Printing duals/Wasteland in the common slot in a standard legal environment would not only wreck standard but kill the game...
Why whould anybody buy any future product (apart from some singles)? Certain collectors would buy a set of the game but that's about it. Everybody would start to play Legacy (it's easier to maintain your decks since you only need 1 - 3 cards per year PLUS it's much more fun than Standard) and only Legacy in the competitive environment.
so causing people to have more fun would kill the game? at some point you need to just stop pretending you're using logic
so causing people to have more fun would kill the game? at some point you need to just stop pretending you're using logic
What it does is kills the collectability of older cards, make basic lands pretty much meaningless, and turns the game into a joke. It might thrive for a year or so, but that would be about it. You kill the collectable part, you eventually kill the product.
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so causing people to have more fun would kill the game? at some point you need to just stop pretending you're using logic
People who play Legacy or Vintage don't need the vast majority of cards that come out. Only a few cards per block get printed that are relevant in those formats. As such those people purchase very very little current product. The vast majority of purchases that they do make are very old product on the secondary market which Wizards makes no money from. From Wizards point of view they aren't the best customers.
People who play standard need to constantly buy current product just to play the game. If they are competitive they need lots of rares and mythic rares which stores need to open lots of boxes to supply. Wizards makes a lot of money from them.
So from Wizards point of view, every customer who switches from Standard to Legacy or Vintage is essentially a customer lost. They could make a lot of money reprinting the old staples but as soon as everyone who wants them has them there is no reason for people to buy more and they have just kick-started a format that encourages people to not buy current product. Certainly there are people who wouldn't switch over entirely and continue to play both formats but Wizards doesn't want people to have their attention split, they know that their customers only have so much money to spend. Besides, some people would really enjoy it and switch over entirely and they would lose a lot of money in the long run. Historically, they are very popular formats. They don't want their Standard players to take their eyes off of Standard for one second.
That's why they don't do it and how it would harm the game. Just to be clear, I would personally enjoy the abolition of the reserve list and reprinting of the old staples but it won't happen. It isn't in Wizards interest. They would be shooting themselves in the foot so to speak.
I don't want to speak for Markers, but that is what I understood him to mean when he said that reprinting such cards would kill the game. Also, printing many of them in Standard would be silly with how high their power-level is.
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People who play Legacy or Vintage don't need the vast majority of cards that come out. Only a few cards per block get printed that are relevant in those formats. As such those people purchase very very little current product. The vast majority of purchases that they do make are very old product on the secondary market which Wizards makes no money from. From Wizards point of view they aren't the best customers.
People who play standard need to constantly buy current product just to play the game. If they are competitive they need lots of rares and mythic rares which stores need to open lots of boxes to supply. Wizards makes a lot of money from them.
So from Wizards point of view, every customer who switches from Standard to Legacy or Vintage is essentially a customer lost. They could make a lot of money reprinting the old staples but as soon as everyone who wants them has them there is no reason for people to buy more and they have just kick-started a format that encourages people to not buy current product. Certainly there are people who wouldn't switch over entirely and continue to play both formats but Wizards doesn't want people to have their attention split, they know that their customers only have so much money to spend. Besides, some people would really enjoy it and switch over entirely and they would lose a lot of money in the long run. Historically, they are very popular formats. They don't want their Standard players to take their eyes off of Standard for one second.
That's why they don't do it and how it would harm the game. Just to be clear, I would personally enjoy the abolition of the reserve list and reprinting of the old staples but it won't happen. It isn't in Wizards interest. They would be shooting themselves in the foot so to speak.
I don't want to speak for Markers, but that is what I understood him to mean when he said that reprinting such cards would kill the game. Also, printing many of them in Standard would be silly with how high their power-level is.
Just wondering, doesn't supporting Modern have exactly the same effect, although perhaps on a slightly smaller scale? Modern players also need to buy far less new rares than Standard players.
Even if they abolish the reserve list and print more Underground Seas and so on, there aren't going to be any more ABUR duals than there are now.
But there are going to be fewer people who want ABUR duals. Sure, there's always going to be a market for the originals. But a large number of people just want to play with them, and that creates a much larger demand.
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Just wondering, doesn't supporting Modern have exactly the same effect, although perhaps on a slightly smaller scale? Modern players also need to buy far less new rares than Standard players.
Yes and no. Modern is the concession. It would be a very unpopular decision for Wizards to support no eternal formats. Some people don't like rotating formats and want something a little more stable or with a larger card palette. The big difference is that Wizards can print Modern relevant cards without breaking Standard without too much trouble. So they can keep reprinting and cashing in on Modern power-level cards from here to eternity which they can't do with Legacy/Vintage. This keeps Modern players buying current product albeit to a lesser degree. People who want an eternal format get their eternal format. People who burn out on Standard have somewhere to turn that keeps them in the game which keeps them spending at least some money on recent cards.
