Just an exercise here...at what point would you stop buying sealed product? When the EV for the pack fell to what point? $3.00? $2.00? $1.00? Zero dollars? There are many, many here who claim to love reprints of expensive cards (anything over $20 seems to be bemoaned). Absent the odd outliers, every time WotC reprints a card it's value goes down. Assuming WotC keeps printing modern masters and commander decks and duel decks with reprints eventually all those cards drop to near worthless value. I surmise that most people will not buy boosters when the cards within the packs are at that point. Sure, standard will always help buoy short term prices, but as long as reprints keep happening this is inevitable. How many more time do the fetch lands, for example, have to be reprinted before they become worthless? Once that happens, putting them in a set is no longer a way for WotC to boost sales. Moreover, many people buy extra booster boxes to hold for spec. Reprinting the cards in a particular older set greatly reduces the value of sealed product. When that keeps happening people stop buying extra boxes for spec and sales continue to decline. The more reprints WotC do, the more they water down the value of what we are paying for in a sealed product.
Instead, let's assume WotC never reprinted a card... Many would now argue that they will never be able to afford that polluted delta that was $100 (or whatever it costs) because they weren't playing then. But, if they are buying packs of the new set, they are also obtaining cards that also will never be reprinted again, and, hence, likely to have value - value that can be traded for that polluted delta they just have to have. So many standard playable, obtainable cards hit $20 or more. One only needs to trade with those for what one wants. For example, Lets say that same person played during RAvnica. He cracked a few doubling seasons or a foil chord of calling: there's his polluted delta right there. It's almost like polluted delta were in packs of Ravnica.
While WotC will never stop reprinting cards (way too many entitled whiners), there should be a happy medium because at some point reprints will cause the death of the game once the value of cards is low enough that people won't buy packs. The answer, as I've been saying to my friends for years, is the expeditions (not that I called them such, mind you). Now, if someone opens an expedition card they can trade it for almost any modern or legacy staple they want. New players have the chance to get whatever their hearts desire out of current packs. WotC could have been doing this all along. They have a very good idea of what will be playable in eternal formats out of each set. They could do alternate art, foil, textless, etc of these cards in every set at ultra rare to ensure that collectors have something and that everyone has a chance of opening a JtMS (trade for for it, duh) in any given pack. No need to endlessly reprint stuff making it all eventually worthless. The more WotC grows the value of its cards, the more people can still get what they want and the more packs they will buy. Mass, large scale reprints of valuable cards are bad for the long term health of this game.
Even reprinting not so valuable stuff is too. Take Felidar Sovereign as an example. It was $10 before. Now, it's essentially bulk and worthless. The EV of old zendikar boosters just went down some as a result. The more WotC reprints, the more this is true. Why would I buy extra boxes if I am sure this will continue to happen over the coming years? And let's all agree - WotC does want people buying extra boxes. And really? Felidar sovereign? You can't just come up with a different new mythic?
Play in tournaments -> Win Store Credit/Packs -> ???? -> Profit
I don't like investing money into things and when I open the pack it's cards I don't want. If it's valuable and I don't want it I now have to go to the effort to trade for what I wanted. If it's not valuable and not what I wanted then I wasted money. If I bought what I wanted then I got what I wanted and the issue is moot.
I just don't see myself every buying packs. Sealed commander is awesome since you know exactly what you're getting.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Current Decks:
Modern
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Legacy
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
every time WotC reprints a card it's value goes down.
Thats completely not true. Tarmogoyf has gone up each time it's been reprinted.
What are you, like 12? Way to ignore the first part of that sentence and quote only what fit your witty retort. Give yourself a big pat on the back for your useful, well-reasoned post.
