What was the reason they temporarily removed Masterpieces from sets?
I don't think it was temporary - I think it was permanent (Don't be fooled by the title of this thread - these are NOT masterpieces they are a separate line of sold product)
The reason is that the value of all the cards in the box will on average be equal to the MSRP of the box (in the long run - post release there will be gouging until the market equalizes). Having some 'super rare' cards that are highly sought after will mean that more cards will be bought to flood the market. When there are a handful of chanse masterpeices then those hold the entirety of the value of the box - which basically means it is playing the lottery.
Now you may think "Cheaper cards is good for magic!" but the reality of it is that when card packs are like playing the lottery - then that hits FNM attendance, because then the prizes are not worth playing for. The singles market is of better value and no one wants to play FNM for pack prizes - which hurts the stores (and thus pack sales)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Rose tint my world, keep me safe from my trouble and pain.
Normally I enjoy his videos, but his total whiny butthurt about getting sidestepped by Wizards on these is is downright funny. So he can't gouge us the end consumer on these by buying en masse he cries like a pre-schooler. Bad mouths the set, cards etc.
A classic case of sour grapes.
You may agree with him but I had to share this.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
While I don't like people like him that price-gouge - he isn't wrong on the effect this will have on stores. Your local game store is hurting because of decisions WotC is making and this is literally cutting them out of the pie. Oh look - one of those planeswalkers is the new Ral, so there goes some of the value out of packs.
Hasbro seems to be doing something unexpected here - I wonder if they are trying to pad the value of WotC in order to sell it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Rose tint my world, keep me safe from my trouble and pain.
Is there a way a Mod can change the title of this thread? It is causing some confusion.
[GRN] Planeswalker Masterpieces is not correct, it should be something more like.....
[MED] Hasbro Alt Art Planeswalkers or [MED] Promo Masterpieces of Planeswalkers
Just for clarification purposes GRN should not be in the title
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Been a member here for over a dozen years. Playing since '95 just got lost in the twitch shuffle.
Is there a way a Mod can change the title of this thread? It is causing some confusion.
[GRN] Planeswalker Masterpieces is not correct, it should be something more like.....
[MED] Hasbro Alt Art Planeswalkers or [MED] Promo Masterpieces of Planeswalkers
Just for clarification purposes GRN should not be in the title
I reported the thread - hopefully someone changes it. It kind of is related to GRN though because it is branded GRN and has GRN boosters in it - but yes, for clarity I'd rather it be tagged MED (for Media - I presume?)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Rose tint my world, keep me safe from my trouble and pain.
Well, it's a bit complicated and not really related to the box EV issue. The real reason they stopped doing Masterpieces was due to not having enough high impact cards to keep doing them the way they were. The final batch that came out in Amonkhet were a failure on both value and card design and it was the following negative reception of the Invocations that ultimately pushed them to stop doing masterpieces entirely.
From a sales standpoint the expeditions and inventions were great, actually. What we know now is that the poor design of the standard sets was the real problem, not the masterpieces themselves. People really want the masterpieces to come back, especially collectors, and from a singles seller perspective I don't know how having invocations/inventions/expeditions are bad for business. They make their profits on the pre-orders where the prices are generally higher across the board and draft hasn't bombed the value yet. If someone is complaining about box EV it is probably someone trying to do investing, and they should be pretty happy considering Kaladesh booster boxes are actually going up in value.
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 final batch that came out in Amonkhet were a failure on both value and card design. It was the following negative reception of the Invocations that ultimately pushed them to stop doing masterpieces entirely.
The final batch that came out in Amonkhet were a failure on both value and card design. It was the following negative reception of the Invocations that ultimately pushed them to stop doing masterpieces entirely.
They were a horrible design, unreadable ugly.
Were they ever. I got the Mind Twist for my Duel Commander deck and swapped it for a FBB (foreign black border) weeks later. There was just too much going on with those, and someone should have stepped in and reverted the font or something before it hit the presses.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
While I don't like people like him that price-gouge - he isn't wrong on the effect this will have on stores. Your local game store is hurting because of decisions WotC is making and this is literally cutting them out of the pie. Oh look - one of those planeswalkers is the new Ral, so there goes some of the value out of packs.
