I am citing Conspiracy 2 not because it printed modern cards, but the PRECEDENT that it sets (see Show and Tell, Berserk, and Burgeoning as examples). As much as people criticize limited print run sets like Masters, they at least keep values somewhat intact. Putting cards of that kind of value in an unlimited print run does have a major impact on the secondary market. Some people think that is a good thing and others see the problem. You can also see that the recent major dip correlates with the release of Conspiracy 2.
There's a MASSIVE drop about that time due to a change in the way they calculated value of individual cards. I forget the exact mechanics, but it correlated with TCG Player's move away from TCG Mid to TCG Market Price. No natural market would take a 35% drop in value in 24 hours without a catastrophic disaster. The individual cards reflect gradual changes over time, and if you normalize the curves, there is still a large disparity between the gains/losses between decks still relevant today and decks like URx that have lost proportionally more value. The timing of Consipracy 2 may have had an impact, but the drop you refer to is a technical and mathematic one, not directly based on Conspiracy. The slope of growth is downward, but it's not steep. Plus, Modern card values always trend downwards leading into January before spiking back up.
But my last statement was by far the most important: $1500 decks didn't go to $150. But they lost a LOT of value in terms of money, a lot of value in terms of playability, a lot of value in the cost to build new decks, and a lot of value in trying to keep motivation to play after you just lost all that value on your expensive, fun, unique deck that you loved to play. And that's the point. Be careful what decks you invest in from scratch, because they can be invalidated and made "worthless" on several different axes in the blink of an eye.
Again, probably outside of the scope of this thread, but prices are down rather significantly and it isn't just a change in tcg player data. It has had a very real impact on the secondary market (where I make my living) across multiple platforms and multiple formats. I am well aware of the holiday dip, but this dip has been much more significant than previous years. The reasons are multi-faceted though, so no it isn't all one set's fault to be fair.
Modern is really lacking a true identity at the moment. It's really not exciting to play in thanks to all of the linear decks and just sort of "samey" environment across the board. I would suggest waiting until sometime after the January B&R update to really decide whether or not to invest in it, as the January updates are always pretty big ones, and now with the restructured policies regarding bannings that Wizard's is wanting to implement following Modern's exclusion from the Pro Tour, there is a decent chance we may get some fun stuff taken off the banlist in the near future. As for now, Commander is probably the most fun format worth getting into that won't screw you over financially, both because of the singleton nature, and for simple safety in that cards are very rarely banned from it, meaning you won't lose money on investing into a deck over there. Legacy isn't bad either if you've got the budget. In fact, I'd say that if you're not on a budget, Legacy is definitely the most exciting non-casual format.
Corrected my post above to the date I was looking at (my bad), but the point still stands that Snapcaster's value has less to do with twin and more to do with the FORMAT AS A WHOLE being on a massive downward trend at the moment. If you were looking to buy into a deck / format staples, now would actually be a great time to do so (or you can try to see if it'll bottom out further).
I only make a big deal out of it because price fluctuations are definitely happening disproportionately worse to U/URx staples, especially Twin. Here's a quick example, pulling some cards from Goldfish's "Top Cards Played" lists and comparing with some Twin staples that have lost A LOT.
Interesting list that you have. Would like to comment because I have several of the cards there.
Vendilion Clique - bought two of them when they were only 9 dollars each - or 400 pesos each - from a local guy. Sold them at their peak for 2500 pesos each at 2014. Helped a friend with the money. We were easily able to pay our tailor for a cosplay costume that at that time we could not really afford before the cards got sold. Up to this day I'm still thankful to the cliques, I hope their new owner treat them well.
Splinter Twin - bought a playset them while they were in Zendikar Standard. So even though they are almost trash cards now, I did not lose much money.
Arcbound Ravagers - got a playset of them for approx 120$ three years ago, they came with an entire classic Mirrodin block Affinity deck partially upgraded with Springleaf Drums and Galvanic Blast. I did lose a bit of money because of the ravager price drop, however the losses were neutralized by Inkmoth Nexus.
Inkmoth Nexus - bought a playset of Flooded Groves 3 years ago for 600 pesos which is approx 12 dollars. Then just last month, a guy needed them and he traded a playset of Inkmoth Nexus for my groves. So the profit from the groves carried over to the inkmoths. ^___^
Spellskite = bought a set when they were in Standard for 1200 pesos, This is a funny card because on the first meetup agreement with the seller he never showed up. Selller apologized and we met again at a mall, that time I was unintentionally late by 30 min - I apologized too and we had a good laugh. Now they are 1200 each in our community. Eventhough their price dropped, I still have plenty of profit because I got them when they were in Standard.
