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...)
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.
Foils might be a bad example for you. I don't think that SCG is going to open more packs to fill their foil sets. Here's why. There are two factors in how many packs they open, the demand of the rarest commodities in those boxes, and the perceived value of what they can gain incidentally by opening the boxes. Both of these factors work against them opening packs for foil sets.
First, the demand for foil sets is comparatively low. They are probably able to meet the bulk of demand incidentally. What I mean by this is that they are opening so many cases of cards to get the Jaces out that they probably happen to build enough foil sets to meet demand.
Second, their incidental gain for a single foil set is probably not high enough to justify opening that much product. If they get an order for a full foil set and don't have a full foil set they don't want to open 60 more boxes of product (actual approximate figure for a SMALL set) just to fill that single order because they are going to get a lot of other cards that they already have in stock and the market is already saturated with and so can't really sell. They are better off buying the specific cards they need from other secondary sources to fill your order. That is why many shops say that complete foil sets may take a few weeks to fill. They aren't cracking boxes, they have to shop around other shops to fill your set. Even SCG can only move so much product and they can't just eat the cost of 60+ boxes for a single order much less whoever they pay to shuck the cards.
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.
This is an interesting theory. I wouldn't switch to Standard but I would be curious to know how many people would. In such a scenario, I would think that prices would actually stabilize. They have been steadily (and sometimes sharply) rising since the inception of the game. You previously argue that collectors are the drive behind prices but here you argue that players lack of interest in the format would drive the prices down. These arguments are incompatible. I like your idea though and would like to see it happen.
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The Collection:
Every English card ever printed: 99.02%
Arabian Nights through Lorwyn: Complete
Alpha: 94.2% Beta: 95.0%
Unlimited through M10: Complete
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 guess I don't really lump that casual of a tournament the same as "Legacy". In my opinion that is just a casual tournament and the decks you would see have little in common with the decks one would see at a sanctioned legacy tournament.
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).
That is certainly true, but the point remains the same. The claim is that people's "investment" in magic cards would be seriously harmed if ABU Duals were reprinted, and our point is that the price would not be impacted much, if at all. Collectability would not be harmed.
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.
However, if for some reason no one ever purchased a foil ever again, it would have no impact on how many packs are opened. Collectability is not what drives sales, it is playability, so collectors who are buying singles actually add little to nothing to Wizard's coffers.
The fewer people who want something, the less value it has as a collectable.
With newer prints available, fewer people will want the old ones.
I don't see what's so hard about this.
History of magic's more collectable cards does not support that assertion (see my previous comment about Sol Ring). The number of people that want an ABU dual will not be negatively impacted by reprinting due to several factors, not the least is the fact that the more people buying duals the most others will be drawn to the format.
The fewer people who want something, the less value it has as a collectible.
With newer prints available, fewer people will want the old ones.
I don't see what's so hard about this.
A reprint would increase the supply once, but this if offset by the ever increasing demand. As long as duals are reprinted at a slower rate than new players are wanting into Legacy, price dips would be temporary - just hiccups and speed bumps in otherwise ever rising value.
Of course I advocate near functional reprints instead to avoid reserved list issues.
And Beta duals would retain a high price I think. Look at Beta Sol Rings.
The fewer people who want something, the less value it has as a collectable.
With newer prints available, fewer people will want the old ones.
I don't see what's so hard about this.
Price of revised duals would probably drop initially if they would be reprinted. But when more players would get into legacy, their price would start to rise again due to collectability (as they are originals) and 'pimp factor'.
Price of revised duals would probably drop initially if they would be reprinted. But when more players would get into legacy, their price would start to rise again due to collectability (as they are originals) and 'pimp factor'.
I agree with this in general. As crimhead said, Sol Ring is a good example. It is a highly desirable card that was on the reserved list until 2002 and wasn't widely reprinted until Commander in 2011. People who were buying the cheapest Sol Rings they could find just to have Sol Rings now had a new recourse so the value of played quality Revised copies dropped by 25-50% pretty quickly. The value of Mint condition Revised copies and Alpha/Beta copies didn't budge while the value of Unlimited copies rose a little.
I would imagine that we would see similar phenomenon with the dual lands. The price gap between poor copies and mint copies would relax and come more in line with regular cards. Played and poor condition Revised copies would drop sharply. ABU copies and Minty copies would remain relatively stable, because people aren't buying them because they are being forced to, they are buying them for pimpness, a demand which would remain.
We would only see a marked increase in price if they became legal in another format, like if they were printed in standard, or if the reprinting caused many people to start playing a format where they are legal, like if people flock to vintage because it is now more accessible. Then there would be a steady increase in value as people pimp out their decks. Otherwise it would be the steady gain that we already observe.
