While I get that Corona obviously was planned way before the COVID breakout, but I can see them getting bad press so I understand the decision. Considering they're talking 250k-1MM deaths in the US alone.
Rarities are for the purposes of limited/draft not greed
Thats especially wrong for these examples.
Limited bombs should be rare and cards that are otherwise outright unplayable should be, as their entire purpose is constructed.
Rarity is a means to make a card more rare (who would have thought) , which the main reason is to make a card more valuable if its remotely playable.
You could very well design Limited with a more or less fair balance level and not have crazy rares at all, there will always be a card no matter the rarity thats just better as the rest, and thats still true for commons alone.
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So rarity "matters" only in limited, to the degree that you wont see a card too often in higher rarities, but you can pretty much assume to have as good as any common in a draft, if not in multiples (might not get it, but chances are in 8-peoples 3 packs you will have all commons present fairly likely).
In constructed almost all the playable cards are rare+ , so rarity matters as long as they dont print a lot of non-rare cards that are playable, some uncommons could very well be rares for that purpose.
The real kicker is in mythic rare, as these cards are very specifically pushed to be "guaranteed" constructed cards, and they tank all the value of the set in them.
Thats on purpose, and mythic rare has no real significancy vs a rare in terms of Limited play, they are both just rare and you wont see them every draft.
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Making really good lands just "common" would help push down the value of almost any deck in existence by a big margin.
Lands tank so much value, that a lot of Commander decks are filled with cheap cards and have super expensive lands.
If they really wanted to, they could make lands much easier to access, its just too easy for them to have a slot of easy expensive rares available to them, if they ever push lands to a constructed level for old formats, they spike up in demand tremendously.
If that’s the case why are some cards downshifted or upshifted in rarity if not outside limited/draft
Heck Inquisition of Kozilek was upshifted to rare in conspiracy 2 then downshifted uncommon again in modern masters 3/mystery booster
Secondly there’s thousands among thousands of cards that make people say “that’s the wrong rarity for th effect”
Why were cards like Force of Will upshifted in rarity when inherently in sealed, it's not that much better than say cancel in a sealed environment? Why wasn't counterspell upshifted to uncommon? Same for dark ritual and brainstorm.
Rarity isn't designed solely for sealed. Sure it can have some influence on sealed but there's nothing inherently broken about fabled passage when turn 4 in sealed is when you see its upside.
You're talking about printed pieces of cardboard, not gold. You can't eat them, you can't use them to procure food or cure an illness. You can't build shelter with them. The only value they have is entirely 100% completely arbitrary. You can't pay taxes with them, or buy a sandwich with them either so they don't even reach the minimal use value that paper money has. All you can do is hope you can trick some other sucker into trading something with real value for them.
Ironically some old magic cards are worth more than their weight in gold, many times even.
Any card worth more 93$ is worth more than gold (magic card is 1.775 grams, gold price per gram is of date $52.94).
No, they aren't. They're only as valuable as you can trick someone into paying for it, and magic cards have an extremely small market compared to the market for gold.
But that's true of gold, too. Gold has no inherent value - it's just a shiny metal. You can't eat it or cure disease with it. It's a terrible building material for shelter. The only value it has is 100% arbitrary because people are like magpies and like shiny things. All you can do is find someone who has already been tricked into thinking it has value to trade you something of real value for it - like food, shelter, or clothing. The only reason gold has value is because people agree that it does. Same with Magic cards - they only have value because people agree that they do.
And, incidentally, I have traded Magic cards for a sandwich before.
Lol what? Gold is arguably the best conductor in electronics due to its inherent great conductivity as well as its low reactivity.
Regardless there are no inherent value to lands. The cost to put them in a pack is fractions of a penny and to ship them isn't pushing the needle either.
If they charge 6 bucks a pack because you get 5 extra cards would be ridiculous and there's no excuse for it.
Hopefully they don't increase the price but WoTC has a terrible track record especially recently.
For somebody who hasn't owned cards in a while when I saw 7 different products, I got excited because the themes seemed cool and it would have been a good way to get cards to get back into the game. The more I'm seeing though, this is a huge turnoff and feels like another scheme for wizards to drain the pockets of their customers without actually giving them much value. Sadly this is a hard pass for me.
they can't have both, they need to sacrifice one of them. it's just going to be another tiny leaders, or brawl, or whatever that other one was where a walker could be your commander with a signature spell, its great in theory but without support it'll go nowhere fast and to get support you have to pull away from modern. that's a difficult balance. there is actually a point where there are TOO many ways to play.
i mean, it happens often enough already where a legacy event doesn't fire because people want to play modern that night, but that doesn't fire because some want standard, but no maybe half of them want to draft, oh whatever **** it lets all play commander. it was brawl night anyway.
Except Pioneer is necessary because Modern is gradually pricing itself out of playability for new/newer players. Or even some older ones. It's a necessary step. I imagine in another ten years or so, they'll do it again.
Thats a reprint policy issue not a format issue
1000000% this. WotC got the exact wrong answer to the Modern problem. Just reprint the damn cards, it's FREE MONEY.
Basically this. The ultimate goal of the modern format was to establish a non-rotating format where no cards are on the reserve list to reprint them. The problem though is that they aren't reprinting much of their cards unless they're in $10-$15 product which in my honest opinion defeats the purpose of a reprint set, but that's entirely a different conversation.
So this is basically going to be modern lite where many of the $ cards are gone for the time being. If the format takes off, then you'll have cards increase in price. So essentially this feels like a band-aid to a problem that inevitably will come creeping again. Will WotC fix their reprint problems by then? Maybe.
