I think a lot of you think I'm just trolling, but I'm really not... I don't like the fact that competitive decks cost thousands of dollars, but I understand the necessity of it. The LGS's where many of you play MTG rely on the perceived value of packs AND the secondary market demand (which drives value) of cards to make ends meet. If MTG starts reprinting legacy and modern staples en masse to a point that drives the costs of staples down 50%-75%, it will badly hurt LGS's. Short-term, they may enjoy a boon, but long-term, the economy of the game will be irreparably harmed. Nobody besides the players benefits from a massive erosion of the inherent value of the secondary market. That is a major reason why WotC has to be so cautious with reprints of staples like FoW, Wasteland, Fetchlands, etc... For the sake of the long-term health of the economy surrounding MTG, not the game itself. Like it or not, MTG is more than just cardboard now, it is the livelihood of thousands of people, a thriving community of players and collectors. That community accounts for a really nice chunk of the value of MTG as an IP, so it is carefully managed in an effort to maximize the value of said IP.
The way that WotC manages the secondary market and ensures the relative health of LGS's is admirable and laudable. My hat goes off to them, I'm not sure I could manage it as well as they have without 20+ years of experience... and if they err on the side of caution today when it comes to reprints of high-valued cards, they do so for all the right reasons that may not immediately be clear to people who can't step back and look at the big picture.
The problem isn't even lack of money. I actually have enough money to buy playsets of every modern and legacy card that I'm missing. The thing is I don't want to spend $1,000+ on cardboard. It's not worth that much to me. I'd much rather buy a good computer or a car. Cardboard shouldn't be worth that much. The fact that they made this set limited is absurd. I hope there is a change in leadership at WOTC one day where the guy in charge decides to reprint everything and anything on mass.
If you don't want to spend the money, more power to you. Unfortunately for you, there are plenty of people out there who don't mind dropping the cash, and the reality is that people who have money AND are willing to spend it get to enjoy the benefits of doing so. I wouldn't hold your breath on somebody coming in and essentially devaluing the brand of MTG, that would be catastrophic to the value of WotC... I mean, nobody in a position to make that decision is going to say, "Hey, let's destroy the value of our intellectual property and IP rights to make customers happy!" People like that don't get anywhere in the business world because those kinds of decisions don't drive profitability.
Your existence is an affront to the Magic community.
"I have money so I get cards and you don't." Nice.
You don't care about the game. You care about your personal enjoyment - in the most self-centered of ways - be it at the expense of others or not.
But you don't even want to enjoy the game. You just want to have nice cards. But you fail to realize, in your delusional self-entitlement, that nice cards aren't as such when their intended purpose is moot, and as a result, their value to you worthless.
Have fun being alone for the rest of your miserable excuse for a life.
I have money, I am willing to spend it. I am MTG's target market, and therefore, I can buy more powerful cards than you can. MTG is pay to play, if you don't like that, go play a game where you can grind your way to the top.
You claim I don't care about the game, and you're right, to an extent. I don't care about competitive play, just like 95% of MTG players. I play casually with friends, just like most MTG players. If MTG went away tomorrow, that would suck, but I'd still enjoy playing with friends, I just wouldn't be able to open boosters at the rate (1 box every other week or so) I do now.
You claim I just want to have nice cards? I sold all my "nice" cards. I have some Alpha/Beta stuff, and a nice BGS 8 set of power 9, but that stuff can get reprinted, it won't hurt the values at all. The majority of what I have is just crap, cull cards. I don't play with sleeves, I don't like them... my cards get stored in cardboard boxes and thrown in my attic.
The value of cards to me has always been worthless. I pay to open packs and draft with friends, and to play janky crap with friends when we're drinking. I don't play competitively, never will... and I'm alright with that.
