This is very incorrect. Courts hear seemingly silly cases all the time. Further, reneging on the reserve list fits almost all the traditional elements of the American legal theory "promissory estoppel." The only iffy part is the need to show damages - summarily, prices would have to actually drop. Maybe they wouldn't drop, as some argue, but the possibility of arguing about it in a class action is probably enough to keep Hasbro's attorneys telling WotC not to renege.
I disagree.
First, promissory estoppel would only relate in this case to economic damages. The reserve list does not state that they are not reprinting cars to protect card values. There is no promise of economic safety.
Similarly, WoTC has in the past (and continues to) effect card values through bannings and unbannings. Look at Survival of the Fittest. It is on the reserve list, yet had it's value completely tanked when it was banned in Legacy. No lawsuits were filed at the time that I know of. Because WoTC never made any promise protecting the economic interests of collectors.
Which is all a rather moot point since the Reserve List decision was made when WoTC was a free standing LLC, when they were acquired by Hasbro it's practically a guarantee the corporate acquisition contract specifically indemnified Hasbro from any and all promises and contracts made when WoTC was it's own legal entity. It's standard boilerplate language in corporate aquisiotn agreements, you can read several samples online.
So even if there was a legal reasoning behind the RL (which myself and more than a few people claiming to be lawyers don't believe), those would almost certainly have ceased to exist when Hasbro bought WoTC.
As for defense of class action, class action lawsuits get files all the time. Getting them summarily dismissed is a very simple and non expensive thing for a corporate law office to do. I would assume an organization the size of Hasbro has plenty of lawyers working for them.
From what I understood, he says that some cards maintaining value despite reserved list means that the collectors can't be considered to be reasonably and detrimentally reliant on WOTC's promise, and as such they wouldn't be able to get money even if some other cards dropped. I don't know anything about law, so I might be wrong though.
Price movements after reneging on the reprint policy shouldn't go to the reasonability of reliance on the reprint policy. Maybe there's an argument in there somewhere that, because some cards went up after reprint went away, WotC isn't responsible for other reprints falling. An actual lawsuit would need to explore the evidence pretty thoroughly, but my gut check would be that a court looking at this is going to be able to get to the common sense result we already understand in these forums - reprints make prices fall except where it stimulates new demand for a card. Given that, the people holding on to the cards whose prices fell should still have an argument for recovery.
Quote from "Valarin" »
pseudo legal speak
That's fine and all for your brief, Valarin, but if you were my corporate attorney I would sure hope you dot your i's, cross your t's, and avoid lawsuits even if I've got a better legal position. I wouldn't be paying you $200/hr+ to tell me I won't be liable so you can litigate for me later.
I didn't post to get into an argument about the law, though. I just wanted to maintain that people shouldn't wave their hands so that legal issues go away. Like I've already said, legal issues may be one reason deterring WotC from reversing the reprint policy, although other reasons like maintaining general credibility and focusing on the newer, "healthier" formats probably figure heavily.
Don't bother, euknemarchon. I've already bee there. These guys know way more about the law than people who actually study or practice it. Just let them think they're right, it's easier that way.
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Ok, one more question.. what if WOTC announces that reserved list will be abolished, say 18 months later, and there won't be a significant drop after the announcement, would collectors still be able to sue? Tarmogoyf didn't drop after MM announcement, so that would likely be the case with duals too.
I mean, this is tough because this is nitty gritty evidence that would need to be documented, and the actual events are speculative. But generally we think there's a price premium reserve list cards already have right now because WotC has credibly promised never to reprint them (40% according to Amuraivel's statistical analysis!). Goyf did not have this premium because WotC never promised to refrain from reprinting him. Hence, to the extent that part of a Black Lotus's price comes from the reserve list promise, even if WotC announces a change to occur in 18 months, we should see the price fall immediately as the premium disappears. Further, people pretty quickly identified the "stimulate new demand" theory for modern reprints following the announcement of MM, and we should expect that to be much less pronounced for Legacy/Vintage. Hence, on economic grounds I don't think your hypothetical would change the ultimate results that some prices would fall, and if the facts don't change I don't think the legal outcome should change.
I'm waiting for somebody to start a change.org petition about the Reserved List. I think a really high signature count would be solid persuasion for WotC, as it attaches a statistical significance to claims that most people want the list abolished.
I think abolishing the list is a legal issue, but it's equally an image issue. WotC is worried what a reneg on a promise would look like to the public.
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Currently playing:
Standard: N/A
Modern: AffinityWR, Delver WUR
Legacy: High TideU, ZombiesWBRG, 12post UG, Delver UR
A friend of mine ran a successful store for years before selling it off so he could spend more time with his kids. Selling new product netted him some money, but not much. The majority of his profit came from selling singles, and he most definitely continued to crack open new boxes to restock singles well after the initial order had come and gone.
As for Bread's argument, original Birds of Paradise and so forth are reasonably valuable, but that doesn't mean that reprinting didn't drive down the price. Imagine what they be worth now if they had only been made available in Alpha through Unlimited.
Also, I was speaking specifically about the high end market (power nine, dual lands, etc.) -- the bump in price when a card reenters the type two market only lasts as long as it's type two legal. As soon as it drops back out, the worth of the original printing is watered down by the availability of all those easier-to-acquire reprints.