So, from a financial point of view Wizards wants everyone to play Standard. Since that isn't realistically going to happen, Modern is the best choice for them to support between giving players a larger card pool and forcing them to buy new cards to stay current. Extended wasn't popular enough and Legacy didn't get people to buy enough cards. Modern is the balance.
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But there are going to be fewer people who want ABUR duals.
If somebody wants an original ABUR dual, for collecting purposes, they'll want the original ABUR dual, not a reprint that obviously is not an original ABUR dual.
Collectors are WOTC biggest customers, not directly but via the fact that all cards from from them. Say you collect foil sets, and say you want a foil playest of an entire set, How many packs need to be opened in order for me to GET that foil set?
The problem is Legacy is a FUN format to play. People WANT to play it, This will drive the prices up However if the format gets no support, Over time its top cards WILL degrade in value. no tourniments people will not want to spend money on a deck they can not play. The whole reason Legacy is still alive is because of third party outside injections of tourniments. If WOTC wanted to crush legacy they would make Standard as much fun as Legacy is. Since they have not done that, the mear fact that they continue to make "watered down magic" in conjunction with these outside injections of tourniments will make legacy a force to be reconed with.
Bottom line
Demand for these things is off the charts becaues the format is FUN to play. Its not the collectability that adds value its the playability, Make a more fun cheeper format, people will flock to it, However the catch is that IT NEEDS TO BE MORE FUN than the other.
If somebody wants an original ABUR dual, for collecting purposes, they'll want the original ABUR dual, not a reprint that obviously is not an original ABUR dual.
Yes. And if someone just wants a Tundra just to play with, they would go with the reprint. This lowers the demand for the originals, and therefore the collectable value.
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Yes. And if someone just wants a Tundra just to play with, they would go with the reprint. This lowers the demand for the originals, and therefore the collectable value.
If anything, the cards that would go down in value would be the Damaged/Heavily Played Revised duals because they're the cheapest ones now.
If anything, the cards that would go down in value would be the Damaged/Heavily Played Revised duals because they're the cheapest ones now.
They would all go down in value. There being more copies of the card available means the older ones are less desirable, and therefore worth less. Ones in worse condition would drop significantly more, naturally, but they all will drop - remember that a huge reason for the price tag on a dual land is because they are the best version of what they are, and the only source of them.
Sadly, there really is no basis of comparison - as far as I can remember, there's been no power rare from that long ago that's seen a reprint. Sol Ring could be an example, but an uncommon is very different from a rare, and you can't play Sol Ring in most formats as it is.
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Btw, Modern is an Eternal format. Eternal formats were defined as such because they're non-rotating.
No, you are not correct. Eternal formats are formats who's card pool goes back to Alpha. That is why Wizards will say things like "Scavenging Ooze is only legal in Eternal Formats." That is also why it is important to know what the term means, so there is no misunderstanding when Wizards prints such a statement.
Nowhere in an official article has Wizards ever said that Modern is an Eternal Format.
Collectors are WOTC biggest customers, not directly but via the fact that all cards from from them. Say you collect foil sets, and say you want a foil playest of an entire set, How many packs need to be opened in order for me to GET that foil set?
Neither you nor I have any data to back up our statements, but that is patently absurd in my opinion. Those packs are being opened anyway to get any number of other cards that constructed players will pay for, and serious collectors who collect by buying packs are morons. I am of the opinion that 98% of all magic players primarily buy to play and or trade for cards they will play. Serious collectors are a drop in the bucket.
Sadly, there really is no basis of comparison - as far as I can remember, there's been no power rare from that long ago that's seen a reprint. Sol Ring could be an example, but an uncommon is very different from a rare, and you can't play Sol Ring in most formats as it is.
If you look back at sites like Black Lotus Project, that chart prices over time, then you will see that an Unlimited Sol Ring saw little to no impact on it's price since the printing of the Commander set- a set that flooded the marked with Sol Rings. If Wizards were to reprint ABU duals (which will never happen) there would be little to no impact on the price of the original printings.
Yes and no. Modern is the concession. It would be a very unpopular decision for Wizards to support no eternal formats. Some people don't like rotating formats and want something a little more stable or with a larger card palette. The big difference is that Wizards can print Modern relevant cards without breaking Standard without too much trouble. So they can keep reprinting and cashing in on Modern power-level cards from here to eternity which they can't do with Legacy/Vintage. This keeps Modern players buying current product albeit to a lesser degree. People who want an eternal format get their eternal format. People who burn out on Standard have somewhere to turn that keeps them in the game which keeps them spending at least some money on recent cards.