Have fun being alone for the rest of my miserable life? Lol. I'm married, successful, about to be a father at 29 years old with a group of friends I play MTG with regularly with little to no impact on my finances. I will retire at 57 years old and have plenty of money to live easy, travel and see the world. If that's a miserable life, then you must live a really charmed life, because I think I have it pretty damn good. People like you who feel the need to put others down because they can't afford things are delusional. It's just cardboard, dude. If you can't afford it, go buy cheaper cardboard or find a way to make more money, that simple.
Look, I don't care about card values or what they do with legacy cards they reprint. I just think it's horrible business to reprint them cheaply when they clearly can create hype and demand at a price point that is 250% higher than normal packs, and bad business practices irritate me. Regardless of what you guys think, you need to understand business is about making money, not about appeasing 5%-10% of your customer base. MTG is a business first, and a game second. If you don't like it, go play something like Yu Gi Oh where they reprint cards into oblivion.
MTG may talk like they want to protect collectors, but in reality, that's easier to say than "We want to maximize the value of our intellectual property" which is the real reason these sets are expensive.
I was mostly making a point at the bragging arrogant guy, but i'll give you the courtesy of a reply here:
I don't tend to buy cards. I've got a collection which stretches way back to Alpha and I'm not a beginner, so I'm able to generally trade for what I need (PucaTrade has helped me a lot in that regard).
and for what it's worth I do prioritize my money (steak is a regular occurrence, Haha), and I'm not hard up for cash so far as I can't live within my means - I just can't justify blowing $400 on some cardboard. but my point stands as a counterpoint to Mr. Moneybags over there who basically said a lack of money is your fault, you shouldn't want to play Magic formats such as Modern and Legacy, and being down on luck for whatever reason makes you automatically not Wizards' target audience (those sentiments being utter trash, obviously).
thanks for the reply though.
Legacy and Modern are stable formats that have high buy ins and low long-term cost. Those are exactly the formats you should want to play. Only make $10k a year? Scrap and save, eat less steak, you can have a nice Legacy/Modern deck in a couple years. Playing standard is insanely expensive, I won't do it.
Maybe, just maybe, if you don't want to spend several hundred dollars on cardboard, MTG isn't for you. MTG's target audience isn't you, and it has nothing to do with being "down on your luck" and everything to do with you not making enough money. Can't afford it? Then it isn't for you. Target markets are defined by many factors, one of the biggest being discretionary income... which you apparently have, but won't spend on MTG.
Call me arrogant, call me a braggart, I don't care. I am the one who can afford to play MTG, and am a member of the upper-echelon market that products like MM1, MM2, and EMA target. You are not.
1 - America isn't the world. please don't act like it is.
and more importantly 2) let's say that I have a University degree. Moreover, I studied as a Postgrad and got a Masters as well. Now let's say I have valuable transferrable skills in the world of work, a keen intellect and i'm sensible with my time. I work on gaining experience where I need it, and I make smart calls with what money I have. I'm also a big fan of Magic and am invested into the IP as well as the sci-fi/fantasy bedrock that it rests on.
to all intents and purposes I sound like the exact kind of target market they are after, right? so far, you'd have to agree.
now let's say that in my particular part of the world (world used in the real sense, not the way you used it), the economy sucks, and after three years of endless applications and moving around the country to try and land a job in my field, I've had to settle for a low-paid part time teaching role, because it's literally the only thing I've been able to get despite maybe a hundred interviews and an entire spreadsheet's worth of applications, along with unpaid volunteering and giving up countless hours to gain the experience I need in my field.
there's no correlation between work-put-in and monetary reward here. i'm a victim of circumstance, and i'm at peace with that for the moment, as I continue to apply every day for new opportunities.
so unfortunately, I find myself priced out of quite a large swathe of Magic, simply due to a saturated workplace and a suffering economy. you have no basis to put me down on the grounds of lack of effort or qualification, and yet in your posts, that's exactly what you seem to be trying to do, like it's somehow my fault I'm unable to afford something (and yes, I took your directed-at-the-general-community comment personally).
now factor in the issue that the secondary market is effectively separate from Wizards in terms of price-control. many of the older formats have an impossible entry barrier for what *should be* Wizards' target audience, including myself. It is NOT a good thing that many of the older cards (required for play in formats other than standard) are out of reach of Wizards' audience. Magic is not an antique dealership game, it's a strategy game, and while demand can make prices rise, there should be an effort on the part of the people producing the game to try and satisfy demand, rather than tease and spike prices with small ineffective print runs and intentional scarcity.
