does the distributor also jack up the price on a wwk box? i was under the impression that manfacturer to distributor and distributor to retail they make a flat rate base off the quantity sold.
Aside from that a box going for 200 bucks sounds like greed gone rampant. Especially while it is still in print.
For the customer they paid for the chance to open i guess a jace 2.0, but then again paying 200 a box doesn't guarantee that a buyer will definitely get one. Should wizard consider it bad practice that wwk boxes were able to get to 200 a box?
Its not like now that they ban the 2 cards, wwk boxes suddenly no longer have printed jaces or stonesforges in them.
Worldwake was OOP'd by wizards officially back in August of last year. If wizards had a few boxes to toss around now, its because they must have kept some aside to save for a special final-offer sort of thing for the set. Since the beginning of this year, none of our distributors (and we go through quite a few for our various products) had any. The boxes are going for $200+ on ebay because there are so few left out there in actual sealed box form. Even with a jace and stoneforge ban, its unlikely the box prices are going to dip much, due simply to the supply/demand issue with the sealed boxes. The supply is so low, that even low demand will be enough to keep the boxes high.
Once a set is OOP'd the price then is 100% set by the secondary market.
As far as the topic of the thread more specifically, wizards allready stated that they were looking very closely at possibly banning Jace depending on how things looked after new phyrexia came out. Since nothing significant changed, honestly it shouldnt have surprised that many people that at least Jace got banned. Stoneforge, as they themselves said, was one they didnt want to ban, but in the end felt comfortable enough providing the exception to the ban to where they could ban stoneforge and not shoot themselves/the shop owners in the foot due to the new phyrexia event decks having come out fairly recently.
In the end, this decision was the best move they could have made as its going to do a lot to free up options for this summer and the ptq season for standard that now wont have two over-powered cards dominating the format. And in general, the response from the playerbase has been good, people who were taking time off are now looking at getting back in.
They didn't cheat buyers. The banning only serves one format. You can always play another format, or ignore whatever B&R lists that exists and play casual.
If Wizards knew in advance that they would be banning these cards, then it is very much a case of bad business ethics. In the case of the Event Deck, it might even be illegal (which I'm sure it borders on, hence the "exception" Wizards has made in regards to the Event Deck in Standard). It has to do with the value of the product or good(s).
There's been talk about banning Jace and Stoneforge for a while now. If a retailer wanted to roll the dice and gamble that those cards weren't going to get banned, then he got burned. But it's okay, there are still Jaces and Stoneforges in those packs!
I think what we are arguing though is if its fair to let retailers roll the dice, when the house knows the dice are loaded?
If Wizards knew these bans were coming, then they knowingly sold product to a consumer who believed the value of said product was greater than they knew it to be.
Sealed boxes of worldwake won't drop enormously because of the banning. They probably wouldn't even drop at all since the set was out of print so quickly. The eternal value of jace and stoneforge will bring box EV back up to those numbers in years to come anyway. Stores won't be crying about having to leave a box of worldwake in the back. They're already cutting their losses by selling out of commander precons and the millions of other products flying off the shelves this summer.
Besides, WotC doesn't decide the price of the cards. It's the secondary market. Let's say WotC releases a precon deck that contains all the cards in the current top tier deck, and shortly after that someone comes up with a better deck and the cards in the WotC's precon become worthless. Would this be WotC's fault and illegal?
While they don't influence the secondary market directly, they still can print more and less powerful cards. I still think WotC knows what which card will be worth at any given point of time.
I am kind of curious as to how long a print is for a set, i assumed it would also continue to be printed until that set is no longer in standard. When I hear a box is out the owners generally says come back in a week/month and they will get another batch. I always thought that was another new print.
It would be bad business ethics if wizards told lgs about the ban ahead of time first and allowed the store owners to screw the players. This is fair game. Wizards needs to ensure their game is played. If the LGS are reporting that attendance is down, and can say its the because of cawblade then the LGS know already what can come out of reporting that. Unlike the audience that are always in speculation.
While they don't influence the secondary market directly, they still can print more and less powerful cards. I still think WotC knows what which card will be worth at any given point of time.
No .... no they dont.... They might be able to see what cards look to be good in the future before we will, but they wont know what people are going to be willing to pay for them. The price people are willing to pay for singles are set solely by the secondary market. The only affect wizards can have on that, is what rarity the card is (thus supply) and how long they continue to keep the set in-print (also supply). Beyond that its 100% up to the consumers what we are willing to pay for the cards.
