Looks less impressive than last year's but I like the sleek look. Rather annoying that they only creature one card as opposed to the trio of cards that are new.
You mean the Commander's Arsenal that 98% of the players had no reasonable chance at obtaining?
I liked the power level of the last Commander decks, I hope these ones are similar.
on MTGO they do old set drafts all the time. MOCS has pumped a lot of FoWs into the system, and it will only be a matter of time before they do it again.
Giving:
1 Show and Tell (HP, heavy edge wear and a crease in one corner)
1 Mother of Runes
1 Cryptic Command
1 Memory Jar (FTV)
1 Pact of Negation
Getting:
1 Arid Mesa
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Aetherling
1 Through the Breach
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Spawnsire of Ulamog?
No way I'm not taking the first pile.
I didn't look up the monetary value of the second pile. Cryptic Command will rise in prise far more than anything in pile b. Same with Pact of Negation.
I bought 4. But I also wanted foil copies of StP, Dark Rit, Hymn, GSZ, and Tanglewire.
Regardless of if he'll be unbanned in Modern, he'll go up eventually, he's just way to famous/iconic of a card not to be sought after by almost everyone.
It would be nice to see some of those, the problem is they are entirely too powerful for standard. So they would either have to print a ban it immeditely (making it only playable in legacy as it is now) or print it in a limited run such as modern masters and ftv 20. Unfortunatly this doesn't really help the secondary market, but then again that not wizards business.
If you believe that Wizards isn't "helping" the secondary market by only releasing this stuff in limited hard to get expansions then you are wrong.
If Wizards truly cared only about selling booster packs, then we would see much more powerful cards in sets more often than we do now.
Wizards can print whatever set they want and make it legal in whatever format they want. Cards don't have to only be Standard legal.
I don't have a perfect answer and honestly all of my favorite Standard formats had cards banned from them. I want the game to be about powerful spells and broken decks. I love watching someone win off Storm. I don't mind losing on turn 3 to something like that, because I know that the next game I could win like that. I love Legacy/Vintage because of the power level.
What I don't like is cards only getting reprinted in small limited sets because Wizards cares about the price of the card on the secondary market. FTV caters to collector/foil players, that isn't me. I want cards I can play in tournaments with and I want the game's most powerful cards, I don't want/need them in foil.
They won't put a card worth 40+ in a Duel Deck/Multiplayer deck/Commander product. They theoretically *could* but they won't because the card already costs that much money. I am personally surprised that Mutavault came back in M14. I didn't think that was ever going to happen. So that does give me a little hope that they will slowly reprint "older good cards." But let's face it, cards like Jace are NEVER going to be put into a Commander deck or Core set and that is what I really don't like. I love powerful cards/formats.
You mean like Thragtusk when it was at its height in price (event deck)? Or Stoneforge at its height in price (event deck)? Or Hellrider at its height in price (duel deck)? Sol Ring, Scavenging Ooze, Lightning Greaves, Shardless Agent, Baleful Strix. All cards put in special printing that were expensive cards when printed. This is only off the top of my head. And you could get any of those products for MSRP at a variety of places.
You are only upset with this particular product because you have to pay market value for Jace. I'm sorry, but why should anyone feel bad for anyone having to pay what the market says a card is worth? You are not entitled to cheap cards because you are a player in this game.
Posted from MTGsalvation.com App for Android
None of those cards you listed are high end Legacy staples. Most of the ones that are were original printings.
I'm upset because cards I want are in a product I don't want. I want cards like Jace, Maze of Ith, Progentitus, Mox Diamond to be printed in actual expansion sets. I don't want them in limited only special expansions like Modern Masters.
I don't need them in a special foil version.
But nothing reprinted in a Commander or Archenemy deck comes even remotely to putting Legacy staples in a FTV. They're not putting Show and Tell or Sneak Attack in a Commander product. That is the point.
Ability to pre-order is irrelevant anyway. This product was created as a collectable item as a thank you to stores. It sucks that some people don't have access to preorder at MSRP (myself included as far as I know). However, no one had a right to this product at MSRP. WOTC could print more and lower the price if they chose, but they don't want to because this product is not meant to be a reward to players for anything. Printing extra would eliminate the purpose for which it was created.
