So will the foils all be uncommon/rare as well? Doesn't really say.
No. I believe it says on the link somewhere, they are ALL rarities, commons included.
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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."
Well, $12.99 × 6 = $77.94, so $75 is technically a bargain if only by a few bucks. Come to think of it, Sealed boxes are usually $25, right? So they're actually a bit more expensive than six regular packs, though they also come with extra swag like D20s. Maybe a Collector's Box could likewise sweeten the deal?
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
So will the foils all be uncommon/rare as well? Doesn't really say.
No. I believe it says on the link somewhere, they are ALL rarities, commons included.
Then these aren't worth it most likely...
I can get 36 rares/mythics for about $90. I'm guessing the equivalent on these will be quite a bit more. It takes 12 of these packs to equal the output from a box. These would have to sell for $7.50 each to match that. Sure, slightly better chance at foil rares/mythics, but with common foils involved it's really not too likely that it's a huge difference.
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Currently Playing: Standard:
Nothing, the format Bores me! Legacy: RBurn (Made on the Cheap!)R RGBelcherRG WSoldier StompyW BReanimatorB EDH: BUGRWSliver OverlordWRGUB BGeth, Lord of the VaultB
So will the foils all be uncommon/rare as well? Doesn't really say.
No. I believe it says on the link somewhere, they are ALL rarities, commons included.
Then these aren't worth it most likely...
I can get 36 rares/mythics for about $90. I'm guessing the equivalent on these will be quite a bit more. It takes 12 of these packs to equal the output from a box. These would have to sell for $7.50 each to match that. Sure, slightly better chance at foil rares/mythics, but with common foils involved it's really not too likely that it's a huge difference.
Just for comparison assuming 12 of these per booster box.
Booster $3.99 MSRP 36 packs = $143.64
36 rares/mythics
108 uncommons
aprox. 6 foils
Collector Booster $12.99 MSRP 12 packs = $155.88
36 rares/mythics
120 uncommons
24 foils
With that said, we all know you can get booster boxes for around $90 shipped here in the US. Whether or not a Collector Booster box of 12 would be offered for the same price is probably unlikely. Plus you get around 360 commons (and a handful of tokens) in regular boosters. It really boils down to if you want the commons or not and if you want more foils. I'm sure EV will get figured out the second we know about amounts and prices of the next set. If you want to play the foil mythic/rare lottery they should give you a far better chance. I don't think we are going to see a lot of these packs from the sound of it anyway. More information is needed to make a good judgement on value at this time.
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."
"This new product created by a business whose goal is to make money is just another cash grab! How vexing!"
Fact: WotC could fold tomorrow, shut down the presses, and we could all still be playing Magic until we die. These kinds of "WotC gotta eat" arguments are specious.
I give WotC money for interesting game design and enjoyable play experiences. This product offers neither. And since I think they've been struggling to justify getting my money for those two reasons as of late, my opinion is that their efforts with this product are misdirected.
Fact: WotC could fold tomorrow, shut down the presses, and we could all still be playing Magic until we die. These kinds of "WotC gotta eat" arguments are specious.
I give WotC money for interesting game design and enjoyable play experiences. This product offers neither. And since I think they've been struggling to justify getting my money for those two reasons as of late, my opinion is that their efforts with this product are misdirected.
I feel like we need to define "cash grab." The fact of the matter is that WotC regularly charges $3.99 for a few cents worth of card stock, ink, and shrink wrap, most of which gets tossed into a bin at the end of the day. In my book, that's about as much of a cash grab as basically anything else WotC releases. Getting upset because they decided to put out another subjectively overpriced product just isn't rational in the grand scheme of things.
If you're not the kind who cares for foils, I can see why the product feels extremely lackluster to you. I'm in no way saying players like myself (old, retired-to-EDH players who like foils) are in any way a majority, but I wouldn't be surprised after how long the game has been around, we could form a reasonable demographic in terms of size.
This does seem to be targeted at "older" more financially well-off players/collectors. A 13 year old isn't probably going to make an impulse purchase of one of these when a $3.99 pack is sitting next to it. Just a thought.