I hope I've made my point clearly enough, and I hope you understand that your arrogant money-centric boasting caused offence. I suggest you rethink your position.
WotC and Hasbro are American companies that target American markets. Want to play with American toys? You'll have to pay American prices. Tough cookies.
I'm sorry you've had a relatively rough go of things educationally and professionally, but you're a perfect example of somebody who can only afford the Honda, but wants the BMW. BMW doesn't make cars for you, nor do they care about making cars you can afford. WotC doesn't make cards for you, nor do they care about making cards you can afford... because you aren't their target market. Being emotionally invested into the storyline doesn't give you a right to buy the cards, you can follow the story just fine without them, so I don't want to hear that. Now, it's not your fault per se that you cannot afford to play MTG, and you are a victim of circumstance, but life isn't fair. It's tough, and it sucks for you, but you aren't nor will you likely ever be MTG's target market.
It doesn't matter what you think their target market *should be*, what matters is what their target market is. They probably make around $50,000,000-$75,000,000 a year off MTG, they're doing pretty damn good considering Hasbro only paid ~$325m for WotC. Stop with the entitled bull***** and get your head into the real world; You aren't entitled to anything, and you aren't their target market. Americans and other people in first-world countries who make good money are their target market. I'll stop with the American-centric thoughts when we stop talking about an American-centric game.
I, for one, hope they never lower prices on packs or mass-print limited sets like MM1, MM2, EMA.
But back to what I've been reading from some of the people who enjoy playing the game, this could be a huge opportunity for Wizards (that they will ultimately squander). but here's hoping to all the kids who excitedly spend their mom's $20 for one pack and get to open a foil Karakas or something equally sweet. Cheers for the few moments of joy in this sea of disappointment Wizards has been filling since "my ilk" became secondary to their corporate overlords.
Money makes the world go 'round, not rainbows, happiness and $5 modern staples. Welcome to America.
If you can't afford it, you aren't their target market. Keep that in mind. It's like complaining about not being able to afford a BMW when you make $30k a year. Of course you can't afford a BMW, and there is nothing wrong with that, so stop complaining about it.
But seriously, more wizards cash grabs, yada yada. They could fix the barrier to entry with some actual effort on their part and less appetite wetting sets like these. I'd love to wake up to see my FoWs are worth $1, with all these collectors and "make more money, poor people" elitists weeping over their worthless collections. Finally reducing magic to what it is, a good card game they should be enjoying. These discussions have become this tired back and forth of "it's a game" "no, its money" and it's sad.
I don't own any FoW's nor do I play anything besides pauper for legacy with friends. Sold all my expensive legacy material (Not Alpha/Beta stuff) off a couple years ago and put it towards a down payment on a house. Like it or not, WotC uses their intellectual property to make money for their corporate overlords, and charging $10 a pack to people like me who will pay it is a great way to monetize these upper-echelon intellectual properties like FoW's and Rishadan Ports and Tarmogoyfs.
The failure is that people of your ilk don't realize that MTG isn't just a card game any more, and in reality, after Beta, it never really was just a card game. Today, because of 20+ years of excellent IP management, it is a diverse asset that appeals to players, collectors and speculators and earns tens of millions of dollars a year in profits. Additionally, MTG itself, as a product and IP, is probably worth around a billion dollars, if not more. They clearly know what they're doing, and they're still experiencing double digit growth, so as somebody who owns Hasbro stock, I hope they keep on doing whatever they have been doing.
