MTG Salvation

Quote from MrMoustacheMM »

Disagree 100%. I buy Draft boosters to draft/play sealed with, and otherwise I always buy Set boosters, with their higher likelihood of getting 2 rares, and the 25% chance of getting a List card. Streets of New Capenna is more likely to have many more prereleases and drafts fire (and Kamigawa drafts too), now that COVID restrictions are starting to be lifted (at least in my country). I don't want to draft with Set boosters, so I want them to keep printing both.

Also, nothing wrong with Collector boosters. I like to buy one or two per set for the fun of opening a bunch of cool foils and the chance at some pretty rare chase cards. Plus they have helped to reduce the price of cards in a given set, making it a lot easier to buy all the cards I need.

When you compare to other Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games they rarely go through the effort of trying to enable players to draft because it's not as fluid as it is in Paper Magic. With Pokémon TCG all you need is the right amount of basic energies that your LGS provides where as with Yu-Gi-Oh! it's next to impossible due to the game's complexity though I'm not sure about Flesh and Blood TCG since I never got around to playing it. In Cardfight!! Vanguard we never really built decks out of our packs when we just used our custom built ones since game design and mechanics for particular card games can make drafting difficult and not every card game is designed for drafting.

Be nice If the odds of pulling a List card was more than 25% in Set Boosters which is now what Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro is starting to do with Commander Pre-Con exclusives that normally would've been added to Commander Pre-Cons because they're trying to dissuade people into buying these $50+ products for one or two chase cards. It's actually kind of a smart move on their part since these cards won't affect Standard as much without going up in value because of it though I think trying to get the right balance of Standard without actually breaking the format while catering to Commander players has already been a huge challenge for Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro going forward.

I just don't see a point in each Standard set having both a Draft and Set Booster release when it should go back to the way it was before where it was just one release with all the cards. I get that Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro wants to provide the Booster Draft experience for those who purchase the Draft Boosters but how often do players do that nowadays? It also incentivizes Whales to hoard the Set Boosters or to be more precise the Collector's Editions just to flip for easy money. On that note why not also get rid of Collector's Editions of these Standard Sets? The point I'm getting at here is that less is more and the sooner Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro figures this out the better.

I don't know why but my interest for buying card singles that my LGS doesn't carry is starting to wane a bit. Not sure If it's got to do with the oversaturation of Paper Magic products released on a daily basis or If it's the sign of the times we're living in right now. I don't like how hyperinflation combined with the MTG Secondary Market is literally pricing players out of Paper Magic and I actually don't fault Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro for this because it's something that's completely out of their control. Asking for reprints nowadays is like adding an additional tax to sealed products that most people can't afford which could explain why Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro has shifted more toward Secret Lairs and "The List" for reprints due to being more cost effective and less of a hassle than Masters sets. I know that we're getting a Masters set in 2022 but with what I've been noticing with their release schedule, it's basically one Masters set a year with reprints being regulated solely in Secret Lair drops and "The List" which should be a guarantee one per booster pack instead of increasing the odds further to screw over Local Game Stores (LGSs) by disincentivizing mass box openings for selling card singles.

It's not so much that product fatigue is an issue due to FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) when it's got more to do with lack of new reprints that are easily accessible to players where Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro is mostly catering to Whales at this point. Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro has gotten better at limiting the amount of print runs for their sealed products to make the most amount of money for Papa Hasbro. Take Time Spiral Remastered for example, a lot of people thought that there was going to be more than one print run for it when the Supply Chain Crisis created from the Great Resignation literally had nothing to do with it. So instead of increasing the amount of print runs for Time Spiral Remastered for distributors to sell to Local Game Stores (LGSs) for mass box openings to distribute card singles for they went ahead and decided that it was better for Whales to hoard the product, company gets paid more, while Local Game Stores (LGSs) are pretty much left with nothing to sell, Buylists be damned. Top with no revenue from Organized Play Events getting cancelled due to the pandemic and these businesses are forced to rely on anything outside of MTG to sell to stay afloat.

Quote from user_938036 »

You're making some valid points but none of them are connected to the number of products Wizards produces in a year. Other than your first sentence which is highly debatable. Everything you mention comes to the cost of the game which isn't heavily influenced by the number of products being made.

My personal overall interest in magic has waned significantly in the last 5 years but that's 100% on personal issues mostly revolving around time. While the constant flow of products is one of the few things that has kept my interest in magic at a low but consistent level rather than the occasional "Oh yeah I used to play that."

Maybe this YouTube video will help answer those questions:

Quote from motleyslayer »

I feel that having double Innistrad sets so close together really exhausted people tbh. Neither wave of prereleases got many players in my area and packs aren't really selling

The whole idea behind re-releasing the same Standard set that isn't a Remastered set as a Paper / Print release just to print more flashy variants of the same cards dilutes the product even further not to mention that Innistrad: Crimson Vow is a VERY under powered set that didn't really offer much to players who play outside of competitive formats. I'm more concerned that all the good reprints are going more toward Secret Lair products rather than Standard sets and supplementary products sold at Local Game Stores (LGSs) and big box retailers not named Amazon because Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro wants to avoid reprints creating potential emergency bans or being too problematic for competitive formats.

