The odds of pulling any individual rare or mythic is actually slightly less than normal for these packs, so prices will probably drop for a while but then voice back as well.
Having expensive cards drop in price, thereby making them easier to come by, is a problem how...? If you want a collection of stuff to sit around with no function other than accumulating value, go buy some freaking gemstones or something.
I wish they'd used the EMA art for Isochron Scepter, though. It looks much better than this one.
Having expensive cards drop in price, thereby making them easier to come by, is a problem how...? If you want a collection of stuff to sit around with no function other than accumulating value, go buy some freaking gemstones or something.
I wish they'd used the EMA art for Isochron Scepter, though. It looks much better than this one.
Its a collectable TRADING card game.
So it would make a lot of sense to print a card just 1 time and stretch the "reprint" time to a long time, otherwise your own product invalidates itself (basically the exact problem they had with Chronicles, printing all the cards to the ground).
If you just want cards to play casually, nothing is stopping you from just using Proxy cards, value wise nothing can ever beat that.
The only reason to buy the actual cards is to have the value associated with them, namely a collectable item and being able to play in sanctioned tournaments (which for almost any EDH/Commander is basically not a thing at all).
----
Making cards cheaper by reprinting everything to the ground just makes the product worth less.
And WotC "fixes" that problem by making the product itself more expensive, which ultimately defeats the entire point of reprinting cards to make them cheaper, as everything gets universally more expensive as a product, while at the same time the actual content of that products becomes less and less valuable as the sets themselves have no identity at all if the content is just reprinted everywhere.
----
In general, if you want specific cards, you buy them as singles.
Or you buy product and trade for it ; which can only work if the new product is remotely of interest to the people that have the old cards ; but if you just reprint the old cards, the entire trading aspect gets undermined (especially if the card has the same artwork and is in no way different at all).
----
If at the very least (and we get there with the alternate art) cards would always have different artwork, then you could value specific artworks as a collectable item (and thats the case for super premium ones, which become the only option for any collectable value at all, as anything else is just worthless).
Watch Isochron Scepter crash to $3 or below, once again invalidating your $16 booster pack purchase. Just eat it or something.
Very true, right back down to 2 bucks.
Having expensive cards drop in price, thereby making them easier to come by, is a problem how...?
They are needed reprints, BUT in a flipping 16 dollar pack you should have a good chance of getting 16 dollars worth of cards. WotC knows these prices are high because of scarcity. Once these cards that virtually no one is playing get out there they will lose 80 percent of their already over inflated value due to low supply.
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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."
More upshifted cards in expensive boosters! Okay, I know each of these have been upshifted before, but come on, these boosters are expensive enough to use the original rarities.
Ash Barrens has been common 4x and uncommon 1x.
Isochron Scepter has been uncommon 2x, rare 1x, and in a From the Vault.
Baleful Strix has been uncommon 5x, rare 1x, and in a Secret Lair.
If these boosters were regular priced, printing at their highest rarity might be justified. But when the booster costs four times a normal one, I think the original rarity is called for. And I don't even want to imagine paying $100 for a VIP (Very Inflated Price) Booster to get these.
Having expensive cards drop in price, thereby making them easier to come by, is a problem how...? If you want a collection of stuff to sit around with no function other than accumulating value, go buy some freaking gemstones or something.
The caption was very firmly tongue is cheek, but a lot of the folks here really don't like the $16 price tag, and that's an understatement. Sure, while some optimistic theories that they gave Amazon the packs for $16 so LGSes can outdo them at "normal" Masters prices ($7-$10), people have been grumbling for Masters sets at $4 for ages, so this makes the price increase even worse. Then again, these are the folks asking for an enemy fetchland reprint, so that's beyond me at this point.
I wish they'd used the EMA art for Isochron Scepter, though. It looks much better than this one.
A lot of the cards in the set got their first printing's art, so this followed suit. I think this art makes for a better foil, and seeing as you get two foils per pack, that might be why this is in the set.
So it would make a lot of sense to print a card just 1 time and stretch the "reprint" time to a long time, otherwise your own product invalidates itself (basically the exact problem they had with Chronicles, printing all the cards to the ground).
How does it invalidate it by reprinting it? They've been reprinting for years and it hasn't hurt the game, in fact has made the game accessible to many players.