I'm sorry some people can't get this cheap, but you have the option to buy it right now if you want it. You just have to be willing to pay market price for it, which is not an unreasonable request by any definition. Some people have it better and live in areas with cheaper access to these cards. Good for them. Some people have to pay market price.
There nothing inherently wrong about having to pay that price, some people just feel jealous or feel they are entitled to cards at lower than market price.
Posted from MTGsalvation.com App for Android
It has nothing to do with "market price." it has everything to do with how they got to be at "market price" to begin with.
The game has far more players than it ever has in the history of the game. I think the the excuse of "well, you should have got in on the ground floor..." is a weak excuse and glosses over new players that start every day that are interested in having powerful decks and good cards.
If WoTC only cared about selling packs of cards, we would see an influx of the more popular cards more often. Because of this outdated notion that a mass reprinting will cause players to leave in droves because it almost happened in 1995 (when might I add, that TCGs were a brand new industry and no one had any idea where it was going.) is ridiculous. And using that excuse NOT to reprint cards nearly 20 years later, when we have so many more tournament circuits, players interested in organized play, so many different kinds of casual players needing different products is a slap in the face of players.
I realize not every product is for every player, but I think there are far more players that are interested in high level play and there should be a supply stream for that. If the only supply stream for tournament viable popular cards are small print run Judge foils and FTV sets that is a major problem to me. Touting around on a website saying "Well MSRP is 40 dollars.." and you go to a store expecting to pay that and then get laughed at by a store owner isn't good for the Magic brand either.
The "this is a thank you to stores" excuse is also thin. Isn't stocking the world's most popular TCG a "thank you" in and of itself? Not to mention all the free advertising you get just because you sell Magic cards? How many other products like sleeves and boxes do you sell because those can't be easily found in big box stores? I think it is an excuse to limit the availability of the product to alienate yet another segment of the market who is willing to purchase Magic cards but are priced out of the game, yet again, because rich enfranchised players are the only Magic audience that special sets get catered to. Always.
That isn't "entitlement." That isn't "jealousy." That is the truth. While I realize Rich enfranchised players spend more money then joe schmo down the street, but does every special printing have to cater to that audience?
So my argument doesn't hold water simply because you say so? I completely reject that. Your counter to my argument is the new comers should have a chance to get everything for a price they can afford? What number is that, exactly? 10 dollars per JTSM? Because to some that is a lot.
There are many on this forum who believe another hundred years could pass and new comers are just that, new, and thus have to deal with the fact that the world doesn't stop for them and say "well here son, have some cheap cards because you were off giving your money to some other hobby". This just isn't the way the real world works. When you are late to the party, you have to play catch up in any aspect of life.
I mean, gosh... this isn't health care we are talking about. This is a trading card game. It doesn't need to be subsidized to the needy.
I'm just saying you should put yourself in someone else's shoes for a change. In the world of gaming, Magic consistently has a high cost of entry and a high cost of maintenance.
There will always be some card that you missed out on that exploded in price. I'm not saying cards should be cheap.
I would like WoTC to stop pretending that these are for players. They are obviously not. I also want them to stop pretending that these help with any kind of "demand" that the game sees.
I love buying Magic products. It is one of my favorite things. But it gets a little old seeing WoTC cater to secondary retailers and refuse to reprint powerful cards on a significant scale.
Personally, I don't think good cards should cost more than 20 to 30 dollars each. Once cards hit that 40+ mark they become far unobtainable to much of the playerbase and I don't think that is good for the game.
That kind of information isn't exactly made public by an article or blog. It's communicated by Wizards to distributors directly.
You MTG conspiracy kids never stop.
Wizards is out to GET YOU!
They've said a few times that the FTV products are a "thank you" to stores that run events. I can't find you the exact context but that is the impression you get whenever they talk about the availability of these kinds of things.
Criticizing the way they reprint cards is criticizing their business model. It's not even that the two are tied together, their reprint policy IS their business model, or at least, part of it.
Your assessment of MTG dying under the weight of its cost is inaccurate.
The only way the game will die is if it becomes boring, otherwise people will pay what they think the cards are worth.
I'm not criticizing FTV or vanity sets. I'm criticizing the only way "good" cards get reprinted. They are either Judge foils or in FTV foils.
