Passing on these, waiting for a Pioneer Masters or something of the sort, hoping that we get Thoughtseize in the new Theros.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
Honestly, this is causing me more undue stress than I would have thought. I've been collecting Legend cards for years now and have done a decent job on keeping up with the new releases. Unfortunately, now that we have full art versions like the ones in Eldraine becoming a thing, a crapton of new legends coming out in the new releases for commander, and now these essentially premium singles being limited release and potentially harder to come by, I don't think my wallet can keep up anymore.
I used to play regularly, but now time constraints and adult life have gotten me to the point where I only get to play a few times a year anymore, so I've cut back to just my commander decks and my personal collection. And now I may be getting to the point where I can't keep collecting because I can't keep pace.
For somebody who hasn't owned cards in a while when I saw 7 different products, I got excited because the themes seemed cool and it would have been a good way to get cards to get back into the game. The more I'm seeing though, this is a huge turnoff and feels like another scheme for wizards to drain the pockets of their customers without actually giving them much value. Sadly this is a hard pass for me.
Those basic lands are ******* amazing looking... can't believe you only get one of each for ******* $30
They're snow lands. It's on par with how much you'd be spending on the open market, if not a bit less.
That is a problem though.
Wizards has a number of ways to go about rectifying the high prices of cards. They can do what they have said they have been doing and print cards they think people want or cards that fit with whatever set they are making but realize people who already have the cards don't want to lose value. This doesn't seem to work because it doesn't do anything. In order to really make things accessible, they need to print more copies or put the packs of cards at a reasonable price point. Something they are not willing to do. Plus, there are too many cards people want and not enough avenues to print them.
Or, they can ignore the secondary market, and the value of people's collections entirely, and just print these supplemental sets to demand. No more limited print runs. No more high cost packs. They seem reluctant to do this to because they don't want people to lose focus of the "cheaper" format of Standard so getting reprint sets always command a premium. But this would arguably be a pretty decent route for accessibility.
Or, they do what they have done here with these "Secret Lair" boxes: they print cards and price them based on the secondary market. That is, they have given us sets that are priced based on the individual cards' values on the secondary market. This is Wizards saying "we don't pay attention to the secondary market (wink, wink)". This is especially egregious with Bitterblossom as they are selling us a Single for lower than, but still close to, current market value. There is a reason this card is the only one included in that box.
This is why I think arguing that these boxes are a "good deal" misses the point of people's complaints entirely. This product, if successful, creates a conflict of interest within Wizards. There will now be a reason not to reprint cards to make them accessible. They are better off *not* making things accessible so the prices jump. With this product, they could cease major reprints going forward. Instead, and the fetchlands are a good example for this right now, they could simply allow prices to skyrocket out of control and then come in with their own product for cheaper.
If they neglect to reprint a Pioneer staple and it gets to $100 over the course of the next 3 years. And then they come out with a product that gives us a single, "special edition" copy of that card for $50. That is certainly a "good deal" but why is that card $100 to begin with? At what point do we no longer accept their excuse not to reprint as simply "we couldn't find room for it in a set" and start seeing it as "we wanted it to get high enough where we could make money selling that same card direct to players".
Now, as this is the beginning of this product line, it is difficult to go too far down the rabbit hole on what they will do. This is only speculation but this opens the doors to some pretty scummy stuff Wizards could do.
So, no, I don't think getting 5 foil basic lands is a deal since there should have been more than 2 reprints of snow basics in the last 20 years (and definitely should not have been in a limited, overpriced product). I don't believe getting a Single, Alt-Art Bitterblossom for $30 is a good thing just because the current version in $40.
There is a way to do these products right. Releasing the basic land pack with 2 of each would have been more acceptable. 3 of each I think would have been the sweet spot. Perhaps more than that is giving a bit too much, but they are still basics that are only expensive because of scarcity. This product doesn't change that and only exacerbates it by setting an artificial floor on these lands right out of the gate.
The kaleidoscope box is a good way to do this too. Overlord was $30+ before this box and they gave us a couple other good cards with it. It won't drastically reduce the buy in, but it does a lot to lower existing prices. Overloard is already down about 50% from where it started. That is a good thing for accessibility.