From what I've seen, it's the parents of young players that buy them the products, so depending on how into Magic the Gathering the parent is they may or may not buy one of these. I've helped a lot of parents buy MTG products for their kids and always pick out the ones that have the most value for commander and constructed play. I've had to steer so many people away from the spellslinger kits towards the duel decks or commander decks. I've had two people who had their kid just start playing Magic on and off and that is the one time I recommend the deck builders toolkit and the spellslingers kit.
Then there is Force of Will, where I basically just give people free starters when they are interested in it since I keep getting extras all the time for some reason. There is a difference between a display case of starter decks and a single starter deck, amazon sellers!
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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!
Getting upset because they decided to put out another subjectively overpriced product just isn't rational in the grand scheme of things.
The price is not why I dislike this product. I would dislike this product at $3.99 / pack. I dislike this product because it is not the result of any sort of game stewardshp decisions. At least the Masters sets are designed to play well out of the pack. At least the FTV series had some kind of curation mindset behind it. At least the fricken all-foil Alara packs (the closest thing I can think of to this product) had a novelty factor. This is just, hey, let's take a hacksaw to our own product in order to bait the big spenders. It's a giant, hollow, "we DGAF about anything" product. The price is just the insult that follows.
If WotC is going to make calls like this, they aren't doing what's best for the game. If they aren't doing what's best for the game, I suggest playing the game without giving them a penny. It's easy and fun to do.
The price is not why I dislike this product. I would dislike this product at $3.99 / pack. I dislike this product because it is not the result of any sort of game stewardshp decisions. At least the Masters sets are designed to play well out of the pack. At least the FTV series had some kind of curation mindset behind it. At least the fricken all-foil Alara packs (the closest thing I can think of to this product) had a novelty factor. This is just, hey, let's take a hacksaw to our own product in order to bait the big spenders. It's a giant, hollow, "we DGAF about anything" product. The price is just the insult that follows.
If WotC is going to make calls like this, they aren't doing what's best for the game. If they aren't doing what's best for the game, I suggest playing the game without giving them a penny. It's easy and fun to do.
You're not wrong - this product is blatantly a business decision and not a game decision. Many of their decisions are - I actually don't quite agree FTV was "curating" anything they basically outright stated it was supposed to "reward" LGSes with the product with MSRP way lower than the Secondary Market prices (which the LGS can choose to pass on to the end consumer if they wished and then we had plenty of finger-pointing by all sides over its existence...). Alara Foil Packs look like a novelty because it only happened once long ago... it wouldn't be a novelty if they kept up with it all the way until now and if it did I guarantee you there would have been endless debates and articles/videos about the "harm" the packs are causing the Secondary Market for foils... in fact I think there were some complaints even back then (vocal impact wasn't as large back then)... and as much as it is excessive, it is also true to a certain extent (Alara Foil prices tanked and took much longer to recover than the sets around it).
But at the end of the day, as much as it's a sad case, more and more "players" are also actively partaking in "Business: the Gathering" game as well, and these business decisions do have a relevant impact on them. To put it even more bluntly, this "growing" group (okay might have stalled due to all the recent changes at the moment but no doubt it already grew rapidly in the last decade) allows the company to make even more money in an arguably easier way (let's face it, making actual good, game decision is a talent not easily found or cultivated, whereas business techniques are refined comparatively quickly regardless of industry). Doesn't help good game talent are usually bottom-rung when it comes to the corporate ladder whereas the higher-up suits are already masters of business techniques and are resistant to change, so if they see a strategy that permits their expertise to maintain full-control, they naturally are in favor of it and will push it onto their subordinates.
As players become more and more entrenched in the business-side of the "game", their concern for the actual quality of the game as a game naturally dwindles. If a good game decision would cause harm to the players' personal business-end, it would still be met with equal vocal negativity (or more depending on the percentage of players involved in this trap/affected), hence creating a cycle of sorts that settles for mediocrity.
Despite my rather complex overview of how I basically see the system working, I do agree with you - except that playing the game "without" giving them a penny (well, technically in the strictest sense that is only achievable by full-proxying since any real card stems back to WotC making a penny to begin with) feels like the "extreme" way to state it. It's more like telling people to play the game without engaging in the business-end of the game (which basically starts with buying cards thinking you're entitled to profit from it after playing with it for a few years and only grows from that mindset), but at the same from a statistical observation of how the general playerbase acts, I must also state that isn't a battle you're winning (or convincing people already in with sunk-cost fallacy) anytime soon.