If you want good cards when they are cheap, buy them when they are readily available. Don't be upset when you wait years and someone "broke" the card and now you can't get it even when it's released in a premium product for a second time.
This argument is perfectly fine for cards that are cheap right now or players playing right now. It isn't a very good argument 10 years down the road.
I bought all my FoWs 10 years ago, all my Wastelands 15 years ago and all my original fetchlands 10 or 11 years ago.
There are players who are playing right now that are younger than when I purchased a lot of or most of my staples. Maybe they should have got into Magic the gathering when they were in Diapers.
You can argue even Modern (which goes back 10 years.) They should have bought all those cards when they were in kindergarden.
That argument doesn't hold a lot of water as the game grows and more people start playing the game.
I think WoTC has consistently and constantly underestimates the demand for it's product. They are conservative because it is a "win/win" for them. They can say "well we gave x card a reprint" and "we sold out completely the product."
The thing that really bothers me the most is MSRP on vanity products like this. A very small percentage of people will get this at MSRP most (if they can even get their hands on it) will have to spend far above that.
The idea that these are a "gift" to stores is also a thin excuse for them not being easier to acquire. I mean considering how quickly each set flies off of store shelves and how much WoTC uses it's OWN money to advertise YOUR events it is staggering. (How many entertainment products is there a direct advertisement for businesses in the actual product? How many people buy cards at Wal-mart and then go to events on FNM because they saw an ad for it? I'm guessing not an insignificant amount.) They get more foot traffic because the game promotes game stores more than any other product I've ever seen.
I mean vaguely you can say "well you should have bought them when they were cheap." But you can take a few cards (namely Tarmogoyf and Jace, The Mindsculptor) those cards were never "cheap" and when they were they were only "cheap" for a very small window of time. (I'm sorry but hovering around $50 or $60 or whatever JTMS was last year is not "cheap" considering that is halfway to a box of cards.)
Also in terms of a card "breaking" Yeah because we should have buy 4x of every rare because someone might "break" it down the road? This makes even less sense. The only reason I want the card now is because it is good in a tournament. You're telling me you're sitting on a pile of Vizzerdrixes because someday someone might "break" it and it will be the most sought after card in the universe? This isn't a practical way to buy Magic cards, and no one is interested in a card unless it is relevant to a format.
WOTC is more succseful than I am financially... and i do allright by all means. Criticizing their business model is kind of stupid unless you personelly can compete with the cash flow they are raking in
I am criticizing the way they reprint cards. I'm not criticizing their business model, I'm criticizing the way that relevant cards get reprinted. Is the only way a "good" card will get reprinted is in some limited capacity? If that is the case, then the game will eventually die under the weight of it's own cost.
I'm not talking about buying a special vanity foil for a deck, but actual cards to play in tournaments.
I'm sorry. I did play during Chronicles. TCGs are a completely different business then it was in 1995. Reprints are not only necessary for continued tournament growth, but for the player base as a whole. The entire TCG industry could have collapsed and it could have easily been a 90s fad like Pogs or Beanie Babies. They way they used to reprint cards was fairly arbitrary. I mean, Force of Will could have easily seen a reprint in 6th edition (Necropotence and Vampiric Tutor were reprinted, both considered far more powerful at the time.) Would the price still be $70 dollars today? Maybe, but probably not.
The circle of "We can't reprint card x because of much it costs on the secondary market but the card is only worth y because of availability/tournament viability" is a really thin excuse and one that disgusts me every time I see it.
Now, I can probably get this from one of the LGS's around me for some price. But I just hate how the only way "good" cards get reprinted is in silly "limited" only sets.
I have no problem with vanity products like FTV. But making it hard to get the cards to play your game sucks. Especially if the only way you can get cards is through an overpriced reseller. Cards didn't used to cost this much 10 years ago. There are way more players now then there was then. They need to up the supply on some of the more relevant cards.
Gotta love these FTV products getting more expensive each year.
Now I get to see every hoarder who has a) the funds b) knows the LGS owners, buying out the very limited amount of product they are going to get only to make profit on ebay.
Instead of having it be Mystic or even maybe an alternate art Squad Hawk, you gotta give us this BS.
$800+ if not hitting the 1k ceiling.
Then a few months from now they will post some article going: Oops, we didn't see this coming.
