I read the article about the judge program change. So every store owner is going to be a free rules adviser now unless they force you to be a level 1 judge.
This is stupid.
Yearly fees.
Rules Advisor – Free or $50
Level 1 – $100
Level 2 – $200
Level 3 – $400
Are they out of their mind? Judges get paid in promos currently. Generally work for no real money. Share hotel rooms. Those fees are way too high. Last grand prix I went to didn't even have half the attendance of the grand prixs I've been to in the past. I would say 1/4 the attendance. I know magic is the worlds 2nd most popular card game behind poker but it's not drawing crowds anymore. The player base is a in a retraction stage and so is the economy. There will be a recession starting 1st quarter 2020. Once the holiday sales come in. I'll be fine playing video games. But jeez one bad decision after another.
I don't know why they didn't just stick with the temporary contractor role. Lawsuits or whatever. Every company is pushing these crap contract roles on employees for limited liability. You work here but you don't work here, get it ? NO!? End the judge program!
Magic was fun while it lasted. If you aren't too heavily invested pick up a different hobby. Keep a few decks and sell now.
But if you want to know what's really killing magic besides this, it's women, feminism, and white knights who fall on the sword for my lady. I went to a shop a 6 months ago that had a good player base. Tournaments were being run. Lots of formats being played. Everyone having a good time. I went there off and on for a few weeks. I check in last month for a tournament. The place is dead. Scarily dead for a Friday night. What had happened? There was a large group of neon haired women selling makeup to each other. The shop owner had gotten a girl friend and he let her run the place. Everyone was gone. Zero dollars were being spent at this shop. I tried to buy a booster box while I was there but there was no inventory. She had dropped magic completely from the shop in favor of more board games and manga. What!!!??? You drop your main source of income and all of the people who buy things from you to focus on things you like? Why? Complete insanity. I doubt that store will be in business much longer.
I'm staring at this article and I see neon hair in charge of the Judge Program. Of course it died. Get woke, go broke. For anyone any disagrees, you're wrong. You know you're wrong. All you have to do is watch the reality around you and stop listening to the brain washing. Here in your friendly magic forums where super nice awesome people like me explain this stuff. I could have simply went with the economics of the fees being way too high. But magic mirrors societal trends. As does anything like basketball. You know what would have been great? If magic had a WNBA like basket ball does. I think that used to be my little pony. Then way too much weirdness happened with Brones. https://blogs.magicjudges.org/blog/2019/07/29/the-next-era-of-magic-judging/
Here is a realistic fee structure.
Yearly fees.
Rules Advisor – Free
Level 1 – $10
Level 2 – $20
Level 3 – $40
This article by itself is going to drastically lessen the number of booster boxes I buy as I wait to see what will happen. The promos will never be enough to cover those fees.
I'm going to be a goodie-little-two-shoes here and state what I think is obvious. Generally speaking, it's wrong to lie to people.
Yes, there are such things as white lies, but since we're talking about something that most people agree that rather or not it matters depends on the individual, lying to someone who cares about such things would be wrong.
I don't care about WotC (in this case), they make enough money and I don't think using proxies hurts them that much. Also, I don't personally care if people use proxies; this is a game played to have fun, but I personally appreciate it when people give me the heads up of "Oh by the way, I have a few proxies in my deck", but I wouldn't get mad if they didn't. But if someone told me that all of their cards were real, and I somehow found out some of them were proxies... I wouldn't want to be friends with that person any more purely on principle.
Why? Because if someone is willing to lie about something as little as that, who knows what else they might be lying about. It's just a bad precedent.
Now, I don't want to make you feel bad or feel like I'm attacking you, I'm just explaining what I think and how I feel about the matter. For what it's worth, I understand your dilemma, and I don't understand people who care so much about rather or not someone is using proxies. Considering how expensive of a hobby magic is, even if you're not using the super-competitive cards, it can feel exclusionary to say "you can only play with real cards" when the real cards cost so much to get. It's the equivalent of saying something like "you have to be at least this rich to play" and that is the biggest aspect of this game I dislike. So I'm all for people using proxies. Just don't lie to me. I don't think that's an unreasonable request.
