And as many have speculated, removal of the list could be a sign of Mtg's death.
It could also provide a path for its resurgence.
Point being, cards on the reserve list are eventually going to become unplayable due to their cost OR counterfeits are going to get so good that they are basically not distinguishable from real cards by the majority of players and judges. This means Legacy is going to go away as a competitive format because people aren't going be able to play when a competitive deck costs $5K+ and/or their are so many good counterfeits that it is pointless to police them. As of now, for the rest of 2018, there are 4 grand prix events for Legacy (Japan,US East, UK, US West). There are 13 modern events. Starcity has 16 legacy and 36 modern events. I would expect these numbers to decrease for Legacy unless the reserve list is relaxed, which ultimately comes down to Force of Will (not on list) and the dual lands, so 11 cards need reprints.
We'll see what happens with modern, but in general, WotC has been doing a TERRIBLE job in supporting their constructed formats from a cost bases.
Should WotC ever pull its head out of its butt on the digital side of their business, the reserve list becomes all but a mute point as people would probably play mostly in those digital platforms, further pushing down paper play because of excessive cost.
It doesn't really matter why the list was made at this point, all that matters is NO card on it is getting reprinted, ever. I'd stake my life on that claim.
Before WotC/MtG completely fails, they will reprint everything in order get one last gasp of money out of the IP before it goes under completely. I would also not be surprised is WotC is really up for sale by Hasbo, that whomever purchases WotC will possibly do away with the Reserve List. The reserve list is a promise between WotC and it's players. However, if WotC is sold, whomever purchases it has the option to change those promises as they see fit.
As I see it, MTG has two big problems that they need to address. Ultimately, what people play will come down to what their friends play and how they can play games in their free time. Tournaments and other big name events help with the promotion, but the game lives and dies on how the casual player can engage in the game, spending money when they want.
Problem #1, Magic is expensive and with how easy it is to net deck, even casual formats cost a boat load of money, especially as formats rotate. This means that as people become more competitive, they have to either shell out the cash or eventually get off the train because they get tired of loosing to whomever in their play group has the most cash. Standard costs $350 per deck and must be updated 4 times a year, so we'll be generous say standard costs $700 per year per deck assuming card sell back and some overlap in cards. Modern is about $1000, Legacy $2000. By comparison Pokemon is about $250 per deck and if you look at LCGs, Netrunner is $100 for a deck, but you can buy the whole card pool for $400 to $500. If we look at playing ONE draft per week and all the pre-release events for most of the year, that is $870 per year.
Problem #2, Magic's digital presence is terrible. MTGO's interface is terrible and it's UI is beyond dated. In addition, if someone chooses to play online as well as in paper, they are effectively paying twice for the same game AND the online game is cheaper in some aspects, but MTGO standard and modern decks cost only about $100 less than their paper equivalents. Instead of promoting playing the game more, having split formats between MTGO and paper means a lot of people will chose one or the other and rarely if ever touch the other format. Pokemon at least gives some promo codes to player who open packs to allow them to get some value online.
TL:DR - MtG has more competition than ever, poor digital presence and is expensive.
Constructed needs to have lower price points, which means narrowing the gap between mythics, rares, uncommons and commons.
Sets need less chaff in them
Be less afraid to reprint cards instead of creating version 20 of a bear creature and the like
Less I got lucky and therefore I win cards in limited formats
Worry about card interaction more than card/set flavor. A set that is fun to play is more important than a set that has a ton of flavor and is annoying to play.
Modernize MTGO and come up with some alternative business model to make it more accessible. MTGO should be a gateway into paper MTG, not the other way around. MTGO should have a monthly fee model that allows people to play ghost drafts, sealed, cube and pauper without retaining the cards, with marginal prizes.
Recognize that most players have a fixed amount of money for the hobby and make sure MTG doesn't over saturate the market beyond that value due to diminishing returns.