If you just want cards to play casually, nothing is stopping you from just using Proxy cards, value wise nothing can ever beat that.
The only reason to buy the actual cards is to have the value associated with them, namely a collectable item and being able to play in sanctioned tournaments (which for almost any EDH/Commander is basically not a thing at all).
Making cards cheaper by reprinting everything to the ground just makes the product worth less.
This definitely doesn't even make sense. First you're conflating collectable with investing which are two different concepts. Second, if people are forced to use proxies, wouldn't that mean that wizards has opportunities to meet the demand of certain cards? Third, if a card loses "all value" after being reprinted then you have to ask yourself was the card valuable because it was rare or because it was good? Example is sol ring has been printed to the ground yet still holds value because of how good it is. That's what gives it "value".
In general, if you want specific cards, you buy them as singles.
Or you buy product and trade for it ; which can only work if the new product is remotely of interest to the people that have the old cards ; but if you just reprint the old cards, the entire trading aspect gets undermined (especially if the card has the same artwork and is in no way different at all).
----
If at the very least (and we get there with the alternate art) cards would always have different artwork, then you could value specific artworks as a collectable item (and thats the case for super premium ones, which become the only option for any collectable value at all, as anything else is just worthless).
It's almost like this gripe is with wizards and how they treat reprints and not actually reprinting. If they spent the effort to commission new arts for reprints, it would give uniqueness to the cards as you say. I'm liking the approach they're doing with showcase cards since it adds uniqueness without compromising on the actual card value. They should have been doing this for years. Pokemon has been doing it for 8, it's actually rather depressing that it's taken MTG this long to get there.
The entire point of having standard around was that every person could start playing the game simply by investing in the current sets, they did not need any reprints at all, as you didnt need the cards for standard.
Right now people dont play standard, so the entire system crumbles.
People want old cards, expensive cards, they want "modern" and "legacy" cards, which is just completely stupid as a new player.
Old formats should be for the people that either still have the cards from the time, or slowly buy into it.
That worked way better to build a franchise, as it made players stick to the game.
People slowly build their EDH / Commander decks, today people just want the cards "now" and not wait at all, and they want them cheap too.
The funny part, the game still gets more expensive as WotC is abusing this mentality and at the same time devalues the actual cards.
They fight that by making the product itself more expensive, which is fairly idiotic for the players.
Back in the days of almost no reprints, a standard deck would cost you like 200-300 bucks , some decks even had almost only commons and uncommons, super cheap and competitive (UG madness one of the best examples, the deck was dirt cheap and performed for years and even allowed for upgrades into legacy and even vintage, same for tribal Goblins, the deck performed in standard, extended, legacy and also vintage).
Reprints in that high quantity flood a market with cards and make the individual cards that are "not" reprinted even more expensive, as the entire value of a set always focuses in on the most expensive cards, instead of balancing out.
WotC wants players to play as many formats as possible and is desperately trying that the formats do not have much of an overlap in what cards are competitive, so you need different cards for each format.
Buying into the game as a newbie is actually really really cheap. You can buy a huge chunk of decks for just 100 bucks. There is no reason at all why a new player should buy into expensive cards in the first bunch of years at all, it will just burn that person out and they will quit the game just as fast as they thrown themselves into it.
Having expensive cards drop in price, thereby making them easier to come by, is a problem how...? If you want a collection of stuff to sit around with no function other than accumulating value, go buy some freaking gemstones or something.
I wish they'd used the EMA art for Isochron Scepter, though. It looks much better than this one.
Its a collectable TRADING card game.
So it would make a lot of sense to print a card just 1 time and stretch the "reprint" time to a long time, otherwise your own product invalidates itself (basically the exact problem they had with Chronicles, printing all the cards to the ground).
If you just want cards to play casually, nothing is stopping you from just using Proxy cards, value wise nothing can ever beat that.
The only reason to buy the actual cards is to have the value associated with them, namely a collectable item and being able to play in sanctioned tournaments (which for almost any EDH/Commander is basically not a thing at all).
----
Making cards cheaper by reprinting everything to the ground just makes the product worth less.