Hasbro seems to be doing something unexpected here - I wonder if they are trying to pad the value of WotC in order to sell it.
It does affect LGS of course and I am not anti-LGS. But I do like it when we the consumer can purchase a product directly from the manufacturer without the markups of all the middle men involved. I don't see a once a year super low volume collectors set going to ruin LGS or online sellers. His attitude in that video is nothing more than an entitled spoiled middleman angry he can't soak the end customer. Again, I like him for the most part and appreciate some of the things he brings to light.
A lot of the other youtubers that have stores/sell are doing the same thing as well. They don't like it when we the consumer doesn't have to go directly through them so they can jack up the price and take their cut. Again, I'm not anti-LGS but the complete bellyaching over one product they can't gouge us on is ridiculous.
As for Hasbro prepping WotC for sale, I wouldn't put it past them for sure.
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Oh, this isn't hasbro prepping WoTC for sale. This is more like WoTC saying that they no longer feel that the LGS and the secondary market benefit their game. They have two digital games now to give them the independence they needed to pull a stunt like this and if LGS can't survive on their own legs without support from WoTC, they are going to go under. I'm kind of biased in this opinion since I was predicting if they got a good digital game going they'd take the axe to the LGS and paper secondary market a while ago (it was probably around BFZ / Oath I was pondering this). Given the rabid toxicity, it seems like they are moving forward faster because they are genuinely worried about the player base, hence all the new player products getting launched.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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 was predicting if they got a good digital game going they'd take the axe to the LGS and paper secondary market a while ago (it was probably around BFZ / Oath I was pondering this)
Nah, they just wanted to hop on the Hearthstone hype train. WOTC will never have a good digital game so long as they are unwilling to put the gun to the side of MTGO's head and old'yeller it like they should have done a decade ago.
A lot of the other youtubers that have stores/sell are doing the same thing as well. They don't like it when we the consumer doesn't have to go directly through them so they can jack up the price and take their cut. Again, I'm not anti-LGS but the complete bellyaching over one product they can't gouge us on is ridiculous.
To me, it's not just ridiculous, it's almost outright hypocritical. Think about it, they're functionally like LGS - middleman transiting product from the primary distributor to the end consumer, but they generally have less overhead (brick and mortar stores generally cost way more to upkeep) and more presence at the same time (they utilize social media to a greater degree and considering how most corporation works, I doubt behind-the-scenes feedback LGS have access to isn't all that effective in driving changes compared to public ones like social media).
Yet they present the situation pretty differently - they try to paint themselves as "inferior" to LGS and equal to the end consumer, so when LGS do something "bad" (like jacking FTV prices), they try to paint themselves as the same victims as we are, when in reality they just want to swop in and inflate the prices themselves. Now that WotC decided to do it themselves and LGS are the victims, they re-evaluate themselves to the LGS level instead. It's like whoever is the victim, they're always in that group.
Then to add more salt as topping, they present as though their "hypocritical" style of operation is the wise one to be and combined with their painting of being on the level of the end-consumer, indirectly encourages a sizable portion of the end-consumer to behave like them, leading to pretty much the Secondary Market craziness we had in the recent years.
I'm not saying WotC is faultless, there were (and are) many solutions our corporate overlords have clearly not taken correct paths on, but seriously when this group themselves are actually contributing more to the problem as well while melding themselves with the victims to avoid responsibility, is it really a surprise if our overlords choose to abandon the entire group altogether? When your end-consumer effectively functions like your middlemen, then why pretend there is middlemen at all?
Disclaimer that while I looked like I took a rather extreme stance that looks like it assumes everyone is like that, but I'm aware that is not the actual case, but I had to do it to hammer the point across. But reality is that these people have more social influence and no doubt in recent years the percentage of such end-consumers have risen notably for WotC to take notice, I just put it in exaggerated terms so I can actually paint the scenario without making it look like its unimportant (so basically it's not as large in size as described, but that doesn't mean it's any less important).