Mox Opal - got them during Scars standard.
Engineered Explosives - got one during a Modern Masters release.
Grafdigger Cage - bought one cheap from a store when Innistrad was Standard legal.
Path to Exile - got Rebecca Guay foils for 1200 pesos a playset. they have since risen in value.
The rest of the cards on the list, I don't really own any of them. Hoping for Glimmervoids to drop in SCG Christmas sale, because they are the last cards that I need to complete affinity.
I mainly based those comments on my personal experience. I began Modern early 2015 and bought into Splinter Twin with the release of MM15. I paid a lot of money for my deck, with many of those cards at or near peak prices. My stupid self then thought it was a good idea that, since it was such a safe deck (no overwhelming meta %, no turn 4 violator, pillar staple of the format) I should start upgrading to foils. So yeah, I lost a lot of value with the banning. Value of money, value of competitiveness, and value for motivation. This has been an extraordinarily awful year for URx players as a whole and makes me question making such a wrong decision when entering the format (which was supposed to be a "safe" and "eternal" format compared to Standard). Maybe if I just bought into Jund or Affinity I wouldn't be feeling so sour about the format as a whole. If someone has not bought into Modern yet and doesn't have a binder full of staples already, they need to be aware of how expensive mistakes in choices can be.
Additionally, maybe prices are falling because people are losing faith in the format. I haven't bought any Modern cards in months other than a couple random foil Snaps (because they were stupidly cheap). All my money has been going into Commander.
Sorry to hear about your loss. I do remember that you are one of the active people at the Splinter Twin threads. Was shy to join in the discussions because my UR twin deck is semi-budget, have a set of tarns but no snaps and remands.
As for doing something stupid. Tried to join standard, bought a Crypt of Agadeem deck with Banefires and BBB spell that exiles. Got the deck for 3000 pesos, and at the dollar conversion at that time is approx 75 US dollars. Failed to sell the deck at rotation, and the 75 dollars have run down the drain.. with nothing usable in the deck except for the Monstrous Carabid and Architects of will that I use in Living End. ------------- thankfully, the losses were recovered by the value of the zendikar fetchlands that I also bought at that era of time. This experience with Agadeem is a serious lesson in life for me to never ever again invest in a Standard deck. @____@
And before conspiracy 2, cards like Snapcaster Mage were still sitting at around $58 on average. My point is that there are a lot of moving parts when it comes to card value, but your splinter twin deck didn't go from 1k to 150. The current trend of of downward pressure on values has more to do with print decisions (again I'm looking at you Conspiracy 2) plus the time of year. Just to add to your picture there, cards like Fulminator Mage are down 50% over the course of the year, so it isn't just URx (again, format as a whole).
I'll also add that I'm not 100% on where you are pulling your numbers from since I'm getting different numbers for Clique as an example (12/15 @ 39.9, 12/15 29.5). Again not saying cards haven't dropped in value, but it is part of a bigger trend currently and once again, the banning of twin didn't make URx staples worthless.
So you basically just made his point that prices are not stable and you can't rely on collection prices staying up, you just did it in a different way. "Oh no, it wasn't bans that lost tons of value, it was every card in modern! We all lost a fortune over the last year, so modern is a great format to get into."
Heck, I'm not even concerned about the collection of cards holding value and would be happy if the prices were stable at lower costs, but the issue is that for people who trade the card values are way too spiky to just sit back and put money into it, then hope later on if you lose interest in a deck, save money and trade for the cards you need. That issue is all on wizards end, which they are trying to correct right now by running larger print runs, but it's not the print runs that are the issue, either. The entire way the game is marketed and sold lends itself to that spiky, uncontrollable nature on the secondary market. All wizards has done is force the burden of cost onto the store owners instead of their own shoulders as they aren't discounting the boxes enough for vendors to make a profit on the products they are over printing. Case in point, Planechase Anthologies that is supposed to be selling for MSRP 150 usd is barely selling at all and vendors are forced to sell well below MSRP at about 100 usd a box.
Magic the Gathering has near zero worthwhile presence in any other medium right now because they haven't licensed their setting out to software developers or media companies like Warhammer 40k or the Gorilla in the room: Pokemon. I've seen people casually walk into a store with zero experience or interest in playing Warhammer 40k, like the way Tau look because they played Warhammer 40k Dawn of War II multiplayer once upon a midnight dreary or just really liked mecha, and buy paintable figures. Pokemon I've seen just about every age group buy boxed products for the card game because of the release of the next pokemon title or the fact they have experience in some other title. People who buy MtG products are almost always already rooted in the game, and those who aren't it feels a lot more binary on actual interest in purchasing things.