If birds of paradise had been printed in just alpha, beta, and unlimited it would be worth what juzam djinn is worth/less. Card isn't playable in legacy or vintage right now, the two formats it would be legal in. It would simply be another iconic card that is still worth less than bazaar of baghdad, power 9, mishra's workshop, candelabra, moat, the tabernacle at pendrell vale, and dual lands from the same sets. No point in discussing it, because that's not what happened. It WAS reprinted a billion times over and the alpha and beta copies STILL went up to astronomical prices despite all the reprintings.
The image issue is literally the only thing stopping the RL from being abolished I think. However, I don't see how it can be that bad when 99% of the people are yelling "ABOLISH IT" and 1% are for it. That 1% gets drowned out by all the people who love the fact that duals are being reprinted and that they have the chance to open them in packs again.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
That's fine and all for your brief, Valarin, but if you were my corporate attorney I would sure hope you dot your i's, cross your t's, and avoid lawsuits even if I've got a better legal position. I wouldn't be paying you $200/hr+ to tell me I won't be liable so you can litigate for me later.
I didn't post to get into an argument about the law, though. I just wanted to maintain that people shouldn't wave their hands so that legal issues go away. Like I've already said, legal issues may be one reason deterring WotC from reversing the reprint policy, although other reasons like maintaining general credibility and focusing on the newer, "healthier" formats probably figure heavily.
No one knows anything for certain. All we can look at is the facts we have, and the most likely conclusions to draw from those facts. And all of those those facts and all of those conclusions all point pretty darn convincingly towards the RL existing having nothing to do with anything related to the law at all.
Promissory estoppal has been shown by at least one person claiming to be a lawyer to not apply, and looking at the legal definition, the RL hardly looks like a slam dunk application of it. And I can't find any promise by WoTC to maintain collector value. Have any other collectible manufacturers ever been sued under Promissory estoppal?
Collector values are still able to be changedby WoTC at any time by banning cards, has anyone filed a Promissory estoppal case against them when that happened?
There is no contract in place, since a contract requires a meeting of the minds, and I now I never agreed to the RL. So there's no contract broken
And the biggest point, the company that made the promise doesn't exist anymore. It was sold.
Another nail in that coffin: Who is going to sue? I'm pretty sure every major retailer has claimed they want the Reserve List gone, and they have by FAR the mos to lose if card values drop. SCG is the biggest card shop in the world, aren't they? And they publically called for the revocation of the list. Many top collectors have claimed that they would be fine if the RL went away.
If everyone who would sue over the Reserve List wants it gone, where exactly is this massive legal threat? It just doesn't make sense.
We can't claim anything 100%, but I don't see any evidence pointing to an legal reason behind the RL. There are other reasons that just make more sense, and I'm a huge believer in Occams Razor. I also find it highly unlikely a multi billion dollar corporation like Hasbro with an in house legal team is going to be scared of litigation costs over something like this. It's not like little kids are dying from MTG card induced paper cuts or anything leading to multi million dollars payouts.
The image issue is literally the only thing stopping the RL from being abolished I think. However, I don't see how it can be that bad when 99% of the people are yelling "ABOLISH IT" and 1% are for it. That 1% gets drowned out by all the people who love the fact that duals are being reprinted and that they have the chance to open them in packs again.
I think the image issue is part of it, but really, I buy the "They want to defend Standard" argument more. Abolishing the reserve list and reprinting duals and the like only helps 2 formats: Vintage and Legacy. What two formats make WoTC the least amount $$ and move the least amount of sealed product? Vintage and Legacy. So given that, why break a promise for no gain? What's in it for WoTC?
The only part of the whole thing that really throws me for a loop is the "We won't talk about it at all, period, upon pain of death we will never discuss the reasons behind the Reserve List" policy. I don't see who that policy is helping at all.
So you expected me to take your opinion (just as uninformed as mine or Valarin's) over the guy I quoted? There were no lawyers posting in the other thread.
Let me explain a few things.
1) You have no idea how informed or uninformed my opinion is. You don't know anything about who I am or what I do or what my hobbies are (well, aside from "Magic", I guess). I can tell you I'm not "uninformed", but you've got no reason to believe me, so why bother?
2) Just because someone is a "lawyer" doesn't mean they "know law". Attorneys tend to specialize in one or two areas of the law, and aside from a basic understanding, really don't know much about other areas of it.
3) A lawyer is a hired gun who is trained in making a persuasive argument using existing case law based upon what he or his client want you to believe. What they tend to do, however, is ignore things that don't support their claim. This is why every case has two lawyers, one on each side. Taking a lawyer's statement at face value, particularly when he's trying to support his own claim, is kind of naive.
So yeah, you can disagree with my theory* all you like, for whatever reason. But I'm getting a little sick of being dismissed because "Ooooo a lawyer said this so he MUST be right!". This may shock you, but a full 50% of lawyers turn out to be wrong in a courtroom.
*For those who didn't follow the other thread, my theory on the reason they're keeping the reserve list is that if they don't, it opens them up to a suit for misrepresenting their product, by reprinting cards they publicly promised not to reprint.
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So yeah, you can disagree with my theory* all you like, for whatever reason. But I'm getting a little sick of being dismissed because "Ooooo a lawyer said this so he MUST be right!". This may shock you, but a full 50% of lawyers turn out to be wrong in a courtroom.
*For those who didn't follow the other thread, my theory on the reason they're keeping the reserve list is that if they don't, it opens them up to a suit for misrepresenting their product, by reprinting cards they publicly promised not to reprint.