I'm not sure what y'all are whining about. It has Liliana the last hope. Her full art, if it's going to be legal to use, will be well over $100 by herself. Making her worth half your purchase from the get go.
A lot of the other youtubers that have stores/sell are doing the same thing as well. They don't like it when we the consumer doesn't have to go directly through them so they can jack up the price and take their cut. Again, I'm not anti-LGS but the complete bellyaching over one product they can't gouge us on is ridiculous.
To me, it's not just ridiculous, it's almost outright hypocritical. Think about it, they're functionally like LGS - middleman transiting product from the primary distributor to the end consumer, but they generally have less overhead (brick and mortar stores generally cost way more to upkeep) and more presence at the same time (they utilize social media to a greater degree and considering how most corporation works, I doubt behind-the-scenes feedback LGS have access to isn't all that effective in driving changes compared to public ones like social media).
Yet they present the situation pretty differently - they try to paint themselves as "inferior" to LGS and equal to the end consumer, so when LGS do something "bad" (like jacking FTV prices), they try to paint themselves as the same victims as we are, when in reality they just want to swop in and inflate the prices themselves. Now that WotC decided to do it themselves and LGS are the victims, they re-evaluate themselves to the LGS level instead. It's like whoever is the victim, they're always in that group.
Then to add more salt as topping, they present as though their "hypocritical" style of operation is the wise one to be and combined with their painting of being on the level of the end-consumer, indirectly encourages a sizable portion of the end-consumer to behave like them, leading to pretty much the Secondary Market craziness we had in the recent years.
I'm not saying WotC is faultless, there were (and are) many solutions our corporate overlords have clearly not taken correct paths on, but seriously when this group themselves are actually contributing more to the problem as well while melding themselves with the victims to avoid responsibility, is it really a surprise if our overlords choose to abandon the entire group altogether? When your end-consumer effectively functions like your middlemen, then why pretend there is middlemen at all?
Disclaimer that while I looked like I took a rather extreme stance that looks like it assumes everyone is like that, but I'm aware that is not the actual case, but I had to do it to hammer the point across. But reality is that these people have more social influence and no doubt in recent years the percentage of such end-consumers have risen notably for WotC to take notice, I just put it in exaggerated terms so I can actually paint the scenario without making it look like its unimportant (so basically it's not as large in size as described, but that doesn't mean it's any less important).
Oh, I agree completely with the hypocritical views of the people on youtube about the situation with the product. The one point they have made that is still relevant is that if the stores go under, there will be fewer places to play paper magic. However, now that there is Arena, it isn't as critical to support these locations as it was previously. Even if it isn't hearthstone, MTG Arena is good enough in many ways to act as a substitution to the real paper game for casual users. That's a far cry better than MTGO was and still is.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'm not sure what y'all are whining about. It has Liliana the last hope. Her full art, if it's going to be legal to use, will be well over $100 by herself. Making her worth half your purchase from the get go.
And when she and Teferi rotate? They gonna hold value?
I'm not sure what y'all are whining about. It has Liliana the last hope. Her full art, if it's going to be legal to use, will be well over $100 by herself. Making her worth half your purchase from the get go.
And when she and Teferi rotate? They gonna hold value?
Liliana has already rotated but is played in modern, just the in set foil is $150cdn, so you can expect this one to be around there if not close to $200cdn. I believe that the cheapest of these will remain around $30-40cdn each, Elspeth might be a bit higher than that. Then you add the 16 packs.
Also, it wasn't mentioned anywhere exactly what are in the masterpiece packs. I doubt they would make a pack for just the one masterpiece card. It might be something like a standard showdown pack for all we know. If this is the case, then I believe that it's worth the price
I'm not sure what y'all are whining about. It has Liliana the last hope. Her full art, if it's going to be legal to use, will be well over $100 by herself. Making her worth half your purchase from the get go.
And when she and Teferi rotate? They gonna hold value?
Liliana already holds her value despite being out of standard for two years and Teferi is already seeing extensive play in modern along with Legacy.
Man, browsing through magicTCG reddit feels like torture. All the people suggesting the obvious that WoTC is potentially moving away from supporting local game stores have been getting thumbs downed to the point where their comments get hidden.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'm not sure what y'all are whining about. It has Liliana the last hope. Her full art, if it's going to be legal to use, will be well over $100 by herself. Making her worth half your purchase from the get go.