EDIT: Wizards tends to run under a 6-month print-run cycle for each set. They will do on very large print run to start off with a new set, then continue to print additional print runs to meet demand up to the end of that 6-month cycle. Once that 6-month period is met/exceeded, when wizards runs out, they will usually do one final print run, and then that will be the end of it. Once that final print run, runs out, then the set is officially OOP. In the case of Worldwake, they did a much better job (after m10 and zendikar blew up their sales estimates) on making sure they had plenty available so they didnt risk another shortage. Worldwake was reasonably popular to start, but not nearly the same as m10/zen was, and their first and second print runs lasted quite a while. In the end, as Jace continued to increase in popularity and continued to increase in value, demand for the set continued to rise. Normally a set's highest demand is going to be at the beginning and then gradually decrease over time so those final print runs will tend to last a while. In the case of worldwake, the demand was good to start, then dipped down, and then shot up rapidly right at the end of that 6-month print cycle. In the end, the instant wizards printed that last print-run, it was allready sold out, and that was the end of it. I know in August of last year, when we put in an order with wizards for 2 cases of worldwake (from the final run) that our rep seemed to think we should be able to get easily enough, we were informed of the huge demand everywhere and were only able to get 2 BOXES instead of 2 cases. Luckily I had the owner immediately call our main distributor and put in an order for 2 cases of it at the premium they had them at, and we managed to have enough to last, even as the prices of the sealed boxes/packs continued to skyrocket on the secondary market with there being little supply remaining to be had.
No .... no they dont.... They might be able to see what cards look to be good in the future before we will, but they wont know what people are going to be willing to pay for them. The price people are willing to pay for singles are set solely by the secondary market. The only affect wizards can have on that, is what rarity the card is (thus supply) and how long they continue to keep the set in-print (also supply). Beyond that its 100% up to the consumers what we are willing to pay for the cards.
EDIT: Wizards tends to run under a 6-month print-run cycle for each set. They will do on very large print run to start off with a new set, then continue to print additional print runs to meet demand up to the end of that 6-month cycle. Once that 6-month period is met/exceeded, when wizards runs out, they will usually do one final print run, and then that will be the end of it. Once that final print run, runs out, then the set is officially OOP. In the case of Worldwake, they did a much better job (after m10 and zendikar blew up their sales estimates) on making sure they had plenty available so they didnt risk another shortage. Worldwake was reasonably popular to start, but not nearly the same as m10/zen was, and their first and second print runs lasted quite a while. In the end, as Jace continued to increase in popularity and continued to increase in value, demand for the set continued to rise. Normally a set's highest demand is going to be at the beginning and then gradually decrease over time so those final print runs will tend to last a while. In the case of worldwake, the demand was good to start, then dipped down, and then shot up rapidly right at the end of that 6-month print cycle. In the end, the instant wizards printed that last print-run, it was allready sold out, and that was the end of it. I know in August of last year, when we put in an order with wizards for 2 cases of worldwake (from the final run) that our rep seemed to think we should be able to get easily enough, we were informed of the huge demand everywhere and were only able to get 2 BOXES instead of 2 cases. Luckily I had the owner immediately call our main distributor and put in an order for 2 cases of it at the premium they had them at, and we managed to have enough to last, even as the prices of the sealed boxes/packs continued to skyrocket on the secondary market with there being little supply remaining to be had.
One of the biggest problems with Worldwake was actually Rise of the Eldrazi. By making RoE a large set with its own exclusive limited format, a LOT less WWK got opened via drafts and sealed events. There is an article somewhere on the mothership that discusses this particular issue and how keenly aware they are that RoE as a standalone set was a mistake for the entire block.
It's no ones fault but the buyer, and it's not even a big deal. For example, SCG stopped buying Jace's and SFM a week or two before the bannings. They didn't know if they would or would not ban it, but they knew when it would happend and they decided not to take the risk.
On top of this, the Stores still bought the boxes at very cheap prices, and they still contain Jace and SFM. These cards are Modern, Extended, Legacy and in Jace's Case, still playable. The prices won't tank. Jace won't drop past 50.
So if the consumer wasn't aware of the fact that a banning announcement was going to come shortly after the product was released and some cards in the product were obviously too powerful for a format, it's WotC's fault and illegal?
I don't think so.
