MTG Salvation

It's simple - they have set design down to a science. I bet these sets practically build themselves - let's throw the dragon package in there, let's use these mythics and the commons/uncommons build themselves. I bet R&D on these sets is a fraction of new sets.

These are fancier FTV's. It's a cheap way to leverage cards that are expensive on the secondary market while at the same time getting value for their limited game design and making people rip packs. This whole set made me yawn except for Mana Drain.

I will give you an example. I live on the border of Wisconsin and Illinois in the mid west of America.

10 years ago we had 4 maybe 5 LGS to choose from. These were the days of 40-70 player FNMs. Pre releases and release parties were huge. Depending on the set, 100+ players.

5 years ago we had around a dozen LGS. FNMs were around 30-50 players. This is about the time they went away from release events and only had pre release events. Still most LGS had 50+ per flight for pre release events.

1 year ago we had 18-20 LGS to choose from. To the credit of some of the LGS owners, they are working together and shifting 'FNM' to Saturdays or Mondays. LGS 1 runs Standard on Friday night, while LGS 2 runs Modern, and LGS 3 has EDH. ON Saturday they switch formats and then again on Mondays. I can play any format any day of the week. Which is cool for the player base.

With in the last year we have had 6-8 new LGS open. Some dont run scheduled events. Some run non conventional events. Some are competing with the 18-20 for players.

I have over 2 dozen LGS I can choose from all with in 60 minutes from my house. The game has done nothing but grow in my area. Every FNM there are new players getting a DCI number. I understand not every where is probably the same. I live in a highly populated area.

Am I the only person who read this and thinks your LGS are cannibalizing each other and not actually growing? They're fighting over the same local players? Local stores opening up isn't growth - if you said you go to GPs in town every year and every year there are more people, that would hold more weight.

I live in a mid-market city. We're growing, but we still pale in size to somewhere like Atlanta. I see the same players all over town - compared to 5 years ago, player turn out and player growth (increasing # of new faces at events) has been on the decline. A sunday standard tournament that has been firing reliably since I started back (AVR) has not fired in 2 of the last 3 weeks. New LGS pop up, but the old ones shut down as the players migrate to the store featuring the best payouts as a promo to get people in.

I am worried about Magic and I am especially worried about where it will be in 2 years. I see us going farther down the Yugioh rabbit hole.

I'll still play but I'm not going to invest much on this release. The new set is the same old bull***** - why do you think they had to toss Invocations *and* full art lands at higher rarity in there?

I like how the hivemind has caught up to what I've been saying since BFZ released. Lazy ******* designers.

Smells like Digiridoo around Theros block but worse. Might drive up the price for a bit, but they're probably not going to print anything that is broken by Fluctuator.

Quote from Th3M4g1cM4n »

Quote from Quacker »

Bad R&D. It's only going to get worse before it gets better, since R&D works on sets a year or two ahead of when they're released.

R&D from a game design side or a sales side? From a sales side, I don't understand. Why buy cards if you don't get to play them? I Haven't bought a box since Theros was released (the set, not the block). Mostly because I liked the idea of seeing what I happened to pull and getting my hands on most copies of the commons and uncommons I needed to build a variety of decks. Gimmicks, like the Masterpiece Series don't appeal to me, although I do understand they appeal to other players/collectors. I, however, like playing with my cards and want to use them for the purpose for which they are intended.

Bad R&D on the game design side is leading to desperate/bad decision on the sales side. Nobody wants bans, but if they're forced because people simply give up on the format...well...it leads to gimmicks like Masterpieces. That and the intrinsic drive of sales to increase sales at all costs.

Dumbass Rudy and his Alpha Investments scam spread that rumor. It'll be true until next week when WOTC announces a run of Commander decks featuring only Atraxa packs.

Quote from Crimson Wookie »

So Dig Through Time is $5 now...

If you want foils, that seems like an OK option right now. 7-8 bucks for NM.

This is purely Frontier "demand." Smells like Tiny Leaders, but may take off as there are quite a few tournaments firing on the format.

See also Hangarback Walker, JVP, Anafenza.

