A Cabal Coffers reprint would be super nice. Absolutely no reason why the cheapest version runs $24. None
I'd be disappointed if they didn't reprint taht
that AND Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to help a black mana heavy (devotion) archetype (hinted by Obliterator)
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"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again"
I actually don't think they will include what people expect from the old portal sets. They said there will be at least one card from each set in magics history, but some of those cards are printed across multiple sets such as Storm Crow, which is a basic creature that they can claim is from portal and portal 2nd age. Hence, the honey pot isn't quite as sweet as it sounds, so to speak.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
No constructed player is going to be happy with this set, as long as Wizards keep designing for draft. It's going to be the same mix as other master sets: up to 33% chase/good cards, 33% middling cards, and 33% draft junk.
No constructed player is going to be happy with this set, as long as Wizards keep designing for draft. It's going to be the same mix as other master sets: up to 33% chase/good cards, 33% middling cards, and 33% draft junk.
The design of the set is not really fully draft. The mythic slot is intentionally left open ended as a way to print constructed cards. The rare slot is less forgiving, but they do try to accommodate constructed players with rare drops as well. The actual trouble is that the set builders have more cards from the post RTR boom to use, so we will never get the epic mix like mm1 again.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
No constructed player is going to be happy with this set, as long as Wizards keep designing for draft. It's going to be the same mix as other master sets: up to 33% chase/good cards, 33% middling cards, and 33% draft junk.
I pulled a Channel in one of my Iconic Masters booster packs... Needless to say, I was very upset that my mythic rare pull from a TEN DOLLAR PACK could not be used in Standard or Modern and is banned in Legacy and Commander. Even if I had the money to play Vintage, the card is restricted there! I mean, why did they even bother to print this card? Feels bad man, feels real bad.
That is a terrible reprint that should never have happened for those reasons.
For the masters packs to work we need Wizards to make sure almost every pack is either >5$ or contains good card that is also cheap, such as brainstorm, swords or even pain/check lands etc. You certainly don't want all the value tied up in a couple of cards, especially those whose price is dicated by scarcity alone. When you pull Channel it hurts- but when you look at the rest of the pack and it is full of phantom monsters and skulking ghosts- that is salt in the open wound.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
What I want to see in these kinds of products are full art versions of famous cards like Lightning Bolt and maybe masterpiece full art basic lands featuring art from Arabian nights, tempest, etc. Things that are actually worth collecting and don't feel like a pure cash grab. That is what sold unstable and made it worth it to so many beyond just the price.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
That is a terrible reprint that should never have happened for those reasons.
For the masters packs to work we need Wizards to make sure almost every pack is either >5$ or contains good card that is also cheap, such as brainstorm, swords or even pain/check lands etc. You certainly don't want all the value tied up in a couple of cards, especially those whose price is dicated by scarcity alone. When you pull Channel it hurts- but when you look at the rest of the pack and it is full of phantom monsters and skulking ghosts- that is salt in the open wound.
What I want to see in these kinds of products are full art versions of famous cards like Lightning Bolt and maybe masterpiece full art basic lands featuring art from Arabian nights, tempest, etc. Things that are actually worth collecting and don't feel like a pure cash grab. That is what sold unstable and made it worth it to so many beyond just the price.
Now THAT would be cool! Instead of a bunch of worthless foils, or some of the draft chaff, have full arts of cards that people aren't sad to open. I said it when those stupid tokens became FNM promos, it doesn't have to be something independently valuable, just something cool. Full old art lands, Llanowar elf, Counterspell, cool stuff that sees at least casual play.
That would be super cool in these sets, but they should do one better in these sets. They should have some value at common and uncommon. Ponder, Preordain, Bolt, going forward any number of Pauper staples. At $10 packs, they don't need to be worth the money, but there should rarely be a pack that just has nothing at all.
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Project Booster Fun makes it less fun to open a booster.
That is a terrible reprint that should never have happened for those reasons.
