To luminum:Ah so the bases of wrecking the mtg market with overpriced mythic rares is so the person who opens the mythic rare can go "Yipee, that symbol's red!" When to have it actually mean something he'll have to spend a minimum of $150 to get a playset, probably more for the better ones. Yeah that makes sense. There isn't any other reason for mythic rares than money.
Ah so the bases of wrecking the mtg market with overpriced mythic rares is so the person who opens the mythic rare can go "Yipee, that symbol's red!" When to have it actually mean something he'll have to spend a minimum of $150 to get a playset, probably more for the better ones. Yeah that makes sense. There isn't any other reason for mythic rares than money.
What? Wizards has explicitly stated its reasons for the change. Making money may or may not be a major part of it, but don't say it's the only one because it's not.
You're assuming that said casual player wants to buy singles to get a playset. That's not always the case. There are many players that just play with their friends, without worrying about having playsets of chase cards, they just play with the cards they have. They have plenty of fun. I speak from personal experience. The player base doesn't consist solely of people who want the best cards or the rarest cards, some people just want to play the game.
They could find plenty of other ways to bring people into mtg than wrecking the market, which would actually take more people out of standard & block, then bring in. And besides why would a stupid red symbol, make people go "Hey, I want to play that!"? It's obvious they will be overpriced, but I don't see what else they could have on mtg.
Well, I suppose the only useful thing is to wait until Shards of Alara comes out, then see what happens to singles prices and WotC's sales. Speculating at this point doesn't really do much good. I just get very tired of every decision WotC makes met with a wave of outcry and conspiracy, but it's not worth discussing anyway.
honestly I mind the-
"We have received a tremendous amount of feedback from fans that the volume of cards released each year is too high. After evaluating the set sizes, we have decided that card sets will be smaller than they have traditionally been."
-a little more.
With a limited card pool it just gets old to fast in my opinion.
Or leads to, if there not careful, the days of "only deck X in the top 10".
Unless they do more stand alone sets, which I'm not sure they can pull off, or make the base set bigger, this just looks like a "cop out" for making fewer new mechanics and having to print less cards"
now on the one hand this dose off-set the "mystical" rare problem by ratio, and it does mean the set will be more focused on a few mechanics in stead of diluting a lot into one set(i hope). But I still see the con as much bigger.
And I am curios, how many here feel the average card pool has been to big?
Oh, and "mythic rare" is really a dumb name, and so it is the gold-red colour. they shoould have called them Special or something, changed uncommon to bronze, rare to silver, and Special to gold.
That's an incredibly dumb idea that would confuse new players further. So you find a store that sells older packs and decide to pick one up. How confused would you be when you open 1 Mythic Rare, 3 Rares, and 11 commons? They have to add to the already implemented system, not change it entirely.
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honestly I mind the-
"
-a little more.
With a limited card pool it just gets old to fast in my opinion.
Or leads to, if there not careful, the days of "only deck X in the top 10".
Unless they do more stand alone sets, which I'm not sure they can pull off, or make the base set bigger, this just looks like a "cop out" for making fewer new mechanics and having to print less cards"
And I am curios, how many here feel the average card pool has been to big?
I personally think the card pool is WAY too big. I am a relatively new player (started with time SPiral) and after having played several other CCG's semi-competatively in the past Standard appealed to me becuase it was supposed to be a smaller card pool. Turns out acquiring the cards for extended was jsut as easy because standard was so huge....
Additionally, regarding the smaller set size imapcting the number of cards in standard. I think wizards is trying to go to the 4 sets a year as the standard deal, instead of the previous three, consequently you can have smaller set sizes and still have the same number of cards in standard as in the past...
While i don't believe they will release 4 sets a year ( outside of the typical Core sets), i do agree that the card pool is currently too large. Think about it, how many of the cards in the current common pool sees ANY sort of play outside the limited pool? Not many. Wouldn't it be better to have fewer bulk commons and get to the really useful/playable ones?
And to Zeel, i do think they could have come up with a better name (although Mythic has a nice ring to it), but to try and change EVERY single rarity sumbol would be WAY too confusing. Adding on something is easier thaan trying to revamp the whole system.
1) Mythic Rares is obviously a scheme to make more money on the primary market -- Sales for Wizards
2) Mythic Rares are harder to get than normal rares, they will be harder to get than core set rares by a factor of 2. They are NOT REPRINTS and thus despite them not being that much harder to get ARE EXTREMELY RARE!
3) Mythic Rares are at this point claiming to be only cool things like "Epic/Insane spells", Planeswalkers, "Crazy Monsters", etc. -- Let's see how long this lasts.
3a) For the record some stuff that would probably be Epic: Garruk, Bogardan Hellkite, Dragonstorm, Jitte, The Avatar Cycle (Oversoul of Dusk and Demigod are played), and so forth.
3b) For the record some crappy stuff would also be Mythics: For example crappy legends such as Szadek and crew would most likely be Mythic. That means for every chance you have to pull a Mythic, you have a great chance of pulling a GARBAGE mythic, which by the by...overrides your chance of hitting a good RARE. Nice job Wizards, nice freaking Job.
4) This method only helps ONE category of people: Resale merchants. The math is there, I explained it before. Big companies that can crack case after case and resell at a massive profit are going to benefit the most from this crap that wizards is shoving down our throats.
5) People just getting into magic now get overwhelmed by the inaccessible cards. As it is the club I co-ran at my school was full of people who complained about "I don't have access to these awesome cards even though I buy packs, how can I compete with 4x goyf and 4x thoughtseize?" Now the gulf between players who do alot of drafting, buying, and trading is widened even more. Casual gamers suffer that HARDEST in this little shindig Wizards has going.
The bottom line: Wizards is alienating it's customer base and further widening the gap between competitive players and casual players. They are making the game more and more unfriendly to noobies with each passing set. Good job Wizards, good job.