No one can say 100% why the RL is in place, but fact we do have do not support a legal reason. I pointed out in the other thread why misrepresentation of product would have a very low possibility of being an applicable law in this case.
I mean, we laid out the fact we do know, the reasonable conclusions you can draw from those facts, and explained why they lead to the most likely conclusion that the RL is not based upon some sort of legal threat to Hasbro. Why conclusions are you drawing that make you think it does?
No one is dismissing anyone. This is all guesswork and conjecture, no one can prove anything. I'm comfortable where my examination of the facts and the conclusions I have drawn have lead me concerning why the list is around. I could be completely wrong, it could be a legal reason, it could be some completely off the wall reason no one ever thought of, it could be a completely ridiculous reason they are too embarrassed to admit, who know. But I (and MaZa and others) don't find the legal argument nearly convincing enough to buy it. We're just explaining why. If choose to not buy what we are saying and believe it is legal in nature, we can't prove you wrong. But in the same vein you can't claim we are wrong or you have an special insight into the situation.
You have no idea how informed or uninformed my opinion is. You don't know anything about who I am or what I do or what my hobbies are (well, aside from "Magic", I guess). I can tell you I'm not "uninformed", but you've got no reason to believe me, so why bother?
So tell us. We have no reason to disbelieve you. If you clerked under a judge who ruled on multiple contract and product claims cases, lets hear about it.
The bolded part sounds like there needs to be some injustice involved, like the example of getting somebody to quit his job with promise of hiring him and then backing off. Would collectors just losing some value count as a big enough injustice? Or does 'injustice' merely mean economic loss?
Promissory estoppel is an equitable theory, which means it derives from a side of the Anglo-American legal tradition eschewing hardline technical rules and instead favoring getting to "just" results. The common doctrine on promissory estoppel (RSC 90 iirc), then, requires the court to conclude that "justice requires" it to do something. Essentially, it's a flimsy standard, and the court mainly has to be convinced that WotC made a promise it expected people to rely on and then broke it. The prospect of prices falling because of reprints is just the kind of collector fear that led WotC to put out the reserve list in the first place, so breaking the promise and reprinting cards with the result of falling prices would arguably match promissory estoppel "injustice" and convince a court. It's not just economic loss (which would be a kind of hardline legal rule); it's some sort of detriment, e.g. economic loss, that comes about because of a party doing something "bad faith" like breaking a promise not to reprint cards.
I take it that you mean relatively new singles? A shop-owner I had a chat with said that it's bad for business that some older cards are so expensive. He said that the casual crowd and Standard players are where he makes money, and that he actually makes very little with selling big-money staples like Force of Will or duals because so few actually buy them. That's not really an argument for the reserved list.
So you mean that they want the high-end to have as 'mythical' feeling as possible or whatever to boost sales of new sets with the unconscious (and false) hope that the new cards could be like that in future?
There were a lot of hardcore type one players in that particular area (or at least there were as late as the mid-2000s), so those big ticket items didn't stay on the shelf for long. I'm willing to accept that wasn't the norm elsewhere, though.
And yes, that "unconscious (and false) hope" is precisely what I'm talking about there. People love to think they've got a shot at buying low and selling high, and as dumb and delusional as that is it still helps drive sales. It did the same for the comic book market too until the publishers killed that hope for good by flooding the market with hundreds of variant covers and #1 issues in the late 90s (my memory says it happened in the late 90s, anyway).
There were a lot of hardcore type one players in that particular area (or at least there were as late as the mid-2000s), so those big ticket items didn't stay on the shelf for long. I'm willing to accept that wasn't the norm elsewhere, though.
And yes, that "unconscious (and false) hope" is precisely what I'm talking about there. People love to think they've got a shot at buying low and selling high, and as dumb and delusional as that is it still helps drive sales. It did the same for the comic book market too until the publishers killed that hope for good by flooding the market with hundreds of variant covers and #1 issues in the late 90s (my memory says it happened in the late 90s, anyway).
We know you've encountered hardcore type one players when you still call it type one! Haha.
The prospect of prices falling because of reprints is just the kind of collector fear that led WotC to put out the reserve list in the first place
Proof? That's a pretty exact statement to make.
so breaking the promise and reprinting cards with the result of falling prices would arguably match promissory estoppel "injustice" and convince a court.
Can you find any earlier cases that would support this precedent in collectible?
How do you refute the earlier post saying promissory estoppel wouldn't apply?
"Promissory estoppel is meant for situations where the party making the promise seriously led the other party into doing something that puts him at a real disadvantage, like getting someone to quit their job with the promise of hiring him and then backing out. Given that there are plenty of old cards that are holding their value without the promised protection of the reserve list (e.g., Force of Will) , old cards that have largely held their value despite being reprinted in limited quantities (e.g., Berserk), and new cards that will likely continue to hold their value because they're that good (e.g., 'Goyf), no court is going to conclude that Wizards's reprint policy induced the collector-plaintiffs into buying cards in reasonable reliance on their promise not to reprint certain cards and are therefore responsible to the collectors for their losses. It's not a winning case."
What decision did a collector make that would cause him detriment? Buying Magic cards? Wouldn't that be predicated on the belief that investments never lose value?
If I bu stock in a company because thier CEO said "We are going to have our best year ever, I promise!" and then the stock goes down for any reason, I can't sue based on Promissory estoppel. All the examples I read look like Promissory estoppel has nothing to do with protecting investments in collectibles.
