If WOTC acts incompetently for long enough, then shutting their doors could be good for gaming. Their jobs would be replaced by other gaming companies stepping in to fill the gap, and they would create more jobs as a result. So jobs stay the same in the long run, and yet a game company that doesn't act in the interest of its gamers is removed in favor of companies that do.
That's a net positive, usually. *Shrug*
Considering all of your suggestions for the game have been so radically against the direction of the game so as that you really are talking about an entirely new game...well I'm not surprised you don't care.
In contrast, millions of players have already quit in droves because of the Scalting Tarn fiasco and the SCG-fueled continuous raise in prices. Most new players don't stick to the game for more than a single rotation anymore thanks to the ridiculous standard prices and even EDH players have decided to quit or allow proxies because of the Mind Seize fiasco. They are already threading the tight rope of sustainability.
Do you have ANY evidence for this, because ALL of the numbers for 2012-13 were decidedly increased from previous, including Modern (the format everyone seems to think people are not playing).
It's not just getting rid of the list.
It's getting rid of the reserve list, and then printing a metric buttload of those cards.
Yea, they did that with Chronicles. I remember when wizards started printing more sets per year and it hurt sales, because there is a finite amount of money that people are willing to pay to play the game. More cards being printed as reprints would take away from sales of blocks, and just spread out that money over a larger stock. For wizards it means more development, printing, packaging, and distribution costs for little if any increase in revenue.
I always hear people whining about making everything worthless when the true solution is making everything worthy. If all cards in every booster were useful in Standard, Modern, Legacy or Commander, there wouldn't be pack pulls worth $0.15.
Chase rares need to dissapear, and the way to do that isn't by making all rares ****, it's by making all commons good so that a chase rare, now a $5-10 card, is the wild card or silver bullet needed to perfect an already tight strategy. Not as it is now, that no Azorius deck can win a single game without Jace, Elspeth and Sphinx's Revelation because it's strategy is dependant on mythics hitting the board.
MaRo has explained multiple times why a game that is made to appeal to so many different kinds of players who use the cards in different ways has to contain cards that some players think are "bad". Several articles, from a person that has been a part of the most successful western TCG ever. You can ignore it or think he is a brainless tosser if you want, but what he has that you don't is evidence of success in designing, developing, and sustaining a complex and hugely popular game.
Most of Modern Master sales were not for limited.
Again...evidence?
We wouldn't need to be goaded to play a miserable format such as Limited...
You don't like Limited, I don't like Limited, but there are a ton of people who only MTG in order to play Limited.
If you want to buy them for personal use, sure, why not?.
Buying a counterfeit product is contributing to copyright infringement and is quite illegal. I imagine that there would be additional issue about importing counterfeit items in bulk as it would be easy to prove intent to distribute.
What are you implying by calling me a "Legacy baby"? Just because I am new to playing Legacy does not mean I'm a new player. I've been playing the game for several years. It's only because I acquired so many cards through trades and had a job that I was able to build a legacy deck. I decided to quit standard for a while, even though it's popular at my LGS, to build legacy because I didn't want to keep losing value on cards. Legacy seemed like a better investment. I've been watching SCG Open streams for a few years now.
Legacy staples aren't as liquid as standard cards? Are you kidding me? Go look at buylists and tell me about some standard cards that have higher sell percentages than legacy cards. With all of the stores I've traded with, they have all valued legacy cards higher, and as a result, paid more.
Economic oppression? Do you even know what the word oppression means? No one is being treated unfairly or unjustly. You don't have to buy the most expensive cards to build a legacy deck. It's a ****ing card game.
You are inexperienced in the actual metagame of Legacy, you are also pretty hypocritical: "I can afford to binge sell/trade stuff, so there's no problem, everyone can play legacy with no effort". Sure.
You realize there's no such thing as "making everything worthy"? In fact when Richard Garfield designed the game I'm sure that's what he envisioned too, and look where that got us?
There's just not enough design space so every card is going to be uniquely good in the right situation from now on to 20 years later.
What you're suggesting works for a board game where no new piece will be added in the future.
You can easily make more sets with the quality of Lorwyn, Rise of the Eldrazi, Theros, Modern Masters, and none at all of Worldwake or Dragon's Maze quality ever again, without destroying the game.
Also, the rotative nature of standard allows for powerful cards to be revisited constantly and the format to stay strong thru powerful commons and uncommons without the need for power creep or staleness. In fact let's power down: print three semi-functional reprints of remand (say, you cantrip until your next upkeep) along the next five years. Remand stays one of the most powerful removals ever printed but now never players have a sensible second option if they don't own and can't afford Remand. Do the same for dual lands (etbt if they're not the first land you play this turn?), Wasteland (etbt?) and other cards so that if you so behemently refuse to reprint eternal staples, newer players can play versions of the top decks very close in power, yet the collectors don't loose their precious "investment".
I'm pretty sure if they reprinted everything to high hell, prices would plummet yes, but many people would lose consumer confidence in the game, and possibly quit because all of their cards are worthless. And then there's no reason to buy any cards because they're not worth anything, after having already spent so much on cards.
I would not mind if they got rid of the reserved list and made judge promo dual lands, though. I'm okay with losing some value on my cards so that more people can play, but it would feel like a waste of money if dual lands were $10. Prices that I would be more comfortable with, is if they were the same price as the online versions.
What will your precious dual lands be worth when WotC stops being profitable because only the 1% can pay for the game and Hasbro shuts them down?
Wizards makes a large portion of its profits from Limited, so it dying would be bad. And there are plenty of people who for some reason like Limited (I am not one of them. Being forced to play bad cards never appealed to me.). So I can see your point, but it would hurt WotC and annoy a lot of players. Also, yes I love to exaggerate. I've decided that if I am pessimistic, the worst that can happen is that I'll be right, while if I am optimistic, I'll be disappointed when I am wrong.
The fact that Modern Masters was so attractive to people other than limited players didn't stop anyone from playing limited. Whomever could did draft it.
I cannot follow your logic as to why having new sets being more like MM than like DGM would kill limited when it's ****ing prooven that a greater ammount of common and uncommon staples increases the interest in Limited play.