For the masters packs to work we need Wizards to make sure almost every pack is either >5$ or contains good card that is also cheap, such as brainstorm, swords or even pain/check lands etc. You certainly don't want all the value tied up in a couple of cards, especially those whose price is dicated by scarcity alone. When you pull Channel it hurts- but when you look at the rest of the pack and it is full of phantom monsters and skulking ghosts- that is salt in the open wound.
I recall MTG Goldfish covering this angle when they do their financial analysis of each set. For MM1, there were decent and semi-valuable commons and uncommons, so that all the value was not concentrated in the rare and mythic rare slots ("top heavy"). MM2 was top-heavy with almost no decent or semi-valuable commons and uncommons. Nonetheless, lowering the pack price would get more people to buy without as many feel-bads when a pack contains duds.
My guess for the land cycle in 25 will be the on color manlands from Worldwake.... Celestial Colonade, Creeping Tarpit, etc. If not, than filter lands would be next up. Any other land cycle would be quite a disappointment imo. Fetches and/or Shocklands would oversaturate the market at this point.
My guess for the land cycle in 25 will be the on color manlands from Worldwake.... Celestial Colonade, Creeping Tarpit, etc. If not, than filter lands would be next up. Any other land cycle would be quite a disappointment imo. Fetches and/or Shocklands would oversaturate the market at this point.
Gota disagree I want the fetches and shocks CHEAP, The mana base SHOULD be cheep. Frankly opening a fetch/shock would make most people quite happy, solid playble, tradeable, desired. everything you want from a card.
My guess for the land cycle in 25 will be the on color manlands from Worldwake.... Celestial Colonade, Creeping Tarpit, etc. If not, than filter lands would be next up. Any other land cycle would be quite a disappointment imo. Fetches and/or Shocklands would oversaturate the market at this point.
I agree that shocks probably don't need a reprint, they have held value but not really gone up since RTR block was in print, but the ZEN fetches do need another printing, the supply is still underwhelming, and several of them are already creeping back up. Tarn is less creeping and more sprinting.
That is a terrible reprint that should never have happened for those reasons.
For the masters packs to work we need Wizards to make sure almost every pack is either >5$ or contains good card that is also cheap, such as brainstorm, swords or even pain/check lands etc. You certainly don't want all the value tied up in a couple of cards, especially those whose price is dicated by scarcity alone. When you pull Channel it hurts- but when you look at the rest of the pack and it is full of phantom monsters and skulking ghosts- that is salt in the open wound.
Felt I need to chime in on this one. The monetary value of the cards in the set is not the problem. The problem is that they overpriced the set to begin with and didn't put anything special in the set to make it desirable outside of the monetary value of the contents. Non-foil cards should not be costing people an arm and a leg to get as those are the cards that players need to build decks, where as full arts, special foils, alternate artwork cards, etc, are the cards that make up the bread and butter of a collectible game. Wizards simply has failed to understand this aspect because they got so big they had no one else to compare themselves to. I'm hoping that they get the right message from unstable and start doing some of these things at least once a year in a set. Also WOTC needs to seriously do more than just a cheap foiling job on every single card they have in a set. Mythic foils should be full art and truly spectacular to behold. Foils should also be more like the old style where the entire card has a strong reflective nature outside of the artwork.
I just don't get exited anymore over the next over priced card getting reprinted into an overpriced set.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
A Cabal Coffers reprint would be super nice. Absolutely no reason why the cheapest version runs $24. None
I'd be disappointed if they didn't reprint taht
that AND Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to help a black mana heavy (devotion) archetype (hinted by Obliterator)
I don't know about Urborg (Would prefer a good rare cycle like Zendikar Man-lands or Filters) but I like your thinking. Could go all in for mono-B with things like Nightmare at UC, Corrupt at UC and Dark Ritual at common. All three have rich history in the game
My guess for the land cycle in 25 will be the on color manlands from Worldwake.... Celestial Colonade, Creeping Tarpit, etc. If not, than filter lands would be next up. Any other land cycle would be quite a disappointment imo. Fetches and/or Shocklands would oversaturate the market at this point.
I agree that shocks probably don't need a reprint, they have held value but not really gone up since RTR block was in print, but the ZEN fetches do need another printing, the supply is still underwhelming, and several of them are already creeping back up. Tarn is less creeping and more sprinting.