All you complainers... Can't stand that sometimes, nice things that everybody wants cost money. Go get a real job, make some real money, bust your ass, and do what you want with your money. I blow $10k+ a year on stupid ***** and I don't care... A good chunk of that (I'd say half) is on MTG. I buy a case of every set released and shred it with friends while drinking just for fun. I buy booster boxes at FNM and treat new players to drafts. I'm the kind of people they're targeting with these products, and it's working, I'll buy a case or two of this if I can, maybe 3 if I find enough willing sellers, and I'll open/draft all of it with friends, and won't charge them a thing.
Life isn't fair, deal with it. You get what you put in, so work hard, make money, and spend it on whatever the hell you want. If you all spent half as much time working to improve yourselves and your skillsets as you do complaining about the high prices of MTG, you could easily start making enough money to drop $1k on cards every few months. And in the event that you do make good money and just don't want to spend it on MTG, well, go find another hobby. WotC has an IP and product that is worth $4/pack and $1,000 for a Tier 1 Modern deck, why should they make it cheaper if people are willing to pay those prices? They have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders (Hasbro) to maximize their profits and have done a phenomenal job of doing so over the past 10+ years.
As for all the reserved list discussion, if you guys wanna pay for WotC's legal fees and settlement fees to get rid of the reserved list (Gotta be around $25m I'd guess) I'm sure they'd gladly reprint some of that stuff.
What if they just said screw it to some cards on the reserve list like dual lands? I know it's a long shot and it's something I'm not hoping for but what would the implications be? I've heard wizards could be sued by breaking the reserve list if that's true or
Not. Plus if this is real the foils will have insane value.
They could theoretically handle the lawsuit and settle class-action, getting rid of the reserved list... I mean... If they can make $10m or so (profit) off of Eternal Masters and use that to fund legal fees and a settlement, with part of the settlement being the end of the reserved list.
I don't know what world you live in, but I live in a capitalistic society. Entitled individual like you whiners make our whole generation (I'm a millennial) look bad.
So Martin Shkreli posts on MTGS... who knew?
And now we're comparing somebody who bought a life-saving drug and jacked up the price something like 3500% to a guy who bought a bunch of cardboard and is sticking them in his closet.
The best part of this whole conversation is that Fadetoblack is spending $1k+ to sit on product for months (years, per his previous statement) in an effort to make a few hundred dollars. Most of the working world would make that few hundred dollars in the hours you spent driving around to find the packs, and all you are really doing is inconveniencing the rest of us.
If I sit on these fat packs for 3 years post-rotation, I'd expect to get around $100 ea, and with a cost basis of around $41 a pack, that's an annualized, compounded return of about 20% per year. Pretty damn good for 3-5 hours total worth of work, especially when it's work I enjoy... I love the thrill of the hunt.
I really doubt you pull down $100/hr, let alone $200/hr. $100/hr is around $200k a year.
I'm outta here, y'all have a nice evening, and best of luck finding some fat packs.
I think a lot of you think I'm just trolling, but I'm really not... I don't like the fact that competitive decks cost thousands of dollars, but I understand the necessity of it. The LGS's where many of you play MTG rely on the perceived value of packs AND the secondary market demand (which drives value) of cards to make ends meet. If MTG starts reprinting legacy and modern staples en masse to a point that drives the costs of staples down 50%-75%, it will badly hurt LGS's. Short-term, they may enjoy a boon, but long-term, the economy of the game will be irreparably harmed. Nobody besides the players benefits from a massive erosion of the inherent value of the secondary market. That is a major reason why WotC has to be so cautious with reprints of staples like FoW, Wasteland, Fetchlands, etc... For the sake of the long-term health of the economy surrounding MTG, not the game itself. Like it or not, MTG is more than just cardboard now, it is the livelihood of thousands of people, a thriving community of players and collectors. That community accounts for a really nice chunk of the value of MTG as an IP, so it is carefully managed in an effort to maximize the value of said IP.
