MTG Salvation

Quote from Card Slinger J »

Quote from Xcric »

Quote from Card Slinger J »

The real tragedy of all this is that in the scenario that ALL Local Game Stores (LGSs) file for bankruptcy due to COVID-19, it wouldn't affect Wizards of the Coast's Paper Magic sales enough to where they hit the brakes and realize that it isn't making them any money anymore. It will just empower the collectors more than the players where non-Reserve List cards become a new pseudo-Reserve List of cards that have been short printed to oblivion in specialty products.

can you clarify what you mean by empowered collectors creating a pseudo-reserve list from short printed cards?

nothing is being short printed at all. this is a move thats canceling all sanctioned events. you can still buy product. if anything it might shift the emphasis to big box stores over time.

i also think you're completely wrong about sales not being impacted. no events means a hell of a lot of no drafting. no events means no competitive playing either. over time, people stop buying packs because they can't exactly use them outside of their kitchen, and that's not a sustainable sales model over time.

With everyone being forced to quit Paper Magic due to the loss of Local Game Stores (LGSs) affected by the current pandemic that ends up driving the market value of these cards for collectors who don't play Paper Magic like Rudy from Alpha Investments where they can just buy them out and keep the cards for collection. The problem is that collectors have a Reserve List bias where they won't buy non-Reserve List because they're guaranteed to lose value over time with the likelihood of Wizards of the Coast reprinting these cards unless they decide to expand the Reserve List further to the point where most of the Modern format card pool never gets reprinted ever again. They might have to If collectors are going to be the only target demographic they cater Paper Magic toward since nobody won't have a place to play anymore especially for EDH / Commander.

Okay but like... using the cards, competing every week, that drives prices up as demand increases. Im still not clear on your point. How is reserve list preference any different than normal, and how does that apply to reprintable cards? I feel like youre making a bit of a sky is falling argument thats just really fuzzy and not all that applicable here

Quote from Card Slinger J »

The real tragedy of all this is that in the scenario that ALL Local Game Stores (LGSs) file for bankruptcy due to COVID-19, it wouldn't affect Wizards of the Coast's Paper Magic sales enough to where they hit the brakes and realize that it isn't making them any money anymore. It will just empower the collectors more than the players where non-Reserve List cards become a new pseudo-Reserve List of cards that have been short printed to oblivion in specialty products.

can you clarify what you mean by empowered collectors creating a pseudo-reserve list from short printed cards?

nothing is being short printed at all. this is a move thats canceling all sanctioned events. you can still buy product. if anything it might shift the emphasis to big box stores over time.

i also think you're completely wrong about sales not being impacted. no events means a hell of a lot of no drafting. no events means no competitive playing either. over time, people stop buying packs because they can't exactly use them outside of their kitchen, and that's not a sustainable sales model over time.

i think it was a necessary decision and its just not feasible to have in store play while any of this pandemic is going on. the safety risks are far too high, especially when dealing with a demographic that often can't figure out how soap works.

i do have to wonder how it will impact card pricing as they continue to pump out products while we have minimal opportunity to purchase those products. i also wonder what, if anything, they'll do to actually help out the smaller local level stores. they're the lifeblood of the game, and if they can't have events they get ****ed pretty quickly. i imagine quite a few are going to go under from this decision, and i really doubt wizards is going to do much of anything about it.

What exactly is happening around this forum lately?

I know it can be a tough gig to be a moderator, and that we lost a lot of people when the forum was sold. there was the threat of it being closed for good and a lot of people jumped ship but just what exactly has this place become?

1. I'm seeing ad-bots constantly.

The threads they start are left up for days on end before they're locked. Its especially true in the rumor mill. Do moderators just not go into the forum any more at all? personally, i'm in there multiple times throughout the day. why are the moderates not also active throughout the day? if they are, why are these threads left up so long? I know reporting those threads helps however; they're blatantly obvious without even clicking them. it shouldn't even get to the point of needing to be reported most of the time if moderators are active.