That wasn't my argument. That was a straw man argument on your part.
Keep in mind that I'm not talking about WotC releasing a product to consumers that, given unforseen changes in the marketplace or tournament scene, said product could end up fluctuating in price or having cards banned from it some months down the road. No, that's not what I'm talking about at all.
Did WotC knowingly sell a product (Event Deck) that they knew in advance would be worth less in value than advertised shortly after it was released? If the answer is yes, than it could be construed as deceptive advertising/marketing under the FTC.
"Under the law, claims in advertisements must be truthful, cannot be deceptive or unfair, and must be evidence-based. For some specialized products or services, additional rules may apply." -- Bureau of Consumer Protection, FTC.Gov
Even if you go look at WotC's page on the "War of Attrition" Event Deck it still currently states that it is designed for tournament play, and "Tailoring the deck involves balancing personal preferences and responding to what your opponents are playing."
We all know now that last sentence to be untrue. You cannot tweak this deck at all if you plan on using it in tournament play. Again, did WotC know this in advance of releasing the product? Did consumers buy the deck thinking they could tweak it like any other tournament deck, when WotC knew they in fact could not? Even if they were undecided on the bans, why didn't they just wait another ten days before releasing these decks?
That's my argument.
Now to clear up my position somewhat, I want to state that I do not own any copies of the banned cards. I am/was in favor of the bans. I did not purchase an event deck. Although I did consider it, but decided it would be smarter to wait and see if the banhammer dropped.
That wasn't my argument. That was a straw man argument on your part.
Keep in mind that I'm not talking about WotC releasing a product to consumers that, given unforseen changes in the marketplace or tournament scene, said product could end up fluctuating in price or having cards banned from it some months down the road. No, that's not what I'm talking about at all.
Did WotC knowingly sell a product (Event Deck) that they knew in advance would be worth less in value than advertised shortly after it was released? If the answer is yes, than it could be construed as deceptive advertising/marketing under the FTC.
"Under the law, claims in advertisements must be truthful, cannot be deceptive or unfair, and must be evidence-based. For some specialized products or services, additional rules may apply." -- Bureau of Consumer Protection, FTC.Gov
Even if you go look at WotC's page on the "War of Attrition" Event Deck it still currently states that it is designed for tournament play, and "Tailoring the deck involves balancing personal preferences and responding to what your opponents are playing."
We all know now that last sentence to be untrue. You cannot tweak this deck at all if you plan on using it in tournament play.
This isn't even remotely true. You can tweak the deck plenty. You just have to take the Mystics out as one of those tweaks.
Then have him eat Nicol Bolas and the Magic universe can be awesome again. He takes over the Infinite Consortium and turns it into a trans-multiverse Izzet League. His agents scour the multiverse in Venser's planeships looking for magic to learn, technology to improve upon, and less intelligent people to condescend to.
This isn't even remotely true. You can tweak the deck plenty. You just have to take the Mystics out as one of those tweaks.
That honestly wasn't the point I was trying to make. I'm not sure if I'm not providing the right explanation, or if you are purposely skirting around the topic at hand.
Forget the legalities part of it altogether, and let's just focus on the original question posed by the OP. Was this bad business ethics on the part of WotC?
Dictionary.Com defines Business Ethics as "the study and examination of moral and social responsibility in relation to business practices and decision-making in business."
If WotC knew in advance that they were about to make an announcement that would impact both the financial value and function of a product, is it ethical for them to go ahead and sell the product without disclosing that information? If I'm a consumer impacted by that announcement, would I consider WotC with holding that information from me to be in bad faith? Would I have reconsidered purchasing that product had this information been known to me? Will I have concerns about purchasing products from them in the future?
We're talking a philosophical point of view. In your opinion, was what Wizards did morally right or wrong in terms of conducting business? That is again presuming they knew the bans were coming in advance.
Ok, getting back to the Event Deck again real quick. It has been a little over 72 hours since the bans were first announced. The official product page for the New Phyrexia Event Decks still make no mention of one of the included cards being banned, nor does it mention that in order to play the "War of Attrition" deck in a tournament a unique set of rules must be followed. They still aren't provided all the information necessary for a customer to make an informed decision of whether or not to purchase the deck. And this is 3 days after the fact!
The possibility of Jace being banned wasn't exactly a secret. I mean, right around the release of New Phyrexia, they were talking about it, saying "we're not going to do anything right now, because we think there might be answers". There weren't and the attendence of events and such continued to dwindle, so their hand was forced.
