Hasbro/Wotc will dump SfM into whatever theme masters19 have. Some minor equipment theme will do.
It should temper the prices rise for a while. Until we get a return to return to zendikar.
I'm going to be frank: No one wants more masters sets. People want the cards reprinted, but the way they are doing them now this summer with reprinting cards in core sets and the summer supplementary sets is the way to do things. The only masters set that was done right from a value perspective was the first one and they under-printed it. On top of which, WoTC and a ton of TCG companies are trying a different print-run strategy to get the market moving. As I said elsewhere, the company is intentionally throttling back release day quantities of each set and are opening the gates on a set about 2-3 months after release.
First point here - I disagree with this. There are PLENTY of people who want more masters sets, both from a value perspective AND from a limited environment. Yes, people want cards reprinted and Masters sets accomplish this goal.
Second point - what is more important to you? Getting value or lowering card prices? As a general rule you can have one or the other but not both. I've seen multiple posts from you bemoaning card prices, yet you are unhappy here because Masters sets don't have enough value. It seems that you want these booster boxes to be like MM2013 where the price of packs is $7, the EV is $20, lowers EV to $12, and printed to demand. That's simply not going to happen.
Third point - did you ever consider that the player base may be growing again? Everything you mention are supply problems occurring over the last 3-4 months.Or maybe Wizards' underestimated the demand for Battlebond/Dominaria? I am not discounting that there is a potential supply chain problem - I don't know, but Dominaria is a print-to-demand set. However, let's drop the conspiracy theories that Wizards is intentionally screwing with the secondary market. From an overall perspective unavailability of the product is bad for Wizards. They learned that lesson back in '94 with the massive unavailability of Revised. It was not good for the game when people couldn't buy the product.
Ooooookay, where to start with this one.
First point you made is bogus because what people want are the reprints not the 240 msrp box sets. Wizards may want them and enjoy the publicity that the high prices generate from people complaining, but in general you have a very steep mountain to climb if you want to prove that people would rather pay 240 msrp per box for sets like Masters 25 and iconic masters compared to battlebond and conspiracy 2. The only other masters set besides M2013 that came close to doing it right was MM2017, and it was saved by the power of fetch lands more than the rarity bump of Snapcaster Mage and the inclusion of Liliana of the Veil.
Second Point: Both, and yes you CAN have both. Again, you're going into this weird mind set of not understanding that all things are relative and often a factor of time. Value is an ephemeral thing that is cyclical in nature. The point is to print the cards in a way that is affordable to the average consumer. Put the 100 dollar mythics in the 120 msrp box set and let their prices settle lower. No one playing the game benefits from them being priced like that, and not allowing people to get these cards any cheaper is part of the reason there is a flourishing counterfit market. Rebacks are the nightmare of Legacy / Vintage collectors, counterfits are the nightmare of modern buyers. You aren't just arguing for masters sets, you are arguing for something that is toxic to the community as a whole and a detriment to people who collect the cards as well.
Third Point: Yes, the reason the prices are high on Dominaria is because the new model that throttles the release of the new sets also coincided with a very good release that was widely enjoyed, thus players started coming back to the game while the supply was being artificially limited. The company had to do an emergency print run because they didn't realize it was going to be this way. Battlebond was also a set that no one expected to sell well and it ended up selling well.
Right now, because of how the supply is working a lot more stores are also doing mass box openings to sell the singles because the EV is staying inflated longer than it did in prior releases.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The throttling of products was pretty stupid. Stores were getting around 1 to 2 cases (and some planeswalker decks/fat packs) per week in my area for the first 2 months. All it did was making us as consumers wait weeks for our prize packs. As the other standard legal packs, value was through the floor so no one wanted to open them.
People wants better reprints but masters packs are the only way currently. Every little bit of reprint helps in lowering prices for the eternal formats.
With supply back to normal, Dominaria prices are dropping across the board with only 1 rare value, Chainwhirler, being higher than a pack price.
Increased Tarriff.. maybe it's only for Canadian buyers?
I ordered some cards from SCG two days ago that they shipped yesterday. The card prices and shipping prices are still the same.
Yes.
Straight 10% tariff on all "playing cards" from the US. So all sealed MtG product in all stores is going to go up. Which, if it has any impact on pack sales, will also drive up prices on singles.