So, from a financial point of view Wizards wants everyone to play Standard. Since that isn't realistically going to happen, Modern is the best choice for them to support between giving players a larger card pool and forcing them to buy new cards to stay current. Extended wasn't popular enough and Legacy didn't get people to buy enough cards. Modern is the balance.
What's the difference to printing a Master's Edition every 3-4 years or so? In fact, many Standard or casual players are more afraid of Legacy than Modern due to various powerful cards and combos so I doubt that supporting Legacy would 'steal' more players from Standard than Modern.
No, it's not. It's how collectables work. The more of them there are, the less they're worth. The fewer people who want them, the less they're worth. Not only is this common sense, it's backed up with the history of the game - when something desirable is reprinted, the price of the original goes down.
The only speculation is how much the price of duals would drop. There's no real basis of comparison for that.
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They would all go down in value. There being more copies of the card available means the older ones are less desirable, and therefore worth less. Ones in worse condition would drop significantly more, naturally, but they all will drop - remember that a huge reason for the price tag on a dual land is because they are the best version of what they are, and the only source of them.
Sadly, there really is no basis of comparison - as far as I can remember, there's been no power rare from that long ago that's seen a reprint. Sol Ring could be an example, but an uncommon is very different from a rare, and you can't play Sol Ring in most formats as it is.
In 2002 they pulled cards off of the reserve list and reprinted some of them in standard. The original cards actually increased in value. Supply went up but demand went up even more as new players sought out the old copies to pimp out their decks. It's the same reason that Birds of Paradise has been reprinted tons of times but white-bordered Unlimited copies still fetch $30-50 even though literally millions of copies have been printed since. ABU copies are steadily rising in price and Revised are holding stable in spite of how many times they reprint it.
What's the difference to printing a Master's Edition every 3-4 years or so? In fact, many Standard or casual players are more afraid of Legacy than Modern due to various powerful cards and combos so I doubt that supporting Legacy would 'steal' more players from Standard than Modern.
It is true that Legacy and Vintage are intimidating formats for newer players but I don't think that the argument that few or no Standard players would be interested in those formats because they are too afraid of it really holds up. Magic players are inquisitive and like to learn. If they didn't they probably wouldn't have bothered trying to tackle a game with thousands of rotating moving parts and a 196 page comprehensive rulebook that needs annual updates. Once they have mastered the basics, Magic players like to play around with different formats, just look at how popular EDH has gotten, not to mention Planechase, Archenemy, Momir Basic, Pauper, etc. There are always several threads on alternate formats and even people making up their own by the hundreds.
That being said, I think that there is a lot of interest in Legacy and in my experience the real barriers are cost and a false perception that it is more luck based (new players hear about the power level and imagine that there are a lot of turn 1 kills and such). If the cost barrier were removed I think that many players would at least experiment with it, especially the casual ones.
As I previously posted, Wizards wants as many people as possible in Standard, and if not in Standard then in formats with cards with power-levels that they can print in standard such as Modern and EDH. Legacy might not steal more players from Standard than from Modern but they don't want to steal ANY players from Standard, that's their money-maker. Especially to Legacy or Vintage. Even if they all started buying the master set every few years (which there would be no incentive for once they got the staples they needed) it wouldn't make up what Wizards would be losing.
Collectors are WOTC biggest customers, not directly but via the fact that all cards from from them. Say you collect foil sets, and say you want a foil playest of an entire set, How many packs need to be opened in order for me to GET that foil set?
As a serious collector, this isn't quite how it works. Most of the cards that a collector needs aren't chase cards, they are cards nobody else wants. A foil collector wouldn't buy case after case to get all of the foils and throw the rest of the cards away. They would buy them all from a retailer who already opened all of those boxes to strip out the Jaces or whatever and there wouldn't be an actual impact on how many packs were opened. Even for the chase cards, I only need 1 of each to fill a set whereas players usually need multiples for their decks. I have a smaller impact than a competitive player.
It is true that Legacy and Vintage are intimidating formats for newer players but I don't think that the argument that few or no Standard players would be interested in those formats because they are too afraid of it really holds up. Magic players are inquisitive and like to learn. If they didn't they probably wouldn't have bothered trying to tackle a game with thousands of rotating moving parts and a 196 page comprehensive rulebook that needs annual updates. Once they have mastered the basics, Magic players like to play around with different formats, just look at how popular EDH has gotten, not to mention Planechase, Archenemy, Momir Basic, Pauper, etc. There are always several threads on alternate formats and even people making up their own by the hundreds.
That being said, I think that there is a lot of interest in Legacy and in my experience the real barriers are cost and a false perception that it is more luck based (new players hear about the power level and imagine that there are a lot of turn 1 kills and such). If the cost barrier were removed I think that many players would at least experiment with it, especially the casual ones.
