MTG Salvation

It's a shame, really, to have lost the historical data; this could be generated from previous data. Hopefully it gets better, but decisions by Mods have slowly driven off providers of free, useful content while reducing the user experience. Perhaps those decisions should be revisited. The vast majority of people now only come to this site for rumors, and there's a lot more competition in that area than their used to be. I certainly don't come here nearly as often as I used to; 'voting with my feet' as it were. In the face of declining utility, quality, and user experience, why would you expect others to not do the same?

Looking over the artifact theme, it seems as though they're really feeling hampered in design space by Affinity's success; it seems like they're trying too hard to have an artifact theme that won't increase Affinity's power enough to make it the Best Deck. Only time will tell if they've succeeded, but most of the cards in the theme this time feel safe either due to casting costs Affinity seems to not want, or seem to be weaker--which hurts the theme's chances of being strong enough to matter in Standard.

It was quite popular, due to being a new thing; likely not a repeatable gimmick, though. Most people got 12+, and about 1/4 got 18 or better. Lowest (non-practice) score rolled was a 2 that got doubled to 4.

What I do sometimes see is people attempting to derail trades, sometimes in hopes of getting pieces/parts for themselves in a later trade or because of a personal dislike of one of the traders. I've also seen a 'friend' (known to one party in a trade but not the other) comment on a trade to try to get more value for his buddy ("that's not worth that", "why are you trying to rip him off?", "that card's spiking hot right now", etc.) There's also honest differences of opinion on rising/falling trends, or different faulty methods applied based on a given website/method used to set values.

For example, lets say you foresee the price of a card spiking from 2 to 20+, due to a breakout performance at a GP you're at; you then trade for as many as you can as quickly as you can at (price your regular website shows, which doesn't reflect your expected spike yet). Did you shark people? Some will say yes, some no. You're attempting to use what you perceive to be foreknowledge to get an advantage trading. Does the speculative nature of that knowledge matter? Is it still sharking if the spike never happens, or is there and gone faster than you can say 'pump and dump'? Does the personal nature of the way the info was gained matter--would it be sharking if the spike warning came from a blog or MTG financial website, or from here?

Everyone can't have 100% the same information; some people put a lot more time into MTG finance than others, and some have other things to do in life. Similarly, people value speed/convenience more than others. As a separate example, a kid trading a Bob for an assortment of 20 rare slivers sounds like a horrible deal, and one it sounds like many of you'd jump in on to advise the kid not to do. But what if the kid in question can't find anyone in his playgroup who'll even trade 2 of the slivers he wants for anything else he has, really wants the slivers to play against his friends over the next 6+ months, and doesn't see himself ever playing any of the formats Bob is legal in? You can tell the kid not to take the deal because Bob is worth $40 (an informed guess, on your part) more than the slivers; but what if he's got no other outlets to get what he wants when he wants it? Let's say he doesn't take the deal, based on your advice. Unbeknownst to you, Bob's price actually was only $15 more at the time; in your zeal to help, you end up trashing a deal the kid was fine with, even if you weren't.

Just list the 1-5$ cards, preferably with a list of cards and good pictures. This way, you get people to bid on what you're selling; someone who needs/wants your cards will bid against others. You'll get less than 'full value', but that's because few people will want everything in your list, and will only bid up to the value of the cards they want. Adding Goyfs doesn't help; people who only wanted the Goyfs will only bid up to that value, essentially not paying for the rest. You'll get less for (stuff on list +[Goyfs- value/cost of Goyfs]) than for (stuff on list); this is because people who might bid on (stuff on list) may not need or want Goyfs, leaving fewer people who will bid for (stuff on list +[Goyfs- value/cost of Goyfs]). It's kind of like having bidders for a candy bar, vs. bidders for (a candy bar and a gold bar)--the candy bar sells for more in the first option than in the second.
Finally, 'seeding' collections is a tactic disreputable sellers have used; trying to sell a collection that looks 'seeded' will drive away some bidders who might have bid on an unseeded, well-displayed/listed collection.