Let me quote Randy Buehler:
we saw a really interesting phenomenon recently when we brought back some old iconic cards. When Serra Angel was reprinted in 7th Edition, the price of older versions of Serra actually went up, not down. If you think about it, that makes sense. Sure, the supply of Serras has gone up, but the demand has gone up even more. Suddenly she’s tournament legal again and even players who don’t care about tournaments are getting their hands on her and then learning that an older version exists with different art. Some people prefer the older art, some people just think it’s cooler to play with older cards, etc. Basically, the secondary market seems to have changed a bit in the seven years since Chronicles was released. Older versions of Sengir Vampire didn’t go down in price when everyone’s favorite vampire was included in Torment. It’s too early to see exactly what the long-term effect will be, but if the price is changing at all, it’s going up.
The fact that you have absolutely no evidence for this claim.
...common freaking sense? Basic knowledge of supply and demand?
Think about this. Right now, 100% of people who want dual lands want the ABUR ones. If they are reprinted, a lot of those people won't want them. That's a lowering of demand. I'm not saying the prices would bottom out Chronicles style, but the value would drop.
Again, nothing comparable has ever happened - Sengir and Serra's old version may have gone up, but they were cards that weren't in demand at the time they were reprinted. And I'm not sure the trend holds - did Juggernaut see a price spike when it saw a reprint?
It is all speculation, though - nobody knows for sure what would happen. Let's see if Wizards prints a non-Reserved money card like Force of Will or Mana Drain. Then we'd have a good idea of what a dual land reprint would do to the originals.
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Yea, I'm sure it is much easier for you to disregard data the contradicts your position. Unlimited Sol Ring has not had any meaningful decrease in price as a result of the reprint, and it is very much the same set of circumstances- just scaled down a smidge.
Yea, I'm sure it is much easier for you to disregard data the contradicts your position. Unlimited Sol Ring has not had any meaningful decrease in price as a result of the reprint, and it is very much the same set of circumstances- just scaled down a smidge.
I didn't ignore it. It's Unlimited. Unlimited cards probably wouldn't see a drop in price, because the demand for people who just want to play the cards would be with the Revised versions - the cheapest and most readily available ones until they printed a cheaper and more readily available one. Earlier versions only appeal to collectors who wouldn't have any less interest after a reprint.
I'm sorry, I thought we were all on the same page about that. I'll gladly concede the ABU prints of the card wouldn't be affected much.
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The fact that you have absolutely no evidence for this claim.
I have a full playset of duals from revised plus some more, and I know I would prefer black border over what I have now. Revised is washed out looking and does not hold a candle to the look of unlimited.
I know my opinion is not everyone's, but I would take new over revised.
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I'm sorry, I thought we were all on the same page about that. I'll gladly concede the ABU prints of the card wouldn't be affected much.
The most commonly referred to collectable cards that people feel keeps collectors in support of the reserved list are ABU cards.
1) serious collectors are the only people that would care enough* about price drops, not people that care primarlily about play.
2) A collector cares about the original printings, so the existance of reprints will not effect their desire to obtain them.
3) Those cards would therefor not loose much value.
*By this I mean that they care enough that they would be willing to cease purchasing cards and might attempt some kind of broad action against the company. Everyone else might grumble a bit when their FOW looses 8-10% in value, but they are not going to actually effect Wizard's bottom line.
You also have to look at card appearance. For example, there are many people that love the Future Shifted frame, or love things that look out of the ordinary, as such if Goyf was reprinted I do not believe that we would see much of a drop in the price (1%-2%) of the original. The same goes for the old card frame, though it may drop in price slightly more (3%-5%).
the value of played quality Revised copies dropped by 25-50% pretty quickly. The value of Mint condition Revised copies and Alpha/Beta copies didn't budge while the value of Unlimited copies rose a little.
Yep. If you read my whole post, you'll see that I brought up the dropping revised prices. We are actually in agreement on this and I think it would work the same for duals. ABU wouldn't budge. Revised would drop, just like the Sol Rings. I would make the caveat that Mint copies also have a collectors "pimp premium" and wouldn't move appreciably so what would happen is that the gap between high quality and low quality would relax, like I said. That gap for very rare or desirable cards such as duals is quite small compared to cards that aren't scarce.
...common freaking sense? Basic knowledge of supply and demand?
Think about this. Right now, 100% of people who want dual lands want the ABUR ones. If they are reprinted, a lot of those people won't want them. That's a lowering of demand. I'm not saying the prices would bottom out Chronicles style, but the value would drop.
As someone with a business degree, this is a pretty good illustration. I agree with the point but still only disagree with the degree to which you think that the bottom end will fall out.