We can enjoy these products for what they are and buy the ones we want to buy. Overall, while I don't feel any but two of them are worth it (and I am being very generous with the Cats one since the cards themselves are worth less than half what they are charging) others may like certain ones for different reasons. But the Basic Land box is the most damning of them all. There is nothing special about them and there is nothing that dictates that price beyond what the current market says because of lack of supply. These could have arguably been in a Holiday Gift Box and would make perfect sense (in NA anyway) as Winter = Snow. But Wizards chose to put them in this product, where people need to spend hundreds to get enough for a deck when they could have done so much more with them. If only they would truly ignore the secondary market like they want us to think they do.
Those basic lands are ******* amazing looking... can't believe you only get one of each for ******* $30
They're snow lands. It's on par with how much you'd be spending on the open market, if not a bit less.
It sounds good on paper, five foil snow lands of each basic, only $30.
But then you find out they curl like a FTV card. And if you were going to stock up on foiled snow basics, you might as well buy the Modern Horizons versions instead as the foils are only $5-7 each, except for a foil Snow-Covered Island from MH which costs $10 and is about the same as the Forest/Plains/Swamps from the Coldsnap set.
One of them is a playset of serum visions. For 30 bucks.
what the ****.
there foil that’s a steal since foils are averaged at 14$ so that’s about 56$ Of value if foil
But the bad news it was spotted in the lands and kaleidoscope cards that same stupid idiot mistake they always make in FTV the cards in mint condition freshly seal but yet are curled
I would say WizardMN 5 of each snow basic would be the sweet spot as it provides a seemingly equivalent deal.
Because lets say the player only needs 20. This puts them at $119.96. Which is comparable to wanting to buy 4x of Restless in Peace for example at $119.96.
And if WotC really wanted to scrimp, make it the first of the five for each basic is a foil while the rest aren't. Which doubles in that while the foils for Eldraine Wonderland would bend like a FTV foil, the rest of the 16x don't. As the goal would be to entice the player to buy the same product more times. As the customer rationalizes how its actually a good deal comparatively to the rest when compounded with any sunk cost the customer has.
Plus the cost of making a non-foil to a foil is literally pennies.
(I don't even have a masters degree in economics, let alone study it, and I noticed how they could get away with basically murder.)
My argument was more about 1 of each being very overpriced. There are likely a number of things they could have done to make it worth more. I like your idea in theory though I wouldn't buy any with 1 foil and 4 nonfoil since I only want foils (I realize that is not everyone). This is also the reason I won't get the Bitterblossom. Perhaps 2 of each being foil and 2 or 3 of each being non foil might have worked.
Part of my thought is that I won't buy any at this price point. I love the artwork on these and would have given serious consideration to buying them with 2 of each and easily would have picked up all 10 I could have picked up (and likely would have gotten as many of my friends to pick up some for me as well) if there were 3 of each. I am sure someone who is better at math and economics than I am can come up with the right number to sell the most and make the most money. As it is, this price has priced me out of it entirely where I will spend $0 on the lands whereas I could have spent $300 - $600 if there was just more value to the box.
Which I can totally get behind what you are saying as well, as wanting all foils would be nice for blinging. I personally have foil snow-covered mountains for a Skred Red deck that I can just swap between Coldsnap and Modern Horizons, Ice Age as well but no foils.
And I do agree they are overpriced. Best use I can even think of them for such a low quantity is maybe a Goblin Charbelcher deck. Or if you bought like 3, maybe a snowgreen tron deck.
Personally wouldn't surprise me if they said later on the Eldraine Wonderland did the worst in sales for their Lair line. (Can't imagine why /s)
Those basic lands are ******* amazing looking... can't believe you only get one of each for ******* $30
They're snow lands. It's on par with how much you'd be spending on the open market, if not a bit less.
That is a problem though.