As I previously posted, Wizards wants as many people as possible in Standard, and if not in Standard then in formats with cards with power-levels that they can print in standard such as Modern and EDH. Legacy might not steal more players from Standard than from Modern but they don't want to steal ANY players from Standard, that's their money-maker. Especially to Legacy or Vintage. Even if they all started buying the master set every few years (which there would be no incentive for once they got the staples they needed) it wouldn't make up what Wizards would be losing.
Yeah, I didn't mean that few or no Standard players are interested in Legacy or Vintage. What I meant is that I don't see how Modern players who buy some Standard cards are better for them than Legacy players who buy the Masters Edition every few years. In either case they will be of limited profit for Wizards when compared to Standard players.
Also, while the same players won't need more than a playset of a card, in 3-4 years there will probably be more players that have burned out of Standard and want Legacy/Modern cards.
Anyways, how many Standard players there are that would really prefer Legacy if they could just afford it? And do they usually stick for Standard or are they going to withdraw to EDH/casual?
That being said, I think that there is a lot of interest in Legacy and in my experience the real barriers are cost and a false perception that it is more luck based (new players hear about the power level and imagine that there are a lot of turn 1 kills and such). If the cost barrier were removed I think that many players would at least experiment with it, especially the casual ones.
I do not believe that there is as much interest as you think, or at least that it is highly regionally different.. I live in a fairly affluent area of the U.S., so kids can get money if they really want to, and Legacy has not been popular for years. The three major shops have all tried (several times) to hold regular and periodic Legacy tournaments, and they are repeatedly poorly attended. They might get 4-5 players, but even they are not reliably attending, so there is little impetus to invest in Legacy. If stuff got cheaper (or at least if cheaper copies existed) then there might be more people testing the waters, I cannot see it getting a toe-hold.
serious collectors who collect by buying packs are morons. I am of the opinion that 98% of all magic players primarily buy to play and or trade for cards they will play. Serious collectors are a drop in the bucket.
I'm a serious collector who collects by buying packs. No offense taken though :-). As usual I agree with your point. I also play but if I only collected I would only purchase singles.
When a set comes out I don't just want the set, I want some cards to play with. Prices with RTR are a little wonky but with a regular set the breakdown of what I want is:
Buying singles on pre-order:
Preorder full set with Mythics: ~320
Common/Uncommon Playset: ~30-40
Let's call it $350.
The way I do it:
4 Boxes: $320
(That typically gives me all of the rares plus several duplicates, half of the mythics, a playset of uncommons and 4 playsets of commons).
Cards need to fill the set that weren't in the boxes plus whatever other cards I just want and didn't get: ~50
So, 370 or $20 more.
However what this method gives me that the other doesn't is foil cards and the chance to get something awesome, like a foil mythic or a misprint or multiples of expensive rares. It also gives me the pleasure of opening packs and I collect the empty boxes.
Your point stands. I am a minority. I know a LOT of people who play Magic. People who collect like I do are a tiny minority and I haven't met anyone in years who collects without playing. I would say that for the number of people who primarily buy to play 98% (1 per 50 people buying primarily to collect) is far too small, more like 99.8% to 99.9%. (1 in 500 to 1 in 1000).
Yeah, I didn't mean that few or no Standard players are interested in Legacy or Vintage. What I meant is that I don't see how Modern players who buy some Standard cards are better for them than Legacy players who buy the Masters Edition every few years. In either case they will be of limited profit for Wizards when compared to Standard players.
Also, while the same players won't need more than a playset of a card, in 3-4 years there will probably be more players that have burned out of Standard and want Legacy/Modern cards.
Anyways, how many Standard players there are that would really prefer Legacy if they could just afford it? And do they usually stick for Standard or are they going to withdraw to EDH/casual?
I misunderstood. Your argument is valid. All monetary costs being equal, I would say that people will play whatever is currently the most fun and diverse and whatever they have already invested into. That is how it was in the early years of the game before there was a large cost difference between formats. I think that Wizards believes that Modern is more profitable than Legacy as evidenced by the fact that they widely support Modern but not Legacy. I think that the theory is that they can keep printing new Modern cards rather than reprinting the same cards over and over. That is a guess though. I don't know.
I do not believe that there is as much interest as you think, or at least that it is highly regionally different.. I live in a fairly affluent area of the U.S., so kids can get money if they really want to, and Legacy has not been popular for years. The three major shops have all tried (several times) to hold regular and periodic Legacy tournaments, and they are repeatedly poorly attended. They might get 4-5 players, but even they are not reliably attending, so there is little impetus to invest in Legacy. If stuff got cheaper (or at least if cheaper copies existed) then there might be more people testing the waters, I cannot see it getting a toe-hold.
