Yeah... problem is: In EDH you might just wanna play as many tutors as you can, because this is how you get consistency, which lets you win. There are Vampiric, Demonic und Diabolic Tutor and then it's already thin because the pricetag of Imperial Seal is just disgusting given that it is a strictly worse vamp tutor (~500 Euro if you want an english one). The other available tutors are limited in what they find or too expensive to really use.
Oh poor you, you can't afford the 13th tutor effect in your black combo deck. Far be it for me to tell someone how to have fun, but if your deck seriously suffers because, liliana vess, beseech the queen, diabolic revelation, demonic tutor, diabolic tutor, vamp tutor, cruel tutor, dark petition, maralen, demonic collusion, diabolic intent, increasing ambitions and sidisi (and thats just in black) are not enough, then you are not a deck I care to play against.
In fact if your deck requires that much help to be consistent, then your deck is terribly constructed.
Look, taking jabs at others' deckbuilding gets nowhere. Additionally, most of those tutors are simply not considered competitively playable (note: this is where Imperial seal would actually matter)
Imperial Seal could have easily been squeezed in here, along with some other P3K stuff (Imperial Recruiter for the love of god) and still not have effected the EV terribly much. Seal and cards like Recruiter are only expensive because of completely insane scarcity: they have almost 0 demand, even among EDH players, as most (in the case of Seal) would much rather just play Vamp Tutor. The history of P3K reprints shows that they never ever hold close to their original value when reprinted, and the P3K version still generally holds much of its value because those cards are generally held by collectors and not players.
Where is imperial seal? That could have easily been a mythic rare in this set.
Vampiric Tutor *is* a mythic rare in this set. It's the same card, only better because it's instant and cheaper because it had more copies printed. If there was a sudden new supply of Imperial Seals it wouldn't still be a 3-digit-price card - it only commands that value now because of extreme scarcity that a reprint would negate. They'd be crashing the market of a valuable card by reprinting it rather than its better but more plentiful older brother.
I'm tired of this argument. Every P3K version of a card reprinted didn't drop to $3 just because it was reprinted. Hua Tuo, Honored Physician went from $70 and now it is $35, does that sound like a crash to you? Secondly, this set is so limited P3K version of Imperial Seal would still probably be worth two or three hundred dollars. Now of course WoTC still thinks it has to protect the minority of collectors with Seal rather than getting the majority these cards, but the point is that a card just doesn't crash because of a reprinting. Birds of Paradise has 15 printings and yet the Alpha is over $900 and beta is $750, but I guess each reprinting Standard level reprinting, and a promo, brought its price down, out of three digits. If they reprinted Birds, again, would anyone care about the Alpha price? No, they wouldn't.
a goldfish article puts the ev at 200... if boxes go back to 240-ish i'll consider getting a box. will probably have to wait a couple months after release date. i dont see it holding at 300.
Where is imperial seal? That could have easily been a mythic rare in this set.
Vampiric Tutor *is* a mythic rare in this set. It's the same card, only better because it's instant and cheaper because it had more copies printed. If there was a sudden new supply of Imperial Seals it wouldn't still be a 3-digit-price card - it only commands that value now because of extreme scarcity that a reprint would negate. They'd be crashing the market of a valuable card by reprinting it rather than its better but more plentiful older brother.
Yeah... problem is: In EDH you might just wanna play as many tutors as you can, because this is how you get consistency, which lets you win. There are Vampiric, Demonic und Diabolic Tutor and then it's already thin because the pricetag of Imperial Seal is just disgusting given that it is a strictly worse vamp tutor (~500 Euro if you want an english one). The other available tutors are limited in what they find or too expensive to really use.
Problem is you are not entitled to a copy of an extremely expensive card.
Novel concept I know.
Well, duh. But neither is WotC entitled to his money. He has a good point, he made it available for WotC to read (we know they're here), and there's no need to chastise him for making it. Perhaps they'll learn because he took the time and trouble to post.
What was this "good point" he or she made? That Imperial Seal is very expensive?
I am not sure you understand what "making a point" actually means.
Vampiric Tutor *is* a mythic rare in this set. It's the same card, only better because it's instant and cheaper because it had more copies printed. If there was a sudden new supply of Imperial Seals it wouldn't still be a 3-digit-price card - it only commands that value now because of extreme scarcity that a reprint would negate. They'd be crashing the market of a valuable card by reprinting it rather than its better but more plentiful older brother.
Yeah... problem is: In EDH you might just wanna play as many tutors as you can, because this is how you get consistency, which lets you win. There are Vampiric, Demonic und Diabolic Tutor and then it's already thin because the pricetag of Imperial Seal is just disgusting given that it is a strictly worse vamp tutor (~500 Euro if you want an english one). The other available tutors are limited in what they find or too expensive to really use.
Problem is you are not entitled to a copy of an extremely expensive card.
Novel concept I know.
Well, duh. But neither is WotC entitled to his money. He has a good point, he made it available for WotC to read (we know they're here), and there's no need to chastise him for making it. Perhaps they'll learn because he took the time and trouble to post.
What was this "good point" he or she made? That Imperial Seal is very expensive?
I am not sure you understand what "making a point" actually means.
And your point is that he isn't entitled? Pot calling kettle black, much? And, no, if you couldn't grasp his point, it's that WotC could have made other choices that would allow them to pry more money from him. He followed up with supporting details. They failed to do that in his opinion, so he is letting them know what it would have taken. Perhaps you'd like to counteract his argument with knowledge of his personal buying habits of which he is not aware.