I wish they would do the zen fetches, shocks, allie manlands or the filter lands. But i think there's a good possibility they reprint the allied fast lands that have gone up in price
My guess for the land cycle in 25 will be the on color manlands from Worldwake.... Celestial Colonade, Creeping Tarpit, etc. If not, than filter lands would be next up. Any other land cycle would be quite a disappointment imo. Fetches and/or Shocklands would oversaturate the market at this point.
I agree that shocks probably don't need a reprint, they have held value but not really gone up since RTR block was in print, but the ZEN fetches do need another printing, the supply is still underwhelming, and several of them are already creeping back up. Tarn is less creeping and more sprinting.
I wish they would do the zen fetches, shocks, allie manlands or the filter lands. But i think there's a good possibility they reprint the allied fast lands that have gone up in price
They may not even reprint a single full land cycle in the rare slot. If they are going with a theme of 25 years of magic, it's more likely going to be something like Celestial Colonnade, sunken ruins, blackcleave cliffs, Stomping Ground, and Windswept Heath. They definitely aren't doing tribal lands in a masters set about 25 years of magic. Not unless the theme is humans, merfolk, goblins, and maybe elves.
The fact is WoTC already said what they are making masters 25: It's going to be a celebration of 25 years of magic. What it isn't going to be is any single persons dreamboat of reprints for their favorite format and that should be hellishly clear from Iconic Masters already. I do think that the set is worth buying at 184 usd pre-order, though, if you just want to relive the days of opening a box of 4th edition where the cards don't all suck when you open a pack. It hurts they price these sets so high on the marketplace and are cutting packs from them to boot, but we've been telling WoTC we will pay less for more during the last four years.
Also, the reason they reprinted the entire lineup of Zendikar fetches may not be obvious to some folks. WotC actually reprinted the land cycle because the entire cycle was in high demand in modern. In fact, it still hasn't been printed enough to really satisfy the demand they created with modern and needs even more print runs to really bring the price in line. Trouble is I don't think MaRo particularly likes them and I agree with MaRo on this one.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The fact is WoTC already said what they are making masters 25: It's going to be a celebration of 25 years of magic. What it isn't going to be is any single persons dreamboat of reprints for their favorite format and that should be hellishly clear from Iconic Masters already. I do think that the set is worth buying at 184 usd pre-order, though, if you just want to relive the days of opening a box of 4th edition where the cards don't all suck when you open a pack. It hurts they price these sets so high on the marketplace and are cutting packs from them to boot, but we've been telling WoTC we will pay less for more during the last four years.
There were enough bad cards in 4th edition during that time that I remembered opening packs that sucked.
I think Wizards' revenue is largely coming from the larger secondary market retailers opening boxes to sell singles. There hasn't been enough value or "excitement" in the set to make opening a Masters pack not feel bad. As others have mentioned, the booster pack price has to come down.
[quote from="Dom4419 »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/the-rumor-mill/778120-masters-25?comment=101"]
The fact is WoTC already said what they are making masters 25: It's going to be a celebration of 25 years of magic. What it isn't going to be is any single persons dreamboat of reprints for their favorite format and that should be hellishly clear from Iconic Masters already. I do think that the set is worth buying at 184 usd pre-order, though, if you just want to relive the days of opening a box of 4th edition where the cards don't all suck when you open a pack. It hurts they price these sets so high on the marketplace and are cutting packs from them to boot, but we've been telling WoTC we will pay less for more during the last four years.
There were enough bad cards in 4th edition during that time that I remembered opening packs that sucked.
I think Wizards' revenue is largely coming from the larger secondary market retailers opening boxes to sell singles. There hasn't been enough value or "excitement" in the set to make opening a Masters pack not feel bad. As others have mentioned, the booster pack has to come down.