And when she and Teferi rotate? They gonna hold value?
Last Hope and Veil swing back and forth on which is more played in Modern. She sees play in Legacy. Same for Teferi, he and JTMS are a Dynamic Duo for Control.
Granted seems like they should have pushed Ral Zarek and hopefully Vraska are otherwise only 2 out of 8 these cards are valuable not great.
Man, browsing through magicTCG reddit feels like torture. All the people suggesting the obvious that WoTC is potentially moving away from supporting local game stores have been getting thumbs downed to the point where their comments get hidden.
Don't get me started on conspiracies, but the way the internet works is that corporations have full time resources to making sure their presence is up-voted and anything else is down-voted. I've noticed with IMDB that new movies and tv shows are getting excessively overinflated ratings, as it's simply because a larger production company can influence by hiring and making lots of accounts and persuade staff to give maximum ratings.
Now I believe Reddit MTG has a similar culture of WotC lackeys. They seem to patrol through and make sure anything untoward Wizards is down-voted. I'm not even kidding. That's why I don't use Reddit for Magic forums and why MTGSalvation really is more healthy in my opinion.
Are we really going to suggest that product isnt going to make it to LGS's? This will not, this is a way to tap whales for more money. If I was still playing UW, I'd go for that Teferi in a heart beat, and sell the rest.
Imagine the last hidden one is JTMS??? lol
Its just another revenue stream, its not going to 'kill' LGS, who do nothing but shift product during draft season.
I dont know about you folks, but 99% of my singles are from online stores, Face to Face, Card Kingdom, or SCG.
Oh, I agree completely with the hypocritical views of the people on youtube about the situation with the product. The one point they have made that is still relevant is that if the stores go under, there will be fewer places to play paper magic. However, now that there is Arena, it isn't as critical to support these locations as it was previously. Even if it isn't hearthstone, MTG Arena is good enough in many ways to act as a substitution to the real paper game for casual users. That's a far cry better than MTGO was and still is.
That's true. To be fair though, LGS are technically being crushed from both directions even before WotC stepped in. In terms of sales they are facing the competition from the "end-consumer-turned-middlemen" (or "investors") group I mentioned and in terms of overhead I don't think its an exaggeration to say generally all costs (land/rental/electricity) have only been going up over the years. The reason I mentioned the hypocrisy is because its obvious that these "opportunists" effectively jump at any aid that WotC had attempted to aid LGS with (FTVs initially and as much as we have issues with it, BAB promos are still considered an attempt), so it annoys me (I would say enraged, but I'm not invested enough in the game to be at this point) that they're literally always accusing WotC of doing harm when in reality they're just looking out for themselves.
Not surprising their uproar is huge now that WotC decided they're done with the whole shtick, as much as they "prey" on LGS, they are pretty much bonded to them when it comes to WotC decisions as well.
"There will be less space to play paper magic" is not a statement I want people who function like a LGS when it comes to sales but do not cover the overhead costs to provide said space to play paper magic to be saying. I know its a true and relevant statement, it just grates me that of all people who say it its this particular group of people. I also know it's a great way to get the opinion heard, especially when its aligns with the opinion of actual end consumers as well, but there's this sickening feeling when you need to rely on the group of voices you know actively prey on both LGS and the end-consumer to make profits for themselves, as though something as simple as voicing out is worthy of merit as maintaining a space to play Magic to begin with.
I do agree that if Arena takes off (way too early to judge anything now and honestly WotC's technology track record leaves little expectations), it's actually a fantastic way for the game to move forward, even if it leaves the "old-timers who refuse to move with the times" behind. As someone who plays Shadowverse casually (Hearthstone does not appeal to me), I've seen the advantages first-hand - effectively infinite supply, playing on tech essentially eradicates any possibility of cheating (something that has been a big hoo-haa over at the competitive side of things lately I heard), the ability to nerf cards instead of banning them, perfect leveled playing field on tournaments (okay I'm not sure of this one for other games, but I know Shadowverse generates the deck from your registered decklist for tournaments, you don't actually have to own the cards to play in a tournament, but of course you can only play that generated deck for the tournament itself).