Though my understanding is that WoTC is aware and was working with distributors to get Core 19 stuff through the border before things went in place. So in theory, for the first wave of M19, we shouldn't see any jumps.
Also if people want a source on the whole set release throttling, just go ask your LGS how the supply for dominaria went back at release. There were no boxes left on the shelf for people to buy for ages and there were actually more fat packs than booster boxes at my own LGS. Battlebond was insane as well, with seemingly more packs available at walmart and meijer. If someone wanted to feel like they went back to the 90s before they released chronicles, this is sort of close to that point. Plenty of Ixalan and Rivals, though.
That's not a source on intentional set throttling. That's just an indication they underestimated the popularity of those sets (understandable, as Dominaria was much better received than any Standard set in the last year or so, and Battlebond was an entirely new thing), and it took time to get the extra copies out to meet the unexpected demand.
If this was something that happened with multiple Standard sets in a row I could find your interpretation plausible, but as of right now it's entirely speculative.
First point you made is bogus because what people want are the reprints not the 240 msrp box sets. Wizards may want them and enjoy the publicity that the high prices generate from people complaining, but in general you have a very steep mountain to climb if you want to prove that people would rather pay 240 msrp per box for sets like Masters 25 and iconic masters compared to battlebond and conspiracy 2. The only other masters set besides M2013 that came close to doing it right was MM2017, and it was saved by the power of fetch lands more than the rarity bump of Snapcaster Mage and the inclusion of Liliana of the Veil.
You are lumping everyone in to one bucket here. Getting value isn't the only reason for masters sets. The stated purpose is to increase supply.
If you take a look at it, most of the masters sets have been successful at their intended goal. That goal just doesn't happen to align with what you are looking for. You also flat out ignored my point of the great limited environment that the masters sets are.
Second Point: Both, and yes you CAN have both. Again, you're going into this weird mind set of not understanding that all things are relative and often a factor of time. Value is an ephemeral thing that is cyclical in nature. The point is to print the cards in a way that is affordable to the average consumer. Put the 100 dollar mythics in the 120 msrp box set and let their prices settle lower. No one playing the game benefits from them being priced like that, and not allowing people to get these cards any cheaper is part of the reason there is a flourishing counterfit market. Rebacks are the nightmare of Legacy / Vintage collectors, counterfits are the nightmare of modern buyers. You aren't just arguing for masters sets, you are arguing for something that is toxic to the community as a whole and a detriment to people who collect the cards as well.
If you actually believe that you can have value, lower the prices and print to demand, I think you should take a basic economics course. If you figure out how to successfully do it, sell that idea, become a billionaire, buy Hasbro and do whatever you want. Also - tell me how this is possible because every economist in the world will disagree with you. What is "affordable" and "average consumer"? That is impossible to define and not how strategic pricing works. You set a price point that you think the market will bear and that is what you set. Second - as I stated you cannot have a box that costs $7 and have an EV that is higher. Individual sellers and stores will artificially raise the price to the EV. What you want simply does not occur in the real world. If you look at the last several masters sets, the EV has cratered (excepting MM2017) far below the 240 MSRP that it was at during prerelease. Also nobody is paying that rate. Last I checked IMA can be had for around $130, M25 for $150. You can disagree with pricing all you want but it really doesn't matter too much what Wizards sets the MSRP at. The actual sellers are pricing the product close to the EV. For reference - MM13 was a $7 / pack being sold for about $11 / pack because that was the EV (note that timing was right around the launch of MM13). MM2017 is currently being had for around $12 / pack and is priced at $10 / pack. Why?
I'm not even going to discuss the counterfeit market. It is fairly easy to identify even the best counterfeits, and very few are actually that good.
Third Point: Yes, the reason the prices are high on Dominaria is because the new model that throttles the release of the new sets also coincided with a very good release that was widely enjoyed, thus players started coming back to the game while the supply was being artificially limited. The company had to do an emergency print run because they didn't realize it was going to be this way. Battlebond was also a set that no one expected to sell well and it ended up selling well.
Again, get off the conspiracy theories. Where is your proof of this "new model"? The (FAR) more likely scenario is that Wizards simply underestimated demand and didn't print enough to start with.