(PS: The iphone game for MtG does not count! )
So case in point, if someone asks me if it's worth it to play modern, it's almost always going to boil down to whether they have a rooted history with Magic or not. If they don't there's basically zero point to do so because the card prices bounce around too much and you'll end up spending way too much due to the most popular (and therefore desired) cards being printed at mythic or rare and having a price point per card in a range of 15 to 100 dollars. Legacy isn't quite that bad since price there is based more on scarcity, so card value doesn't tend to shift as much.
Please let Wizards of the Coast hit success with their next Video Game MTG Next. The card game was doing so well when I left around Return to Ravnica, with lots of good cards being priced affordably with a fun pair of prior blocks to work with. Right now this feels almost as bad as what MTG felt like back when Kamigawa was going. Card prices in standard are great, but the cards people want are from days past at the moment.
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 thing is Modern will not grow if is not promoted, and as it isn't a format that make the most money to WotC it will not get a lot of support.
Imo the ways to get people into modern are: players who had a good time in standard want to keep playing with their cards so they buy into modern, modern staples go down in price so people who wanted to play modern finally can, promotion made by WotC plus the big stores (it's more likely that the stores will do it, hareruya created frontier just because they don't know what to do with the amount of unused card they have), but i don't know if it will happen, Hasbro is one greedy company and they want to sell way too much product a year, i mean come on! they expected for us to buy into every release this year? Wallets are tired and people are either walking away selling their collections and dropping prices (i'm being offered playsets of cryptic, spell snare, spell pierce and remand for 100 us dollars, all of them original printings) or choosing carefully what to buy, and finally a big shake up on the banlist, if they unban an important number of cards that impact the format could bring a lot of players interested in the new shape of the format (or lack of it the first months)
Stores and speculators are uneasy, and every modern player can feel a strange atmosphere, MTG will not die but it's passing through a bad time, greediness is putting way to much pressure on distribuitors, stores and players.
From my point of view now it's either a perfect time to get into modern as cards can be bought at very low prices from people scared that the market is plummeting, or a dangerous time because people may flee and modern staples continue to go down; yes, lower prices may attract players but if there a more leaving that those entering the game will suffer a lot anyway.
Meta-wise i like the format and i'm happy playing it, from that perspective i'll always recommend Modern over 2-deck-Standard.
From my point of view now it's either a perfect time to get into modern as cards can be bought at very low prices from people scared that the market is plummeting, or a dangerous time because people may flee and modern staples continue to go down; yes, lower prices may attract players but if there a more leaving that those entering the game will suffer a lot anyway.
That's really the thing, prices are down, but decks are still $600-1,000 (Jund/Abzan are still $1,800). So when the devaluing of staples are combined with the still-high cost of entry, fewer people are motivated to buy in. Maybe that motivation could be overcome by a fun and healthy format that people are excited to play, but that doesn't seem to be the case in today's Modern for the majority of players.
From my point of view now it's either a perfect time to get into modern as cards can be bought at very low prices from people scared that the market is plummeting, or a dangerous time because people may flee and modern staples continue to go down; yes, lower prices may attract players but if there a more leaving that those entering the game will suffer a lot anyway.
That's really the thing, prices are down, but decks are still $600-1,000 (Jund/Abzan are still $1,800). So when the devaluing of staples are combined with the still-high cost of entry, fewer people are motivated to buy in. Maybe that motivation could be overcome by a fun and healthy format that people are excited to play, but that doesn't seem to be the case in today's Modern for the majority of players.
Well, in the long long run modern is probably going to get canned as a competitive format because WoTC can't actually support it and go in a direction that supports new players. What's happening right now (besides the holiday season draining the living crap out of people along with the impending tax season following it) is that standard is running into similar problems to Kahns block, though not on the same vector, in that only a very select few decks are competitive and players are getting the impression that if they don't play one of these decks they are wasting their time at FNM. Combine this with horrible FNM promos and you get a really bad FNM environment which is why so many people are jumping to EDH at the moment to wait it out. This also means a weak market for standard, which then translates into WoTC going into panic mode and doing what we are seeing right now. Print the heck out of everything except what people actually want because they want to save those as hooks for future sets. I swear these guys at WoTC are like bungee corded hamsters trying to escape a play pen they built themselves.