No shade, but I find myself spending the most on the secondary market in MTG, and doing these gimmicks isn't convincing me to buy more official product. Better reprints, more Commander products or Commander-friendly products are what will. Otherwise, I'm going on MythicSpoiler, looking up Faeries from Lorwyn, or Kamigawa Soratami, or synergies with Theros cards, and I'm going right to the secondary market to find that stuff, which makes me wonder why WOTC wants it that way.
No shade, but I find myself spending the most on the secondary market in MTG, and doing these gimmicks isn't convincing me to buy more official product. Better reprints, more Commander products or Commander-friendly products are what will. Otherwise, I'm going on MythicSpoiler, looking up Faeries from Lorwyn, or Kamigawa Soratami, or synergies with Theros cards, and I'm going right to the secondary market to find that stuff, which makes me wonder why WOTC wants it that way.
This is me too btw. Last sealed product I bought was a box of the last good Modern Masters, because I got a deal on it and Fetchlands.
I'll say it again, I think this product has an older/more financially well off target demographic in mind. $12.99 a pack dictates that. I sure would like to have some more information from Wizards at this point. Anyone find anything?
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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."
I'll say it again, I think this product has an older/more financially well off target demographic in mind. $12.99 a pack dictates that. I sure would like to have some more information from Wizards at this point. Anyone find anything?
They did that in the past and this kind of product always failed to sell.
The "all foil booster" in Shards of Alara, the 3Booster-packs "Draft-Packs" and all that stuff, its just pointless.
If these have a better value than regular boosters, people will buy only these and boosters become a "draft-only" product.
No matter how it turns out, this product simply cannot succeed and is doomed to fail in some way or another.
----
People will buy it for sure, just because its a new product, like always, but it has no staying power.
No matter how it turns out, this product simply cannot succeed and is doomed to fail in some way or another.
We will have to agree to disagree on that one. Again, I'd like to have a little more information before I make a final judgement. I'm hard on Wizards on a lot of things but I think this one could have a chance if executed properly.
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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."
I'm completely jaded at this point, so I view any 'new' products that Wizards comes out with as just another blatant cash grab.
"This new product created by a business whose goal is to make money is just another cash grab! How vexing!"
Back in the day Wizards didn't need to create 'new and innovative' ways to generate funds. They had boosters and basic decks and that was it, and that was all that was needed. Now? I've lost track of all the Magic: The Gathering products currently on the market that are overpriced, underpowered, and more or less a complete waste of company resources to create and produce. It's evolved from a game to a gambling variant.
They should just go whole hog and set up a GoFundMe for the company - outright begging doesn't generate tons of worthless cards.
No shade, but I find myself spending the most on the secondary market in MTG, and doing these gimmicks isn't convincing me to buy more official product. Better reprints, more Commander products or Commander-friendly products are what will. Otherwise, I'm going on MythicSpoiler, looking up Faeries from Lorwyn, or Kamigawa Soratami, or synergies with Theros cards, and I'm going right to the secondary market to find that stuff, which makes me wonder why WOTC wants it that way.
As someone who operates somewhat the same way, except pretty much exclusively on foils, I sort of simultaneously agree and disagree with you. I wouldn't say better reprints (assuming they're in Standard/Masters sets) would actually encourage me to buy more official product than I already have (which is definitely dismal by any measure), although I guess it does make me (and people like us) buy more singles (since they're more avaliable) which in turn makes some other people buy more official product I guess? (I find it hard to imagine my purchase of Skyshroud Claim really elevated Battlebond sales indirectly even, but hey I'm guess a statistic of one).
The most ironic thing is since I'm committed to foils (and play pretty much only EDH), the yearly Commander Products don't appeal to me - there's only 3 foils per deck, coming to 12 or 15 a year and after filtering out what I actually want/need, I'd be lucky if there was even a single I want to buy that year. On the other hand, this Collector's Boosters are like Superior-Masters-Lite (in the sense they pretty much have more foils and less risk because of triple rares)... so as long as the set in question has good reprints, I can see myself buying a few packs to both support the LGS and the bonus thrill of opening boosters (which has been mostly suppressed since all other booster packs are statistically much riskier for me to even consider them) when the set releases before I move on to singles.