I haven't bought a pack in years, its always gonna be better to buy singles than to play the lottery. Also, dear OP, please do keep in mind that magic is growing in popularity, and that the number of cards DOES decrease over time through damage and wear. The other thing to keep in mind is that WoTC has entered a drastic downswing in power level recently. You can at least trade into modern with Origins/Khans. Can you see any cards in BFZ having any real value? I sure cant.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy
Death and Taxes Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
I haven't bought a pack in years, its always gonna be better to buy singles than to play the lottery. Also, dear OP, please do keep in mind that magic is growing in popularity, and that the number of cards DOES decrease over time through damage and wear. The other thing to keep in mind is that WoTC has entered a drastic downswing in power level recently. You can at least trade into modern with Origins/Khans. Can you see any cards in BFZ having any real value? I sure cant.
Those are good points. There are folks who don't buy packs. But, it is axiomatic that if no one buys packs the game will stop being printed. Given the "age of sleeves" I'm not sure how many cards are lost due to being destroyed, but that is a consideration. Doing what I suggested above, putting very small amounts of cards back into circulation, does stem the tide somewhat. And no, it does look like BfZ cards are largely a big swing and miss for any long term playability and long term value, foil rare commander worthy cards aside.
I would purchase the packs regardless of value simply because I enjoy the thrill of opening packs. As a non-Magic example I purchased about 100 cases of sealed Star Trek cards a few years back when Decipher was clearing it all out. I literally opened so many packs that my fingers went numb and started to bleed. Some individual booster boxes of ST were selling around $6 (Premier - the first set), but others were upwards of $90 (Motion Pictures - the last set). The cards were then and are still now practically worthless, though some have actually ticked up a bit.
I've also purchased many boxes of Battletech and Overpower. The former is actually somewhat sought after now and relatively expensive, but the latter is mostly garbage. And, if you want completely useless, I purchased a couple booster and starter boxes of Towers in Time. No one played that game when it was new, let alone now. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who even knows that game exists, and harder so to find one willing to pay money for it.
Wizards reprints cards, therefore every card will be reprinted in unlimited quantity given enough time;
Cards that are reprinted (usually) drop in value;
Therefore, with enough future reprints the expected future value of every card is zero;
Therefore, the current value of every card (from the perspective of a collector with an eye toward future value) is zero.
This logic exaggerates the expected pace and timescale of reprints and ignores the factors that drive demand, namely the level of popularity of the game, the rate at which the playerbase has grown since the last time the card was in print, and the metagame making certain cards more or less useful. It's entirely possible to reprint cards on a regular basis at a rate that doesn't completely tank the price of those cards given those circumstances. This is pretty much exactly what they're trying to do with the Modern Masters product for one. And I guarantee you that if something happened to make players leave Magic in droves, or if they printed a creature that was the same as Felidar Sovereign but cost 1 less mana and made you win for having 30 life, either of those would tank the value of your Sovereign a lot more than a reprint would.
To answer the title question, I'm in the same camp as JPo. I do buy packs on occasion, largely for the bit of entertainment that comes from seeing what's in them, but the average expected value of the cards in them makes very little difference to my purchasing decision because I generally don't want to bother with organizing and selling/trading the ones I don't want to use. I'm more influenced by "will the cards be cool" than "will the cards be worth the money I put in."
I would purchase the packs regardless of value simply because I enjoy the thrill of opening packs. As a non-Magic example I purchased about 100 cases of sealed Star Trek cards a few years back when Decipher was clearing it all out. I literally opened so many packs that my fingers went numb and started to bleed. Some individual booster boxes of ST were selling around $6 (Premier - the first set), but others were upwards of $90 (Motion Pictures - the last set). The cards were then and are still now practically worthless, though some have actually ticked up a bit.
I too did pretty much this for a while. An online wholesaler was (and still is) selling old boxes of this, and I'd buy them to try to get mint-condition cards to finish my collection (which I did, I now have a complete set of every card from every set of STCCG). Opening packs is just fun to do. The surprise you get with every pack is a bit of a thrill, and when you do that 36 times in a row, it ends up being a lot of fun, even with the $6 Premiere boxes.
You know what kills the value of cards more then reprints? Not having people to play with. If formats get too inaccessible due to staples being too hard to get, people won't play. People don't play, and the format dies.
Lands especially should be cheap and easy to acqure.