Prices reflect the community's general perception of supply vs. demand. Regardless of whether you or I'm willing to pay $50+ for Emrakul or any other card, if enough people are, then that's the price it'll be found at. "It's too expensive/undervalued" is an opinion that most people don't share, or the price would be lower/higher that it is. MoMa was printed conservatively, as they wanted to avoid another Chronicles situation, which overcame the market's demand for many of its cards, driving the prices of most of its cards into the bulk bin. MM2 will be likely to have a larger print run than MoMa, and I'd think is likely to include some of the cards from MoMa that still have significant unsatisfied demand.

Generally speaking, MoMa's reprints didn't hurt shops; the drop in prices on a few high-value cards was offset by increased demand/prices for the non-reprinted high-demand cards, and by a general rise in price of some sets as they age and become less available. Non-shop collectors and people who 'just acquired' a card generally did feel like they lost out from MoMa's reprints lowering demand/prices on cards they had acquired at higher prices. Part of what drives the game is its collectibility; if every card was always available to anyone who wants it at minimal price, the game just wouldn't be nearly as successful. Reprints damage that collectibility (although how much is open to debate); this is why people eventually begin to drift towards trying to acquire Reserved List cards, due to their collectibility being protected from reprints.

Agree with Trifas, here; not many stores in this area sold the packs at MSRP last time, ranging between $8 and $12 per pack, with purchase limits to boot. I'd lay odds the raised MSRP also represents a raised wholesale price per box as well; based on some back-of-the-envelope calculations (based on judge comp offered for MM2 GP Vegas, comparing cash/day vs. product/day), wholesale price for a box seems to be roughly $180.
It has to have enough 'valuable' goodies to sell well at the price point, but they can't throw everything into it--there have to be junk rares to balance draft and pack value. There also need to be enough 'thoughtseize/fetch' level cards set aside to act as sales drivers for future regular sets.
I'm interested in guesses on how many rares/mythics will be from the 2 new blocks added, vs. how many from MM eligible blocks? My guess would be 30%/70%, with about half that 70% being MM reprints.

Always, always, always call a judge when something has gone wrong, or you have a question about anything that feels 'off', at any REL. Remember that as a player, you are not responsible for enforcing rules, handing out penalties, running the tournament, or anything else that judges should be doing. You do not "give someone a game loss"--you call a judge, and the judge will adjudicate the situation, including relevant factors you may be unaware of, such as prior penalties, a 'habit' of doing that error tournament after tournament, whether a player called the judge themselves, etc. If you call a judge, and a player receives a penalty, you didn't give the penalty or 'get' the player--they screwed up, and the penalty was based on the potential for abuse. Your job is to call a judge, then let them handle it; the judge's job is to decide if the situation warrants a caution, penalty, upgrade, investigation, or something else. If you disagree with the call, you can appeal to the Head Judge (unless it's the HJ who took the initial call). The HJ has options--but not requirements--to downgrade penalties that regular judges may not have, so, for example, if you disagree with a penalty's result, you can make your case to the HJ.
Based on your story, I'd say you weren't colluding--but imagine how it would look to an observer if a player scooped up morphs w/o revealing them, and his opponent said "Since you're my buddy, I'm not going to call a judge, and let you get away with that like we do back at the shop". [Sidenote: The observer should call a judge immediately. As an observer, you should call a judge anytime you see something 'off'; don't try to fix it yourself, even if you're a judge who's not working that event.]

The change from 7 years' worth of sets to 4 killed it; extended became 'standard+'. People who'd just started the game 6 years before (one of the heavy surge years, when more players joined than average) saw their 'extended legal' collection cut in half, instead of the expected "cards from before I started finally rotate out, I now have all 7 years worth of extended'; values of the cards from the excluded sets sank. Many players who'd been working on decks felt betrayed; it also didn't help that the remaining 4 years included some pretty weak sets, exacerbating the 'standard +' feel. WOTC initially tried to support new extended, but a great many players began to look for other formats--Overextended(Mercadian Masques-forward) and other attempts at non-WOTC controlled, non-rotating, non-sanctioned formats began to have respectable numbers as side tournaments at larger events. WOTC finally decided to get out in front of the wave with Modern; the format suffered at the beginning due to a tendency to ban cards from winning decklists to encourage diversity, and to pre-emptively ban some cards that didn't need it--leading to wildly different metagames and card values, as the bans came fast and furiously. Modern eventually settled down some, and the bans came less often, leading to more stable metagames/card values. Following through with copious reprints has also shown support for the format, as well as providing another sales driver for current sets.