But, everyone who bothered to keep up with the info new that it was in the air, and that keeping a hold on Jaces and Mystics was going to basically be a gamble at this point... you'll either get your value or lose it... but if you wanted to be safe, you'd sell/trade into other stuff, and then rebuy for whatever value they lost after rotation.
Tawnos, Wizards wasn't asking for super-normal profit on that last run of boxes, they were just asking the same price as they were when the first box rolled off the line. I see no eithical issue here, even if there's knowledge that a change might be made that financially impacts the secondary market value of those cards. To Wizards, it's still always just going to be MSRP.
All of the bad ethics and greed falls to the players and distributors.
If WotC knew in advance that they were about to make an announcement that would impact both the financial value and function of a product, is it ethical for them to go ahead and sell the product without disclosing that information? If I'm a consumer impacted by that announcement, would I consider WotC with holding that information from me to be in bad faith? Would I have reconsidered purchasing that product had this information been known to me? Will I have concerns about purchasing products from them in the future?
Right there is the whole problem with your argument. In reality, the value and function of this product has not been affected at all. People can still buy this deck for $19.99, open it, and play with the cards in it. Your reasoning assumes that the actual value of a product is in line with your perceived value of the product; you are quite literally living in a fantasy world.
The fact of the matter is that the T2 bannings only matter to a fraction of WoTC's customer base, that being T2 players who bought the Event Deck as a means of acquiring Stoneforge Mystics for competitive play. Plenty of Extended, Legacy, Vintage, or EDH players were able to buy and use this product without issue. Casual players as well.
Are you really saying that WoTC should have yanked the product because a portion of the population of a single competitive format might be affected by the bannings?
Whether you believe it or not, T2 is not the only format, and most players are NOT competitive. Most players can still purchase the Event deck, and will still receive considerable value from it. That's the reality. WoTC has no control over the secondary market, and it certainly has no control over an individual's perceived value of a product.
TL;DR - you seem butthurt to the point of delusion.
Making a decision that is the correct one, but that would negatively affect your sales or reputation, isn't bad business ethics. It's good business ethics. This was not a decision that's going to make them money, or earn them a lot of goodwill, but it was the right thing to do. I'll take that company over a sleazy company that tried to hide their mistake and cover up their problems.
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Retrodrome!
Hoi, hoi, u embleer hrair
M'saion ulé hraka vair.
Are you really saying that WoTC should have yanked the product because a portion of the population of a single competitive format might be affected by the bannings?
TL;DR - you seem butthurt to the point of delusion.
You didn't need to throw the insults in. Your point would or would not have been made just as easily without them.
I'm not saying Wizards should have yanked the product altogether. Just that if they knew a banning was about to be announced, they could have delayed shipping the product, or at least thrown a sticker onto each case or something. Really, would that be too much to ask?
And I'm not "butthurt" about anything here. I don't own any of these cards, and probably never will. I didn't lose money or suffer an inconvenience because of this. Its just a simple conversation about what all of us consider to be the right or wrong way to handle the situation
I'm not saying Wizards should have yanked the product altogether.
In which case we would have gotten a different thread -- "Wizards fails to deliver product on time; bad business ethics!" Not to mention the potential legal problems of failing to uphold a contract with the various retailers for failing to deliver on time, or the problems and costs involved cause by delaying shipping.
Really, would that be too much to ask?
Yes.
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"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
In which case we would have gotten a different thread -- "Wizards fails to deliver product on time; bad business ethics!" Not to mention the potential legal problems of failing to uphold a contract with the various retailers for failing to deliver on time, or the problems and costs involved cause by delaying shipping.
Yes.
All Wizards would have to do is release a statement of why they put a hold on product and we would see threads like "wow they did something that hurt sales on a product to protect people from spending money on something they cant use in a few weeks". I don't think there would be many retailers who would over complain cuz Wizards did not want to leave them with a bunch of product they cant move.
All Wizards would have to do is release a statement of why they put a hold on product and we would see threads like "wow they did something that hurt sales on a product to protect people from spending money on something they cant use in a few weeks". I don't think there would be many retailers who would over complain cuz Wizards did not want to leave them with a bunch of product they cant move.
Considering that the past proves that when wizards makes a move in one direction, people complain, and when they make a move in the opposite direction, people complain, that argument doesn't stand up.