But as to your original question, I don't think of EV when buying sealed product. I get it because it's fun to collect. As I've siad before, Magic is not an investment. It's a game. I've played and spend thousands on many other card games (Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings mainly.) I regret none of it. Why? Because I have a 4 year old and a 5 month old. When they get older, there's going to be lots of fun games. I don't buy cards looking to sell them to make a profit, or even get my money back later on.
I've had some financial ups and dons, and it was nice being able to liquidate some of my magic cards. But that's not why I buy them. If it was, I'd play the stock market instead.
When I was playing standard regularly, I get 2-3 boxes of each set. The EV doesn't enter in. The only why it might, is if I could buy complete sets for cheaper then boxes AND get them in 1-2 weeks of the set being out. That's not a thing.
Why yes, I would buy booster packs if the cards inside weren't worth anything. In fact I would also buy singles to round out my collection so I can enjoy the game more. The only people ever hurt by reprints is those who try to make a profit out of this game via rare and hard to come by cards. It doesn't become less special if such a card like Library of Alexandria got reprinted tomorrow. The only ones who would ever view it as such, are the same as those see reprints as a thing that makes their merchandise go down in price. What is honestly astonishing though is how a simple little fact is often true: People WILL pay the big bucks for an older version of a card for that sense of uniqueness. The only time it really would ever cut into someones profits and make those cards worth a penny is if they overly-reprinted. You know what hurts a game more than reprints though? No reprints. That rare and expensive card that is worth more than your apartment bill? Its accidentally destroyed, damaged and/or lost. So you got to go proxy-up (AKA: fake one) to replace it. Speaking of proxies, the stigmata behind them is frankly scarab waste. I would rather go proxy up an entire Vintage decklist than spend a single penny on obtaining them for the exorbitant prices that many of the cards have.
I would purchase the packs regardless of value simply because I enjoy the thrill of opening packs. As a non-Magic example I purchased about 100 cases of sealed Star Trek cards a few years back when Decipher was clearing it all out. I literally opened so many packs that my fingers went numb and started to bleed. Some individual booster boxes of ST were selling around $6 (Premier - the first set), but others were upwards of $90 (Motion Pictures - the last set). The cards were then and are still now practically worthless, though some have actually ticked up a bit.
I've also purchased many boxes of Battletech and Overpower. The former is actually somewhat sought after now and relatively expensive, but the latter is mostly garbage. And, if you want completely useless, I purchased a couple booster and starter boxes of Towers in Time. No one played that game when it was new, let alone now. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who even knows that game exists, and harder so to find one willing to pay money for it.
Similar experience here, enjoyed cracking many $1 World of Warcraft packs during the last year when the TCG was in print. Cracking packs is fun, and there will always be people like you and me who enjoyed doing so "just because."
True enough, singles are much better for playing decks than hoping for good pulls, and smart players can go the profit route.
I don't buy packs, but you're making a lot of assumptions that simply don't work at all in logic.
There is a finite amount of any card in the market. Reprints increase that amount, but compared to the amount of players that want certain cards, certain cards will always be valued higher. Especially considering for every 1 Polluted Delta that gets opened, 3 or 4 are needed for a Modern deck, let alone Standard or Legacy.
Supply will never meet demand, and that's where value comes from.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Level 1 Judge
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
I don't buy packs now, but I do play a lot of limited and would pay to continue doing that. The cards having literally zero value would change how much I was willing to pay to draft/sealed, as I do think the prices they currently charge would be too high if the EV was zero no matter how well you did.
its why i don't buy packs any more as it is. when i have to open certain mythics (and not any mythic) to recoup the cost of a pack because every other card won't even come close... whats the point?
You do realize card values are fluid? I can never understand why people who complain about reprints don't understand that. You all look too short term. You make it sound like card values can only go down, and the inevitability is they will all eventually reach zero because of reprints. Card prices do go back up with time. Look at all the cards in Modern Masters that weren't reprinted in Modern Masters 2. A good majority of them have gone right back up to the value they were at before they got reprinted. Reprints will cause your cards to devalue initially, yes, but as long as they retain playability, they will always inevitably rise again.