Since the vast majority of people don't own large collections of legacy and vintage stables, the vast majority of people wouldn't quit for this reason.
That's the whole point is that most people don't own these and would therefore be thrilled not sad. If they did already own them, it would be a non-issue in the first place.
GP Washington set a record for USA territory Legacy tournaments with 1700 players. That's as exiting for a Legacy enthusiast as it is sad and infuriating knowking GP Vegas had 4500 people playing.
Legacy wants more players, those players need more cards. Print the ****ing cards already WotC! $
How do you know so many people don't have legacy/vintage staples? I know that I have at least owned some staples for a few years before moving into legacy. Even when I started out in high school, I had four judge promo Gaea's Cradles, unfortunately I sold them a few months after I got them because I didn't know what I was doing, being a new player.
I even bought a collection a few years ago, from a player that only played between Onslaught and original Ravnica, and it was a very casual collection, but it had a Sensei's Divining Top, a couple Goblin Warchiefs, and some Wirewood Symbiotes.
Yes you've made it pretty clear by now that you're a shark who enjoys ripping people off value and want the game to continue on it's tracks as long as you can keep trading standard trash for "investments".
What does it matter if the game goes to hell as long as you make a profit, right?
Wow, way to ignore the rest of my post. You made the claim that most players do not own a single staple. I told you about my experience as well as another person's. Of course there is still demand for staples, because not every player owns them. But you said that most players don't own any staples. I would like some proof.
The proof is having a set of eyeballs and ears and a shred of common sense.
No product in the world is bought in a perfectly even distribution across the population, lol? Rich people will fill up their playsets of 4, and poorer people will have zero. It's just obvious.
And since they have the highest price of any card, there must be the most unfilled slots of desired cards amongst players out of any of the collection.
We can clearly infer that most people don't own any.
Do I have signed affidavits from 51% of magic players? No. If that's what you require to accept obvious realities, then okay, don't accept it. I can live with your non-acceptance.
More cards being printed as reprints would take away from sales of blocks, and just spread out that money over a larger stock. For wizards it means more development, printing, packaging, and distribution costs for little if any increase in revenue.
1) Chronicles explicitly avoided all of the most valuable cards at the time, which guaranteed its failure to address the issue we are discussing here. Those are the cards that need the MOST reprinting. By doing the opposite, you actually exacerbate the problem by making the non-reprinted ones even more valuable and competitive decks even more exclusive, since people join the legacy formats for the cheapo reprints but still can't get the best cards they need to have a fair fight.
2) The reason they apologized for chronicles was from negative reactions from speculators and "investors" who wanted guaranteed monopolies instead of actual investments. I'm not aware of any normal players that were upset by this set who care mainly about playing the game.
WOTC made a choice: to care more about hoarders than about people actually playing their game. The only reason they didn't like chronicles is because it is in favor of players, not hoarders.
That choice is inevitably going to bite them in the ***, because sooner or later, counterfeiters will undersell them. And the result is that the "collectors" are screwed anyway, and so are the players.
It's either inevitable Lose-Lose if they never reprint.
Or it's Win-Lose if they do reprint.
The fact that Modern Masters was so attractive to people other than limited players didn't stop anyone from playing limited. Whomever could did draft it.
I cannot follow your logic as to why having new sets being more like MM than like DGM would kill limited when it's ****ing prooven that a greater ammount of common and uncommon staples increases the interest in Limited play.
That wasn't what I meant. I was just against the idea of removing rarity completely in all forms. I'd love to see more common and uncommon staples, but unfortunately, because of New World Order (Yes, this is a case where it actually applies. Commons being less complex means that they can't do the cool things that make cards playable), that can't happen now. I do not want more sets like DGM, and more sets like MM would be great.
You are inexperienced in the actual metagame of Legacy, you are also pretty hypocritical: "I can afford to binge sell/trade stuff, so there's no problem, everyone can play legacy with no effort". Sure.
You can easily make more sets with the quality of Lorwyn, Rise of the Eldrazi, Theros, Modern Masters, and none at all of Worldwake or Dragon's Maze quality ever again, without destroying the game.
Also, the rotative nature of standard allows for powerful cards to be revisited constantly and the format to stay strong thru powerful commons and uncommons without the need for power creep or staleness. In fact let's power down: print three semi-functional reprints of remand (say, you cantrip until your next upkeep) along the next five years. Remand stays one of the most powerful removals ever printed but now never players have a sensible second option if they don't own and can't afford Remand. Do the same for dual lands (etbt if they're not the first land you play this turn?), Wasteland (etbt?) and other cards so that if you so behemently refuse to reprint eternal staples, newer players can play versions of the top decks very close in power, yet the collectors don't loose their precious "investment".
What will your precious dual lands be worth when WotC stops being profitable because only the 1% can pay for the game and Hasbro shuts them down?
The fact that Modern Masters was so attractive to people other than limited players didn't stop anyone from playing limited. Whomever could did draft it.
I cannot follow your logic as to why having new sets being more like MM than like DGM would kill limited when it's ****ing prooven that a greater ammount of common and uncommon staples increases the interest in Limited play.
GP Washington set a record for USA territory Legacy tournaments with 1700 players. That's as exiting for a Legacy enthusiast as it is sad and infuriating knowking GP Vegas had 4500 people playing.
Legacy wants more players, those players need more cards. Print the ****ing cards already WotC! $
Yes you've made it pretty clear by now that you're a shark who enjoys ripping people off value and want the game to continue on it's tracks as long as you can keep trading standard trash for "investments".
What does it matter if the game goes to hell as long as you make a profit, right?
lol what? Where did you get that I shark people? I'm clearly arguing against a brick wall. Also even if you have a minimum wage job, you can afford dual lands.
The proof is having a set of eyeballs and ears and a shred of common sense.
No product in the world is bought in a perfectly even distribution across the population, lol? Rich people will fill up their playsets of 4, and poorer people will have zero. It's just obvious.
And since they have the highest price of any card, there must be the most unfilled slots of desired cards amongst players out of any of the collection.
We can clearly infer that most people don't own any.
Do I have signed affidavits from 51% of magic players? No. If that's what you require to accept obvious realities, then okay, don't accept it. I can live with your non-acceptance.