And WotC "fixes" that problem by making the product itself more expensive, which ultimately defeats the entire point of reprinting cards to make them cheaper, as everything gets universally more expensive as a product, while at the same time the actual content of that products becomes less and less valuable as the sets themselves have no identity at all if the content is just reprinted everywhere.
----
In general, if you want specific cards, you buy them as singles.
Or you buy product and trade for it ; which can only work if the new product is remotely of interest to the people that have the old cards ; but if you just reprint the old cards, the entire trading aspect gets undermined (especially if the card has the same artwork and is in no way different at all).
----
If at the very least (and we get there with the alternate art) cards would always have different artwork, then you could value specific artworks as a collectable item (and thats the case for super premium ones, which become the only option for any collectable value at all, as anything else is just worthless).
The game is meant to be played. Collecting is a secondary part of the game. If players can’t purchase the cards, the game become worthless. Who would collect something that no one plays? The biggest problem with magic right now is people trying to invest in it like it’s the stock market, essentially destroying the game. You want the players to be able to purchase cards (proxies suck) so that they can play the game as intended. This idea that collectors drive the game is ridiculous.
The game is meant to be played. Collecting is a secondary part of the game. If players can’t purchase the cards, the game become worthless. Who would collect something that no one plays? The biggest problem with magic right now is people trying to invest in it like it’s the stock market, essentially destroying the game. You want the players to be able to purchase cards (proxies suck) so that they can play the game as intended. This idea that collectors drive the game is ridiculous.
The way WotC wants you to buy cards is by packs.
Packs get only more expensive right now, thats the opposite of want you want, Magic gets much more expensive with these "reprint" products, many times.
Making "mythic" rare chase cards only made this problem worse.
Many people that play the game on a regular basis just bought like 1 display each edition and that was it, they might or might not open expensive cards, doesnt matter, you trade for what you need, especially if you are going to play standard anyway.
The problem is when people start with the game and dont play standard, they want to play with the expensive cards, the old cards, the ones that are collectors items.
Nobody needs Dual lands, still people want them, so badly and guess what, that makes them even more expensive, simple economics, increased demand drives the prices higher.
People buy a lot of singles, and the entire "worth" of cards is measured in the singles prices, but thats not how the product is sold by WotC, the 2ndary market will always drive to make a profit cracking packs. You dont open 100 displays to lose money, that doesnt make any sense, and people still buy singles and some people will invest in the game, as it is a collectable card game, thats the entire point of collecting it and reprints only hurt this aspect, if entire products are 100% reprints, whats the point of collecting them ? You already have them and only the original printing has any remote nostalgic value, all the reprints lack this value inherently.
Buying into a Commander deck slowly, trading for every single card with a person, face to face, not buying singles online, you might KNOW a history for every single card in your deck from who and how you got it.
Might have won a booster draft and opened that foil Liliana you always wanted, the card will have a major nostalgia value to you, probably never going to trade it away.
THAT is what makes the game of magic so valuable and long lasting, people get invested in the game not just by its monetary value, but also emotional and by sheer history of a life time.
Short cutting this experience and buying singles online completely robs yourself of that experience.
If you just want to play with cards, absolutely nothing prevents you from making "good" proxy cards (that are basically real cards, just with "proxy" written on them). I would even recommend any new player to use proxy cards and then slowly trade for the real cards over time, its totally pointless to ask a new player to invest thousands of dollars into the game just to play some "casual" rounds with friends.
If you have a reason to get the expensive real version, thats like buying a piece of art, as you appreciate it.
Reprints undermine the entire collectable aspect of the game, and that is damaging the entire franchise.
As someone who's been playing since first years of Magic, and owns a playset of dual-lands as well as a few power cards, I'd be perfectly happy if WoTC dissolved the reserve list entirely and printed everything over and over. Look at MTGO where you can get a black lotus for $10. Magic is a game and everyone being able to play it makes the game better, not worse. Having card prices be a prohibitive factor to playing the game for the sake of collectors is a unhealthy for the game.
Reprints undermine the entire collectable aspect of the game, and that is damaging the entire franchise.