No booster system is ever worth over singles (neither will they ever be, if a product actually turn out to be better I'm pretty sure it essentially isn't a booster system of any sort anymore), but the Collector's Pack has a formula that has me considering worth it to risk it for a few packs (in the sense that even if I lost, which I most definitely will most of the time, I don't feel as bad), whereas everything else resulted in a big fat 0. But that's only because I'm a semi-retired player interested in foils... and the set in question must have appealing cards/reprint to begin with, so it's not an outright winner either.
No matter how it turns out, this product simply cannot succeed and is doomed to fail in some way or another.
We will have to agree to disagree on that one. Again, I'd like to have a little more information before I make a final judgement. I'm hard on Wizards on a lot of things but I think this one could have a chance if executed properly.
I feel like that's highly dependent on how much expectations they have for the product, which I hope they realize it targets a very niche demographic and logistically prepared for that. On one hand they shown they do know who their products are targeting plenty of times (Archenemy, the board games and so on...) but on the other hand they also seem to overestimate the number of people in said demographic, resulting in excess sitting product (but at the same time at least they have not really overestimated to a point of disaster, so they have some grasp, just not as accurate as everyone would liked it to be).
On the other hand, maybe they've accepted the fate that products with niche products will never last, so they just run it on a cycling novelty factor instead. No singular product is actually a "failure" to them, because they are part of some a larger system that involves "cycling multiple products over time" and that system is the actual "product" to them. Maybe one day they will run into that "lasting" niche product, but I have my doubts, because anything that last usually isn't niche, especially with boosters as a baseline.
As much as I'm pointing out these Collector's Packs do actually have a "valid" target market using myself as an example and isn't an outright dismal failure some people make it sound it to be, I also recognize it's still a niche market and hence likely to eventually fall... and with that maybe suspect they aren't really pushing for these specific products to have longevity, just that they hit their niche market comfortably to sell out before moving to the next niche market/product.
Back in the day Wizards didn't need to create 'new and innovative' ways to generate funds. They had boosters and basic decks and that was it, and that was all that was needed. Now? I've lost track of all the Magic: The Gathering products currently on the market that are overpriced, underpowered, and more or less a complete waste of company resources to create and produce. It's evolved from a game to a gambling variant.
They should just go whole hog and set up a GoFundMe for the company - outright begging doesn't generate tons of worthless cards.
To be fair, back in the day they didn't have to answer to corporate overlords (who like their answers in profitable financial reports).
This why I feel like there's a need to define Magic: the Gathering from "Business: that Gathering"... and when I say define I meant us players defining them from and for our scope, since it's not actually feasible to expect WotC (whose jobs are basically on the line) to define that line.
As a player, it's just up to us to see a product is not for us and technically "erase it from our view out of sight". The game will not crash and die simply because a product isn't for a specific player. Just like it's impossible for a product to meet everyone's expectations, it's highly unlikely a product meets absolutely nobody's expectations (although to be fair, new players have literally 0 expectations beyond the straight price without relativity, so that's not a very high bar to set).
I'm not saying we're not entitled to "complain" when a product doesn't meet our expectations, for the feedback is useful information. But plenty of times people let that entitlement swell up to the point they sort of delude themselves that other people's opinions don't exist and/or their feedback has the same commandeering power as the suits in Corporate who hold WotC's jobs on the line. In reality, when you just take everyone's feedback it's pretty much just a vortex of a mess.
Everyone (with their own niche demographics) is clamoring for WotC's attention... and I'm not surprised they picked those with the easiest-to-solve-complaints to solve first and unfortunately for those with more "armchair-game-designer" complaints, the "business-opportunist" complaints tend to be the easier one to solve. Apologies for using rather unkind terms, but to be honest, I guess when you're dealing with a whirlpool of negativity that is complaints/feedback I really don't think the people in charge of filtering that would be mentally labeling either side of the consumer-spectrum nicely...