That is extremely interesting. I live in a very poor and poorly educated area of the U.S. There is a lot of interest here and kids oooh and aaah whenever someone brings in a dual land. Perhaps they are enchanted by the idea of high-dollar cards, I don't know. I think that most of them have never even seen a beta card in person. The play-groups that I usually play with though are generally older folks with more disposable income and children of their own who don't want to have to buy new cards all the time to keep their decks up to date. They never attend tournaments but I personally know at least 30 people who get together in various circles to play casual Legacy (and quite a few do Vintage) at least once per week.
I can see why people from different areas might have quite different perspectives on this. I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong and for the reserve list to be abolished.
No, it's not. It's how collectables work. The more of them there are, the less they're worth. The fewer people who want them, the less they're worth. Not only is this common sense, it's backed up with the history of the game - when something desirable is reprinted, the price of the original goes down.
The only speculation is how much the price of duals would drop. There's no real basis of comparison for that.
Yeah alpha, beta, and unlimited copies of duals would plummet silly me. See: birds of paradise from those sets. Savage Dream Lord is correct in his way of thinking. ABU dual lands would have even more collectability if they reprinted taiga and such and would go UP in price due to the increased demand for the original printings of the dual lands. People right now want alpha and beta dual lands. I shudder to think how many people would want alpha and beta dual lands if they were reprinted because alpha and beta duals are very significant in the history of MTG and are not merely pieces of cardboard to be played with. Owning a piece of history is no small thing to a lot of people. Alpha underground sea's are currently $2k+ in NM condition. I would wager that alpha copies of u. sea would go up to over $3k+ if not higher if underground sea was reprinted.
The number of collectors who simply collect the cards and literally don't play with said cards is astronomically low. Also agree with Dream Lord on this one, as most people PLAY with their magic the gathering cards.
On people being interested in legacy. People wanted modern only after the reserved list was revised around march 2010. Before that, nobody said a damned thing about modern because there was hope that WotC would abolish the list and start supporting legacy with reprints of dual lands and such. I own thousands of dollars worth of cards on the reserved list and want them reprinted namely the following:
1 English Moat
1 Library of Alexandria
3 Candelabra of Tawnos
40+ Revised dual lands as well as a few unlimited and FWB dual lands.
4 Stronghold Mox Diamond
Guess what? I wouldn't give a damn if they reprinted every single card on the list. Antiquities candelabra's would still be worth quite a bit, library of alexandria from the original set would probably go up, moat would still hold up quite well. Revised dual lands might take a dip, but there would be those who would want revised duals because they were printed 20 years ago and would probably look better than the new ones artwise (the original art for taiga is still one of my favorites in terms of art and will always be one of my favorites in terms of art, much better than that digital art they have today...)
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Birds of Paradise has been printed dozens of times. It's widely available. It's likely to be widely available again. It's not comparable to a dual land.
Yes, an Unlimited BoP is worth some money. But it's not even close to a dual land.
If Birds of Paradise didn't see print from 4th on to M12, and got a reprint in M13, and the price of an Unlimited Birds was still the same or higher, then maybe you could draw a comparison. But right now, you can't. I think the price of an Unlimited BoP says more about the value of Unlimited cards than it does about Birds (note that a Revised BoP can be had for about 5 bucks. That's not exactly high collectable value).
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I think your missing my point about the sets. If I order a foil set from SCG, SCG needs to open enough packs to make sure they have that foil set. yes they would have opened packs anyway, Yes they are taking the other cards out to sell them anyway, However they sill had to open enough product to ensure they had that full set. The point still remains they don't care WHY product is being opened, but by ordering that foil set, that much product MUST be opened to fill that order, Each time someone buys that foil set MORE product must be opened.
Again I will point out its becuase of shear demand, The price WILL go down if people stop buying them. Market forces, This is aparent for most cards on the reseve list. You want the prices to go down, Press WOTC to make Standard have more combo/control/agro full mix of deck types at any given time. Make standard as much as Legacy and people will play standard, Demand for legacy will go down, Prices will go down.
so causing people to have more fun would kill the game? at some point you need to just stop pretending you're using logic
What it does is kills the collectability of older cards, make basic lands pretty much meaningless, and turns the game into a joke. It might thrive for a year or so, but that would be about it. You kill the collectable part, you eventually kill the product.
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People who play Legacy or Vintage don't need the vast majority of cards that come out. Only a few cards per block get printed that are relevant in those formats. As such those people purchase very very little current product. The vast majority of purchases that they do make are very old product on the secondary market which Wizards makes no money from. From Wizards point of view they aren't the best customers.
