Clearly the only way a business can improve profits is by cutting quality of product?
You either cut costs of production or increase the price of the product. You would lose your damn mind if WotC increased the price per pack to $5. You are losing yourndamn mind because the qualkty has seemingly gone down. People would lose their damn mind if WotC started outsourcing.
So if peoe don't want to pay more, and are vehememtly agaimst any cost cutting measure in production, them where the hell do you think they are going to make up profitability? Something has to damn well give, and you wanting it all indicates to me you have no bloody clue how capitalistic markets actually work. Which do you wamt? Outsourcing? Higher prices? Decreased quality? You do not get it all.
Downsizing staff? Changing advertisement tactics?
I mean how many times does Wizards have to do gimicky introduction stuff before they quit trying?
At this point they have little to lose themselves unless there are politics we are not aware of. I'm guessing they are dealing with the latter.
Contracts, legal matterz ,distribution lines, optics. You name it. Let me ask youbsomething: What would publicly happen to a US company outsourcing production to a foreign printing facility instead of remaining in the US, for cost reasons? WotC would get absolutely eviscerated in the current political climate, by the same crowd that follows Rudy and Jeremy no less because WotC isn't supporting US amd local businesses. The cost of a pack has also not gone up pretty much at all, meaning that increased production costs from inflation alone are not being recouped by the margins. Adjusted for inflation, a pack in 1994-2000 should cost $5.25 today. Yet the same crowd that whinges about card quality are also the moaners about pack prjce increases.
WotC is backed into a corner they simply have no outs for given the demands people are making from them. They can't maintain profitability if they keep the prices stagnant while also keeping quality stagnant. Yet the same people bemoan both when they happen. And it is the same group that would bemoan outsourcing.
People whom think this crap is simple are fundamentally wrong. It is not. There are multiple contradictory factors at play, and people want two mutually exclusive outcomes to occur at the same time. It is damn well ridiculous.
I have no idea if Rudy and other social media outlets are being honestly ignorant of this crap or are willfully misleading their audiences for whatever purpose, but this nonsense is truly ridiculous. WotC isn't cutting the quality on cards kust because they can and because they are being evil greedy monsters.
... You do realize that they are over printing boxes and they could deliver better quality if they cut the run and use better paper and printers instead, right?
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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!
At this point they have little to lose themselves unless there are politics we are not aware of. I'm guessing they are dealing with the latter.
Contracts, legal matterz ,distribution lines, optics. You name it. Let me ask youbsomething: What would publicly happen to a US company outsourcing production to a foreign printing facility instead of remaining in the US, for cost reasons? WotC would get absolutely eviscerated in the current political climate, by the same crowd that follows Rudy and Jeremy no less because WotC isn't supporting US amd local businesses. The cost of a pack has also not gone up pretty much at all, meaning that increased production costs from inflation alone are not being recouped by the margins. Adjusted for inflation, a pack in 1994-2000 should cost $5.25 today. Yet the same crowd that whinges about card quality are also the moaners about pack prjce increases.
WotC is backed into a corner they simply have no outs for given the demands people are making from them. They can't maintain profitability if they keep the prices stagnant while also keeping quality stagnant. Yet the same people bemoan both when they happen. And it is the same group that would bemoan outsourcing.
People whom think this crap is simple are fundamentally wrong. It is not. There are multiple contradictory factors at play, and people want two mutually exclusive outcomes to occur at the same time. It is damn well ridiculous.
I have no idea if Rudy and other social media outlets are being honestly ignorant of this crap or are willfully misleading their audiences for whatever purpose, but this nonsense is truly ridiculous. WotC isn't cutting the quality on cards kust because they can and because they are being evil greedy monsters.
... You do realize that they are over printing boxes and they could deliver better quality if they cut the run and use better paper and printers instead, right?
Or they could restructure like normal companies do.
... You do realize that they are over printing boxes and they could deliver better quality if they cut the run and use better paper and printers instead, right?
And then people complain that stores are charging over MSRP for a Masters set or Unstable. They underprinted the original MM, people *****ed because the packs were too expensive. They overprinted Iconic Masters, people *****ed because the prices on cards tanked. Stores have run out of Unstable, people ***** about not being able to draft it anymore. Wizards runs a second print run of Unstable, people are *****ing because there is going to be too much product. And while sometimes these are different groups of people, there are other times where I have seen the same person complain about both sides of it. WotC, to their credit, is *trying* to respond to what players actually want. It's just that by doing so, they create new unforseen problems. That said, I think a lot of players are getting way too damn entitled with a lot of things involving Masters Sets, and WotC just needs to ignore them. The people on the extreme are too damn demanding, and there is no way to make them happy. The Middle Ground they found with MM1 was pretty much where they needed to be and remain, regardless of those that complained about tanking prices or those that complained about too little product. Perhaps the print run of MM2015, while keeping the style of MM1. Like it or not, they can't just Chronicles out of a Master's set. That's exactly what happened with Iconic Masters. If you ever wonder why the reserved list exists, look no further than IMA. Almost an identical problem (However not quite to the same degree).
I will absolutely admit that they are doing too much auxiliary product; I have no damn clue why they created Explorers of Ixalan. It serves zero purpose, and I would have assumed that they learned their lesson from Arena of the Planeswalkers. I feel the 'Member-Berry crowd with Archenemy and Planechase convinced them that players were willing to buy auxiliary products game-modes, however they should have remembered how ridiculously, incredibly, ludicrously terribly those sold. I also think they are cramming too much draft product in a year, which should be obvious.
The challenger decks are a fine concept, however I think the price point is $5 too high, and they are making 1-2 too many different ones. Event decks, when constructed well, *did* work. Notably, the ones with SFM and GG were actually somewhat reasonable FNM-level decks that could do reasonably powerful things out of the box, and wins some games.
That said, none of this really has anything to do with card quality at all. It seems strange to think, but realize that all of these were made with the concept that they would sell well in mind. They didn't just cut quality of card stock to make room for this crap. The alleged card quality issues are almost assuredly completely divorced from this.
I am by no means giving them a pass on their mistakes; anyone who wants to look into my posting history will see that I have a long and storied history with rallying against WotC's decisions, and harsh criticism (up to and including suggesting some of the R&D team get fired for their idiocy). That said, I am also not just going to join the wank-fest of bemoaning every little thing that comes my way, particularly when the situation is far, far more complicated that people give it credit for.
... You do realize that they are over printing boxes and they could deliver better quality if they cut the run and use better paper and printers instead, right?
And then people complain that stores are charging over MSRP for a Masters set or Unstable. They underprinted the original MM, people *****ed because the packs were too expensive. They overprinted Iconic Masters, people *****ed because the prices on cards tanked. Stores have run out of Unstable, people ***** about not being able to draft it anymore. Wizards runs a second print run of Unstable, people are *****ing because there is going to be too much product. And while sometimes these are different groups of people, there are other times where I have seen the same person complain about both sides of it. WotC, to their credit, is *trying* to respond to what players actually want. It's just that by doing so, they create new unforseen problems. That said, I think a lot of players are getting way too damn entitled with a lot of things involving Masters Sets, and WotC just needs to ignore them. The people on the extreme are too damn demanding, and there is no way to make them happy. The Middle Ground they found with MM1 was pretty much where they needed to be and remain, regardless of those that complained about tanking prices or those that complained about too little product. Perhaps the print run of MM2015, while keeping the style of MM1. Like it or not, they can't just Chronicles out of a Master's set. That's exactly what happened with Iconic Masters. If you ever wonder why the reserved list exists, look no further than IMA. Almost an identical problem (However not quite to the same degree).