Magic isn't really pay to play though. At least casually. You do not need to proxy expensive cards, there are 20,000 + unique game pieces. There is a substitute for everything. It might be a 7 out of 10 instead of a 10 out of 10, but this is a casual format, and you shouldn't "need" to play any cards at all, because there is nothing to win.
I don't think it's fair to say the game is casual so use fake cards. If it's casual why do you need to use fake cards? Spell swindle is no mana drain. But it costs less then a buck, is super fun, and you wont make ANYONE feel ANY KIND of way casting a real card, as opposed to playing a proxied mana drain on someones real card. Especially if using proxies directly help you win the game.
If i m not mistaken the original price on those are like $200 (for the box with walkers on boosters)
If they are out of boosters (already opened) it is better to compare the price on Starcity games or Card Kingdom
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The msrp was $249.99 for each of the sets. The first set sells for about $650, the 2nd set for about $350. The singles about equal out to $700, and $350 on the secondary market.
star city games and card kingdom have very high prices. Tcgplayer and ebay have more market price prices.
I was hyped for last years. (I bought 3 of the 4 for myself) This one I am not. I may pick up one or two tops. Its a letdown.
If you feel that a product is a let-down, why buy "one or two" anyway? That's not how you make your feelings known to a company. They can't read your minds, and likely won't see or care about your criticisms on some web forum. The only thing they understand is the bottom line, sales. If people buy a (theoretically) crap product, all they see is the money coming in regardless. If you feel a product is not worth the money, then don't buy it. That is the only sure-fire way to voice your criticism.
That is why I said one or two instead of three. I will be voicing my opinion with my wallet if I buy less. Did you not read what I wrote? Reading comprehension much?
Its why I didn't spend a dime on Battlebond. I felt it sucked and voiced that with my wallet. Ask before you attack please.
But willing to buy 50% of the product line is showing with your wallet that it is NOT a total let down.
You are using strong word choices that are inconsistent with your intent for spending.
My guess is we will get walkers that replace the token card, they will mostly be reprints of past walkers and not be legal in standard. Similar to the hidden treasures. But I think it's unlikely they are going to be able to power check 36 new walkers in standard for one set.
Maro stated on his blog that the 36 stained glass walkers were all new cards. No reprints.
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Can you just crawl in a hole and die?
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Perhaps you are the problem if you went to multiple spaces and feel they are all inadequate compared to your experience in the mid nineties?
Of course it’s different now. We have the internet giving out information and technology faster then we can absorb it.
The game is also 2 and a half decades old with a long track record of stability and profitability. Of course it’s more expensive then 20 years ago.
I honestly don’t think I would even want you or your attitude around me in the game stores.
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Magic isn't really pay to play though. At least casually. You do not need to proxy expensive cards, there are 20,000 + unique game pieces. There is a substitute for everything. It might be a 7 out of 10 instead of a 10 out of 10, but this is a casual format, and you shouldn't "need" to play any cards at all, because there is nothing to win.
I don't think it's fair to say the game is casual so use fake cards. If it's casual why do you need to use fake cards? Spell swindle is no mana drain. But it costs less then a buck, is super fun, and you wont make ANYONE feel ANY KIND of way casting a real card, as opposed to playing a proxied mana drain on someones real card. Especially if using proxies directly help you win the game.
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That’s not true. I want to cast it for 6. Commander players don’t just eat up all the unplayably high cmc cards with a spoon.
It’s most playable in commander or kitchen table. But we want cool good cards, just like everyone else.
8 is where it has to be because it does so many things.
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The msrp was $249.99 for each of the sets. The first set sells for about $650, the 2nd set for about $350. The singles about equal out to $700, and $350 on the secondary market.
star city games and card kingdom have very high prices. Tcgplayer and ebay have more market price prices.
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But willing to buy 50% of the product line is showing with your wallet that it is NOT a total let down.
You are using strong word choices that are inconsistent with your intent for spending.
Maybe you should not be so confrontational?
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Maro stated on his blog that the 36 stained glass walkers were all new cards. No reprints.
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