for the company.
"Reveal a Dragon"
I don't think they are doing masters sets anytime soon. I'm assuming they will be running reprints across the year in the standard sets and whatever supplementary sets they come up with. I'm seriously hoping for them going through with a modern focused supplementary set similar to Battlebond or Conspiracy.
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!
The problem we are seeing in the market is the more enfranchised players are still here while the casual and fair weather crowd left. Wotc knows we will weather the storm and wait for the relief, which is why they are so new player focused.
I've been joking that they got three rav sets in order to print modern fetch and shock in standard. Ironically, it would give alpine moon a purpose.
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!
Data for this? Wizards has been touting that Dominaria was right up there with Khans in terms of success and popularity.
I can't really take credit for this observation because Kevin over at Rogue Deckbuilder was the one who actually made this observation and he owns a shop and monitors things way better than I can. Same with people like Rudy and the MTG Finance Crowd. However, you are in luck because I DID look into this during my lunch break.
First, MTGGoldfish published an article talking about the increase of modern deck prices by about 25-26%. This was linked earlier in the thread...
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/modern-deck-prices-have-increased-26-in-2018-9e8eaea9-b8fc-4932-9dfd-a5567d3bb12b
Similarly, if one goes to EDH rec and looks at the pricing trends on the most played cards you can see those cards are also rising in price.
https://edhrec.com/top
In particular, the tutors are a staple to more hardcore commander players along with Cyclonic Rift.
In the meantime I've asked around about how things were going at my LGS and elsewhere. Surprisingly, my own LGS sold out of Commander 2018, but the reason they sold out is that they had a much smaller order than usual because draft and standard were both down, so a lot less people were buying sealed stuff. The same story was echoed at other places that I asked in my area, which, while a small sample size of maybe 5 stores, is given some legitimacy by the fact wizards is very into the new player experience at the moment. We just found out they rebranded the duel decks and reforged them with new players in mind with the Spellslingers series. There was a similar product released in the spring or fall, but it was more of a repackaging of old welcome decks with some dice thrown in. These have some notable reprints like Ghalta, Primal Hunger and m19 Llanowar elves (because for some reason collectors really liked the welcome deck ones...).
On top of which, monitoring channels like Desolator Magic and similar casual "vlog" style channels, the general mood is still very negative and has been for a while as far as standard is concerned. That and unless youtube is doing some really wierd stuff again the view counts have been down on these channels.
What this tells me is that wizards is going to do this new player thing, see the prices of modern go up like crazy, and then over correct and print the bejesus out of modern staples. Mark my words, we're going to be showering in reprint announcements or at least some kind of new modern focused product in 2019. Unfortunately, we got to sit through probably one of the biggest reprint droughts in ages.
Also, being down to earth here it seems like Wizards of the Coast has no idea what the heck card equity is. They are always going "we must be super careful about reprinting too many cards" and then reprint cards that are worthless to people trying to play a format they basically pushed. You have to hand it to a company to be able to screw up so badly that everyone is now confident they can't reprint anything and hence we got this bullish market. Thankfully the RL buyouts are slowing down.
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!
Reprint equity, if I understand correctly, really only applies to the number of cards reprinted, with a significantly lower factor being the number of times any particular card is reprinted. Thus, I'd rather a reprint set have more of an impact than having three reprint sets in a year. And by "impact," I mean an increase in production. I wasn't playing when the original masters set was released, but I read enough to know it was in super short supply and at a lower MSRP, but it got bought out so quickly that vendors started upping the price. So WOTC increased the MSRP. All that did, though, was give them a bigger piece of the pie. Given that they are in control of supply 100%, they also could have corrected this by increasing their production numbers.
Plus, good reprint sets have effects beyond just "oh there's more now." The threat of reprints kept a lot of these cards in check. WOTC screwed the pooch so badly this year that investors and speculators no longer fear their cards being reprinted. That's why stuff shot up so much - confidence in WOTC's complete and total ineptitude.