Not to mention, you still haven't addressed the point of the company that made the RL promise not existing anymore
In general, the elements of promissory estoppel are:
1) a promise reasonably expected by the promissor to induce action or forbearance,
2) action or forbearance by the promisee in justifiable reliance on the promise (i.e. “detrimental reliance”), and
3) injustice can be avoided only through enforcement of the promise.
So, for #1, a person would need to convince a judge that WoTC created hte Reserve List to induce a collector buy cards on the Reserve List. I think that's a stretch. For #2, they would need to prove they only bought cards on the RL because the RL promise was made. I doubt that would happen. IF a person bought a dual land and played a game of MTG with it, he had some other reason to buy the card other than the fact it was on the RL. I think that would fail the test.
I think #3 is where it really falls apart though. If the "injustice" is cards on the RL losing value, than simply upholding the RL does not avoid that injustice, since card value on the RL can (and have) been lowered by bannings. Enforcing the RL would not guarantee an injustice (as defined by a collector losing value) would be prevented.
Definitely an interesting area of law to read about, but the more I read about the cases where it has been used successfully and unsuccessfully, the less I see it applying to the RL.
As much as I would enjoy getting reprints of reserved list cards I don't see Wizard doing it. At least not in a tournament legal printing. The only thing the revised list is currently doing is prevently more players to easily get into the Legacy format. With how much Wizards has been promoting and bumping their new Modern format they have obviously stated legacy is cool and all but this is the eternal format that matters now.
The problem with the Reserved List is that it is outdated. On the list of what I like to call "ABU only" cards there are only 27.
No - I'm not counting weird reprint products like Berserk in FTV - where the product it's in immediately goes for four times MSRP and isn't really in a released set.
By the Star City Games list only 26 cards in Unlimited sell for more than $50.
Power 9, Time Vault, the Dual Lands, Forcefield, Gauntlet of Might, Chaos Orb, Illusionary Mask, Berserk, and Word of Command.
I guess you have some other chase cards you are trying to "protect" value on that exist on the list: Library of Alexandria, Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra's Workshop, Candelabra of Tawnos, maybe a couple of others that come from the early non-block sets.
Basically the Reserve List exists to protect the value of around 50 cards out of the approximately 15,000 unique ones that are now in print.
The rest of the list is a farce at best...where over 90% of them go for $0.10-$1.00.
So exactly what is 90% of the list for again? Protecting that $0.10 Goblin Wizard, Leeches, and Weakstone? If you want to revise the list and keep just the 50 playable/collector cards you're protecting (and you can figure that out by looking at the price lists) on it - that would be fine.
The problem with the Reserved List is that it is outdated. On the list of what I like to call "ABU only" cards there are only 27.
No - I'm not counting weird reprint products like Berserk in FTV - where the product it's in immediately goes for four times MSRP and isn't really in a released set.
By the Star City Games list only 26 cards in Unlimited sell for more than $50.
Power 9, Time Vault, the Dual Lands, Forcefield, Gauntlet of Might, Chaos Orb, Illusionary Mask, Berserk, and Word of Command.
I guess you have some other chase cards you are trying to "protect" value on that exist on the list: Library of Alexandria, Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra's Workshop, Candelabra of Tawnos, maybe a couple of others that come from the early non-block sets.
Basically the Reserve List exists to protect the value of around 50 cards out of the approximately 15,000 unique ones that are now in print.
The rest of the list is a farce at best...where over 90% of them go for $0.10-$1.00.
So exactly what is 90% of the list for again? Protecting that $0.10 Goblin Wizard, Leeches, and Weakstone? If you want to revise the list and keep just the 50 playable/collector cards you're protecting (and you can figure that out by looking at the price lists) on it - that would be fine.
So yeah, if we're trying to decide whether the Reserve List makes sense on its own terms, those 50 cards might not deserve to be on the list. But most of what has been discussed in this thread has been reasons to chuck the Reserve List for the health of legacy, in particular, as a format. And actually, the cards your argument keeps on the Reserve List - expensive ones - generally overlap with the legacy/vintage playables people want to come off list. The farce 50 if you will could stay forever (or at least until they become playable in their favorite format) for all the Legacy players care.
Why should Wizards care about the health of Legacy?
Because, for a lot of players, legacy is the most fun format. I would probably not play magic if it weren't for legacy. I'm not interested in standard all that much. Modern is still a format under construction, but might become interesting after a while.
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Legacy: RUG Tempo Tresh RUG BUG Team america, Shardless BUG, BUG control BUG WUBEsper StonebladeWUB WUGBRTESWUGBR UBRSneak and ShowUBR
The problem with playing mainly Legacy is that you aren't a vested interest to WotC. Wait...you mainly play a format where you buy no new product other than a few choice singles from each new release? From a sales standpoint you aren't very useful to them as a business if you aren't buying product and profiting them.
Unless you are actively drafting new sets or playing Standard you aren't good for their bottom line because you don't actually have to spend massive amounts of money to keep up with your format. That's bad for them.
They're pushing Standard/Modern because it makes them money - and not dealing with the Reserve List is simply a lazy answer for them because they have no vested interest in it. At all.
They have this fear that reprinting some cards for a format that they DON'T even support will cause their most loyal customer base to quit in disgust. It's just stupid. Just because you made a bad business promise you know - I mean KNOW - 99% of players/customers no longer want doesn't mean you should be obligated to it for the rest of eternity.