What do people want right now to get printed across various formats? Engineered Explosives, Noble Hierarch, Arcum Dagson, Contagion Engine, all the freaking praetors, Craterhoof Behemoth, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Death baron, Doubling Season, Basilisk Collar, etc. What do they print instead? Planechase in a box set at way too high an MSRP because they think the high prices of the cards are from demand when it's from scarcity and print a bunch of commander decks that purposefully don't have high demand reprints because they don't want to deal with the EV issue that they also made themselves. Well okay, they didn't completely miss the target with those decks, but because they only half did the reprints it resulted in higher prices on the stuff they missed.
On the upside it looks like they are starting to listen to the community over the last year or so. Maybe it's all an illusion or something, though.
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!
Yes, it is an exelent time to be playing modern. We have never seen a wider diversaty of decks. With no dominating decks changes are probably not on the horison. If they are, they would take the form of key cards in infect or dredge.
Fast lineyear decks are more plentifull then ever, and they are diverse meaning building a good sideboard vs them is hard. And yet slower decks put up consistently good resoults.
What is your preffered type of deck?
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I have dyslexia, no I am not going to spell check for you, yes you have to live with the horrors of it.
I still enjoy playing the format right now, even with it being harder to play non linear decks. I mean I think it would be better with a dredge or infect but I still enjoy the format
If you enjoy linear aggro, now is a fantastic time to get in. If you like other kinds of strategies, the format is not very friendly ATM.
Personally, I've been buying control and midrange cards because prices are low right now and I'm holding faith that WotC will ban/unban some things in January to kind of fix things - or at least change it. I feel more players felt Modern was greater in the past than it is now and WotC probably knows it. Plus.. they'll want to be able to sell MM2017 and the current climate is not very conducive to that.
I've been having an itch to come back to the game after about a 2 year hiatus. I completely shelved the game when the eldrazi sets came out (which apparently is now called eldrazi winter?).
So is this a good time to come back to the format/game? Whats happened with modern in the past 12ish months.
I used to mostly play and still have all my cards for a snapcaster/clique deck or some version that revolves around those but could theoretically get cards to fill out a similar type of deck
so card availability isnt a sticking point but trying to recreate a similar experience.
Looking through the state of the format thread also didn't tell me much as its just people arguing back and forth over cards i dont know anything about.
If it makes any difference i came back to mtg at the tail end of the first zendikar and played the modern format (ptqs and occasional fnms) roughly since it started so not a total noob.
Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
If you can't afford Legacy play Modern, if you can't afford Modern play Standard. That's what I've always live by in mtg. As long as you're playing something and playing regularly, you are growing as a player. I like Modern because it's a mid ground for player's looking to get into legacy eventually. A good number of decks can be bought for modern, played until you get those last few power cards for it to play it in legacy.
No one beleives that. Most people cant see more than what is in front of them. So 1000$ up-front is too much. But theyll spend the same amount over the course of 2 years in standard, and wont bat an eye.
Standard over a long period of time is far, far more expensive.
Even with bannings and artificial rotation, Modern is cheaper int he long run, and Modern collections tend to hold value, better.
By definition Standard HAS to be more expensive. Its the reason WOTC pushes it more than any other format. It gets players spending their cash, frequently.
Standard over a long period of time is far, far more expensive.
Even with bannings and artificial rotation, Modern is cheaper int he long run, and Modern collections tend to hold value, better.
By definition Standard HAS to be more expensive. Its the reason WOTC pushes it more than any other format. It gets players spending their cash, frequently.
I'm going to point out that it's pointless to bring up price comparisons between standard and modern because the buy in to standard each season gives a playable deck. Modern is only cheaper if one stipulates they are going to build one deck, and then stick with that deck for practically forever. That hardly ever happens for returning players not knowing what they like and trading out of a modern deck to play another one is incredibly expensive. From a playability standpoint it's better to play casual 60 card decks than to try to meet the standards of a modern competitive deck at this point. Not to mention that since the secondary market has now gotten to the point where they are making a new format themselves with frontier, WoTC is going to be formulating a new battle plan themselves as well, since this follows the old pattern that over extended -> modern followed back in the day.
Needless to say, I'm ready to admit my merfolk deck is probably going to be a piece of MTG history in my vault in the next two years. Exciting times.
