If anyone ever said they won't print them in Standard they are wrong. They just won't print them in the core sets because it is more focused at new players, and new players don't like paying life for mana. If we ever go back to Dominaria, it's possible they will reprint pain lands in Standard.
^^^ correct answer
The lands WOTC said they'd never print in STANDARD again are fetchlands. Because they don't want there to be more "loading screens" in paper MTG.
WOTC has said outright that fetchlands WILL be reprinted but it will not ever be in Standard, as they don't want "loading screens" in Standard. Modern Masters 2 seems the most likely landing spot.
Nope. The exact ratio of R:U:C among foils is 1:2:4. There is some intentional fudging on WOTC's part where it comes to the 121st card on a sheet, but for all purposes that matter, that ratio will hold across any arbitrarily large number of contiguous packs opened. This means that, by comparison to rares, foil commons are actually slightly LESS common than regular commons, card for card. However there are usually more commons than rares in a set, and more chaff, so mentally it's easy to assume the ratio is skewed more widely. It's not.
Mythics are a bit less different. Since mythics occur 15 per 121 rares printed concurrently (on the same sheet) 1:2 with normal foil rares, mythic foils occur in place of mythic rares 15 out of 121 times. (Swap in 10 per 80 for small sets, but in either case it's extremely close to 1 in 8, or with ~1.15 foils per box, one mythic foil per case on average).
Is this a trick question? Everybody wants the Reserved List gone, but most people don't give a crap about the other four things. Kill the Reserved List and it's completely fine with most of us that the other things won't happen. I mean, it's not close, it's not even an argument. MaRo is just teasing us.
On the other hand, while some boxes rot on the shelves, stores that sell for MSRP are probably ordering more boxes as we speak.
Kind of. My LGS sold them at MSRP with a SMALL markup for Mind Seize (to $40) and offered all five as a set at straight MSRP to encourage people who really wanted the cards and weren't just stripping value. As of right now there are zero Mind Seize or the esper deck left, and approximately 48,692 of the other three decks left on the shelves. Imbalance of value... it's a thing.
Yes, this means they sold a lot of Mind Seize and the esper deck. However, with 2 sold out and 3 decks now hopelessly overstocked, even at the usual WOTC margin, they've lost money on the product (or modestly broke even given that there have been SOME sales of the other three).
They'd have been better off cranking Mind Seize up to $60-$65 like the less "nice" and less "customer loyal" dealers did. They tried to do their customers a solid and look what resulted.
Talked to my LGS owner yesterday ... He gets ~400 cases of a new set directly from Wizards. He's got 40 C13 from them. Not 40 sets... 40 decks.
He had some choice words about the Wizards distributor, some of which were direct quotes from his phone conversation.
Of course, he's got more supply than that, thanks to distributors, but that's the WotC initial allocation.
He is lying to you about his usual yield from WOTC direct. Every Advanced store can buy 8 cases of each new set for release day. Period. Not 400 cases, 8 cases. Star City Games and Bob's Magic Closet alike got 8 cases of Theros from WOTC back at the end of September (not counting the pre-release which is fulfilled in distribution). By an astonishing coincidence, 40 decks of Commander is 8 cases. So WOTC direct is consistent. The distribution channel is where the higher volume comes from. The LGS I'm associated with got many, many more decks from distribution than from WOTC direct, as always occurs for non-shortprinted items.
I mean, it's cheaper than buying a P3K Strategic Planning, and it works exactly the same in a deck... these decks are stacked and stores know some people would rather pay more than wait. That said, the LGS I'm associated with has got them at MSRP plus tax for pre-order.
I drafted a couple times with friends on a very nicely carved solid-rosewood dining table that must have cost a small fortune. Richest table I've ever drafted at.
...The cards were nothing special, though.
Came to this thread for the "I drafted at a jewel-encrusted bauxite table built of sacred Bonsai tree wood baked seven times in ovens deep in the Alps by dwarves." Leaving satisfied.
I'm almost fairly certain that Pre-re packs are stacked. I saw 7 Xenagos' opened in one pre-re flight; specifically, 6 regular Xenagos' and one Foil (one guy opened a regular one and a foil one in the same pre-re box).
Xenagos does not appear in the color packs. The only mythics possible in the color packs are the gods. It's kind of silly, many people picked white (the weakest color in TTT sealed IMHO) hoping to max out their odds of opening an Elspeth, when it actually made no difference whatever.
I've been to several LGS before. East Asia, Australia, and Western Europe.