The issue wizards has with modern is that people are merging creatures from the last five years with spells that haven't been around for a decade and have been unwilling to reprint those decade old cards outside of a masters product. The cost of modern is not on the secondary market, but on wizards shoulders.
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!
This, is the correct answer.
Spirits
Polluted Delta looks like a solid buy at $15-16. I'm not really looking at this from a speculation POV. I just think a meta shift to grixis shadow or a new deck emerging with sets over the next year in UBx. Hell, legacy shadow's run at the pro tour alone makes me think people might start buying this and push it to $20.
EDIT: Hell I just picked up three to finish my playset at $14.25 apiece. Seriously this feels like a good one and I rarely like to make these sorts of calls.
“Homo homini lupus est.”
Wooded Foothills and Bloodstained Mire have been jockeying for position for a while around $22 per copy. Foothills has always been relatively expensive, but Mire was in the mid teens before hollow one and pyromancer decks showed up.
EDIT: MTGGoldfish has delta as the 2nd to last played fetchland period, barely ahead of marsh flats. 30th most played land in modern. But it is the 2nd most played land in legacy after wasteland...
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!
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)That being said, and I think its worth bringing up given we are about two months away, I don't think shocks will be reprinted. I bet WOTC acknowledges it early and gives some bs about wanting standard to be about new innovative design instead of redoing a cycle which has been printed twice in standard.
Spirits
Yeah Jim Davies had some good comments in a recent video on why Sultai doesn't work well but I think he missed that point that specifically beyond counters and discard not going great together that Sultai suffers that while Golgari is strong...Dimir and Simic don't really pull their weight as color combos outside of EDH.
Sure in a Vacuum Blue, Black and Green are probably the strongest colors but all together they tend to end up less then the sum of their considerable parts because while the monocolor cards are great the dual color cards besides Golgari leave something to be desired. Golgari would rather get Red and Dimir would rather get Red or White and Simic doesn't even want to be together outside of Infect.
The checkland cycle suggests to me that we're getting a land with land types on it. It might not be shocks though. The best case scenario is likely something that's not shocks, but that sees play alongside them.
Wouldn't the best case scenario be shocks?
No. New mana can create new decks and competing cards still brings down the price. Shockland reprints only bring down the price.
Of course, the worst case scenario is a land that's a strictly better shockland, and shocks go obsolete. That would put a very high price ceiling on the new land.
The power creep in magic happened with creatures and they went through a brief period of nerfing lands. I'm firmly in the camp that we will see shocklands get reprinted, but the other possibilities are the enemy cycle of SOI block lands, the enemy cycle of the BFZ lands, or any number of new lands like ones that come into play untapped if you have a permanent of a specific color. At the end of the day the only ones that will matter to modern players are shocks and fetches, or any number of specialty lands that see heavy play.
If they print shocks, we probably wont see fetches. If we see fetches, we probably aren't seeing basic land types on the next land cycle.
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 mean...not really? Take the enemy fastlands. They helped some decks by creating lands to run in addition to shocks and to mitigate life loss, but the only land that has legitimately spawned a new deck is unclaimed territory.
Fetchlands set the bar - period. That tutoring is incredibly strong. Thus, for real competition to emerge one of two things needs to happen:
1. New dual lands come out with some sort of condition that lets them enter untapped. That's why stomping ground is better than cinder glade. That's why Hallowed Fountain is better than Irrigated Farmland. To have any chance, there has to be a condition met to let the land enter untapped.
2. New multi-color lands without basic typing must be released with little to no restriction and entering untapped. Fastlands cover the most critical portion of games in eternal formats, the early turns, without restriction. That's why they work. A new cycle would need them to at least be able to enter untapped to start a game virtually 100%.
I doubt we will ever see fetches again in a Standard legal set. However, I do think it's possible that we see something that's of a similar power level one day like "tap, sac: look 10 deep, put a mountain, swamp, or island into play, put the rest on the bottom of your library". Basically, something that's strong/appealing but that eliminates shuffling.
I think we will see shocks in the next few sets. If they are trying for the glory days, they will want it to get people playing again.
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!