Problem #1, Magic is expensive and with how easy it is to net deck, even casual formats cost a boat load of money, especially as formats rotate. This means that as people become more competitive, they have to either shell out the cash or eventually get off the train because they get tired of loosing to whomever in their play group has the most cash. Standard costs $350 per deck and must be updated 4 times a year, so we'll be generous say standard costs $700 per year per deck assuming card sell back and some overlap in cards. Modern is about $1000, Legacy $2000. By comparison Pokemon is about $250 per deck and if you look at LCGs, Netrunner is $100 for a deck, but you can buy the whole card pool for $400 to $500. If we look at playing ONE draft per week and all the pre-release events for most of the year, that is $870 per year.
Something else worth noting about Pokemon: Generally speaking, if you buy one competitive Standard deck (their main format is also called Standard that also rotates yearly), the price of almost every other Standard deck will be cut in half or so. This is because a lot of the expensive cards--most notably Tapu Lele GX--are played in most competitive decks. Therefore, you'll have to spend considerably less if you want to try a new Standard deck out. The same applies to their other major format, Expanded.
This isn't the case at all for Magic due to there being considerably less overlap in the decks. So if you get one Standard or Modern deck and then want to get a new one, you're usually going to have to start from scratch, whereas in Pokemon you'll get a discount on any future deck you want to put together in the format.
Yes, because if in magic a card is played in every deck, it is considered format warping und becomes banned.
Examples are skullclamp and mental misstep.
I don´t consider this a good approach.
The condition of being in every deck is a symptom, not a cause. Those two cards were design mistakes, with wizards admitting so for the first one.
Private Mod Note
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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!
My LGS said there sales of magic is 1/5 of what it was. They have a good turn out for most events as far as I can tell. Not sure what the event numbers look like. But they are not selling masters 25 well.
When you need more people to take up your game $30+ dollar cards are an impediment and for each person willing to buy a few packs to get lucky, there are 5 who will simply decline to play.
WotC has done crazy damage to themselves in the past 2 years and it looks like they don't understand the full extent of it or even how to staunch the bleeding.
Card prices for standard have been a problem for a long time. When you force out literally 3/4 (more) of your players with bad marketing decisions/bad design and there was a problem with card prices BEFORE the mass exodus you have an exponentially larger problem with prices when you need people to get back in (let alone bring in new players).
Standard is not firing in previously (2 years ago) healthy markets. Why should I buy any cards... (let alone $30+ cards) if I can't even play at FNM? I look at $30 phonixes and say to myself screw it, I won't even get to play them.
1. Failing participation due to WotC marketing stupidity (Standard Showdown/promos/zero store support) and failed design philosophy have led to less than 30% participation as compared to 2 years ago. If people can't use their cards to play they will not buy them. They will not get back into a game at any price.
2. Prices are driven up with lower sales. Fewer packs cracked, fewer trades, lower profit = higher prices which suppresses new and return investment.
They are in a really bad place and show no signs of taking any actions to improve their situation. Grudgingly bringing back promos isn't going to cut it.
If the top price on playables for standard was $5 a card they'd get more people back in. This is more important right now than languishing in their broken card economy.
They made an effort with the new standard buy and play decks but I already notice the only really good one is pre-sale $40+ on TCG with MSRP $30. That does not help.
Those who feel 'prices are fine' because you're ok with them need to realize you won't have a card game if WotC can't bring in more players and make standard healthy again. Yes Modern is great. WotC is making money off Modern with stupid special sets but their main influx comes from standard and limited through new releases. They are even screwing standard with their special releases, see printing the same lands again in DOM instead of enemy fetches. Modern also cannot change and move forward without new cards that change it's meta.
WotC created this mess and they need to do a lot more to fix it. Standard prices are a self inflicted barrier they need to change.
They are even screwing standard with their special releases, see printing the same lands again in DOM instead of enemy fetches.