Your whole "story" leaves out two very, very important points: one, the drastic reduction in price of regular-rares that would have to accompany drastically high prices for mythic rares, and two, the ability of individuals (not just "big corporations") to easily resell cards at a price discount on eBay or other online marketplaces and undercut anyone who tries to jack up prices too high on individual singles.
The only way that this change can be as single-handedly in favor of resellers as some people are making it out to be is if most of the mythics are heavily tournament playable in many different decks but few of the rares are -- which is exactly the opposite of R&D's stated intent with the mythic rarity.
1) Mythic Rares is obviously a scheme to make more money on the primary market -- Sales for Wizards
2) Mythic Rares are harder to get than normal rares, they will be harder to get than core set rares by a factor of 2. They are NOT REPRINTS and thus despite them not being that much harder to get ARE EXTREMELY RARE!
3) Mythic Rares are at this point claiming to be only cool things like "Epic/Insane spells", Planeswalkers, "Crazy Monsters", etc. -- Let's see how long this lasts.
3a) For the record some stuff that would probably be Epic: Garruk, Bogardan Hellkite, Dragonstorm, Jitte, The Avatar Cycle (Oversoul of Dusk and Demigod are played), and so forth.
3b) For the record some crappy stuff would also be Mythics: For example crappy legends such as Szadek and crew would most likely be Mythic. That means for every chance you have to pull a Mythic, you have a great chance of pulling a GARBAGE mythic, which by the by...overrides your chance of hitting a good RARE. Nice job Wizards, nice freaking Job.
4) This method only helps ONE category of people: Resale merchants. The math is there, I explained it before. Big companies that can crack case after case and resell at a massive profit are going to benefit the most from this crap that wizards is shoving down our throats.
5) People just getting into magic now get overwhelmed by the inaccessible cards. As it is the club I co-ran at my school was full of people who complained about "I don't have access to these awesome cards even though I buy packs, how can I compete with 4x goyf and 4x thoughtseize?" Now the gulf between players who do alot of drafting, buying, and trading is widened even more. Casual gamers suffer that HARDEST in this little shindig Wizards has going.
The bottom line: Wizards is alienating it's customer base and further widening the gap between competitive players and casual players. They are making the game more and more unfriendly to noobies with each passing set. Good job Wizards, good job.
Oh will you people PLEASE stop the incessent *****ing, it's like listening to a broken record. We have NO CLUE as to what all will apply as Mythic outside of Planeswalkers, and to go so far as to claim it "alienates" casual gamers is a major stretch. We know that base utility cards will NOT be Mythic, and to portray Wizards as the "evil railroad men" just because they offer change is just plain ignorant. If that person who has 4x goyf or seizes is using them for casual, you simple ask them NOT TO USE THEM. If they refuse then they aren't playing the game for fun like many casual people do but to exercize some deep rooted control issues to satisfy their sadistic selfs (as I suspect the people who don't actually play competively well will probably do).
Whether or not we like the changes is not important. The changes ARE gonna happen and ther isn't any amount of whining, *****ing or pickiting that will change it.
1) Mythic Rares is obviously a scheme to make more money on the primary market -- Sales for Wizards
2) Mythic Rares are harder to get than normal rares, they will be harder to get than core set rares by a factor of 2. They are NOT REPRINTS and thus despite them not being that much harder to get ARE EXTREMELY RARE!
3) Mythic Rares are at this point claiming to be only cool things like "Epic/Insane spells", Planeswalkers, "Crazy Monsters", etc. -- Let's see how long this lasts.
3a) For the record some stuff that would probably be Epic: Garruk, Bogardan Hellkite, Dragonstorm, Jitte, The Avatar Cycle (Oversoul of Dusk and Demigod are played), and so forth.
3b) For the record some crappy stuff would also be Mythics: For example crappy legends such as Szadek and crew would most likely be Mythic. That means for every chance you have to pull a Mythic, you have a great chance of pulling a GARBAGE mythic, which by the by...overrides your chance of hitting a good RARE. Nice job Wizards, nice freaking Job.
4) This method only helps ONE category of people: Resale merchants. The math is there, I explained it before. Big companies that can crack case after case and resell at a massive profit are going to benefit the most from this crap that wizards is shoving down our throats.
5) People just getting into magic now get overwhelmed by the inaccessible cards. As it is the club I co-ran at my school was full of people who complained about "I don't have access to these awesome cards even though I buy packs, how can I compete with 4x goyf and 4x thoughtseize?" Now the gulf between players who do alot of drafting, buying, and trading is widened even more. Casual gamers suffer that HARDEST in this little shindig Wizards has going.
The bottom line: Wizards is alienating it's customer base and further widening the gap between competitive players and casual players. They are making the game more and more unfriendly to noobies with each passing set. Good job Wizards, good job.
Lets Recap -
People are complaining and making many assumptions about something that we don't know all the specifics of yet. (What the mythics in ALA are...for example, and how it really turns out once the set is released.)
See my signature for possibly the best post on the thread.
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*blink* Well, thanks. But, yes, there are too many unknowns at this point for speculation to do anyone any good. Unless everyone starts hoarding their money for the "outrageous prices". But hey, if it doesn't work out, you can go ahead and spend that money on more cards. Everyone wins.
We know that base utility cards will NOT be Mythic...
No, we don't. Furthermore, there's not even consensus as to what constitutes a "base utility card".
Although I suppose that provides a loophole that ensures that base utility cards won't be printed at mythic rare- Wizards will simply alter the definition of "base utility card" as the situation demands ;).
Base utility card (bays-yu-til-it-ee-kard), n: A nonmythic card that appears in a majority of decks capable of playing it, notable more for its versatility than its power.
Seriously, see my previous posts if you believe that Wizards won't exploit mythic rarity's obscene money-making potential.
1) Mythic Rares is obviously a scheme to make more money on the primary market -- Sales for Wizards
Yes, but this very obvious point is stated in such a way as to imply that WotC if trying to be an evil, money-grabbing corporation bent on destroying our wallets. In addition to this not making business sense for them (since it is better to keep all of us as happy as possible for as long as possible), it is such an obvious point (they did something to be a more successful company), its like saying that printing a new block starting this fall is a scheme to make them more money.