Yeah... problem is: In EDH you might just wanna play as many tutors as you can, because this is how you get consistency, which lets you win. There are Vampiric, Demonic und Diabolic Tutor and then it's already thin because the pricetag of Imperial Seal is just disgusting given that it is a strictly worse vamp tutor (~500 Euro if you want an english one). The other available tutors are limited in what they find or too expensive to really use.
Oh poor you, you can't afford the 13th tutor effect in your black combo deck. Far be it for me to tell someone how to have fun, but if your deck seriously suffers because, liliana vess, beseech the queen, diabolic revelation, demonic tutor, diabolic tutor, vamp tutor, cruel tutor, dark petition, maralen, demonic collusion, diabolic intent, increasing ambitions and sidisi (and thats just in black) are not enough, then you are not a deck I care to play against.
In fact if your deck requires that much help to be consistent, then your deck is terribly constructed.
Look, taking jabs at others' deckbuilding gets nowhere. Additionally, most of those tutors are simply not considered competitively playable (note: this is where Imperial seal would actually matter)
Imperial Seal could have easily been squeezed in here, along with some other P3K stuff (Imperial Recruiter for the love of god) and still not have effected the EV terribly much. Seal and cards like Recruiter are only expensive because of completely insane scarcity: they have almost 0 demand, even among EDH players, as most (in the case of Seal) would much rather just play Vamp Tutor. The history of P3K reprints shows that they never ever hold close to their original value when reprinted, and the P3K version still generally holds much of its value because those cards are generally held by collectors and not players.
I'm not following your argument. If Imperial Seal had 0 demand, then it wouldn't be hundreds of dollars. It is played in Vintage and apparently EDH, so there is demand. I will concede that much of its cost is built into its scarcity, especially in English. I do not agree that these cards are generally held by collectors rather than players. I haven't seen any data to support that. I can see a lot being held by stores, but that is different from collectors. As for why it wasn't reprinted, I have no idea. I wanted more P3K cards in the set, and I was very disappointed in the lack of them. I suspect that they wanted FoW, Karakas and Wasteland to be the big money cards and they are saving the rest for later printings. I actually wanted Grim Tutor more than Imperial Seal. It is also an expensive card, but not as much as Seal.
Collector is such a loaded term these days. Besides, many, if not most of shop owners are collectors. See the contradiction there? It's strange but true.
I don't think anyone here will contest that they see more goyfs in albums than in decks. Ditto for any high end cards.
Do people like Aaron Forsythe and co walk and browse through traders' binders and see what's being sold, and at what exorbitant prices during high-level events? You just cannot find out everything by talking to a few strangers at grassroots level. They ought to walk the ground everytime they have the chance.
I assumed they would do this with the rest of the spoilers to bait in more preorders, just like MM2015 so I thankfully didn't preorder. I would have bought 2 cases if possible, and would have really enjoyed opening these packs. But I am offended by their greed and refuse to support it. It really is a shame. I suppose they just saved me a lot of money though so whatever. I will wait a month and buy all the cards I need for less than the price of a box, which seems to be the new trend.
There are plenty of P3K cards that need a reprint and this is a good place for them. If they are unwilling to put thinks like Imperial Seal what about things like Burning of Xinye? at least a proper foil would be available now.
And to not do the Cruel, Personal, Slyvan tutor cycle here is a huge miss.
I'm not entitled to expensive cards but where there aren't cards I don't already have access to, why would I buy?
Has Wizards ever commented on why they don't sell products on Hasbrotoyshop.com? That would be a good place for this with a limit of one box per address/per credit card.
There are plenty of P3K cards that need a reprint and this is a good place for them. If they are unwilling to put thinks like Imperial Seal what about things like Burning of Xinye? at least a proper foil would be available now.
And to not do the Cruel, Personal, Slyvan tutor cycle here is a huge miss.
I'm not entitled to expensive cards but where there aren't cards I don't already have access to, why would I buy?
You can get a foil Burning of Xinye from From the Vault: Annihilation for less than $2.
I have mixed feelings about this set like most of you do. This is a limited run set like the two Modern Masters before it so there really is no reason to print so much chaff in the set - particularly the Tarkir life lands. Those lands were printed twice in the same block, which just recently rotated. Where does that come off as "eternal"? They could've just as easily reprinted the Mirage fetchlands to have them in modern borders and at common rarity. Hell, even the 5 lairs from Planeshift would've been better to get to finally have them in modern borders. I mean, if you're drafting, you would choose Wasteland because of its price. Since the only lands that matter are rare to mythic, what's Wasteland gonna lay waste to? Scoured Barrens?
I agree that a lot of the choices were poor choices. Worldgorger Dragon at mythic? Why not Imperial Recruiter at mythic for red? No Worldly Tutor to have the complete Mirage tutors cycle. Really? Really? Really? A lot of cards going unnecessarily to rare or mythic is another thing that bugs me. Why is Mother of Runes rare? To a certain extent I can understand the Mirage tutors being rare, but Mother of Runes? That could've easily been Containment Priest. Control Magic at rare? The only good thing about that card is Terese Nielsen's art. Other than that, that slot should've been for True-Name Nemesis. In fact, Force of Will at mythic is excessive. I would've rather had Force of Will at rare with True-Name Nemesis at mythic since this is limited. That would've been more balancing. Why is Shardless Agent rare?
