Someone said in another thread that this hobby are becomming for "rich people" and its very expensive for a normal student/worker, some decks cost like a paycheck and lots of people cant afford it ... are we paying too much for simple cardboard?
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Modern: RW R/W Burn WB B/W TokensXU MonuU Tron // UWX UW Tron R GoblinsW Soul SistersRWG Small ZooWUR WUR Geist/Control/Kiki-Resto Combo/NahiriUR Splinter Twin (90% Japanese)/ Grixis TwinRUB UR Delver / Grixis Delver UR Blue MoonBWU Ad NauseamWDeath and TaxesRUB Grixis ControlUMerfolksX Affinity RGB Living End UR Storm/PiF Combo RGX R/G TRON GWU Bant Eldrazi BW Eldrazi and Taxes RUBGoryos Vengeance UB Faeries Legacy:BRx Renimator Playing right now:Standard: Jeskai Control Modern; GoryosVengeance/UBFaeries/Affinity Legacy: BRx Reanimator Pauper: UR Drake (banned) Commander: Merieke Ri Berit Esper
Sorry, small, somewhat unrelated, rant but it really bugs me when people compare magic cards to cardboard when talking about their cost. I get that cardboard is cheap but Magic is a game. When you buy booster packs you aren't just paying for paper it's printed on, you're also paying for all the time and people who went into making the artwork, designing and developing the set, and all the testing required to make it an enjoyable game. I've never seen anyone complain about the price of software because "it's just a plastic disk" so I don't understand why people do this for Magic cards.
Magic has been expensive for a while now. All hobbies cost money, and if all MTG is to you is a hobby, then it shouldn't be too expensive. Just buy a few packs, chill with the fellas and have some fun. If you're looking to get into competitive play, then yes, it will be expensive. That's just the way hobbies are.
In my case, I set an annual budget for Mtg.
If the cost increases, it only means I will buy less stuff. But I do not have a specified time frame to buy a deck unlike Standard players.
I do notice the speculations (price spikes) / price memory being an annoyance but it seldom affects my purchases.
Do I wish Mtg to be more affordable? Yes.
$50 - $100 cards are starting to be a thing and thats expensive in my context. $25 - $30 cards are what my range is.
Not necessarily, tbh. If you're looking to get into pro tours then yes, and at that point it's more than just a hobby to you. But otherwise, no, not at all. Casual Magic isn't expensive. Buying a couple Intro Packs or a Duel Deck to play around with buddies isn't going to run your pockets and you can still have fun with kitchen table play(hell, a lot of peiple believe the kitchen table is where the most fun in magic is had).
Now, do you still want a competitive environment that isn't going to make your wallet cry? You can do what I'm doing now for the very same reason and look into pauper, the format where you can build a very fun, and very competitive deck for the cost of single cards that are standard staples. I'm talking $20-30 for top tier stuff. So no, as long as you play your cards right Magic is not expensive at all and could even be enjoyed on the budget of a lowly college student peasant such as myself.
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-Chandra Nalaar
As long as we aren't Warhammer we are fine. Compared to others it's actually pretty low cost.
Indeed while speculators have some effect on the market the main reason cards fluctuate in price and are more valuable overall is simple supply and demand. We are also in a very expensive standard due to cards like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and decks running 12+ fetch lands.
Eventually standard will get cheaper once Khans rotates out and probably cheaper still once Magic Origins rotates out. Remember kids if no one was buying cards from <insert card shop name here> at the prices they use they would probably start reducing prices.The fact of the matter is this game is basically the best CCG and therefore people play it and value the cards in it, thus why things cost a good chunk of cash.
Compared to some hobbies, Magic is downright cheap. Yaht racing, for example, is something I would consider a "very expensive" hobby.
Obviously you did not read the OP.
Let me highlight for you: 'this hobby are becomming for "rich people" and its very expensive for a normal student/worker, some decks cost like a paycheck and lots of people cant afford it'
And yet you are comparing to an outliner hobby, eg. yacht racing. Why not have space exploration as a hobby while you are at it?
What is the point of comparing things which are so far apart?
PS: I don't wish to argue cos I surrender to your logic.
Compared to some hobbies, Magic is downright cheap. Yaht racing, for example, is something I would consider a "very expensive" hobby.
Obviously you did not read the OP.
Let me highlight for you: 'this hobby are becomming for "rich people" and its very expensive for a normal student/worker, some decks cost like a paycheck and lots of people cant afford it'
And yet you are comparing to an outliner hobby, eg. yacht racing. Why not have space exploration as a hobby while you are at it?