I'm not overly concerned personally with reprints as I don't enjoy pack lottery - but I do see it as a frequent demand. That said, my annoyance with this is seeing quantity of products over quality. And it's all standard. I just don't see this being the way to promote standard or the sale of official products. Design fewer, quality products for target audiences, and let standard sell itself with sets on par with original Innistrad block. Even I was playing standard back then. Dominaria was good. I hate to say it, but I feel like this game needs Richard Garfield.
I'm thrilled to death to have Arixmethes and possibly return to Theros on the horizon, but I feel like MTG has been a bit stagnant, with C18 being the last interesting thing going on for a while. Perhaps it's just me, but three sets on a plane we are visiting for the third time over the next year and half in what I personally consider the most uninteresting, abhorrent setting of all... And no legit stories to keep my attention. My attention has gone to Lorwyn block for Faeries and other cool themes of the past, and I've tuned out from new MTG for a while. Maybe just me, but seems like a bad idea to foster that straying of interest, when they could be making quality reprint sets or something else, instead of this.
Maybe just me, but seems like a bad idea to foster that straying of interest, when they could be making quality reprint sets or something else, instead of this.
They don't have or need to be mutually exclusive. WotC could do both. In a "perfect" world it could happen.
And I'm all for Garfield coming back full time.
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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."
"This new product created by a business whose goal is to make money is just another cash grab! How vexing!"
Fact: WotC could fold tomorrow, shut down the presses, and we could all still be playing Magic until we die. These kinds of "WotC gotta eat" arguments are specious.
I give WotC money for interesting game design and enjoyable play experiences. This product offers neither. And since I think they've been struggling to justify getting my money for those two reasons as of late, my opinion is that their efforts with this product are misdirected.
Just look at every other game that has died - without consistent support, interest in the game would slowly wane.
I don't see myself buying this. I'd rather just buy a Masters product at that price, honestly, and this doesn't look like it fits that descriptor.
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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.
I don't see myself buying this. I'd rather just buy a Masters product at that price, honestly, and this doesn't look like it fits that descriptor.
Problem is there is no Masters product packs out currently (Masters25 may be available but its run its course, no new printings) and Wizards has been tight lipped whether or not they will make a comeback and when. We may know something on Monday, we may not. Even if they do announce a new Masters set it won't be out for another 6 months I'd guess. It lets these packs play in that 10 buck a pack playground until that time. Again, none of these need to be mutually exclusive. Some will want them, some won't. I like having that choice personally.
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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."
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."
Didn't they do something like this for Alara? I remember seeing those "premium" packs collecting dust for months at my LGS as well as Wally World. Seems like every time they come out with some kind of "premium" product for the enfranchised players the price goes up a bit and the quality goes down a bit. That or it's an incredibly limited release that is almost impossible to get. This game has slowly been getting worse every year since Hasbro started pulling the strings.
As a Magic fan and consumer, I personally am firmly against any change that pulls their customers towards the tempting yet treatcherous booster lottery. I dislike boosters like these and showdown boosters that are only made for cracking and hoping to get lucky, and I dislike masterpieces because they increase the value variance and at the same time tempt gullible people, those that are willing to take a chance even though they know that the house always wins, to buy boosters and hope to get a lottery card.
Why? Because not getting rewarded for those gambles, which is the average result, leads to disappointment and the feeling of having been duped, and those feelings do not create long lasting customers and new loyal Magic players. It provides a short term cash grab, but turns people away in the long term. That's not a good long term plan for the game as a whole.
Look at it this way, there are 2 golden tickets in each pack! Less **opens booster** “meh”, and more ** opens good stuff ** “YEAh!!!!!!”
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No. I believe it says on the link somewhere, they are ALL rarities, commons included.
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."
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
Then these aren't worth it most likely...
I can get 36 rares/mythics for about $90. I'm guessing the equivalent on these will be quite a bit more. It takes 12 of these packs to equal the output from a box. These would have to sell for $7.50 each to match that. Sure, slightly better chance at foil rares/mythics, but with common foils involved it's really not too likely that it's a huge difference.
Currently Playing:
Standard:
Nothing, the format Bores me!