I will absolutely admit that they are doing too much auxiliary product; I have no damn clue why they created Explorers of Ixalan. It serves zero purpose, and I would have assumed that they learned their lesson from Arena of the Planeswalkers. I feel the 'Member-Berry crowd with Archenemy and Planechase convinced them that players were willing to buy auxiliary products game-modes, however they should have remembered how ridiculously, incredibly, ludicrously terribly those sold. I also think they are cramming too much draft product in a year, which should be obvious.
The challenger decks are a fine concept, however I think the price point is $5 too high, and they are making 1-2 too many different ones. Event decks, when constructed well, *did* work. Notably, the ones with SFM and GG were actually somewhat reasonable FNM-level decks that could do reasonably powerful things out of the box, and wins some games.
That said, none of this really has anything to do with card quality at all. It seems strange to think, but realize that all of these were made with the concept that they would sell well in mind. They didn't just cut quality of card stock to make room for this crap. The alleged card quality issues are almost assuredly completely divorced from this.
I am by no means giving them a pass on their mistakes; anyone who wants to look into my posting history will see that I have a long and storied history with rallying against WotC's decisions, and harsh criticism (up to and including suggesting some of the R&D team get fired for their idiocy). That said, I am also not just going to join the wank-fest of bemoaning every little thing that comes my way, particularly when the situation is far, far more complicated that people give it credit for.
There are tons of other places wizards of coasts could cut fat, why card quality?
Also the problem with masters sets is the MSRP being set by the company. I already know what a smaller run of standard would look like because I'm actively playing two other games that have smaller print runs. The boxes might actually sell at 100-110 usd instead of being sold at barely any profit at all and people would actually be happy buying it.
Also they didn't over print Iconic Masters. What happened is a complete distribution disaster that turned into a self feeding loop due to a significant supply of the set going to big box retailers during holiday sales season. This completely annihilated the price on the booster packs as people were walking out with aggressively marked down packs while the local game stores got saddled with product they couldn't move without a loss. A lot of stores are just sitting on it because they don't want to sell for the prices being shown online, which is basically pointless because no one is even buying them at the low price point. On top of which this also hit around the time the entire drama wheel began to turn, which set wizards onto the current "we got to be part of the solution" tangent along with the quickly approaching Unstable release. Explorers of Ixalan and the new Merfolk vs Goblins barely had a chance to survive this.
The problem that people seem to fail to realize given the post I just saw in response to my own, is that wizards is over pricing and over printing the products. They could easily go to a different venue to improve the card quality and just cut the order, putting more money into making each box, and reduce the print run, which would increase confidence in the boxes and get more people buying them. Instead they are completely oversaturating the market like a bunch of inept monkeys because they want all the profits.
They absolutely do not care about your local game store, are only tossing bits and bobs their way to make themselves look a little better, and would totally sell everything to Big Box Retail if it meant they get more money. That is the impression they are leaving everyone with, and I feel it may be accurate.
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 do realize that they are over printing boxes and they could deliver better quality if they cut the run and use better paper and printers instead, right?
And then people complain that stores are charging over MSRP for a Masters set or Unstable. They underprinted the original MM, people *****ed because the packs were too expensive. They overprinted Iconic Masters, people *****ed because the prices on cards tanked. Stores have run out of Unstable, people ***** about not being able to draft it anymore. Wizards runs a second print run of Unstable, people are *****ing because there is going to be too much product. And while sometimes these are different groups of people, there are other times where I have seen the same person complain about both sides of it. WotC, to their credit, is *trying* to respond to what players actually want. It's just that by doing so, they create new unforseen problems. That said, I think a lot of players are getting way too damn entitled with a lot of things involving Masters Sets, and WotC just needs to ignore them. The people on the extreme are too damn demanding, and there is no way to make them happy. The Middle Ground they found with MM1 was pretty much where they needed to be and remain, regardless of those that complained about tanking prices or those that complained about too little product. Perhaps the print run of MM2015, while keeping the style of MM1. Like it or not, they can't just Chronicles out of a Master's set. That's exactly what happened with Iconic Masters. If you ever wonder why the reserved list exists, look no further than IMA. Almost an identical problem (However not quite to the same degree).
I will absolutely admit that they are doing too much auxiliary product; I have no damn clue why they created Explorers of Ixalan. It serves zero purpose, and I would have assumed that they learned their lesson from Arena of the Planeswalkers. I feel the 'Member-Berry crowd with Archenemy and Planechase convinced them that players were willing to buy auxiliary products game-modes, however they should have remembered how ridiculously, incredibly, ludicrously terribly those sold. I also think they are cramming too much draft product in a year, which should be obvious.
The challenger decks are a fine concept, however I think the price point is $5 too high, and they are making 1-2 too many different ones. Event decks, when constructed well, *did* work. Notably, the ones with SFM and GG were actually somewhat reasonable FNM-level decks that could do reasonably powerful things out of the box, and wins some games.
That said, none of this really has anything to do with card quality at all. It seems strange to think, but realize that all of these were made with the concept that they would sell well in mind. They didn't just cut quality of card stock to make room for this crap. The alleged card quality issues are almost assuredly completely divorced from this.
I am by no means giving them a pass on their mistakes; anyone who wants to look into my posting history will see that I have a long and storied history with rallying against WotC's decisions, and harsh criticism (up to and including suggesting some of the R&D team get fired for their idiocy). That said, I am also not just going to join the wank-fest of bemoaning every little thing that comes my way, particularly when the situation is far, far more complicated that people give it credit for.
There are tons of other places wizards of coasts could cut fat, why card quality?
Ypu are assuming that was the intent, while it could just have easily beem the result. It could just as easily been Cardimundi that made the change in order for *them* to have competitive pricing amd keep the various contracts they have, amd WotC very well may not have known a major change was made. It is possible, as well, that Cardamundi's supplier has changed their cardstock formula. There are a lot of reasons why this seemingly happened, amd franctly qe have no damn idea where in the line it came from. WotC doesn't own the damn print facilities, nor the suppliers to said facilities. If this is some change in that front, it would be damn near possible for WotC to fix it in anything approaching a quick time frame.
Frankly, you assume they tried to smeakily pass bad card quality by their customers, when the reality is that they cery well could have mot known this was going to be an issue. Equally, givem they are hiring what is essentially a high level QA position, I have to assume they are trying to fix the problem, amd said problem is far more structural that you seem to assume.
Someone very likely tried to cut corners. I think it is patently absurd to automatically assume it is WotC when there are multiple steps of suppliers and manufafturers involved.
Also the problem with masters sets is the MSRP being set by the company. I already know what a smaller run of standard would look like because I'm actively playing two other games that have smaller print runs. The boxes might actually sell at 100-110 usd instead of being sold at barely any profit at all and people would actually be happy buying it.