It's easy to ignore though - because it makes you no money. Other than the players who rejoice when you start putting cards back into circulation and people have the choice to go spend money on them.
You don't even have to have them be regular products that affect Standard/Modern and people will STILL buy them for EDH. Do I need to mention the price gouging that goes on with From The Vaults, Commander's Arsenal, and the other limited products they put out constantly?
Than again - maybe I should be happy they have reached a certain point of satiation in their greed where they simply ignore what a majority of their customer base wants because it's got an easy answer they can parrot and that lets them simply ignore it.
Because, for a lot of players, legacy is the most fun format. I would probably not play magic if it weren't for legacy. I'm not interested in standard all that much. Modern is still a format under construction, but might become interesting after a while.
So you play an eternal format where you aren't spending money on new sealed product to play. I'll ask again, why should WoTC care about Legacy?
I understand players enjoy playing Legacy, but WoTC is more interested in moving product than players enjoying Legacy.
I don't think we have to put such a greedy face on WotC's obvious decision to focus on Standard/Modern formats. Certain WotC personnel as well as us could probably argue that formats where people affirmatively can't play new cards except for a very small group of (accidentally?) pushed singles aren't healthy, period, especially for new players. Having a format where a lot of the product you can potentially open right now might be playable without worrying about power from ten years ago and then another format where you might potentially be able to play your better standard lists with ten years of supplementation may be better for the community as a whole.
That being said, it might be perfectly consistent with the above perspective to still have legacy staple reprints in premium products. All I'm saying right now is that greed or even sustainable profits don't have to be the only concerns motivating a focus on standard and modern.
I don't think we have to put such a greedy face on WotC's obvious decision to focus on Standard/Modern formats.
It's not greedy, it's just their business model. There's a reason Standard and Draft were the sole sancitonable FNM formats. Those formats move product.
Comparatively the amount of sealed product Legacy moves is probably a rounding error.
All I'm saying right now is that greed or even sustainable profits don't have to be the only concerns motivating a focus on standard and modern.
Greed, no. Sustainable profits? Absolutely, Sustainable profits are why WoTC exists, and why Hasbro bought them and continues to pay people to develop the game. The $$ MTG brings in is the absolutely only reason MTG exists. If MTG stops bring in $$, they would stop making it. Neither WoTC nor Hasbro are a charity. They are for profit businesses.
as both a player AND a collector i'm always at odds with myself over the restricted list. i quit playing standard a few years ago and have been focused on the eternal formats. (saves money in the long run. keeps the missus happy) i would LOVE to be able to open a pack and nab that long sought after 4th Volcanic Island but as a collector, i would be mad as all get out if they suddenly reprinted them, even in a limited way. i've been collecting one ofs for every card worth over $300 in the rarest form of the card, barring mistakes (like Edgar) all truth told if i can complete my list and keep the cards safe, by the time my daughter is old enough she can pay her way through college. the list was made to protect the investments people have made in their cards, and though the prices have skyrocketed for certain ones because of barring reprint, hindsight is 20/20. with Modern Masters coming out to compensate for the goyf and bob hunters out there, WoTC have finally started to figure out how to keep value of card high for collectors, yet still allow new players a chance to obtain them without breaking the bank. finally. as in now. they didnt have this wealth of knowledge they do now. if they did, i guarantee they would have said, "dont worry, we have a system to keep value up and and availability up as well." I hate that i have to carry my vintage deck in a locked pelican case because it's SO DAMN EXPENSIVE in there, but at the same time, i'm glad that when my day to quit comes, i'll be a wealthier man from all the fun i've had all these years.
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as both a player AND a collector i'm always at odds with myself over the restricted list. i quit playing standard a few years ago and have been focused on the eternal formats. (saves money in the long run. keeps the missus happy) i would LOVE to be able to open a pack and nab that long sought after 4th Volcanic Island but as a collector, i would be mad as all get out if they suddenly reprinted them, even in a limited way. i've been collecting one ofs for every card worth over $300 in the rarest form of the card, barring mistakes (like Edgar) all truth told if i can complete my list and keep the cards safe, by the time my daughter is old enough she can pay her way through college. the list was made to protect the investments people have made in their cards, and though the prices have skyrocketed for certain ones because of barring reprint, hindsight is 20/20. with Modern Masters coming out to compensate for the goyf and bob hunters out there, WoTC have finally started to figure out how to keep value of card high for collectors, yet still allow new players a chance to obtain them without breaking the bank. finally. as in now. they didnt have this wealth of knowledge they do now. if they did, i guarantee they would have said, "dont worry, we have a system to keep value up and and availability up as well." I hate that i have to carry my vintage deck in a locked pelican case because it's SO DAMN EXPENSIVE in there, but at the same time, i'm glad that when my day to quit comes, i'll be a wealthier man from all the fun i've had all these years.
You do know that your old versions wouldnt lose value nearly as much as you think they would? A new printing of Volcanic Island wont suddenly help people wanting to make a Beta set. Hell it probably wouldnt even look half as good as the old border with the dual color text box, leaving the older versions more desirable.
I disagree.
First, promissory estoppel would only relate in this case to economic damages. The reserve list does not state that they are not reprinting cars to protect card values. There is no promise of economic safety.