People who play standard need to constantly buy current product just to play the game. If they are competitive they need lots of rares and mythic rares which stores need to open lots of boxes to supply. Wizards makes a lot of money from them.
So from Wizards point of view, every customer who switches from Standard to Legacy or Vintage is essentially a customer lost. They could make a lot of money reprinting the old staples but as soon as everyone who wants them has them there is no reason for people to buy more and they have just kick-started a format that encourages people to not buy current product. Certainly there are people who wouldn't switch over entirely and continue to play both formats but Wizards doesn't want people to have their attention split, they know that their customers only have so much money to spend. Besides, some people would really enjoy it and switch over entirely and they would lose a lot of money in the long run. Historically, they are very popular formats. They don't want their Standard players to take their eyes off of Standard for one second.
That's why they don't do it and how it would harm the game. Just to be clear, I would personally enjoy the abolition of the reserve list and reprinting of the old staples but it won't happen. It isn't in Wizards interest. They would be shooting themselves in the foot so to speak.
I don't want to speak for Markers, but that is what I understood him to mean when he said that reprinting such cards would kill the game. Also, printing many of them in Standard would be silly with how high their power-level is.
Every English card ever printed: 99.02%
Arabian Nights through Lorwyn: Complete
Alpha: 94.2% Beta: 95.0%
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I don't have the time, energy or nerve to explain the situation to the 100th guy in this thread.
Read my previous posts in this thread or the ones just above this one by OMNI_ITA and Savage Dream Lord. They understand what I mean.
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Just wondering, doesn't supporting Modern have exactly the same effect, although perhaps on a slightly smaller scale? Modern players also need to buy far less new rares than Standard players.
Even if they abolish the reserve list and print more Underground Seas and so on, there aren't going to be any more ABUR duals than there are now.
But there are going to be fewer people who want ABUR duals. Sure, there's always going to be a market for the originals. But a large number of people just want to play with them, and that creates a much larger demand.
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Yes and no. Modern is the concession. It would be a very unpopular decision for Wizards to support no eternal formats. Some people don't like rotating formats and want something a little more stable or with a larger card palette. The big difference is that Wizards can print Modern relevant cards without breaking Standard without too much trouble. So they can keep reprinting and cashing in on Modern power-level cards from here to eternity which they can't do with Legacy/Vintage. This keeps Modern players buying current product albeit to a lesser degree. People who want an eternal format get their eternal format. People who burn out on Standard have somewhere to turn that keeps them in the game which keeps them spending at least some money on recent cards.
So, from a financial point of view Wizards wants everyone to play Standard. Since that isn't realistically going to happen, Modern is the best choice for them to support between giving players a larger card pool and forcing them to buy new cards to stay current. Extended wasn't popular enough and Legacy didn't get people to buy enough cards. Modern is the balance.
Every English card ever printed: 99.02%
Arabian Nights through Lorwyn: Complete
Alpha: 94.2% Beta: 95.0%
Unlimited through M10: Complete
If somebody wants an original ABUR dual, for collecting purposes, they'll want the original ABUR dual, not a reprint that obviously is not an original ABUR dual.
The problem is Legacy is a FUN format to play. People WANT to play it, This will drive the prices up However if the format gets no support, Over time its top cards WILL degrade in value. no tourniments people will not want to spend money on a deck they can not play. The whole reason Legacy is still alive is because of third party outside injections of tourniments. If WOTC wanted to crush legacy they would make Standard as much fun as Legacy is. Since they have not done that, the mear fact that they continue to make "watered down magic" in conjunction with these outside injections of tourniments will make legacy a force to be reconed with.
Bottom line
Demand for these things is off the charts becaues the format is FUN to play. Its not the collectability that adds value its the playability, Make a more fun cheeper format, people will flock to it, However the catch is that IT NEEDS TO BE MORE FUN than the other.
Yes. And if someone just wants a Tundra just to play with, they would go with the reprint. This lowers the demand for the originals, and therefore the collectable value.
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If anything, the cards that would go down in value would be the Damaged/Heavily Played Revised duals because they're the cheapest ones now.
They would all go down in value. There being more copies of the card available means the older ones are less desirable, and therefore worth less. Ones in worse condition would drop significantly more, naturally, but they all will drop - remember that a huge reason for the price tag on a dual land is because they are the best version of what they are, and the only source of them.
Sadly, there really is no basis of comparison - as far as I can remember, there's been no power rare from that long ago that's seen a reprint. Sol Ring could be an example, but an uncommon is very different from a rare, and you can't play Sol Ring in most formats as it is.
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That's a pretty speculative assumption.
Nowhere in an official article has Wizards ever said that Modern is an Eternal Format.