I call shenanigans. I've been to Western Europe and people had body odor ALL THE TIME. They don't place a cultural importance on body scent, and never have. Perhaps if you are there long enough you acclimate -- by the time I stopped smelling it, my trip was over and it was time to leave.
A lawyer can probably answer this better, but I thought working for products/credit redeemed solely by your employer is illegal. It's basically akin to scrips. Additionally, it's illegal for for-profit businesses to have volunteers under the FLSA, so any work you do must be paid (in legal tender).
On the other hand, it's tough for the government to find out.
It's legal, but it's taxable. That's where a lot of LGS owners get into trouble. They find out that they owe back payroll taxes on 3+ years of paying guys in store credit. They can't afford that because most stores live from MTG release to MTG release, so they close. Better just to pay the staff in moneydollars and avoid the pitfalls. For that matter, tournament entries are taxable in almost all jurisdictions, but many LGS owners don't charge sales tax on them because "my accountant told me it's a service so it's not sales taxable." Your accountant is not an attorney. They don't know about laws outside their narrow range of focus. In many states, the only thing preventing tournaments (even for non-cash prizes) from being illegal gambling is that they are "amusements." Amusements are virtually always subject to sales tax. LGS owners happily go along day in and day out doing this wrong, convinced they are right, and then one day their State Department of Revenue shows up and performs an audit, and that's the end of that LGS. The upshot? There are no shortcuts. Do it right the first time and you won't get imploded by legal armageddon.
/not your lawyer, not legal advice.
Upthread someone listed some of the "skills" an LGS employee has. This isn't actually "skilled labor" as it is understood in commerce. That's TRAINED labor. It clearly ranks above unskilled, untrained labor such as what you see with 100% directly supervised performance like bagging groceries -- the level of instruction for that is so rudimentary it barely even amounts to "training," let alone "skill," and employees have NO responsibilities at all. Clearly your typical LGS counterjockey adds more value than that (we would hope) and is worth more than that. How much more depends on just how much value they are adding.
Disclosure: The store I own a piece of has management on salary, and pays hired staff $8/hr cash + $1/hr store credit and offers 15% discounts on all purchases, even those made with store credit. All employees are eligible to be paid cash bonuses at the end of any month in which the store performs especially well on the bottom line. It seems to work out. Those are some happy guys on the mid-month payday when the previous month's bonuses get doled out. It serves as extra motivation to put the axe to the grindstone this month and earn that next bonus as well.
That's a different tournament series. He's asking about The2013s (or whatever they'd call it given that last year was The2012s), administered by Glenn Godard of Sunmesa Events. The store I own a piece of hasn't heard anything either, and was hoping to run it, so there are definitely some question marks floating around out there.
Turning away customers is the WORST thing you can do.
^^^ THIS. For all people complain about prices, the gold standard is having the goods. This is why SCG is as huge as they are. They make no pretense at competing on price, and compete instead on selection and fill rate. They can fill virtually any order you like for MTG product. A non-trivial base of customers has decided, and voted with their wallets, that getting exactly what they want quickly and as advertised is worth more than an incremental savings of some fraction of their order value.
There is a Spanish proverb: Take what you want, and pay for it. A great many MTG "collectors" here would do wise to learn it, rather than wringing hands that they can't have shiny things at salvage prices.
Yeah, I seem to recall not long ago everyone here CLAMORING for stores to adhere STRICTLY to MSRP for not one, but THREE recent releases. FTV 20, Modern Masters, and Commander's Arsenal. Clearly you jackwagons should also be happy paying up to $143.64 for a box of Theros.
Oh, you mean it's different now?
Well it's different for the stores, too. Deal with it.
^^^ correct answer
The lands WOTC said they'd never print in STANDARD again are fetchlands. Because they don't want there to be more "loading screens" in paper MTG.
Mythics are a bit less different. Since mythics occur 15 per 121 rares printed concurrently (on the same sheet) 1:2 with normal foil rares, mythic foils occur in place of mythic rares 15 out of 121 times. (Swap in 10 per 80 for small sets, but in either case it's extremely close to 1 in 8, or with ~1.15 foils per box, one mythic foil per case on average).
Kind of. My LGS sold them at MSRP with a SMALL markup for Mind Seize (to $40) and offered all five as a set at straight MSRP to encourage people who really wanted the cards and weren't just stripping value. As of right now there are zero Mind Seize or the esper deck left, and approximately 48,692 of the other three decks left on the shelves. Imbalance of value... it's a thing.
Yes, this means they sold a lot of Mind Seize and the esper deck. However, with 2 sold out and 3 decks now hopelessly overstocked, even at the usual WOTC margin, they've lost money on the product (or modestly broke even given that there have been SOME sales of the other three).