Wizards has other reasons to move on to a new format, though. They definitely want to have their game become an e-sport, but they can't do it at the moment with the card pool as clunky as it is, and modern is pretty much a complete nightmare collaboration of past learning mistakes on the designers.
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!
MTG wont really be a true e-sport. Not in its current form, or at least not in the way WOTC is currently pushing it as an e-sport. If they opened up to 3rd party sponsors, increased prize pools, etc... it would be much better.
The main thing here is "Getting in to" Modern. Your argument against Modern is just as applicable to Standard. Yes, you get to buy into Standard at a lower price point every season, but your deck also has a short shelf-life. Unlike Modern where you can start with one deck, and then slowly build another over time. You'll never be able to go back to your Bant CoCo deck in Standard. Whereas you will eventually go back to Merflok.
If you count the numbers overall, even over the timespan of a Magic player playing Magic, odds are you will spend less money if you juss tick to one, non-rotating format (outside of Vintage and Legacy).
New formats mean nothing. Frontier is cheap because its unofficial and no one really plays it in meaningful numbers. If Frontier ever was adopted, trust me, it would be expensive. And eventually as expensive as Modern.
New formats fragment the playerbase. It isnt in WOTC best interests.
MTG wont really be a true e-sport. Not in its current form, or at least not in the way WOTC is currently pushing it as an e-sport. If they opened up to 3rd party sponsors, increased prize pools, etc... it would be much better.
The main thing here is "Getting in to" Modern. Your argument against Modern is just as applicable to Standard. Yes, you get to buy into Standard at a lower price point every season, but your deck also has a short shelf-life. Unlike Modern where you can start with one deck, and then slowly build another over time. You'll never be able to go back to your Bant CoCo deck in Standard. Whereas you will eventually go back to Merflok.
If you count the numbers overall, even over the timespan of a Magic player playing Magic, odds are you will spend less money if you juss tick to one, non-rotating format (outside of Vintage and Legacy).
New formats mean nothing. Frontier is cheap because its unofficial and no one really plays it in meaningful numbers. If Frontier ever was adopted, trust me, it would be expensive. And eventually as expensive as Modern.
New formats fragment the playerbase. It isnt in WOTC best interests.
You don't get to start with one deck in modern unless someone is throwing down about a thousand dollars on a deck. You do get to start a deck in standard for around hundred and fifty at most (except for kahns block. Sweet mercy that was bad). Also, I'm finding the idea of asking if going into modern is a good idea on the modern forum kind of like asking if drinking alcoholic beverages is okay when at a speak easy pub. Of course the people on the forum are going to say yes it's a good idea. Everyone here is vested in it and already is primed to give a positive view point. The better place for asking this kind of question is on the general forum, where other players can give their view points.
Obviously, I do play modern, but as a player of modern who went through the trouble of getting into it modern is not worth it. The trade value is dubious and WoTC is likely going to be bringing a new format out along with MTG Next to push the E-Sport scene, and yes they are going to reduce the card pool to do it. I'm bringing this up because modern is the currently supported eternal format and when they change over to a new one this format will go the way of legacy.
But again, I'm not really arguing against you Kovo, I'm explaining from another view point to the OP that there are definitely downsides to trying to get into this format. A lot of them. Standard will always exist, but Modern will not always exist in the same form. To be frank I don't even think it should stay around the way it is because the card value costs are spikey, trade values can shift heavily if people are concerned with that aspect, and as I stated before changing between decks is a very pricy and lengthy procedure.
Basically, modern is a format that someone can enter and enjoy under very specific conditions. Going in blind to the ups and downs and not having a set game plan on what deck to play, as well as a plan to get that return in playtime vs cost, that is where this format can burn someone in a very serious way. We're talking about a format where someone can make a 50 cent mistake or a 400 dollar mistake on picking up the wrong card, and that 400 dollar mistake may be undoable because said 100 dollar card they bought a playset of was something like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, that went from 80 usd to now 22 usd per thanks to standard demand cloaking it's real value.
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!
Yes, as I mentioned in this thread or another, buying cards at the right price is at the discretion of the buyer, not the format. Unless you are hardcore, you can wait a bit to buy a card that is currently hot in Standard. Hardcore players are going to spend whatever money, anyway, regardless of time or cost.
Again, probably outside of the scope of this thread, but prices are down rather significantly and it isn't just a change in tcg player data. It has had a very real impact on the secondary market (where I make my living) across multiple platforms and multiple formats. I am well aware of the holiday dip, but this dip has been much more significant than previous years. The reasons are multi-faceted though, so no it isn't all one set's fault to be fair.