With the popularity of Standard at an all time low it's no wonder why Innistrad: Crimson Vow didn't sell as well as it could've cause aesthetically and visually it's amazing it's just that it would've been nice If the card abilities were up to par as well which would've helped sales tremendously. They're printing so much to the point where they don't have time to properly design cards the way they should or at least make them playable enough to actually justify the high quality art and illustrations used for them with Olivia, Crimson Bride being an exception cause she actually has combos that work well with her like Breath of Fury and Port Razer for example. Some of the new Zombie themed cards got some new combo support as well.

I am deeply concerned that the future of Paper Magic is just going to be nothing but Secret Lair drops where everyone buys direct from Amazon as the Local Game Store (LGS) mainly becomes the backbone of special serialized boxes and high-end exclusive products like the Sports Card Industry instead of being a local hangout for people to actually play Paper Magic In-Person during their time off work or from school where home schooling might become the norm over public education with how draconian it's become due to the pandemic.

I think it's safe to say that Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro has been very envious with the way the Sports Card Industry works and the problem with serialized cards and products is that it ends up creating another pseudo Reserve List of sorts for high-end collectors that creates more product fatigue down the line because when something is serialized there's only so few of them in existence that it just adds up in demand when it's not even necessary and unlike the original Reserve List, Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro can actually reprint these cards to make them easily accessible to players.

Quote from Evil Never Dies »

I frankly don't understand the problem of WotC making 100 or 10000 products in a year. I mean, yeah I can understand, but the people suffering from it are mainly a minority of compulsive collectors, which is kinda pathological per se. As a healthy consumer that give to this game the right amount of attention it deserve in his life, I don't feel disturbed at all from all this variety of choices, au countraire, I will simply skip and ignore all stuff I'm not particularly interested (like wacky gimmicky and rare reprints of any sort) and just focus on the products I really want to have (and those type of products, btw, are never enough for me, I would ask more and more frequently if I were in charge, but hey, not a tragedy, life keep going).

The problem with Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro making 100 or 10000 products in a year is that it ends up diluting the product to where it feels less special. It isn't just in Secret Lair drops but also in Standard and supplementary sets with flashy variants making buying sealed product and flipping card singles for money / store credit less attractive long term. You don't make cards more affordable with flashy variants when you make them more affordable by encouraging mass box openings to get more booster packs cracked so that it ends up feeding into the card single ecosystem to stabilize supply and demand more. Supply is being squeezed by people losing more than what they spend which is why they don't want to play into the booster pack lottery on account of being less convenient than buying card singles and in a lot of cases usually at the right price they see fit undermining Local Game Stores (LGSs) due to cost of shipping and state taxes. LGSs don't want to risk losing money on mass box openings for selling card singles from sets with very low Expected Value.

Competitive pricing has been hurting sales at Local Game Stores (LGSs) more since they're struggling to run In-Person events on account of the pandemic. Unless it's a Pre-Release event then they're not able to get enough players to fire events for specific formats In-Person mainly Standard, Modern, and Pioneer. EDH / Commander is so focused on the 4+ player pod Multiplayer aspect of the game that it's actually pushed these potential players who crave the competitive 1 v. 1 setting to play on Arena or In-Person via Flesh and Blood TCG. It's much easier for these players to break into on account of only needing to build a 60 card deck with 3-4 multiples of the same cards instead of 100 card Singleton just to break into cEDH by having to pay a premium for consistent mana bases / deck strategies they can't easily afford in order to keep up with what everyone else in their meta is playing. Less resources to build around means less money to invest in to actually play the game. They also don't want to get shunned for having to proxy 90% of their decks.

Quote from Rosy Dumplings »

I guess that this really kind of depends on what your standards for "exciting". For me Eruth, Tormented Prophet is one of the most exciting commanders to be created in a long time.

When you optimize a commander deck as far as it will go, most commanders only change a tiny selection of cards from the 99. An optimized Zndrsplt/Okaun deck, for example, will use "GENERIC IZZET THORACLE COMBO SHELL" with electrodominance (to cheat out Thassa's oracle at instant speed), Frenetic Efreet (for infinite coin flips and card draw), and maybe Tavern Scoundrel (for easy large sums of mana). That choice of commander impacted a total of 5 cards in your deck.

When you look at an Eruth deck, meanwhile, the optimized version can start as a Thoracle OR storm deck and the main 99 might consider breakthrough, burning inquiry, goblin lore, Ideas Unbound, magus of the bazaar, windrider wizard, or control of the court. This commander is also one of the few that makes optimal use of Diamond Lion and Lion's Eye Diamond. A flexible and semi-competitive commander that can be over 10% cards that see little play elsewhere is super exciting.

I've noticed that too with most of my playgroups' EDH / Commander decks where there's only one or two good cards that make the cut in the 99 and everything else is basically 60 card competitive format chaff. The reason why Commanders change very little throughout each new print run release is because Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro is constantly pressuring us to value inconsistency more than consistency when it comes to deck building in EDH / Commander. Commander Precons are a great example of this as it's literally sold to be inconsistent rather than being consistent enough that the price tag of the product itself would be more expensive to purchase with or without MSRP.