Also if people want a source on the whole set release throttling, just go ask your LGS how the supply for dominaria went back at release. There were no boxes left on the shelf for people to buy for ages and there were actually more fat packs than booster boxes at my own LGS. Battlebond was insane as well, with seemingly more packs available at walmart and meijer. If someone wanted to feel like they went back to the 90s before they released chronicles, this is sort of close to that point. Plenty of Ixalan and Rivals, though.
That's not a source on intentional set throttling. That's just an indication they underestimated the popularity of those sets (understandable, as Dominaria was much better received than any Standard set in the last year or so, and Battlebond was an entirely new thing), and it took time to get the extra copies out to meet the unexpected demand.
If this was something that happened with multiple Standard sets in a row I could find your interpretation plausible, but as of right now it's entirely speculative.
The reason the stores I checked didn't have enough product is due to the distributors not having enough to go around. The problem was on the end of the Distributor. The warehouse numbers were just really low.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Seal, I'm not going to spend all day arguing with you here on this. You're thinking extremes and not taking this rationally.
Can you have value, lower prices, and print to demand? Yes. Why? Because of time. A set has value when it contains cards at the point of reveal that have a high dollar value. When the set releases (and usually a bit before), the prices go down, thus allowing the cards to over all become cheaper. Finally, printing to demand brings the prices down to a factor of how much of a fraction of the box cost is absorbed by the card. Since the majority of the cards in a set are effectively worthless from a single sellers point of view (price of shipping vs price per card), that usually is about 20-30 cards in the set total that are the composition of that value. Eventually, this leads to the point where the boxes are no longer worth opening, which is when the printer shuts down and the supply stops. Prices go up again with time and once people complain enough, the printers come on with a new reprint. If you truly believe for a second that anyone honestly argues that boxes can be printed to demand and have it's contents always remain constantly above the value, you need to reassess your argument.
My point of view, is that cards should always be printed in normally costed sets and reprinted less frequently to maintain the market. Wizards has too many cards to support and reprinting them constantly year in and out the way they have been isn't working. The entire reason they did the masters sets at the cost they did was to try and reel in the roller coaster that happens with standard sets, but it failed. If they printed a mythic several times over in these sets, it still ultimately eroded the price and the confidence of those buying and trading the cards. Will it suck if people have to wait longer to get the cards they want reprinted? Yes, but I'll take that over poorly valued sets that do nothing but aggravate those who hate the maintaining of the status queue. Modern is meant for long term players: If someone has played for 3-4 years, they should at that point have had the chance across that span to pick up cards via normally priced sets and put together a modern deck. How the heck do you do that when a staple card like Noble Heirarch for example, is stuck perpetually at 70 dollars, drops maybe to 35-40 on a masters set reprint for maybe a few short weeks, then goes up again? The answer is that you don't.
It's better if the card gets run through a normal priced supplementary set, drops down to 20-30 dollars a card, and then steadily climbs back up for a long while. Plus, wizards can easily say something along the lines of "we only reprint a card on a minimum 2 year cycle, and if our data shows heavy usage, we will do a supporting reprint in a year via one of our supplementary sets". There, we have confidence and a barometer for people concerned about trading. If something was printed, it only has a chance to show up again in 2+ years. That means there is a golden period where no reprint is guaranteed and it gives people breathing room on trades.
Does this put some players entering the game at a disadvantage? Most likely not. The fact is modern is far too complex for newer players to break into. It takes a while to build an understanding of the fundamentals of deck building and basic tactics. Standard helps a lot in this as the format has a more rigid structure and once players have enough of an understanding they can move into one of the many non-rotating formats that fits their budget and lifestyle.
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!
Honestly, WOTC is trying to grow the Market Share of MTG so assuming they don't plan to go full online any time like Hearthstone well then I see no reason for them not to look to aggressively cut the cost of cards especially but not limited to format staples and lands. Which again makes the idea they don't consider the "Secondary Market" especially suspect if you cannot print staples in Masters set which are supposedly not aimed at new players then where can you print them?