Why not make the Vault series a Wal-Mart product? No worry about pre-orders, it's simply a first come first serve (Yes it's still not perfect if you have a magic player working at Wal-Mart) and it would give out the product in a more fair manner instead of the crap shoot this will become.
The best way is with DCI number registration. Each DCI number can buy 1 FTV from WoTC. any additional copies go directly to stores. Everyone wins.
I'm not going to read the entire thread so I have no idea what is being talked about currently.
I will say this:
Magic is as expensive as you want it to be.
I enjoy playing phantom sealed/draft events on MTGO because they are super cheap and I only really care about playing.
I love drafting. At the LGS Drafts are 10 dollars on FNM. That is 40 a month, not too bad considering the price of any other format is infinitely more.
I know limited isn't for everyone. I suggest buying a high end Modern deck and just sticking with that. That will set you back initially about 500 to 800 bucks, but you'll likely only need to update it in passing, and you'll likely get that money out of it if you choose to find another deck.
urzishra, I would like to address some of your concerns. As far as "brushing over the screen and losing track of life totals", that is not possible. The software stores the current inputs until cleared manually. Also the clear function is positioned in the least likely place to be accidentally pressed and has an "are you sure" function to confirm that you actually want to clear the input.
Also when you make changes to your life total there is a delay before the final number is logged for use in life total discrepancy situations that gives you the option to modify the amount if accidentally input incorrectly.
All the screens have a quick and simple 1 button press back to the main life screen so navigation takes less than a second. The speed of using the device takes no more time than picking up a writing utensil and recording changes on paper.
The mat is really not any more cumbersome to carry around a tournament than carrying a traditional play mat, paper, pens, and counters so we believe that it shouldn't be an issue.
I understand if you are concerned about not wanting to carry something flashy in public for fear of theft, but cards and decks are worth hundreds or thousands of dollars so the threat of theft will always apply to anyone at a tournament.
I hope I have addressed your concerns, and I am grateful for your input even if you are not a supporter, thanks.
I realize that I am not the target market for something like this. I think it is one of the most obvious inventions and I hope it does well. IF I were to use a playmat I would like one that could keep track of things like life totals and the ilk, especially electronically and simply.
But trying to do some of this stuff on touch screens has really soured me from that experience. Touch screens, by nature, are "all purpose" and sometimes it isn't always the best tool.
No solution is really "the best" and if you are going to be using a mat, might as well double it to be the life counter too. That makes a lot of sense.
You're right, if you're playing in a constructed event you're cards are worth hundreds to thousands of dollars, that is far more prone to theft than a playmat would be, but to me, I've found that I don't want to carry more than I absolutely need, and that has been, deck, pen, paper, maybe a few dice. I'm also against the use of playmats at large conventions (where I primarily play) I think it is a little irritating and obnoxious. But to each his own.
You mean the Commander's Arsenal that 98% of the players had no reasonable chance at obtaining?
I liked the power level of the last Commander decks, I hope these ones are similar.
No way I'm not taking the first pile.
I didn't look up the monetary value of the second pile. Cryptic Command will rise in prise far more than anything in pile b. Same with Pact of Negation.
Regardless of if he'll be unbanned in Modern, he'll go up eventually, he's just way to famous/iconic of a card not to be sought after by almost everyone.
If you believe that Wizards isn't "helping" the secondary market by only releasing this stuff in limited hard to get expansions then you are wrong.
If Wizards truly cared only about selling booster packs, then we would see much more powerful cards in sets more often than we do now.
Wizards can print whatever set they want and make it legal in whatever format they want. Cards don't have to only be Standard legal.
I don't have a perfect answer and honestly all of my favorite Standard formats had cards banned from them. I want the game to be about powerful spells and broken decks. I love watching someone win off Storm. I don't mind losing on turn 3 to something like that, because I know that the next game I could win like that. I love Legacy/Vintage because of the power level.
What I don't like is cards only getting reprinted in small limited sets because Wizards cares about the price of the card on the secondary market. FTV caters to collector/foil players, that isn't me. I want cards I can play in tournaments with and I want the game's most powerful cards, I don't want/need them in foil.