Think of it like this. The magic community had "over 12 million" players in 2008 and they have reported record growth since then so let's call it a conservative 13 million players (but realistically probably many more). There was an estimated combined 500,000 copies of each dual land printed (125,000 playsets). Even if an unlimited supply of new duals appears, if more than 1 in 104 players still want a playset of the originals then supply still hasn't met demand and never can. The value on the bottom end would still decrease by a moderate amount as you stated but only temporarily as non-collectors dump their old copies in favor for the new cheaper ones. When the market reabsorbed them the prices would normalize and steadily rise to about where they used to be. In this model, the price would actually be LESS affected than with Sol Ring because the ring was uncommon and so many more copies of it exist meaning that it could meet the premium demand easier. And, as I said, if such an act brought people to to the format, prices would actually hike as they did with those other cards. (To answer your question AB Juggernauts did jump when it got reprinted in Darksteel, UR copies didn't).
It is all speculation, though - nobody knows for sure what would happen. Let's see if Wizards prints a non-Reserved money card like Force of Will or Mana Drain. Then we'd have a good idea of what a dual land reprint would do to the originals.
And this is what it comes down to. The problem is that Wizards doesn't reprint very valuable cards in regular product. The more valuable a card is, the more they cash in on it. Cards like these would see a judge foil treatment but I doubt if they'd even get printed in an FTV.
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The Collection:
Every English card ever printed: 99.02%
Arabian Nights through Lorwyn: Complete
Alpha: 94.2% Beta: 95.0%
Unlimited through M10: Complete
Sorry if you misunderstood, but my overall post was meant to illustrate the larger point that definitions and nitpicking are meaningless when Wizards has the caveats under their control. The point was mainly that the restrictions are narrow and somewhat arbitrary, not that sliver queen reprint is somehow contradictory to the restrictions in place, which the small portion of the full quote you took might seem to suggest.
As Juju correctly points out, tournament legality is the magical language that holds the day, as "policies described in this document apply only to tournament-legal Magic cards." My point was more that if we just accept that, then it's possible to argue that we could have a normal sized card that walks and talks like sliver queen so long as the powers that be either say 'eh, it's not tournament legal' or 'it's not sliver queen, it's the-card-formerly-known-as-sliver-queen. The difference is only that the-card-formerly-known-as-sliver-queen has an additional subtype contraption, so it doesn't fit into our narrow reprint restriction.'
Once it's clear how arbitrary and easily ignored the restrictions are, it seems reasonable to just let people have Fork.
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Once it's clear how arbitrary and easily ignored the restrictions are, it seems reasonable to just let people have Fork.
Nobody would run eight Forks, so Reverberate is fine. Duals also could be "reprinted", as it's rare for a deck to run even four. But we don't want to give decks access to eight Loin's Eye Diamonds or eight Show And Tells
Nobody would run eight Forks, so Reverberate is fine. Duals also could be "reprinted", as it's rare for a deck to run even four. But we don't want to give decks access to eight Loin's Eye Diamonds or eight Show And Tells
Big difference between Memory Jar and Reforge the Soul. Not only do you get your original hand back at the end of the effect, but the opponent usually doesn't get a chance to use the 7 they drew.
Big difference between Memory Jar and Reforge the Soul. Not only do you get your original hand back at the end of the effect, but the opponent usually doesn't get a chance to use the 7 they drew.
The comparison of banned legacy card -> functional reprint remains the same. Wheel of Fortune is much cheaper than any of its spiritual followers, and would never be close to unbanning, while Memory Jar likely fails to make a sizable dent in the format if it even was unbanned. Many decks would go so far as to choose Reforge over Memory Jar on the basis of conflict with Past in Flames.
Until now, cards have been reprinted mainly by selling them to the general public in some kind of sealed material. People that already had those cards saw them losing value (just look at what happened with the prices of Pithing Needle, Birds of Paradise, Baneslayer Angel, or Arabian Nights to The Dark cards that were reprinted in Chronicles). What I propose here is similar to a stock split. I'm calling it the Reserved List Split.
It would consist in Wizards giving you the option to send them any number of Reserved List cards, and after checking that they are genuine, they would destroy them (more on this later) and then they would return you 2 tournament legal copies of each card you sent, but with a new format, being clearly differentiable from the original one. For example, you send them an Alpha, Beta or Unlimited Black Lotus and they send you 2 new Black Lotus. Or you send them 4 Alpha, Beta, Unlimited or Revised Underground Sea and they send you 8 new Underground Sea.
As this service would entail some costs to Wizards, I think it would fair for them to charge a fee. It could be something like $3 for each copy they send to you (so $6 for each original copy you send them), plus shipping and handling. This service could be offered also at big events like Grand Prix.