Also they didn't over print Iconic Masters. What happened is a complete distribution disaster that turned into a self feeding loop due to a significant supply of the set going to big box retailers during holiday sales season. This completely annihilated the price on the booster packs as people were walking out with aggressively marked down packs while the local game stores got saddled with product they couldn't move without a loss. A lot of stores are just sitting on it because they don't want to sell for the prices being shown online, which is basically pointless because no one is even buying them at the low price point. On top of which this also hit around the time the entire drama wheel began to turn, which set wizards onto the current "we got to be part of the solution" tangent along with the quickly approaching Unstable release. Explorers of Ixalan and the new Merfolk vs Goblins barely had a chance to survive this.
The problem that people seem to fail to realize given the post I just saw in response to my own, is that wizards is over pricing and over printing the products. They could easily go to a different venue to improve the card quality and just cut the order, putting more money into making each box, and reduce the print run, which would increase confidence in the boxes and get more people buying them. Instead they are completely oversaturating the market like a bunch of inept monkeys because they want all the profits.
They absolutely do not care about your local game store, are only tossing bits and bobs their way to make themselves look a little better, and would totally sell everything to Big Box Retail if it meant they get more money. That is the impression they are leaving everyone with, and I feel it may be accurate.
Then people bemoan LGSs charging double triple MSRP.
Welcome to Magic, where people just like to whinge. The problem is that WotC listened to people's whinging, and followed the terrible advice people like you gave in the first place.. Players upset that the price of a Masters set is too high amd difficult to get ahold of? Here, lets make it more accessible and affordable! Now they whinge about supporting the game store, evem though these same valued customers *****ed about stores overcharging for MM four years ago, amd habe been buying cards hand over fist at TCGplayer.
Do not try to sell me Rudy's fake as crap LGS concern. He gives far less of a crap about the health of your LGS than WotC, whose financial livelihood depends on it. Rudy is peddling bullocks click bait nonsense, pure and simple. And you are eating that crap up. He is in the speculation market. Of bloody course he is going to sell you that underprinting product is a good thing, because that is how he makes money for pitys sake.
While selling Masters sets to big box stores is a boneheaded move, the entire damn reason they are doing it is because people were bemoaning getting ripped off by their LGSs because they were charging too much, and whinging about not being able to find it even if they didnt mind the price. So WotC decided to oblige, and now suddenly everyone comes out of the wood work to defend their stores. Never mind that these people loom to shark their store at every turn, never mind that people are buying from TCGplayer to save a dollar. No, no, now you suddenly care about the LGS. Bull. Bloody bull. Complete bull.served over a heaping lile of bulls.
I'm not trying to sell you Rudy's schpeel. I know what a good market feels like because you don't mind paying the extra for the set. The problem with MtG is that everyone knows the price is bad because the product quality is low, the company is setting artificially high prices on their set, and they are releasing too many products as well as way too much of the products in question.
Here is the problem: Wizards releases a set and the LGS tries selling the booster box for 120. However, because the supply is so high online sellers get a huge shipment themselves and start fighting each other on price, bringing the price down on the booster boxes to 80-90 dollars. Also, because there are so many boxes these lower priced products online never dry up so the price never slowly goes back up to where the LGS can sell them to make a profit. This also kills any sense of urgency since everyone knows the supply is super high, so people often will just stand around and wait until the price hits the bare minimum possible and then buy the boxes. Then, before the supply even starts to get tapped Wizards starts pushing the next product via pre-sale advertising, leaving tons of the prior product on the market that basically stops moving and just sits there at 80 usd.
Other TCGs do a modest print run of a set. Early comers get lower prices while the supply is high, but eventually that supply dwindles and stores that need the money are able to sell boxes later at prices closer to MSRP. People feel their purchases are worth it because there's only so much of it out there, and the next set usually doesn't hit until the supply for the prior set is pretty well bought up (unless it's a really bad set, but that is another issue entirely).
The one group that I hate in the second scenario are investors because they tend to eat through all the supply from the run and cause the prices to go up too quickly, which is part of the motivation for higher runs of standard sets in MTG. The problem is that wizards is releasing so much product that not only are investors not even touching the game, the player base can barely even scratch the supply themselves. It kills any sense of urgency and even worse makes the cards feel like they are near worthless once rotation hits unless a modern deck picks them up. Basically, MTG isn't even a trading card game, it's a game full of playing cards that are worth pennies on the dollar except for a few that the singles sellers use to make up the price of the booster boxes they are opening.
And now as for the comment on people complaining about masters sets: You are so completely missing the reasons why people complain that it's basically comical. The reason people complain about masters sets is that the price isn't from demand. That price is an artificially set cost by WoTC based on what they think it is worth via secondary market data. In a healthy system that price is determined by the demand of the people playing the game and I can easily say that no one playing thinks masters sets are really worth 240 usd. If wizards sold these at 120 msrp like a normal set (albeit, 24 boosters instead of 36), the price would probably settle a lot lower than 240 until the supply started dwindling up. Booster boxes that have prices like that number historically have been sets like Innistrad, which was beloved by players and went out of print a long time ago.
The reason people hate the prices is because the people aren't the ones saying "yeah, this is worth the 90 dollars". Instead, it's WoTC saying "Here is a 240 dollar booster box. Our market data says that you will pay approximately 240 dollars because the cards inside are worth estimated around 480 msrp before we released the set...". Then we all stand around going "uh, no this doesn't feel at all like it's worth 240 usd", but then some people are like "You guys just don't get it, they aren't dropping the price. I'll take two!".
Iconic masters is a bit of a different beast, because as the guy who normally buys two was about to buy two, Big Box Stores are like "Hey, it's time to buy the xmas gifts and we got magic cards too! We even got this new fangled Iconic Masters here as part of our buy one get one free sale!" So suddenly the guy who would normally buy two for the 240 price point is like "wait, that means they got a ton of it hidden somewhere! I'll just let the people online fight it out..."
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!
Clearly the only way a business can improve profits is by cutting quality of product?
You either cut costs of production or increase the price of the product. You would lose your damn mind if WotC increased the price per pack to $5. You are losing yourndamn mind because the qualkty has seemingly gone down. People would lose their damn mind if WotC started outsourcing.
So if peoe don't want to pay more, and are vehememtly agaimst any cost cutting measure in production, them where the hell do you think they are going to make up profitability? Something has to damn well give, and you wanting it all indicates to me you have no bloody clue how capitalistic markets actually work. Which do you wamt? Outsourcing? Higher prices? Decreased quality? You do not get it all.
Why do you even care about this? Are you a shareholder? Do you get profit off of it? Or are you just a customer? In which case quality of the product should be your primary concern. Not to mention this ''money above all else'' attitude is the reason why everything is in decline.
I have to admit I have no idea why card quality is such a concern to so many. The artwork is now so generic one card looks much like another, and aesthetically it does little for me, I can't see why anyone would want to collect it beyond the need to play the game. It is subjective of course.