Honestly, WOTC is trying to grow the Market Share of MTG so assuming they don't plan to go full online any time like Hearthstone well then I see no reason for them not to look to aggressively cut the cost of cards especially but not limited to format staples and lands. Which again makes the idea they don't consider the "Secondary Market" especially suspect if you cannot print staples in Masters set which are supposedly not aimed at new players then where can you print them?
This is pure speculation, but looking back on it I believe that the increased runs of masters sets and their subsequent failure is tied into the original decision to cut core sets. At some point before Kahns block hit, there was some kind of internal push to leverage the secondary market instead of controlling it, so they cut core sets, took out the value from the supplementary products, and put all the valuable reprints into the 240 msrp box sets or limited run From the Vaults. The strategy failed largely because they compromised the safety net that was originally there in case there was a bad standard (Urza's Saga, Mirrodin / Dark steel, and now Kaladesh). The reason it took so long for any kind of reaction from WoTC is because they operate on a 2 year design cycle and it probably didn't reach the tipping point until the social media disaster happened during the last fall / winter.
There hasn't been a time I can remember where Wizards of the Coast invented and pushed a standard casual format, released high value competitive prebuilt decks, and threw so many high dollar reprints in normal priced sets at once.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Wouldn't mind seeing reprints of mm15 stuff. karn, noble, mox opal, ect.
some of the counterfeits out there dont look bad. others are terrible. you cant get away with trading/selling them off for other cards but some of them can pass for tournament play.
not sure how everyone knows about dominarias distribution and release plan. sounds like youtube stuff. could be right though anyways.
Wouldn't mind seeing reprints of mm15 stuff. karn, noble, mox opal, ect.
some of the counterfeits out there dont look bad. others are terrible. you cant get away with trading/selling them off for other cards but some of them can pass for tournament play.
not sure how everyone knows about dominarias distribution and release plan. sounds like youtube stuff. could be right though anyways.
A lot of it is inductively based fact hunting, really. Since a lot of the information is confidential it is hard to know for sure what the exact plan on distribution is or the reasons for it. Also, it's not specifically wizards of the coast that is solely changing how they are doing card distribution.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Increased Tarriff.. maybe it's only for Canadian buyers?
I ordered some cards from SCG two days ago that they shipped yesterday. The card prices and shipping prices are still the same.
Yes.
Straight 10% tariff on all "playing cards" from the US. So all sealed MtG product in all stores is going to go up. Which, if it has any impact on pack sales, will also drive up prices on singles.
Though my understanding is that WoTC is aware and was working with distributors to get Core 19 stuff through the border before things went in place. So in theory, for the first wave of M19, we shouldn't see any jumps.
That's a bit of bad news. I hope large online stores like SCG won't raise prices too much.
Increased Tarriff.. maybe it's only for Canadian buyers?
I ordered some cards from SCG two days ago that they shipped yesterday. The card prices and shipping prices are still the same.
Yes.
Straight 10% tariff on all "playing cards" from the US. So all sealed MtG product in all stores is going to go up. Which, if it has any impact on pack sales, will also drive up prices on singles.
Though my understanding is that WoTC is aware and was working with distributors to get Core 19 stuff through the border before things went in place. So in theory, for the first wave of M19, we shouldn't see any jumps.
That's a bit of bad news. I hope large online stores like SCG won't raise prices too much.
SCG won't have any issue directly. They aren't actually allowed to sell sealed product to Canada anyways, so there's no tariff issue. Now if one is shipping from SCG to a place near the border to go down and pick it up, you can probably expect to get charged the tariff when you bring it back to Canada.
With the banning of deathrite shaman in legacy does anyone think a price hike on noble hierarch is likely ? I had noticed that noble had basically been replaced by deathrite in every list applicable but now, just like modern, noble is back to being the king mana dork
I doubt it. Deathrite was ubiquitous in Legacy because it was reach, grave-hate, life-gain, mana ramp, and mana fixing, all rolled up into a one mana creature.
Heirarch is good, but fits into much fewer decks. The price might move a little, but Legacy folks who try to slot Noble as a DRS replacement are going to be sorely disappointed.