A well polished Arena would be the pinnacle for actual competitive card gaming, considering the many disadvantages paper has already shown us throughout the years. If all paper is truly pushed to casual-only, that would actually eventually lessen the burden our overloaded Secondary Market has had over the years as well.
While I don't like people like him that price-gouge - he isn't wrong on the effect this will have on stores. Your local game store is hurting because of decisions WotC is making and this is literally cutting them out of the pie. Oh look - one of those planeswalkers is the new Ral, so there goes some of the value out of packs.
Hasbro seems to be doing something unexpected here - I wonder if they are trying to pad the value of WotC in order to sell it.
It does affect LGS of course and I am not anti-LGS. But I do like it when we the consumer can purchase a product directly from the manufacturer without the markups of all the middle men involved. I don't see a once a year super low volume collectors set going to ruin LGS or online sellers. His attitude in that video is nothing more than an entitled spoiled middleman angry he can't soak the end customer. Again, I like him for the most part and appreciate some of the things he brings to light.
A lot of the other youtubers that have stores/sell are doing the same thing as well. They don't like it when we the consumer doesn't have to go directly through them so they can jack up the price and take their cut. Again, I'm not anti-LGS but the complete bellyaching over one product they can't gouge us on is ridiculous.
As for Hasbro prepping WotC for sale, I wouldn't put it past them for sure.
Uhm - if you think this isn't marked up you are mistaken. If this were going to LGSs 250 would be the MSRP and the base value would be somethibg like 150.
On other words - the middleman markup is still there and Hasbro is collecting it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Rose tint my world, keep me safe from my trouble and pain.
Colt?
Spirits
I don't think it was temporary - I think it was permanent (Don't be fooled by the title of this thread - these are NOT masterpieces they are a separate line of sold product)
The reason is that the value of all the cards in the box will on average be equal to the MSRP of the box (in the long run - post release there will be gouging until the market equalizes). Having some 'super rare' cards that are highly sought after will mean that more cards will be bought to flood the market. When there are a handful of chanse masterpeices then those hold the entirety of the value of the box - which basically means it is playing the lottery.
Now you may think "Cheaper cards is good for magic!" but the reality of it is that when card packs are like playing the lottery - then that hits FNM attendance, because then the prizes are not worth playing for. The singles market is of better value and no one wants to play FNM for pack prizes - which hurts the stores (and thus pack sales)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh3ecYLgJsE
Normally I enjoy his videos, but his total whiny butthurt about getting sidestepped by Wizards on these is is downright funny. So he can't gouge us the end consumer on these by buying en masse he cries like a pre-schooler. Bad mouths the set, cards etc.
A classic case of sour grapes.
You may agree with him but I had to share this.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Hasbro seems to be doing something unexpected here - I wonder if they are trying to pad the value of WotC in order to sell it.
[GRN] Planeswalker Masterpieces is not correct, it should be something more like.....
[MED] Hasbro Alt Art Planeswalkers or [MED] Promo Masterpieces of Planeswalkers
Just for clarification purposes GRN should not be in the title
I reported the thread - hopefully someone changes it. It kind of is related to GRN though because it is branded GRN and has GRN boosters in it - but yes, for clarity I'd rather it be tagged MED (for Media - I presume?)
Well, it's a bit complicated and not really related to the box EV issue. The real reason they stopped doing Masterpieces was due to not having enough high impact cards to keep doing them the way they were. The final batch that came out in Amonkhet were a failure on both value and card design and it was the following negative reception of the Invocations that ultimately pushed them to stop doing masterpieces entirely.
From a sales standpoint the expeditions and inventions were great, actually. What we know now is that the poor design of the standard sets was the real problem, not the masterpieces themselves. People really want the masterpieces to come back, especially collectors, and from a singles seller perspective I don't know how having invocations/inventions/expeditions are bad for business. They make their profits on the pre-orders where the prices are generally higher across the board and draft hasn't bombed the value yet. If someone is complaining about box EV it is probably someone trying to do investing, and they should be pretty happy considering Kaladesh booster boxes are actually going up in value.