I will happily accept poorer card stock quality if we can get design right- to hit a point where Standard is playable for enfranchised/established players or at least a situation where lot of cards get fringe application or better in older formats. What concerns me is, as ever, what is printed on the cards, which is too often dictated by rubbish from the Maro/Stoddard school of thinking - "we can't print X as it is unfun, and new players hate it". If the cards survive sleeved play then that is what matters to me. It is true that stock quality has gone down, but my cards survive as I am not playing more than 3 rounds draft with them, that is my issue. Get the game right would be a start- a standard where 8 decks are viable, fewer than half are midrange, and where you can both efficiently attack every resource the opponent has, where you can chose not to play creatures, planeswalkers or whatever and it is not a mistake, and where people who can't handle losing their hand, land or having their stuff countered go and play any of the other games out there or play EDH.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
Two years ago I played standard and I actually was enjoying it at the time. Then my LGS closed up shop and it was a 2+ hour drive to the nearest FNM event. Game stores are having a harder and harder time existing due to internet sales. Being a long time magic player I have definitely shifted from opening packs to singles and you have to be a VERY big store generally to have a singles collection (with decent things for sale) in store these days.
As of this last week the LGS I had since I moved this last spring is closing down as well. My issue is to some degree that even if I were to play standard, the stores I have access to mostly do not have the singles I would want. I could play standard but honestly with attendance being down for standard (it definitely shows out here) a lot of the stores are having more issues and closing. The second largest city in SD has had to move some of its standard and modern events to be casual commander FNM events because they just cant fire other events right now.
Really what I am circling back to here though is that the stores are having a very hard time with the lower standard as well. Top it off with the fact that the internet just keeps making more and more sense to buy singles and boxes on sale and its harder than ever for a local store to compete.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I have to admit I have no idea why card quality is such a concern to so many. The artwork is now so generic one card looks much like another, and aesthetically it does little for me, I can't see why anyone would want to collect it beyond the need to play the game. It is subjective of course.
I will happily accept poorer card stock quality if we can get design right- to hit a point where Standard is playable for enfranchised/established players or at least a situation where lot of cards get fringe application or better in older formats. What concerns me is, as ever, what is printed on the cards, which is too often dictated by rubbish from the Maro/Stoddard school of thinking - "we can't print X as it is unfun, and new players hate it". If the cards survive sleeved play then that is what matters to me. It is true that stock quality has gone down, but my cards survive as I am not playing more than 3 rounds draft with them, that is my issue. Get the game right would be a start- a standard where 8 decks are viable, fewer than half are midrange, and where you can both efficiently attack every resource the opponent has, where you can chose not to play creatures, planeswalkers or whatever and it is not a mistake, and where people who can't handle losing their hand, land or having their stuff countered go and play any of the other games out there or play EDH.
As someone who's been involved in dealing with paper goods, do not under-estimate the impact of low quality paper on a products life expectancy. The thing a lot of people don't realize is that paper isn't made exclusively from wood. Depending on the purpose, the stock can be composed of a mix of fabric, polymer resins, and other materials along with woven fibers. Then the paper can be coated or uncoated depending on the kind of effect one wants when the printing is done. By and large TCGs use coated papers since it helps legibility and makes things come out crisp.
Paper sold at most vendors goes through various levels of Q&A to assure the paper meets certain standards. Issues with low quality paper that commonly happen can vary based on the type of composition used, but most common issues can include the resin / polymers not setting properly resulting in uneven thickness, the fibers not being compressed properly, which can lead to curling when exposed to a cutting edge as it pulls the fibers at the edge and creates tension in other portions of the paper, and other times the fibers may also be low grade or actually "broken" during the process of making the paper.
Let me put it this way: The price between a good paper manufacturer and a bad one is not good when it comes to price. The only way it gets cheaper is if someone just says "okay, this sheet looks fine even though I know it's flawed". I've done that before and want to know what the result was? I had to go back to the supply store and get another sheet, so by the time I was done the cost of getting the "cheaper paper" was the same or more costly than if I had gone and bought one sheet of the paper that came from the better quality manufacturer. The sad thing is that on a sales sheet it still will look like the company sold twice as much paper as the better manufacturer.
As for someone elses comment on price complaints, I don't feel like going and repeating the post I wrote last night a few posts up.
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 stores are certainly getting the short end of the stick from WotC. The price increase without MSRP increase last year was a big time screw job making it harder for brick and mortar to stay profitable vs online sales. I blame HASBRO for this and for card stock getting cheaper in the US. Big companies nickel and dime to feed the top, it sucks.
Little stores though need to realize that they can't just be a magic shop. They need to sell lots of games and differentiate so they can afford to compete with online retailers that do so much business they can afford to bottom out the prices. It's unfortunate that WotC isn't supporting stores more and really stupid they don't help them stay in business (see selling Iconic at Walmart) because they really drive product and participation.
WotC also should be taking a really close look at 2 year FNM participation at local LGS across the country to see how they're really doing. Big events are nice but product sales move from high volume at local stores. Pros don't buy a lot of singles. Pros don't buy packs. Happy customers close to the ground do.
Quality of cards is only bad in US , always remember that.
The european card quality is top notch.
If you have a US card and a european one it feels like the US one is a fake card, thats how different they are.
Well, assuming it hasn't changed the stock that MTG is printed on is called Corona. The problem is that there's actually two different brands of paper called Corona and in the US the kind that gets sold publicly is of a lower grade. The lower grade usually feels different and is more prone to inking problems, curling under heat, and other conditions. From what I've found with testing it looks like the US cards may be getting produced with the lower grade and cheaper corona paper instead of the older stock. Is this the fault of the paper company? I don't really know. It's totally possible that the USPC is cheaping out or wizards is purposely buying the cheaper stock. I know that their stock tends to expand with time, so older cards usually feel different because of that. However, the curling when exposed to heat is completely different with the new cards vs older Corona and I basically could prove it just by doing a heat test. This leads me to believe they are either using a different paper stock or are using Corona that failed Q&A.
I've bought paper from Argio Wiggens before and never had an issue (for reference, I've used the "Curious Collection"). I'm kind of wondering if WoTC is just missing looking over the printing and finishing guidelines. That can actually do some nasty things as well even to good stock.
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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!
In the UK we traditionally get both Euro and US prints depending on where we buy from. Our Innistrad Euro stock was totally different to the US, and that us going back now. I can remember accessing boxes of each and having to reassure people they were the same product.
I have noticed stock quality on IM more than Ixa.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
Clearly the only way a business can improve profits is by cutting quality of product?
You either cut costs of production or increase the price of the product. You would lose your damn mind if WotC increased the price per pack to $5. You are losing yourndamn mind because the qualkty has seemingly gone down. People would lose their damn mind if WotC started outsourcing.
I strongly disagree with your assessment, I would suggest frankly most people who play magic could not give a single care about where stuff was printed so long as the product is within the acceptable divivation of quality.
So if peoe don't want to pay more, and are vehememtly agaimst any cost cutting measure in production, them where the hell do you think they are going to make up profitability? Something has to damn well give, and you wanting it all indicates to me you have no bloody clue how capitalistic markets actually work. Which do you wamt? Outsourcing? Higher prices? Decreased quality? You do not get it all.
... You do realize that they are over printing boxes and they could deliver better quality if they cut the run and use better paper and printers instead, right?