What "same lands"? We are getting enemy checklands in Dominaria, which is going to make mana bases trivial again. Canyon Slough on turn 1 will let you choose from 7 different checklands on turn 2 unless you decided to Navigator's Compass, instead, which will let you use *any* checkland on turn 2.
I do have to agree that I am not terribly pleased with the few cards I am missing being > $30--I still have exactly zero Rekindling Phoenix (but only because I haven't coughed up the money to acquire them).
Its nice art, and an auto 2 for 1 if you are doing it with spells, but thats just Wizards 'post modern' design for ya.
I'm not shocked its running $30.
EDIT: I should say, I dont believe any Standard card should get north of $20, even that seems a stretch when you are ACCEPTING that your deck will rotate out and be 'worthless' if you dont play anything but Standard.
'Modern is just so expensive' they said, buying into $400 Standard decks season after season...
Its nice art, and an auto 2 for 1 if you are doing it with spells, but thats just Wizards 'post modern' design for ya.
I'm not shocked its running $30.
EDIT: I should say, I dont believe any Standard card should get north of $20, even that seems a stretch when you are ACCEPTING that your deck will rotate out and be 'worthless' if you dont play anything but Standard.
'Modern is just so expensive' they said, buying into $400 Standard decks season after season...
Agreed. People dictate the price of the decks because they are willing to pay X for powerful cards. If people stop buying, the price goes down.
Isolated Chapel et al just had a reprint in standard. We didn't get the full set of fetches in standard because of Modern Masters. Breaking off Modern reprints to a special set has taken away value from standard. It used to be that at least if you're going to get cards and use them for Standard you could sometimes then get some eternal use or have trade/sale value after they rotate. Might even attract some Modern players to buy some product AND/OR get standard players to also play Modern as they build a collection. Nooooo, Modern Masters over priced packs.
Brilliant idea to spread their consumers thin and make their own products compete with each other.
Haven't they learned from flushing a large segment of standard players into Modern when they tried to shorten card life?
Looking at RIX prices I don't see a single card that's over $5 bucks that needs to be. Jadelight and Rekindling both go in the same deck!! All the rest of the cards don't see that much play. If they make standard cheaper people will play because they like to play magic. I've been hanging out trying to play through this 2 yr mess and after 2x in a row FNMs not firing yet again (RIX got a few to fire in the first month after release but now that's faded again) I can't imagine wasting any more money on getting new cards. Especially over priced ones.
They can't even get people who want to play engaged with flagging participation and a crappy dated rarity system in packs. Start putting out x2 rare slots and a foil per pack is what I say. Yes it will affect Limited in a big way but Limited can adjust. It might also get more people to play limited since they're more likely to get something out of it. Prices need to fall but they do nothing.
Just like with Standard we used to have quite a large contingent of people who play draft all the time. There's about 1/3 or less the number these days.
At my large store they said they get a lot fewer trades in with so many fewer people drafting. Yet another problem caused by design fails which adds to cost problems. Fewer cards = higher prices.
There used to be 40+ for draft every Friday. These days it's 16-20 if they're lucky.
Standard, if it fires, 7-12. Maybe fires once a month for FNM. Used to be 30+ every FNM.
Modern 48+ every FNM and used to be 12-16.
Sure numbers per LGS vary but even a single microcosm of this kind of player base loss should be alarming.
This isn't the case at all for Magic due to there being considerably less overlap in the decks. So if you get one Standard or Modern deck and then want to get a new one, you're usually going to have to start from scratch, whereas in Pokemon you'll get a discount on any future deck you want to put together in the format.
The condition of being in every deck is a symptom, not a cause. Those two cards were design mistakes, with wizards admitting so for the first one.
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!
WotC has done crazy damage to themselves in the past 2 years and it looks like they don't understand the full extent of it or even how to staunch the bleeding.