Neither you nor I have any data to back up our statements, but that is patently absurd in my opinion. Those packs are being opened anyway to get any number of other cards that constructed players will pay for, and serious collectors who collect by buying packs are morons. I am of the opinion that 98% of all magic players primarily buy to play and or trade for cards they will play. Serious collectors are a drop in the bucket.
If you look back at sites like Black Lotus Project, that chart prices over time, then you will see that an Unlimited Sol Ring saw little to no impact on it's price since the printing of the Commander set- a set that flooded the marked with Sol Rings. If Wizards were to reprint ABU duals (which will never happen) there would be little to no impact on the price of the original printings.
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What's the difference to printing a Master's Edition every 3-4 years or so? In fact, many Standard or casual players are more afraid of Legacy than Modern due to various powerful cards and combos so I doubt that supporting Legacy would 'steal' more players from Standard than Modern.
No, it's not. It's how collectables work. The more of them there are, the less they're worth. The fewer people who want them, the less they're worth. Not only is this common sense, it's backed up with the history of the game - when something desirable is reprinted, the price of the original goes down.
The only speculation is how much the price of duals would drop. There's no real basis of comparison for that.
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In 2002 they pulled cards off of the reserve list and reprinted some of them in standard. The original cards actually increased in value. Supply went up but demand went up even more as new players sought out the old copies to pimp out their decks. It's the same reason that Birds of Paradise has been reprinted tons of times but white-bordered Unlimited copies still fetch $30-50 even though literally millions of copies have been printed since. ABU copies are steadily rising in price and Revised are holding stable in spite of how many times they reprint it.
It is true that Legacy and Vintage are intimidating formats for newer players but I don't think that the argument that few or no Standard players would be interested in those formats because they are too afraid of it really holds up. Magic players are inquisitive and like to learn. If they didn't they probably wouldn't have bothered trying to tackle a game with thousands of rotating moving parts and a 196 page comprehensive rulebook that needs annual updates. Once they have mastered the basics, Magic players like to play around with different formats, just look at how popular EDH has gotten, not to mention Planechase, Archenemy, Momir Basic, Pauper, etc. There are always several threads on alternate formats and even people making up their own by the hundreds.
That being said, I think that there is a lot of interest in Legacy and in my experience the real barriers are cost and a false perception that it is more luck based (new players hear about the power level and imagine that there are a lot of turn 1 kills and such). If the cost barrier were removed I think that many players would at least experiment with it, especially the casual ones.
As I previously posted, Wizards wants as many people as possible in Standard, and if not in Standard then in formats with cards with power-levels that they can print in standard such as Modern and EDH. Legacy might not steal more players from Standard than from Modern but they don't want to steal ANY players from Standard, that's their money-maker. Especially to Legacy or Vintage. Even if they all started buying the master set every few years (which there would be no incentive for once they got the staples they needed) it wouldn't make up what Wizards would be losing.
As a serious collector, this isn't quite how it works. Most of the cards that a collector needs aren't chase cards, they are cards nobody else wants. A foil collector wouldn't buy case after case to get all of the foils and throw the rest of the cards away. They would buy them all from a retailer who already opened all of those boxes to strip out the Jaces or whatever and there wouldn't be an actual impact on how many packs were opened. Even for the chase cards, I only need 1 of each to fill a set whereas players usually need multiples for their decks. I have a smaller impact than a competitive player.
Every English card ever printed: 99.02%
Arabian Nights through Lorwyn: Complete
Alpha: 94.2% Beta: 95.0%
Unlimited through M10: Complete
Yeah, I didn't mean that few or no Standard players are interested in Legacy or Vintage. What I meant is that I don't see how Modern players who buy some Standard cards are better for them than Legacy players who buy the Masters Edition every few years. In either case they will be of limited profit for Wizards when compared to Standard players.
Also, while the same players won't need more than a playset of a card, in 3-4 years there will probably be more players that have burned out of Standard and want Legacy/Modern cards.
Anyways, how many Standard players there are that would really prefer Legacy if they could just afford it? And do they usually stick for Standard or are they going to withdraw to EDH/casual?
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
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I'm a serious collector who collects by buying packs. No offense taken though :-). As usual I agree with your point. I also play but if I only collected I would only purchase singles.
When a set comes out I don't just want the set, I want some cards to play with. Prices with RTR are a little wonky but with a regular set the breakdown of what I want is:
Buying singles on pre-order:
Preorder full set with Mythics: ~320
Common/Uncommon Playset: ~30-40
Let's call it $350.
The way I do it:
4 Boxes: $320
(That typically gives me all of the rares plus several duplicates, half of the mythics, a playset of uncommons and 4 playsets of commons).