And then people complain that stores are charging over MSRP for a Masters set or Unstable. They underprinted the original MM, people *****ed because the packs were too expensive. They overprinted Iconic Masters, people *****ed because the prices on cards tanked. Stores have run out of Unstable, people ***** about not being able to draft it anymore. Wizards runs a second print run of Unstable, people are *****ing because there is going to be too much product. And while sometimes these are different groups of people, there are other times where I have seen the same person complain about both sides of it. WotC, to their credit, is *trying* to respond to what players actually want. It's just that by doing so, they create new unforseen problems. That said, I think a lot of players are getting way too damn entitled with a lot of things involving Masters Sets, and WotC just needs to ignore them. The people on the extreme are too damn demanding, and there is no way to make them happy. The Middle Ground they found with MM1 was pretty much where they needed to be and remain, regardless of those that complained about tanking prices or those that complained about too little product. Perhaps the print run of MM2015, while keeping the style of MM1. Like it or not, they can't just Chronicles out of a Master's set. That's exactly what happened with Iconic Masters. If you ever wonder why the reserved list exists, look no further than IMA. Almost an identical problem (However not quite to the same degree).
Pretty sure people were complaining because they wanted MM to like a standard set in pricing with MODERN/Legacy cards in it ie MM retails for the same as any other standard in print set. Only a very small subset of people complain that nonreserve list cards drop in value when a reprint happens I would suggest the vast majority are HAPPY that good cards are cheeper.
I will absolutely admit that they are doing too much auxiliary product; I have no damn clue why they created Explorers of Ixalan. It serves zero purpose, and I would have assumed that they learned their lesson from Arena of the Planeswalkers. I feel the 'Member-Berry crowd with Archenemy and Planechase convinced them that players were willing to buy auxiliary products game-modes, however they should have remembered how ridiculously, incredibly, ludicrously terribly those sold. I also think they are cramming too much draft product in a year, which should be obvious.
The challenger decks are a fine concept, however I think the price point is $5 too high, and they are making 1-2 too many different ones. Event decks, when constructed well, *did* work. Notably, the ones with SFM and GG were actually somewhat reasonable FNM-level decks that could do reasonably powerful things out of the box, and wins some games.
That said, none of this really has anything to do with card quality at all. It seems strange to think, but realize that all of these were made with the concept that they would sell well in mind. They didn't just cut quality of card stock to make room for this crap. The alleged card quality issues are almost assuredly completely divorced from this.
I am by no means giving them a pass on their mistakes; anyone who wants to look into my posting history will see that I have a long and storied history with rallying against WotC's decisions, and harsh criticism (up to and including suggesting some of the R&D team get fired for their idiocy). That said, I am also not just going to join the wank-fest of bemoaning every little thing that comes my way, particularly when the situation is far, far more complicated that people give it credit for.
I agree with you wizards has made mistakes but this is one that impacts alarge portion of people and Could theortictly lead to possable cheating since the quailty IS different.
Two years ago I played standard and I actually was enjoying it at the time. Then my LGS closed up shop and it was a 2+ hour drive to the nearest FNM event. Game stores are having a harder and harder time existing due to internet sales. Being a long time magic player I have definitely shifted from opening packs to singles and you have to be a VERY big store generally to have a singles collection (with decent things for sale) in store these days.
As of this last week the LGS I had since I moved this last spring is closing down as well. My issue is to some degree that even if I were to play standard, the stores I have access to mostly do not have the singles I would want. I could play standard but honestly with attendance being down for standard (it definitely shows out here) a lot of the stores are having more issues and closing. The second largest city in SD has had to move some of its standard and modern events to be casual commander FNM events because they just cant fire other events right now.
Really what I am circling back to here though is that the stores are having a very hard time with the lower standard as well. Top it off with the fact that the internet just keeps making more and more sense to buy singles and boxes on sale and its harder than ever for a local store to compete.
It's a lot of things, really. For myself, I just don't feel wizards is making it worth my while to play their game. They aren't supporting local stores enough, the auxilary products are either weak or over costed, and the best set they have released is an Un-set because it's completely annexes itself from any kind of established format (and has full art lands). I swapped back to Force of Will because that game right now is just doing better. Smaller player population, lower costs, and the biggest issue they have is green getting too many counter spells and card draw. Kind of makes me wonder how bad elves would be in MtG if they had dispel, mindbreak trap, and a one mana hard counter that stops a spell, but lets the opponent cast another spell of equal cost or less from their hand instead.
If standard pauper takes off that might save the game more than anything else since it would give people a low cost constructed format to play for FNM and possibly even price distribution in the standard sets a bit more.
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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 still find it unbelievable that Wizards still can't get things sorted out after almost 25 years of relevance.
I'm wondering, though, how long it will take them to realize the single-set* dynamic will be considered a mistake and revert back to the old structure.
One thing I will say is that we don't need a core set every year. If they were to do it every two years as it was pre-tenth edition, it opens up more potential with a mix of block structure. For example, they could do one year with a three-set block and a core set, and the other that's without a core set to do two two-set blocks.
So like: A-B-C Core set, A-B, A-B, A-B-C Core set.
It could work.
'buster
* This takes into account sets that have a storyline spread over >1 set
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'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset. Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
Well the entire shift to big sets is both an experiment and a way to wax some nostalgia as originally the first MtG sets were large. The other thing they are hoping for is by going back to Karn and time spiral characters they can get people interested in the game again. However, that doesn't solve the problem with having so many products that have no real reason to exist and the fact that the draft only cards are discouraging to open, hurt the value of the boxes being pushed out, and create a slow and unavoidable direction of going to exclusive singles purchasing for constructed.
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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 reason why Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro discontinued Duel Decks for Challenger Decks was so that they could make it easier for players to break into Standard and potentially Modern without having to spend a ton of money to build the most consistent and competitive decks. Unlike the gold bordered World Championship decks of the past, collectors would be able to turn a profit off of the potential resale value of these Challenger Decks.
Challenger Decks are expected to be pre-constructed decks based on actual tournament results, statistics, and what's popular in both Standard and Modern environments. Duel Decks on the other hand mainly catered to the casual crowd with only a handful of good cards to turn a profit on, with the rising popularity of EDH/Commander they probably felt that there was no need to keep going with Duel Decks any longer.
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The reason why Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro discontinued Duel Decks for Challenger Decks was so that they could make it easier for players to break into Standard and potentially Modern without having to spend a ton of money to build the most consistent and competitive decks. Unlike the gold bordered World Championship decks of the past, collectors would be able to turn a profit off of the potential resale value of these Challenger Decks.
Challenger Decks are expected to be pre-constructed decks based on actual tournament results, statistics, and what's popular in both Standard and Modern environments. Duel Decks on the other hand mainly catered to the casual crowd with only a handful of good cards to turn a profit on, with the rising popularity of EDH/Commander they probably felt that there was no need to keep going with Duel Decks any longer.