Similarly, WoTC has in the past (and continues to) effect card values through bannings and unbannings. Look at Survival of the Fittest. It is on the reserve list, yet had it's value completely tanked when it was banned in Legacy. No lawsuits were filed at the time that I know of. Because WoTC never made any promise protecting the economic interests of collectors.
Which is all a rather moot point since the Reserve List decision was made when WoTC was a free standing LLC, when they were acquired by Hasbro it's practically a guarantee the corporate acquisition contract specifically indemnified Hasbro from any and all promises and contracts made when WoTC was it's own legal entity. It's standard boilerplate language in corporate aquisiotn agreements, you can read several samples online.
So even if there was a legal reasoning behind the RL (which myself and more than a few people claiming to be lawyers don't believe), those would almost certainly have ceased to exist when Hasbro bought WoTC.
As for defense of class action, class action lawsuits get files all the time. Getting them summarily dismissed is a very simple and non expensive thing for a corporate law office to do. I would assume an organization the size of Hasbro has plenty of lawyers working for them.
Price movements after reneging on the reprint policy shouldn't go to the reasonability of reliance on the reprint policy. Maybe there's an argument in there somewhere that, because some cards went up after reprint went away, WotC isn't responsible for other reprints falling. An actual lawsuit would need to explore the evidence pretty thoroughly, but my gut check would be that a court looking at this is going to be able to get to the common sense result we already understand in these forums - reprints make prices fall except where it stimulates new demand for a card. Given that, the people holding on to the cards whose prices fell should still have an argument for recovery.
That's fine and all for your brief, Valarin, but if you were my corporate attorney I would sure hope you dot your i's, cross your t's, and avoid lawsuits even if I've got a better legal position. I wouldn't be paying you $200/hr+ to tell me I won't be liable so you can litigate for me later.
I didn't post to get into an argument about the law, though. I just wanted to maintain that people shouldn't wave their hands so that legal issues go away. Like I've already said, legal issues may be one reason deterring WotC from reversing the reprint policy, although other reasons like maintaining general credibility and focusing on the newer, "healthier" formats probably figure heavily.
It shouldn't be that important. Presumably if FoW were on the reserved list it would have gone up even more than it has.
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I mean, this is tough because this is nitty gritty evidence that would need to be documented, and the actual events are speculative. But generally we think there's a price premium reserve list cards already have right now because WotC has credibly promised never to reprint them (40% according to Amuraivel's statistical analysis!). Goyf did not have this premium because WotC never promised to refrain from reprinting him. Hence, to the extent that part of a Black Lotus's price comes from the reserve list promise, even if WotC announces a change to occur in 18 months, we should see the price fall immediately as the premium disappears. Further, people pretty quickly identified the "stimulate new demand" theory for modern reprints following the announcement of MM, and we should expect that to be much less pronounced for Legacy/Vintage. Hence, on economic grounds I don't think your hypothetical would change the ultimate results that some prices would fall, and if the facts don't change I don't think the legal outcome should change.
I think abolishing the list is a legal issue, but it's equally an image issue. WotC is worried what a reneg on a promise would look like to the public.
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If birds of paradise had been printed in just alpha, beta, and unlimited it would be worth what juzam djinn is worth/less. Card isn't playable in legacy or vintage right now, the two formats it would be legal in. It would simply be another iconic card that is still worth less than bazaar of baghdad, power 9, mishra's workshop, candelabra, moat, the tabernacle at pendrell vale, and dual lands from the same sets. No point in discussing it, because that's not what happened. It WAS reprinted a billion times over and the alpha and beta copies STILL went up to astronomical prices despite all the reprintings.
The image issue is literally the only thing stopping the RL from being abolished I think. However, I don't see how it can be that bad when 99% of the people are yelling "ABOLISH IT" and 1% are for it. That 1% gets drowned out by all the people who love the fact that duals are being reprinted and that they have the chance to open them in packs again.
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No one knows anything for certain. All we can look at is the facts we have, and the most likely conclusions to draw from those facts. And all of those those facts and all of those conclusions all point pretty darn convincingly towards the RL existing having nothing to do with anything related to the law at all.
Promissory estoppal has been shown by at least one person claiming to be a lawyer to not apply, and looking at the legal definition, the RL hardly looks like a slam dunk application of it. And I can't find any promise by WoTC to maintain collector value. Have any other collectible manufacturers ever been sued under Promissory estoppal?
Collector values are still able to be changedby WoTC at any time by banning cards, has anyone filed a Promissory estoppal case against them when that happened?
There is no contract in place, since a contract requires a meeting of the minds, and I now I never agreed to the RL. So there's no contract broken
And the biggest point, the company that made the promise doesn't exist anymore. It was sold.
Another nail in that coffin: Who is going to sue? I'm pretty sure every major retailer has claimed they want the Reserve List gone, and they have by FAR the mos to lose if card values drop. SCG is the biggest card shop in the world, aren't they? And they publically called for the revocation of the list. Many top collectors have claimed that they would be fine if the RL went away.
If everyone who would sue over the Reserve List wants it gone, where exactly is this massive legal threat? It just doesn't make sense.
We can't claim anything 100%, but I don't see any evidence pointing to an legal reason behind the RL. There are other reasons that just make more sense, and I'm a huge believer in Occams Razor. I also find it highly unlikely a multi billion dollar corporation like Hasbro with an in house legal team is going to be scared of litigation costs over something like this. It's not like little kids are dying from MTG card induced paper cuts or anything leading to multi million dollars payouts.