Yeah except the original printings just become the collectibles, while reprints serve as more affordable options for people who care about playing :) :)
The problem with defining this format by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
did you guys forget that this has been done already?
all of these arguments, all of these ideas, all of it. every single point. has been argued and proven/disproven already?
the game is old. real old.
reprint into the ground has the exact opposite effect that you think it does. this has been proven. players lose faith in the product, they lose faith in the collectible aspect of the game, and they quit. this is part of how we got the reserved list in the first place. blame that collective of stores all you want, but they saw profits tank and there's a reason for that. this is how the game almost failed at one point.
its also quantifiable that when the cost of entry to standard is low, and the environment is healthy, the game surges. it grows in popularity and new players join in. that means more events fire and more product sells. this is why for years the emphasis was entirely on standard with a predominantly **** you approach to other formats.
this all changed when standard started getting stagnant, or downright toxic and players started looking to other formats instead. we see a huge surge in alternative formats, and the pricing of older cards as their demand increases.
the problem currently is that we have too much value locked into too few cards. the ability to trade effectively has been impaired. its difficult to trade up when almost everything is worthless. the ability to recoup the cost of a pack has been impaired. when you turn packs into lotto tickets eventually people switch to singles. the ability to cheaply enter standard has been impaired. use to be $200 got you an extremely viable deck, an entire deck, these days we're looking at twice that because so much value is tied to just a few mythics that are necessary to be viable at all. we also have the problem of pushing cards in those higher rarity slots as a driver to sell those packs that won't recoup the cost in most cases. this has made for very toxic standard environments that not only are too expensive to enter into but are also just plain not fun to participate in as the format itself isn't balanced. its generally stagnated quickly, or been downright toxic, as only a few strategies are even viable. this has happened consistently for more than the past 5 years.
i've seen people throw entire packs into the trash, literally into the trash, because the entire pack was so worthless and not even the new players wanted the cards. now imagine if every single card had that same value.
reprinting is a delicate balance. it has to be or almost everyone falls off the tight rope.
if we really want to see the game get fixed we need to make an active push for better quality cards across the spectrum of rarities, not just at mythic. we need to make an active push for appropriate reprints in standard legal sets as they happen as well as supplemental products and move away from reprint only supplemental sets - especially ones like this one that exploit the secondary market value in the cards that wotc directly controls the reprinting of. we also need to make a real push for development to get more resources, and be listened to, in order to stop all the emergency bans. its all tied together.
reprint into the ground does not work.
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Spoiler EditorWatch Isochron Scepter crash to $3 or below, once again invalidating your $16 booster pack purchase. Just eat it or something.
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StaffI wish they'd used the EMA art for Isochron Scepter, though. It looks much better than this one.
Its a collectable TRADING card game.
So it would make a lot of sense to print a card just 1 time and stretch the "reprint" time to a long time, otherwise your own product invalidates itself (basically the exact problem they had with Chronicles, printing all the cards to the ground).
If you just want cards to play casually, nothing is stopping you from just using Proxy cards, value wise nothing can ever beat that.
The only reason to buy the actual cards is to have the value associated with them, namely a collectable item and being able to play in sanctioned tournaments (which for almost any EDH/Commander is basically not a thing at all).
----
Making cards cheaper by reprinting everything to the ground just makes the product worth less.
And WotC "fixes" that problem by making the product itself more expensive, which ultimately defeats the entire point of reprinting cards to make them cheaper, as everything gets universally more expensive as a product, while at the same time the actual content of that products becomes less and less valuable as the sets themselves have no identity at all if the content is just reprinted everywhere.
----
In general, if you want specific cards, you buy them as singles.
Or you buy product and trade for it ; which can only work if the new product is remotely of interest to the people that have the old cards ; but if you just reprint the old cards, the entire trading aspect gets undermined (especially if the card has the same artwork and is in no way different at all).
----
If at the very least (and we get there with the alternate art) cards would always have different artwork, then you could value specific artworks as a collectable item (and thats the case for super premium ones, which become the only option for any collectable value at all, as anything else is just worthless).
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Very true, right back down to 2 bucks.
They are needed reprints, BUT in a flipping 16 dollar pack you should have a good chance of getting 16 dollars worth of cards. WotC knows these prices are high because of scarcity. Once these cards that virtually no one is playing get out there they will lose 80 percent of their already over inflated value due to low supply.
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."