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!
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Were they ever. I got the Mind Twist for my Duel Commander deck and swapped it for a FBB (foreign black border) weeks later. There was just too much going on with those, and someone should have stepped in and reverted the font or something before it hit the presses.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
It does affect LGS of course and I am not anti-LGS. But I do like it when we the consumer can purchase a product directly from the manufacturer without the markups of all the middle men involved. I don't see a once a year super low volume collectors set going to ruin LGS or online sellers. His attitude in that video is nothing more than an entitled spoiled middleman angry he can't soak the end customer. Again, I like him for the most part and appreciate some of the things he brings to light.
A lot of the other youtubers that have stores/sell are doing the same thing as well. They don't like it when we the consumer doesn't have to go directly through them so they can jack up the price and take their cut. Again, I'm not anti-LGS but the complete bellyaching over one product they can't gouge us on is ridiculous.
As for Hasbro prepping WotC for sale, I wouldn't put it past them for sure.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
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!
Nah, they just wanted to hop on the Hearthstone hype train. WOTC will never have a good digital game so long as they are unwilling to put the gun to the side of MTGO's head and old'yeller it like they should have done a decade ago.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
To me, it's not just ridiculous, it's almost outright hypocritical. Think about it, they're functionally like LGS - middleman transiting product from the primary distributor to the end consumer, but they generally have less overhead (brick and mortar stores generally cost way more to upkeep) and more presence at the same time (they utilize social media to a greater degree and considering how most corporation works, I doubt behind-the-scenes feedback LGS have access to isn't all that effective in driving changes compared to public ones like social media).
Yet they present the situation pretty differently - they try to paint themselves as "inferior" to LGS and equal to the end consumer, so when LGS do something "bad" (like jacking FTV prices), they try to paint themselves as the same victims as we are, when in reality they just want to swop in and inflate the prices themselves. Now that WotC decided to do it themselves and LGS are the victims, they re-evaluate themselves to the LGS level instead. It's like whoever is the victim, they're always in that group.
Then to add more salt as topping, they present as though their "hypocritical" style of operation is the wise one to be and combined with their painting of being on the level of the end-consumer, indirectly encourages a sizable portion of the end-consumer to behave like them, leading to pretty much the Secondary Market craziness we had in the recent years.
I'm not saying WotC is faultless, there were (and are) many solutions our corporate overlords have clearly not taken correct paths on, but seriously when this group themselves are actually contributing more to the problem as well while melding themselves with the victims to avoid responsibility, is it really a surprise if our overlords choose to abandon the entire group altogether? When your end-consumer effectively functions like your middlemen, then why pretend there is middlemen at all?
Disclaimer that while I looked like I took a rather extreme stance that looks like it assumes everyone is like that, but I'm aware that is not the actual case, but I had to do it to hammer the point across. But reality is that these people have more social influence and no doubt in recent years the percentage of such end-consumers have risen notably for WotC to take notice, I just put it in exaggerated terms so I can actually paint the scenario without making it look like its unimportant (so basically it's not as large in size as described, but that doesn't mean it's any less important).
Oh, I agree completely with the hypocritical views of the people on youtube about the situation with the product. The one point they have made that is still relevant is that if the stores go under, there will be fewer places to play paper magic. However, now that there is Arena, it isn't as critical to support these locations as it was previously. Even if it isn't hearthstone, MTG Arena is good enough in many ways to act as a substitution to the real paper game for casual users. That's a far cry better than MTGO was and still is.
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!
And when she and Teferi rotate? They gonna hold value?
Nicol Bolas, a balance of Vorthos and PowerUBR
Nath of the Gilt LeafBG
Others
Squee, Goblin of AwesomenessR
Nekusar, the Mindblazer!UBR
Vela the NightcladUB
I used to be a world champion, but then I took a wolf to the knee. And three Galvanic Blasts to the face.