I applaud them for their "ingenuity", but that wont solve the problems they are having. What is happening is that they are over printing cards that never see any play and underprinting the ones that do while also not printing them in a way that is effective in getting them out to players. Other card games that have starters actually put 4x format staples into the starters and not the main set, so players end up buying the starters to get playsets of things they need for deck building. This sounds like it would be a horrible disaster since "speculators will buy up all the boxes", but that is easy to answer by just making sure the print run on the starter sets are significant and they reprint the staples in the following set coming after the starters. The other thing other games tend to do is make sure the set is designed so there aren't "draft only" cards in the set. The problem Magic the Gathering as a game has is that the developers got pushed into a draft selling strategy for the booster boxes. This happened because the pro-tour advertises top tier decks that mostly used the rares and mythics of a given cycle, which in turn is the developers fault for pushing the power level at the top end and just toying around with the bottom rung.
It's also why Mark Rosewater drives me insane when I see him on screen talking about game development. He talks about making sets the ground up via commons and then deciding on each tier afterwards, but his strategy has a big flaw: If the developer builds from the ground up only, how does he gauge where the top is? Not to mention he states that they design the strongest synergy at the common and uncommon level, which leaves the top being more flexible. This is a bad choice because the more open one makes the top, the more likely it is to synergize with something that one doesn't expect. A great example are the eldrazi in Oath of the Gatewatch: They made Thoughtknot Seer a 4 drop with positive synergy towards other eldrazi tribal cards. This made it so the card could work with Eldrazi Temple and Eye of Ugin unabated. If they had developed the card as a 3/3 that could only be played with an eldrazi centric land in play, it would not have been as much of a problem with eye of ugin and eldrazi temple and the same could be said about many of the eldrazi tribal cards.
So in a nutshell, we can thank the developers for basically making Magic a broken husk and forcing people into playing only the most open, flexible cards in the game when playing formats like Modern and Legacy. Even standard doesn't really escape this issue as they tend to be overly loose on the rares and mythics of each set. If the game had stronger synergy requirements we'd have a better pricing spread on the secondary market. It still wouldn't stop the top end of modern being expensive as much as change what that top end is, though, as well as make the top end move around a lot more.
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 add that another factor coming into this entire picture is that Hasbro prizes games that are mass consumer friendly in order to maximize profits from the title. Look at the titles they have under their umbrella: They have their name on Connect Four, Monopoly (how many variations are we at now?), Risk, Clue, Nerf guns, etc. The reason they acquired MTG is that it is the most mainstream of the Trading Card Games in the United States, so their goal is to basically make the game into a mass consumer friendly title. That's why we see so many of these strange secondary products just come out of the blue even though they are built with some of the most undesirable cards imaginable and why they are pushed into stores. It's also why there is a huge rant going on right now with these zero sum game "lets lump everyone we don't agree with under a single banner" advocates believing that wizards has been taken over by social rights extremists.
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!
Granted this article isn't about MTG specifically but Cox isn't an MTG guy he's a big picture guy. He's going to keep allowing WotC to run the card game and it's details while he pushes Arena and these new crap products to expand market share. WotC has been assimilated.
The design team still needs to get their heads out because they're still responsible for what we're getting. I just hope the 'pro' team guidance is going to work in the long run.
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Downsizing staff? Changing advertisement tactics?
I mean how many times does Wizards have to do gimicky introduction stuff before they quit trying?
... You do realize that they are over printing boxes and they could deliver better quality if they cut the run and use better paper and printers instead, right?
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!
Or they could restructure like normal companies do.
And then people complain that stores are charging over MSRP for a Masters set or Unstable. They underprinted the original MM, people *****ed because the packs were too expensive. They overprinted Iconic Masters, people *****ed because the prices on cards tanked. Stores have run out of Unstable, people ***** about not being able to draft it anymore. Wizards runs a second print run of Unstable, people are *****ing because there is going to be too much product. And while sometimes these are different groups of people, there are other times where I have seen the same person complain about both sides of it. WotC, to their credit, is *trying* to respond to what players actually want. It's just that by doing so, they create new unforseen problems. That said, I think a lot of players are getting way too damn entitled with a lot of things involving Masters Sets, and WotC just needs to ignore them. The people on the extreme are too damn demanding, and there is no way to make them happy. The Middle Ground they found with MM1 was pretty much where they needed to be and remain, regardless of those that complained about tanking prices or those that complained about too little product. Perhaps the print run of MM2015, while keeping the style of MM1. Like it or not, they can't just Chronicles out of a Master's set. That's exactly what happened with Iconic Masters. If you ever wonder why the reserved list exists, look no further than IMA. Almost an identical problem (However not quite to the same degree).
I will absolutely admit that they are doing too much auxiliary product; I have no damn clue why they created Explorers of Ixalan. It serves zero purpose, and I would have assumed that they learned their lesson from Arena of the Planeswalkers. I feel the 'Member-Berry crowd with Archenemy and Planechase convinced them that players were willing to buy auxiliary products game-modes, however they should have remembered how ridiculously, incredibly, ludicrously terribly those sold. I also think they are cramming too much draft product in a year, which should be obvious.
The challenger decks are a fine concept, however I think the price point is $5 too high, and they are making 1-2 too many different ones. Event decks, when constructed well, *did* work. Notably, the ones with SFM and GG were actually somewhat reasonable FNM-level decks that could do reasonably powerful things out of the box, and wins some games.
That said, none of this really has anything to do with card quality at all. It seems strange to think, but realize that all of these were made with the concept that they would sell well in mind. They didn't just cut quality of card stock to make room for this crap. The alleged card quality issues are almost assuredly completely divorced from this.
I am by no means giving them a pass on their mistakes; anyone who wants to look into my posting history will see that I have a long and storied history with rallying against WotC's decisions, and harsh criticism (up to and including suggesting some of the R&D team get fired for their idiocy). That said, I am also not just going to join the wank-fest of bemoaning every little thing that comes my way, particularly when the situation is far, far more complicated that people give it credit for.
There are tons of other places wizards of coasts could cut fat, why card quality?
Also they didn't over print Iconic Masters. What happened is a complete distribution disaster that turned into a self feeding loop due to a significant supply of the set going to big box retailers during holiday sales season. This completely annihilated the price on the booster packs as people were walking out with aggressively marked down packs while the local game stores got saddled with product they couldn't move without a loss. A lot of stores are just sitting on it because they don't want to sell for the prices being shown online, which is basically pointless because no one is even buying them at the low price point. On top of which this also hit around the time the entire drama wheel began to turn, which set wizards onto the current "we got to be part of the solution" tangent along with the quickly approaching Unstable release. Explorers of Ixalan and the new Merfolk vs Goblins barely had a chance to survive this.
The problem that people seem to fail to realize given the post I just saw in response to my own, is that wizards is over pricing and over printing the products. They could easily go to a different venue to improve the card quality and just cut the order, putting more money into making each box, and reduce the print run, which would increase confidence in the boxes and get more people buying them. Instead they are completely oversaturating the market like a bunch of inept monkeys because they want all the profits.
They absolutely do not care about your local game store, are only tossing bits and bobs their way to make themselves look a little better, and would totally sell everything to Big Box Retail if it meant they get more money. That is the impression they are leaving everyone with, and I feel it may be accurate.
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!