I also ask why there isn't a waiting period for new threads on accounts. It wouldn't take much, 5 replies before you get new thread privileges. This goes on at other forums so why not here? it would stop the ad-bots pretty fast. there could be a limitation i'm not aware of with this particular style of forum, but as that's been a pretty standard practice everywhere else i'm not entirely sold on that.



2. I see there's a disclaimer thread about what the forum won't tolerate regarding sexism, racism, and all that other jazz.

My question here is... why is that only in this sub forum where no one even bothers to go?

Why is that post not stickied in every single forum across the entire place? Now more than ever that post (or one like it) should be stickied at the top every single forum and sub-forum. If you put it out there everywhere you can better hold people to it. You make the values and standards known. Making that statement helps make the environment here healthier, and helps make the playerbase healthier too. Hiding those values and standards away is almost if you're condoning those negative behaviors. Why hide that statement? Why be silent? Is now not the time to say we won't stand for this here, and if its not, why stand for it at all?



3. What's going on with moderation in the general forum?

General should be a place for general discussion no?

Why do we see so many threads locked up, and people getting infractions for being "political"? This has been especially true when discussing decisions made by wizards regarding magic that are... well... political. If they can't be discussed there, then where? There is no way to separate the politics of those discussions from the discussion because they're so political in nature to begin with. If those threads are being locked up when legitimately discussing the politics of those topics, well then what's left to discuss? is this a forum for speaking on ideas, or nothing more than a news blog?

I understand when its flaming, or trolling, that's legitimate (though there hasn't been much action in holding people accountable to that either). When its a politically charged topic, in a general discussion forum, what exactly is the rationale behind locking the threads for being "too political"? even more so when we take into account that the statement on racism and such is buried deep in the bowels of this place where you actively have to look for it and that there is virtually no other forum to filter that kind of discussion into.


so... what gives? is there anyone behind the wheel here any more?

Quote from awesomer phantasm »

I think it's important to remember that Mark Rosewater is a magic designer, not a magic developer. He's outlining broad territories here where he sees potential for future exploration. Reacting with, "XYZ sounds broken, they shouldn't explore that" is exactly the kind of thing that stops worse designers than him from making breakthroughs. The fact that Companion was largely a failed experiment doesn't mean they shouldn't have explored that design, it just means they printed a version that wasn't ready for print (I say largely because my Lazav, Dimir Mastermind commander deck with Gyruda, Doom of Depths as the companion is a TON of fun to play with, and I think the mechanic is pretty cool in Commander, especially before the rules nerf).

My point is, an article about areas of future design has basically nothing to do with power level or Wizards' ability to balance tournament play.

right, that's a good point, except...

...well there's a very clear disconnect between development and design. this is overly apparent through the abundance of mistakes and format warping cards/mechanics we've gotten. its not even a new thing, just a steadily increasing thing. so normally yes, you're absolutely right, but with that disconnect being ever present things need to be reigned in first. that disconnect needs to be fixed first. the game needs to become balanced first. otherwise the cycle just repeats itself over and over while slowly driving customers away. that's also quantifiable through past mistakes. so while they could explore the space and design something great, or develop something great, right now the chances of it being absolutely game breaking are just too high. fix what's broken before going a new direction, and design/development is very clearly broken right now.

Quote from Lectrys »

Quote from Xcric »

hard to be excited about some of these.

they can't balance the game as it is, so making ultra powerful cards that aren't allowed in your deck right off the bat is going to end up completely broken.