They'd have been better off cranking Mind Seize up to $60-$65 like the less "nice" and less "customer loyal" dealers did. They tried to do their customers a solid and look what resulted.
He is lying to you about his usual yield from WOTC direct. Every Advanced store can buy 8 cases of each new set for release day. Period. Not 400 cases, 8 cases. Star City Games and Bob's Magic Closet alike got 8 cases of Theros from WOTC back at the end of September (not counting the pre-release which is fulfilled in distribution). By an astonishing coincidence, 40 decks of Commander is 8 cases. So WOTC direct is consistent. The distribution channel is where the higher volume comes from. The LGS I'm associated with got many, many more decks from distribution than from WOTC direct, as always occurs for non-shortprinted items.
Came to this thread for the "I drafted at a jewel-encrusted bauxite table built of sacred Bonsai tree wood baked seven times in ovens deep in the Alps by dwarves." Leaving satisfied.
One out of every 121 packs, same as any other large set mythic.
Xenagos does not appear in the color packs. The only mythics possible in the color packs are the gods. It's kind of silly, many people picked white (the weakest color in TTT sealed IMHO) hoping to max out their odds of opening an Elspeth, when it actually made no difference whatever.
I call shenanigans. I've been to Western Europe and people had body odor ALL THE TIME. They don't place a cultural importance on body scent, and never have. Perhaps if you are there long enough you acclimate -- by the time I stopped smelling it, my trip was over and it was time to leave.
It's legal, but it's taxable. That's where a lot of LGS owners get into trouble. They find out that they owe back payroll taxes on 3+ years of paying guys in store credit. They can't afford that because most stores live from MTG release to MTG release, so they close. Better just to pay the staff in moneydollars and avoid the pitfalls. For that matter, tournament entries are taxable in almost all jurisdictions, but many LGS owners don't charge sales tax on them because "my accountant told me it's a service so it's not sales taxable." Your accountant is not an attorney. They don't know about laws outside their narrow range of focus. In many states, the only thing preventing tournaments (even for non-cash prizes) from being illegal gambling is that they are "amusements." Amusements are virtually always subject to sales tax. LGS owners happily go along day in and day out doing this wrong, convinced they are right, and then one day their State Department of Revenue shows up and performs an audit, and that's the end of that LGS. The upshot? There are no shortcuts. Do it right the first time and you won't get imploded by legal armageddon.
/not your lawyer, not legal advice.
Upthread someone listed some of the "skills" an LGS employee has. This isn't actually "skilled labor" as it is understood in commerce. That's TRAINED labor. It clearly ranks above unskilled, untrained labor such as what you see with 100% directly supervised performance like bagging groceries -- the level of instruction for that is so rudimentary it barely even amounts to "training," let alone "skill," and employees have NO responsibilities at all. Clearly your typical LGS counterjockey adds more value than that (we would hope) and is worth more than that. How much more depends on just how much value they are adding.
Disclosure: The store I own a piece of has management on salary, and pays hired staff $8/hr cash + $1/hr store credit and offers 15% discounts on all purchases, even those made with store credit. All employees are eligible to be paid cash bonuses at the end of any month in which the store performs especially well on the bottom line. It seems to work out. Those are some happy guys on the mid-month payday when the previous month's bonuses get doled out. It serves as extra motivation to put the axe to the grindstone this month and earn that next bonus as well.
That's a different tournament series. He's asking about The2013s (or whatever they'd call it given that last year was The2012s), administered by Glenn Godard of Sunmesa Events. The store I own a piece of hasn't heard anything either, and was hoping to run it, so there are definitely some question marks floating around out there.
^^^ THIS. For all people complain about prices, the gold standard is having the goods. This is why SCG is as huge as they are. They make no pretense at competing on price, and compete instead on selection and fill rate. They can fill virtually any order you like for MTG product. A non-trivial base of customers has decided, and voted with their wallets, that getting exactly what they want quickly and as advertised is worth more than an incremental savings of some fraction of their order value.
There is a Spanish proverb: Take what you want, and pay for it. A great many MTG "collectors" here would do wise to learn it, rather than wringing hands that they can't have shiny things at salvage prices.
Yeah, I seem to recall not long ago everyone here CLAMORING for stores to adhere STRICTLY to MSRP for not one, but THREE recent releases. FTV 20, Modern Masters, and Commander's Arsenal. Clearly you jackwagons should also be happy paying up to $143.64 for a box of Theros.
Oh, you mean it's different now?
Well it's different for the stores, too. Deal with it.