People complain when Jace was printed.
People complain when jace was banned.
People complain that Caw was stronger than affinity.
People complain when caw's centerpiece was banned, because it would make the meta even less interactive.
So, no one would have made a "congratulations wizards, for finally pleasing some people" thread. Instead people would have done exactly what mondu suggested and in addition those actions would have been illegal, unlike what was done here.
So lets compare options:
Release event decks on the right day:
Annoyed customers making threads like this one
Release event decks post ban announcement:
Annoyed customers making threads similar to this one
well founded lawsuits
annoyed distributors, who might decrease purchases
I guess OP wants it to be 'keyworded' like "dies" was. What word would you replace ETB with though?
When Aegis Angel is born?
When Huntmaster of the Fells arrives?
When Kitchen Sphinx lands?
When Faerie Imposter busts in?
When Dread Cacodemon pops in?
When Malfegor shows up?
All Wizards would have to do is release a statement of why they put a hold on product and we would see threads like "wow they did something that hurt sales on a product to protect people from spending money on something they cant use in a few weeks". I don't think there would be many retailers who would over complain cuz Wizards did not want to leave them with a bunch of product they cant move.
People can still use the decks just fine. These decks are not made for people to buy and rip the stoneforges out of for their decks (AT ALL). These decks were meant to be a better entry point into FNM type tournament play for a newer player. These decks are still 100% playable as intended so long as they are left 100% intact. Just because the value of the cards in the deck has dropped some on the secondary market shouldnt be that big an issue. Hell, lets see, whats the current value of the contents of the deck: Even at current prices the entire contents of the deck is still worth more than $25.
Hell, lets see, whats the current value of the contents of the deck: Even at current prices the entire contents of the deck is still worth more than $25.
One of the LGS dropped the price to 19.99 each deck or buy both for 35.00 after the ban announcement.
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Aside from that a box going for 200 bucks sounds like greed gone rampant. Especially while it is still in print.
For the customer they paid for the chance to open i guess a jace 2.0, but then again paying 200 a box doesn't guarantee that a buyer will definitely get one. Should wizard consider it bad practice that wwk boxes were able to get to 200 a box?
Its not like now that they ban the 2 cards, wwk boxes suddenly no longer have printed jaces or stonesforges in them.
Once a set is OOP'd the price then is 100% set by the secondary market.
As far as the topic of the thread more specifically, wizards allready stated that they were looking very closely at possibly banning Jace depending on how things looked after new phyrexia came out. Since nothing significant changed, honestly it shouldnt have surprised that many people that at least Jace got banned. Stoneforge, as they themselves said, was one they didnt want to ban, but in the end felt comfortable enough providing the exception to the ban to where they could ban stoneforge and not shoot themselves/the shop owners in the foot due to the new phyrexia event decks having come out fairly recently.
In the end, this decision was the best move they could have made as its going to do a lot to free up options for this summer and the ptq season for standard that now wont have two over-powered cards dominating the format. And in general, the response from the playerbase has been good, people who were taking time off are now looking at getting back in.
If Wizards knew in advance that they would be banning these cards, then it is very much a case of bad business ethics. In the case of the Event Deck, it might even be illegal (which I'm sure it borders on, hence the "exception" Wizards has made in regards to the Event Deck in Standard). It has to do with the value of the product or good(s).
I think what we are arguing though is if its fair to let retailers roll the dice, when the house knows the dice are loaded?
If Wizards knew these bans were coming, then they knowingly sold product to a consumer who believed the value of said product was greater than they knew it to be.
Why?
... what?
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
While they don't influence the secondary market directly, they still can print more and less powerful cards. I still think WotC knows what which card will be worth at any given point of time.
It would be bad business ethics if wizards told lgs about the ban ahead of time first and allowed the store owners to screw the players. This is fair game. Wizards needs to ensure their game is played. If the LGS are reporting that attendance is down, and can say its the because of cawblade then the LGS know already what can come out of reporting that. Unlike the audience that are always in speculation.
No .... no they dont.... They might be able to see what cards look to be good in the future before we will, but they wont know what people are going to be willing to pay for them. The price people are willing to pay for singles are set solely by the secondary market. The only affect wizards can have on that, is what rarity the card is (thus supply) and how long they continue to keep the set in-print (also supply). Beyond that its 100% up to the consumers what we are willing to pay for the cards.