Legacy:
RBurn (Made on the Cheap!)R
RGBelcherRG
WSoldier StompyW
BReanimatorB
EDH:
BUGRWSliver OverlordWRGUB
BGeth, Lord of the VaultB
Just for comparison assuming 12 of these per booster box.
Booster $3.99 MSRP 36 packs = $143.64
36 rares/mythics
108 uncommons
aprox. 6 foils
Collector Booster $12.99 MSRP 12 packs = $155.88
36 rares/mythics
120 uncommons
24 foils
With that said, we all know you can get booster boxes for around $90 shipped here in the US. Whether or not a Collector Booster box of 12 would be offered for the same price is probably unlikely. Plus you get around 360 commons (and a handful of tokens) in regular boosters. It really boils down to if you want the commons or not and if you want more foils. I'm sure EV will get figured out the second we know about amounts and prices of the next set. If you want to play the foil mythic/rare lottery they should give you a far better chance. I don't think we are going to see a lot of these packs from the sound of it anyway. More information is needed to make a good judgement on value at this time.
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."
I give WotC money for interesting game design and enjoyable play experiences. This product offers neither. And since I think they've been struggling to justify getting my money for those two reasons as of late, my opinion is that their efforts with this product are misdirected.
From what I've seen, it's the parents of young players that buy them the products, so depending on how into Magic the Gathering the parent is they may or may not buy one of these. I've helped a lot of parents buy MTG products for their kids and always pick out the ones that have the most value for commander and constructed play. I've had to steer so many people away from the spellslinger kits towards the duel decks or commander decks. I've had two people who had their kid just start playing Magic on and off and that is the one time I recommend the deck builders toolkit and the spellslingers kit.
Then there is Force of Will, where I basically just give people free starters when they are interested in it since I keep getting extras all the time for some reason. There is a difference between a display case of starter decks and a single starter deck, amazon sellers!
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!
(W/U)(B/R)GForm of Progenitus, Shape of a Scrubland
BRGJund Tokens with Prossh, the Magic Dragon Foil
URGAnimar, the RUG CleanerFoil
RRRFeldon of the Third Path 2.0 Foil
BG(B/G)Not Another Meren DeckFoil
UR(U/R)Mizzix, Y Control and X Burn Spells
(W/U)(B/R)GHarold Ramos - The 35 Foot Long Twinkie (In +1/+1 counters)
UB(U/B)Dragonlord Silumgar
The price is not why I dislike this product. I would dislike this product at $3.99 / pack. I dislike this product because it is not the result of any sort of game stewardshp decisions. At least the Masters sets are designed to play well out of the pack. At least the FTV series had some kind of curation mindset behind it. At least the fricken all-foil Alara packs (the closest thing I can think of to this product) had a novelty factor. This is just, hey, let's take a hacksaw to our own product in order to bait the big spenders. It's a giant, hollow, "we DGAF about anything" product. The price is just the insult that follows.
If WotC is going to make calls like this, they aren't doing what's best for the game. If they aren't doing what's best for the game, I suggest playing the game without giving them a penny. It's easy and fun to do.
You're not wrong - this product is blatantly a business decision and not a game decision. Many of their decisions are - I actually don't quite agree FTV was "curating" anything they basically outright stated it was supposed to "reward" LGSes with the product with MSRP way lower than the Secondary Market prices (which the LGS can choose to pass on to the end consumer if they wished and then we had plenty of finger-pointing by all sides over its existence...). Alara Foil Packs look like a novelty because it only happened once long ago... it wouldn't be a novelty if they kept up with it all the way until now and if it did I guarantee you there would have been endless debates and articles/videos about the "harm" the packs are causing the Secondary Market for foils... in fact I think there were some complaints even back then (vocal impact wasn't as large back then)... and as much as it is excessive, it is also true to a certain extent (Alara Foil prices tanked and took much longer to recover than the sets around it).
