I have a group of 6 friends who are somewhat interested in playing magic. I have been in the game for a while and have managed to get my work group into the lore of MTG. They would like to learn how to play but are somewhat reluctant to take the leap in. They want to make sure they are getting into a popular game.
As we all know, Magic is popular (consider Pre-releases, and Magic Fests, and sales), and I have told them as much. But they wanted to know about a piece of information that I was clueless about. So I will pose it to you all and hopefully we can get a rough estimate:
GLOBALLY, ABOUT HOW MANY ENGLISH COPIES OF A STANDARD RARE AND MYTHIC RARE EXIST IN CIRCULATION?
Obviously I had no idea, but i know it is a large number and it had to do something with the number of boxes sold. My "uneducated guess" that there were about 50,000 copies of any particular Guilds of Ravnica rare card (such as assassin's trophy) floating around on planet Earth, either in decks or on the market, with a little more coming in each day until it rotates out of standard. I know it is not a perfect answer, but i confess that it was only a wild guess.
I am hoping somebody on here can help shed some light on this topic if possible.
As far as I'm aware, Wizards continues to make print runs to meet demand for a significant amount of time after a set's release. For a high-demand set like GRN or DOM, any given rare likely has on the order of 100,000 copies in the world, if not on the order of 1,000,000.
Wizards does not publish print run numbers for the vast majority of sets. We only know the number of cards printed for the earliest sets of the game. For example, 2.6 million Alpha cards were printed.
Exact numbers are not public , but you can make some educated estimated guesses based on some numbers, and their financial reports on how much money they made with the game (which roughly translates to number of cards sold, which they had to produce etc.).
For some special products and factories insider information of the quantity of the order got public by Rudy and some other sources, which spilled some light on how many cards they printed in that particular factory, for at least a print run for one wave.
Most sets get more than 1 wave of print runs, so thats also not an exact science, just estimated guesses.
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For the vast majority of sets however the number of copies is so high that it just doesnt matter anymore anyway, there are simply too many of them (millions+).
The quantity of cards is also not random, as they print entire sheets of them anyway, so the numbers are always the same, there isnt just randomly much more of one rare than another (outside of very special exceptions of cards).
Thank you everyone. Basically the more copies of rares there were, the more likely my friends would hop on. So rare copies in the millions is exactly what I was hoping for.
Thank you everyone. Basically the more copies of rares there were, the more likely my friends would hop on. So rare copies in the millions is exactly what I was hoping for.
Can I ask why that would be a deciding factor in whether someone would want to play or not?
If all you want to do is play magic with friends, magic the gathering can be pretty cheap.
It only gets expensive if you want to follow the masses, build a cool deck, build a competitive deck, and of course one up your friends.
I played kitchen table for magic for years. Every time cards rotated out, that's when I would buy in, and build the decks that people had been playing for an entire standard cycle. I built tons of decks with absolute junk rares.
Even now on SCG, CFB, and others there's tons of rares that are cheap because they're not used in any format.
But that doesn't make then unfun in a kitchen table setting.
Found this listing on an MTG reddit post for the earliest print runs:
Limited Edition Alpha (August 1993): 2.6 million cards / 1,100 of each rare.
Limited Edition Beta (October 1993): 7.3 million cards / 3,300 of each rare.
Unlimited (December 1993):35 million cards / 17,500 of each rare.
Arabian Nights (December 1993): 5 million cards / ~2,100 of each rare
Antiquities (March 1994): 15 million cards / ~6,700 of each rare
Legends: (June 1994):35 million cards / 17,500 of each rare.
Revised (April 1994): Estimated in the 600 million range. / ~289,000 of each rare.
The Dark (August 1994): 62 million cards.
Fallen Empires (November 1994): more than four times the number issued for The Dark.
Again, these sets were printed back in first couple of years, so I have no doubt that sets like Innistrad, Zendikar, Return to Ravnica, and further have only increased tenfold since the player base has increased tremendously.
Just with a quick search it looks like the player base numbers the first couple of years were around 5M, 12M+ in 2013, and Hasbro has suggested that they've hit up to 20M+ since then. I'm sure it has fluctuated somewhat since, but no doubt MTG Arena has helped up the numbers.
As we all know, Magic is popular (consider Pre-releases, and Magic Fests, and sales), and I have told them as much. But they wanted to know about a piece of information that I was clueless about. So I will pose it to you all and hopefully we can get a rough estimate:
GLOBALLY, ABOUT HOW MANY ENGLISH COPIES OF A STANDARD RARE AND MYTHIC RARE EXIST IN CIRCULATION?
Obviously I had no idea, but i know it is a large number and it had to do something with the number of boxes sold. My "uneducated guess" that there were about 50,000 copies of any particular Guilds of Ravnica rare card (such as assassin's trophy) floating around on planet Earth, either in decks or on the market, with a little more coming in each day until it rotates out of standard. I know it is not a perfect answer, but i confess that it was only a wild guess.
I am hoping somebody on here can help shed some light on this topic if possible.
Thank you
Wizards does not publish print run numbers for the vast majority of sets. We only know the number of cards printed for the earliest sets of the game. For example, 2.6 million Alpha cards were printed.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
the_definitive_guide_to_print_runs
----
Exact numbers are not public , but you can make some educated estimated guesses based on some numbers, and their financial reports on how much money they made with the game (which roughly translates to number of cards sold, which they had to produce etc.).
For some special products and factories insider information of the quantity of the order got public by Rudy and some other sources, which spilled some light on how many cards they printed in that particular factory, for at least a print run for one wave.
Most sets get more than 1 wave of print runs, so thats also not an exact science, just estimated guesses.
----
For the vast majority of sets however the number of copies is so high that it just doesnt matter anymore anyway, there are simply too many of them (millions+).
The quantity of cards is also not random, as they print entire sheets of them anyway, so the numbers are always the same, there isnt just randomly much more of one rare than another (outside of very special exceptions of cards).
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Can I ask why that would be a deciding factor in whether someone would want to play or not?
It only gets expensive if you want to follow the masses, build a cool deck, build a competitive deck, and of course one up your friends.
I played kitchen table for magic for years. Every time cards rotated out, that's when I would buy in, and build the decks that people had been playing for an entire standard cycle. I built tons of decks with absolute junk rares.
Even now on SCG, CFB, and others there's tons of rares that are cheap because they're not used in any format.
But that doesn't make then unfun in a kitchen table setting.
Well that one is easier. Magic is THE paper CCG.
Limited Edition Alpha (August 1993): 2.6 million cards / 1,100 of each rare.
Limited Edition Beta (October 1993): 7.3 million cards / 3,300 of each rare.
Unlimited (December 1993):35 million cards / 17,500 of each rare.
Arabian Nights (December 1993): 5 million cards / ~2,100 of each rare
Antiquities (March 1994): 15 million cards / ~6,700 of each rare
Legends: (June 1994):35 million cards / 17,500 of each rare.
Revised (April 1994): Estimated in the 600 million range. / ~289,000 of each rare.
The Dark (August 1994): 62 million cards.
Fallen Empires (November 1994): more than four times the number issued for The Dark.
Again, these sets were printed back in first couple of years, so I have no doubt that sets like Innistrad, Zendikar, Return to Ravnica, and further have only increased tenfold since the player base has increased tremendously.
Just with a quick search it looks like the player base numbers the first couple of years were around 5M, 12M+ in 2013, and Hasbro has suggested that they've hit up to 20M+ since then. I'm sure it has fluctuated somewhat since, but no doubt MTG Arena has helped up the numbers.