Potential Good stuff:
--So, assuming 4 week months, advanced plus stores will get 60 promos to hand out; that equates to the top 15 getting a promo, if they were awarded top-down. Sure, some months the promo will stink, but some months, it'll be good. Expect to see a lot more of these in circulation, which will depress prices, making them more available/less valuable.

--If your store wants to run a format players express interest in, they can. Some stores might even try a "grand format tour" approach--try everything at least once (hopefully with advanced warning on the calendar, so you can know what format you're playing that week). It'd be interesting to see statistics on FNM formats reported, to see which formats take off, which ones are seldom/never attempted, and which ones are regional favorites. Odds are very high WOTC won't release that data, but hopefully will use it for internal decision making.

Potential Not-so-good stuff:
--If you're going to a new store for FNM, you won't necessarily be able to just show up with a deck and be ready to go. Previously, if you have a standard deck and a modern deck in your bag, you'd be set for almost anything; now you're going to need to check in advance what format they're running that week. Also expect some splintering among your playgroup--some people will always want to play their favorite format; others will be able to muster 6 but not 8 for something else; some want to use FNM to playtest a format for an upcoming tournament they're going to, but everyone else doesn't; etc.
--Expect possible entry fees for 'zero-purchase' formats such as Cube Draft , for example. While Standard/Draft/Modern help support the store through driving pack/singles sales, formats which don't will need to still support the store, helping to pay for heat/light/employee(s).
--Potential Level 1 Judge Questions can now be significantly wider in format coverage. Previously, Level 1 test questions covered things that could happen at FNM, since that's what the vast majority of Level 1's would be judging; they were limited to things that could happen in FNM formats. Blowing FNM formats wide open means Level 1 Judge Candidates may need to know a lot more about format-specific weird situations.

So, as always, spells/abilities resolve last in, first out. Deadeye navigator blink is last in the stack, so its blink resolves; while this does break soulbond, when deadeye navigator re-enters the battlefield, you have the opportunity to re-pair them since neither is paired when the DN re-enters the battlefield. (Whether you re-pair them, or not, doesn't affect whether sylvan primordial's blink ability will resolve or not--the blink ability can only be activated when they are paired, but doesn't require them to still be paired when the ability resolves.) Assuming no further responses from anyone, Turn to frog then is countered for lack of target; Sylvan Blinks, and its ETB ability goes on the stack, then resolves, and finally Alpha Brawl is countered for lack of target.

For the first time ever, ABU just cancelled my previously accepted and confirmed buylist order, so they may have changed their policy on honoring their buylist prices. They used to be proud of not taking down their buylist as some stores do when prices change--if you completed and got confirmation of a buylist and sent it in according to their rules, they'd pay what had been offered. Now they seem to have a much shadier policy of cancelling confirmed buylist orders that prices are falling on.

Prices changing due to the market isn't a pricing error; this is similar to shops that decide to not sell a card as agreed when they were underpriced due to price spikes, choosing to refund and re-list at the higher price. While some might call it good business, it's horrible customer service--if you can't trust their sell price a store sets and maintains, why buy from that store? And in this case, if you can't trust a buylist they set and maintain, why sell to them?

So..swing with goblin electromancer, then fury of the horde, fury of the horde, lightning bolt for 15?

Also, to the OP...Mothershup?

Quote from LuckyJoe1988 »

The only reason I personally want to see the complete cylce of allied and enemy colored fetch lands, is because of the awesome flava' text! I want more dragon themed fetches dang it!

Well, since these 5 all have 'dragons are dead' art/flavortext, perhaps the last set will have 'dragons live!' flavortext, and art with live dragon(s) in the background.

I'd also expect demand/prices for Zen fetches to drop, significantly. Having ONS fetches become Modern legal, + new versions, + expected 'this block' reprint of Zen fetches(assuming we take Maro at his word [always a risk]about printing '10-land cycles'), + more spread out demand for fetches in general should cause Modern to become dramatically more accessible. On a separate note, what do people think the new bar to modern participation will be?