Ash Barrens has been common 4x and uncommon 1x.
Isochron Scepter has been uncommon 2x, rare 1x, and in a From the Vault.
Baleful Strix has been uncommon 5x, rare 1x, and in a Secret Lair.
If these boosters were regular priced, printing at their highest rarity might be justified. But when the booster costs four times a normal one, I think the original rarity is called for. And I don't even want to imagine paying $100 for a VIP (Very Inflated Price) Booster to get these.
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Spoiler EditorThe caption was very firmly tongue is cheek, but a lot of the folks here really don't like the $16 price tag, and that's an understatement. Sure, while some optimistic theories that they gave Amazon the packs for $16 so LGSes can outdo them at "normal" Masters prices ($7-$10), people have been grumbling for Masters sets at $4 for ages, so this makes the price increase even worse. Then again, these are the folks asking for an enemy fetchland reprint, so that's beyond me at this point.
A lot of the cards in the set got their first printing's art, so this followed suit. I think this art makes for a better foil, and seeing as you get two foils per pack, that might be why this is in the set.
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I can emphasize different words in this sentence and make the meaning different. It's a trading card GAME.
How does it invalidate it by reprinting it? They've been reprinting for years and it hasn't hurt the game, in fact has made the game accessible to many players.
This definitely doesn't even make sense. First you're conflating collectable with investing which are two different concepts. Second, if people are forced to use proxies, wouldn't that mean that wizards has opportunities to meet the demand of certain cards? Third, if a card loses "all value" after being reprinted then you have to ask yourself was the card valuable because it was rare or because it was good? Example is sol ring has been printed to the ground yet still holds value because of how good it is. That's what gives it "value".
It's almost like this gripe is with wizards and how they treat reprints and not actually reprinting. If they spent the effort to commission new arts for reprints, it would give uniqueness to the cards as you say. I'm liking the approach they're doing with showcase cards since it adds uniqueness without compromising on the actual card value. They should have been doing this for years. Pokemon has been doing it for 8, it's actually rather depressing that it's taken MTG this long to get there.
Right now people dont play standard, so the entire system crumbles.
People want old cards, expensive cards, they want "modern" and "legacy" cards, which is just completely stupid as a new player.
Old formats should be for the people that either still have the cards from the time, or slowly buy into it.
That worked way better to build a franchise, as it made players stick to the game.
People slowly build their EDH / Commander decks, today people just want the cards "now" and not wait at all, and they want them cheap too.
The funny part, the game still gets more expensive as WotC is abusing this mentality and at the same time devalues the actual cards.
They fight that by making the product itself more expensive, which is fairly idiotic for the players.
Back in the days of almost no reprints, a standard deck would cost you like 200-300 bucks , some decks even had almost only commons and uncommons, super cheap and competitive (UG madness one of the best examples, the deck was dirt cheap and performed for years and even allowed for upgrades into legacy and even vintage, same for tribal Goblins, the deck performed in standard, extended, legacy and also vintage).
Reprints in that high quantity flood a market with cards and make the individual cards that are "not" reprinted even more expensive, as the entire value of a set always focuses in on the most expensive cards, instead of balancing out.
WotC wants players to play as many formats as possible and is desperately trying that the formats do not have much of an overlap in what cards are competitive, so you need different cards for each format.
Buying into the game as a newbie is actually really really cheap. You can buy a huge chunk of decks for just 100 bucks. There is no reason at all why a new player should buy into expensive cards in the first bunch of years at all, it will just burn that person out and they will quit the game just as fast as they thrown themselves into it.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
The game is meant to be played. Collecting is a secondary part of the game. If players can’t purchase the cards, the game become worthless. Who would collect something that no one plays? The biggest problem with magic right now is people trying to invest in it like it’s the stock market, essentially destroying the game. You want the players to be able to purchase cards (proxies suck) so that they can play the game as intended. This idea that collectors drive the game is ridiculous.
The way WotC wants you to buy cards is by packs.
Packs get only more expensive right now, thats the opposite of want you want, Magic gets much more expensive with these "reprint" products, many times.
Making "mythic" rare chase cards only made this problem worse.
Many people that play the game on a regular basis just bought like 1 display each edition and that was it, they might or might not open expensive cards, doesnt matter, you trade for what you need, especially if you are going to play standard anyway.