Other things that annoy me are too many cards that don't see play in eternal formats or have just been recently released. How is that gonna be a trip down nostalgia lane? Screeching Skaab is being drafted in Eternal Masters? A common spot that should've gone to Flying Men. I can name so many cards that really need a reprint in modern framing that are used in eternal formats or are simply too hard to come by. And everyone knows they're not gonna be reprinted in Commander products. So unless WotC makes another limited set like Eternal Masters or Modern Masters but with cards from all three Portal sets and both Starter sets, then I doubt we'll be seeing them anytime soon. I don't even think they'll appear in Conspiracy 2. Conspiracy was supposed to be set in Fiora, an entirely new plane yet we saw a lot of cards that clearly have never been to that plane or referencing other planes in it (looking at you, Phage the Untouchable!) so it's not out of the realm of possibility. We've even seen characters from Fiora appear in cards outside of Conpiracy (Daretti, Scrap Savant and Sydri, Galvanic Genius) so I guess it could be possible. Again, won't get my hopes up.
As to the mixed feeling aspect of it, we do have a reprint of 80% of the Mirage tutors, Sinkhole, Karakas, Wasteland, Force of Will, Mana Crypt, Isochron Scepter, Winter Orb, Counterspell, Maelstrom Wanderer, Toxic Deluge, Chrome Mox, Duplicant, Ashnod's Altar, Vindicate, and others so I guess it's not a total loss. Will I buy into the lottery at $10 a pack? Probably not. Will I pay ~$50 to draft? No way. Will I pay over $240 for a 24 booter pack box? Absolutely not. The only way I'll buy a box is if I can get it for ~$200. Otherwise, no dice. Whatever I want I'll just see if I can score it as a single. Hopefully, next Eternal Masters will be better.
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Battlecry of everyone of these sets so far, it will never happen.
Not until they remove the priority of it being a limited set over a constructed resource (which is never).
I'm not even sure why they print these sets to be honest, they do little to nothing to help out with any of the current issues of the formats there are "built" for. Might as well just toss a few random cards in a pack and call it Limited Masters. Kinda hard to justify a $10 price tag on that tho'.
Battlecry of everyone of these sets so far, it will never happen.
Not until they remove the priority of it being a limited set over a constructed resource (which is never).
I'm not even sure why they print these sets to be honest, they do little to nothing to help out with any of the current issues of the formats there are "built" for. Might as well just toss a few random cards in a pack and call it Limited Masters. Kinda hard to justify a $10 price tag on that tho'.
To be fair there was a lot more outcry over MM2 and I'm sure we'll be seeing an MM3. This is just them being careful with these cards that are so close to the Reserved List might as well be on their own diet version of the Reserved List. Question is if they learn from both this and MM2 for the next Masters set. They need to stop being so cautious about printing cards, reduce the price of the Masters packs to $7, which was an okay price albeit it could be better, and not make it so limited (MM2's print run seemed about right, although it was so bad no one wanted it and that's why it seemed okay, so it could go up if the set was better.) I understand they can't reprint everything, else there wouldn't be any possibilities for more sets, but there are plenty of commons and uncommons (if they weren't upshifted in rarity) that they didn't touch and people would like seeing, even if it was something dumb like Flying Men.
While I've no doubts about any future Masters sets to come, we cannot let them think they could get away with such garbage. While fans suffer from having to wait every 2 years for Damnation (or insert any card that has been on the waiting list for eons), the clueless bunch (who are supposedly cherry picked as the best in the business) continues to be, you know, clueless.
It isn't difficult to dial back to see what was reprinted over and over (like Terastodon, Call the Skybreaker, etc). Just put said list into the Masters Time Capsule and open when the time is ripe. But as it stands, it's likely we'll get troll reprints like these.
It ain't funny at all Wizards. Even though Magic is high-end narcotics, I hope magic players tend to learn fast when they see another incoming trainwreck.
I'm still very excited for this this set, but there are many valid points brought up here that I agree with. Where is rishadan port? Or flusterstorm? Oh, I see, they are in the lineup for eternal masters 2018, because you just now it'll happen. I don't think ema is disappointing, but I believe that there's wasted potential here. Just rarity creeping random uncommons because it's "a set made for drafting" (which by itself is a joke when considering how much these packs will cost) and calling it a day seems lame to me.
I'm SO SICK of the "too strong for Standard" argument. It's the new "Dies to removal". We can have a two mana 4/4 with a zillion abilities, but we can't just have Accumulated Knowledge. Makes sense.
These sets need to be renamed to Eternal Drafters and Modern Drafters.
Then they need to cut the crap with these *****y draft sets and print real Modern and Eternal Masters
Until they do, I'm playing the better designed Force of Will Trading Card Game(It's a better designed MTG, I really suggest everyone checks it out. It's pretty anime themed though, heh) and waiting for Wizards to learn their lesson. Which will likely be never though, 'cuz they have proven themselves to be greedy snip over the last few years. But a boy can dream I suppose.. But wizards will not get a dime more of my money until they stop this insanity
MTG is a game 1st, and all of it's success has stemmed from that. They need to understand this
Public Mod Note
(Marquisd):
Warning for innapropriate language
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern:
Affinity
Naya Burn
Merfolk
White Blue Midrange
Boggles
Grixis Delver
Esper Control(It's semi playable, believe it or not! Dont bring it to a tourny you care about winning though)
Where is imperial seal? That could have easily been a mythic rare in this set.
Vampiric Tutor *is* a mythic rare in this set. It's the same card, only better because it's instant and cheaper because it had more copies printed. If there was a sudden new supply of Imperial Seals it wouldn't still be a 3-digit-price card - it only commands that value now because of extreme scarcity that a reprint would negate. They'd be crashing the market of a valuable card by reprinting it rather than its better but more plentiful older brother.