DRS pretty much can't be replaced. He was a black mana dork that hated on grave yards and could close out the game when mana wasn't needed. Noble is a mana dork, but it can't be cast for B doesn't produce B and doesn't affect the GY. The DRS slot will either switch to Scavenging Ooze in Jund style lists or possibly be switched to Birds of Paradise in decks that have 4 colors like czech pile. I'm not sure if pile would run BoP or not since it's a weak late game draw, but they do have a lot of power 3 drops. It's also very awkward having to fetch a green land rather than Underground sea considering that literally the only green cards left in the deck now are 2 Leovolds.
With the banning of deathrite shaman in legacy does anyone think a price hike on noble hierarch is likely ? I had noticed that noble had basically been replaced by deathrite in every list applicable but now, just like modern, noble is back to being the king mana dork
The most valuable part of DRS in Legacy was that it was mana ramp that could be cast off of an Underground Sea. There's no replacement for that. What is more likely to happen is that Grixis lists start shifting to RUG. If you're looking for things to buy in on, look for cards that weren't seeing play because of Grixis and will because of RUG and BUG. Hierarch price will move a little, but that won't be the big one. Goyf likely comes back in a big way.
Agreed. I'm up for a level playing field in all directions.
Makes a person think of being a "Cardboard Runner" if they are close enough to the border to keep away from the "Revenuers".
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Inventions and Invocations are reserve list cards in everything but name.
Any EDH playable Inventions are just going to keep going up and up over time. Invocations might as well but don't seem to get as much love due to the awful frame.
Have noticed that Tarmgoyf M17 price have dropped back to the 60's again. Is this because there is no strong goyf deck in Modern right now?
While Grixis Delver in Legacy didn't play it, I assume that the DRS banning has people selling out of other decks that included 'goyf, dropping its demand in Legacy right now. I don't think Modern has had a great 'goyf deck in a little while so I doubt it has much to do with Modern.
Have noticed that Tarmgoyf M17 price have dropped back to the 60's again. Is this because there is no strong goyf deck in Modern right now?
Goyf and the rest of the Jund band had slight price bumps following BBE's unban; since then Jund w/ BBE has been underwhelming, so prices are probably readjusting. Lilly is dropping back to Earth as well. However, I wouldn't be surprised to see its price creep up over the next few months due to organic Legacy demand. No more DRS = more Goyfs in Legacy. I had a play set listed on eBay for ~220 prior to the DRS ban, but took it down real quick once I noticed a spike in views/offers. IMO Goyf will need to be a force in Modern again to get back to the 100 mark, but shaking up the Legacy metagame should at least raise the floor on its price for a bit.
Ooooookay, where to start with this one.
First point you made is bogus because what people want are the reprints not the 240 msrp box sets. Wizards may want them and enjoy the publicity that the high prices generate from people complaining, but in general you have a very steep mountain to climb if you want to prove that people would rather pay 240 msrp per box for sets like Masters 25 and iconic masters compared to battlebond and conspiracy 2. The only other masters set besides M2013 that came close to doing it right was MM2017, and it was saved by the power of fetch lands more than the rarity bump of Snapcaster Mage and the inclusion of Liliana of the Veil.
Second Point: Both, and yes you CAN have both. Again, you're going into this weird mind set of not understanding that all things are relative and often a factor of time. Value is an ephemeral thing that is cyclical in nature. The point is to print the cards in a way that is affordable to the average consumer. Put the 100 dollar mythics in the 120 msrp box set and let their prices settle lower. No one playing the game benefits from them being priced like that, and not allowing people to get these cards any cheaper is part of the reason there is a flourishing counterfit market. Rebacks are the nightmare of Legacy / Vintage collectors, counterfits are the nightmare of modern buyers. You aren't just arguing for masters sets, you are arguing for something that is toxic to the community as a whole and a detriment to people who collect the cards as well.
Third Point: Yes, the reason the prices are high on Dominaria is because the new model that throttles the release of the new sets also coincided with a very good release that was widely enjoyed, thus players started coming back to the game while the supply was being artificially limited. The company had to do an emergency print run because they didn't realize it was going to be this way. Battlebond was also a set that no one expected to sell well and it ended up selling well.
Right now, because of how the supply is working a lot more stores are also doing mass box openings to sell the singles because the EV is staying inflated longer than it did in prior releases.
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!
People wants better reprints but masters packs are the only way currently. Every little bit of reprint helps in lowering prices for the eternal formats.