Obvious to only you. I don't know how you can infer that most players don't have a single staple. I've been poor for a few years and had staples. There are also kids at my LGS who own a few staples.
1) Chronicles explicitly avoided all of the most valuable cards at the time, which guaranteed its failure to address the issue we are discussing here. Those are the cards that need the MOST reprinting. By doing the opposite, you actually exacerbate the problem by making the non-reprinted ones even more valuable and competitive decks even more exclusive, since people join the legacy formats for the cheapo reprints but still can't get the best cards they need to have a fair fight.
2) The reason they apologized for chronicles was from negative reactions from speculators and "investors" who wanted guaranteed monopolies instead of actual investments. I'm not aware of any normal players that were upset by this set who care mainly about playing the game.
WOTC made a choice: to care more about hoarders than about people actually playing their game. The only reason they didn't like chronicles is because it is in favor of players, not hoarders.
That choice is inevitably going to bite them in the ***, because sooner or later, counterfeiters will undersell them. And the result is that the "collectors" are screwed anyway, and so are the players.
It's either inevitable Lose-Lose if they never reprint.
Or it's Win-Lose if they do reprint.
The "printing more sets in a year" was not actually regarding the chronicles era...that probably should have been separated a bit. This was from 2006 through lorwyn/shadowmoor and they found that they were just printing too many sets and cards for people to keep up the same level of excitement. It diffused sales and interest. When wizards did market research they found that people were not interested in that much new (and newly reprinted) product in a year regardless of quality. People want to feel like they can keep up with the game, not have a "metric buttload" of newly reprinted cards hit them all at once.
Again this all comes down to you going with your untrained, untested theories about how an international multi-million dollar franchise should be managed and developed, and WotC basing their decisions on advice from experienced people and actual market research.
You can easily make more sets with the quality of Lorwyn, Rise of the Eldrazi, Theros, Modern Masters, and none at all of Worldwake or Dragon's Maze quality ever again, without destroying the game.
Easy? You think designing, developing, and managing this game is easy? You also think it is realistic to never miss? You also continue to fail to understand that there were significant numbers of people that enjoyed WW and DM, despite a vocal minority of people online who may have complained about them. Not every card or set is for you.
Easy? You think designing, developing, and managing this game is easy? You also think it is realistic to never miss? You also continue to fail to understand that there were significant numbers of people that enjoyed WW and DM, despite a vocal minority of people online who may have complained about them. Not every card or set is for you.
While I agree that it isn't easy to make the game, why do you assume that it was just a vocal minority online that complained about Dragon's Maze? It seems like whenever someone disagrees with someone on this forum, they say that they are just part of a vocal minority and that most people agree with them. Do you have any evidence for Dragon's Maze being well-liked?
Obvious to only you. I don't know how you can infer that most players don't have a single staple. I've been poor for a few years and had staples. There are also kids at my LGS who own a few staples.
Most players haven't even been in the game for "years." The game is supposedly expanding at about 30% a year, which means it's doubling every 3, which means more than half of players are new as of 2011.
Somebody who has been playing forever and hanging onto staples forever--perhaps from when they were affordable--is not really a relevant statistic to worry about when talking about simply "most of players." MOST players have never seen a price for legacy staples under hundreds of dollars, since they've joined. And they've been around nowhere near long enough to have built up a desire to pay that much, unless they're filthy rich.
WotC basing their decisions on advice from experienced people and actual market research.
No actually they have almost no experience, because they've been specifically avoiding ever doing what I'm saying, to please collectors. Chronicles was about as close as it got, and even then they avoided the most important part. And since then they promised to never do it. So they have virtually zero experience with what would happen. All they know about is people's interest in reprinted crappier cards that aren't in the most demand.
And even then, since those days when they even reprinted any significant number of lame cards, the stakes have risen exponentially, such that the past experience can barely said to even be relevant anymore.
People don't need to "keep up with" legacy staples. They've known about and wanted them forever. That doesn't make any sense. You reprint dual lands, and expect people to go "derrr.... what's a dual land? I don't understand! I CAN'T KEEP UP WITH THIS INFORMATION!" Wut?
You know that he didn't mean commons and cheap rares.
While I agree that it isn't easy to make the game, why do you assume that it was just a vocal minority online that complained about Dragon's Maze? It seems like whenever someone disagrees with someone on this forum, they say that they are just part of a vocal minority and that most people agree with them. Do you have any evidence for Dragon's Maze being well-liked?
A card doesn't have to be expensive to be a staple.
Most players haven't even been in the game for "years." The game is supposedly expanding at about 30% a year, which means it's doubling every 3, which means more than half of players are new as of 2011.
Somebody who has been playing forever and hanging onto staples forever--perhaps from when they were affordable--is not really a relevant statistic to worry about when talking about simply "most of players." MOST players have never seen a price for legacy staples under hundreds of dollars, since they've joined. And they've been around nowhere near long enough to have built up a desire to pay that much, unless they're filthy rich.
No actually they have almost no experience, because they've been specifically avoiding ever doing what I'm saying, to please collectors. Chronicles was about as close as it got, and even then they avoided the most important part. And since then they promised to never do it. So they have virtually zero experience with what would happen. All they know about is people's interest in reprinted crappier cards that aren't in the most demand.
And even then, since those days when they even reprinted any significant number of lame cards, the stakes have risen exponentially, such that the past experience can barely said to even be relevant anymore.
People don't need to "keep up with" legacy staples. They've known about and wanted them forever. That doesn't make any sense. You reprint dual lands, and expect people to go "derrr.... what's a dual land? I don't understand! I CAN'T KEEP UP WITH THIS INFORMATION!" Wut?
Unfortunately for you they keep printing staples every set. We just had Snapcaster Mage, Griselbrand, Abrupt Decay, Deathrite Shaman, Mutavault and Thoughtseize. Also, you don't need to be "filthy rich" to afford to play legacy. Unless you count working minimum wage as filthy rich.
I'm not sure how much it costs to counterfeit, but I'm sure there's profit to be made even when a card is $10 or $15.