Instead, let's assume WotC never reprinted a card... Many would now argue that they will never be able to afford that polluted delta that was $100 (or whatever it costs) because they weren't playing then. But, if they are buying packs of the new set, they are also obtaining cards that also will never be reprinted again, and, hence, likely to have value - value that can be traded for that polluted delta they just have to have. So many standard playable, obtainable cards hit $20 or more. One only needs to trade with those for what one wants. For example, Lets say that same person played during RAvnica. He cracked a few doubling seasons or a foil chord of calling: there's his polluted delta right there. It's almost like polluted delta were in packs of Ravnica.
While WotC will never stop reprinting cards (way too many entitled whiners), there should be a happy medium because at some point reprints will cause the death of the game once the value of cards is low enough that people won't buy packs. The answer, as I've been saying to my friends for years, is the expeditions (not that I called them such, mind you). Now, if someone opens an expedition card they can trade it for almost any modern or legacy staple they want. New players have the chance to get whatever their hearts desire out of current packs. WotC could have been doing this all along. They have a very good idea of what will be playable in eternal formats out of each set. They could do alternate art, foil, textless, etc of these cards in every set at ultra rare to ensure that collectors have something and that everyone has a chance of opening a JtMS (trade for for it, duh) in any given pack. No need to endlessly reprint stuff making it all eventually worthless. The more WotC grows the value of its cards, the more people can still get what they want and the more packs they will buy. Mass, large scale reprints of valuable cards are bad for the long term health of this game.
Even reprinting not so valuable stuff is too. Take Felidar Sovereign as an example. It was $10 before. Now, it's essentially bulk and worthless. The EV of old zendikar boosters just went down some as a result. The more WotC reprints, the more this is true. Why would I buy extra boxes if I am sure this will continue to happen over the coming years? And let's all agree - WotC does want people buying extra boxes. And really? Felidar sovereign? You can't just come up with a different new mythic?
Thats completely not true. Tarmogoyf has gone up each time it's been reprinted.
Play in tournaments -> Win Store Credit/Packs -> ???? -> Profit
I don't like investing money into things and when I open the pack it's cards I don't want. If it's valuable and I don't want it I now have to go to the effort to trade for what I wanted. If it's not valuable and not what I wanted then I wasted money. If I bought what I wanted then I got what I wanted and the issue is moot.
I just don't see myself every buying packs. Sealed commander is awesome since you know exactly what you're getting.
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
What are you, like 12? Way to ignore the first part of that sentence and quote only what fit your witty retort. Give yourself a big pat on the back for your useful, well-reasoned post.
Death and Taxes
Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron
Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
Those are good points. There are folks who don't buy packs. But, it is axiomatic that if no one buys packs the game will stop being printed. Given the "age of sleeves" I'm not sure how many cards are lost due to being destroyed, but that is a consideration. Doing what I suggested above, putting very small amounts of cards back into circulation, does stem the tide somewhat. And no, it does look like BfZ cards are largely a big swing and miss for any long term playability and long term value, foil rare commander worthy cards aside.
I've also purchased many boxes of Battletech and Overpower. The former is actually somewhat sought after now and relatively expensive, but the latter is mostly garbage. And, if you want completely useless, I purchased a couple booster and starter boxes of Towers in Time. No one played that game when it was new, let alone now. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who even knows that game exists, and harder so to find one willing to pay money for it.
Wizards reprints cards, therefore every card will be reprinted in unlimited quantity given enough time;
Cards that are reprinted (usually) drop in value;
Therefore, with enough future reprints the expected future value of every card is zero;
Therefore, the current value of every card (from the perspective of a collector with an eye toward future value) is zero.
This logic exaggerates the expected pace and timescale of reprints and ignores the factors that drive demand, namely the level of popularity of the game, the rate at which the playerbase has grown since the last time the card was in print, and the metagame making certain cards more or less useful. It's entirely possible to reprint cards on a regular basis at a rate that doesn't completely tank the price of those cards given those circumstances. This is pretty much exactly what they're trying to do with the Modern Masters product for one. And I guarantee you that if something happened to make players leave Magic in droves, or if they printed a creature that was the same as Felidar Sovereign but cost 1 less mana and made you win for having 30 life, either of those would tank the value of your Sovereign a lot more than a reprint would.