Card prices for standard have been a problem for a long time. When you force out literally 3/4 (more) of your players with bad marketing decisions/bad design and there was a problem with card prices BEFORE the mass exodus you have an exponentially larger problem with prices when you need people to get back in (let alone bring in new players).
Standard is not firing in previously (2 years ago) healthy markets. Why should I buy any cards... (let alone $30+ cards) if I can't even play at FNM? I look at $30 phonixes and say to myself screw it, I won't even get to play them.
1. Failing participation due to WotC marketing stupidity (Standard Showdown/promos/zero store support) and failed design philosophy have led to less than 30% participation as compared to 2 years ago. If people can't use their cards to play they will not buy them. They will not get back into a game at any price.
2. Prices are driven up with lower sales. Fewer packs cracked, fewer trades, lower profit = higher prices which suppresses new and return investment.
They are in a really bad place and show no signs of taking any actions to improve their situation. Grudgingly bringing back promos isn't going to cut it.
If the top price on playables for standard was $5 a card they'd get more people back in. This is more important right now than languishing in their broken card economy.
They made an effort with the new standard buy and play decks but I already notice the only really good one is pre-sale $40+ on TCG with MSRP $30. That does not help.
Those who feel 'prices are fine' because you're ok with them need to realize you won't have a card game if WotC can't bring in more players and make standard healthy again. Yes Modern is great. WotC is making money off Modern with stupid special sets but their main influx comes from standard and limited through new releases. They are even screwing standard with their special releases, see printing the same lands again in DOM instead of enemy fetches. Modern also cannot change and move forward without new cards that change it's meta.
WotC created this mess and they need to do a lot more to fix it. Standard prices are a self inflicted barrier they need to change.
What "same lands"? We are getting enemy checklands in Dominaria, which is going to make mana bases trivial again. Canyon Slough on turn 1 will let you choose from 7 different checklands on turn 2 unless you decided to Navigator's Compass, instead, which will let you use *any* checkland on turn 2.
I do have to agree that I am not terribly pleased with the few cards I am missing being > $30--I still have exactly zero Rekindling Phoenix (but only because I haven't coughed up the money to acquire them).
I'm not shocked its running $30.
EDIT: I should say, I dont believe any Standard card should get north of $20, even that seems a stretch when you are ACCEPTING that your deck will rotate out and be 'worthless' if you dont play anything but Standard.
'Modern is just so expensive' they said, buying into $400 Standard decks season after season...
Spirits
Agreed. People dictate the price of the decks because they are willing to pay X for powerful cards. If people stop buying, the price goes down.
Brilliant idea to spread their consumers thin and make their own products compete with each other.
Haven't they learned from flushing a large segment of standard players into Modern when they tried to shorten card life?
Looking at RIX prices I don't see a single card that's over $5 bucks that needs to be. Jadelight and Rekindling both go in the same deck!! All the rest of the cards don't see that much play. If they make standard cheaper people will play because they like to play magic. I've been hanging out trying to play through this 2 yr mess and after 2x in a row FNMs not firing yet again (RIX got a few to fire in the first month after release but now that's faded again) I can't imagine wasting any more money on getting new cards. Especially over priced ones.
They can't even get people who want to play engaged with flagging participation and a crappy dated rarity system in packs. Start putting out x2 rare slots and a foil per pack is what I say. Yes it will affect Limited in a big way but Limited can adjust. It might also get more people to play limited since they're more likely to get something out of it. Prices need to fall but they do nothing.
Spirits
At my large store they said they get a lot fewer trades in with so many fewer people drafting. Yet another problem caused by design fails which adds to cost problems. Fewer cards = higher prices.
There used to be 40+ for draft every Friday. These days it's 16-20 if they're lucky.
Standard, if it fires, 7-12. Maybe fires once a month for FNM. Used to be 30+ every FNM.
Modern 48+ every FNM and used to be 12-16.
Sure numbers per LGS vary but even a single microcosm of this kind of player base loss should be alarming.