2) Mythic Rares are harder to get than normal rares, they will be harder to get than core set rares by a factor of 2. They are NOT REPRINTS and thus despite them not being that much harder to get ARE EXTREMELY RARE!
The math doesn't support this. Forget about core sets for a moment. The chances of pulling a Mythic rare is truly not that much harder than it was to pull any individual rare from sets that didn't have a reduced rare count (like from Odyssey and before).
3) Mythic Rares are at this point claiming to be only cool things like "Epic/Insane spells", Planeswalkers, "Crazy Monsters", etc. -- Let's see how long this lasts.
"claiming to be" and "see how long this lasts". Again with the nefarious scheming. Wouldn't it completely defeat the purpose of how they described Mythic cards to put something as simplistic as Thoughtseize up there? This point, in its most basic form, mentions nothing about tournament caliber cards, just that you don't believe they'll stick with "epic" kinds of cards. This is almost like saying that they might print incredibly complex cards at anything below rare despite years of not having done so since they said they wouldn't.
3a) For the record some stuff that would probably be Epic: Garruk, Bogardan Hellkite, Dragonstorm, Jitte, The Avatar Cycle (Oversoul of Dusk and Demigod are played), and so forth.
Agreed. I wouldn't be surprised if any of those were printed as Mythic cards.
3b) For the record some crappy stuff would also be Mythics: For example crappy legends such as Szadek and crew would most likely be Mythic. That means for every chance you have to pull a Mythic, you have a great chance of pulling a GARBAGE mythic, which by the by...overrides your chance of hitting a good RARE. Nice job Wizards, nice freaking Job.
Wow. That's just wow. Perhaps you've never noticed, but you can pull really crappy rares from a pack right now. In fact, until they decrease the number of cards in a set, you have a better chance of pulling crappy cards that you will then.
4) This method only helps ONE category of people: Resale merchants. The math is there, I explained it before. Big companies that can crack case after case and resell at a massive profit are going to benefit the most from this crap that wizards is shoving down our throats.
This method also helps casual players who don't know the set lists, don't buy singles, and feel good about themselves when they crack open a Mythic rare.
5) People just getting into magic now get overwhelmed by the inaccessible cards. As it is the club I co-ran at my school was full of people who complained about "I don't have access to these awesome cards even though I buy packs, how can I compete with 4x goyf and 4x thoughtseize?" Now the gulf between players who do alot of drafting, buying, and trading is widened even more. Casual gamers suffer that HARDEST in this little shindig Wizards has going.
Thoughtseize and Goyf would be cheaper and easier to get under the proposed number of rares in a set. When (not if) Mythic rares find their way into tournament decks, there will only be 15 or so in any given set, so the chances of deck needing more than one or two of them is quite small. So sure, you might have to buy them as singles, but they simply won't be getting up to Goyf prices.
Remember, goyf is more expensive than any other type 2 / standard card has ever been in the history of magic. That makes it a poor choice of comparison for future prices.
The bottom line: Wizards is alienating it's customer base and further widening the gap between competitive players and casual players. They are making the game more and more unfriendly to noobies with each passing set. Good job Wizards, good job.
Actually, the gap between casual and competitive players is already huge and this isn't likely to make it bigger. You should have argued that it was widening the gap between really competitive players and not really dedicated competitive players. Perhaps you have an incorrect view of what noobies want from a game (and I speak as a former casual player).
Cheethorne, your post was quite insightful and gave me a different angles to approach this with.
Yes you're right, I think my view of casual gamers is a bit misconstrued. I think we are indeed talking about "less dedicated competitive players."
Also, Goyf and Seize will definitely be cheaper under the proposed system but that's not the point here. The point is Mythic rares will most likely see ridiculous price spikes not just because of the mathematical disadvantage of trying to pull one but the PSYCHOLOGICAL factor of "Mythic Rare." The dust will likely settle after a few sets, but most likely prices will be sky high at first.
Most likely scenario: Cheaper utility rares means we don't have to spend tons of cash for the base of the deck leaving more money available to pay for outrageous mythics.
For example: Say your deck needed a 120$ mana base + 80$ worth of utility (cryptic, etc.) If prices drop say...33% that gives us a 132$ deck as opposed to 200$. Now say that we need card X a 25$ rare (40-60$ as mythic rare), instead of 100$ a playset it's 160-240$ a playset. So that 68$ we saved on cheaper utility rares can be used to pay for the 60-140$ price hike due to mythic rare status.
Furthermore, there's not even consensus as to what constitutes a "base utility card".
Rosewater's article defines it pretty clearly. Which part of the definition do you think doesn't have consensus?
Seriously, see my previous posts if you believe that Wizards won't exploit mythic rarity's obscene money-making potential.
Wizards doesn't make money from the secondary market. Creating cards which sell for high prices as singles only makes money for Wizards if it doesn't drive other people away from playing the game and buying packs, which is exactly why they can't just make powerful cards rarer and rarer with impunity and see guaranteed profits from that.
The point is Mythic rares will most likely see ridiculous price spikes not just because of the mathematical disadvantage of trying to pull one but the PSYCHOLOGICAL factor of "Mythic Rare."
I feel like people proposing this scenario are consistently downplaying the effects of an essentially free market on Magic singles due to the Internet. It's in the interest of Starcitygames and other big dealers to jack up prices -- they know that they'll sell a certain amount of cards to people who don't do their research and just buy from a site whose name they recognize. But it's in the interest of smaller dealers -- of which there are tons -- to undercut those big stores and hit lower points on the supply/demand curve. If the actual low supply of a card justifies a $25 price point for it and most dealers are selling it at $50 because of the "psychological boost," eBayers are going to make a killing selling them at $30.