What would this service achieve?
It would increase the supply of Reserved List cards that are needed to play Eternal formats competitively, but without hurting (actually benefitting) those that already have the cards.
Players
If the supply increases, it's easier for players to find the cards they need, and for a smaller price than before. That would mean that more people could play Eternal formats, and therefore tournaments would have more attendance and more organizers would find organizing tournaments profitable.
Collectors, investors and anyone that cares about the value of their cards
I said before that original cards would have to be destroyed in order to get 2 new ones. Why? There are two reasons to destroy them. The first one is because that way they can't be sent again to Wizards to "split" them. Another option would be to mark them in some way so they can't be "split" again. I don't know if that's viable, specially nowadays, when many cards are altered and that mark could be hidden. Maybe they could just make a hole in them, or cut their borders, but that would make them tournament illegal, so it's the same as just destroying them completely. The second reason is because that would decrease the supply of original cards, so those original cards would become more rare and therefore more valuable. This would actually benefit those collectors that complained about Chronicles and asked for the Reserved List. This point is absolutely crucial.
Imagine that Chronicles instead of being sold in boosters was offered as a 10:1 split (they give you 10 Chronicles Erhnam Djinn for each Arabians Nights one that you send to Wizards). If someone wants 10 new Erhnam Djinn, they need to already have an original one, buy it from someone else, or buy some Arabian Nights boosters. Now, you, as an owner of an original Erhnam Djinn have two options: either to still play with an increasingly "pimp" and expensive original card (as the supply decreases because of splits) or to change it for 10 new ones, so you can still play it and have some extra copies to lend or sell to another player.
Compare that with seeing how Wizards just makes new cheap boosters and everyone can have lots of Erhnam Djinn, and the price of your original one plummets. I would also be angry! And I would also ask Wizards to promise not to do it again or I would just spend much less (if any) money in Magic.
With a split, collectors not only aren't harmed but they get a compensation for their willingness to spend money on cards. With a Reserved List Split, collectors benefit in two ways:
Their cards are worth more. Original cards would be very appreciated for two reasons: they are increasingly rare and therefore more exclusive (as copies get destroyed to "split" them) and they have attached the option to turn them into new multiple copies. Combine that with the fact that there's more demand for Eternal cards in general.
It's less likely that collections become worthless, because Magic becomes more popular, as a consequence of smaller prices, and more and bigger tournaments.
Wizards of the Coast
What about Wizards? Do they really want to do a Reserved List Split? Wizards would benefit from this service in some ways. The first and most obvious one is that they would charge for doing "splits". The second and by far most important is that more people would have interest in Magic, so there are more potential buyers for their products.
We and them know that without reprints, Eternal formats will slowly die. It has already happened with Vintage. But do they really care? They can just ignore Legacy and Vintage, and focus in Modern as the new "eternal" format. I think that doing the Reprint List Split and promoting Modern aren't exclusive (just like they offer products to Commander players, for example), and that they should do both things, so more customers would be happy and willing to buy Wizards' goods.
Another reason why I think that the Reserved List Split would be a great idea for Wizards is that people that play "paper" Legacy and Vintage would have more interest to play those formats on Magic Online, to playtest or just to complement it with live tournaments (I know Vintage doesn't exist there yet, but they just need to add the Power Nine). More people playing Eternal online would also mean more people wanting to play "paper".
Some details
Wizards would have to promise to offer the Reserved List Split service forever. If it was just temporal, many players would be angry for not being able to send their original cards in time.
What happens when in X years, cards are too scarce or expensive again? Then, Wizards would make another "split". Now, you could trade, for example, one original for four of the newest reprints, or an old reprint for two new reprints.
Why 2 new copies per original instead of say 4, or 40? Maybe 4 would be reasonable, but as this is something new it seems better to just start being cautious. Why not 40? Well, there are many reasons, but I think that the main one is that Wizards doesn't want any constructed format to become much cheaper than Standard. Their profit comes mainly from selling sealed product, so they have to incentivate people to buy boosters, by organizing Limited and Standard (also Modern in a lesser extent) tournaments and having a competitive circuit.
Original art or new one? Original frame or new frame? Foil or non-foil? English or in every language? I suppose that it would be cheaper for them to just use original arts and printing them only in English and non-foil. Anyway, the really important thing is that these new cards are very clearly differentiable from the original ones. So just reprint them with the new frame and updated text.
Should Wizards offer this service for every Reserved List card?