They won't put a card worth 40+ in a Duel Deck/Multiplayer deck/Commander product. They theoretically *could* but they won't because the card already costs that much money. I am personally surprised that Mutavault came back in M14. I didn't think that was ever going to happen. So that does give me a little hope that they will slowly reprint "older good cards." But let's face it, cards like Jace are NEVER going to be put into a Commander deck or Core set and that is what I really don't like. I love powerful cards/formats.
None of those cards you listed are high end Legacy staples. Most of the ones that are were original printings.
I'm upset because cards I want are in a product I don't want. I want cards like Jace, Maze of Ith, Progentitus, Mox Diamond to be printed in actual expansion sets. I don't want them in limited only special expansions like Modern Masters.
I don't need them in a special foil version.
But nothing reprinted in a Commander or Archenemy deck comes even remotely to putting Legacy staples in a FTV. They're not putting Show and Tell or Sneak Attack in a Commander product. That is the point.
It has nothing to do with "market price." it has everything to do with how they got to be at "market price" to begin with.
The game has far more players than it ever has in the history of the game. I think the the excuse of "well, you should have got in on the ground floor..." is a weak excuse and glosses over new players that start every day that are interested in having powerful decks and good cards.
If WoTC only cared about selling packs of cards, we would see an influx of the more popular cards more often. Because of this outdated notion that a mass reprinting will cause players to leave in droves because it almost happened in 1995 (when might I add, that TCGs were a brand new industry and no one had any idea where it was going.) is ridiculous. And using that excuse NOT to reprint cards nearly 20 years later, when we have so many more tournament circuits, players interested in organized play, so many different kinds of casual players needing different products is a slap in the face of players.
I realize not every product is for every player, but I think there are far more players that are interested in high level play and there should be a supply stream for that. If the only supply stream for tournament viable popular cards are small print run Judge foils and FTV sets that is a major problem to me. Touting around on a website saying "Well MSRP is 40 dollars.." and you go to a store expecting to pay that and then get laughed at by a store owner isn't good for the Magic brand either.
The "this is a thank you to stores" excuse is also thin. Isn't stocking the world's most popular TCG a "thank you" in and of itself? Not to mention all the free advertising you get just because you sell Magic cards? How many other products like sleeves and boxes do you sell because those can't be easily found in big box stores? I think it is an excuse to limit the availability of the product to alienate yet another segment of the market who is willing to purchase Magic cards but are priced out of the game, yet again, because rich enfranchised players are the only Magic audience that special sets get catered to. Always.
That isn't "entitlement." That isn't "jealousy." That is the truth. While I realize Rich enfranchised players spend more money then joe schmo down the street, but does every special printing have to cater to that audience?
I'm just saying you should put yourself in someone else's shoes for a change. In the world of gaming, Magic consistently has a high cost of entry and a high cost of maintenance.
There will always be some card that you missed out on that exploded in price. I'm not saying cards should be cheap.
I would like WoTC to stop pretending that these are for players. They are obviously not. I also want them to stop pretending that these help with any kind of "demand" that the game sees.
I love buying Magic products. It is one of my favorite things. But it gets a little old seeing WoTC cater to secondary retailers and refuse to reprint powerful cards on a significant scale.
Personally, I don't think good cards should cost more than 20 to 30 dollars each. Once cards hit that 40+ mark they become far unobtainable to much of the playerbase and I don't think that is good for the game.
They've said a few times that the FTV products are a "thank you" to stores that run events. I can't find you the exact context but that is the impression you get whenever they talk about the availability of these kinds of things.
I'm not criticizing FTV or vanity sets. I'm criticizing the only way "good" cards get reprinted. They are either Judge foils or in FTV foils.
This argument is perfectly fine for cards that are cheap right now or players playing right now. It isn't a very good argument 10 years down the road.
I bought all my FoWs 10 years ago, all my Wastelands 15 years ago and all my original fetchlands 10 or 11 years ago.
There are players who are playing right now that are younger than when I purchased a lot of or most of my staples. Maybe they should have got into Magic the gathering when they were in Diapers.
You can argue even Modern (which goes back 10 years.) They should have bought all those cards when they were in kindergarden.
That argument doesn't hold a lot of water as the game grows and more people start playing the game.
I think WoTC has consistently and constantly underestimates the demand for it's product. They are conservative because it is a "win/win" for them. They can say "well we gave x card a reprint" and "we sold out completely the product."