Ypu are assuming that was the intent, while it could just have easily beem the result. It could just as easily been Cardimundi that made the change in order for *them* to have competitive pricing amd keep the various contracts they have, amd WotC very well may not have known a major change was made. It is possible, as well, that Cardamundi's supplier has changed their cardstock formula. There are a lot of reasons why this seemingly happened, amd franctly qe have no damn idea where in the line it came from. WotC doesn't own the damn print facilities, nor the suppliers to said facilities. If this is some change in that front, it would be damn near possible for WotC to fix it in anything approaching a quick time frame.
Frankly, you assume they tried to smeakily pass bad card quality by their customers, when the reality is that they cery well could have mot known this was going to be an issue. Equally, givem they are hiring what is essentially a high level QA position, I have to assume they are trying to fix the problem, amd said problem is far more structural that you seem to assume.
Someone very likely tried to cut corners. I think it is patently absurd to automatically assume it is WotC when there are multiple steps of suppliers and manufafturers involved.
Then people bemoan LGSs charging double triple MSRP.
Welcome to Magic, where people just like to whinge. The problem is that WotC listened to people's whinging, and followed the terrible advice people like you gave in the first place.. Players upset that the price of a Masters set is too high amd difficult to get ahold of? Here, lets make it more accessible and affordable! Now they whinge about supporting the game store, evem though these same valued customers *****ed about stores overcharging for MM four years ago, amd habe been buying cards hand over fist at TCGplayer.
Do not try to sell me Rudy's fake as crap LGS concern. He gives far less of a crap about the health of your LGS than WotC, whose financial livelihood depends on it. Rudy is peddling bullocks click bait nonsense, pure and simple. And you are eating that crap up. He is in the speculation market. Of bloody course he is going to sell you that underprinting product is a good thing, because that is how he makes money for pitys sake.
While selling Masters sets to big box stores is a boneheaded move, the entire damn reason they are doing it is because people were bemoaning getting ripped off by their LGSs because they were charging too much, and whinging about not being able to find it even if they didnt mind the price. So WotC decided to oblige, and now suddenly everyone comes out of the wood work to defend their stores. Never mind that these people loom to shark their store at every turn, never mind that people are buying from TCGplayer to save a dollar. No, no, now you suddenly care about the LGS. Bull. Bloody bull. Complete bull.served over a heaping lile of bulls.
Here is the problem: Wizards releases a set and the LGS tries selling the booster box for 120. However, because the supply is so high online sellers get a huge shipment themselves and start fighting each other on price, bringing the price down on the booster boxes to 80-90 dollars. Also, because there are so many boxes these lower priced products online never dry up so the price never slowly goes back up to where the LGS can sell them to make a profit. This also kills any sense of urgency since everyone knows the supply is super high, so people often will just stand around and wait until the price hits the bare minimum possible and then buy the boxes. Then, before the supply even starts to get tapped Wizards starts pushing the next product via pre-sale advertising, leaving tons of the prior product on the market that basically stops moving and just sits there at 80 usd.
Other TCGs do a modest print run of a set. Early comers get lower prices while the supply is high, but eventually that supply dwindles and stores that need the money are able to sell boxes later at prices closer to MSRP. People feel their purchases are worth it because there's only so much of it out there, and the next set usually doesn't hit until the supply for the prior set is pretty well bought up (unless it's a really bad set, but that is another issue entirely).
The one group that I hate in the second scenario are investors because they tend to eat through all the supply from the run and cause the prices to go up too quickly, which is part of the motivation for higher runs of standard sets in MTG. The problem is that wizards is releasing so much product that not only are investors not even touching the game, the player base can barely even scratch the supply themselves. It kills any sense of urgency and even worse makes the cards feel like they are near worthless once rotation hits unless a modern deck picks them up. Basically, MTG isn't even a trading card game, it's a game full of playing cards that are worth pennies on the dollar except for a few that the singles sellers use to make up the price of the booster boxes they are opening.
And now as for the comment on people complaining about masters sets: You are so completely missing the reasons why people complain that it's basically comical. The reason people complain about masters sets is that the price isn't from demand. That price is an artificially set cost by WoTC based on what they think it is worth via secondary market data. In a healthy system that price is determined by the demand of the people playing the game and I can easily say that no one playing thinks masters sets are really worth 240 usd. If wizards sold these at 120 msrp like a normal set (albeit, 24 boosters instead of 36), the price would probably settle a lot lower than 240 until the supply started dwindling up. Booster boxes that have prices like that number historically have been sets like Innistrad, which was beloved by players and went out of print a long time ago.
The reason people hate the prices is because the people aren't the ones saying "yeah, this is worth the 90 dollars". Instead, it's WoTC saying "Here is a 240 dollar booster box. Our market data says that you will pay approximately 240 dollars because the cards inside are worth estimated around 480 msrp before we released the set...". Then we all stand around going "uh, no this doesn't feel at all like it's worth 240 usd", but then some people are like "You guys just don't get it, they aren't dropping the price. I'll take two!".
Iconic masters is a bit of a different beast, because as the guy who normally buys two was about to buy two, Big Box Stores are like "Hey, it's time to buy the xmas gifts and we got magic cards too! We even got this new fangled Iconic Masters here as part of our buy one get one free sale!" So suddenly the guy who would normally buy two for the 240 price point is like "wait, that means they got a ton of it hidden somewhere! I'll just let the people online fight it out..."
Long post, but that's the gist of it.
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!
Why do you even care about this? Are you a shareholder? Do you get profit off of it? Or are you just a customer? In which case quality of the product should be your primary concern. Not to mention this ''money above all else'' attitude is the reason why everything is in decline.
I will happily accept poorer card stock quality if we can get design right- to hit a point where Standard is playable for enfranchised/established players or at least a situation where lot of cards get fringe application or better in older formats. What concerns me is, as ever, what is printed on the cards, which is too often dictated by rubbish from the Maro/Stoddard school of thinking - "we can't print X as it is unfun, and new players hate it". If the cards survive sleeved play then that is what matters to me. It is true that stock quality has gone down, but my cards survive as I am not playing more than 3 rounds draft with them, that is my issue. Get the game right would be a start- a standard where 8 decks are viable, fewer than half are midrange, and where you can both efficiently attack every resource the opponent has, where you can chose not to play creatures, planeswalkers or whatever and it is not a mistake, and where people who can't handle losing their hand, land or having their stuff countered go and play any of the other games out there or play EDH.
As of this last week the LGS I had since I moved this last spring is closing down as well. My issue is to some degree that even if I were to play standard, the stores I have access to mostly do not have the singles I would want. I could play standard but honestly with attendance being down for standard (it definitely shows out here) a lot of the stores are having more issues and closing. The second largest city in SD has had to move some of its standard and modern events to be casual commander FNM events because they just cant fire other events right now.
Really what I am circling back to here though is that the stores are having a very hard time with the lower standard as well. Top it off with the fact that the internet just keeps making more and more sense to buy singles and boxes on sale and its harder than ever for a local store to compete.
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[Modern] Allies
As someone who's been involved in dealing with paper goods, do not under-estimate the impact of low quality paper on a products life expectancy. The thing a lot of people don't realize is that paper isn't made exclusively from wood. Depending on the purpose, the stock can be composed of a mix of fabric, polymer resins, and other materials along with woven fibers. Then the paper can be coated or uncoated depending on the kind of effect one wants when the printing is done. By and large TCGs use coated papers since it helps legibility and makes things come out crisp.