The main purpose of the Reserved List Split is to increase the supply and reduce the price of those cards that are "essential" to play Eternal Formats and are too expensive because of being very played and/or very rare. I'm talking about cards that are played as 1-of (because they are restricted in Vintage or just 1 copy is played in Legacy decks) and are from sets earlier than The Dark, and cards that are played as 4-of in many decks and/or are very rare. The exact list would be:
You may notice that I didn't include some expensive cards like Juzám Djinn. Nobody plays with it, so reprinting it wouldn't increase the attendance to Eternal tournaments. I haven't included cards like City of Traitors, Intuition or Lion's Eye Diamond because they aren't really that expensive for the moment.
The list that I have made includes just 28 cards, while the Reserved List is formed by 572. Wizards could either just reprint those 28, and add some when they become too expensive, or offer to "split" any Reserved List card. Some collectors would love to have the full Reserved List set, but I don't know if Wizards could offer that for an attractive price. The vast majority of the Reserved List cards are worth very little, so I don't think much people would like to pay $6 plus shipping and handling to "split" their Kudzu and Sorrow's Path. Maybe Wizards could make big discounts if you send them many cards, or if you want the full set (it could be divided in 4 143 cards subsets). Anyway, that's up to Wizards, what is really needed is a reprint of those 28 key cards.
I hope that you like my idea and contribute to correct any flaws that I made. Maybe we can convince Wizards to adopt it so Eternal will really be Eternal, and never die because of a decreasing supply of needed cards. Even something as crazy as a Vintage Grand Prix could become true!
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I would love to see a Tabernacle Reprint, many Tempest and Urza block reprints as well
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Foils might be a bad example for you. I don't think that SCG is going to open more packs to fill their foil sets. Here's why. There are two factors in how many packs they open, the demand of the rarest commodities in those boxes, and the perceived value of what they can gain incidentally by opening the boxes. Both of these factors work against them opening packs for foil sets.
First, the demand for foil sets is comparatively low. They are probably able to meet the bulk of demand incidentally. What I mean by this is that they are opening so many cases of cards to get the Jaces out that they probably happen to build enough foil sets to meet demand.
Second, their incidental gain for a single foil set is probably not high enough to justify opening that much product. If they get an order for a full foil set and don't have a full foil set they don't want to open 60 more boxes of product (actual approximate figure for a SMALL set) just to fill that single order because they are going to get a lot of other cards that they already have in stock and the market is already saturated with and so can't really sell. They are better off buying the specific cards they need from other secondary sources to fill your order. That is why many shops say that complete foil sets may take a few weeks to fill. They aren't cracking boxes, they have to shop around other shops to fill your set. Even SCG can only move so much product and they can't just eat the cost of 60+ boxes for a single order much less whoever they pay to shuck the cards.
This is an interesting theory. I wouldn't switch to Standard but I would be curious to know how many people would. In such a scenario, I would think that prices would actually stabilize. They have been steadily (and sometimes sharply) rising since the inception of the game. You previously argue that collectors are the drive behind prices but here you argue that players lack of interest in the format would drive the prices down. These arguments are incompatible. I like your idea though and would like to see it happen.
Every English card ever printed: 99.02%
Arabian Nights through Lorwyn: Complete
Alpha: 94.2% Beta: 95.0%
Unlimited through M10: Complete
No. I know where I am.
The fewer people who want something, the less value it has as a collectable.
With newer prints available, fewer people will want the old ones.
I don't see what's so hard about this.
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That is certainly true, but the point remains the same. The claim is that people's "investment" in magic cards would be seriously harmed if ABU Duals were reprinted, and our point is that the price would not be impacted much, if at all. Collectability would not be harmed.
However, if for some reason no one ever purchased a foil ever again, it would have no impact on how many packs are opened. Collectability is not what drives sales, it is playability, so collectors who are buying singles actually add little to nothing to Wizard's coffers.
History of magic's more collectable cards does not support that assertion (see my previous comment about Sol Ring). The number of people that want an ABU dual will not be negatively impacted by reprinting due to several factors, not the least is the fact that the more people buying duals the most others will be drawn to the format.
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A reprint would increase the supply once, but this if offset by the ever increasing demand. As long as duals are reprinted at a slower rate than new players are wanting into Legacy, price dips would be temporary - just hiccups and speed bumps in otherwise ever rising value.
Of course I advocate near functional reprints instead to avoid reserved list issues.
And Beta duals would retain a high price I think. Look at Beta Sol Rings.
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RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
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WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
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Price of revised duals would probably drop initially if they would be reprinted. But when more players would get into legacy, their price would start to rise again due to collectability (as they are originals) and 'pimp factor'.