The thing that really bothers me the most is MSRP on vanity products like this. A very small percentage of people will get this at MSRP most (if they can even get their hands on it) will have to spend far above that.
The idea that these are a "gift" to stores is also a thin excuse for them not being easier to acquire. I mean considering how quickly each set flies off of store shelves and how much WoTC uses it's OWN money to advertise YOUR events it is staggering. (How many entertainment products is there a direct advertisement for businesses in the actual product? How many people buy cards at Wal-mart and then go to events on FNM because they saw an ad for it? I'm guessing not an insignificant amount.) They get more foot traffic because the game promotes game stores more than any other product I've ever seen.
I mean vaguely you can say "well you should have bought them when they were cheap." But you can take a few cards (namely Tarmogoyf and Jace, The Mindsculptor) those cards were never "cheap" and when they were they were only "cheap" for a very small window of time. (I'm sorry but hovering around $50 or $60 or whatever JTMS was last year is not "cheap" considering that is halfway to a box of cards.)
Also in terms of a card "breaking" Yeah because we should have buy 4x of every rare because someone might "break" it down the road? This makes even less sense. The only reason I want the card now is because it is good in a tournament. You're telling me you're sitting on a pile of Vizzerdrixes because someday someone might "break" it and it will be the most sought after card in the universe? This isn't a practical way to buy Magic cards, and no one is interested in a card unless it is relevant to a format.
I am criticizing the way they reprint cards. I'm not criticizing their business model, I'm criticizing the way that relevant cards get reprinted. Is the only way a "good" card will get reprinted is in some limited capacity? If that is the case, then the game will eventually die under the weight of it's own cost.
I'm not talking about buying a special vanity foil for a deck, but actual cards to play in tournaments.
I'm sorry. I did play during Chronicles. TCGs are a completely different business then it was in 1995. Reprints are not only necessary for continued tournament growth, but for the player base as a whole. The entire TCG industry could have collapsed and it could have easily been a 90s fad like Pogs or Beanie Babies. They way they used to reprint cards was fairly arbitrary. I mean, Force of Will could have easily seen a reprint in 6th edition (Necropotence and Vampiric Tutor were reprinted, both considered far more powerful at the time.) Would the price still be $70 dollars today? Maybe, but probably not.
The circle of "We can't reprint card x because of much it costs on the secondary market but the card is only worth y because of availability/tournament viability" is a really thin excuse and one that disgusts me every time I see it.
I have no problem with vanity products like FTV. But making it hard to get the cards to play your game sucks. Especially if the only way you can get cards is through an overpriced reseller. Cards didn't used to cost this much 10 years ago. There are way more players now then there was then. They need to up the supply on some of the more relevant cards.
The best way is with DCI number registration. Each DCI number can buy 1 FTV from WoTC. any additional copies go directly to stores. Everyone wins.
I will say this:
Magic is as expensive as you want it to be.
I enjoy playing phantom sealed/draft events on MTGO because they are super cheap and I only really care about playing.
I love drafting. At the LGS Drafts are 10 dollars on FNM. That is 40 a month, not too bad considering the price of any other format is infinitely more.
I know limited isn't for everyone. I suggest buying a high end Modern deck and just sticking with that. That will set you back initially about 500 to 800 bucks, but you'll likely only need to update it in passing, and you'll likely get that money out of it if you choose to find another deck.
I realize that I am not the target market for something like this. I think it is one of the most obvious inventions and I hope it does well. IF I were to use a playmat I would like one that could keep track of things like life totals and the ilk, especially electronically and simply.
But trying to do some of this stuff on touch screens has really soured me from that experience. Touch screens, by nature, are "all purpose" and sometimes it isn't always the best tool.
No solution is really "the best" and if you are going to be using a mat, might as well double it to be the life counter too. That makes a lot of sense.
You're right, if you're playing in a constructed event you're cards are worth hundreds to thousands of dollars, that is far more prone to theft than a playmat would be, but to me, I've found that I don't want to carry more than I absolutely need, and that has been, deck, pen, paper, maybe a few dice. I'm also against the use of playmats at large conventions (where I primarily play) I think it is a little irritating and obnoxious. But to each his own.