Interesting list that you have. Would like to comment because I have several of the cards there.
Vendilion Clique - bought two of them when they were only 9 dollars each - or 400 pesos each - from a local guy. Sold them at their peak for 2500 pesos each at 2014. Helped a friend with the money. We were easily able to pay our tailor for a cosplay costume that at that time we could not really afford before the cards got sold. Up to this day I'm still thankful to the cliques, I hope their new owner treat them well.
Splinter Twin - bought a playset them while they were in Zendikar Standard. So even though they are almost trash cards now, I did not lose much money.
Arcbound Ravagers - got a playset of them for approx 120$ three years ago, they came with an entire classic Mirrodin block Affinity deck partially upgraded with Springleaf Drums and Galvanic Blast. I did lose a bit of money because of the ravager price drop, however the losses were neutralized by Inkmoth Nexus.
Inkmoth Nexus - bought a playset of Flooded Groves 3 years ago for 600 pesos which is approx 12 dollars. Then just last month, a guy needed them and he traded a playset of Inkmoth Nexus for my groves. So the profit from the groves carried over to the inkmoths. ^___^
Spellskite = bought a set when they were in Standard for 1200 pesos, This is a funny card because on the first meetup agreement with the seller he never showed up. Selller apologized and we met again at a mall, that time I was unintentionally late by 30 min - I apologized too and we had a good laugh. Now they are 1200 each in our community. Eventhough their price dropped, I still have plenty of profit because I got them when they were in Standard.
Mox Opal - got them during Scars standard.
Engineered Explosives - got one during a Modern Masters release.
Grafdigger Cage - bought one cheap from a store when Innistrad was Standard legal.
Path to Exile - got Rebecca Guay foils for 1200 pesos a playset. they have since risen in value.
The rest of the cards on the list, I don't really own any of them. Hoping for Glimmervoids to drop in SCG Christmas sale, because they are the last cards that I need to complete affinity.
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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
Additionally, maybe prices are falling because people are losing faith in the format. I haven't bought any Modern cards in months other than a couple random foil Snaps (because they were stupidly cheap). All my money has been going into Commander.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Sorry to hear about your loss. I do remember that you are one of the active people at the Splinter Twin threads. Was shy to join in the discussions because my UR twin deck is semi-budget, have a set of tarns but no snaps and remands.
As for doing something stupid. Tried to join standard, bought a Crypt of Agadeem deck with Banefires and BBB spell that exiles. Got the deck for 3000 pesos, and at the dollar conversion at that time is approx 75 US dollars. Failed to sell the deck at rotation, and the 75 dollars have run down the drain.. with nothing usable in the deck except for the Monstrous Carabid and Architects of will that I use in Living End. ------------- thankfully, the losses were recovered by the value of the zendikar fetchlands that I also bought at that era of time. This experience with Agadeem is a serious lesson in life for me to never ever again invest in a Standard deck. @____@
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
Heck, I'm not even concerned about the collection of cards holding value and would be happy if the prices were stable at lower costs, but the issue is that for people who trade the card values are way too spiky to just sit back and put money into it, then hope later on if you lose interest in a deck, save money and trade for the cards you need. That issue is all on wizards end, which they are trying to correct right now by running larger print runs, but it's not the print runs that are the issue, either. The entire way the game is marketed and sold lends itself to that spiky, uncontrollable nature on the secondary market. All wizards has done is force the burden of cost onto the store owners instead of their own shoulders as they aren't discounting the boxes enough for vendors to make a profit on the products they are over printing. Case in point, Planechase Anthologies that is supposed to be selling for MSRP 150 usd is barely selling at all and vendors are forced to sell well below MSRP at about 100 usd a box.
Magic the Gathering has near zero worthwhile presence in any other medium right now because they haven't licensed their setting out to software developers or media companies like Warhammer 40k or the Gorilla in the room: Pokemon. I've seen people casually walk into a store with zero experience or interest in playing Warhammer 40k, like the way Tau look because they played Warhammer 40k Dawn of War II multiplayer once upon a midnight dreary or just really liked mecha, and buy paintable figures. Pokemon I've seen just about every age group buy boxed products for the card game because of the release of the next pokemon title or the fact they have experience in some other title. People who buy MtG products are almost always already rooted in the game, and those who aren't it feels a lot more binary on actual interest in purchasing things.