I'm tired of this argument. Every P3K version of a card reprinted didn't drop to $3 just because it was reprinted. Hua Tuo, Honored Physician went from $70 and now it is $35, does that sound like a crash to you? Secondly, this set is so limited P3K version of Imperial Seal would still probably be worth two or three hundred dollars. Now of course WoTC still thinks it has to protect the minority of collectors with Seal rather than getting the majority these cards, but the point is that a card just doesn't crash because of a reprinting. Birds of Paradise has 15 printings and yet the Alpha is over $900 and beta is $750, but I guess each reprinting Standard level reprinting, and a promo, brought its price down, out of three digits. If they reprinted Birds, again, would anyone care about the Alpha price? No, they wouldn't.
But unlike other examples, Imperial Seal is an inferior version of an existing card, and it's banned in legacy / restricted in Vintage (even banned in Duel Commander and Tiny Leaders!). Aside from its scarcity, its only player demand is as a one-of for EDH and Vintage, and even that only as a secondary Vampiric Tutor for decks that absolutely must have both. Other P3K-reprint cards, like Strategic Planning (which lost 3/4 of its value upon its Commander-deck reprint, tumbling from $60 to $15; even at theoretical value of $15 there's little movement with few willing buyers as the new printing can be had for under 50 cents), when wanted, are generally wanted by the fourfold for various formats. Imperial Seal isn't. It's a singleton in two formats, and in each case only as a redundant lesser copy of the card that *was* reprinted as a mythic here.
These sets need to be renamed to Eternal Drafters and Modern Drafters.
Then they need to cut the crap with these *****y draft sets and print real Modern and Eternal Masters
Until they do, I'm playing the better designed Force of Will Trading Card Game(It's a better designed MTG, I really suggest everyone checks it out. It's pretty anime themed though, heh) and waiting for Wizards to learn their lesson. Which will likely be never though, 'cuz they have proven themselves to be greedy anime themed though, heh) and waiting for Wizards to learn their lesson. Which will likely be never though, 'cuz they have proven themselves to be greedy snip over the last few years. But a boy can dream I suppose.. But wizards will not get a dime more of my money until they stop this insanity
MTG is a game 1st, and all of it's success has stemmed from that. They need to understand this
Totally agree with the drafting aspect you're talking about. The set was designed for drafting yet also to provide choice cards for cube, commander, and people wanting to enter eternal formats. That's pretty contradictory. As I previously stated, whoever drafts Wasteland will do so because of its price because the probable targets for it are so few and far between that it's a dead draft pick. The same goes for a lot of other cards. Winter Orb has no support. Karakas has practically no support. Even the archetypes aren't convincing. Elves seems more modern than eternal. Where's the Priest of Titania if you wanted the nostalgia factor? What about merfolk tribal? It's ridiculous.
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These sets need to be renamed to Eternal Drafters and Modern Drafters.
Then they need to cut the crap with these *****y draft sets and print real Modern and Eternal Masters
Until they do, I'm playing the better designed Force of Will Trading Card Game(It's a better designed MTG, I really suggest everyone checks it out. It's pretty anime themed though, heh) and waiting for Wizards to learn their lesson. Which will likely be never though, 'cuz they have proven themselves to be greedy anime themed though, heh) and waiting for Wizards to learn their lesson. Which will likely be never though, 'cuz they have proven themselves to be greedy snip over the last few years. But a boy can dream I suppose.. But wizards will not get a dime more of my money until they stop this insanity
MTG is a game 1st, and all of it's success has stemmed from that. They need to understand this
Totally agree with the drafting aspect you're talking about. The set was designed for drafting yet also to provide choice cards for cube, commander, and people wanting to enter eternal formats. That's pretty contradictory. As I previously stated, whoever drafts Wasteland will do so because of its price because the probable targets for it are so few and far between that it's a dead draft pick. The same goes for a lot of other cards. Winter Orb has no support. Karakas has practically no support. Even the archetypes aren't convincing. Elves seems more modern than eternal. Where's the Priest of Titania if you wanted the nostalgia factor? What about merfolk tribal? It's ridiculous.
This sums up my feelings pretty well. There's hardly even any goblins in the set at all, which is insane in a set that touts itself as Eternal Masters. No Goblin Lackey? Come on...
Wizards never can seem to make up their mind with what they want to do with these things, and I think it ends badly for anyone who doesn't like playing the pack lottery.
I think the monetary distribution of the packs could have been a little better, and many of the rarity upshifts were a joke with the sad excuse 'oh, it's for limited!'. Shardless Agent, Heritage Druid, and Imperious Perfect do not need to be rares. Why is Argothian Enchantress a Mythic, for crying out loud. No Worldly Tutor? It's now the only one to NOT have a modern frame border, OR a foil. That's insane to me that they did 4/5 of a cycle like that.
It's not even the fact that there's not enough money in the set (which doesn't really matter to me, personally) it's the way it's distributed and how the product is allowed to be scalped by the game stores for much over MSRP and how it seems so confused with what the product wants to actually do that really upsets me.
Yeah the best part about the draft experience for this set will be taking the cards home.