To answer the title question, I'm in the same camp as JPo. I do buy packs on occasion, largely for the bit of entertainment that comes from seeing what's in them, but the average expected value of the cards in them makes very little difference to my purchasing decision because I generally don't want to bother with organizing and selling/trading the ones I don't want to use. I'm more influenced by "will the cards be cool" than "will the cards be worth the money I put in."
I too did pretty much this for a while. An online wholesaler was (and still is) selling old boxes of this, and I'd buy them to try to get mint-condition cards to finish my collection (which I did, I now have a complete set of every card from every set of STCCG). Opening packs is just fun to do. The surprise you get with every pack is a bit of a thrill, and when you do that 36 times in a row, it ends up being a lot of fun, even with the $6 Premiere boxes.
Signature courtesy of Rivenor and Miraculous Recovery
EDH Altered Cards by Galspanic (Seriously, this guy's awesome.)
My Pauper Cube
Tapped-Out Simulator
My Trade Thread
-Decks-
Commander:
GWR Rith, the Awakener RWG
U Kami of the Crescent Moon U (Flagship Deck)
BW Teysa, Orzhov Scion WB
Under Construction:
UBR Crosis, the Purger RBU
Cube:
WUBRGX Pauper XGRBUW
Lands especially should be cheap and easy to acqure.
But as to your original question, I don't think of EV when buying sealed product. I get it because it's fun to collect. As I've siad before, Magic is not an investment. It's a game. I've played and spend thousands on many other card games (Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings mainly.) I regret none of it. Why? Because I have a 4 year old and a 5 month old. When they get older, there's going to be lots of fun games. I don't buy cards looking to sell them to make a profit, or even get my money back later on.
I've had some financial ups and dons, and it was nice being able to liquidate some of my magic cards. But that's not why I buy them. If it was, I'd play the stock market instead.
When I was playing standard regularly, I get 2-3 boxes of each set. The EV doesn't enter in. The only why it might, is if I could buy complete sets for cheaper then boxes AND get them in 1-2 weeks of the set being out. That's not a thing.
Does that count?
And no, if the set has nothing noteworthy or that I want and is expensive, I will never buy packs.
RETIRED - GAME SUCKS
Modern:
UUUMerfolksUUU
RGoblinsR
Ad Nauseam
BR 8 Racks RB
WUB Mill BUW
Legacy:
XOps! All splels! X
What I think of MaRo
Well now. Enemy colour fetches have never been reprinted. And no, Expeditions do not count. They're laughable... at best.
So, you were saying...?
Wrong analogy. Its not that nothing exists. Its that the contents inside are worth nothing.
RETIRED - GAME SUCKS
Modern:
UUUMerfolksUUU
RGoblinsR
Ad Nauseam
BR 8 Racks RB
WUB Mill BUW
Legacy:
XOps! All splels! X
What I think of MaRo
Similar experience here, enjoyed cracking many $1 World of Warcraft packs during the last year when the TCG was in print. Cracking packs is fun, and there will always be people like you and me who enjoyed doing so "just because."
True enough, singles are much better for playing decks than hoping for good pulls, and smart players can go the profit route.
http://mtgadventures.blogspot.com/
Please check out my youtube channel at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/rubiera22/videos?flow=grid&view=0
There is a finite amount of any card in the market. Reprints increase that amount, but compared to the amount of players that want certain cards, certain cards will always be valued higher. Especially considering for every 1 Polluted Delta that gets opened, 3 or 4 are needed for a Modern deck, let alone Standard or Legacy.
Supply will never meet demand, and that's where value comes from.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
I get the point of the argument, but I'm just not sure it can hold any water.
Commander
U Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
RG Zilortha, Strength Incarnate
WB Amalia Benavides Aguirre
I love to open a fresh pack and see what gem is in there. Sometimes I win sometimes I lose, but every time its fun.