Most likely scenario: Cheaper utility rares means we don't have to spend tons of cash for the base of the deck leaving more money available to pay for outrageous mythics.
Minus the word "outrageous," I pretty much agree that this is what will happen. And in general, I think this is a far better situation for low-end competitive players (people who participate in Standard FNM, etc.): if one or two mythics are the expensive part of a format, many players will be able to adapt around them with rogue decks or simply alternate builds, while an expensive mana base creates a huge divide between almost all decks run by players who can afford it vs. those who can't.
Base utility card, n: A nonmythic card that appears in a majority of decks capable of playing it, notable more for its versatility than its power.
The second part of your definition is not correct. Utility has nothing to do with power or versatility, it has to do with the simplicity of the effect generated by the card. For example, Thoughtseize is a very powerful card, but it is a very simple effect, so it is considered a utility card. Volcanic Island is a very powerful dual land, but it is definitely a utility card.
The point is Mythic rares will most likely see ridiculous price spikes not just because of the mathematical disadvantage of trying to pull one but the PSYCHOLOGICAL factor of "Mythic Rare." The dust will likely settle after a few sets, but most likely prices will be sky high at first.
Kind of like how prices spike around the pre-release and when a set is first released, including on cards that time show are not that good in the environment as it develops. Ok, I can see this being true. Most people arguing that those prices aren't sustainable would likely agree that a price spike could occur (although probably not to truly astronomical prices) even if it is just for a short time. I know I'm willing to concede that.
Most likely scenario: Cheaper utility rares means we don't have to spend tons of cash for the base of the deck leaving more money available to pay for outrageous mythics.
Agreed (well within reason, I really don't expect 40$ Mythic rares, but I could be wrong about that, at least in the short term after a set is released, which always seem to occur right before I need a card).
Agreed (well within reason, I really don't expect 40$ Mythic rares, but I could be wrong about that, at least in the short term after a set is released, which always seem to occur right before I need a card).
A 40 dollar mythic rare would constitute a 'must have 4 of' that goes in 'many decks'.
Shadowmoor has many cards that are most playable as 4-ofs, but only good in certain decks. Ergo, the prices of the set are relatively flat, with no Bitterblossoms or Mutavaults about.
If the mythics include a cycle of 5 allied-gold planeswalkers (or more), these cards are only good in certain decks, which will, presumably (as I have said before) keep their prices down.
People are getting an entirely skewed view of card economics from Tarmogoyf, which is a literal freak of nature when it comes to singles prices.
Speculating isn't going to help, I think we should put that energy into Eventide instead, and let this all simmer before people jump to too many conclusions and declare the sky is falling (again).
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now, here it is a nice Mythic rare cycle for you guys. How much do you think thes[e] duals would cost?
Well, first off, not all legends have to be mythic.
Second, I'd say 15-20CAN, about as much as a RAV duel. It's a legendary land, so you wouldn't want to play it as a 4 of, at most 3, probably 2. Second, it only goes in decks that run both white and black.
Finally, I don't think anything like that would be printed. There'd be more or less on it, that's just a really boring card. If it had a land type then it could be 25-30
EDIT: Here's my biggest gripe with the whole thing, the way they described it in the article. They really need to realize that the people they want to attract with these changes don't read the website as much. The ones that do read the site come in two flavours:
1. People who take what they say as the word of god, they could say anything they want and it would be the best thing to happen to the game (I almost fall in this camp, I reserve judgment until I see reason)
2. People who hate everything and never believe what they say.
SO what they should have done is given the real reason for these changes. The real thought processes behind it, how much planning, testing, experimenting, different options etc they did. This would have satisfied a lot more people I think.
Wizards doesn't make money from the secondary market. Creating cards which sell for high prices as singles only makes money for Wizards if it doesn't drive other people away from playing the game and buying packs, which is exactly why they can't just make powerful cards rarer and rarer with impunity and see guaranteed profits from that.
Yes, they do. Where do secondary market cards come from? Packs. Where do dealers buy their packs? From wizards. See thoughtseize and char and the entire kamigawa block as proof that wizards does price gouge. And it pisses off a lot of people. You can say it would be stupid for them to do this, but they have clearly done so in the past.
What bothers me the most about it is Rosewaters justification. In talking about industry standards and expectations he is saying that wizards wants magic to be more and more like some generic worthless ccg. This sets a bad precedent for what will likely be the first of many changes.
Speculating isn't going to help, I think we should put that energy into Eventide instead, and let this all simmer before people jump to too many conclusions and declare the sky is falling (again).
This is one of the biggest changes to magic in a long time. It's only natural for it to be the subject of a lot of discussion.
No, they don't. Wizards makes money on pack sales, which can be impacted by the secondary market but which do not actually benefit directly from high card prices.
Take a set with a single incredibly valuable card (let's say it sells for $50 apiece) amidst a sea of crappy $1 rares. Dealers aren't going to crack packs to pull out those $50 cards, because they're not easily going to pay for themselves -- the margin will be low. Instead, they'll aim to pick up cards from the market and resell them at raised rates.
What actually benefits Wizards is for packs to be worth opening. One way that can happen is to have 2-3+ cards with really high values that you can luck into; another way is just to deliver more value through having more valuable rares, or better cards overall, or the possibility of double rares.
It also involves having lots of people who play Magic, are engaged with the game, and enjoy getting new cards -- which gets into the real point of my statement. If Wizards sells more packs to dealers, but less to players who get fed up and quit, they don't necessarily make more money. This happened to a lot of games earlier in the CCG lifecycle, and it seems exceedingly unlikely to me that WotC are unaware of this possibility.
See thoughtseize and char and the entire kamigawa block as proof that wizards does price gouge.
The entire Kamigawa block? The weak-cards, unfun-mechanics block that people didn't like?
Thoughtseize seems like a pretty egregious case, I'll agree, although I'm not sure that there are that many others over recent blocks. Char's a pretty bad example -- you can get them by the bucketful for $3.50 a pop over at SCG.