With supply back to normal, Dominaria prices are dropping across the board with only 1 rare value, Chainwhirler, being higher than a pack price.
Yes.
Straight 10% tariff on all "playing cards" from the US. So all sealed MtG product in all stores is going to go up. Which, if it has any impact on pack sales, will also drive up prices on singles.
Though my understanding is that WoTC is aware and was working with distributors to get Core 19 stuff through the border before things went in place. So in theory, for the first wave of M19, we shouldn't see any jumps.
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
If this was something that happened with multiple Standard sets in a row I could find your interpretation plausible, but as of right now it's entirely speculative.
You are lumping everyone in to one bucket here. Getting value isn't the only reason for masters sets. The stated purpose is to increase supply.
If you take a look at it, most of the masters sets have been successful at their intended goal. That goal just doesn't happen to align with what you are looking for. You also flat out ignored my point of the great limited environment that the masters sets are.
If you actually believe that you can have value, lower the prices and print to demand, I think you should take a basic economics course. If you figure out how to successfully do it, sell that idea, become a billionaire, buy Hasbro and do whatever you want. Also - tell me how this is possible because every economist in the world will disagree with you. What is "affordable" and "average consumer"? That is impossible to define and not how strategic pricing works. You set a price point that you think the market will bear and that is what you set. Second - as I stated you cannot have a box that costs $7 and have an EV that is higher. Individual sellers and stores will artificially raise the price to the EV. What you want simply does not occur in the real world. If you look at the last several masters sets, the EV has cratered (excepting MM2017) far below the 240 MSRP that it was at during prerelease. Also nobody is paying that rate. Last I checked IMA can be had for around $130, M25 for $150. You can disagree with pricing all you want but it really doesn't matter too much what Wizards sets the MSRP at. The actual sellers are pricing the product close to the EV. For reference - MM13 was a $7 / pack being sold for about $11 / pack because that was the EV (note that timing was right around the launch of MM13). MM2017 is currently being had for around $12 / pack and is priced at $10 / pack. Why?
I'm not even going to discuss the counterfeit market. It is fairly easy to identify even the best counterfeits, and very few are actually that good.
Again, get off the conspiracy theories. Where is your proof of this "new model"? The (FAR) more likely scenario is that Wizards simply underestimated demand and didn't print enough to start with.
The reason the stores I checked didn't have enough product is due to the distributors not having enough to go around. The problem was on the end of the Distributor. The warehouse numbers were just really low.
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!
Seal, I'm not going to spend all day arguing with you here on this. You're thinking extremes and not taking this rationally.
Can you have value, lower prices, and print to demand? Yes. Why? Because of time. A set has value when it contains cards at the point of reveal that have a high dollar value. When the set releases (and usually a bit before), the prices go down, thus allowing the cards to over all become cheaper. Finally, printing to demand brings the prices down to a factor of how much of a fraction of the box cost is absorbed by the card. Since the majority of the cards in a set are effectively worthless from a single sellers point of view (price of shipping vs price per card), that usually is about 20-30 cards in the set total that are the composition of that value. Eventually, this leads to the point where the boxes are no longer worth opening, which is when the printer shuts down and the supply stops. Prices go up again with time and once people complain enough, the printers come on with a new reprint. If you truly believe for a second that anyone honestly argues that boxes can be printed to demand and have it's contents always remain constantly above the value, you need to reassess your argument.
My point of view, is that cards should always be printed in normally costed sets and reprinted less frequently to maintain the market. Wizards has too many cards to support and reprinting them constantly year in and out the way they have been isn't working. The entire reason they did the masters sets at the cost they did was to try and reel in the roller coaster that happens with standard sets, but it failed. If they printed a mythic several times over in these sets, it still ultimately eroded the price and the confidence of those buying and trading the cards. Will it suck if people have to wait longer to get the cards they want reprinted? Yes, but I'll take that over poorly valued sets that do nothing but aggravate those who hate the maintaining of the status queue. Modern is meant for long term players: If someone has played for 3-4 years, they should at that point have had the chance across that span to pick up cards via normally priced sets and put together a modern deck. How the heck do you do that when a staple card like Noble Heirarch for example, is stuck perpetually at 70 dollars, drops maybe to 35-40 on a masters set reprint for maybe a few short weeks, then goes up again? The answer is that you don't.