I think the image issue is part of it, but really, I buy the "They want to defend Standard" argument more. Abolishing the reserve list and reprinting duals and the like only helps 2 formats: Vintage and Legacy. What two formats make WoTC the least amount $$ and move the least amount of sealed product? Vintage and Legacy. So given that, why break a promise for no gain? What's in it for WoTC?
The only part of the whole thing that really throws me for a loop is the "We won't talk about it at all, period, upon pain of death we will never discuss the reasons behind the Reserve List" policy. I don't see who that policy is helping at all.
Let me explain a few things.
1) You have no idea how informed or uninformed my opinion is. You don't know anything about who I am or what I do or what my hobbies are (well, aside from "Magic", I guess). I can tell you I'm not "uninformed", but you've got no reason to believe me, so why bother?
2) Just because someone is a "lawyer" doesn't mean they "know law". Attorneys tend to specialize in one or two areas of the law, and aside from a basic understanding, really don't know much about other areas of it.
3) A lawyer is a hired gun who is trained in making a persuasive argument using existing case law based upon what he or his client want you to believe. What they tend to do, however, is ignore things that don't support their claim. This is why every case has two lawyers, one on each side. Taking a lawyer's statement at face value, particularly when he's trying to support his own claim, is kind of naive.
So yeah, you can disagree with my theory* all you like, for whatever reason. But I'm getting a little sick of being dismissed because "Ooooo a lawyer said this so he MUST be right!". This may shock you, but a full 50% of lawyers turn out to be wrong in a courtroom.
*For those who didn't follow the other thread, my theory on the reason they're keeping the reserve list is that if they don't, it opens them up to a suit for misrepresenting their product, by reprinting cards they publicly promised not to reprint.
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No one can say 100% why the RL is in place, but fact we do have do not support a legal reason. I pointed out in the other thread why misrepresentation of product would have a very low possibility of being an applicable law in this case.
I mean, we laid out the fact we do know, the reasonable conclusions you can draw from those facts, and explained why they lead to the most likely conclusion that the RL is not based upon some sort of legal threat to Hasbro. Why conclusions are you drawing that make you think it does?
No one is dismissing anyone. This is all guesswork and conjecture, no one can prove anything. I'm comfortable where my examination of the facts and the conclusions I have drawn have lead me concerning why the list is around. I could be completely wrong, it could be a legal reason, it could be some completely off the wall reason no one ever thought of, it could be a completely ridiculous reason they are too embarrassed to admit, who know. But I (and MaZa and others) don't find the legal argument nearly convincing enough to buy it. We're just explaining why. If choose to not buy what we are saying and believe it is legal in nature, we can't prove you wrong. But in the same vein you can't claim we are wrong or you have an special insight into the situation.
So tell us. We have no reason to disbelieve you. If you clerked under a judge who ruled on multiple contract and product claims cases, lets hear about it.
Promissory estoppel is an equitable theory, which means it derives from a side of the Anglo-American legal tradition eschewing hardline technical rules and instead favoring getting to "just" results. The common doctrine on promissory estoppel (RSC 90 iirc), then, requires the court to conclude that "justice requires" it to do something. Essentially, it's a flimsy standard, and the court mainly has to be convinced that WotC made a promise it expected people to rely on and then broke it. The prospect of prices falling because of reprints is just the kind of collector fear that led WotC to put out the reserve list in the first place, so breaking the promise and reprinting cards with the result of falling prices would arguably match promissory estoppel "injustice" and convince a court. It's not just economic loss (which would be a kind of hardline legal rule); it's some sort of detriment, e.g. economic loss, that comes about because of a party doing something "bad faith" like breaking a promise not to reprint cards.
There were a lot of hardcore type one players in that particular area (or at least there were as late as the mid-2000s), so those big ticket items didn't stay on the shelf for long. I'm willing to accept that wasn't the norm elsewhere, though.
And yes, that "unconscious (and false) hope" is precisely what I'm talking about there. People love to think they've got a shot at buying low and selling high, and as dumb and delusional as that is it still helps drive sales. It did the same for the comic book market too until the publishers killed that hope for good by flooding the market with hundreds of variant covers and #1 issues in the late 90s (my memory says it happened in the late 90s, anyway).
We know you've encountered hardcore type one players when you still call it type one! Haha.
Proof? That's a pretty exact statement to make.
Can you find any earlier cases that would support this precedent in collectible?
How do you refute the earlier post saying promissory estoppel wouldn't apply?
"Promissory estoppel is meant for situations where the party making the promise seriously led the other party into doing something that puts him at a real disadvantage, like getting someone to quit their job with the promise of hiring him and then backing out. Given that there are plenty of old cards that are holding their value without the promised protection of the reserve list (e.g., Force of Will) , old cards that have largely held their value despite being reprinted in limited quantities (e.g., Berserk), and new cards that will likely continue to hold their value because they're that good (e.g., 'Goyf), no court is going to conclude that Wizards's reprint policy induced the collector-plaintiffs into buying cards in reasonable reliance on their promise not to reprint certain cards and are therefore responsible to the collectors for their losses. It's not a winning case."
What decision did a collector make that would cause him detriment? Buying Magic cards? Wouldn't that be predicated on the belief that investments never lose value?
If I bu stock in a company because thier CEO said "We are going to have our best year ever, I promise!" and then the stock goes down for any reason, I can't sue based on Promissory estoppel. All the examples I read look like Promissory estoppel has nothing to do with protecting investments in collectibles.