Based on current prices of mythic and normal rares (which always drop), each pack should average about $8.60 in value, however, this is artificially high due to Jace and Imperial Recruiter. Using the median, it comes out to more like $3.95 per pack, with a range of $113 to $0.50. As a store is going to charge in the neighborhood of $35 per draft, that returns a value of $12 using median values (discounting prizes), so $0.34 on the dollar.
Comparing to Rivals, Rivals has an average of $1.47 with a median of $0.89, so a $15 draft provides about $3 in value or $0.18 on the dollar in card value. In general, you get worse value, but also spend less overall. If you get a valueless rare, Rivals, you wasted $15, while in M25 if you get a valueless rare, you wasted $34.
If want to play the lottery or like playing the cards in the set, it probably is ok to play, but don't expect to make money.
Had a pretty solid BG deck which totally owned my first two opponents. It had a good curve, decent removal and seemed to have good synergy. Last round I play against URG jank. The deck was pretty terrible and I trounced all over it in game one. Game two he gets a good draw, but I stabilize at 3 and get him down to 3. He drops Ugin, plus 1s and I loose. Not happy, but it could have been any number of burn spells and I would have lost, so not that big of a deal. Game 3 is going well, with my opponent at 3 and myself at 18. I pass the turn back and he plays Ugin, wipes the board and then I proceed to draw 1 creature which is countered over the next 4 turns. This is the 2nd match I have lost to this same player in 2 months because of Ugin.
I am so sick and tired of loosing because someone got lucky and pulled a broken rare for limited. WotC needs to quit printing this crap and/or put the tools in the game to remove it. It is very frustrating when you both out draft and out play your opponent only to loose to a $33 mythic that your opponent was lucky enough to open. Ugin in particular is offensive because he wraths and then can kill the opponent. Karn, his most compared to card, is no where near as bad for limited as he can only remove one thing at a time.
Preorder at $250 per box, claimed 14 boxes in stock
Currently at $210 per box, shows 20+ boxes in stock
I would expect cost be between $144 to $120 per box, so that would be the absolute floor price unless the retailer is going to sell them at a loss. If the set ends up like a "normal" box and the associated mark down, I would guess the floor will be about $156 per box.
I may consider getting a box if it drops to around $160 per.
I played a draft event last night and went for a full graft deck in UG. I basically got all the graft cards that were in the packs and was able to go 2-1, loosing to the most lucky Dark Confidant I have ever seen (5 lands in a row). As a draft format, I think it's fine, but it's not near as good as the first MM and there are several other formats I would play above it.
My draft table opened 2 cards worth any money, a Kharn and the Dark Confidant. I ended up with (TCG low):
Total: $13.45 in value or 45% of the value of the 3 packs not including prize support. A normal draft costs $12 prior to prize support, so this means I spent an extra $4.55 for the privilege to play MM15 once you subtract out the value of the cards I got AND assume that the other draft had $0 value in it's pool. Needless to say, I feel a bit ripped off.
The general concensious of my play group is that we tried it, but most people aren't going to do it again because it costs too much and the value is very poor.
I've started playing online more as of recently and the only cards which are not currently banned that make me roll my eyes are Sol Ring and Mana Crypt. These cards come down turn one and put the player two full turns ahead of the rest of the table. These cards tend to enable other options before the rest of the table is able to deal with them. Most of the other items people complain about are limited to specific decks or happen later in the game. These two mana rocks are in every deck and skew things when they come down.
MM2015 looks like a big disappointment to me. I'm sure WOTC will sell all of it because there are too many people out there willing to gamble for the chase cards. However, I would really like to see it fall on it's face as they jacked up the card price AND put a lot of crap commons and uncommons in the packs.
One thing that I think is being understated here is that mana ramp is also being used for mana fixing unless it is cards like like Sol Ring, Mana Crypt and other colorless producers. I put most of the cards that people consider ramp into my decks more for fixing than ramp, as having access to the colors I need is very important. As Green is the only color that can ramp/fix easily, artifacts get played in other colors to fix mana and in most cases the fixing also provides ramp.