(PS: The iphone game for MtG does not count! )
So case in point, if someone asks me if it's worth it to play modern, it's almost always going to boil down to whether they have a rooted history with Magic or not. If they don't there's basically zero point to do so because the card prices bounce around too much and you'll end up spending way too much due to the most popular (and therefore desired) cards being printed at mythic or rare and having a price point per card in a range of 15 to 100 dollars. Legacy isn't quite that bad since price there is based more on scarcity, so card value doesn't tend to shift as much.
Please let Wizards of the Coast hit success with their next Video Game MTG Next. The card game was doing so well when I left around Return to Ravnica, with lots of good cards being priced affordably with a fun pair of prior blocks to work with. Right now this feels almost as bad as what MTG felt like back when Kamigawa was going. Card prices in standard are great, but the cards people want are from days past at the moment.
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!
Imo the ways to get people into modern are: players who had a good time in standard want to keep playing with their cards so they buy into modern, modern staples go down in price so people who wanted to play modern finally can, promotion made by WotC plus the big stores (it's more likely that the stores will do it, hareruya created frontier just because they don't know what to do with the amount of unused card they have), but i don't know if it will happen, Hasbro is one greedy company and they want to sell way too much product a year, i mean come on! they expected for us to buy into every release this year? Wallets are tired and people are either walking away selling their collections and dropping prices (i'm being offered playsets of cryptic, spell snare, spell pierce and remand for 100 us dollars, all of them original printings) or choosing carefully what to buy, and finally a big shake up on the banlist, if they unban an important number of cards that impact the format could bring a lot of players interested in the new shape of the format (or lack of it the first months)
Stores and speculators are uneasy, and every modern player can feel a strange atmosphere, MTG will not die but it's passing through a bad time, greediness is putting way to much pressure on distribuitors, stores and players.
From my point of view now it's either a perfect time to get into modern as cards can be bought at very low prices from people scared that the market is plummeting, or a dangerous time because people may flee and modern staples continue to go down; yes, lower prices may attract players but if there a more leaving that those entering the game will suffer a lot anyway.
Meta-wise i like the format and i'm happy playing it, from that perspective i'll always recommend Modern over 2-deck-Standard.
That's really the thing, prices are down, but decks are still $600-1,000 (Jund/Abzan are still $1,800). So when the devaluing of staples are combined with the still-high cost of entry, fewer people are motivated to buy in. Maybe that motivation could be overcome by a fun and healthy format that people are excited to play, but that doesn't seem to be the case in today's Modern for the majority of players.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Well, in the long long run modern is probably going to get canned as a competitive format because WoTC can't actually support it and go in a direction that supports new players. What's happening right now (besides the holiday season draining the living crap out of people along with the impending tax season following it) is that standard is running into similar problems to Kahns block, though not on the same vector, in that only a very select few decks are competitive and players are getting the impression that if they don't play one of these decks they are wasting their time at FNM. Combine this with horrible FNM promos and you get a really bad FNM environment which is why so many people are jumping to EDH at the moment to wait it out. This also means a weak market for standard, which then translates into WoTC going into panic mode and doing what we are seeing right now. Print the heck out of everything except what people actually want because they want to save those as hooks for future sets. I swear these guys at WoTC are like bungee corded hamsters trying to escape a play pen they built themselves.
What do people want right now to get printed across various formats? Engineered Explosives, Noble Hierarch, Arcum Dagson, Contagion Engine, all the freaking praetors, Craterhoof Behemoth, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Death baron, Doubling Season, Basilisk Collar, etc. What do they print instead? Planechase in a box set at way too high an MSRP because they think the high prices of the cards are from demand when it's from scarcity and print a bunch of commander decks that purposefully don't have high demand reprints because they don't want to deal with the EV issue that they also made themselves. Well okay, they didn't completely miss the target with those decks, but because they only half did the reprints it resulted in higher prices on the stuff they missed.
On the upside it looks like they are starting to listen to the community over the last year or so. Maybe it's all an illusion or something, though.
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!
Fast lineyear decks are more plentifull then ever, and they are diverse meaning building a good sideboard vs them is hard. And yet slower decks put up consistently good resoults.
What is your preffered type of deck?
Personally, I've been buying control and midrange cards because prices are low right now and I'm holding faith that WotC will ban/unban some things in January to kind of fix things - or at least change it. I feel more players felt Modern was greater in the past than it is now and WotC probably knows it. Plus.. they'll want to be able to sell MM2017 and the current climate is not very conducive to that.
UBRGrixis Kiki Control
BGUSultai Shadow
GWRBushwhacker Zoo
EDH:
BGU Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose
GWU Roon of the Hidden Realm
Merged with "is modern worth getting into".