EDIT: Wizards tends to run under a 6-month print-run cycle for each set. They will do on very large print run to start off with a new set, then continue to print additional print runs to meet demand up to the end of that 6-month cycle. Once that 6-month period is met/exceeded, when wizards runs out, they will usually do one final print run, and then that will be the end of it. Once that final print run, runs out, then the set is officially OOP. In the case of Worldwake, they did a much better job (after m10 and zendikar blew up their sales estimates) on making sure they had plenty available so they didnt risk another shortage. Worldwake was reasonably popular to start, but not nearly the same as m10/zen was, and their first and second print runs lasted quite a while. In the end, as Jace continued to increase in popularity and continued to increase in value, demand for the set continued to rise. Normally a set's highest demand is going to be at the beginning and then gradually decrease over time so those final print runs will tend to last a while. In the case of worldwake, the demand was good to start, then dipped down, and then shot up rapidly right at the end of that 6-month print cycle. In the end, the instant wizards printed that last print-run, it was allready sold out, and that was the end of it. I know in August of last year, when we put in an order with wizards for 2 cases of worldwake (from the final run) that our rep seemed to think we should be able to get easily enough, we were informed of the huge demand everywhere and were only able to get 2 BOXES instead of 2 cases. Luckily I had the owner immediately call our main distributor and put in an order for 2 cases of it at the premium they had them at, and we managed to have enough to last, even as the prices of the sealed boxes/packs continued to skyrocket on the secondary market with there being little supply remaining to be had.
One of the biggest problems with Worldwake was actually Rise of the Eldrazi. By making RoE a large set with its own exclusive limited format, a LOT less WWK got opened via drafts and sealed events. There is an article somewhere on the mothership that discusses this particular issue and how keenly aware they are that RoE as a standalone set was a mistake for the entire block.
On top of this, the Stores still bought the boxes at very cheap prices, and they still contain Jace and SFM. These cards are Modern, Extended, Legacy and in Jace's Case, still playable. The prices won't tank. Jace won't drop past 50.
That wasn't my argument. That was a straw man argument on your part.
Keep in mind that I'm not talking about WotC releasing a product to consumers that, given unforseen changes in the marketplace or tournament scene, said product could end up fluctuating in price or having cards banned from it some months down the road. No, that's not what I'm talking about at all.
Did WotC knowingly sell a product (Event Deck) that they knew in advance would be worth less in value than advertised shortly after it was released? If the answer is yes, than it could be construed as deceptive advertising/marketing under the FTC.
"Under the law, claims in advertisements must be truthful, cannot be deceptive or unfair, and must be evidence-based. For some specialized products or services, additional rules may apply." -- Bureau of Consumer Protection, FTC.Gov
Even if you go look at WotC's page on the "War of Attrition" Event Deck it still currently states that it is designed for tournament play, and "Tailoring the deck involves balancing personal preferences and responding to what your opponents are playing."
We all know now that last sentence to be untrue. You cannot tweak this deck at all if you plan on using it in tournament play. Again, did WotC know this in advance of releasing the product? Did consumers buy the deck thinking they could tweak it like any other tournament deck, when WotC knew they in fact could not? Even if they were undecided on the bans, why didn't they just wait another ten days before releasing these decks?
That's my argument.
Now to clear up my position somewhat, I want to state that I do not own any copies of the banned cards. I am/was in favor of the bans. I did not purchase an event deck. Although I did consider it, but decided it would be smarter to wait and see if the banhammer dropped.
This isn't even remotely true. You can tweak the deck plenty. You just have to take the Mystics out as one of those tweaks.
That honestly wasn't the point I was trying to make. I'm not sure if I'm not providing the right explanation, or if you are purposely skirting around the topic at hand.
Forget the legalities part of it altogether, and let's just focus on the original question posed by the OP. Was this bad business ethics on the part of WotC?
Dictionary.Com defines Business Ethics as "the study and examination of moral and social responsibility in relation to business practices and decision-making in business."
If WotC knew in advance that they were about to make an announcement that would impact both the financial value and function of a product, is it ethical for them to go ahead and sell the product without disclosing that information? If I'm a consumer impacted by that announcement, would I consider WotC with holding that information from me to be in bad faith? Would I have reconsidered purchasing that product had this information been known to me? Will I have concerns about purchasing products from them in the future?
We're talking a philosophical point of view. In your opinion, was what Wizards did morally right or wrong in terms of conducting business? That is again presuming they knew the bans were coming in advance.