Most ramp and fixing cards are low on the casting curve for a format that is much slower than your typical constructed format, giving players something to do on early turns other than play a land and pass. EDH also uses "bigger" cards, meaning their is no downside to playing fixing and ramp cards.
I prefer people who try to cross the red zone win rather than sitting on their side of board the whole game trying to draw into a combo win. I don't mind combo, just find it less entertaining than crossing the red zone. I hate loosing to cards that remove a whole segment of the game in a one sided manner (Iona, Shield of Emeria, Blazing Archon, etc.). These decks typically don't win fast either, so you end up praying for a card to deal with the enemy, while they peck away at your life total. At least combo gets it over pretty quick and everyone dies fairly quickly.
Athreos, God of Passage is a card that I am really interested in building around. I think there are two fundamental ways to approach Athreos for a competitive list. First avenue is voltron strategy where you get your devotion count up quickly and start swinging. The second one is a abusing the 3 life recursion aspect; this is what I want to focus on. How do you make the deck in a manner that the 3 life matters? I don't see many situations where the opponent would prefer the creature to be in your hand vs. in your yard nor situations where 3 life is worse than returning the creature.
In a 4 player game, you would need to return 40 creatures to kill everyone based on Athreos's ability. Most games I have seen, people go through 30 cards of their deck, which is about 7 creatures. B & W are not strong draw colors and as such, could mean less digging through your deck.
Double G is obviously a problem, but you get the idea; run some G to take care of artifacts and enchantments. The rest of the deck would clone and steal effects. I'd be looking to run mostly mana rocks for fixing and ramp as search for land cards will decrease in effectiveness with Tasigur's main ability.
I'm looking to play a 3 color deck, but don't want to go too deep on the third color. Is it better to go with a balanced color distribution or splash the third color?
It could also provide a path for its resurgence.
Point being, cards on the reserve list are eventually going to become unplayable due to their cost OR counterfeits are going to get so good that they are basically not distinguishable from real cards by the majority of players and judges. This means Legacy is going to go away as a competitive format because people aren't going be able to play when a competitive deck costs $5K+ and/or their are so many good counterfeits that it is pointless to police them. As of now, for the rest of 2018, there are 4 grand prix events for Legacy (Japan,US East, UK, US West). There are 13 modern events. Starcity has 16 legacy and 36 modern events. I would expect these numbers to decrease for Legacy unless the reserve list is relaxed, which ultimately comes down to Force of Will (not on list) and the dual lands, so 11 cards need reprints.
We'll see what happens with modern, but in general, WotC has been doing a TERRIBLE job in supporting their constructed formats from a cost bases.
Should WotC ever pull its head out of its butt on the digital side of their business, the reserve list becomes all but a mute point as people would probably play mostly in those digital platforms, further pushing down paper play because of excessive cost.
Before WotC/MtG completely fails, they will reprint everything in order get one last gasp of money out of the IP before it goes under completely. I would also not be surprised is WotC is really up for sale by Hasbo, that whomever purchases WotC will possibly do away with the Reserve List. The reserve list is a promise between WotC and it's players. However, if WotC is sold, whomever purchases it has the option to change those promises as they see fit.
As I see it, MTG has two big problems that they need to address. Ultimately, what people play will come down to what their friends play and how they can play games in their free time. Tournaments and other big name events help with the promotion, but the game lives and dies on how the casual player can engage in the game, spending money when they want.
Problem #1, Magic is expensive and with how easy it is to net deck, even casual formats cost a boat load of money, especially as formats rotate. This means that as people become more competitive, they have to either shell out the cash or eventually get off the train because they get tired of loosing to whomever in their play group has the most cash. Standard costs $350 per deck and must be updated 4 times a year, so we'll be generous say standard costs $700 per year per deck assuming card sell back and some overlap in cards. Modern is about $1000, Legacy $2000. By comparison Pokemon is about $250 per deck and if you look at LCGs, Netrunner is $100 for a deck, but you can buy the whole card pool for $400 to $500. If we look at playing ONE draft per week and all the pre-release events for most of the year, that is $870 per year.