Anyway, part of the balance of a CCG involves having cards that people want or need to have which are rare; that's just unavoidable. Even with Thoughtseize, I think R&D has done well overall at keeping away from expensive rares that are must-haves but shouldn't have been printed at rare.
In talking about industry standards and expectations he is saying that wizards wants magic to be more and more like some generic worthless ccg.
This is actually what people said about foils when they were introduced in Urza's Legacy, too: "Magic's been around for five years just fine without gimmicks like this!" At the time, I was pretty sympathetic to that argument, but at this point I think the "old and busted/new hotness" argument has a lot of merit. Mythics are going to increase the value of pack opening for more casual players.
Magic is a great game, but it's not the only great game that exists. I don't really think there's anything wrong with looking out to all the games that copied their entire premise from Magic and taking good bits and pieces from them -- creative cross-pollination will help make every game better in the long run.
The entire Kamigawa block? The weak-cards, unfun-mechanics block that people didn't like?
I don't understand his point either, Kamigawa was just filled with a bad secondary block theme that wasn't done right (the spirit war, compared to the primary theme which was to have a Legendary block) and with cards that were far too weak to be interesting. WotC has no incentive to make a block that is uninteresting when they can make good blocks instead. Kamigawa certainly wasn't any cheaper for WotC to make than say Ravnica or Mirrodin, it was just weaker.
Thoughtseize seems like a pretty egregious case, I'll agree, although I'm not sure that there are that many others over recent blocks.
I think Thoughtseize is falling victim to a trend that WotC has been trying to push the last several years with the increase of tier 2 cards and the virtual elimination of pure tier 1 power cards. When they increase the number of decks that a card can go into, they really increase its value. Even at the height of Dragonstorm, before Gigadrowse and Seething Song rotated out, the actual card Dragonstorm wasn't really that expensive because it could only go into one deck, even if it was the top deck in the format. However, Thoughtseize and Bitterblossom can go into so many decks and so many decks can be considered at least fairly competitive that their demand is really increased.
I think this is what is leading them to the trend of increasing the power of uncommons at the expense of the power of rare cards (which can still be plenty powerful). This can really be seen in cards like Tattermunge Maniac and Flame Javelin, which could easily have been justified as rare cards (ignoring the fact that the javelin is part of an uncommon cycle).
However, Thoughtseize and Bitterblossom can go into so many decks and so many decks can be considered at least fairly competitive that their demand is really increased.
Right. Standard right now has an unprecedentedly high number of cards selling for more than $20, and it's solely a result of their broad applicability -- Mutavault, Bitterblossom, Tarmogoyf, etc. can go anywhere, and will appear in five or six of the top eight decks at a tournament despite those all being drastically different decks.
I think it'll take R&D some work to manage cards like this better, but I expect that they will (and moving out of Lorwyn block's tribal constraint on viable decks will help reduce this effect as well.)
I think this is what is leading them to the trend of increasing the power of uncommons at the expense of the power of rare cards (which can still be plenty powerful).
Shadowmoor seemed to do pretty well on this, which hurts people who buy packs for singles but helps a lot for people who buy packs for trading fodder and then buy a few select rare singles they need.
No, they don't. Wizards makes money on pack sales, which can be impacted by the secondary market but which do not actually benefit directly from high card prices.
Yes, they do. Indirectly, but card prices on the secondary market will certainly impact pack sales.
The entire Kamigawa block? The weak-cards, unfun-mechanics block that people didn't like?
This is a little off topic, but kamigawa was actually pretty damn powerful. Most people don't notice because almost all of kamigawa's power cards were rare. Kokusho, jitte, extraction, gifts, etc. The average pack didn't have many playable cards because most of them were rare. It's not really relevant to this discussion, so whatever.
Thoughtseize seems like a pretty egregious case, I'll agree, although I'm not sure that there are that many others over recent blocks. Char's a pretty bad example -- you can get them by the bucketful for $3.50 a pop over at SCG.
Char was going for close to ten while it was in standard, so it's a fine example. Both are obvious tourney cards that belong at uncommon.
This is actually what people said about foils when they were introduced in Urza's Legacy, too: "Magic's been around for five years just fine without gimmicks like this!" At the time, I was pretty sympathetic to that argument, but at this point I think the "old and busted/new hotness" argument has a lot of merit. Mythics are going to increase the value of pack opening for more casual players.
I don't think this is really a valid comparison. Unlike mythics, foils really did not change that much about packs.
Again, I don't get how letting new players open the cards they want most less often will make magic a more desirable game to them. When new player opens an awesome card, he's drooling over the card, not the rarity symbol. That's why I dislike mythics. Because they're a cashgrab. Wizards is trying to make players buy more packs without having to make the sets more interesting.
I'm not going to do anything so melodramatic as quit magic, but I will be playing-and spending a lot less on this game come october. And I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
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What? Wizards has explicitly stated its reasons for the change. Making money may or may not be a major part of it, but don't say it's the only one because it's not.
You're assuming that said casual player wants to buy singles to get a playset. That's not always the case. There are many players that just play with their friends, without worrying about having playsets of chase cards, they just play with the cards they have. They have plenty of fun. I speak from personal experience. The player base doesn't consist solely of people who want the best cards or the rarest cards, some people just want to play the game.
R Citizen Cane (Feldon of the Third Path)
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R Citizen Cane (Feldon of the Third Path)
"We have received a tremendous amount of feedback from fans that the volume of cards released each year is too high. After evaluating the set sizes, we have decided that card sets will be smaller than they have traditionally been."
-a little more.
With a limited card pool it just gets old to fast in my opinion.
Or leads to, if there not careful, the days of "only deck X in the top 10".
Unless they do more stand alone sets, which I'm not sure they can pull off, or make the base set bigger, this just looks like a "cop out" for making fewer new mechanics and having to print less cards"
now on the one hand this dose off-set the "mystical" rare problem by ratio, and it does mean the set will be more focused on a few mechanics in stead of diluting a lot into one set(i hope). But I still see the con as much bigger.