But at the end of the day, as much as it's a sad case, more and more "players" are also actively partaking in "Business: the Gathering" game as well, and these business decisions do have a relevant impact on them. To put it even more bluntly, this "growing" group (okay might have stalled due to all the recent changes at the moment but no doubt it already grew rapidly in the last decade) allows the company to make even more money in an arguably easier way (let's face it, making actual good, game decision is a talent not easily found or cultivated, whereas business techniques are refined comparatively quickly regardless of industry). Doesn't help good game talent are usually bottom-rung when it comes to the corporate ladder whereas the higher-up suits are already masters of business techniques and are resistant to change, so if they see a strategy that permits their expertise to maintain full-control, they naturally are in favor of it and will push it onto their subordinates.
As players become more and more entrenched in the business-side of the "game", their concern for the actual quality of the game as a game naturally dwindles. If a good game decision would cause harm to the players' personal business-end, it would still be met with equal vocal negativity (or more depending on the percentage of players involved in this trap/affected), hence creating a cycle of sorts that settles for mediocrity.
Despite my rather complex overview of how I basically see the system working, I do agree with you - except that playing the game "without" giving them a penny (well, technically in the strictest sense that is only achievable by full-proxying since any real card stems back to WotC making a penny to begin with) feels like the "extreme" way to state it. It's more like telling people to play the game without engaging in the business-end of the game (which basically starts with buying cards thinking you're entitled to profit from it after playing with it for a few years and only grows from that mindset), but at the same from a statistical observation of how the general playerbase acts, I must also state that isn't a battle you're winning (or convincing people already in with sunk-cost fallacy) anytime soon.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
This is me too btw. Last sealed product I bought was a box of the last good Modern Masters, because I got a deal on it and Fetchlands.
I buy singles, and foils for UR decks. Thats it.
Spirits
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."
They did that in the past and this kind of product always failed to sell.
The "all foil booster" in Shards of Alara, the 3Booster-packs "Draft-Packs" and all that stuff, its just pointless.
If these have a better value than regular boosters, people will buy only these and boosters become a "draft-only" product.
No matter how it turns out, this product simply cannot succeed and is doomed to fail in some way or another.
----
People will buy it for sure, just because its a new product, like always, but it has no staying power.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
We will have to agree to disagree on that one. Again, I'd like to have a little more information before I make a final judgement. I'm hard on Wizards on a lot of things but I think this one could have a chance if executed properly.
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."
Back in the day Wizards didn't need to create 'new and innovative' ways to generate funds. They had boosters and basic decks and that was it, and that was all that was needed. Now? I've lost track of all the Magic: The Gathering products currently on the market that are overpriced, underpowered, and more or less a complete waste of company resources to create and produce. It's evolved from a game to a gambling variant.
They should just go whole hog and set up a GoFundMe for the company - outright begging doesn't generate tons of worthless cards.
As someone who operates somewhat the same way, except pretty much exclusively on foils, I sort of simultaneously agree and disagree with you. I wouldn't say better reprints (assuming they're in Standard/Masters sets) would actually encourage me to buy more official product than I already have (which is definitely dismal by any measure), although I guess it does make me (and people like us) buy more singles (since they're more avaliable) which in turn makes some other people buy more official product I guess? (I find it hard to imagine my purchase of Skyshroud Claim really elevated Battlebond sales indirectly even, but hey I'm guess a statistic of one).
The most ironic thing is since I'm committed to foils (and play pretty much only EDH), the yearly Commander Products don't appeal to me - there's only 3 foils per deck, coming to 12 or 15 a year and after filtering out what I actually want/need, I'd be lucky if there was even a single I want to buy that year. On the other hand, this Collector's Boosters are like Superior-Masters-Lite (in the sense they pretty much have more foils and less risk because of triple rares)... so as long as the set in question has good reprints, I can see myself buying a few packs to both support the LGS and the bonus thrill of opening boosters (which has been mostly suppressed since all other booster packs are statistically much riskier for me to even consider them) when the set releases before I move on to singles.
No booster system is ever worth over singles (neither will they ever be, if a product actually turn out to be better I'm pretty sure it essentially isn't a booster system of any sort anymore), but the Collector's Pack has a formula that has me considering worth it to risk it for a few packs (in the sense that even if I lost, which I most definitely will most of the time, I don't feel as bad), whereas everything else resulted in a big fat 0. But that's only because I'm a semi-retired player interested in foils... and the set in question must have appealing cards/reprint to begin with, so it's not an outright winner either.