This format is a janky way to create interest in overprinted cards that have no use otherwise. Speed bump - Magic needs more players or the secondary market is in for a bumpy ride.

Quote from Wraith223 »

Quote from Quacker »

I really had second thoughts about posting because I try to avoid putting myself out there. I do not post with an agenda and I laid my cards on the table in terms of how much/little I have invested in this set so far. I thought, however, that some players have not been around since BFZ or KTK and have not seen preorder prices crash to almost nothing. Well, I think this set will be an order of magnitude worse than either one of those sets, in terms of packs opened per player. Fastland prices have already dropped by about 10% since the Kaladesh Expeditions were announced. We may see the lesser played fastlands dip to $2 or lower.

But maybe I'm wrong. I ain't no future seeing wizard even though I play magic. Take what I say with a grain of salt, but to me, this means a total shift in how standard legal set pricing is going to work. The new mega mythics will cause eternal players to "buy in" to standard sets more than if they were after one or two cards. Their purchases for these new mega mythics will cause more pack openings than otherwise. If you don't believe me, that's fine. We'll see how it turns out.

Also, I am the first to accuse people of having secondary agendas, but when I read your accusation to me, that made me really rethink how I approach internet posts. A healthy dose of skepticism is fine, but really, what could my objective possibly be? To convince all 10 readers of this subforum to not buy preorders so I can watch cards tank and scoop up $200 Mana Vaults instead of $205 Mana Vaults? Get real dude.

I don't think there are any mana vault powered cards in this new set, thus your point is faulty. Players will still want the standard legal cards and if you enjoy that; getting a cheap preorder may not be a bad idea. Only the fast lands really interest me. A few of the new artifacts look good, but their CMC is high for affinity. When you post ideas that we should not do anything with this set and have such high negativity, viewers here loose interest in reading/communicating in our forum. You said it, 10 people read this. Why? The reasons are that certain members are negative, rude, lack social skills, and think they are god's gift to magic. Thanks for killing the market street. I am being real, and find your thread just spreading negativity to something new. We need new players and more people buying into the game so we can enjoy it for as long as possible.

"This country (forum) will never fall from an invading force, but instead it will fall from within...."
Lincoln.

You should really learn to read before you post. The whole PREMISE of this post is about MANA VAULT being reprinted at mega mythic rarity. Jeesh.

I think you're the one lacking social graces. I call a spade a spade, and you can't even be bothered to read my posts before heaping disdain upon them. Look in the mirror there sport before you start spouting off about rude people. I'll take rude over dumb any day.

Also, I am not disputing that historically preordering has been a bad idea. I just think some of you don't get how much of a shift this might be in terms of mythic/rare singles availability. An order of magnitude of depression of singles, and any microscarcities of hot cards resolved in days rather than weeks. Paradigm shifting. Buzzy word, but appropriate I think.

Quote from secretgiant »

Homelands? That's a little excessive. As for the fastlands, we have seen rare dual land cycles get to the $2.00 range recently so that's not out of the question. Every experienced player knows to be careful preordering singles- there is no secret about the downward pressure after the set is released. However, Homelands and Fallen Empires? Get real dude. Besides, I don't trust anyone's evaluation of this set yet because: Standard Rotation and Bizarre Mechanics.

I'm glad if the single market is on the low end. The only reason to be mad is if you're a business or a speculator (you said you're mad about expected speculation losses). I'm glad that budget players that buy packs have a shot at getting something valuable to trade away for staples. I won't consider holding onto or speculating on the value if I open a Masterpiece card, as a high-value card I don't need is not worth it for me.

I agree that dual lands currently have a track record of getting in the $1.50 range in the past few sets. However, those dual lands had zero eternal implications (beyond EDH). This is the first dual land set with eternal implications since KTK and fetches were definitely not under $2 during that entire run. I fully expected even the janky ones to stay above $3. I am no longer sure.

Homelands may have been a bit of a hyperbole, but it's in the right direction. Overprinting is overprinting. Before this set, overprinting meant languishing on the shelves. WOTC has a system in place to prevent too much of this - printing to "demand." This set, overprinting may be due to raw over-opening. WOTC keeps printing because they think it's organic demand but it's really not. Unexplored territory, IMHO.