And I am curios, how many here feel the average card pool has been to big?
That's an incredibly dumb idea that would confuse new players further. So you find a store that sells older packs and decide to pick one up. How confused would you be when you open 1 Mythic Rare, 3 Rares, and 11 commons? They have to add to the already implemented system, not change it entirely.
:symu::rate3::symbw: Merieke Ri Berit aka MINDTAKER Highlander
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I personally think the card pool is WAY too big. I am a relatively new player (started with time SPiral) and after having played several other CCG's semi-competatively in the past Standard appealed to me becuase it was supposed to be a smaller card pool. Turns out acquiring the cards for extended was jsut as easy because standard was so huge....
Additionally, regarding the smaller set size imapcting the number of cards in standard. I think wizards is trying to go to the 4 sets a year as the standard deal, instead of the previous three, consequently you can have smaller set sizes and still have the same number of cards in standard as in the past...
just my opinions of course
And to Zeel, i do think they could have come up with a better name (although Mythic has a nice ring to it), but to try and change EVERY single rarity sumbol would be WAY too confusing. Adding on something is easier thaan trying to revamp the whole system.
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1) Mythic Rares is obviously a scheme to make more money on the primary market -- Sales for Wizards
2) Mythic Rares are harder to get than normal rares, they will be harder to get than core set rares by a factor of 2. They are NOT REPRINTS and thus despite them not being that much harder to get ARE EXTREMELY RARE!
3) Mythic Rares are at this point claiming to be only cool things like "Epic/Insane spells", Planeswalkers, "Crazy Monsters", etc. -- Let's see how long this lasts.
3a) For the record some stuff that would probably be Epic: Garruk, Bogardan Hellkite, Dragonstorm, Jitte, The Avatar Cycle (Oversoul of Dusk and Demigod are played), and so forth.
3b) For the record some crappy stuff would also be Mythics: For example crappy legends such as Szadek and crew would most likely be Mythic. That means for every chance you have to pull a Mythic, you have a great chance of pulling a GARBAGE mythic, which by the by...overrides your chance of hitting a good RARE. Nice job Wizards, nice freaking Job.
4) This method only helps ONE category of people: Resale merchants. The math is there, I explained it before. Big companies that can crack case after case and resell at a massive profit are going to benefit the most from this crap that wizards is shoving down our throats.
5) People just getting into magic now get overwhelmed by the inaccessible cards. As it is the club I co-ran at my school was full of people who complained about "I don't have access to these awesome cards even though I buy packs, how can I compete with 4x goyf and 4x thoughtseize?" Now the gulf between players who do alot of drafting, buying, and trading is widened even more. Casual gamers suffer that HARDEST in this little shindig Wizards has going.
The bottom line: Wizards is alienating it's customer base and further widening the gap between competitive players and casual players. They are making the game more and more unfriendly to noobies with each passing set. Good job Wizards, good job.
Your whole "story" leaves out two very, very important points: one, the drastic reduction in price of regular-rares that would have to accompany drastically high prices for mythic rares, and two, the ability of individuals (not just "big corporations") to easily resell cards at a price discount on eBay or other online marketplaces and undercut anyone who tries to jack up prices too high on individual singles.
The only way that this change can be as single-handedly in favor of resellers as some people are making it out to be is if most of the mythics are heavily tournament playable in many different decks but few of the rares are -- which is exactly the opposite of R&D's stated intent with the mythic rarity.
Oh will you people PLEASE stop the incessent *****ing, it's like listening to a broken record. We have NO CLUE as to what all will apply as Mythic outside of Planeswalkers, and to go so far as to claim it "alienates" casual gamers is a major stretch. We know that base utility cards will NOT be Mythic, and to portray Wizards as the "evil railroad men" just because they offer change is just plain ignorant. If that person who has 4x goyf or seizes is using them for casual, you simple ask them NOT TO USE THEM. If they refuse then they aren't playing the game for fun like many casual people do but to exercize some deep rooted control issues to satisfy their sadistic selfs (as I suspect the people who don't actually play competively well will probably do).
Whether or not we like the changes is not important. The changes ARE gonna happen and ther isn't any amount of whining, *****ing or pickiting that will change it.
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Lets Recap -
People are complaining and making many assumptions about something that we don't know all the specifics of yet. (What the mythics in ALA are...for example, and how it really turns out once the set is released.)
See my signature for possibly the best post on the thread.
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R Citizen Cane (Feldon of the Third Path)
No, we don't. Furthermore, there's not even consensus as to what constitutes a "base utility card".
Although I suppose that provides a loophole that ensures that base utility cards won't be printed at mythic rare- Wizards will simply alter the definition of "base utility card" as the situation demands ;).
Base utility card (bays-yu-til-it-ee-kard), n: A nonmythic card that appears in a majority of decks capable of playing it, notable more for its versatility than its power.
Seriously, see my previous posts if you believe that Wizards won't exploit mythic rarity's obscene money-making potential.
"That mouse promised it would guard my cheese."
Replies:
"Mythic rarity doesn't make another 'Goyf priced card inevitable any more than printing more cards makes another 'Goyf inevitable." -UrzasSedatives
"Seriously, $80 cards? There's no conceivable way. If even one mythic card hit that price point, everyone and their mother would start buying boxes of Alara to "flip" him." -Charlequin
Being listened to would've beat saying I TOLD YOU SO 3 years later.
Yes, but this very obvious point is stated in such a way as to imply that WotC if trying to be an evil, money-grabbing corporation bent on destroying our wallets. In addition to this not making business sense for them (since it is better to keep all of us as happy as possible for as long as possible), it is such an obvious point (they did something to be a more successful company), its like saying that printing a new block starting this fall is a scheme to make them more money.
The math doesn't support this. Forget about core sets for a moment. The chances of pulling a Mythic rare is truly not that much harder than it was to pull any individual rare from sets that didn't have a reduced rare count (like from Odyssey and before).