Obviously you didn't read my post. Please define "very expensive". Please define "rich people". Please define "normal student/worker". These are pretty relative terms. I can say "rich people" is anyone who makes more money than me, but the average salary in my field is pretty high compared to many others. None of these phrases are useful unless we give them specific definitions.
I mean, Magic does seem more expensive to me than when I started.
I began around Time Spiral, if that tells you anything, and I played Pickles and Reveillark combo until Lorwyn/Morningtide, and then after that switched to Faeries. Bitterblossoms, Mutavaults, etc., were around $20 (which I thought expensive then. Though, on the other side of the spectrum, Garruk Wildspeaker was $20-25 too, and Tarmogoyf was nowhere near $150-200). Hell, I built my Extended deck, which was Confinement-Assault-Loam, for around the same price as a Standard deck today, and that ran 4 Stomping Ground, 4 Sacred Foundry, 4 Wooded Foothills and some number of Windswept Heath (which, before the reprints, I've had people call me a liar). I purchased an Underground Sea for $30, and traded for 3 at $50 to begin my first Legacy deck. When Sensei's Divining Top was banned and I basically switched my Extended deck to Legacy, I managed to deck 3 Plateaus for $16/each which began me picking up more duals for other deck ideas. Tundras for less than $30 each, etc.,
Honestly, it seems like the number of Magic players who want cards keeps increasing above and beyond the supply of cards that comes out. Let alone the fact that the secondary market prices for Magic cards is a lot higher now than it used to be 7-8 years ago when I started due to inflation. Also, Modern is totally a thing, and it more popular than Extended ever was, prompting more people to (seemingly) pay out the nose for really expensive cards. The Ensnaring Bridges and Azusas I bought for $1-2 a piece back then are $40~ today, and I could say the same for a whole bunch of really random cards I've obtained over the years (I got a Mana Crypt for $20 when I just started. That sort of thing. Wish I had the foresight to pick up those $50 Karakas or $80 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale), but those kind of things just happen. Modern is becoming more comparable in price to Legacy by the month as more and more players make it a larger format around a shrinking supply of cards.
As long as we aren't Warhammer we are fine. Compared to others it's actually pretty low cost.
I'm pretty sure that Warhammer is less pricy than modern and legacy. Gee Dubs may be pure evil, but at least they don't make you buy booster packs of random minis. This sets a hard cap on the maximum price.
To be fair, most cards are 25-30$ or even less while they are in standard. Get them then, and you have nothing to worry about. But if you just want to build the flavor-of-the-month-deck, yes, then you will have to get the expensive cards that just spiked.
While that is true, i do not usually buy Standard cards which i feel are being overpriced by the usual suspects.
I wait till they rotate in order to save more.
actually compared to others it isnt low cost at all. Playing living card games or board games is much much cheaper. i love magic i got over 50 edh decks but iv stopped playing for over a year now
the random booster packs(which i havent bought for years) and the singles really kill the game for me , sure you can build a deck for 50$ but you could buy a board game for that much or make 3 decks in netrunner or smth
edit : i remember going to a zendikar standard tournament playing my super fun Elfdrazi genesis deck, going pretty well till i got stomped by x4 vengevine, linvalas noble hierarchs and stuff
edit2: Horde, edh(budget),and other variants are pretty cheap ways to play magic.
Price of stuff that is simply not available easily will go up, if someone wants it.
Especially cards that have no play value but just collectors value will be bound to the fact if collectors actually want that card or not.
Cards that have a play value will go up depending on that, as much more people want that card.
A combination of both will lead to the most extreme prices.
But in the end, its all your decision what you want to pay. If something is to expensive, dont buy it.
If you are all on your own, magic is expensive. If you drive to events and grind bigger tournaments, Magic is expensive for many reasons, not just the cards.
So its quite important to build up a community around yourself. Get friends, get people that want to play in the same way you want. That makes the game much cheaper for you aswell.
If you need to build a deck, theres friends and people around you that can help you get the cards, so you dont have to buy them all. If you are used to playing Drafts in FNM or regularly, you will get enough cards in time to build some decks. Sure you still need some cards, and you will need to buy them, but thats all much less costly if you are commited to the game within a group, you can also trade away the cards in a group much easier. Maybe someone in your group is big in selling cards, so that person can do that job for the group, someone else might have a car and drive people around, sharing the costs by 4-5 people is a lot easier to work with.
That said, Magic is expensive if you are on your own, playing Solo and doing everything will not be cheap.