It also looks like they put about half as much effort into making EMA as I would expect, given the generally negative response to MM2 and the enormous pools of cards and nostalgia they have to work with. There are so many low value cards that people would have actually liked to have seen reprinted (previously unavailable in foil, modern border, etc) that there's no reason to put in crap like Call the Skybreaker and Rorix Bladewing at rare and the Khans gainlands (REALLY!? TWO printings in the last year and you're putting them in ETERNAL Masters? What's eternal about these cards?). There are definitely some welcome reprints though, and some great new art for some cards. I just hope they'll put a little more effort into their 'premium products' in the future (MM3), although I imagine I'll be disappointed once again.
These sets need to be renamed to Eternal Drafters and Modern Drafters.
Then they need to cut the crap with these *****y draft sets and print real Modern and Eternal Masters
Until they do, I'm playing the better designed Force of Will Trading Card Game(It's a better designed MTG, I really suggest everyone checks it out. It's pretty anime themed though, heh) and waiting for Wizards to learn their lesson. Which will likely be never though, 'cuz they have proven themselves to be greedy anime themed though, heh) and waiting for Wizards to learn their lesson. Which will likely be never though, 'cuz they have proven themselves to be greedy snip over the last few years. But a boy can dream I suppose.. But wizards will not get a dime more of my money until they stop this insanity
MTG is a game 1st, and all of it's success has stemmed from that. They need to understand this
Totally agree with the drafting aspect you're talking about. The set was designed for drafting yet also to provide choice cards for cube, commander, and people wanting to enter eternal formats. That's pretty contradictory. As I previously stated, whoever drafts Wasteland will do so because of its price because the probable targets for it are so few and far between that it's a dead draft pick. The same goes for a lot of other cards. Winter Orb has no support. Karakas has practically no support. Even the archetypes aren't convincing. Elves seems more modern than eternal. Where's the Priest of Titania if you wanted the nostalgia factor? What about merfolk tribal? It's ridiculous.
This sums up my feelings pretty well. There's hardly even any goblins in the set at all, which is insane in a set that touts itself as Eternal Masters. No Goblin Lackey? Come on...
Wizards never can seem to make up their mind with what they want to do with these things, and I think it ends badly for anyone who doesn't like playing the pack lottery.
I think the monetary distribution of the packs could have been a little better, and many of the rarity upshifts were a joke with the sad excuse 'oh, it's for limited!'. Shardless Agent, Heritage Druid, and Imperious Perfect do not need to be rares. Why is Argothian Enchantress a Mythic, for crying out loud. No Worldly Tutor? It's now the only one to NOT have a modern frame border, OR a foil. That's insane to me that they did 4/5 of a cycle like that.
It's not even the fact that there's not enough money in the set (which doesn't really matter to me, personally) it's the way it's distributed and how the product is allowed to be scalped by the game stores for much over MSRP and how it seems so confused with what the product wants to actually do that really upsets me.
#truestory
The hype of being able to draft for Eternal means goblins, elves, merfolk yet none of these were done. There're plenty of these creature types that need reprinting that haven't been reprinted. Reprinting only 80% of a cycle is not only annoying from OCD standpoint, but pretty off in any general sense. As if Worldly Tutor was that much broken to be excluded.
I feel as if they were trying to please two very disparate aspects of the game (limited and constructed) and this experiment failed. You can't halfass those two concepts and mash them together into one set. Most drafters are not gonna hand over all the lettuce needed to draft this because it's not that draftable and players who wanted these cards to build their cubes and eternal decks are better off buying singles than risking spending a lot of money on chaff. Can you imagine spending $10 on a booster only for it to contain Worldgorger Dragon?
Me buying into this lottery depends exclusively on how cheap I can get a box. Otherwise, it's singles-buying for me. Just like Modern Masters 2. Modern Masters 1? Awesome to draft and great card pool. Modern Masters 2? Not so much. Wizards needs to stop fixing what isn't broken. It should also stick to its own descriptions. So many cards from very recent sets in a product meant for nostalgia and reprints of classics and rarities. Very contradictory.
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Yes I did take the time to post thanks Bazaar of Baghdad. To Canadian Guy of Wrath lol. "Your entitled" Huh...everytime I read this I laugh at the people saying it. Very simply put if wizards doesn't print the old cards that are way too expensive. Then people are going to find other ways to get that card. "Counterfeiting" I could get an exact copy of imperial seal shipped to me for $5, no one would ever know the difference. It's cardboard vs cardboard, your trying to make the comparison of lobster vs discount mystery meat in a can, which is completely wrong. There is an except-able level of expense to the game of magic. We all know magic is an expensive hobby. Then there are wacky prices. Imperial seal is very clear example of a wacky price. The current low price on TCGplayer for an english version is $800. That's absurd. I would MUCH rather have wizards re-print old cards rather than getting fake copies. But wizards continues to create a scenario where most of their player base can't get new copies of a card from them. I really like this set """IF"""" I could buy it at $4 a pack. Since it's going to be $10-$15 a pack the value distribution should be much higher than it is.
Considering the pack EV is currently ~$8.34 according to MTGGoldfish, you saying you would buy it for $4 a pack isn't very meaningful.
Also, for you to get the expected value you'd have to be able to sell all the cards you open on the secondary market. Good luck selling some Eternal Masters gainlands reprints, Screeching Skaab, etc.
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What some may need to realize is that when a card is tournament viable it is bought out like mad and inflated to a price only tournament players, and people with enough money will pay for. The rest are left to complain.
Wizards are clearly preying upon these inflated prices instead of normalizing them. They are doing this just to make money on lottery style products, and it's a disgrace.
Their motto seems to be "The higher the EV of a set, the less good cards we need to print in a given set, hence more sets to make money from!" Yay!