It's better if the card gets run through a normal priced supplementary set, drops down to 20-30 dollars a card, and then steadily climbs back up for a long while. Plus, wizards can easily say something along the lines of "we only reprint a card on a minimum 2 year cycle, and if our data shows heavy usage, we will do a supporting reprint in a year via one of our supplementary sets". There, we have confidence and a barometer for people concerned about trading. If something was printed, it only has a chance to show up again in 2+ years. That means there is a golden period where no reprint is guaranteed and it gives people breathing room on trades.
Does this put some players entering the game at a disadvantage? Most likely not. The fact is modern is far too complex for newer players to break into. It takes a while to build an understanding of the fundamentals of deck building and basic tactics. Standard helps a lot in this as the format has a more rigid structure and once players have enough of an understanding they can move into one of the many non-rotating formats that fits their budget and lifestyle.
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!
This is pure speculation, but looking back on it I believe that the increased runs of masters sets and their subsequent failure is tied into the original decision to cut core sets. At some point before Kahns block hit, there was some kind of internal push to leverage the secondary market instead of controlling it, so they cut core sets, took out the value from the supplementary products, and put all the valuable reprints into the 240 msrp box sets or limited run From the Vaults. The strategy failed largely because they compromised the safety net that was originally there in case there was a bad standard (Urza's Saga, Mirrodin / Dark steel, and now Kaladesh). The reason it took so long for any kind of reaction from WoTC is because they operate on a 2 year design cycle and it probably didn't reach the tipping point until the social media disaster happened during the last fall / winter.
There hasn't been a time I can remember where Wizards of the Coast invented and pushed a standard casual format, released high value competitive prebuilt decks, and threw so many high dollar reprints in normal priced sets at once.
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!
some of the counterfeits out there dont look bad. others are terrible. you cant get away with trading/selling them off for other cards but some of them can pass for tournament play.
not sure how everyone knows about dominarias distribution and release plan. sounds like youtube stuff. could be right though anyways.
A lot of it is inductively based fact hunting, really. Since a lot of the information is confidential it is hard to know for sure what the exact plan on distribution is or the reasons for it. Also, it's not specifically wizards of the coast that is solely changing how they are doing card distribution.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
That's a bit of bad news. I hope large online stores like SCG won't raise prices too much.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
SCG won't have any issue directly. They aren't actually allowed to sell sealed product to Canada anyways, so there's no tariff issue. Now if one is shipping from SCG to a place near the border to go down and pick it up, you can probably expect to get charged the tariff when you bring it back to Canada.
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
Retired
Legacy:
GRUB Lands
Modern:
U Tron
RG Tron
RG Ponza
Heirarch is good, but fits into much fewer decks. The price might move a little, but Legacy folks who try to slot Noble as a DRS replacement are going to be sorely disappointed.
The most valuable part of DRS in Legacy was that it was mana ramp that could be cast off of an Underground Sea. There's no replacement for that. What is more likely to happen is that Grixis lists start shifting to RUG. If you're looking for things to buy in on, look for cards that weren't seeing play because of Grixis and will because of RUG and BUG. Hierarch price will move a little, but that won't be the big one. Goyf likely comes back in a big way.
It's going to be back to the days of Goyf, Mongoose and Stifle for the main Delver deck.
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
Agreed. I'm up for a level playing field in all directions.
Makes a person think of being a "Cardboard Runner" if they are close enough to the border to keep away from the "Revenuers".
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."
Any EDH playable Inventions are just going to keep going up and up over time. Invocations might as well but don't seem to get as much love due to the awful frame.
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
Goyf and the rest of the Jund band had slight price bumps following BBE's unban; since then Jund w/ BBE has been underwhelming, so prices are probably readjusting. Lilly is dropping back to Earth as well. However, I wouldn't be surprised to see its price creep up over the next few months due to organic Legacy demand. No more DRS = more Goyfs in Legacy. I had a play set listed on eBay for ~220 prior to the DRS ban, but took it down real quick once I noticed a spike in views/offers. IMO Goyf will need to be a force in Modern again to get back to the 100 mark, but shaking up the Legacy metagame should at least raise the floor on its price for a bit.
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.