You're solution is basically the same as making every card worthless, so that there's no value in counterfeiting. In which case the first step would to to get rid of rarity altogether.
Counterfitters gernally get pennies on the dollar. If every card was $10-$15 it wouldn't be worth the counterfitters time to invest in the reverse engineering, equipment ect... to figure out how to make good fakes.
A 40 dollar mythic rare would constitute a must have 4 of that goes in many decks.
Stats About Mythics
-Mythics are on average 40% rarer than pre-mythic rares
(old blocks about 200 rares, Mythic blocks 35+ mythics)
-They are printing more new cards a year not less
(about 665 now vs. 630 in most pre-mythic block)
-To drop the value of a rare by $1 a mythic must go up $2
-In a 3 year time span deck prices doubled. I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
The "printing more sets in a year" was not actually regarding the chronicles era...that probably should have been separated a bit. This was from 2006 through lorwyn/shadowmoor and they found that they were just printing too many sets and cards for people to keep up the same level of excitement. It diffused sales and interest. When wizards did market research they found that people were not interested in that much new (and newly reprinted) product in a year regardless of quality. People want to feel like they can keep up with the game, not have a "metric buttload" of newly reprinted cards hit them all at once.
I don't think Lorwyn block's failure was that too many products were competing for players' limited Magic budgets; nowadays they print as many sets a year on a regular basis because core sets are yearly, plus supplementary products like FTV, Duel Decks, MM, and Commander. The Lorwyn block structure caused Limited to rotate too quickly and added too many cards and mechanics to T2. Reprint products don't cause either of those issues.
Meanwhile, on the main topic: I can't seriously believe that so many people here are in favor of counterfeit cards. If you want cards for tournaments or games at your FLGS, please continue to support and respect WotC and storeowners who are bringing you organized play! And if you want cards for home use, you have Gatherer and sharpies.
We just had Snapcaster Mage, Griselbrand, Abrupt Decay, Deathrite Shaman, Mutavault and Thoughtseize.
Um, think about that for a second. They reprint like 2 card a set, and then they add 250ish non-reprints in each non-core set.
Which means that the number of cards that will never be reprinted ever is currently increasing by hundreds every year. Even the number of top tier staples is probably increasing at those rates.
While I agree that it isn't easy to make the game, why do you assume that it was just a vocal minority online that complained about Dragon's Maze? It seems like whenever someone disagrees with someone on this forum, they say that they are just part of a vocal minority and that most people agree with them. Do you have any evidence for Dragon's Maze being well-liked?
I am in the middle of a few things right now so I can't take the time to find the quote (so take this as what you will), but I recall reading on MaRo's tumblr that Dragon's Maze was well liked in general according to their market research.
I don't think Lorwyn block's failure was that too many products were competing for players' limited Magic budgets;
It was a cited reason. Now the player base has slowly evolved to this new equilibrium of sets per year, but what Crimeo is suggesting would massively surpass that.
No actually they have almost no experience, because they've been specifically avoiding ever doing what I'm saying, to please collectors.
No, they have experience managing the most successful western card game ever. That is valuable experience that deserves to be respected and to a reasonable extent trusted. You have nothing.
People don't need to "keep up with" legacy staples. They've known about and wanted them forever. That doesn't make any sense. You reprint dual lands, and expect people to go "derrr.... what's a dual land? I don't understand! I CAN'T KEEP UP WITH THIS INFORMATION!" Wut?
Keep up refers to being able to actually buy the new product that is being released. Again, there is a finite amount of money that players are willing to pay in a given period of time and shoving more cards at them does not change that, it dilutes it and gives players a sense that cards and sets are being released too quickly for them to acquire.
Um, think about that for a second. They reprint like 2 card a set, and then they add 250ish non-reprints in each non-core set.
Which means that the number of cards that will never be reprinted ever is currently increasing by hundreds every year. Even the number of top tier staples is probably increasing at those rates.
Math is fun!
But people can easily acquire these cards and trade them for other staples.
Meanwhile, on the main topic: I can't seriously believe that so many people here are in favor of counterfeit cards. If you want cards for tournaments or games at your FLGS, please continue to support and respect WotC and storeowners who are bringing you organized play! And if you want cards for home use, you have Gatherer and sharpies.
I can see where they're coming from, but I think it's a bit shortsighted. I don't support these counterfeits, but I do think that Wizards should reevaluate their policies and practices as a result of them. Altering or eliminating the reserve list, for instance, or printing additional products that make otherwise expensive cards available to people at a more affordable cost. Maybe even adding rules for limited proxy use in Eternal formats as a way to support them (such as formalizing an X-proxy rule with guidelines as to what constitutes legal proxies). As someone said earlier in this thread, the counterfeits are a symptom rather than the problem itself. Therefore, addressing the reasons these counterfeits exist and offering people reasonable alternatives to them is better than going after the counterfeiters directly.
You didn't say you were. The other guy did, but you seem to think that using illegal counterfeits for personal use doesn't mean that it's no illegal.
The rest of this post of yours doesn't make sense to me. Sorry.
Actually, I haven't committed to buying yet, I wanted to see what the general consensus was surrounding this action.
Of course if it turns out that it is illegal I would never follow through. However I have consulted people who are knowlegable in business law, copyrights, and the like.
Apparently fault only exists with the seller, and only civil action may be taken against that individual for lost potential revenue that may have been incurred on the copyright holder.
In other words, I cannot see how it is illegal to buy them.
However, I will end my forray into this topic here, as it seems to be an imprudent idea altogether to involve myself in buying from some shady backalley merchant.
I will support whoever had the idea of "making it rain" goyfs and UG seas at a PT or GP.
What will it take for rosewater and co.to take this seriously (the need to allow the player base to PLAY)
It was a cited reason. Now the player base has slowly evolved to this new equilibrium of sets per year, but what Crimeo is suggesting would massively surpass that.
No no no. You can solve the immediate problem in ONE SINGLE SET:
"The top 250ish most expensive cards on the secondary market, printed roughly proportionately to the prices that are currently the cheapest versions of them" set.
- Same number of cards as a normal set. And only one of them, so you can't reasonably argue it would be overwhelming at all.