Players supporting this strategy by buying product or buying the cards themselves at an inflated price so card stores just end up buying more boxes will cause the trend to continue and/or get worse.
The only way to stop it is to stop supporting it. I have always been against proxies of cards I don't already own, but really why should I care anymore when the company I am supporting is taking me for a fool.
Yes I did take the time to post thanks Bazaar of Baghdad. To Canadian Guy of Wrath lol. "Your entitled" Huh...everytime I read this I laugh at the people saying it. Very simply put if wizards doesn't print the old cards that are way too expensive. Then people are going to find other ways to get that card. "Counterfeiting" I could get an exact copy of imperial seal shipped to me for $5, no one would ever know the difference. It's cardboard vs cardboard, your trying to make the comparison of lobster vs discount mystery meat in a can, which is completely wrong. There is an except-able level of expense to the game of magic. We all know magic is an expensive hobby. Then there are wacky prices. Imperial seal is very clear example of a wacky price. The current low price on TCGplayer for an english version is $800. That's absurd. I would MUCH rather have wizards re-print old cards rather than getting fake copies. But wizards continues to create a scenario where most of their player base can't get new copies of a card from them. I really like this set """IF"""" I could buy it at $4 a pack. Since it's going to be $10-$15 a pack the value distribution should be much higher than it is.
Considering the pack EV is currently ~$8.34 according to MTGGoldfish, you saying you would buy it for $4 a pack isn't very meaningful.
Don't forget that EV isn't everything when evaluating if it is worth it to crack packs. You also have to take into account the value repartition between commons, uncommons, rares and mythics. Something that this set, just like MM2, seems to fail quite badly at. While $4 a pack seems exaggerated, so is $10 or more.
Actually, the Goldfish article mentioned specifically says that Wizards did a good job of giving value at lower rarities (commons and uncommons).
the $8.34 mentioned for EV is only if you plan to sell everything at buylist pricing. Retail pricing per box is closer to $11 / pack.
All in all, Wizards could have done a better job in choosing what to reprint, but the set itself looks like a lot of fun to draft and does inject some more cards into the market that were otherwise hard to find.
Again, I suggest everyone read the goldfish article that complains why not every card can be worth $10.
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Look, taking jabs at others' deckbuilding gets nowhere. Additionally, most of those tutors are simply not considered competitively playable (note: this is where Imperial seal would actually matter)
Imperial Seal could have easily been squeezed in here, along with some other P3K stuff (Imperial Recruiter for the love of god) and still not have effected the EV terribly much. Seal and cards like Recruiter are only expensive because of completely insane scarcity: they have almost 0 demand, even among EDH players, as most (in the case of Seal) would much rather just play Vamp Tutor. The history of P3K reprints shows that they never ever hold close to their original value when reprinted, and the P3K version still generally holds much of its value because those cards are generally held by collectors and not players.
I'm tired of this argument. Every P3K version of a card reprinted didn't drop to $3 just because it was reprinted. Hua Tuo, Honored Physician went from $70 and now it is $35, does that sound like a crash to you? Secondly, this set is so limited P3K version of Imperial Seal would still probably be worth two or three hundred dollars. Now of course WoTC still thinks it has to protect the minority of collectors with Seal rather than getting the majority these cards, but the point is that a card just doesn't crash because of a reprinting. Birds of Paradise has 15 printings and yet the Alpha is over $900 and beta is $750, but I guess each reprinting Standard level reprinting, and a promo, brought its price down, out of three digits. If they reprinted Birds, again, would anyone care about the Alpha price? No, they wouldn't.
What was this "good point" he or she made? That Imperial Seal is very expensive?
I am not sure you understand what "making a point" actually means.
And your point is that he isn't entitled? Pot calling kettle black, much? And, no, if you couldn't grasp his point, it's that WotC could have made other choices that would allow them to pry more money from him. He followed up with supporting details. They failed to do that in his opinion, so he is letting them know what it would have taken. Perhaps you'd like to counteract his argument with knowledge of his personal buying habits of which he is not aware.
I'm not following your argument. If Imperial Seal had 0 demand, then it wouldn't be hundreds of dollars. It is played in Vintage and apparently EDH, so there is demand. I will concede that much of its cost is built into its scarcity, especially in English. I do not agree that these cards are generally held by collectors rather than players. I haven't seen any data to support that. I can see a lot being held by stores, but that is different from collectors. As for why it wasn't reprinted, I have no idea. I wanted more P3K cards in the set, and I was very disappointed in the lack of them. I suspect that they wanted FoW, Karakas and Wasteland to be the big money cards and they are saving the rest for later printings. I actually wanted Grim Tutor more than Imperial Seal. It is also an expensive card, but not as much as Seal.
I don't think anyone here will contest that they see more goyfs in albums than in decks. Ditto for any high end cards.
Do people like Aaron Forsythe and co walk and browse through traders' binders and see what's being sold, and at what exorbitant prices during high-level events? You just cannot find out everything by talking to a few strangers at grassroots level. They ought to walk the ground everytime they have the chance.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
And to not do the Cruel, Personal, Slyvan tutor cycle here is a huge miss.
I'm not entitled to expensive cards but where there aren't cards I don't already have access to, why would I buy?
My EDH Decks
:Chainer, Dementia Master - Mono black recursion - :Titania - Token hordes
: Teysa - Sacrifice and tokens - : Brago, King Eternal - Blink - :Sygg, River Cutthroat - I draw cards; you discard -
: Melek, Izzet Paragon - Copy spells, don't win.