They also realized that printing functionally identical reprints of pre-existing high end money cards makes them less money which could explain why there's no functionally identical version of Dockside Extortionist or that the opportunity to print them hasn't presented itself yet based on a set flavor standpoint. It's gotten to be more about the waiting game of the MTG Secondary Market and how much or how little specific card designs directly impact the EDH / Commander format financially. Innistrad: Crimson Vow didn't have as much of an impact on the market due to how weak the set is power level wise despite one or two Mythics generating infinite combos here and there like Cultivator Colossus's interaction with Abundance.

Quote from Tiro of Meletis »

It's remarkable to me that YGO has experienced the longevity it has. I suspect it's for the same reasons I played it for so long - it's simplistic and has nostalgia value while being marketed by an anime. But the game itself is so inherently flawed and exploited that it isn't worth considering anymore.

Commander itself seems to be attracting more and more competitive players that are departing from Standard and other formats, who optimize their decks and create a generally stagnant experience. It's a bore for me to see so many routine plays involving the same staples every game - Sol Ring into Arcane Signet, etc. The pacing and objective of Commander has skewed to where I don't enjoy it as much. It's also due in part for where WOTC invests its focus. For example, Vampires have so much overwhelming support, most of which has become redundant at this point. How much can players cram into the same 100 card deck? Diversify the support a bit. Spirits were a nice example of finally venturing into new territory.

Commander card prices are also absurd. The secondary market is self-inhibiting the format really. The more players, the greater the prices, which undercuts player engagement, and that feedback inhibits interest in deck building. This isn't a loop WOTC should want to foster. As in, how are cards such as Smothering Tithe and Rhystic Study investments...? We already regrettably have a Reserved List for the "investment" crowd to be awful with. And how is the first meaningful reprint of Rhystic Study in ages a Secret Lair - one delving into an outside IP no less? This only reinforces my point about how it isn't just simple product fatigue - it's about being bombarded with products that are all so deficient that it feels like you could drop a fortune on the game and still end up nowhere. We have a secondary market competing with these products too.

THB is my favorite set but it not having the novel means I don't have the same emotional connection to it that I did with original Theros. Which is strange, since THB is by far superior. Heck, look how beloved Kamigawa is due to the novels.

All these products just feel hollow and empty. It's insult to injury that a growing fraction of them aren't even MTG. It's as if WOTC gave up on its own IP and adopted the cash cow short term gains method of YGO.

What I find insulting the most is Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro deliberately putting ALL the good reprints in Secret Lair drops while leaving all the bad reprints in Commander Precons and Standard sets just so that Local Game Stores (LGSs) make far less money. Sure they'll sometimes put good reprints in supplementary sets like Modern Horizons 2 and Masters sets but how often does that actually happen? Secret Lair drops are designed in a way that makes it incredibly difficult for Local Game Stores (LGSs) to sell for what Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro sells them for with or without MSRP.

There's so few of these products designed that these stores can't even get multiple print runs of these cards. Just the other day I asked my LGS If they plan on ordering the new Secret Lair for Stranger Things and they told me they only get certain Secret Lair drops If the store manager is interested in picking them up. So now I have to order the singles online which means my LGS can't make money on them. What's the point of TCGPlayer If Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro is making more money on Secret Lair drops than these LGSs struggling to survive through TCGPlayer and Channel Fireball?

My primary concern is the SEVERE lack of really good card design with game designers, developers, and playtesters making a REAL honest effort to think outside the box more when it comes to making the cards fun and enjoyable to build decks around. I mean when was the last time we've actually had exciting Commanders to build around or a new original combo deck to break in said competitive format? It's more about we don't want to influence the MTG Secondary Market more than hyperinflation currently has or we don't want to trigger another emergency ban for Standard due to a clash in design philosophy between casual and competitive mindsets. We can't print this card because it'd be too broken for said format or we have to continuously lower the power level of Standard sets at the detriment of giving Commander players less new toys to play with. Precons? Yeah let's just throw a bunch of old cards from the same existing card pool together with a subpar Commander design just to see what sticks for a $44+ price tag and call it a day.

I remember when I quit Yu-Gi-Oh! back in 2004. The realization of the importance of a resource system which the game never really had made me feel like I've been lied to of course this is coming from someone whose first Paper Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game was Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic: The Gathering second. Years later Yu-Gi-Oh! still gets rewarded for the same kind of bad behavior that would've killed Magic: The Gathering years ago If Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro had adopted the same design philosophies as Konami and to a lesser extent Upper Deck which is now defunct. Gone are the days when MTG lore matters because it's more attractive to get new customers into your Intellectual Property (IP) by publicly showcasing Intellectual Properties (IPs) that they're more familiar with to garner more sales and revenue. We often tend to forget that Magic: The Gathering is a business first and card game second. It's actually made the card game more expensive over all with Whales continuing to hoard supply to increase demand.