</blockquote>
To be frank, the masters sets were engineered to satisfy collectors and are basically "do nothing" sets. Unlike core sets that actually were meant to infuse the standard environment with more playables and up card availability, masters sets are geared towards high stakes collectors and singles sellers. It was wizards trying to basically social engineer their own player base into playing standard and the result was catastrophic to their game given that first people came up with frontier, and then pauper migrated from MTGO to the physical world. The most positive set to date published by the company is unstable because it annexed itself from the entire nightmare that standard and modern have become in many ways as well as pushed the envelope on providing cool includes and other fun things.
They should be doing what they did for basics in Unstable and have those take the place of basic land foils in upcoming sets. Getting full edge to edge art on basic lands is like a dream come true.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I can't help but feel that a lot of this argument is a little premature, with all of 3 cards being revealed so far, and spoiler season not set to begin for another 17 days.
To be frank, the masters sets were engineered to satisfy collectors and are basically "do nothing" sets. Unlike core sets that actually were meant to infuse the standard environment with more playables and up card availability, masters sets are geared towards high stakes collectors and singles sellers. It was wizards trying to basically social engineer their own player base into playing standard and the result was catastrophic to their game given that first people came up with frontier, and then pauper migrated from MTGO to the physical world. The most positive set to date published by the company is unstable because it annexed itself from the entire nightmare that standard and modern have become in many ways as well as pushed the envelope on providing cool includes and other fun things.
They should be doing what they did for basics in Unstable and have those take the place of basic land foils in upcoming sets. Getting full edge to edge art on basic lands is like a dream come true.
The Masters sets were not really intended to "satisfy" collectors, and continually blaming "collectors" for the high prices of non-Reserved List cards deflects blame away from the party who is truly to blame: Wizards of the Coast.
The Masters sets actually began (with Modern Masters 2013) as somewhat of an experiment by Wizards to see if there was a market for higher-priced boosters containing many highly-sought after cards from older sets. Wizards was clearly unsure of how such a set would fare, since they included so many high value/high demand cards in the set. According to MTGstocks, the average expected value of a Modern Masters booster pack today is almost $17. Considering that you can still find packs for $20 apiece, that Tarmogoyf has absolutely plummeted in value since the original printing of MM2013, AND that the EV doesn't take foil prices into account (and that there's a foil in every pack) that's a phenomenal EV.
Once Wizards realized what a cash cow Modern Masters was, they were WAY more conservative with reprints, since Masters sets became part of a new business model that required that Wizards help maintain the high price of secondary market cards so that there are enough cards for a masters set to justify its heightened price tag.
The per pack EV of the rest of the Masters sets confirm this. Even though they were to retail for almost 50% more than Modern Masters 2013, all of the per pack EV of every other masters set is substantially lower than MM2013:
The direct effects of this were having the high value cards mostly relegated to Mythic status in future masters sets (MM2015 was one of the worst offenders on this front). Those same links above will show the VAST disparity in value between the average Mythic Rare value of all masters sets besides MM2013 and the average rare value (MM2017 would initially appear to have a more reasonable rare-to-mythic value ratio until you realize that the value of the rares is completely propped up by the fetchlands).
While I wish that we could just have Modern Masters sets like the first one every two years, the sad truth is that Wizards is a business, and the lure of churning out high-priced sets that are 100% reprints (and thus do not have ANY development or design costs aside from considerations for limited) is just too great.
However, my original point remains: Collectors may contribute to some small degree to the high prices of the secondary market, but Wizards has an incredibly strong business interest in maintaining the high price of the secondary market, and they have the most direct control over the prices in that market than any other party.
To be frank, the masters sets were engineered to satisfy collectors and are basically "do nothing" sets. Unlike core sets that actually were meant to infuse the standard environment with more playables and up card availability, masters sets are geared towards high stakes collectors and singles sellers. It was wizards trying to basically social engineer their own player base into playing standard and the result was catastrophic to their game given that first people came up with frontier, and then pauper migrated from MTGO to the physical world. The most positive set to date published by the company is unstable because it annexed itself from the entire nightmare that standard and modern have become in many ways as well as pushed the envelope on providing cool includes and other fun things.
They should be doing what they did for basics in Unstable and have those take the place of basic land foils in upcoming sets. Getting full edge to edge art on basic lands is like a dream come true.