Cards need to fill the set that weren't in the boxes plus whatever other cards I just want and didn't get: ~50
So, 370 or $20 more.
However what this method gives me that the other doesn't is foil cards and the chance to get something awesome, like a foil mythic or a misprint or multiples of expensive rares. It also gives me the pleasure of opening packs and I collect the empty boxes.
Your point stands. I am a minority. I know a LOT of people who play Magic. People who collect like I do are a tiny minority and I haven't met anyone in years who collects without playing. I would say that for the number of people who primarily buy to play 98% (1 per 50 people buying primarily to collect) is far too small, more like 99.8% to 99.9%. (1 in 500 to 1 in 1000).
I misunderstood. Your argument is valid. All monetary costs being equal, I would say that people will play whatever is currently the most fun and diverse and whatever they have already invested into. That is how it was in the early years of the game before there was a large cost difference between formats. I think that Wizards believes that Modern is more profitable than Legacy as evidenced by the fact that they widely support Modern but not Legacy. I think that the theory is that they can keep printing new Modern cards rather than reprinting the same cards over and over. That is a guess though. I don't know.
That is extremely interesting. I live in a very poor and poorly educated area of the U.S. There is a lot of interest here and kids oooh and aaah whenever someone brings in a dual land. Perhaps they are enchanted by the idea of high-dollar cards, I don't know. I think that most of them have never even seen a beta card in person. The play-groups that I usually play with though are generally older folks with more disposable income and children of their own who don't want to have to buy new cards all the time to keep their decks up to date. They never attend tournaments but I personally know at least 30 people who get together in various circles to play casual Legacy (and quite a few do Vintage) at least once per week.
I can see why people from different areas might have quite different perspectives on this. I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong and for the reserve list to be abolished.
Every English card ever printed: 99.02%
Arabian Nights through Lorwyn: Complete
Alpha: 94.2% Beta: 95.0%
Unlimited through M10: Complete
Yeah alpha, beta, and unlimited copies of duals would plummet silly me. See: birds of paradise from those sets. Savage Dream Lord is correct in his way of thinking. ABU dual lands would have even more collectability if they reprinted taiga and such and would go UP in price due to the increased demand for the original printings of the dual lands. People right now want alpha and beta dual lands. I shudder to think how many people would want alpha and beta dual lands if they were reprinted because alpha and beta duals are very significant in the history of MTG and are not merely pieces of cardboard to be played with. Owning a piece of history is no small thing to a lot of people. Alpha underground sea's are currently $2k+ in NM condition. I would wager that alpha copies of u. sea would go up to over $3k+ if not higher if underground sea was reprinted.
The number of collectors who simply collect the cards and literally don't play with said cards is astronomically low. Also agree with Dream Lord on this one, as most people PLAY with their magic the gathering cards.
On people being interested in legacy. People wanted modern only after the reserved list was revised around march 2010. Before that, nobody said a damned thing about modern because there was hope that WotC would abolish the list and start supporting legacy with reprints of dual lands and such. I own thousands of dollars worth of cards on the reserved list and want them reprinted namely the following:
1 English Moat
1 Library of Alexandria
3 Candelabra of Tawnos
40+ Revised dual lands as well as a few unlimited and FWB dual lands.
4 Stronghold Mox Diamond
Guess what? I wouldn't give a damn if they reprinted every single card on the list. Antiquities candelabra's would still be worth quite a bit, library of alexandria from the original set would probably go up, moat would still hold up quite well. Revised dual lands might take a dip, but there would be those who would want revised duals because they were printed 20 years ago and would probably look better than the new ones artwise (the original art for taiga is still one of my favorites in terms of art and will always be one of my favorites in terms of art, much better than that digital art they have today...)
Currently Playing:
Retired
Yes, an Unlimited BoP is worth some money. But it's not even close to a dual land.
If Birds of Paradise didn't see print from 4th on to M12, and got a reprint in M13, and the price of an Unlimited Birds was still the same or higher, then maybe you could draw a comparison. But right now, you can't. I think the price of an Unlimited BoP says more about the value of Unlimited cards than it does about Birds (note that a Revised BoP can be had for about 5 bucks. That's not exactly high collectable value).
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Again I will point out its becuase of shear demand, The price WILL go down if people stop buying them. Market forces, This is aparent for most cards on the reseve list. You want the prices to go down, Press WOTC to make Standard have more combo/control/agro full mix of deck types at any given time. Make standard as much as Legacy and people will play standard, Demand for legacy will go down, Prices will go down.
Um... duh?
We're talking about the collectability aspect for the [ABUR] versions of said cards, and people wanting the originals to collect over reprint.
Maybe it is the calculus still jogging my brain - had a big exam today], but I feel like you've become lost in our back/forth.