The problem is when people start with the game and dont play standard, they want to play with the expensive cards, the old cards, the ones that are collectors items.
Nobody needs Dual lands, still people want them, so badly and guess what, that makes them even more expensive, simple economics, increased demand drives the prices higher.
People buy a lot of singles, and the entire "worth" of cards is measured in the singles prices, but thats not how the product is sold by WotC, the 2ndary market will always drive to make a profit cracking packs. You dont open 100 displays to lose money, that doesnt make any sense, and people still buy singles and some people will invest in the game, as it is a collectable card game, thats the entire point of collecting it and reprints only hurt this aspect, if entire products are 100% reprints, whats the point of collecting them ? You already have them and only the original printing has any remote nostalgic value, all the reprints lack this value inherently.
Buying into a Commander deck slowly, trading for every single card with a person, face to face, not buying singles online, you might KNOW a history for every single card in your deck from who and how you got it.
Might have won a booster draft and opened that foil Liliana you always wanted, the card will have a major nostalgia value to you, probably never going to trade it away.
THAT is what makes the game of magic so valuable and long lasting, people get invested in the game not just by its monetary value, but also emotional and by sheer history of a life time.
Short cutting this experience and buying singles online completely robs yourself of that experience.
If you just want to play with cards, absolutely nothing prevents you from making "good" proxy cards (that are basically real cards, just with "proxy" written on them). I would even recommend any new player to use proxy cards and then slowly trade for the real cards over time, its totally pointless to ask a new player to invest thousands of dollars into the game just to play some "casual" rounds with friends.
If you have a reason to get the expensive real version, thats like buying a piece of art, as you appreciate it.
Reprints undermine the entire collectable aspect of the game, and that is damaging the entire franchise.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Yeah except the original printings just become the collectibles, while reprints serve as more affordable options for people who care about playing :) :)
all of these arguments, all of these ideas, all of it. every single point. has been argued and proven/disproven already?
the game is old. real old.
reprint into the ground has the exact opposite effect that you think it does. this has been proven. players lose faith in the product, they lose faith in the collectible aspect of the game, and they quit. this is part of how we got the reserved list in the first place. blame that collective of stores all you want, but they saw profits tank and there's a reason for that. this is how the game almost failed at one point.
its also quantifiable that when the cost of entry to standard is low, and the environment is healthy, the game surges. it grows in popularity and new players join in. that means more events fire and more product sells. this is why for years the emphasis was entirely on standard with a predominantly **** you approach to other formats.
this all changed when standard started getting stagnant, or downright toxic and players started looking to other formats instead. we see a huge surge in alternative formats, and the pricing of older cards as their demand increases.
the problem currently is that we have too much value locked into too few cards. the ability to trade effectively has been impaired. its difficult to trade up when almost everything is worthless. the ability to recoup the cost of a pack has been impaired. when you turn packs into lotto tickets eventually people switch to singles. the ability to cheaply enter standard has been impaired. use to be $200 got you an extremely viable deck, an entire deck, these days we're looking at twice that because so much value is tied to just a few mythics that are necessary to be viable at all. we also have the problem of pushing cards in those higher rarity slots as a driver to sell those packs that won't recoup the cost in most cases. this has made for very toxic standard environments that not only are too expensive to enter into but are also just plain not fun to participate in as the format itself isn't balanced. its generally stagnated quickly, or been downright toxic, as only a few strategies are even viable. this has happened consistently for more than the past 5 years.
i've seen people throw entire packs into the trash, literally into the trash, because the entire pack was so worthless and not even the new players wanted the cards. now imagine if every single card had that same value.
reprinting is a delicate balance. it has to be or almost everyone falls off the tight rope.
if we really want to see the game get fixed we need to make an active push for better quality cards across the spectrum of rarities, not just at mythic. we need to make an active push for appropriate reprints in standard legal sets as they happen as well as supplemental products and move away from reprint only supplemental sets - especially ones like this one that exploit the secondary market value in the cards that wotc directly controls the reprinting of. we also need to make a real push for development to get more resources, and be listened to, in order to stop all the emergency bans. its all tied together.
reprint into the ground does not work.