The way that WotC manages the secondary market and ensures the relative health of LGS's is admirable and laudable. My hat goes off to them, I'm not sure I could manage it as well as they have without 20+ years of experience... and if they err on the side of caution today when it comes to reprints of high-valued cards, they do so for all the right reasons that may not immediately be clear to people who can't step back and look at the big picture.
If you don't want to spend the money, more power to you. Unfortunately for you, there are plenty of people out there who don't mind dropping the cash, and the reality is that people who have money AND are willing to spend it get to enjoy the benefits of doing so. I wouldn't hold your breath on somebody coming in and essentially devaluing the brand of MTG, that would be catastrophic to the value of WotC... I mean, nobody in a position to make that decision is going to say, "Hey, let's destroy the value of our intellectual property and IP rights to make customers happy!" People like that don't get anywhere in the business world because those kinds of decisions don't drive profitability.
I have money, I am willing to spend it. I am MTG's target market, and therefore, I can buy more powerful cards than you can. MTG is pay to play, if you don't like that, go play a game where you can grind your way to the top.
You claim I don't care about the game, and you're right, to an extent. I don't care about competitive play, just like 95% of MTG players. I play casually with friends, just like most MTG players. If MTG went away tomorrow, that would suck, but I'd still enjoy playing with friends, I just wouldn't be able to open boosters at the rate (1 box every other week or so) I do now.
You claim I just want to have nice cards? I sold all my "nice" cards. I have some Alpha/Beta stuff, and a nice BGS 8 set of power 9, but that stuff can get reprinted, it won't hurt the values at all. The majority of what I have is just crap, cull cards. I don't play with sleeves, I don't like them... my cards get stored in cardboard boxes and thrown in my attic.
The value of cards to me has always been worthless. I pay to open packs and draft with friends, and to play janky crap with friends when we're drinking. I don't play competitively, never will... and I'm alright with that.
Have fun being alone for the rest of my miserable life? Lol. I'm married, successful, about to be a father at 29 years old with a group of friends I play MTG with regularly with little to no impact on my finances. I will retire at 57 years old and have plenty of money to live easy, travel and see the world. If that's a miserable life, then you must live a really charmed life, because I think I have it pretty damn good. People like you who feel the need to put others down because they can't afford things are delusional. It's just cardboard, dude. If you can't afford it, go buy cheaper cardboard or find a way to make more money, that simple.
Look, I don't care about card values or what they do with legacy cards they reprint. I just think it's horrible business to reprint them cheaply when they clearly can create hype and demand at a price point that is 250% higher than normal packs, and bad business practices irritate me. Regardless of what you guys think, you need to understand business is about making money, not about appeasing 5%-10% of your customer base. MTG is a business first, and a game second. If you don't like it, go play something like Yu Gi Oh where they reprint cards into oblivion.
MTG may talk like they want to protect collectors, but in reality, that's easier to say than "We want to maximize the value of our intellectual property" which is the real reason these sets are expensive.
Legacy and Modern are stable formats that have high buy ins and low long-term cost. Those are exactly the formats you should want to play. Only make $10k a year? Scrap and save, eat less steak, you can have a nice Legacy/Modern deck in a couple years. Playing standard is insanely expensive, I won't do it.
Maybe, just maybe, if you don't want to spend several hundred dollars on cardboard, MTG isn't for you. MTG's target audience isn't you, and it has nothing to do with being "down on your luck" and everything to do with you not making enough money. Can't afford it? Then it isn't for you. Target markets are defined by many factors, one of the biggest being discretionary income... which you apparently have, but won't spend on MTG.
Call me arrogant, call me a braggart, I don't care. I am the one who can afford to play MTG, and am a member of the upper-echelon market that products like MM1, MM2, and EMA target. You are not.
WotC and Hasbro are American companies that target American markets. Want to play with American toys? You'll have to pay American prices. Tough cookies.