: Oloro, Ageless Ascetic Card Draw - :Karador, Ghost Chieftain - Graveyard shenanigans - :Tariel, Reckoner of Souls - Angels and Demons theme - :Marath, Will of the Wild - Token Hordes
: Marchesa - Steal and sacrifice - : Shattergang Brothers - Everything gets blown up - : Animar, Soul of Elements - All creatures
You can get a foil Burning of Xinye from From the Vault: Annihilation for less than $2.
I have mixed feelings about this set like most of you do. This is a limited run set like the two Modern Masters before it so there really is no reason to print so much chaff in the set - particularly the Tarkir life lands. Those lands were printed twice in the same block, which just recently rotated. Where does that come off as "eternal"? They could've just as easily reprinted the Mirage fetchlands to have them in modern borders and at common rarity. Hell, even the 5 lairs from Planeshift would've been better to get to finally have them in modern borders. I mean, if you're drafting, you would choose Wasteland because of its price. Since the only lands that matter are rare to mythic, what's Wasteland gonna lay waste to? Scoured Barrens?
I agree that a lot of the choices were poor choices. Worldgorger Dragon at mythic? Why not Imperial Recruiter at mythic for red? No Worldly Tutor to have the complete Mirage tutors cycle. Really? Really? Really? A lot of cards going unnecessarily to rare or mythic is another thing that bugs me. Why is Mother of Runes rare? To a certain extent I can understand the Mirage tutors being rare, but Mother of Runes? That could've easily been Containment Priest. Control Magic at rare? The only good thing about that card is Terese Nielsen's art. Other than that, that slot should've been for True-Name Nemesis. In fact, Force of Will at mythic is excessive. I would've rather had Force of Will at rare with True-Name Nemesis at mythic since this is limited. That would've been more balancing. Why is Shardless Agent rare?
Other things that annoy me are too many cards that don't see play in eternal formats or have just been recently released. How is that gonna be a trip down nostalgia lane? Screeching Skaab is being drafted in Eternal Masters? A common spot that should've gone to Flying Men. I can name so many cards that really need a reprint in modern framing that are used in eternal formats or are simply too hard to come by. And everyone knows they're not gonna be reprinted in Commander products. So unless WotC makes another limited set like Eternal Masters or Modern Masters but with cards from all three Portal sets and both Starter sets, then I doubt we'll be seeing them anytime soon. I don't even think they'll appear in Conspiracy 2. Conspiracy was supposed to be set in Fiora, an entirely new plane yet we saw a lot of cards that clearly have never been to that plane or referencing other planes in it (looking at you, Phage the Untouchable!) so it's not out of the realm of possibility. We've even seen characters from Fiora appear in cards outside of Conpiracy (Daretti, Scrap Savant and Sydri, Galvanic Genius) so I guess it could be possible. Again, won't get my hopes up.
As to the mixed feeling aspect of it, we do have a reprint of 80% of the Mirage tutors, Sinkhole, Karakas, Wasteland, Force of Will, Mana Crypt, Isochron Scepter, Winter Orb, Counterspell, Maelstrom Wanderer, Toxic Deluge, Chrome Mox, Duplicant, Ashnod's Altar, Vindicate, and others so I guess it's not a total loss. Will I buy into the lottery at $10 a pack? Probably not. Will I pay ~$50 to draft? No way. Will I pay over $240 for a 24 booter pack box? Absolutely not. The only way I'll buy a box is if I can get it for ~$200. Otherwise, no dice. Whatever I want I'll just see if I can score it as a single. Hopefully, next Eternal Masters will be better.
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Battlecry of everyone of these sets so far, it will never happen.
Not until they remove the priority of it being a limited set over a constructed resource (which is never).
I'm not even sure why they print these sets to be honest, they do little to nothing to help out with any of the current issues of the formats there are "built" for. Might as well just toss a few random cards in a pack and call it Limited Masters. Kinda hard to justify a $10 price tag on that tho'.
http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/20765
To be fair there was a lot more outcry over MM2 and I'm sure we'll be seeing an MM3. This is just them being careful with these cards that are so close to the Reserved List might as well be on their own diet version of the Reserved List. Question is if they learn from both this and MM2 for the next Masters set. They need to stop being so cautious about printing cards, reduce the price of the Masters packs to $7, which was an okay price albeit it could be better, and not make it so limited (MM2's print run seemed about right, although it was so bad no one wanted it and that's why it seemed okay, so it could go up if the set was better.) I understand they can't reprint everything, else there wouldn't be any possibilities for more sets, but there are plenty of commons and uncommons (if they weren't upshifted in rarity) that they didn't touch and people would like seeing, even if it was something dumb like Flying Men.
It isn't difficult to dial back to see what was reprinted over and over (like Terastodon, Call the Skybreaker, etc). Just put said list into the Masters Time Capsule and open when the time is ripe. But as it stands, it's likely we'll get troll reprints like these.