I agree with this in general. As crimhead said, Sol Ring is a good example. It is a highly desirable card that was on the reserved list until 2002 and wasn't widely reprinted until Commander in 2011. People who were buying the cheapest Sol Rings they could find just to have Sol Rings now had a new recourse so the value of played quality Revised copies dropped by 25-50% pretty quickly. The value of Mint condition Revised copies and Alpha/Beta copies didn't budge while the value of Unlimited copies rose a little.
I would imagine that we would see similar phenomenon with the dual lands. The price gap between poor copies and mint copies would relax and come more in line with regular cards. Played and poor condition Revised copies would drop sharply. ABU copies and Minty copies would remain relatively stable, because people aren't buying them because they are being forced to, they are buying them for pimpness, a demand which would remain.
We would only see a marked increase in price if they became legal in another format, like if they were printed in standard, or if the reprinting caused many people to start playing a format where they are legal, like if people flock to vintage because it is now more accessible. Then there would be a steady increase in value as people pimp out their decks. Otherwise it would be the steady gain that we already observe.
Let me quote Randy Buehler:
Source: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/rb9
Every English card ever printed: 99.02%
Arabian Nights through Lorwyn: Complete
Alpha: 94.2% Beta: 95.0%
Unlimited through M10: Complete
The fact that you have absolutely no evidence for this claim.
...common freaking sense? Basic knowledge of supply and demand?
Think about this. Right now, 100% of people who want dual lands want the ABUR ones. If they are reprinted, a lot of those people won't want them. That's a lowering of demand. I'm not saying the prices would bottom out Chronicles style, but the value would drop.
Again, nothing comparable has ever happened - Sengir and Serra's old version may have gone up, but they were cards that weren't in demand at the time they were reprinted. And I'm not sure the trend holds - did Juggernaut see a price spike when it saw a reprint?
As for Sol Ring, it's not a huge money card, it's not relevant to any format except Vintage and Commander (where you only get 1 copy), and from what I can tell, prices most certainly did drop since the Commander reprint.
It is all speculation, though - nobody knows for sure what would happen. Let's see if Wizards prints a non-Reserved money card like Force of Will or Mana Drain. Then we'd have a good idea of what a dual land reprint would do to the originals.
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Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
I didn't ignore it. It's Unlimited. Unlimited cards probably wouldn't see a drop in price, because the demand for people who just want to play the cards would be with the Revised versions - the cheapest and most readily available ones until they printed a cheaper and more readily available one. Earlier versions only appeal to collectors who wouldn't have any less interest after a reprint.
I'm sorry, I thought we were all on the same page about that. I'll gladly concede the ABU prints of the card wouldn't be affected much.
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I have a full playset of duals from revised plus some more, and I know I would prefer black border over what I have now. Revised is washed out looking and does not hold a candle to the look of unlimited.
I know my opinion is not everyone's, but I would take new over revised.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=4832736
Trading 10 full art zen basics for 8 of yours!
I want
Plains - John Avon - 230
Island - Jung Park - 235
Island - Vincent Proce - 237
Swamp - John Avon - 238
Mountain - John Avon - 242
Forest - John Avon - 246
1) serious collectors are the only people that would care enough* about price drops, not people that care primarlily about play.
2) A collector cares about the original printings, so the existance of reprints will not effect their desire to obtain them.
3) Those cards would therefor not loose much value.
*By this I mean that they care enough that they would be willing to cease purchasing cards and might attempt some kind of broad action against the company. Everyone else might grumble a bit when their FOW looses 8-10% in value, but they are not going to actually effect Wizard's bottom line.
You also have to look at card appearance. For example, there are many people that love the Future Shifted frame, or love things that look out of the ordinary, as such if Goyf was reprinted I do not believe that we would see much of a drop in the price (1%-2%) of the original. The same goes for the old card frame, though it may drop in price slightly more (3%-5%).
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
Yep. If you read my whole post, you'll see that I brought up the dropping revised prices. We are actually in agreement on this and I think it would work the same for duals. ABU wouldn't budge. Revised would drop, just like the Sol Rings. I would make the caveat that Mint copies also have a collectors "pimp premium" and wouldn't move appreciably so what would happen is that the gap between high quality and low quality would relax, like I said. That gap for very rare or desirable cards such as duals is quite small compared to cards that aren't scarce.
As someone with a business degree, this is a pretty good illustration. I agree with the point but still only disagree with the degree to which you think that the bottom end will fall out.