Research // Development lets you shuffle sideboard cards into your library and doesn't see play (except just maybe in casual). Assuming the only way to get "forbidden" cards into the game remains shuffling them into your library, a la some of the playtest cards letting you create token cards and shuffle them into your library, I think they're more likely to be unplayably bad than broken, even if you get to shuffle in 4 Time Walks. The chance that you draw any one card of a full playset, assuming you don't have any of that playset in your opening hand, is deceptively low.

sure, but they can't balance the game as it is so... your point ends up a little moot given the past few sets and how pushed/format breaking several cards have been. the likelihood that it ends up a game breaking mechanic like companion is extremely high given recent sets. a similar concept in prior sets that laid the groundwork does not ensure a modern reworking will be fair and balanced. i mean, companion didn't look THAT broken on paper after all.

hard to be excited about some of these.

they can't balance the game as it is, so making ultra powerful cards that aren't allowed in your deck right off the bat is going to end up completely broken.
feeling that blinking is broken and needs to be reworked into phasing is just... what? people complain about dumbing down the game, well there you go.
have wanted to see more dfc's, but being able to choose which side to play feels like it'll get messy fast

reworking of failed mechanics is neat, that's something that should have been happening more already. especially in the case of mechanics that could've been great but were only given like 1/5th of one set to explore.

depends on the build

20-25 depending on curve, ability to ramp, what the deck is aiming to do, etc.

deck loaded with a ton of dorks or with a curve of like 1.5 with the ability to filter/draw? we'll shoot low. some rando bull***** dick around thing at the kitchen table that's more about dropping cruel ultimatum and copying it 30 times? probably closer to 25

a lot of inexperienced players take a very formulaic approach to deck building like they have to adhere to set rules on how many creatures/lands/spells to include and frankly... it just promotes poor deck building

i think there's a big difference between a liliana of the veil, or a fire elemental, and her having an onlyfans. her tweet, and a lot of the arguments against this decision (there aren't many) come across as someone who knows they broke the rules and is just pissy about. they want a controversy here where one doesn't exist.

not the first time they've dumped people for sexualizing magic, won't be the last either, but there's a very clear standard and a very clear precedent so... tough *****

oh, and even if this sort of thing is common in that program... well... ya got caught. thats the other difference.

Quote from wallycaine »

Quote from xaltair »

This was my point too, it would suck to open a $16 pack and get a $3 rare or mythic. It would also suck even more to buy a $300-$400 box and find out all your rares and mythic amount to about $150-$180.

I mean if you buy a standard box for $110 and you get $60 worth of rares/mythic it already feels pretty bad, but imagine buying something 3 times as much, the feeling should be 3 times as strong. I mean if there is only one $100 card in the set and the rest are $50 or less in value then it'll be hard to justify the price of the box at $300 unless you can get 6 of those $50 cards in the box whether they may be rares/mythics/foils or whatever.

It's like buying a Collector's pack for $20 and when you open it you get $8 worth of cards in value, or even $10, it feels bad.

The thing is, financially and mathematically, this has to happen at least some of the time. If the expected value of the cards in a pack is more than the value of the pack, then retailers are just going to shred the packs and sell the individual cards until the prices go down enough that that's no longer true. Or they will only sell the packs for more than their normal price. So there always has to be a decent amount of cards that are worth less than the price of the pack, in order to make sure the EV doesn't exceed the price. And if you want there to be high value reprints, such as 100 dollar cards, then you need some really bad stinkers to balance it out.

yeah but at the same time i think the whole point in having an msrp is to help control that. if the suggest retail is $3.00, and that lgs is charging $10, you can easily go somewhere else thanks to the internet that is charging the $3.00. they did away with msrp, and now a hell of a lot of stores either go off tcg player, or whatever other retailers are charging. this means that if the majority of retailers are charging $10 instead of $3, the price gets bumped up and its a lot more difficult to find it at a lower price. further, i'd argue that the continued, and even increased popularity of buying at big box stores instead of your lgs proves this as they're far more beholden to a universal price among their stores.

not familiar with their stuff at all, but wotc has definitely cracked down on that sort of thing in the past. it goes directly against their code of conduct.

so... meh, needed to happen if they violated that.