"claiming to be" and "see how long this lasts". Again with the nefarious scheming. Wouldn't it completely defeat the purpose of how they described Mythic cards to put something as simplistic as Thoughtseize up there? This point, in its most basic form, mentions nothing about tournament caliber cards, just that you don't believe they'll stick with "epic" kinds of cards. This is almost like saying that they might print incredibly complex cards at anything below rare despite years of not having done so since they said they wouldn't.
Agreed. I wouldn't be surprised if any of those were printed as Mythic cards.
Wow. That's just wow. Perhaps you've never noticed, but you can pull really crappy rares from a pack right now. In fact, until they decrease the number of cards in a set, you have a better chance of pulling crappy cards that you will then.
This method also helps casual players who don't know the set lists, don't buy singles, and feel good about themselves when they crack open a Mythic rare.
Thoughtseize and Goyf would be cheaper and easier to get under the proposed number of rares in a set. When (not if) Mythic rares find their way into tournament decks, there will only be 15 or so in any given set, so the chances of deck needing more than one or two of them is quite small. So sure, you might have to buy them as singles, but they simply won't be getting up to Goyf prices.
Remember, goyf is more expensive than any other type 2 / standard card has ever been in the history of magic. That makes it a poor choice of comparison for future prices.
Actually, the gap between casual and competitive players is already huge and this isn't likely to make it bigger. You should have argued that it was widening the gap between really competitive players and not really dedicated competitive players. Perhaps you have an incorrect view of what noobies want from a game (and I speak as a former casual player).
Yes you're right, I think my view of casual gamers is a bit misconstrued. I think we are indeed talking about "less dedicated competitive players."
Also, Goyf and Seize will definitely be cheaper under the proposed system but that's not the point here. The point is Mythic rares will most likely see ridiculous price spikes not just because of the mathematical disadvantage of trying to pull one but the PSYCHOLOGICAL factor of "Mythic Rare." The dust will likely settle after a few sets, but most likely prices will be sky high at first.
Most likely scenario: Cheaper utility rares means we don't have to spend tons of cash for the base of the deck leaving more money available to pay for outrageous mythics.
For example: Say your deck needed a 120$ mana base + 80$ worth of utility (cryptic, etc.) If prices drop say...33% that gives us a 132$ deck as opposed to 200$. Now say that we need card X a 25$ rare (40-60$ as mythic rare), instead of 100$ a playset it's 160-240$ a playset. So that 68$ we saved on cheaper utility rares can be used to pay for the 60-140$ price hike due to mythic rare status.
I guess that's not THAT bad.
Rosewater's article defines it pretty clearly. Which part of the definition do you think doesn't have consensus?
Wizards doesn't make money from the secondary market. Creating cards which sell for high prices as singles only makes money for Wizards if it doesn't drive other people away from playing the game and buying packs, which is exactly why they can't just make powerful cards rarer and rarer with impunity and see guaranteed profits from that.
I feel like people proposing this scenario are consistently downplaying the effects of an essentially free market on Magic singles due to the Internet. It's in the interest of Starcitygames and other big dealers to jack up prices -- they know that they'll sell a certain amount of cards to people who don't do their research and just buy from a site whose name they recognize. But it's in the interest of smaller dealers -- of which there are tons -- to undercut those big stores and hit lower points on the supply/demand curve. If the actual low supply of a card justifies a $25 price point for it and most dealers are selling it at $50 because of the "psychological boost," eBayers are going to make a killing selling them at $30.
Minus the word "outrageous," I pretty much agree that this is what will happen. And in general, I think this is a far better situation for low-end competitive players (people who participate in Standard FNM, etc.): if one or two mythics are the expensive part of a format, many players will be able to adapt around them with rogue decks or simply alternate builds, while an expensive mana base creates a huge divide between almost all decks run by players who can afford it vs. those who can't.
Oh, aside from a minority of people, I think everyone can pretty much agree on a definition of "utility card" that would cover 80-90% of all cases.
The second part of your definition is not correct. Utility has nothing to do with power or versatility, it has to do with the simplicity of the effect generated by the card. For example, Thoughtseize is a very powerful card, but it is a very simple effect, so it is considered a utility card. Volcanic Island is a very powerful dual land, but it is definitely a utility card.
Kind of like how prices spike around the pre-release and when a set is first released, including on cards that time show are not that good in the environment as it develops. Ok, I can see this being true. Most people arguing that those prices aren't sustainable would likely agree that a price spike could occur (although probably not to truly astronomical prices) even if it is just for a short time. I know I'm willing to concede that.
Agreed (well within reason, I really don't expect 40$ Mythic rares, but I could be wrong about that, at least in the short term after a set is released, which always seem to occur right before I need a card).
And if it makes more casual play this game instead of another TCG, I'm all for it cause it means MtG gets to be around longer.
A 40 dollar mythic rare would constitute a 'must have 4 of' that goes in 'many decks'.
Shadowmoor has many cards that are most playable as 4-ofs, but only good in certain decks. Ergo, the prices of the set are relatively flat, with no Bitterblossoms or Mutavaults about.
If the mythics include a cycle of 5 allied-gold planeswalkers (or more), these cards are only good in certain decks, which will, presumably (as I have said before) keep their prices down.
People are getting an entirely skewed view of card economics from Tarmogoyf, which is a literal freak of nature when it comes to singles prices.
Speculating isn't going to help, I think we should put that energy into Eventide instead, and let this all simmer before people jump to too many conclusions and declare the sky is falling (again).
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Well, first off, not all legends have to be mythic.
Second, I'd say 15-20CAN, about as much as a RAV duel. It's a legendary land, so you wouldn't want to play it as a 4 of, at most 3, probably 2. Second, it only goes in decks that run both white and black.