That being said, $450 is a monstrous price. It isn't hurting anybody for existing, though, so I don't see much need to get worked up over a product I'll never buy.
I disagree with it not hurting anybody. Maybe not today but I tell you with the direction of the "specialty" products that it could be harmful later on. Just like loot boxes in video games, they weren't hurting anybody at first but eventually it became a necessity to play games to compete. I could see WoTC sneaking in playable cards only obtainable in these specialty products. I hope not but with how much WoTC is digging into the pockets, it wouldn't surprise me.
interesting that the royalty are females with feminine males, the knights are females, the nobles are females. Basically any masculine role is given to a female. What. the. ****.
I think im going to quit playing this game. I cant stand this stupid ***** theyre doing. Its really dumb and doesnt make any sense not to mention its killing us as a society.
This is literal fiction. Are you really that bent out of shape?
This may have the worst of all swords triggers but let's not forget that it also has arguably the best protection being black and red have the most removal bar none.
Look at me, I'm R&D + Mana Screw = unlimited mana. I could see that potentially being a problem in commander considering that that R&D is only 3 mana and after that screw would be free.
You may think you know what is best for their game, but they support the tournaments. Why you think you know better than them, but also think that $2000 is a lot of money baffles me. If your life is in a direction where $2000 is too much money, but you think you have time for an intensive hobby, your judgment is probably a bit skewed.
If $2000 isn't a lot of money, surely you won't mind writing me a check for that amount. I'll pm you with my contact info.
I have a pretty good paying engineering job and while 2000 can be done, it's not exactly cheap by any means.
In this thread lots of free riders who don't know they are free riders.
The "I don't have money for these decks" isn't a valid excuse. Magic cards have TONS of value in them, and with a modicum of effort it is not difficult to trade for cards you want, circumventing the need for cash in hand. You can then play these real cards at WPN events, and all is right in the world. Even if you live in the middle of nowhere, the internet has made card accessibility trivial via Pucatrade, various Facebook/Twitter/Reddit trading groups. Certainly, you all have access to a mailbox, and again, there are a ton of ways to insulate yourself from being defrauded by trading in the mail - thousands of players do it daily.
The proxy problem is this: people who don't have to play with real cards in an event will just play not real cards, because why wouldn't you other than some social pressures or some personal feeling that you should? They aren't buying singles at their store in all likelihood. A lot of LGS really have a problem where a player is in their store 52+ days a year but spends next to nothing. They won't say it to your face, but store owners have to eat too, and events in and of themselves are not meaningfully profitable. They really just want you to buy their product. You aren't doing them any favors by just being present.
So, we come to the Vintage/Legacy issue. Wizards has blatantly acknowledged they aren't going to actively support the formats because their hands are tied with the Reserved list. You can be mad on the internet that the Reserved List exists, but it isn't a moral argument - it just is. WoTC is not going back on it. They have had ample opportunity to do so and have chosen not to, so unless you want to pony up a lot of card board to trade into Power (which, again, you can certainly do using the methods outlined above), coupled with the low frequency of those events, you may just have to accept this is how it is, and play Legacy/vintage online if you want your fix. Failing that, well, being mad about the injustice of it all is not terribly productive.
I can't afford a Jaguar, but I am not screaming at the Jaguar dealership either. If this sounds silly to you, that is what it sounds like when people complain about card prices and accessibility for something that is not a necessity.
Apparently not wanting to spend 2900 on a black lotus makes you a free loader.
And all these analogies are terrible. The best real world example I can give you is real diamonds vs fake diamonds. They both serve the same purpose.
No. They mention it follows all commander rules. So you cannot bypass.
Why were cards like Force of Will upshifted in rarity when inherently in sealed, it's not that much better than say cancel in a sealed environment? Why wasn't counterspell upshifted to uncommon? Same for dark ritual and brainstorm.
Rarity isn't designed solely for sealed. Sure it can have some influence on sealed but there's nothing inherently broken about fabled passage when turn 4 in sealed is when you see its upside.
Lol what? Gold is arguably the best conductor in electronics due to its inherent great conductivity as well as its low reactivity.
Regardless there are no inherent value to lands. The cost to put them in a pack is fractions of a penny and to ship them isn't pushing the needle either.
If they charge 6 bucks a pack because you get 5 extra cards would be ridiculous and there's no excuse for it.
Hopefully they don't increase the price but WoTC has a terrible track record especially recently.
This time maybe. I think they'll justify it sooner than later to increase the price
This is almost comical at this point.
Basically this. The ultimate goal of the modern format was to establish a non-rotating format where no cards are on the reserve list to reprint them. The problem though is that they aren't reprinting much of their cards unless they're in $10-$15 product which in my honest opinion defeats the purpose of a reprint set, but that's entirely a different conversation.
So this is basically going to be modern lite where many of the $ cards are gone for the time being. If the format takes off, then you'll have cards increase in price. So essentially this feels like a band-aid to a problem that inevitably will come creeping again. Will WotC fix their reprint problems by then? Maybe.
I disagree with it not hurting anybody. Maybe not today but I tell you with the direction of the "specialty" products that it could be harmful later on. Just like loot boxes in video games, they weren't hurting anybody at first but eventually it became a necessity to play games to compete. I could see WoTC sneaking in playable cards only obtainable in these specialty products. I hope not but with how much WoTC is digging into the pockets, it wouldn't surprise me.
This is literal fiction. Are you really that bent out of shape?
I have a pretty good paying engineering job and while 2000 can be done, it's not exactly cheap by any means.
Apparently not wanting to spend 2900 on a black lotus makes you a free loader.
And all these analogies are terrible. The best real world example I can give you is real diamonds vs fake diamonds. They both serve the same purpose.