The Masters sets were not really intended to "satisfy" collectors, and continually blaming "collectors" for the high prices of non-Reserved List cards deflects blame away from the party who is truly to blame: Wizards of the Coast.
The Masters sets actually began (with Modern Masters 2013) as somewhat of an experiment by Wizards to see if there was a market for higher-priced boosters containing many highly-sought after cards from older sets. Wizards was clearly unsure of how such a set would fare, since they included so many high value/high demand cards in the set. According to MTGstocks, the average expected value of a Modern Masters booster pack today is almost $17. Considering that you can still find packs for $20 apiece, that Tarmogoyf has absolutely plummeted in value since the original printing of MM2013, AND that the EV doesn't take foil prices into account (and that there's a foil in every pack) that's a phenomenal EV.
Once Wizards realized what a cash cow Modern Masters was, they were WAY more conservative with reprints, since Masters sets became part of a new business model that required that Wizards help maintain the high price of secondary market cards so that there are enough cards for a masters set to justify its heightened price tag.
The per pack EV of the rest of the Masters sets confirm this. Even though they were to retail for almost 50% more than Modern Masters 2013, all of the per pack EV of every other masters set is substantially lower than MM2013:
The direct effects of this were having the high value cards mostly relegated to Mythic status in future masters sets (MM2015 was one of the worst offenders on this front). Those same links above will show the VAST disparity in value between the average Mythic Rare value of all masters sets besides MM2013 and the average rare value (MM2017 would initially appear to have a more reasonable rare-to-mythic value ratio until you realize that the value of the rares is completely propped up by the fetchlands).
While I wish that we could just have Modern Masters sets like the first one every two years, the sad truth is that Wizards is a business, and the lure of churning out high-priced sets that are 100% reprints (and thus do not have ANY development or design costs aside from considerations for limited) is just too great.
However, my original point remains: Collectors may contribute to some small degree to the high prices of the secondary market, but Wizards has an incredibly strong business interest in maintaining the high price of the secondary market, and they have the most direct control over the prices in that market than any other party.
I think you misunderstood, I'm not blaming collectors, I said they make the sets with the intention of the items in them to be collectors items. That is how they justify the high price. The reality is that the price on most of the played cards are actually from players requiring the tools to play the game of magic, not players actually wanting to collect the cards. This is a very important factor in determining how someone should distribute and sell cards.
For an example, look at how players treat cards in other formats like standard: They have worth because they are played in the format and are required in order to compete at FNM. When rotation happens, these cards are discarded and sold to pick up the needed tools for next season.
Commander players on the other hand, actually collect cards. They are tools, but most are looking for special versions of the basic card in order to improve their collection. These players don't often sell or trade out of their cards because they are rare and unique, not because they are valued as a tool to win competitive matches.
How should someone go about selling a card that is primarily driven by collectability vs a card that is primarily driven by competitive needs? This is sort of where the problem lay with Wizards of the coast.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
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that AND Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to help a black mana heavy (devotion) archetype (hinted by Obliterator)
Many wouldn't consider Judge Promos actual reprints. Not enough are made to affect the price of the original and they tend to be expensive.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The design of the set is not really fully draft. The mythic slot is intentionally left open ended as a way to print constructed cards. The rare slot is less forgiving, but they do try to accommodate constructed players with rare drops as well. The actual trouble is that the set builders have more cards from the post RTR boom to use, so we will never get the epic mix like mm1 again.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I pulled a Channel in one of my Iconic Masters booster packs... Needless to say, I was very upset that my mythic rare pull from a TEN DOLLAR PACK could not be used in Standard or Modern and is banned in Legacy and Commander. Even if I had the money to play Vintage, the card is restricted there! I mean, why did they even bother to print this card? Feels bad man, feels real bad.
For the masters packs to work we need Wizards to make sure almost every pack is either >5$ or contains good card that is also cheap, such as brainstorm, swords or even pain/check lands etc. You certainly don't want all the value tied up in a couple of cards, especially those whose price is dicated by scarcity alone. When you pull Channel it hurts- but when you look at the rest of the pack and it is full of phantom monsters and skulking ghosts- that is salt in the open wound.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Yikes, my heart...