Problem #2, Magic's digital presence is terrible. MTGO's interface is terrible and it's UI is beyond dated. In addition, if someone chooses to play online as well as in paper, they are effectively paying twice for the same game AND the online game is cheaper in some aspects, but MTGO standard and modern decks cost only about $100 less than their paper equivalents. Instead of promoting playing the game more, having split formats between MTGO and paper means a lot of people will chose one or the other and rarely if ever touch the other format. Pokemon at least gives some promo codes to player who open packs to allow them to get some value online.
TL:DR - MtG has more competition than ever, poor digital presence and is expensive.
Comparing to Rivals, Rivals has an average of $1.47 with a median of $0.89, so a $15 draft provides about $3 in value or $0.18 on the dollar in card value. In general, you get worse value, but also spend less overall. If you get a valueless rare, Rivals, you wasted $15, while in M25 if you get a valueless rare, you wasted $34.
If want to play the lottery or like playing the cards in the set, it probably is ok to play, but don't expect to make money.
Had a pretty solid BG deck which totally owned my first two opponents. It had a good curve, decent removal and seemed to have good synergy. Last round I play against URG jank. The deck was pretty terrible and I trounced all over it in game one. Game two he gets a good draw, but I stabilize at 3 and get him down to 3. He drops Ugin, plus 1s and I loose. Not happy, but it could have been any number of burn spells and I would have lost, so not that big of a deal. Game 3 is going well, with my opponent at 3 and myself at 18. I pass the turn back and he plays Ugin, wipes the board and then I proceed to draw 1 creature which is countered over the next 4 turns. This is the 2nd match I have lost to this same player in 2 months because of Ugin.
I am so sick and tired of loosing because someone got lucky and pulled a broken rare for limited. WotC needs to quit printing this crap and/or put the tools in the game to remove it. It is very frustrating when you both out draft and out play your opponent only to loose to a $33 mythic that your opponent was lucky enough to open. Ugin in particular is offensive because he wraths and then can kill the opponent. Karn, his most compared to card, is no where near as bad for limited as he can only remove one thing at a time.
Preorder at $250 per box, claimed 14 boxes in stock
Currently at $210 per box, shows 20+ boxes in stock
I would expect cost be between $144 to $120 per box, so that would be the absolute floor price unless the retailer is going to sell them at a loss. If the set ends up like a "normal" box and the associated mark down, I would guess the floor will be about $156 per box.
I may consider getting a box if it drops to around $160 per.
My draft table opened 2 cards worth any money, a Kharn and the Dark Confidant. I ended up with (TCG low):
Remand $6.00
Creekwood Liege $3.00
Shadowmage Infiltrator $1.25
Scute Mob $0.90
Comet Storm $0.80
Random stuff $1.50
Total: $13.45 in value or 45% of the value of the 3 packs not including prize support. A normal draft costs $12 prior to prize support, so this means I spent an extra $4.55 for the privilege to play MM15 once you subtract out the value of the cards I got AND assume that the other draft had $0 value in it's pool. Needless to say, I feel a bit ripped off.
The general concensious of my play group is that we tried it, but most people aren't going to do it again because it costs too much and the value is very poor.
Most ramp and fixing cards are low on the casting curve for a format that is much slower than your typical constructed format, giving players something to do on early turns other than play a land and pass. EDH also uses "bigger" cards, meaning their is no downside to playing fixing and ramp cards.
In a 4 player game, you would need to return 40 creatures to kill everyone based on Athreos's ability. Most games I have seen, people go through 30 cards of their deck, which is about 7 creatures. B & W are not strong draw colors and as such, could mean less digging through your deck.
What am I missing?
Double G is obviously a problem, but you get the idea; run some G to take care of artifacts and enchantments. The rest of the deck would clone and steal effects. I'd be looking to run mostly mana rocks for fixing and ramp as search for land cards will decrease in effectiveness with Tasigur's main ability.