- 250 cards would get you down to about $50 and up cards (remember, ordered by cheapest version of each), which alone takes out a huuuuuuuge lion's share of the juiciest targets for counterfeiting, and all of the absolute most intimidating cards for people to build the decks they want.
- No more of a printing press strain on WOTC than any other set.
Then go ahead and wait awhile, a year, whatever, and then check the prices again and do the top 250 at that point (some may be the same cards again, most will not). Repeat every year. No significant printing strain, guaranteed demand every time, not "overwhelming" to players any more than any normal set, spaced out at one a year, and soon enough everything will get down to $10-20 tops. The jankiest old cards simply never end up reprinted, and nobody cares.
By proportionate, I mean, for example imagine 7 cards with the following cheapest edition prices
A = $100
B = $80
C = $70
D = $65
E = $65
F = $62
G = $55
So A = $100 / $497 total = 20% of the cards to be printed, proportionally.
G = $55 / $497 = 11%.
So packs would have about twice as many on average of A as of G, etc.
Packs of course can be sold for much more than a normal pack! But much less than the average cost from amongst those 250 cards. Average cost of 15 of those cards might be $1000, but they sell for I dunno maybe $40-50 for the first time around, per pack. next year, the average secondary market price would be lower, and they can appropriately lwoer the pack price a bit, etc.
But people can easily acquire these cards and trade them for other staples.
Oh really? Well in that case I have a $17 thoughtseize for you that I wouljd galdly trade for a $180 underground sea. Please PM me for details.
Oh really? Well in that case I have a $17 thoughtseize for you that I wouljd galdly trade for a $180 underground sea. Please PM me for details.
I just... what. I didn't say straight across. Who the hell trades expensive cards for significantly cheaper ones? Obviously you don't know how to trade, or you would know that you need to trade cards equal in value for the cards you want. Let me break this down for you, since you don't understand:
1. You trade crap you don't want for staples that are in standard.
2. You trade these current staples for older ones.
3. ?????
4. Profit!
Eventually you can trade your way up to dual lands, fetches, forces, wastelands, etc.
Actually, I haven't committed to buying yet, I wanted to see what the general consensus was surrounding this action.
Of course if it turns out that it is illegal I would never follow through. However I have consulted people who are knowlegable in business law, copyrights, and the like.
Apparently fault only exists with the seller, and only civil action may be taken against that individual for lost potential revenue that may have been incurred on the copyright holder.
In other words, I cannot see how it is illegal to buy them.
However, I will end my forray into this topic here, as it seems to be an imprudent idea altogether to involve myself in buying from some shady backalley merchant.
I will support whoever had the idea of "making it rain" goyfs and UG seas at a PT or GP.
What will it take for rosewater and co.to take this seriously (the need to allow the player base to PLAY)
Mark Rosewater and the rest of R&D don't need convincing, they already support abolishing the reserved list. I recommend reading his Tumblr. Anyway, they have tried in the past, even sat down in a meeting with Ben Bleiweiss and other people, and the pro reserved list crowd got their way. Again.
No no no. You can solve the immediate problem in ONE SINGLE SET:
"The top 250ish most expensive cards on the secondary market, printed roughly proportionately to the prices that are currently the cheapest versions of them" set.
- Same number of cards as a normal set. And only one of them, so you can't reasonably argue it would be overwhelming at all.
- 250 cards would get you down to about $50 and up cards (remember, ordered by cheapest version of each), which alone takes out a huuuuuuuge lion's share of the juiciest targets for counterfeiting, and all of the absolute most intimidating cards for people to build the decks they want.
- No more of a printing press strain on WOTC than any other set.
Then go ahead and wait awhile, a year, whatever, and then check the prices again and do the top 250 at that point (some may be the same cards again, most will not). Repeat every year. No significant printing strain, guaranteed demand every time, not "overwhelming" to players any more than any normal set, spaced out at one a year, and soon enough everything will get down to $10-20 tops. The jankiest old cards simply never end up reprinted, and nobody cares.
By proportionate, I mean, for example imagine 7 cards with the following cheapest edition prices
A = $100
B = $80
C = $70
D = $65
E = $65
F = $62
G = $55
So A = $100 / $497 total = 20% of the cards to be printed, proportionally.
G = $55 / $497 = 11%.
So packs would have about twice as many on average of A as of G, etc.
Oh really? Well in that case I have a $17 thoughtseize for you that I wouljd galdly trade for a $180 underground sea. Please PM me for details.
Do you remember last year? They printed a crowd pleaser set: modern masters.
They didn't print enough
No one sold it for msrp
They raised the msrp from the price packs normally sell for thus also keeping prices high
Walmart and target never were shipped this product.
A lot of this is intentional. Its a racket. A collusive agreement between wotc and its various distributors that they condone this. How can you not see that SCG and Channel Fireball are THE BIGGEST 'speculators' . You guys think about it like its some rich guy who wants to buy more money. I have been in channel fireball's game centrer many times. They have packs of REVISED right there on the shelf just like they have for the past 21 years (though the shop wasn't always called channel fireball or had the same location)
Do you remember last year? They printed a crowd pleaser set: modern masters.
They didn't print enough
No one sold it for msrp
They raised the msrp from the price packs normally sell for thus also keeping prices high
Walmart and target never were shipped this product.
A lot of this is intentional. Its a racket. A collusive agreement between wotc and its various distributors that they condone this. How can you not see that SCG and Channel Fireball are THE BIGGEST 'speculators' . You guys think about it like its some rich guy who wants to buy more money. I have been in channel fireball's game centrer many times. They have packs of REVISED right there on the shelf just like they have for the past 21 years (though the shop wasn't always called channel fireball or had the same location)
Do you have proof of this collusion? Because if you don't then you are liable for libel.
I just... what. I didn't say straight across. Who the hell trades expensive cards for significantly cheaper ones? Obviously you don't know how to trade, or you would know that you need to trade cards equal in value for the cards you want. Let me break this down for you, since you don't understand:
1. You trade crap you don't want for staples that are in standard.
2. You trade these current staples for older ones.
3. ?????
4. Profit!
Eventually you can trade your way up to dual lands, fetches, forces, wastelands, etc.