Not to mention, you still haven't addressed the point of the company that made the RL promise not existing anymore
Looking at http://www.lawnix.com/cases/promissory-estoppel.html, I see this
So, for #1, a person would need to convince a judge that WoTC created hte Reserve List to induce a collector buy cards on the Reserve List. I think that's a stretch. For #2, they would need to prove they only bought cards on the RL because the RL promise was made. I doubt that would happen. IF a person bought a dual land and played a game of MTG with it, he had some other reason to buy the card other than the fact it was on the RL. I think that would fail the test.
I think #3 is where it really falls apart though. If the "injustice" is cards on the RL losing value, than simply upholding the RL does not avoid that injustice, since card value on the RL can (and have) been lowered by bannings. Enforcing the RL would not guarantee an injustice (as defined by a collector losing value) would be prevented.
Definitely an interesting area of law to read about, but the more I read about the cases where it has been used successfully and unsuccessfully, the less I see it applying to the RL.
No - I'm not counting weird reprint products like Berserk in FTV - where the product it's in immediately goes for four times MSRP and isn't really in a released set.
By the Star City Games list only 26 cards in Unlimited sell for more than $50.
Power 9, Time Vault, the Dual Lands, Forcefield, Gauntlet of Might, Chaos Orb, Illusionary Mask, Berserk, and Word of Command.
I guess you have some other chase cards you are trying to "protect" value on that exist on the list: Library of Alexandria, Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra's Workshop, Candelabra of Tawnos, maybe a couple of others that come from the early non-block sets.
Basically the Reserve List exists to protect the value of around 50 cards out of the approximately 15,000 unique ones that are now in print.
The rest of the list is a farce at best...where over 90% of them go for $0.10-$1.00.
So exactly what is 90% of the list for again? Protecting that $0.10 Goblin Wizard, Leeches, and Weakstone? If you want to revise the list and keep just the 50 playable/collector cards you're protecting (and you can figure that out by looking at the price lists) on it - that would be fine.
So yeah, if we're trying to decide whether the Reserve List makes sense on its own terms, those 50 cards might not deserve to be on the list. But most of what has been discussed in this thread has been reasons to chuck the Reserve List for the health of legacy, in particular, as a format. And actually, the cards your argument keeps on the Reserve List - expensive ones - generally overlap with the legacy/vintage playables people want to come off list. The farce 50 if you will could stay forever (or at least until they become playable in their favorite format) for all the Legacy players care.
Why should Wizards care about the health of Legacy?
Because, for a lot of players, legacy is the most fun format. I would probably not play magic if it weren't for legacy. I'm not interested in standard all that much. Modern is still a format under construction, but might become interesting after a while.
RUG Tempo Tresh RUG
BUG Team america, Shardless BUG, BUG control BUG
WUBEsper StonebladeWUB
WUGBRTESWUGBR
UBRSneak and ShowUBR
EDH:
GUExperiment Kraj - FOILEDGU
RUBGwendlyn Di CorciRUB
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Unless you are actively drafting new sets or playing Standard you aren't good for their bottom line because you don't actually have to spend massive amounts of money to keep up with your format. That's bad for them.
They're pushing Standard/Modern because it makes them money - and not dealing with the Reserve List is simply a lazy answer for them because they have no vested interest in it. At all.
They have this fear that reprinting some cards for a format that they DON'T even support will cause their most loyal customer base to quit in disgust. It's just stupid. Just because you made a bad business promise you know - I mean KNOW - 99% of players/customers no longer want doesn't mean you should be obligated to it for the rest of eternity.
It's easy to ignore though - because it makes you no money. Other than the players who rejoice when you start putting cards back into circulation and people have the choice to go spend money on them.
You don't even have to have them be regular products that affect Standard/Modern and people will STILL buy them for EDH. Do I need to mention the price gouging that goes on with From The Vaults, Commander's Arsenal, and the other limited products they put out constantly?
Than again - maybe I should be happy they have reached a certain point of satiation in their greed where they simply ignore what a majority of their customer base wants because it's got an easy answer they can parrot and that lets them simply ignore it.
So you play an eternal format where you aren't spending money on new sealed product to play. I'll ask again, why should WoTC care about Legacy?
I understand players enjoy playing Legacy, but WoTC is more interested in moving product than players enjoying Legacy.
Or everything Loomis said. I agree with him 100%
That being said, it might be perfectly consistent with the above perspective to still have legacy staple reprints in premium products. All I'm saying right now is that greed or even sustainable profits don't have to be the only concerns motivating a focus on standard and modern.
It's not greedy, it's just their business model. There's a reason Standard and Draft were the sole sancitonable FNM formats. Those formats move product.
Comparatively the amount of sealed product Legacy moves is probably a rounding error.
Greed, no. Sustainable profits? Absolutely, Sustainable profits are why WoTC exists, and why Hasbro bought them and continues to pay people to develop the game. The $$ MTG brings in is the absolutely only reason MTG exists. If MTG stops bring in $$, they would stop making it. Neither WoTC nor Hasbro are a charity. They are for profit businesses.
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You do know that your old versions wouldnt lose value nearly as much as you think they would? A new printing of Volcanic Island wont suddenly help people wanting to make a Beta set. Hell it probably wouldnt even look half as good as the old border with the dual color text box, leaving the older versions more desirable.