It ain't funny at all Wizards. Even though Magic is high-end narcotics, I hope magic players tend to learn fast when they see another incoming trainwreck.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
Then they need to cut the crap with these *****y draft sets and print real Modern and Eternal Masters
Until they do, I'm playing the better designed Force of Will Trading Card Game(It's a better designed MTG, I really suggest everyone checks it out. It's pretty anime themed though, heh) and waiting for Wizards to learn their lesson. Which will likely be never though, 'cuz they have proven themselves to be greedy snip over the last few years. But a boy can dream I suppose.. But wizards will not get a dime more of my money until they stop this insanity
MTG is a game 1st, and all of it's success has stemmed from that. They need to understand this
Affinity
Naya Burn
Merfolk
White Blue Midrange
Boggles
Grixis Delver
Esper Control(It's semi playable, believe it or not! Dont bring it to a tourny you care about winning though)
Legacy:
Miracles
Deathblade
But unlike other examples, Imperial Seal is an inferior version of an existing card, and it's banned in legacy / restricted in Vintage (even banned in Duel Commander and Tiny Leaders!). Aside from its scarcity, its only player demand is as a one-of for EDH and Vintage, and even that only as a secondary Vampiric Tutor for decks that absolutely must have both. Other P3K-reprint cards, like Strategic Planning (which lost 3/4 of its value upon its Commander-deck reprint, tumbling from $60 to $15; even at theoretical value of $15 there's little movement with few willing buyers as the new printing can be had for under 50 cents), when wanted, are generally wanted by the fourfold for various formats. Imperial Seal isn't. It's a singleton in two formats, and in each case only as a redundant lesser copy of the card that *was* reprinted as a mythic here.
Totally agree with the drafting aspect you're talking about. The set was designed for drafting yet also to provide choice cards for cube, commander, and people wanting to enter eternal formats. That's pretty contradictory. As I previously stated, whoever drafts Wasteland will do so because of its price because the probable targets for it are so few and far between that it's a dead draft pick. The same goes for a lot of other cards. Winter Orb has no support. Karakas has practically no support. Even the archetypes aren't convincing. Elves seems more modern than eternal. Where's the Priest of Titania if you wanted the nostalgia factor? What about merfolk tribal? It's ridiculous.
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
This sums up my feelings pretty well. There's hardly even any goblins in the set at all, which is insane in a set that touts itself as Eternal Masters. No Goblin Lackey? Come on...
Wizards never can seem to make up their mind with what they want to do with these things, and I think it ends badly for anyone who doesn't like playing the pack lottery.
I think the monetary distribution of the packs could have been a little better, and many of the rarity upshifts were a joke with the sad excuse 'oh, it's for limited!'. Shardless Agent, Heritage Druid, and Imperious Perfect do not need to be rares. Why is Argothian Enchantress a Mythic, for crying out loud. No Worldly Tutor? It's now the only one to NOT have a modern frame border, OR a foil. That's insane to me that they did 4/5 of a cycle like that.
It's not even the fact that there's not enough money in the set (which doesn't really matter to me, personally) it's the way it's distributed and how the product is allowed to be scalped by the game stores for much over MSRP and how it seems so confused with what the product wants to actually do that really upsets me.
It also looks like they put about half as much effort into making EMA as I would expect, given the generally negative response to MM2 and the enormous pools of cards and nostalgia they have to work with. There are so many low value cards that people would have actually liked to have seen reprinted (previously unavailable in foil, modern border, etc) that there's no reason to put in crap like Call the Skybreaker and Rorix Bladewing at rare and the Khans gainlands (REALLY!? TWO printings in the last year and you're putting them in ETERNAL Masters? What's eternal about these cards?). There are definitely some welcome reprints though, and some great new art for some cards. I just hope they'll put a little more effort into their 'premium products' in the future (MM3), although I imagine I'll be disappointed once again.
#truestory
The hype of being able to draft for Eternal means goblins, elves, merfolk yet none of these were done. There're plenty of these creature types that need reprinting that haven't been reprinted. Reprinting only 80% of a cycle is not only annoying from OCD standpoint, but pretty off in any general sense. As if Worldly Tutor was that much broken to be excluded.
I feel as if they were trying to please two very disparate aspects of the game (limited and constructed) and this experiment failed. You can't halfass those two concepts and mash them together into one set. Most drafters are not gonna hand over all the lettuce needed to draft this because it's not that draftable and players who wanted these cards to build their cubes and eternal decks are better off buying singles than risking spending a lot of money on chaff. Can you imagine spending $10 on a booster only for it to contain Worldgorger Dragon?
Me buying into this lottery depends exclusively on how cheap I can get a box. Otherwise, it's singles-buying for me. Just like Modern Masters 2. Modern Masters 1? Awesome to draft and great card pool. Modern Masters 2? Not so much. Wizards needs to stop fixing what isn't broken. It should also stick to its own descriptions. So many cards from very recent sets in a product meant for nostalgia and reprints of classics and rarities. Very contradictory.
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
Considering the pack EV is currently ~$8.34 according to MTGGoldfish, you saying you would buy it for $4 a pack isn't very meaningful.
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
Wizards are clearly preying upon these inflated prices instead of normalizing them. They are doing this just to make money on lottery style products, and it's a disgrace.
Their motto seems to be "The higher the EV of a set, the less good cards we need to print in a given set, hence more sets to make money from!" Yay!
Players supporting this strategy by buying product or buying the cards themselves at an inflated price so card stores just end up buying more boxes will cause the trend to continue and/or get worse.
The only way to stop it is to stop supporting it. I have always been against proxies of cards I don't already own, but really why should I care anymore when the company I am supporting is taking me for a fool.
Actually, the Goldfish article mentioned specifically says that Wizards did a good job of giving value at lower rarities (commons and uncommons).
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/the-expected-value-of-eternal-masters
the $8.34 mentioned for EV is only if you plan to sell everything at buylist pricing. Retail pricing per box is closer to $11 / pack.
All in all, Wizards could have done a better job in choosing what to reprint, but the set itself looks like a lot of fun to draft and does inject some more cards into the market that were otherwise hard to find.
Again, I suggest everyone read the goldfish article that complains why not every card can be worth $10.