Think of it like this. The magic community had "over 12 million" players in 2008 and they have reported record growth since then so let's call it a conservative 13 million players (but realistically probably many more). There was an estimated combined 500,000 copies of each dual land printed (125,000 playsets). Even if an unlimited supply of new duals appears, if more than 1 in 104 players still want a playset of the originals then supply still hasn't met demand and never can. The value on the bottom end would still decrease by a moderate amount as you stated but only temporarily as non-collectors dump their old copies in favor for the new cheaper ones. When the market reabsorbed them the prices would normalize and steadily rise to about where they used to be. In this model, the price would actually be LESS affected than with Sol Ring because the ring was uncommon and so many more copies of it exist meaning that it could meet the premium demand easier. And, as I said, if such an act brought people to to the format, prices would actually hike as they did with those other cards. (To answer your question AB Juggernauts did jump when it got reprinted in Darksteel, UR copies didn't).
And this is what it comes down to. The problem is that Wizards doesn't reprint very valuable cards in regular product. The more valuable a card is, the more they cash in on it. Cards like these would see a judge foil treatment but I doubt if they'd even get printed in an FTV.
Every English card ever printed: 99.02%
Arabian Nights through Lorwyn: Complete
Alpha: 94.2% Beta: 95.0%
Unlimited through M10: Complete
It's been printed as an oversized card that is not legal for tournament play.
Juju Alters - Altered MTG Cards
as another posted pointed out in the edh thread:
Sorry if you misunderstood, but my overall post was meant to illustrate the larger point that definitions and nitpicking are meaningless when Wizards has the caveats under their control. The point was mainly that the restrictions are narrow and somewhat arbitrary, not that sliver queen reprint is somehow contradictory to the restrictions in place, which the small portion of the full quote you took might seem to suggest.
As Juju correctly points out, tournament legality is the magical language that holds the day, as "policies described in this document apply only to tournament-legal Magic cards." My point was more that if we just accept that, then it's possible to argue that we could have a normal sized card that walks and talks like sliver queen so long as the powers that be either say 'eh, it's not tournament legal' or 'it's not sliver queen, it's the-card-formerly-known-as-sliver-queen. The difference is only that the-card-formerly-known-as-sliver-queen has an additional subtype contraption, so it doesn't fit into our narrow reprint restriction.'
Once it's clear how arbitrary and easily ignored the restrictions are, it seems reasonable to just let people have Fork.
My Recent Craft Projects:
Custom EDH Spell Book Deck Box
Custom EDH Deck Boxes
3D Magic Card Abacus 1 2 3 4
URURU Jhoira
BGWBG Teneb
BRGBR Karrthus
WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon
BBBBB Balthor
RGWRG Uril
UBRUB Garza Zol
WUBWU Sharuum
UUUUU Arcanis
UBUBU Sivitri Scarzam
Nobody would run eight Forks, so Reverberate is fine. Duals also could be "reprinted", as it's rare for a deck to run even four. But we don't want to give decks access to eight Loin's Eye Diamonds or eight Show And Tells
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
Not seeing what the complaint is about.
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Yet Memory Jar was all-but reprinted in Reforge the Soul.
Except one is banned in Legacy while the other barely sees fringe play.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
Big difference between Memory Jar and Reforge the Soul. Not only do you get your original hand back at the end of the effect, but the opponent usually doesn't get a chance to use the 7 they drew.
Wheel of Fortune is the original card you're looking for here.
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The comparison of banned legacy card -> functional reprint remains the same. Wheel of Fortune is much cheaper than any of its spiritual followers, and would never be close to unbanning, while Memory Jar likely fails to make a sizable dent in the format if it even was unbanned. Many decks would go so far as to choose Reforge over Memory Jar on the basis of conflict with Past in Flames.
Until now, cards have been reprinted mainly by selling them to the general public in some kind of sealed material. People that already had those cards saw them losing value (just look at what happened with the prices of Pithing Needle, Birds of Paradise, Baneslayer Angel, or Arabian Nights to The Dark cards that were reprinted in Chronicles). What I propose here is similar to a stock split. I'm calling it the Reserved List Split.
It would consist in Wizards giving you the option to send them any number of Reserved List cards, and after checking that they are genuine, they would destroy them (more on this later) and then they would return you 2 tournament legal copies of each card you sent, but with a new format, being clearly differentiable from the original one. For example, you send them an Alpha, Beta or Unlimited Black Lotus and they send you 2 new Black Lotus. Or you send them 4 Alpha, Beta, Unlimited or Revised Underground Sea and they send you 8 new Underground Sea.
As this service would entail some costs to Wizards, I think it would fair for them to charge a fee. It could be something like $3 for each copy they send to you (so $6 for each original copy you send them), plus shipping and handling. This service could be offered also at big events like Grand Prix.
What would this service achieve?
It would increase the supply of Reserved List cards that are needed to play Eternal formats competitively, but without hurting (actually benefitting) those that already have the cards.
Players
If the supply increases, it's easier for players to find the cards they need, and for a smaller price than before. That would mean that more people could play Eternal formats, and therefore tournaments would have more attendance and more organizers would find organizing tournaments profitable.