Quote from LuckyJoe1988 »

Quote from Xcric »

are topics like these able to be discussed at all without also talking politics? they're pretty intertwined. what's there to discuss at all if politics is ignored?

i'm genuinely asking as we keep seeing threads get locked for discussing politics when these decisions are very political to begin with.

how do you discuss him being let go without also discussing why? if its not appropriate to discuss the politics of it here... well then where?

why not just lock it up and move on? its next to impossible to remove politics from decisions made over social issues.

I believe their should be a forum on this site dedicated to what many may, or may not consider to be contraversial, or political. It is what the debate forum used to be back in the day I believe, until they removed it.

right but without that... well i mean then this entire thread should just be the announcement that they stopped their relationship with him and nothing else if politics aren't to be brought up. what good is a forum where no one can discuss the implications of this decision, or any decision, in regards to social issues because the thread becomes "too political"

it removes the entire discussion. what is there to say otherwise? why even bother? aren't forums supposed to be for debate and discussion of ideas? just lock it up and turn it into a news post if we can't talk about it. oh sorry, we can talk about it... we just have to leave politics out. so... what's left to talk about?

while i support the decision to cut ties with him, there are some that didn't agree with that. its only fair that their viewpoint be heard too. i'll also surely, eventually, get a ban or a warning for this post as i'm sure this isn't the place to bring it up. while i feel threads should be moderated to prevent flaming and trolling, what is actually left to talk about with these decisions if you're not discussing the politics of them? why even have a forum at all?

none of my local shops were holding actual events, but my kit was pretty decent.

pulled mangara as the promo. don't really remember anything else from it though.

are topics like these able to be discussed at all without also talking politics? they're pretty intertwined. what's there to discuss at all if politics is ignored?

i'm genuinely asking as we keep seeing threads get locked for discussing politics when these decisions are very political to begin with.

how do you discuss him being let go without also discussing why? if its not appropriate to discuss the politics of it here... well then where?

why not just lock it up and move on? its next to impossible to remove politics from decisions made over social issues.

Quote from Cranky »

Banning the cards really hurts no one, since they're all fringe playable at best, and makes a portion of the playerbase more comfortable in the community. Seems like a no-brainer win-win to me. Obviously there is a financial motive on WotC's part, but their heart is in the right place too, I know and work with a lot of these folks and this really did come from a good place.

That said, I definitely had to have a few of them explained to me, but they all make sense after that:

Invoke Prejudice: Obviously KKK imagery, from an avowed and vehement racist, with 1488 (a neo-nazi dogwhistle) as its gatherer number. Ouch.

Cleanse: A white card (ok). That destroys black creatures (ok). Named Cleanse (...ok?). Ethnic cleansing (oooooooh).

Stone-Throwing Devils: Apparently an old middle-eastern pejorative, and once you know that the art is super obviously a racist caricature.

Pradesh Gypsies: 'Gypsy' is basically the N-word for the Romani people. It has been appropriated to mean something fairly benign in modern media, but its roots are that of baseless bigotry towards an out-group. A lot of folks with that heritage have repappropriated it and use the word proudly, but at the same time a lot of folks still find it offensive.

Jihad: Name and art reference real-world racist, violent religious war/massacre. Let's not do that.

Crusade: Name and art reference real-world racist, violent religious war/massacre. Let's not do that.

Imprison: What appears to be a starving black man in a torture mask, with a card name that sniffs of slavery.

Both Cleanse and Imprison are a bit of a stretch, but honestly they toe the line enough and are unplayably bad enough that it feels free to axe them just to be safe.

Speaking to the newly found value of these cards, its a temporary bubble with two types of people participating. 1) Speculators who knew that the banning would spike interest due to FOMO, and 2) Actual full-blown racists who want to collect and protect racist iconography. Eventually the price on these will go back down as folks lose interest, and we'll be left with slightly richer speculators and slightly poorer racists, so it all works out. Invoke itself may very well hold its price, since it is the rarest of them and holds a sort of freak-show novelty, but the rest will absolutely fall off a cliff and take a lot of stupid peoples' money with them.

this post right here should just get stickied to the top of the forum so we don't have to have a thread about it every two days. you summed it all up perfectly.