Oh so your plan is for me to run all around the state finding the exact right people and trading them up $1 at a time (good luck doing much more than that with smartphones and TCG/SCG) 163 times, to get my underground sea?
In the meantime I've spent 40 hours of my time, making $4 an hour and spending $5 an hour on gas...
Yeah man, that's a solid plan right there. Thanks for the tip. I don't know how anybody could POSSIBLY be concerned about expensive cards when there are options like this available (nevermind that also, if everybody did this, the price on undergroudn sea would simply rise by orders of magnoitude in response. Let's just ignore that fact)
Also, you don't need to be "filthy rich" to afford to play legacy. Unless you count working minimum wage as filthy rich.
Either you are a leisure class kid who has his life made and doesn't have any expenses other than MtG, or you're sharking people because you cannot buy 4x Underground Sea, 4x Tundra, 4x Scrubland, etc. On minimum wage.
If you want cards for tournaments or games at your FLGS, please continue to support and respect WotC and storeowners who are bringing you organized play!
They aren't supporting us, they are allowing cards to go from $12 to $35 overnight for profit, in fact Starcity themselves caused the drastic increase in fetchland prices by buying all they could in late '12 before drastically increasing their price in Jan '13. That's not supply and demand, that's dancing in the tight rope between market cornering and white collar crime.
I am in the middle of a few things right now so I can't take the time to find the quote (so take this as what you will), but I recall reading on MaRo's tumblr that Dragon's Maze was well liked in general according to their market research.
Sure that's why most LGS have boxes and boxes of DGM on clearance and people aren't buying packs even at $2.50.
No company will ever admit a marketing mistake unless they receive massive public backlash, specially not when they have already sold those booster boxes to LGS' all around the glove, what do they care if that's permanently lagged stock that will be utterly unsellable once Voice and Blood Baron are out of standard?
Oh really? Well in that case I have a $17 thoughtseize for you that I wouljd galdly trade for a $180 underground sea. Please PM me for details.
Drop it man, it's obvious we're the only ones here not emotionally or economically invested in the status quo continuing. These people don't care if the game dies because of unsustainable commerce practices, all they care about is bragging how THEY can afford dual lands and we can not. They don't want filthy casuals ruining their precious cardboard investment.
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Do you have ANY evidence for this, because ALL of the numbers for 2012-13 were decidedly increased from previous, including Modern (the format everyone seems to think people are not playing).
Yea, they did that with Chronicles. I remember when wizards started printing more sets per year and it hurt sales, because there is a finite amount of money that people are willing to pay to play the game. More cards being printed as reprints would take away from sales of blocks, and just spread out that money over a larger stock. For wizards it means more development, printing, packaging, and distribution costs for little if any increase in revenue.
MaRo has explained multiple times why a game that is made to appeal to so many different kinds of players who use the cards in different ways has to contain cards that some players think are "bad". Several articles, from a person that has been a part of the most successful western TCG ever. You can ignore it or think he is a brainless tosser if you want, but what he has that you don't is evidence of success in designing, developing, and sustaining a complex and hugely popular game.
Again...evidence?
You don't like Limited, I don't like Limited, but there are a ton of people who only MTG in order to play Limited.
Buying a counterfeit product is contributing to copyright infringement and is quite illegal. I imagine that there would be additional issue about importing counterfeit items in bulk as it would be easy to prove intent to distribute.
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
You are inexperienced in the actual metagame of Legacy, you are also pretty hypocritical: "I can afford to binge sell/trade stuff, so there's no problem, everyone can play legacy with no effort". Sure.
You can easily make more sets with the quality of Lorwyn, Rise of the Eldrazi, Theros, Modern Masters, and none at all of Worldwake or Dragon's Maze quality ever again, without destroying the game.
Also, the rotative nature of standard allows for powerful cards to be revisited constantly and the format to stay strong thru powerful commons and uncommons without the need for power creep or staleness. In fact let's power down: print three semi-functional reprints of remand (say, you cantrip until your next upkeep) along the next five years. Remand stays one of the most powerful removals ever printed but now never players have a sensible second option if they don't own and can't afford Remand. Do the same for dual lands (etbt if they're not the first land you play this turn?), Wasteland (etbt?) and other cards so that if you so behemently refuse to reprint eternal staples, newer players can play versions of the top decks very close in power, yet the collectors don't loose their precious "investment".
What will your precious dual lands be worth when WotC stops being profitable because only the 1% can pay for the game and Hasbro shuts them down?
The fact that Modern Masters was so attractive to people other than limited players didn't stop anyone from playing limited. Whomever could did draft it.
I cannot follow your logic as to why having new sets being more like MM than like DGM would kill limited when it's ****ing prooven that a greater ammount of common and uncommon staples increases the interest in Limited play.
GP Washington set a record for USA territory Legacy tournaments with 1700 players. That's as exiting for a Legacy enthusiast as it is sad and infuriating knowking GP Vegas had 4500 people playing.
Legacy wants more players, those players need more cards. Print the ****ing cards already WotC! $
Yes you've made it pretty clear by now that you're a shark who enjoys ripping people off value and want the game to continue on it's tracks as long as you can keep trading standard trash for "investments".
What does it matter if the game goes to hell as long as you make a profit, right?
The proof is having a set of eyeballs and ears and a shred of common sense.
No product in the world is bought in a perfectly even distribution across the population, lol? Rich people will fill up their playsets of 4, and poorer people will have zero. It's just obvious.
And since they have the highest price of any card, there must be the most unfilled slots of desired cards amongst players out of any of the collection.
We can clearly infer that most people don't own any.
Do I have signed affidavits from 51% of magic players? No. If that's what you require to accept obvious realities, then okay, don't accept it. I can live with your non-acceptance.
1) Chronicles explicitly avoided all of the most valuable cards at the time, which guaranteed its failure to address the issue we are discussing here. Those are the cards that need the MOST reprinting. By doing the opposite, you actually exacerbate the problem by making the non-reprinted ones even more valuable and competitive decks even more exclusive, since people join the legacy formats for the cheapo reprints but still can't get the best cards they need to have a fair fight.