In a group its a very enjoyable game and its totally viable for any student with minimal effort to play the game (we are talking about ~50 bucks a month for your hobby that you spend a lot of weekends with, so thats not expensive at all).
It's very expensive if you try to be competitive at the major sanctioned formats.
If you're just dinking around with your buddies in formatless casual or chipping in for a cube or going into a restricted format like pauper or casual EDH, it's not bad.
But if you think you need the same decks that are winning Standard or Modern championships, you're going to be putting enough money in that I'd personally feel ashamed shelling out that much for a mass-printed children's game.
Magic is overpriced as ****. "other hobbies" are way cheaper. Getting a gaming PC, playing any instrument. Even simply being a "board game enthusiast". People try to say those have hidden costs but not any more than magic (let's say you're a grinder), nor any less shortcuts to a budget route. You don't need a giant SLR camera to be a photographer. When it comes down to it you're paying for cardboard authenticity and how collectible it is.
As others have pointed, it all depends on context. If you want to play casual with a group of friends, 200$ buys a decent pile of casual cards where you can build 5-8 decks and keep playing or a bit more gets you a decent budget cube that can be drafted for a long time.
If you have to have the best standard deck and all the modern decks at moments notice, yes this can be an expensive hobby. Travelling to events costs also quite a bit, if you are flying to foreign countries. But there are several ways to play this game without breaking the bank. Still this is pretty cheap hobby if one compares the amount of time you spend per dollars you spend. (your dollar buys you a lot of entertainment.)
If you compare it to many other hobbies the casual buy-in is much lower and only if you really decide to invest your time and money it becomes expensive. Many hobbies have even steeper starting cost if you take them seriously (I could easily spend 3k on a new guitar, amps and other music stuff, or get new downhill skiing gear and lift passes, spending 2k+.)
The most important thing is to find a level you can be comfortable in your hobby and recognize that it's not possible to get everything instantly. Sometimes we all need to work towards something and have goals for the future. Not everybody can or should get a Black Lotus (just an example), just because they want one. I personally used a lot of my free time to buy collections and sell cards to fund my own collection and some of my other expenses while getting my masters degree, but that was a long time ago. These days Internet and better access to information has made that much harder. (It also helped that the Beta Black Lotus I got cost me 92$...)
One of my buddies has a $2000 paintball gun, I have dropped around that much on manga, and another friend has a $2000+ EDH deck. If you are invested in any hobby it will get expensive.
I am a grad student, so money is tight, but I still play Magic. Having played for over ten years, I have a sizable enough collection to build most of any deck I feel like building. I do play exclusively EDH, so that does help, not needing to keep up with standard. I like building decks over a long period of time, obtaining cards I need as I have the spare cash to do so. I spend a couple hundred dollars on Magic each year: prereleases, singles for decks when I decided a deck needs them, supplies (sleeves add up), and packs every once in a while. I maintain a super casual Standard deck, but then again I do not do anything more than FNM.
Magic is as expensive as you make it. If you want to play super competitive Standard or Modern, then yeah you are going to be spending a sizable amount of money, but I have seen people in my income bracket spend way too much money on booze and food for one night of just sitting around.
Sorry, small, somewhat unrelated, rant but it really bugs me when people compare magic cards to cardboard when talking about their cost. I get that cardboard is cheap but Magic is a game. When you buy booster packs you aren't just paying for paper it's printed on, you're also paying for all the time and people who went into making the artwork, designing and developing the set, and all the testing required to make it an enjoyable game. I've never seen anyone complain about the price of software because "it's just a plastic disk" so I don't understand why people do this for Magic cards.
Yeah that's not even close to right, all the factors you list are covered by the 4 bucks a pack price, that's roughly 25 cents a card. Anything more than that has nothing to do with what goes into making the game
Magic has always been an expensive game, I've been playing for 15 years and as time went on magic evolved. Arcbound ravager and chrome Mox were the first 30$ cards I remember from mirrodin. All the way up to shadowmoor/evetide tarmogoyf was only a 45 dollar card. I blame the price inflation in the secondary market and star city games in particular. Back in the day when they first started the open series cards started to skyrocket like crazy. All I can remember is since private groups have been able to run huge tournaments the prices of cards have skyrocketed.
RW R/W Burn WB B/W TokensXU MonuU Tron // UWX UW Tron
R GoblinsW Soul SistersRWG Small ZooWUR WUR Geist/Control/Kiki-Resto Combo/NahiriUR Splinter Twin (90% Japanese)/ Grixis TwinRUB UR Delver / Grixis Delver UR Blue MoonBWU Ad NauseamWDeath and TaxesRUB Grixis ControlUMerfolksX Affinity RGB Living End UR Storm/PiF Combo RGX R/G TRON GWU Bant Eldrazi BW Eldrazi and Taxes RUBGoryos Vengeance UB Faeries
Legacy:BRx Renimator
Playing right now: Standard: Jeskai Control Modern; GoryosVengeance/UBFaeries/Affinity Legacy: BRx Reanimator Pauper: UR Drake (banned) Commander: Merieke Ri Berit Esper
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GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
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If the cost increases, it only means I will buy less stuff. But I do not have a specified time frame to buy a deck unlike Standard players.
I do notice the speculations (price spikes) / price memory being an annoyance but it seldom affects my purchases.
Do I wish Mtg to be more affordable? Yes.
$50 - $100 cards are starting to be a thing and thats expensive in my context. $25 - $30 cards are what my range is.
Now, do you still want a competitive environment that isn't going to make your wallet cry? You can do what I'm doing now for the very same reason and look into pauper, the format where you can build a very fun, and very competitive deck for the cost of single cards that are standard staples. I'm talking $20-30 for top tier stuff. So no, as long as you play your cards right Magic is not expensive at all and could even be enjoyed on the budget of a lowly college student peasant such as myself.
-Chandra Nalaar
Eventually standard will get cheaper once Khans rotates out and probably cheaper still once Magic Origins rotates out. Remember kids if no one was buying cards from <insert card shop name here> at the prices they use they would probably start reducing prices.The fact of the matter is this game is basically the best CCG and therefore people play it and value the cards in it, thus why things cost a good chunk of cash.
Feel free to bid on my cards here!
Compared to some hobbies, Magic is downright cheap. Yaht racing, for example, is something I would consider a "very expensive" hobby.
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Obviously you did not read the OP.
Let me highlight for you: 'this hobby are becomming for "rich people" and its very expensive for a normal student/worker, some decks cost like a paycheck and lots of people cant afford it'
And yet you are comparing to an outliner hobby, eg. yacht racing. Why not have space exploration as a hobby while you are at it?
What is the point of comparing things which are so far apart?
PS: I don't wish to argue cos I surrender to your logic.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
I began around Time Spiral, if that tells you anything, and I played Pickles and Reveillark combo until Lorwyn/Morningtide, and then after that switched to Faeries. Bitterblossoms, Mutavaults, etc., were around $20 (which I thought expensive then. Though, on the other side of the spectrum, Garruk Wildspeaker was $20-25 too, and Tarmogoyf was nowhere near $150-200). Hell, I built my Extended deck, which was Confinement-Assault-Loam, for around the same price as a Standard deck today, and that ran 4 Stomping Ground, 4 Sacred Foundry, 4 Wooded Foothills and some number of Windswept Heath (which, before the reprints, I've had people call me a liar). I purchased an Underground Sea for $30, and traded for 3 at $50 to begin my first Legacy deck. When Sensei's Divining Top was banned and I basically switched my Extended deck to Legacy, I managed to deck 3 Plateaus for $16/each which began me picking up more duals for other deck ideas. Tundras for less than $30 each, etc.,
Honestly, it seems like the number of Magic players who want cards keeps increasing above and beyond the supply of cards that comes out. Let alone the fact that the secondary market prices for Magic cards is a lot higher now than it used to be 7-8 years ago when I started due to inflation. Also, Modern is totally a thing, and it more popular than Extended ever was, prompting more people to (seemingly) pay out the nose for really expensive cards. The Ensnaring Bridges and Azusas I bought for $1-2 a piece back then are $40~ today, and I could say the same for a whole bunch of really random cards I've obtained over the years (I got a Mana Crypt for $20 when I just started. That sort of thing. Wish I had the foresight to pick up those $50 Karakas or $80 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale), but those kind of things just happen. Modern is becoming more comparable in price to Legacy by the month as more and more players make it a larger format around a shrinking supply of cards.
Sig and Avatar drawn by me.
I'm pretty sure that Warhammer is less pricy than modern and legacy. Gee Dubs may be pure evil, but at least they don't make you buy booster packs of random minis. This sets a hard cap on the maximum price.
Death and Taxes
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Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron
Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
While that is true, i do not usually buy Standard cards which i feel are being overpriced by the usual suspects.
I wait till they rotate in order to save more.
the random booster packs(which i havent bought for years) and the singles really kill the game for me , sure you can build a deck for 50$ but you could buy a board game for that much or make 3 decks in netrunner or smth
edit : i remember going to a zendikar standard tournament playing my super fun Elfdrazi genesis deck, going pretty well till i got stomped by x4 vengevine, linvalas noble hierarchs and stuff
edit2: Horde, edh(budget),and other variants are pretty cheap ways to play magic.
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Especially cards that have no play value but just collectors value will be bound to the fact if collectors actually want that card or not.
Cards that have a play value will go up depending on that, as much more people want that card.
A combination of both will lead to the most extreme prices.
But in the end, its all your decision what you want to pay. If something is to expensive, dont buy it.
If you are all on your own, magic is expensive. If you drive to events and grind bigger tournaments, Magic is expensive for many reasons, not just the cards.
So its quite important to build up a community around yourself. Get friends, get people that want to play in the same way you want. That makes the game much cheaper for you aswell.
If you need to build a deck, theres friends and people around you that can help you get the cards, so you dont have to buy them all. If you are used to playing Drafts in FNM or regularly, you will get enough cards in time to build some decks. Sure you still need some cards, and you will need to buy them, but thats all much less costly if you are commited to the game within a group, you can also trade away the cards in a group much easier. Maybe someone in your group is big in selling cards, so that person can do that job for the group, someone else might have a car and drive people around, sharing the costs by 4-5 people is a lot easier to work with.
That said, Magic is expensive if you are on your own, playing Solo and doing everything will not be cheap.
In a group its a very enjoyable game and its totally viable for any student with minimal effort to play the game (we are talking about ~50 bucks a month for your hobby that you spend a lot of weekends with, so thats not expensive at all).
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If you're just dinking around with your buddies in formatless casual or chipping in for a cube or going into a restricted format like pauper or casual EDH, it's not bad.
But if you think you need the same decks that are winning Standard or Modern championships, you're going to be putting enough money in that I'd personally feel ashamed shelling out that much for a mass-printed children's game.
it's too bad I like it so much though
Magic is unique, as it is more than just a hobby. Magic is a TCG, a CCG, a hobby and a competitive card game.
Does it suck that some cards costs $100, $500 or thousands of dollars? Yes. Magic is also seemingly endless entertainment and enjoyment.
Be glad Magic is not like Yugioh.
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WB Modern Tokens BW
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If you have to have the best standard deck and all the modern decks at moments notice, yes this can be an expensive hobby. Travelling to events costs also quite a bit, if you are flying to foreign countries. But there are several ways to play this game without breaking the bank. Still this is pretty cheap hobby if one compares the amount of time you spend per dollars you spend. (your dollar buys you a lot of entertainment.)
If you compare it to many other hobbies the casual buy-in is much lower and only if you really decide to invest your time and money it becomes expensive. Many hobbies have even steeper starting cost if you take them seriously (I could easily spend 3k on a new guitar, amps and other music stuff, or get new downhill skiing gear and lift passes, spending 2k+.)
The most important thing is to find a level you can be comfortable in your hobby and recognize that it's not possible to get everything instantly. Sometimes we all need to work towards something and have goals for the future. Not everybody can or should get a Black Lotus (just an example), just because they want one. I personally used a lot of my free time to buy collections and sell cards to fund my own collection and some of my other expenses while getting my masters degree, but that was a long time ago. These days Internet and better access to information has made that much harder. (It also helped that the Beta Black Lotus I got cost me 92$...)
Set to default
I am a grad student, so money is tight, but I still play Magic. Having played for over ten years, I have a sizable enough collection to build most of any deck I feel like building. I do play exclusively EDH, so that does help, not needing to keep up with standard. I like building decks over a long period of time, obtaining cards I need as I have the spare cash to do so. I spend a couple hundred dollars on Magic each year: prereleases, singles for decks when I decided a deck needs them, supplies (sleeves add up), and packs every once in a while. I maintain a super casual Standard deck, but then again I do not do anything more than FNM.
Magic is as expensive as you make it. If you want to play super competitive Standard or Modern, then yeah you are going to be spending a sizable amount of money, but I have seen people in my income bracket spend way too much money on booze and food for one night of just sitting around.
Yeah that's not even close to right, all the factors you list are covered by the 4 bucks a pack price, that's roughly 25 cents a card. Anything more than that has nothing to do with what goes into making the game
" enjoy a skill-intensive format where players matter more than the powerlevel of cards" that's how i feel about netrunner
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Honestly, I imagine even Pauper might go up in price if it ever becomes popular in real life.
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