Paper sold at most vendors goes through various levels of Q&A to assure the paper meets certain standards. Issues with low quality paper that commonly happen can vary based on the type of composition used, but most common issues can include the resin / polymers not setting properly resulting in uneven thickness, the fibers not being compressed properly, which can lead to curling when exposed to a cutting edge as it pulls the fibers at the edge and creates tension in other portions of the paper, and other times the fibers may also be low grade or actually "broken" during the process of making the paper.
Let me put it this way: The price between a good paper manufacturer and a bad one is not good when it comes to price. The only way it gets cheaper is if someone just says "okay, this sheet looks fine even though I know it's flawed". I've done that before and want to know what the result was? I had to go back to the supply store and get another sheet, so by the time I was done the cost of getting the "cheaper paper" was the same or more costly than if I had gone and bought one sheet of the paper that came from the better quality manufacturer. The sad thing is that on a sales sheet it still will look like the company sold twice as much paper as the better manufacturer.
As for someone elses comment on price complaints, I don't feel like going and repeating the post I wrote last night a few posts up.
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 european card quality is top notch.
If you have a US card and a european one it feels like the US one is a fake card, thats how different they are.
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Little stores though need to realize that they can't just be a magic shop. They need to sell lots of games and differentiate so they can afford to compete with online retailers that do so much business they can afford to bottom out the prices. It's unfortunate that WotC isn't supporting stores more and really stupid they don't help them stay in business (see selling Iconic at Walmart) because they really drive product and participation.
WotC also should be taking a really close look at 2 year FNM participation at local LGS across the country to see how they're really doing. Big events are nice but product sales move from high volume at local stores. Pros don't buy a lot of singles. Pros don't buy packs. Happy customers close to the ground do.
Well, assuming it hasn't changed the stock that MTG is printed on is called Corona. The problem is that there's actually two different brands of paper called Corona and in the US the kind that gets sold publicly is of a lower grade. The lower grade usually feels different and is more prone to inking problems, curling under heat, and other conditions. From what I've found with testing it looks like the US cards may be getting produced with the lower grade and cheaper corona paper instead of the older stock. Is this the fault of the paper company? I don't really know. It's totally possible that the USPC is cheaping out or wizards is purposely buying the cheaper stock. I know that their stock tends to expand with time, so older cards usually feel different because of that. However, the curling when exposed to heat is completely different with the new cards vs older Corona and I basically could prove it just by doing a heat test. This leads me to believe they are either using a different paper stock or are using Corona that failed Q&A.
I've bought paper from Argio Wiggens before and never had an issue (for reference, I've used the "Curious Collection"). I'm kind of wondering if WoTC is just missing looking over the printing and finishing guidelines. That can actually do some nasty things as well even to good stock.
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 have noticed stock quality on IM more than Ixa.
I agree with you wizards has made mistakes but this is one that impacts alarge portion of people and Could theortictly lead to possable cheating since the quailty IS different.
It's a lot of things, really. For myself, I just don't feel wizards is making it worth my while to play their game. They aren't supporting local stores enough, the auxilary products are either weak or over costed, and the best set they have released is an Un-set because it's completely annexes itself from any kind of established format (and has full art lands). I swapped back to Force of Will because that game right now is just doing better. Smaller player population, lower costs, and the biggest issue they have is green getting too many counter spells and card draw. Kind of makes me wonder how bad elves would be in MtG if they had dispel, mindbreak trap, and a one mana hard counter that stops a spell, but lets the opponent cast another spell of equal cost or less from their hand instead.
If standard pauper takes off that might save the game more than anything else since it would give people a low cost constructed format to play for FNM and possibly even price distribution in the standard sets a bit more.
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 wondering, though, how long it will take them to realize the single-set* dynamic will be considered a mistake and revert back to the old structure.
One thing I will say is that we don't need a core set every year. If they were to do it every two years as it was pre-tenth edition, it opens up more potential with a mix of block structure. For example, they could do one year with a three-set block and a core set, and the other that's without a core set to do two two-set blocks.
So like: A-B-C Core set, A-B, A-B, A-B-C Core set.
It could work.
'buster
* This takes into account sets that have a storyline spread over >1 set
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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!
Challenger Decks are expected to be pre-constructed decks based on actual tournament results, statistics, and what's popular in both Standard and Modern environments. Duel Decks on the other hand mainly catered to the casual crowd with only a handful of good cards to turn a profit on, with the rising popularity of EDH/Commander they probably felt that there was no need to keep going with Duel Decks any longer.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I applaud them for their "ingenuity", but that wont solve the problems they are having. What is happening is that they are over printing cards that never see any play and underprinting the ones that do while also not printing them in a way that is effective in getting them out to players. Other card games that have starters actually put 4x format staples into the starters and not the main set, so players end up buying the starters to get playsets of things they need for deck building. This sounds like it would be a horrible disaster since "speculators will buy up all the boxes", but that is easy to answer by just making sure the print run on the starter sets are significant and they reprint the staples in the following set coming after the starters. The other thing other games tend to do is make sure the set is designed so there aren't "draft only" cards in the set. The problem Magic the Gathering as a game has is that the developers got pushed into a draft selling strategy for the booster boxes. This happened because the pro-tour advertises top tier decks that mostly used the rares and mythics of a given cycle, which in turn is the developers fault for pushing the power level at the top end and just toying around with the bottom rung.
It's also why Mark Rosewater drives me insane when I see him on screen talking about game development. He talks about making sets the ground up via commons and then deciding on each tier afterwards, but his strategy has a big flaw: If the developer builds from the ground up only, how does he gauge where the top is? Not to mention he states that they design the strongest synergy at the common and uncommon level, which leaves the top being more flexible. This is a bad choice because the more open one makes the top, the more likely it is to synergize with something that one doesn't expect. A great example are the eldrazi in Oath of the Gatewatch: They made Thoughtknot Seer a 4 drop with positive synergy towards other eldrazi tribal cards. This made it so the card could work with Eldrazi Temple and Eye of Ugin unabated. If they had developed the card as a 3/3 that could only be played with an eldrazi centric land in play, it would not have been as much of a problem with eye of ugin and eldrazi temple and the same could be said about many of the eldrazi tribal cards.
So in a nutshell, we can thank the developers for basically making Magic a broken husk and forcing people into playing only the most open, flexible cards in the game when playing formats like Modern and Legacy. Even standard doesn't really escape this issue as they tend to be overly loose on the rares and mythics of each set. If the game had stronger synergy requirements we'd have a better pricing spread on the secondary market. It still wouldn't stop the top end of modern being expensive as much as change what that top end is, though, as well as make the top end move around a lot more.
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!
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!
https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/features/how-the-company-behind-dd-magic-and-avalon-hill-innovate-w514703
Granted this article isn't about MTG specifically but Cox isn't an MTG guy he's a big picture guy. He's going to keep allowing WotC to run the card game and it's details while he pushes Arena and these new crap products to expand market share. WotC has been assimilated.
The design team still needs to get their heads out because they're still responsible for what we're getting. I just hope the 'pro' team guidance is going to work in the long run.