I'm sorry you've had a relatively rough go of things educationally and professionally, but you're a perfect example of somebody who can only afford the Honda, but wants the BMW. BMW doesn't make cars for you, nor do they care about making cars you can afford. WotC doesn't make cards for you, nor do they care about making cards you can afford... because you aren't their target market. Being emotionally invested into the storyline doesn't give you a right to buy the cards, you can follow the story just fine without them, so I don't want to hear that. Now, it's not your fault per se that you cannot afford to play MTG, and you are a victim of circumstance, but life isn't fair. It's tough, and it sucks for you, but you aren't nor will you likely ever be MTG's target market.
It doesn't matter what you think their target market *should be*, what matters is what their target market is. They probably make around $50,000,000-$75,000,000 a year off MTG, they're doing pretty damn good considering Hasbro only paid ~$325m for WotC. Stop with the entitled bull***** and get your head into the real world; You aren't entitled to anything, and you aren't their target market. Americans and other people in first-world countries who make good money are their target market. I'll stop with the American-centric thoughts when we stop talking about an American-centric game.
I, for one, hope they never lower prices on packs or mass-print limited sets like MM1, MM2, EMA.
Money makes the world go 'round, not rainbows, happiness and $5 modern staples. Welcome to America.
If you can't afford it, you aren't their target market. Keep that in mind. It's like complaining about not being able to afford a BMW when you make $30k a year. Of course you can't afford a BMW, and there is nothing wrong with that, so stop complaining about it.
I don't own any FoW's nor do I play anything besides pauper for legacy with friends. Sold all my expensive legacy material (Not Alpha/Beta stuff) off a couple years ago and put it towards a down payment on a house. Like it or not, WotC uses their intellectual property to make money for their corporate overlords, and charging $10 a pack to people like me who will pay it is a great way to monetize these upper-echelon intellectual properties like FoW's and Rishadan Ports and Tarmogoyfs.
The failure is that people of your ilk don't realize that MTG isn't just a card game any more, and in reality, after Beta, it never really was just a card game. Today, because of 20+ years of excellent IP management, it is a diverse asset that appeals to players, collectors and speculators and earns tens of millions of dollars a year in profits. Additionally, MTG itself, as a product and IP, is probably worth around a billion dollars, if not more. They clearly know what they're doing, and they're still experiencing double digit growth, so as somebody who owns Hasbro stock, I hope they keep on doing whatever they have been doing.
Life isn't fair, deal with it. You get what you put in, so work hard, make money, and spend it on whatever the hell you want. If you all spent half as much time working to improve yourselves and your skillsets as you do complaining about the high prices of MTG, you could easily start making enough money to drop $1k on cards every few months. And in the event that you do make good money and just don't want to spend it on MTG, well, go find another hobby. WotC has an IP and product that is worth $4/pack and $1,000 for a Tier 1 Modern deck, why should they make it cheaper if people are willing to pay those prices? They have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders (Hasbro) to maximize their profits and have done a phenomenal job of doing so over the past 10+ years.
As for all the reserved list discussion, if you guys wanna pay for WotC's legal fees and settlement fees to get rid of the reserved list (Gotta be around $25m I'd guess) I'm sure they'd gladly reprint some of that stuff.
They could theoretically handle the lawsuit and settle class-action, getting rid of the reserved list... I mean... If they can make $10m or so (profit) off of Eternal Masters and use that to fund legal fees and a settlement, with part of the settlement being the end of the reserved list.
Guess they upped supply for OGW.
And now we're comparing somebody who bought a life-saving drug and jacked up the price something like 3500% to a guy who bought a bunch of cardboard and is sticking them in his closet.
If I sit on these fat packs for 3 years post-rotation, I'd expect to get around $100 ea, and with a cost basis of around $41 a pack, that's an annualized, compounded return of about 20% per year. Pretty damn good for 3-5 hours total worth of work, especially when it's work I enjoy... I love the thrill of the hunt.
I really doubt you pull down $100/hr, let alone $200/hr. $100/hr is around $200k a year.
I'm outta here, y'all have a nice evening, and best of luck finding some fat packs.