Anyways, I wish I hadn't even started this thread now. I really don't give a flip what people do.

I saw some iconic cards from early on, but agree that they're outnumbered. Another problem is that it's sorta cool to reprint Channel, but what's the point, really? It's only usable as a restricted card in Vintage. And while Kokusho, the evening star can be considered iconic in a way, its relevance is small now and there was definitely no need to reprint ALL the legendary dragon spirits.

I definitely saw some cool reprints, and even some that are likely to make a difference, but in my opinion, this looks so far to be by far the weakest Masters product yet.

Good news: After the bannings you can play an aggro deck in standard without shelling out for a rare 2 cmc vehicle!

Bad news: Now you get to buy a mythic 2 cmc vehicle...

My only consolation is that I doubt this was a deliberate move by WotC. I mean, if they didn't see the Copy Cat combo coming, this probably caught them by surprise as well.

I'm a little surprised nobody tried jamming the Pummeler combo deck. I thought Invigorated Rampage would give it a little boost, and Liliana is seeing a lot less play lately.

This may have been the most boring PT I've ever watched.

Oops, ninjad!

Quote from Stoogeslap »

Hey, what's up w/ Saffi Eriksdotter? Foils are sitting around $68 (dropped down 61% from $175) & non-foils are around $11.00.

An Abzan Company did decently well at a small tournament using her and Renegade Rallier last weekend. Loop her and rallied with a Blood Artist and sac outlet in play for infinite triggers.

Saffi recently saw play as a 1 of in abzan combo decks. Combos with the new renegade rallier and a sac outlet and is just good value overall in those style of decks.

Plus, the card is from an era where the playerbase wasn't as big so naturally it spikes harder.

I think you're overreacting.

Please DONT tell me this is our Christmas-gift ! im grateful, but how can one rejoice to Reprints, which are not affordable & not even T2-legal ?? Im utterly dissapointed

I love that Wizards shows me all the cool cards I'll never have a chance to own. No sour grapes here. No siree.

To make almost this entire post a moot point, the "rebel" card that was spoiled, Quicksmith Rebel only has rebel in the name, not the subtype.

The trouble with conspiracy was that while it had a lot of initial hype and enjoyment from players who wanted to play it. It never had near the demand of a typical standard set. One possibility is that wizards did their usual initial large print run, stores bought in on however much they felt they might be able to move (still no where near standard set amounts), and wizards/distributors still had left over product from that initial large print run that slowly filtered out as shops who had the demand restocked.

The other possibility is yes, there was enough initial demand to run through the initial print run, and they made a second (but as usual smaller print run), but by that time demand had begun to, and did wane, and now there are a ton of unopened boxes running around the internet collecting dust, until it eventually gets old enough to where collectors or drafters decided to start gobbling them up at fairly cheap prices and the prices begin to rise as the supply begins to dip as almost inevitably always happens over time assuming the sets aren't terrible value wise/gimmick wise/etc.

For now though the first conspiracy set is still plenty well available all over the place from what I have seen online, in fairly large quantities. I still see regular sales of the original conspiracy boxes fairly often which is usually a sign of lack of demand and reasonably high stock levels left.

As for the singles values. The fact that the set wasn't opened nearly as much as a standard set (and never will be), was a reason that something like Dack was able to stay as high as he was until he got reprinted and then the price dive bombed accordingly.

In the case of the new Chandra, its in a large 1st set of a new block standard set, with several new planeswalkers, a new good cycle of duals (to finish off an old reasonably popular cycle), as well as several other decent cards in the set garnering attention, and of course last but certainly not least.... The special foil artifacts which are sure to have that fun lottery ticket effect to get people to open them for as we have seen similarly in the past. So supply isn't going to be anywhere near as low as Dack was, or even is now after the reprinting.

If it ends up being a multi-format all star in addition to a potential standard all star, then that's certainly something in the high value camp, but if not, then it dropping to $30 I could easily see happening. Time, as with all such things, will tell. Personally I would be patient if I was looking to pick some up.