Finally, I don't think anything like that would be printed. There'd be more or less on it, that's just a really boring card. If it had a land type then it could be 25-30
EDIT: Here's my biggest gripe with the whole thing, the way they described it in the article. They really need to realize that the people they want to attract with these changes don't read the website as much. The ones that do read the site come in two flavours:
1. People who take what they say as the word of god, they could say anything they want and it would be the best thing to happen to the game (I almost fall in this camp, I reserve judgment until I see reason)
2. People who hate everything and never believe what they say.
SO what they should have done is given the real reason for these changes. The real thought processes behind it, how much planning, testing, experimenting, different options etc they did. This would have satisfied a lot more people I think.
Yes, they do. Where do secondary market cards come from? Packs. Where do dealers buy their packs? From wizards. See thoughtseize and char and the entire kamigawa block as proof that wizards does price gouge. And it pisses off a lot of people. You can say it would be stupid for them to do this, but they have clearly done so in the past.
What bothers me the most about it is Rosewaters justification. In talking about industry standards and expectations he is saying that wizards wants magic to be more and more like some generic worthless ccg. This sets a bad precedent for what will likely be the first of many changes.
This is one of the biggest changes to magic in a long time. It's only natural for it to be the subject of a lot of discussion.
No, they don't. Wizards makes money on pack sales, which can be impacted by the secondary market but which do not actually benefit directly from high card prices.
Take a set with a single incredibly valuable card (let's say it sells for $50 apiece) amidst a sea of crappy $1 rares. Dealers aren't going to crack packs to pull out those $50 cards, because they're not easily going to pay for themselves -- the margin will be low. Instead, they'll aim to pick up cards from the market and resell them at raised rates.
What actually benefits Wizards is for packs to be worth opening. One way that can happen is to have 2-3+ cards with really high values that you can luck into; another way is just to deliver more value through having more valuable rares, or better cards overall, or the possibility of double rares.
It also involves having lots of people who play Magic, are engaged with the game, and enjoy getting new cards -- which gets into the real point of my statement. If Wizards sells more packs to dealers, but less to players who get fed up and quit, they don't necessarily make more money. This happened to a lot of games earlier in the CCG lifecycle, and it seems exceedingly unlikely to me that WotC are unaware of this possibility.
The entire Kamigawa block? The weak-cards, unfun-mechanics block that people didn't like?
Thoughtseize seems like a pretty egregious case, I'll agree, although I'm not sure that there are that many others over recent blocks. Char's a pretty bad example -- you can get them by the bucketful for $3.50 a pop over at SCG.
Anyway, part of the balance of a CCG involves having cards that people want or need to have which are rare; that's just unavoidable. Even with Thoughtseize, I think R&D has done well overall at keeping away from expensive rares that are must-haves but shouldn't have been printed at rare.
This is actually what people said about foils when they were introduced in Urza's Legacy, too: "Magic's been around for five years just fine without gimmicks like this!" At the time, I was pretty sympathetic to that argument, but at this point I think the "old and busted/new hotness" argument has a lot of merit. Mythics are going to increase the value of pack opening for more casual players.
Magic is a great game, but it's not the only great game that exists. I don't really think there's anything wrong with looking out to all the games that copied their entire premise from Magic and taking good bits and pieces from them -- creative cross-pollination will help make every game better in the long run.
I don't understand his point either, Kamigawa was just filled with a bad secondary block theme that wasn't done right (the spirit war, compared to the primary theme which was to have a Legendary block) and with cards that were far too weak to be interesting. WotC has no incentive to make a block that is uninteresting when they can make good blocks instead. Kamigawa certainly wasn't any cheaper for WotC to make than say Ravnica or Mirrodin, it was just weaker.
I think Thoughtseize is falling victim to a trend that WotC has been trying to push the last several years with the increase of tier 2 cards and the virtual elimination of pure tier 1 power cards. When they increase the number of decks that a card can go into, they really increase its value. Even at the height of Dragonstorm, before Gigadrowse and Seething Song rotated out, the actual card Dragonstorm wasn't really that expensive because it could only go into one deck, even if it was the top deck in the format. However, Thoughtseize and Bitterblossom can go into so many decks and so many decks can be considered at least fairly competitive that their demand is really increased.
I think this is what is leading them to the trend of increasing the power of uncommons at the expense of the power of rare cards (which can still be plenty powerful). This can really be seen in cards like Tattermunge Maniac and Flame Javelin, which could easily have been justified as rare cards (ignoring the fact that the javelin is part of an uncommon cycle).
Right. Standard right now has an unprecedentedly high number of cards selling for more than $20, and it's solely a result of their broad applicability -- Mutavault, Bitterblossom, Tarmogoyf, etc. can go anywhere, and will appear in five or six of the top eight decks at a tournament despite those all being drastically different decks.
I think it'll take R&D some work to manage cards like this better, but I expect that they will (and moving out of Lorwyn block's tribal constraint on viable decks will help reduce this effect as well.)
Shadowmoor seemed to do pretty well on this, which hurts people who buy packs for singles but helps a lot for people who buy packs for trading fodder and then buy a few select rare singles they need.
Yes, they do. Indirectly, but card prices on the secondary market will certainly impact pack sales.
This is a little off topic, but kamigawa was actually pretty damn powerful. Most people don't notice because almost all of kamigawa's power cards were rare. Kokusho, jitte, extraction, gifts, etc. The average pack didn't have many playable cards because most of them were rare. It's not really relevant to this discussion, so whatever.
Char was going for close to ten while it was in standard, so it's a fine example. Both are obvious tourney cards that belong at uncommon.
I don't think this is really a valid comparison. Unlike mythics, foils really did not change that much about packs.
Again, I don't get how letting new players open the cards they want most less often will make magic a more desirable game to them. When new player opens an awesome card, he's drooling over the card, not the rarity symbol. That's why I dislike mythics. Because they're a cashgrab. Wizards is trying to make players buy more packs without having to make the sets more interesting.
I'm not going to do anything so melodramatic as quit magic, but I will be playing-and spending a lot less on this game come october. And I'm sure I'm not alone in this.