Concerning when returning to Kamigawa would be acceptable
Liliana has already rotated but is played in modern, just the in set foil is $150cdn, so you can expect this one to be around there if not close to $200cdn. I believe that the cheapest of these will remain around $30-40cdn each, Elspeth might be a bit higher than that. Then you add the 16 packs.
Also, it wasn't mentioned anywhere exactly what are in the masterpiece packs. I doubt they would make a pack for just the one masterpiece card. It might be something like a standard showdown pack for all we know. If this is the case, then I believe that it's worth the price
Liliana already holds her value despite being out of standard for two years and Teferi is already seeing extensive play in modern along with Legacy.
Man, browsing through magicTCG reddit feels like torture. All the people suggesting the obvious that WoTC is potentially moving away from supporting local game stores have been getting thumbs downed to the point where their comments get hidden.
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!
Liliana, The Last Hope hasn't been in Standard for a while, she and Teferi, Hero of Dominaria see play in both Modern and Legacy. Their price will probably hold well.
Granted seems like they should have pushed Ral Zarek and hopefully Vraska are otherwise only 2 out of 8 these cards are valuable not great.
Now I believe Reddit MTG has a similar culture of WotC lackeys. They seem to patrol through and make sure anything untoward Wizards is down-voted. I'm not even kidding. That's why I don't use Reddit for Magic forums and why MTGSalvation really is more healthy in my opinion.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Imagine the last hidden one is JTMS??? lol
Its just another revenue stream, its not going to 'kill' LGS, who do nothing but shift product during draft season.
I dont know about you folks, but 99% of my singles are from online stores, Face to Face, Card Kingdom, or SCG.
Spirits
That's true. To be fair though, LGS are technically being crushed from both directions even before WotC stepped in. In terms of sales they are facing the competition from the "end-consumer-turned-middlemen" (or "investors") group I mentioned and in terms of overhead I don't think its an exaggeration to say generally all costs (land/rental/electricity) have only been going up over the years. The reason I mentioned the hypocrisy is because its obvious that these "opportunists" effectively jump at any aid that WotC had attempted to aid LGS with (FTVs initially and as much as we have issues with it, BAB promos are still considered an attempt), so it annoys me (I would say enraged, but I'm not invested enough in the game to be at this point) that they're literally always accusing WotC of doing harm when in reality they're just looking out for themselves.
Not surprising their uproar is huge now that WotC decided they're done with the whole shtick, as much as they "prey" on LGS, they are pretty much bonded to them when it comes to WotC decisions as well.
"There will be less space to play paper magic" is not a statement I want people who function like a LGS when it comes to sales but do not cover the overhead costs to provide said space to play paper magic to be saying. I know its a true and relevant statement, it just grates me that of all people who say it its this particular group of people. I also know it's a great way to get the opinion heard, especially when its aligns with the opinion of actual end consumers as well, but there's this sickening feeling when you need to rely on the group of voices you know actively prey on both LGS and the end-consumer to make profits for themselves, as though something as simple as voicing out is worthy of merit as maintaining a space to play Magic to begin with.
I do agree that if Arena takes off (way too early to judge anything now and honestly WotC's technology track record leaves little expectations), it's actually a fantastic way for the game to move forward, even if it leaves the "old-timers who refuse to move with the times" behind. As someone who plays Shadowverse casually (Hearthstone does not appeal to me), I've seen the advantages first-hand - effectively infinite supply, playing on tech essentially eradicates any possibility of cheating (something that has been a big hoo-haa over at the competitive side of things lately I heard), the ability to nerf cards instead of banning them, perfect leveled playing field on tournaments (okay I'm not sure of this one for other games, but I know Shadowverse generates the deck from your registered decklist for tournaments, you don't actually have to own the cards to play in a tournament, but of course you can only play that generated deck for the tournament itself).
A well polished Arena would be the pinnacle for actual competitive card gaming, considering the many disadvantages paper has already shown us throughout the years. If all paper is truly pushed to casual-only, that would actually eventually lessen the burden our overloaded Secondary Market has had over the years as well.
Uhm - if you think this isn't marked up you are mistaken. If this were going to LGSs 250 would be the MSRP and the base value would be somethibg like 150.
On other words - the middleman markup is still there and Hasbro is collecting it.