It hurts...
Man, I'd hate that too for draft.
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Now THAT would be cool! Instead of a bunch of worthless foils, or some of the draft chaff, have full arts of cards that people aren't sad to open. I said it when those stupid tokens became FNM promos, it doesn't have to be something independently valuable, just something cool. Full old art lands, Llanowar elf, Counterspell, cool stuff that sees at least casual play.
That would be super cool in these sets, but they should do one better in these sets. They should have some value at common and uncommon. Ponder, Preordain, Bolt, going forward any number of Pauper staples. At $10 packs, they don't need to be worth the money, but there should rarely be a pack that just has nothing at all.
I recall MTG Goldfish covering this angle when they do their financial analysis of each set. For MM1, there were decent and semi-valuable commons and uncommons, so that all the value was not concentrated in the rare and mythic rare slots ("top heavy"). MM2 was top-heavy with almost no decent or semi-valuable commons and uncommons. Nonetheless, lowering the pack price would get more people to buy without as many feel-bads when a pack contains duds.
Gota disagree I want the fetches and shocks CHEAP, The mana base SHOULD be cheep. Frankly opening a fetch/shock would make most people quite happy, solid playble, tradeable, desired. everything you want from a card.
I agree that shocks probably don't need a reprint, they have held value but not really gone up since RTR block was in print, but the ZEN fetches do need another printing, the supply is still underwhelming, and several of them are already creeping back up. Tarn is less creeping and more sprinting.
Felt I need to chime in on this one. The monetary value of the cards in the set is not the problem. The problem is that they overpriced the set to begin with and didn't put anything special in the set to make it desirable outside of the monetary value of the contents. Non-foil cards should not be costing people an arm and a leg to get as those are the cards that players need to build decks, where as full arts, special foils, alternate artwork cards, etc, are the cards that make up the bread and butter of a collectible game. Wizards simply has failed to understand this aspect because they got so big they had no one else to compare themselves to. I'm hoping that they get the right message from unstable and start doing some of these things at least once a year in a set. Also WOTC needs to seriously do more than just a cheap foiling job on every single card they have in a set. Mythic foils should be full art and truly spectacular to behold. Foils should also be more like the old style where the entire card has a strong reflective nature outside of the artwork.
I just don't get exited anymore over the next over priced card getting reprinted into an overpriced set.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I don't know about Urborg (Would prefer a good rare cycle like Zendikar Man-lands or Filters) but I like your thinking. Could go all in for mono-B with things like Nightmare at UC, Corrupt at UC and Dark Ritual at common. All three have rich history in the game
I wish they would do the zen fetches, shocks, allie manlands or the filter lands. But i think there's a good possibility they reprint the allied fast lands that have gone up in price
They may not even reprint a single full land cycle in the rare slot. If they are going with a theme of 25 years of magic, it's more likely going to be something like Celestial Colonnade, sunken ruins, blackcleave cliffs, Stomping Ground, and Windswept Heath. They definitely aren't doing tribal lands in a masters set about 25 years of magic. Not unless the theme is humans, merfolk, goblins, and maybe elves.
The fact is WoTC already said what they are making masters 25: It's going to be a celebration of 25 years of magic. What it isn't going to be is any single persons dreamboat of reprints for their favorite format and that should be hellishly clear from Iconic Masters already. I do think that the set is worth buying at 184 usd pre-order, though, if you just want to relive the days of opening a box of 4th edition where the cards don't all suck when you open a pack. It hurts they price these sets so high on the marketplace and are cutting packs from them to boot, but we've been telling WoTC we will pay less for more during the last four years.
Also, the reason they reprinted the entire lineup of Zendikar fetches may not be obvious to some folks. WotC actually reprinted the land cycle because the entire cycle was in high demand in modern. In fact, it still hasn't been printed enough to really satisfy the demand they created with modern and needs even more print runs to really bring the price in line. Trouble is I don't think MaRo particularly likes them and I agree with MaRo on this one.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
There were enough bad cards in 4th edition during that time that I remembered opening packs that sucked.