Collectors, investors and anyone that cares about the value of their cards
I said before that original cards would have to be destroyed in order to get 2 new ones. Why? There are two reasons to destroy them. The first one is because that way they can't be sent again to Wizards to "split" them. Another option would be to mark them in some way so they can't be "split" again. I don't know if that's viable, specially nowadays, when many cards are altered and that mark could be hidden. Maybe they could just make a hole in them, or cut their borders, but that would make them tournament illegal, so it's the same as just destroying them completely. The second reason is because that would decrease the supply of original cards, so those original cards would become more rare and therefore more valuable. This would actually benefit those collectors that complained about Chronicles and asked for the Reserved List. This point is absolutely crucial.
Imagine that Chronicles instead of being sold in boosters was offered as a 10:1 split (they give you 10 Chronicles Erhnam Djinn for each Arabians Nights one that you send to Wizards). If someone wants 10 new Erhnam Djinn, they need to already have an original one, buy it from someone else, or buy some Arabian Nights boosters. Now, you, as an owner of an original Erhnam Djinn have two options: either to still play with an increasingly "pimp" and expensive original card (as the supply decreases because of splits) or to change it for 10 new ones, so you can still play it and have some extra copies to lend or sell to another player.
Compare that with seeing how Wizards just makes new cheap boosters and everyone can have lots of Erhnam Djinn, and the price of your original one plummets. I would also be angry! And I would also ask Wizards to promise not to do it again or I would just spend much less (if any) money in Magic.
With a split, collectors not only aren't harmed but they get a compensation for their willingness to spend money on cards. With a Reserved List Split, collectors benefit in two ways:
Their cards are worth more. Original cards would be very appreciated for two reasons: they are increasingly rare and therefore more exclusive (as copies get destroyed to "split" them) and they have attached the option to turn them into new multiple copies. Combine that with the fact that there's more demand for Eternal cards in general.
It's less likely that collections become worthless, because Magic becomes more popular, as a consequence of smaller prices, and more and bigger tournaments.
Wizards of the Coast
What about Wizards? Do they really want to do a Reserved List Split? Wizards would benefit from this service in some ways. The first and most obvious one is that they would charge for doing "splits". The second and by far most important is that more people would have interest in Magic, so there are more potential buyers for their products.
We and them know that without reprints, Eternal formats will slowly die. It has already happened with Vintage. But do they really care? They can just ignore Legacy and Vintage, and focus in Modern as the new "eternal" format. I think that doing the Reprint List Split and promoting Modern aren't exclusive (just like they offer products to Commander players, for example), and that they should do both things, so more customers would be happy and willing to buy Wizards' goods.
Another reason why I think that the Reserved List Split would be a great idea for Wizards is that people that play "paper" Legacy and Vintage would have more interest to play those formats on Magic Online, to playtest or just to complement it with live tournaments (I know Vintage doesn't exist there yet, but they just need to add the Power Nine). More people playing Eternal online would also mean more people wanting to play "paper".
Some details
Ancestral Recall, Badlands, Bayou, Bazaar of Baghdad, Black Lotus, Candelabra of Tawnos, Library of Alexandria, Mishra's Workshop, Moat, Mox Emerald, Mox Jet, Mox Pearl, Mox Ruby, Mox Sapphire, Nether Void, Plateau, Savannah, Scrubland, Taiga, The Abyss, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Time Vault, Time Walk, Timetwister, Tropical Island, Tundra, Undeground Sea, Volcanic Island.
You may notice that I didn't include some expensive cards like Juzám Djinn. Nobody plays with it, so reprinting it wouldn't increase the attendance to Eternal tournaments. I haven't included cards like City of Traitors, Intuition or Lion's Eye Diamond because they aren't really that expensive for the moment.
The list that I have made includes just 28 cards, while the Reserved List is formed by 572. Wizards could either just reprint those 28, and add some when they become too expensive, or offer to "split" any Reserved List card. Some collectors would love to have the full Reserved List set, but I don't know if Wizards could offer that for an attractive price. The vast majority of the Reserved List cards are worth very little, so I don't think much people would like to pay $6 plus shipping and handling to "split" their Kudzu and Sorrow's Path. Maybe Wizards could make big discounts if you send them many cards, or if you want the full set (it could be divided in 4 143 cards subsets). Anyway, that's up to Wizards, what is really needed is a reprint of those 28 key cards.
I hope that you like my idea and contribute to correct any flaws that I made. Maybe we can convince Wizards to adopt it so Eternal will really be Eternal, and never die because of a decreasing supply of needed cards. Even something as crazy as a Vintage Grand Prix could become true!