2) The reason they apologized for chronicles was from negative reactions from speculators and "investors" who wanted guaranteed monopolies instead of actual investments. I'm not aware of any normal players that were upset by this set who care mainly about playing the game.
WOTC made a choice: to care more about hoarders than about people actually playing their game. The only reason they didn't like chronicles is because it is in favor of players, not hoarders.
That choice is inevitably going to bite them in the ***, because sooner or later, counterfeiters will undersell them. And the result is that the "collectors" are screwed anyway, and so are the players.
It's either inevitable Lose-Lose if they never reprint.
Or it's Win-Lose if they do reprint.
That wasn't what I meant. I was just against the idea of removing rarity completely in all forms. I'd love to see more common and uncommon staples, but unfortunately, because of New World Order (Yes, this is a case where it actually applies. Commons being less complex means that they can't do the cool things that make cards playable), that can't happen now. I do not want more sets like DGM, and more sets like MM would be great.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
lol what? Where did you get that I shark people? I'm clearly arguing against a brick wall. Also even if you have a minimum wage job, you can afford dual lands.
Obvious to only you. I don't know how you can infer that most players don't have a single staple. I've been poor for a few years and had staples. There are also kids at my LGS who own a few staples.
Again this all comes down to you going with your untrained, untested theories about how an international multi-million dollar franchise should be managed and developed, and WotC basing their decisions on advice from experienced people and actual market research.
Easy? You think designing, developing, and managing this game is easy? You also think it is realistic to never miss? You also continue to fail to understand that there were significant numbers of people that enjoyed WW and DM, despite a vocal minority of people online who may have complained about them. Not every card or set is for you.
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
Let's see, from the cards I see in your lists, you have:
Gitaxian Probe
Ensnaring Bridge
Pithing Needle
Grafdigger's Cage
Surgical Extraction
Seems to me that you own some staples.
You know that he didn't mean commons and cheap rares.
While I agree that it isn't easy to make the game, why do you assume that it was just a vocal minority online that complained about Dragon's Maze? It seems like whenever someone disagrees with someone on this forum, they say that they are just part of a vocal minority and that most people agree with them. Do you have any evidence for Dragon's Maze being well-liked?
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Most players haven't even been in the game for "years." The game is supposedly expanding at about 30% a year, which means it's doubling every 3, which means more than half of players are new as of 2011.
Somebody who has been playing forever and hanging onto staples forever--perhaps from when they were affordable--is not really a relevant statistic to worry about when talking about simply "most of players." MOST players have never seen a price for legacy staples under hundreds of dollars, since they've joined. And they've been around nowhere near long enough to have built up a desire to pay that much, unless they're filthy rich.
No actually they have almost no experience, because they've been specifically avoiding ever doing what I'm saying, to please collectors. Chronicles was about as close as it got, and even then they avoided the most important part. And since then they promised to never do it. So they have virtually zero experience with what would happen. All they know about is people's interest in reprinted crappier cards that aren't in the most demand.
And even then, since those days when they even reprinted any significant number of lame cards, the stakes have risen exponentially, such that the past experience can barely said to even be relevant anymore.
People don't need to "keep up with" legacy staples. They've known about and wanted them forever. That doesn't make any sense. You reprint dual lands, and expect people to go "derrr.... what's a dual land? I don't understand! I CAN'T KEEP UP WITH THIS INFORMATION!" Wut?
A card doesn't have to be expensive to be a staple.
Unfortunately for you they keep printing staples every set. We just had Snapcaster Mage, Griselbrand, Abrupt Decay, Deathrite Shaman, Mutavault and Thoughtseize. Also, you don't need to be "filthy rich" to afford to play legacy. Unless you count working minimum wage as filthy rich.
Counterfitters gernally get pennies on the dollar. If every card was $10-$15 it wouldn't be worth the counterfitters time to invest in the reverse engineering, equipment ect... to figure out how to make good fakes.
Stats About Mythics
-Mythics are on average 40% rarer than pre-mythic rares
(old blocks about 200 rares, Mythic blocks 35+ mythics)
-They are printing more new cards a year not less
(about 665 now vs. 630 in most pre-mythic block)
-To drop the value of a rare by $1 a mythic must go up $2
-In a 3 year time span deck prices doubled.
I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
I don't think Lorwyn block's failure was that too many products were competing for players' limited Magic budgets; nowadays they print as many sets a year on a regular basis because core sets are yearly, plus supplementary products like FTV, Duel Decks, MM, and Commander. The Lorwyn block structure caused Limited to rotate too quickly and added too many cards and mechanics to T2. Reprint products don't cause either of those issues.
Meanwhile, on the main topic: I can't seriously believe that so many people here are in favor of counterfeit cards. If you want cards for tournaments or games at your FLGS, please continue to support and respect WotC and storeowners who are bringing you organized play! And if you want cards for home use, you have Gatherer and sharpies.
Um, think about that for a second. They reprint like 2 card a set, and then they add 250ish non-reprints in each non-core set.
Which means that the number of cards that will never be reprinted ever is currently increasing by hundreds every year. Even the number of top tier staples is probably increasing at those rates.
Math is fun!
It was a cited reason. Now the player base has slowly evolved to this new equilibrium of sets per year, but what Crimeo is suggesting would massively surpass that.
No, they have experience managing the most successful western card game ever. That is valuable experience that deserves to be respected and to a reasonable extent trusted. You have nothing.
Keep up refers to being able to actually buy the new product that is being released. Again, there is a finite amount of money that players are willing to pay in a given period of time and shoving more cards at them does not change that, it dilutes it and gives players a sense that cards and sets are being released too quickly for them to acquire.
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
But people can easily acquire these cards and trade them for other staples.
I can see where they're coming from, but I think it's a bit shortsighted. I don't support these counterfeits, but I do think that Wizards should reevaluate their policies and practices as a result of them. Altering or eliminating the reserve list, for instance, or printing additional products that make otherwise expensive cards available to people at a more affordable cost. Maybe even adding rules for limited proxy use in Eternal formats as a way to support them (such as formalizing an X-proxy rule with guidelines as to what constitutes legal proxies). As someone said earlier in this thread, the counterfeits are a symptom rather than the problem itself. Therefore, addressing the reasons these counterfeits exist and offering people reasonable alternatives to them is better than going after the counterfeiters directly.