I think Wizards' revenue is largely coming from the larger secondary market retailers opening boxes to sell singles. There hasn't been enough value or "excitement" in the set to make opening a Masters pack not feel bad. As others have mentioned, the booster pack price has to come down.
To be frank, the masters sets were engineered to satisfy collectors and are basically "do nothing" sets. Unlike core sets that actually were meant to infuse the standard environment with more playables and up card availability, masters sets are geared towards high stakes collectors and singles sellers. It was wizards trying to basically social engineer their own player base into playing standard and the result was catastrophic to their game given that first people came up with frontier, and then pauper migrated from MTGO to the physical world. The most positive set to date published by the company is unstable because it annexed itself from the entire nightmare that standard and modern have become in many ways as well as pushed the envelope on providing cool includes and other fun things.
They should be doing what they did for basics in Unstable and have those take the place of basic land foils in upcoming sets. Getting full edge to edge art on basic lands is like a dream come true.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The Masters sets were not really intended to "satisfy" collectors, and continually blaming "collectors" for the high prices of non-Reserved List cards deflects blame away from the party who is truly to blame: Wizards of the Coast.
The Masters sets actually began (with Modern Masters 2013) as somewhat of an experiment by Wizards to see if there was a market for higher-priced boosters containing many highly-sought after cards from older sets. Wizards was clearly unsure of how such a set would fare, since they included so many high value/high demand cards in the set. According to MTGstocks, the average expected value of a Modern Masters booster pack today is almost $17. Considering that you can still find packs for $20 apiece, that Tarmogoyf has absolutely plummeted in value since the original printing of MM2013, AND that the EV doesn't take foil prices into account (and that there's a foil in every pack) that's a phenomenal EV.
Once Wizards realized what a cash cow Modern Masters was, they were WAY more conservative with reprints, since Masters sets became part of a new business model that required that Wizards help maintain the high price of secondary market cards so that there are enough cards for a masters set to justify its heightened price tag.
The per pack EV of the rest of the Masters sets confirm this. Even though they were to retail for almost 50% more than Modern Masters 2013, all of the per pack EV of every other masters set is substantially lower than MM2013:
Modern Masters 2015: $9.90
Eternal Masters: $8.97
Modern Masters 2017: $10.00
Iconic Masters: $6.61 (which thoroughly explains why these continue to collect dust on thousands of LGS's shelves across the country).
The direct effects of this were having the high value cards mostly relegated to Mythic status in future masters sets (MM2015 was one of the worst offenders on this front). Those same links above will show the VAST disparity in value between the average Mythic Rare value of all masters sets besides MM2013 and the average rare value (MM2017 would initially appear to have a more reasonable rare-to-mythic value ratio until you realize that the value of the rares is completely propped up by the fetchlands).
While I wish that we could just have Modern Masters sets like the first one every two years, the sad truth is that Wizards is a business, and the lure of churning out high-priced sets that are 100% reprints (and thus do not have ANY development or design costs aside from considerations for limited) is just too great.
However, my original point remains: Collectors may contribute to some small degree to the high prices of the secondary market, but Wizards has an incredibly strong business interest in maintaining the high price of the secondary market, and they have the most direct control over the prices in that market than any other party.
I think you misunderstood, I'm not blaming collectors, I said they make the sets with the intention of the items in them to be collectors items. That is how they justify the high price. The reality is that the price on most of the played cards are actually from players requiring the tools to play the game of magic, not players actually wanting to collect the cards. This is a very important factor in determining how someone should distribute and sell cards.
For an example, look at how players treat cards in other formats like standard: They have worth because they are played in the format and are required in order to compete at FNM. When rotation happens, these cards are discarded and sold to pick up the needed tools for next season.
Commander players on the other hand, actually collect cards. They are tools, but most are looking for special versions of the basic card in order to improve their collection. These players don't often sell or trade out of their cards because they are rare and unique, not because they are valued as a tool to win competitive matches.
How should someone go about selling a card that is primarily driven by collectability vs a card that is primarily driven by competitive needs? This is sort of where the problem lay with Wizards of the coast.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!