Ok, getting back to the Event Deck again real quick. It has been a little over 72 hours since the bans were first announced. The official product page for the New Phyrexia Event Decks still make no mention of one of the included cards being banned, nor does it mention that in order to play the "War of Attrition" deck in a tournament a unique set of rules must be followed. They still aren't provided all the information necessary for a customer to make an informed decision of whether or not to purchase the deck. And this is 3 days after the fact!
But, everyone who bothered to keep up with the info new that it was in the air, and that keeping a hold on Jaces and Mystics was going to basically be a gamble at this point... you'll either get your value or lose it... but if you wanted to be safe, you'd sell/trade into other stuff, and then rebuy for whatever value they lost after rotation.
Tawnos, Wizards wasn't asking for super-normal profit on that last run of boxes, they were just asking the same price as they were when the first box rolled off the line. I see no eithical issue here, even if there's knowledge that a change might be made that financially impacts the secondary market value of those cards. To Wizards, it's still always just going to be MSRP.
All of the bad ethics and greed falls to the players and distributors.
Right there is the whole problem with your argument. In reality, the value and function of this product has not been affected at all. People can still buy this deck for $19.99, open it, and play with the cards in it. Your reasoning assumes that the actual value of a product is in line with your perceived value of the product; you are quite literally living in a fantasy world.
The fact of the matter is that the T2 bannings only matter to a fraction of WoTC's customer base, that being T2 players who bought the Event Deck as a means of acquiring Stoneforge Mystics for competitive play. Plenty of Extended, Legacy, Vintage, or EDH players were able to buy and use this product without issue. Casual players as well.
Are you really saying that WoTC should have yanked the product because a portion of the population of a single competitive format might be affected by the bannings?
Whether you believe it or not, T2 is not the only format, and most players are NOT competitive. Most players can still purchase the Event deck, and will still receive considerable value from it. That's the reality. WoTC has no control over the secondary market, and it certainly has no control over an individual's perceived value of a product.
TL;DR - you seem butthurt to the point of delusion.
Hoi, hoi, u embleer hrair
M'saion ulé hraka vair.
You didn't need to throw the insults in. Your point would or would not have been made just as easily without them.
I'm not saying Wizards should have yanked the product altogether. Just that if they knew a banning was about to be announced, they could have delayed shipping the product, or at least thrown a sticker onto each case or something. Really, would that be too much to ask?
And I'm not "butthurt" about anything here. I don't own any of these cards, and probably never will. I didn't lose money or suffer an inconvenience because of this. Its just a simple conversation about what all of us consider to be the right or wrong way to handle the situation
Our attendance has never been higher during the caw blade era. Went from round 10 people to 20 sometimes 25.
Daretti
Ezuri
Captain Sisay (In work)
Yes.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
All Wizards would have to do is release a statement of why they put a hold on product and we would see threads like "wow they did something that hurt sales on a product to protect people from spending money on something they cant use in a few weeks". I don't think there would be many retailers who would over complain cuz Wizards did not want to leave them with a bunch of product they cant move.
Considering that the past proves that when wizards makes a move in one direction, people complain, and when they make a move in the opposite direction, people complain, that argument doesn't stand up.
People complain when Jace was printed.
People complain when jace was banned.
People complain that Caw was stronger than affinity.
People complain when caw's centerpiece was banned, because it would make the meta even less interactive.
So, no one would have made a "congratulations wizards, for finally pleasing some people" thread. Instead people would have done exactly what mondu suggested and in addition those actions would have been illegal, unlike what was done here.
So lets compare options:
Release event decks on the right day:
Annoyed customers making threads like this one
Release event decks post ban announcement:
Annoyed customers making threads similar to this one
well founded lawsuits
annoyed distributors, who might decrease purchases
What they did seems smart.
People can still use the decks just fine. These decks are not made for people to buy and rip the stoneforges out of for their decks (AT ALL). These decks were meant to be a better entry point into FNM type tournament play for a newer player. These decks are still 100% playable as intended so long as they are left 100% intact. Just because the value of the cards in the deck has dropped some on the secondary market shouldnt be that big an issue. Hell, lets see, whats the current value of the contents of the deck: Even at current prices the entire contents of the deck is still worth more than $25.
One of the LGS dropped the price to 19.99 each deck or buy both for 35.00 after the ban announcement.