I feel like that's highly dependent on how much expectations they have for the product, which I hope they realize it targets a very niche demographic and logistically prepared for that. On one hand they shown they do know who their products are targeting plenty of times (Archenemy, the board games and so on...) but on the other hand they also seem to overestimate the number of people in said demographic, resulting in excess sitting product (but at the same time at least they have not really overestimated to a point of disaster, so they have some grasp, just not as accurate as everyone would liked it to be).
On the other hand, maybe they've accepted the fate that products with niche products will never last, so they just run it on a cycling novelty factor instead. No singular product is actually a "failure" to them, because they are part of some a larger system that involves "cycling multiple products over time" and that system is the actual "product" to them. Maybe one day they will run into that "lasting" niche product, but I have my doubts, because anything that last usually isn't niche, especially with boosters as a baseline.
As much as I'm pointing out these Collector's Packs do actually have a "valid" target market using myself as an example and isn't an outright dismal failure some people make it sound it to be, I also recognize it's still a niche market and hence likely to eventually fall... and with that maybe suspect they aren't really pushing for these specific products to have longevity, just that they hit their niche market comfortably to sell out before moving to the next niche market/product.
To be fair, back in the day they didn't have to answer to corporate overlords (who like their answers in profitable financial reports).
This why I feel like there's a need to define Magic: the Gathering from "Business: that Gathering"... and when I say define I meant us players defining them from and for our scope, since it's not actually feasible to expect WotC (whose jobs are basically on the line) to define that line.
As a player, it's just up to us to see a product is not for us and technically "erase it from our view out of sight". The game will not crash and die simply because a product isn't for a specific player. Just like it's impossible for a product to meet everyone's expectations, it's highly unlikely a product meets absolutely nobody's expectations (although to be fair, new players have literally 0 expectations beyond the straight price without relativity, so that's not a very high bar to set).
I'm not saying we're not entitled to "complain" when a product doesn't meet our expectations, for the feedback is useful information. But plenty of times people let that entitlement swell up to the point they sort of delude themselves that other people's opinions don't exist and/or their feedback has the same commandeering power as the suits in Corporate who hold WotC's jobs on the line. In reality, when you just take everyone's feedback it's pretty much just a vortex of a mess.
Everyone (with their own niche demographics) is clamoring for WotC's attention... and I'm not surprised they picked those with the easiest-to-solve-complaints to solve first and unfortunately for those with more "armchair-game-designer" complaints, the "business-opportunist" complaints tend to be the easier one to solve. Apologies for using rather unkind terms, but to be honest, I guess when you're dealing with a whirlpool of negativity that is complaints/feedback I really don't think the people in charge of filtering that would be mentally labeling either side of the consumer-spectrum nicely...
EDIT: Spelling
I'm thrilled to death to have Arixmethes and possibly return to Theros on the horizon, but I feel like MTG has been a bit stagnant, with C18 being the last interesting thing going on for a while. Perhaps it's just me, but three sets on a plane we are visiting for the third time over the next year and half in what I personally consider the most uninteresting, abhorrent setting of all... And no legit stories to keep my attention. My attention has gone to Lorwyn block for Faeries and other cool themes of the past, and I've tuned out from new MTG for a while. Maybe just me, but seems like a bad idea to foster that straying of interest, when they could be making quality reprint sets or something else, instead of this.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
They don't have or need to be mutually exclusive. WotC could do both. In a "perfect" world it could happen.
And I'm all for Garfield coming back full time.
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."
Just look at every other game that has died - without consistent support, interest in the game would slowly wane.
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.
Problem is there is no Masters product packs out currently (Masters25 may be available but its run its course, no new printings) and Wizards has been tight lipped whether or not they will make a comeback and when. We may know something on Monday, we may not. Even if they do announce a new Masters set it won't be out for another 6 months I'd guess. It lets these packs play in that 10 buck a pack playground until that time. Again, none of these need to be mutually exclusive. Some will want them, some won't. I like having that choice personally.
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."
We all get something we want then.
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."
Look at it this way, there are 2 golden tickets in each pack! Less **opens booster** “meh”, and more ** opens good stuff ** “YEAh!!!!!!”