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
The current Bear market wont last forever. So if anything, this is the best time to get in.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
Modern is much more affordable than Standard.
No one beleives that. Most people cant see more than what is in front of them. So 1000$ up-front is too much. But theyll spend the same amount over the course of 2 years in standard, and wont bat an eye.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
There are a lot of stipulations attached to that statement.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
The only stipulation is that Standard is only cheaper if you only play it for 2 years or less, then never touch it again.
Standard over a long period of time is far, far more expensive.
Even with bannings and artificial rotation, Modern is cheaper int he long run, and Modern collections tend to hold value, better.
By definition Standard HAS to be more expensive. Its the reason WOTC pushes it more than any other format. It gets players spending their cash, frequently.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
I'm going to point out that it's pointless to bring up price comparisons between standard and modern because the buy in to standard each season gives a playable deck. Modern is only cheaper if one stipulates they are going to build one deck, and then stick with that deck for practically forever. That hardly ever happens for returning players not knowing what they like and trading out of a modern deck to play another one is incredibly expensive. From a playability standpoint it's better to play casual 60 card decks than to try to meet the standards of a modern competitive deck at this point. Not to mention that since the secondary market has now gotten to the point where they are making a new format themselves with frontier, WoTC is going to be formulating a new battle plan themselves as well, since this follows the old pattern that over extended -> modern followed back in the day.
Needless to say, I'm ready to admit my merfolk deck is probably going to be a piece of MTG history in my vault in the next two years. Exciting times.
Wizards has other reasons to move on to a new format, though. They definitely want to have their game become an e-sport, but they can't do it at the moment with the card pool as clunky as it is, and modern is pretty much a complete nightmare collaboration of past learning mistakes on the designers.
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 main thing here is "Getting in to" Modern. Your argument against Modern is just as applicable to Standard. Yes, you get to buy into Standard at a lower price point every season, but your deck also has a short shelf-life. Unlike Modern where you can start with one deck, and then slowly build another over time. You'll never be able to go back to your Bant CoCo deck in Standard. Whereas you will eventually go back to Merflok.
If you count the numbers overall, even over the timespan of a Magic player playing Magic, odds are you will spend less money if you juss tick to one, non-rotating format (outside of Vintage and Legacy).
New formats mean nothing. Frontier is cheap because its unofficial and no one really plays it in meaningful numbers. If Frontier ever was adopted, trust me, it would be expensive. And eventually as expensive as Modern.
New formats fragment the playerbase. It isnt in WOTC best interests.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
You don't get to start with one deck in modern unless someone is throwing down about a thousand dollars on a deck. You do get to start a deck in standard for around hundred and fifty at most (except for kahns block. Sweet mercy that was bad). Also, I'm finding the idea of asking if going into modern is a good idea on the modern forum kind of like asking if drinking alcoholic beverages is okay when at a speak easy pub. Of course the people on the forum are going to say yes it's a good idea. Everyone here is vested in it and already is primed to give a positive view point. The better place for asking this kind of question is on the general forum, where other players can give their view points.
Obviously, I do play modern, but as a player of modern who went through the trouble of getting into it modern is not worth it. The trade value is dubious and WoTC is likely going to be bringing a new format out along with MTG Next to push the E-Sport scene, and yes they are going to reduce the card pool to do it. I'm bringing this up because modern is the currently supported eternal format and when they change over to a new one this format will go the way of legacy.
But again, I'm not really arguing against you Kovo, I'm explaining from another view point to the OP that there are definitely downsides to trying to get into this format. A lot of them. Standard will always exist, but Modern will not always exist in the same form. To be frank I don't even think it should stay around the way it is because the card value costs are spikey, trade values can shift heavily if people are concerned with that aspect, and as I stated before changing between decks is a very pricy and lengthy procedure.
Basically, modern is a format that someone can enter and enjoy under very specific conditions. Going in blind to the ups and downs and not having a set game plan on what deck to play, as well as a plan to get that return in playtime vs cost, that is where this format can burn someone in a very serious way. We're talking about a format where someone can make a 50 cent mistake or a 400 dollar mistake on picking up the wrong card, and that 400 dollar mistake may be undoable because said 100 dollar card they bought a playset of was something like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, that went from 80 usd to now 22 usd per thanks to standard demand cloaking it's real value.
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'd be much more bummed out being a Standard player, knowing my entire deck with those $100 cards was going to be illegal next year.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver