Here is where you are wrong. we know the print runs for ABU. Beta for example has 2.6 Million sets. that means 2.6 (theoretical) sets of black lotus, mox's, Each duel ect.
a beta Black lotus is valued at about $14,000 US each (according to SCG one of the major retails in the MTG marketplace) This means they could be out a theoretical $36,400,000,000 Thats 36 BILLION dollars, even if 90% of the black lotus's are destrotyed that are printed thats still 3.64 BILLION dollars. and thats just for black lotus. not counting duels, mox's, and every other card thats valued at $100+. To put this in to perspective, Hasbro's entire company stock is only valued at 12 Billion. It also only just last year hit a 5 billion in net revenue. You do the math they don't have "deep enough pockets" for this type of litigation. the potental cost is too high even with the assumpion that 90% of everything they have printed is no longer in circulation.
If a promissory estoppel case were brought against Hasbro for breaking the RL and they lost (which is not a given), they would have to pay reliance damages, which would be based on the value of the card when it was placed on the RL (1996), not its current price. (For reference, Beta Black Lotus was hovering around $300 in spring of 2003.)
Granted its not a given but it IS a risk, even at that reduced rate at the number of possable printings The pay out could VERY easly technicly hit at least a bilion dollars. Keep in mind that wasn't all beta (we also have numbers for alpha/unlimited and I think even for some of the older sets like Legends???) that just just black lotus from beta. We are talking Millions of cards that technicly would be turned in. Their are alot of varrables and a good company has to assume the worst and hope for the best in these types of situations. We are still looking at dollar values that are too high to RISK playing with when sticking to the list costs them nothing AND gets them the reputation of being a company that keeps its word.
Their are 572 cards on the reserve list, even they they had to pay $1 each, based on say beta print run (and alot of cards from the reserve list were printed in later sets with MUCH higher print runs. You are still looking at a theoretical Billion dollar pay out. (and likely more since abu were printed much smaller then other reserve list sets) and thats at only $1 each.
The primary limiting factor that is keeping wizards from undoing the reserved list isn't the fear of legal allegations (They'd win the legal fight almost 100% guaranteed), but the fact they want to create a disposable, rotating card game first and foremost. That's what has been hurting them when it comes to modern and commander because the company itself doesn't know how to handle both a disposable game and the non-disposable one. Konami did the complete opposite of what Wizards did and went all out on one big format, reprinting just about all the high played cards repeatedly.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Please note. If wizards decided to reprint cards from the reserve list (Dual lands) the reprint value would be third to a half value of beta dual lands because too many players want black border [ENGLISH.....
I know the reserve list sucks but there is no way wizards is going to abolish the reserve list without devaluing the price of the old cards and/or creating a new price spike for new cards.
We just have to hope that prices settle if that happens. I point to Shivan Dragon, a card that has a HUGE price range from roughly $900 down to 14 cents.
In other words, WotC would have to go full Mel on printing RL cards of any value, otherwise your prediction will run true and a Black Lotus reprint will end up being $1300 right out of the pack. Never mind that LGS and WotC will undoubtedly make those packs the most expensive MSRP packs in WotC history.
Reminds me of those outrageously expensive single card sports packs in the 90's where every card was gold foiled, signed, numbered and certified. Are those cards still even around anymore?
I appreciate all the feedback on the idea. I will come back to it a bit later.
I wanted to post at this time that i did a little follow-up research on the RL removals from 2002. 23 cards were removed at that time, fewer than i'd thought from memory, not that that's important. 13 have been reprinted in one way or another, 10 still remain un-reprinted. Clone and Juggernaut are the only cards to see several printings in Standard since their removal, though Invisibility was reprinted in 8th ed core and in M15, and Basalt Monolith has been printed several times for Commander. Demonic Tutor and Regrowth have each only been reprinted in a single dual deck each, and Sinkhole has been reprinted only in Eternal Masters. Feroz's Ban, Resurrection, Psionic Blast, Jade Statue, Dwarven Demolition Team, and Consecrate Land have each been reprinted once, either as Timeshifted or in a core set.
I'd announce that the Unserved List is being abolished in a little over 2 years time. Then after those two years of warning, reprint most of those cards in a product. Not reprinted at that time: Lotus, Moxen, and some others. Big draw to the product would be Dual Lands.
The primary limiting factor that is keeping wizards from undoing the reserved list isn't the fear of legal allegations (They'd win the legal fight almost 100% guaranteed), but the fact they want to create a disposable, rotating card game first and foremost. That's what has been hurting them when it comes to modern and commander because the company itself doesn't know how to handle both a disposable game and the non-disposable one. Konami did the complete opposite of what Wizards did and went all out on one big format, reprinting just about all the high played cards repeatedly.
Yes, but as far as i know, their format depends on regular power creep ond/or the banning of lots of high-played cards, so new cards are bought.
Not what i would like in Magic.
Also they just did a world sweeping rules change to the game that has effectively killed every tournament deck list currently published. Let's add that one to the "how not to break the reserved list" pile.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
There aren't that many cards on the reserve list that are actually expensive. Basically the power 9 + duals + a few select others.
Potential backlash includes lawsuits over loss of value and breaking of US promissory law. So the answer is simple. Do it and take the hit from the suits.
But there's a step to take before that. Crash the value of these cards under the rules currently in place. Don't print functionally identical cards, print strictly better cards. Trilands, a black lotus that taps for 5 mana, ancestral recall that draws 4 cards, etc.
Then once the price of the reserved list cards has dropped by a significant portion, ban the ultra overpowered cards and reprint the duals and such to mitigate the value of the lawsuits.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Come watch me stream over at my twitch channel. I play Loam Pox, Ad Nauseam, and jank in modern on MTGO.
There aren't that many cards on the reserve list that are actually expensive. Basically the power 9 + duals + a few select others.
Potential backlash includes lawsuits over loss of value and breaking of US promissory law. So the answer is simple. Do it and take the hit from the suits.
But there's a step to take before that. Crash the value of these cards under the rules currently in place. Don't print functionally identical cards, print strictly better cards. Trilands, a black lotus that taps for 5 mana, ancestral recall that draws 4 cards, etc.
Then once the price of the reserved list cards has dropped by a significant portion, ban the ultra overpowered cards and reprint the duals and such to mitigate the value of the lawsuits.
I'll take more powerful versions of Daughter of Autumn, Ragnar, and Jungle Patrol. Not exactly sure what those would look like in a more powerful form, though. No one is making more powerful versions of p9 and even if the RL went away those are never going to see a reprint. Sol Ring is already borderline broken in power.
Actually, they probably should remake all the ice age cards without the cumulative upkeep. A lot of them would actually be good without the upkeep.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
[quote from="kanoyugoro »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-general/780614-how-would-you-break-the-reserved-list?comment=122"]
Actually, they probably should remake all the ice age cards without the cumulative upkeep. A lot of them would actually be good without the upkeep.
The card is kind of slow without ramping but once it comes into play with one of the I.A. cards, I get all sorts of hate thrown my way. It's not perfect, Breath of Dreams and Corrosion are useless for example. But there's handful of cards that make for interesting games.
There aren't that many cards on the reserve list that are actually expensive. Basically the power 9 + duals + a few select others.
Potential backlash includes lawsuits over loss of value and breaking of US promissory law. So the answer is simple. Do it and take the hit from the suits.
But there's a step to take before that. Crash the value of these cards under the rules currently in place. Don't print functionally identical cards, print strictly better cards. Trilands, a black lotus that taps for 5 mana, ancestral recall that draws 4 cards, etc.
Then once the price of the reserved list cards has dropped by a significant portion, ban the ultra overpowered cards and reprint the duals and such to mitigate the value of the lawsuits.
I don't think this would fix the problem, Some decks would play BOTH sets of cards, Example Recal for 4 and recal for 3 would BOTH see play in Vintage Its not cut 1 for the other it would be cut the other card I am using because I can't run 4 recals for it, Duel lands maybe not as much but hard cards cards that decks WOULD run more if they could they will run both and it will not impact prices much.
I think the confusion happening is people think that breaking the reserved list means that WOTC has to reprint the cards that are on the reserved list. All they have to do to break the reserved list is say "we are abolishing the reserved list". That's basically it. Wizards not ever printing cards via the right means of distribution and in significant enough quantities is sort of its own separate issue. It's basically a known fact at this point that wizards doesn't print enough of the land cards people use in non-rotating formats as even the shock lands are just going to keep climbing right now. High money cards in modern are still way too expensive in this game compared with other games outside of possibly pokemon, and that is comparing at least several to a dozen cards to a single pokemon card.
In any case, that is primarily why I'm saying if they do break the reserved list they need a better strategy to handle the singles market, which they have summarily been ignoring and just creating that disposable card game model via standard / limited. It feels like they think they can just sort of 70-80% ignore it and just give a nod to it by making over-priced masters sets.
But not to go too off topic here (print and game support issues are always a hot button item), if they break the reserved list I'd love to see more of the cards show up in commander such as mana cache.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
There's another way to devalue the p9. Move them from Restricted to Banned. When they're literally unplayable in any sanctioned format, their value would drop significantly.
And of course, there's always the option of focusing only on Legacy. They could pull another carefully selected 23 cards off the list, none of which are p9, without making themselves vulnerable to multi-billion dollar torts. Of course, functionally better versions of the ABUR duals would do most of the same heavy lifting with none of the risks, but it would still leave at least a half-dozen insanely priced Legacy cards out there.
Supposedly there's a big Banned and Restricted announcement coming Monday. Has anybody seen any leaks on that?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
They just couldn't put 7th edition into Modern because of the card borders? Seriously? Count me out.
That's why I said ban them after the deed is done, including in vintage.
Banning those cards for no other reason than the fact they're über pricey and from the RL would hurt me more as a player than any loss of value my collection might have through reprints.
In other words, I am literally asking WotC to just reprint the cards even if it means my entire collection loses 2/3 of the value. I would much rather have opponents to play against than $50,000 worth of pretty cards locked away because everyone is afraid of damaging their "investments".
That's why I said ban them after the deed is done, including in vintage.
Banning those cards for no other reason than the fact they're über pricey and from the RL would hurt me more as a player than any loss of value my collection might have through reprints.
In other words, I am literally asking WotC to just reprint the cards even if it means my entire collection loses 2/3 of the value. I would much rather have opponents to play against than $50,000 worth of pretty cards locked away because everyone is afraid of damaging their "investments".
That problem extends beyond the reserved list. Wizards of the Coast just seems to refuse to properly support the non-rotating formats.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Just get it done, WotC. It is a horrible mistake, still haunting this otherwise great game. Undo it, and suck it up.
You can actually make more money, long term, doing the right thing. Players will buy the crap out of ex-RL cards, pretty much no matter how they're presented.
The reasons are really bad. People wonder why there was a reserved list to begin with and it's because of people who are looking at their trade binders and purchases as investments instead of collections. There are people playing modern who post on this forum that make me question why wizards hasn't just gone and made a reserved list for modern anyway, since they seemed to have already got a crowd wanting one and it's not like they are going to reprint cards enough to keep them from rocketing into the moon anyway. So why beat around the bush? Lets just go all the way. The price is already 60+ usd on a number of cards, so it can't possibly get worse, right? Plus it's good if the price goes up, because people who own the card can now trade for that much more with them, right? We can put the noble hierarch on that list too along with snapcaster mage, Liliana of the Veil, etc.
And I'm not pointing a finger at you Elazar in specific. There's just a small group of people who really are pushing in this direction and don't even seem to realize it, and while they will refute they want to go to a reserved list, their own arguments actually support that position, which is basically what some of your own posts unintentional end goals are coming off as.
Supported formats should have cards floating around the price that most people are willing to obtain them at and for most of the highly competitive cards that are heavily pushed via net decks the price is set too high. 20-30 top end is what we should be looking at, and that should never be the cost of something that is as central and important to decks as mana fixing.
I'll give it to wizards, they certainly know how to stealth in an old idea, though. They basically stealthed in a "soft" reserved list already with masters sets and removing existing high value reprints from all other products.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The reasons are really bad. People wonder why there was a reserved list to begin with and it's because of people who are looking at their trade binders and purchases as investments instead of collections. There are people playing modern who post on this forum that make me question why wizards hasn't just gone and made a reserved list for modern anyway, since they seemed to have already got a crowd wanting one and it's not like they are going to reprint cards enough to keep them from rocketing into the moon anyway. So why beat around the bush? Lets just go all the way. The price is already 60+ usd on a number of cards, so it can't possibly get worse, right? Plus it's good if the price goes up, because people who own the card can now trade for that much more with them, right? We can put the noble hierarch on that list too along with snapcaster mage, Liliana of the Veil, etc.
And I'm not pointing a finger at you Elazar in specific. There's just a small group of people who really are pushing in this direction and don't even seem to realize it, and while they will refute they want to go to a reserved list, their own arguments actually support that position, which is basically what some of your own posts unintentional end goals are coming off as.
Supported formats should have cards floating around the price that most people are willing to obtain them at and for most of the highly competitive cards that are heavily pushed via net decks the price is set too high. 20-30 top end is what we should be looking at, and that should never be the cost of something that is as central and important to decks as mana fixing.
The (good)financial reasons aren't on the player side(keep player cards more expensive) but on Wizard's side(keep players buying product). Truly supporting nonrotating formats isn't in Wizards best interest. Wizards makes their money by selling new product and if they were to support nonrotating formats the way people are asking they would run out of viable products fairly quickly. To keep selling new products they will need cards that appeal to the same people that their now boring product used to, so instead of expensive reprints(which their wouldn't be nearly enough of after a few years) we get more powerful cards so that all of your old cards are slowly becoming worthless. The nonrotating formats become so in name only as they are subject to each new release of increasingly over powered cards.
I'll give it to wizards, they certainly know how to stealth in an old idea, though. They basically stealthed in a "soft" reserved list already with masters sets and removing existing high value reprints from all other products.
How is more frequent but lower volume reprints a 'soft' reserved list? The old style of 'maybe this year we will give them a single card in a every other expansion' was much more akin to a 'soft' reserved list.
If you need to get people off your back on printing old cards and don't want to burn a lot of resources financially, low print run specialty sets are a good way to go. All they have to do is set a small to moderate print run contract up and set the msrp high enough that the supply doesn't get bought out too quickly. Then wizards can say they reprinted cards like players wanted and pull the expensive reprints from the other product lines.
The thing is other card games have survived and thrived even with high demand playable cards being reprinted constantly. Other than fear of change there is no real good reason not to do the same in Magic other than wizards not really wanting a non-rotating format.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
If you need to get people off your back on printing old cards and don't want to burn a lot of resources financially, low print run specialty sets are a good way to go. All they have to do is set a small to moderate print run contract up and set the msrp high enough that the supply doesn't get bought out too quickly. Then wizards can say they reprinted cards like players wanted and pull the expensive reprints from the other product lines.
So something along the lines of the Modern Event Deck, something with a very high MSRP but still technically worth the MSRP? Those didn't do well at all. Or do you want something with an even high MSRP so as to put even more value in? Something like, removing all the draft fodder from MM, cut the total set down to 100ish of only high value cards but quintuple the MSRP?
The thing is other card games have survived and thrived even with high demand playable cards being reprinted constantly. Other than fear of change there is no real good reason not to do the same in Magic other than wizards not really wanting a non-rotating format.
I'm going to admit I don't follow other card games very well so if you could describe how these games have 'survived and thrived' and how they can be compared to MTG, it would be very helpful. My only knowledge is a vague understanding of Yugioh's history which is not at all comparable to MTG. If Magic only had Vintage and Legacy, with Legacy being the premier tournament format I could see the comparison but they abandoned that ship a long time ago.
It's too easy to say that a little piece of cardboard holds no intrinsic value. It's basically the same thing as saying that a $100 bill has no more intrinsic value than a $1 bill. It doesn't change the fact that currency speculators have a right to be upset with China for artificially inflating their own currency.
All values in all markets are all about perception and are demand-driven. When nobody wants something, it has no value; when millions of people want something and there aren't millions of that item extant, scarcity drives prices up. This is really pretty simple high school level economics.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
They just couldn't put 7th edition into Modern because of the card borders? Seriously? Count me out.
That and it is easy to monitor singles price trends, so advocating for more reprints for non-rotating formats like legacy and Modern is simply a matter of checking numbers and deciding if those align with what values are expected.
I don't support wizards decisions on how they are handling the reprints, plain and simple, and accept there are people who apparently do support it even if it is at their detriment as a player. People are afraid of phantoms and ghosts in the closet, fearing changes would end the game. But sometimes, those ghosts are not really there and you have to open that door.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
If you need to get people off your back on printing old cards and don't want to burn a lot of resources financially, low print run specialty sets are a good way to go. All they have to do is set a small to moderate print run contract up and set the msrp high enough that the supply doesn't get bought out too quickly. Then wizards can say they reprinted cards like players wanted and pull the expensive reprints from the other product lines.
So something along the lines of the Modern Event Deck, something with a very high MSRP but still technically worth the MSRP? Those didn't do well at all. Or do you want something with an even high MSRP so as to put even more value in? Something like, removing all the draft fodder from MM, cut the total set down to 100ish of only high value cards but quintuple the MSRP?
The thing is other card games have survived and thrived even with high demand playable cards being reprinted constantly. Other than fear of change there is no real good reason not to do the same in Magic other than wizards not really wanting a non-rotating format.
I'm going to admit I don't follow other card games very well so if you could describe how these games have 'survived and thrived' and how they can be compared to MTG, it would be very helpful. My only knowledge is a vague understanding of Yugioh's history which is not at all comparable to MTG. If Magic only had Vintage and Legacy, with Legacy being the premier tournament format I could see the comparison but they abandoned that ship a long time ago.
The product line I was referring to are the masters sets, which are the most successful form of doing this. The event decks were created with an entirely different goal in mind and the same for from the vaults.
Unfortunately, looking back at my statement I recall the one big flaw in the last point: most of the games that I'm thinking of haven't been around as long as magic has. The only major game that has been around long enough to compare to is YuGiOh, which actually has a rotation of sorts due to the way that game handles card bannings. However, that game just went through an apocalypse due to a major change to the zones cards can be played in. Basically, it would be like if Wizards suddenly put all mythics on the restricted list and changed the rules so there is now a land pile and a primary deck pile. I was thinking about Shadowverse, YuGiOh, and there was hearthstone, but they added a standard format to make the game more dynamic.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I want to be in a world where if a 20 dollar card gets lost or stolen, it is possible to replace it at 20 dollars 2 years later. This isn't possible under the current system.
This isn't realistic regardless of reprint strategy. There are only ever too options reprint or don't reprint, and only one of those has a definitive outcome. Cards spike irrationally and Wizards has a minimum 18 month lead. To have any chance of accomplishing this Wizards would have to set aside one or two points in the year where they have a specialty product that has an abnormally short prep time so they can throw whatever cards have spiked recently into it to drop prices. I've never seen anyone advocating this kind of micromanagement of the secondary market, probably because its crazy. Wanting Wizards to reprint cards more often is a reasonable desire. Wanting Wizards to set an arbitrary price ceiling isn't.
I don't support wizards decisions on how they are handling the reprints, plain and simple, and accept there are people who apparently do support it even if it is at their detriment as a player. People are afraid of phantoms and ghosts in the closet, fearing changes would end the game. But sometimes, those ghosts are not really there and you have to open that door.
Its fine to be upset with their current system. Its reasonable to want them to print more cards more frequently. But I've never seen anyone actually propose anything other than "Unlimited standard release, the meta be damned". The reasonable changes that could be made would be better card selection for master sets, slightly higher print runs, or slightly lower MSRP; heck all three might be reasonable. Wizards listens to the community, but they also have TONS of data to compare against the vocal minority. When the vocal minority shouts MM is awful, no card should cost more than $40, repeal the reserved list and put duels in standard. The data of sales questionnaires and other sources showing people happy or accepting of the status quo drowns out the ridiculous complaints. Not enough people voice reasonable demands. Wizards has shown repeatedly that they make decisions based on community feed back, both bad and good. Modern was taken off the pro tour because of data, but community outcry contradicted it and they made a change. Standard rotation change was the same. Unfortunately Snapcaster was the same, the community said they want exciting mythics and that Snaps would make an exciting mythic, and Wizards heard. So if the community made reasonable demands that weren't contradictory to reality then change could happen.
I want to be in a world where if a 20 dollar card gets lost or stolen, it is possible to replace it at 20 dollars 2 years later. This isn't possible under the current system.
This isn't realistic regardless of reprint strategy. There are only ever too options reprint or don't reprint, and only one of those has a definitive outcome. Cards spike irrationally and Wizards has a minimum 18 month lead. To have any chance of accomplishing this Wizards would have to set aside one or two points in the year where they have a specialty product that has an abnormally short prep time so they can throw whatever cards have spiked recently into it to drop prices. I've never seen anyone advocating this kind of micromanagement of the secondary market, probably because its crazy. Wanting Wizards to reprint cards more often is a reasonable desire. Wanting Wizards to set an arbitrary price ceiling isn't.
I don't support wizards decisions on how they are handling the reprints, plain and simple, and accept there are people who apparently do support it even if it is at their detriment as a player. People are afraid of phantoms and ghosts in the closet, fearing changes would end the game. But sometimes, those ghosts are not really there and you have to open that door.
Its fine to be upset with their current system. Its reasonable to want them to print more cards more frequently. But I've never seen anyone actually propose anything other than "Unlimited standard release, the meta be damned". The reasonable changes that could be made would be better card selection for master sets, slightly higher print runs, or slightly lower MSRP; heck all three might be reasonable. Wizards listens to the community, but they also have TONS of data to compare against the vocal minority. When the vocal minority shouts MM is awful, no card should cost more than $40, repeal the reserved list and put duels in standard. The data of sales questionnaires and other sources showing people happy or accepting of the status quo drowns out the ridiculous complaints. Not enough people voice reasonable demands. Wizards has shown repeatedly that they make decisions based on community feed back, both bad and good. Modern was taken off the pro tour because of data, but community outcry contradicted it and they made a change. Standard rotation change was the same. Unfortunately Snapcaster was the same, the community said they want exciting mythics and that Snaps would make an exciting mythic, and Wizards heard. So if the community made reasonable demands that weren't contradictory to reality then change could happen.
When did the community say they wanted snapcaster as a mythic? People wanted it reprinted but that is the first time I've ever heard that one.
Going back to breaking the reserved list, I think the safest way would be to change a lot of things around. One would be to abolish modern and legacy and create an expanded rotating tournament format that is basically standard + the last two masters sets released. That way older cards still hold value, but there is a period where the cards will be out of rotation so their prices would dip. When the cards come back into rotation via a masters set or legal supplementary product than people can play them and because of the set being opened prices should be relatively stable.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Granted its not a given but it IS a risk, even at that reduced rate at the number of possable printings The pay out could VERY easly technicly hit at least a bilion dollars. Keep in mind that wasn't all beta (we also have numbers for alpha/unlimited and I think even for some of the older sets like Legends???) that just just black lotus from beta. We are talking Millions of cards that technicly would be turned in. Their are alot of varrables and a good company has to assume the worst and hope for the best in these types of situations. We are still looking at dollar values that are too high to RISK playing with when sticking to the list costs them nothing AND gets them the reputation of being a company that keeps its word.
Their are 572 cards on the reserve list, even they they had to pay $1 each, based on say beta print run (and alot of cards from the reserve list were printed in later sets with MUCH higher print runs. You are still looking at a theoretical Billion dollar pay out. (and likely more since abu were printed much smaller then other reserve list sets) and thats at only $1 each.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
We just have to hope that prices settle if that happens. I point to Shivan Dragon, a card that has a HUGE price range from roughly $900 down to 14 cents.
In other words, WotC would have to go full Mel on printing RL cards of any value, otherwise your prediction will run true and a Black Lotus reprint will end up being $1300 right out of the pack. Never mind that LGS and WotC will undoubtedly make those packs the most expensive MSRP packs in WotC history.
Reminds me of those outrageously expensive single card sports packs in the 90's where every card was gold foiled, signed, numbered and certified. Are those cards still even around anymore?
I wanted to post at this time that i did a little follow-up research on the RL removals from 2002. 23 cards were removed at that time, fewer than i'd thought from memory, not that that's important. 13 have been reprinted in one way or another, 10 still remain un-reprinted. Clone and Juggernaut are the only cards to see several printings in Standard since their removal, though Invisibility was reprinted in 8th ed core and in M15, and Basalt Monolith has been printed several times for Commander. Demonic Tutor and Regrowth have each only been reprinted in a single dual deck each, and Sinkhole has been reprinted only in Eternal Masters. Feroz's Ban, Resurrection, Psionic Blast, Jade Statue, Dwarven Demolition Team, and Consecrate Land have each been reprinted once, either as Timeshifted or in a core set.
The ten cards that were removed from the RL 15 years ago and remain un-reprinted are Camouflage, Copper Tablet, Earthbind, False Orders, Guardian Angel, Ice Storm, Lance, Living Wall, Nettling Imp, and Sacrifice.
I just thought i'd share that. I will be back with more regarding the larger issues.
**Legacy**
Grixis Delver
16post
**Standard**
I'll let you know if/when i go back to Standard. I hate pulling cards i can't use.
Also they just did a world sweeping rules change to the game that has effectively killed every tournament deck list currently published. Let's add that one to the "how not to break the reserved list" pile.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Potential backlash includes lawsuits over loss of value and breaking of US promissory law. So the answer is simple. Do it and take the hit from the suits.
But there's a step to take before that. Crash the value of these cards under the rules currently in place. Don't print functionally identical cards, print strictly better cards. Trilands, a black lotus that taps for 5 mana, ancestral recall that draws 4 cards, etc.
Then once the price of the reserved list cards has dropped by a significant portion, ban the ultra overpowered cards and reprint the duals and such to mitigate the value of the lawsuits.
I'll take more powerful versions of Daughter of Autumn, Ragnar, and Jungle Patrol. Not exactly sure what those would look like in a more powerful form, though. No one is making more powerful versions of p9 and even if the RL went away those are never going to see a reprint. Sol Ring is already borderline broken in power.
Actually, they probably should remake all the ice age cards without the cumulative upkeep. A lot of them would actually be good without the upkeep.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
They kind of did, in a way, with Solemnity.
The card is kind of slow without ramping but once it comes into play with one of the I.A. cards, I get all sorts of hate thrown my way. It's not perfect, Breath of Dreams and Corrosion are useless for example. But there's handful of cards that make for interesting games.
I don't think this would fix the problem, Some decks would play BOTH sets of cards, Example Recal for 4 and recal for 3 would BOTH see play in Vintage Its not cut 1 for the other it would be cut the other card I am using because I can't run 4 recals for it, Duel lands maybe not as much but hard cards cards that decks WOULD run more if they could they will run both and it will not impact prices much.
In any case, that is primarily why I'm saying if they do break the reserved list they need a better strategy to handle the singles market, which they have summarily been ignoring and just creating that disposable card game model via standard / limited. It feels like they think they can just sort of 70-80% ignore it and just give a nod to it by making over-priced masters sets.
But not to go too off topic here (print and game support issues are always a hot button item), if they break the reserved list I'd love to see more of the cards show up in commander such as mana cache.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
And of course, there's always the option of focusing only on Legacy. They could pull another carefully selected 23 cards off the list, none of which are p9, without making themselves vulnerable to multi-billion dollar torts. Of course, functionally better versions of the ABUR duals would do most of the same heavy lifting with none of the risks, but it would still leave at least a half-dozen insanely priced Legacy cards out there.
Supposedly there's a big Banned and Restricted announcement coming Monday. Has anybody seen any leaks on that?
**Legacy**
Grixis Delver
16post
**Standard**
I'll let you know if/when i go back to Standard. I hate pulling cards i can't use.
Banning those cards for no other reason than the fact they're über pricey and from the RL would hurt me more as a player than any loss of value my collection might have through reprints.
In other words, I am literally asking WotC to just reprint the cards even if it means my entire collection loses 2/3 of the value. I would much rather have opponents to play against than $50,000 worth of pretty cards locked away because everyone is afraid of damaging their "investments".
That problem extends beyond the reserved list. Wizards of the Coast just seems to refuse to properly support the non-rotating formats.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
You can actually make more money, long term, doing the right thing. Players will buy the crap out of ex-RL cards, pretty much no matter how they're presented.
The reasons are really bad. People wonder why there was a reserved list to begin with and it's because of people who are looking at their trade binders and purchases as investments instead of collections. There are people playing modern who post on this forum that make me question why wizards hasn't just gone and made a reserved list for modern anyway, since they seemed to have already got a crowd wanting one and it's not like they are going to reprint cards enough to keep them from rocketing into the moon anyway. So why beat around the bush? Lets just go all the way. The price is already 60+ usd on a number of cards, so it can't possibly get worse, right? Plus it's good if the price goes up, because people who own the card can now trade for that much more with them, right? We can put the noble hierarch on that list too along with snapcaster mage, Liliana of the Veil, etc.
And I'm not pointing a finger at you Elazar in specific. There's just a small group of people who really are pushing in this direction and don't even seem to realize it, and while they will refute they want to go to a reserved list, their own arguments actually support that position, which is basically what some of your own posts unintentional end goals are coming off as.
Supported formats should have cards floating around the price that most people are willing to obtain them at and for most of the highly competitive cards that are heavily pushed via net decks the price is set too high. 20-30 top end is what we should be looking at, and that should never be the cost of something that is as central and important to decks as mana fixing.
I'll give it to wizards, they certainly know how to stealth in an old idea, though. They basically stealthed in a "soft" reserved list already with masters sets and removing existing high value reprints from all other products.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
How is more frequent but lower volume reprints a 'soft' reserved list? The old style of 'maybe this year we will give them a single card in a every other expansion' was much more akin to a 'soft' reserved list.
The thing is other card games have survived and thrived even with high demand playable cards being reprinted constantly. Other than fear of change there is no real good reason not to do the same in Magic other than wizards not really wanting a non-rotating format.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'm going to admit I don't follow other card games very well so if you could describe how these games have 'survived and thrived' and how they can be compared to MTG, it would be very helpful. My only knowledge is a vague understanding of Yugioh's history which is not at all comparable to MTG. If Magic only had Vintage and Legacy, with Legacy being the premier tournament format I could see the comparison but they abandoned that ship a long time ago.
All values in all markets are all about perception and are demand-driven. When nobody wants something, it has no value; when millions of people want something and there aren't millions of that item extant, scarcity drives prices up. This is really pretty simple high school level economics.
**Legacy**
Grixis Delver
16post
**Standard**
I'll let you know if/when i go back to Standard. I hate pulling cards i can't use.
I don't support wizards decisions on how they are handling the reprints, plain and simple, and accept there are people who apparently do support it even if it is at their detriment as a player. People are afraid of phantoms and ghosts in the closet, fearing changes would end the game. But sometimes, those ghosts are not really there and you have to open that door.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The product line I was referring to are the masters sets, which are the most successful form of doing this. The event decks were created with an entirely different goal in mind and the same for from the vaults.
Unfortunately, looking back at my statement I recall the one big flaw in the last point: most of the games that I'm thinking of haven't been around as long as magic has. The only major game that has been around long enough to compare to is YuGiOh, which actually has a rotation of sorts due to the way that game handles card bannings. However, that game just went through an apocalypse due to a major change to the zones cards can be played in. Basically, it would be like if Wizards suddenly put all mythics on the restricted list and changed the rules so there is now a land pile and a primary deck pile. I was thinking about Shadowverse, YuGiOh, and there was hearthstone, but they added a standard format to make the game more dynamic.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Its fine to be upset with their current system. Its reasonable to want them to print more cards more frequently. But I've never seen anyone actually propose anything other than "Unlimited standard release, the meta be damned". The reasonable changes that could be made would be better card selection for master sets, slightly higher print runs, or slightly lower MSRP; heck all three might be reasonable. Wizards listens to the community, but they also have TONS of data to compare against the vocal minority. When the vocal minority shouts MM is awful, no card should cost more than $40, repeal the reserved list and put duels in standard. The data of sales questionnaires and other sources showing people happy or accepting of the status quo drowns out the ridiculous complaints. Not enough people voice reasonable demands. Wizards has shown repeatedly that they make decisions based on community feed back, both bad and good. Modern was taken off the pro tour because of data, but community outcry contradicted it and they made a change. Standard rotation change was the same. Unfortunately Snapcaster was the same, the community said they want exciting mythics and that Snaps would make an exciting mythic, and Wizards heard. So if the community made reasonable demands that weren't contradictory to reality then change could happen.
When did the community say they wanted snapcaster as a mythic? People wanted it reprinted but that is the first time I've ever heard that one.
Going back to breaking the reserved list, I think the safest way would be to change a lot of things around. One would be to abolish modern and legacy and create an expanded rotating tournament format that is basically standard + the last two masters sets released. That way older cards still hold value, but there is a period where the cards will be out of rotation so their prices would dip. When the cards come back into rotation via a masters set or legal supplementary product than people can play them and because of the set being opened prices should be relatively stable.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!