Actually, I haven't committed to buying yet, I wanted to see what the general consensus was surrounding this action.
Of course if it turns out that it is illegal I would never follow through. However I have consulted people who are knowlegable in business law, copyrights, and the like.
Apparently fault only exists with the seller, and only civil action may be taken against that individual for lost potential revenue that may have been incurred on the copyright holder.
In other words, I cannot see how it is illegal to buy them.
However, I will end my forray into this topic here, as it seems to be an imprudent idea altogether to involve myself in buying from some shady backalley merchant.
I will support whoever had the idea of "making it rain" goyfs and UG seas at a PT or GP.
What will it take for rosewater and co.to take this seriously (the need to allow the player base to PLAY)
Mimeoplasm, reanimator
Phelddagrif, superfriend/hugs
Edric, counter-target-player
Child of alara, Gods/Lands-Control
Titania, Timmy-combo
-Tiny Leaders-
Geist <under construction>
-Standard-
Esper Control
No no no. You can solve the immediate problem in ONE SINGLE SET:
"The top 250ish most expensive cards on the secondary market, printed roughly proportionately to the prices that are currently the cheapest versions of them" set.
- Same number of cards as a normal set. And only one of them, so you can't reasonably argue it would be overwhelming at all.
- 250 cards would get you down to about $50 and up cards (remember, ordered by cheapest version of each), which alone takes out a huuuuuuuge lion's share of the juiciest targets for counterfeiting, and all of the absolute most intimidating cards for people to build the decks they want.
- No more of a printing press strain on WOTC than any other set.
Then go ahead and wait awhile, a year, whatever, and then check the prices again and do the top 250 at that point (some may be the same cards again, most will not). Repeat every year. No significant printing strain, guaranteed demand every time, not "overwhelming" to players any more than any normal set, spaced out at one a year, and soon enough everything will get down to $10-20 tops. The jankiest old cards simply never end up reprinted, and nobody cares.
By proportionate, I mean, for example imagine 7 cards with the following cheapest edition prices
A = $100
B = $80
C = $70
D = $65
E = $65
F = $62
G = $55
So A = $100 / $497 total = 20% of the cards to be printed, proportionally.
G = $55 / $497 = 11%.
So packs would have about twice as many on average of A as of G, etc.
Packs of course can be sold for much more than a normal pack! But much less than the average cost from amongst those 250 cards. Average cost of 15 of those cards might be $1000, but they sell for I dunno maybe $40-50 for the first time around, per pack. next year, the average secondary market price would be lower, and they can appropriately lwoer the pack price a bit, etc.
Oh really? Well in that case I have a $17 thoughtseize for you that I wouljd galdly trade for a $180 underground sea. Please PM me for details.
I just... what. I didn't say straight across. Who the hell trades expensive cards for significantly cheaper ones? Obviously you don't know how to trade, or you would know that you need to trade cards equal in value for the cards you want. Let me break this down for you, since you don't understand:
1. You trade crap you don't want for staples that are in standard.
2. You trade these current staples for older ones.
3. ?????
4. Profit!
Eventually you can trade your way up to dual lands, fetches, forces, wastelands, etc.
Mark Rosewater and the rest of R&D don't need convincing, they already support abolishing the reserved list. I recommend reading his Tumblr. Anyway, they have tried in the past, even sat down in a meeting with Ben Bleiweiss and other people, and the pro reserved list crowd got their way. Again.
Do you remember last year? They printed a crowd pleaser set: modern masters.
They didn't print enough
No one sold it for msrp
They raised the msrp from the price packs normally sell for thus also keeping prices high
Walmart and target never were shipped this product.
A lot of this is intentional. Its a racket. A collusive agreement between wotc and its various distributors that they condone this. How can you not see that SCG and Channel Fireball are THE BIGGEST 'speculators' . You guys think about it like its some rich guy who wants to buy more money. I have been in channel fireball's game centrer many times. They have packs of REVISED right there on the shelf just like they have for the past 21 years (though the shop wasn't always called channel fireball or had the same location)
Mimeoplasm, reanimator
Phelddagrif, superfriend/hugs
Edric, counter-target-player
Child of alara, Gods/Lands-Control
Titania, Timmy-combo
-Tiny Leaders-
Geist <under construction>
-Standard-
Esper Control
Do you have proof of this collusion? Because if you don't then you are liable for libel.
Oh so your plan is for me to run all around the state finding the exact right people and trading them up $1 at a time (good luck doing much more than that with smartphones and TCG/SCG) 163 times, to get my underground sea?
In the meantime I've spent 40 hours of my time, making $4 an hour and spending $5 an hour on gas...
Yeah man, that's a solid plan right there. Thanks for the tip. I don't know how anybody could POSSIBLY be concerned about expensive cards when there are options like this available (nevermind that also, if everybody did this, the price on undergroudn sea would simply rise by orders of magnoitude in response. Let's just ignore that fact)
Either you are a leisure class kid who has his life made and doesn't have any expenses other than MtG, or you're sharking people because you cannot buy 4x Underground Sea, 4x Tundra, 4x Scrubland, etc. On minimum wage.
They aren't supporting us, they are allowing cards to go from $12 to $35 overnight for profit, in fact Starcity themselves caused the drastic increase in fetchland prices by buying all they could in late '12 before drastically increasing their price in Jan '13. That's not supply and demand, that's dancing in the tight rope between market cornering and white collar crime.
Sure that's why most LGS have boxes and boxes of DGM on clearance and people aren't buying packs even at $2.50.
No company will ever admit a marketing mistake unless they receive massive public backlash, specially not when they have already sold those booster boxes to LGS' all around the glove, what do they care if that's permanently lagged stock that will be utterly unsellable once Voice and Blood Baron are out of standard?
Drop it man, it's obvious we're the only ones here not emotionally or economically invested in the status quo continuing. These people don't care if the game dies because of unsustainable commerce practices, all they care about is bragging how THEY can afford dual lands and we can not. They don't want filthy casuals ruining their precious cardboard investment.