Wizards has a number of ways to go about rectifying the high prices of cards. They can do what they have said they have been doing and print cards they think people want or cards that fit with whatever set they are making but realize people who already have the cards don't want to lose value. This doesn't seem to work because it doesn't do anything. In order to really make things accessible, they need to print more copies or put the packs of cards at a reasonable price point. Something they are not willing to do. Plus, there are too many cards people want and not enough avenues to print them.
Or, they can ignore the secondary market, and the value of people's collections entirely, and just print these supplemental sets to demand. No more limited print runs. No more high cost packs. They seem reluctant to do this to because they don't want people to lose focus of the "cheaper" format of Standard so getting reprint sets always command a premium. But this would arguably be a pretty decent route for accessibility.
Or, they do what they have done here with these "Secret Lair" boxes: they print cards and price them based on the secondary market. That is, they have given us sets that are priced based on the individual cards' values on the secondary market. This is Wizards saying "we don't pay attention to the secondary market (wink, wink)". This is especially egregious with Bitterblossom as they are selling us a Single for lower than, but still close to, current market value. There is a reason this card is the only one included in that box.
This is why I think arguing that these boxes are a "good deal" misses the point of people's complaints entirely. This product, if successful, creates a conflict of interest within Wizards. There will now be a reason not to reprint cards to make them accessible. They are better off *not* making things accessible so the prices jump. With this product, they could cease major reprints going forward. Instead, and the fetchlands are a good example for this right now, they could simply allow prices to skyrocket out of control and then come in with their own product for cheaper.
If they neglect to reprint a Pioneer staple and it gets to $100 over the course of the next 3 years. And then they come out with a product that gives us a single, "special edition" copy of that card for $50. That is certainly a "good deal" but why is that card $100 to begin with? At what point do we no longer accept their excuse not to reprint as simply "we couldn't find room for it in a set" and start seeing it as "we wanted it to get high enough where we could make money selling that same card direct to players".
Now, as this is the beginning of this product line, it is difficult to go too far down the rabbit hole on what they will do. This is only speculation but this opens the doors to some pretty scummy stuff Wizards could do.
So, no, I don't think getting 5 foil basic lands is a deal since there should have been more than 2 reprints of snow basics in the last 20 years (and definitely should not have been in a limited, overpriced product). I don't believe getting a Single, Alt-Art Bitterblossom for $30 is a good thing just because the current version in $40.
There is a way to do these products right. Releasing the basic land pack with 2 of each would have been more acceptable. 3 of each I think would have been the sweet spot. Perhaps more than that is giving a bit too much, but they are still basics that are only expensive because of scarcity. This product doesn't change that and only exacerbates it by setting an artificial floor on these lands right out of the gate.
The kaleidoscope box is a good way to do this too. Overlord was $30+ before this box and they gave us a couple other good cards with it. It won't drastically reduce the buy in, but it does a lot to lower existing prices. Overloard is already down about 50% from where it started. That is a good thing for accessibility.
We can enjoy these products for what they are and buy the ones we want to buy. Overall, while I don't feel any but two of them are worth it (and I am being very generous with the Cats one since the cards themselves are worth less than half what they are charging) others may like certain ones for different reasons. But the Basic Land box is the most damning of them all. There is nothing special about them and there is nothing that dictates that price beyond what the current market says because of lack of supply. These could have arguably been in a Holiday Gift Box and would make perfect sense (in NA anyway) as Winter = Snow. But Wizards chose to put them in this product, where people need to spend hundreds to get enough for a deck when they could have done so much more with them. If only they would truly ignore the secondary market like they want us to think they do.
you're pretty much spot on.
there's also the issue of cards reprinted in with those premium cards being obliterated in value too, reducing the overall value of the product, yet we still gobble it up because we might miss out on those promo lands, or we feel that a precon with a bitterblossom for 30 bucks is a good deal.
40 dollar for 3 cards ? / and another set has 5 for 30... tell me again you dont look at the secondary market wizards
and here we are with another premium product. thank god, cause magic players dont know where to go with all their money. and the last premium product is already 2 months old... doesnt feel special anymore, the players need something new.
the thing they forget is, if they want to make some special cards copying the alternation of cards from artists, they dont get that people like to have the unique cards... if everyone can buy them, they are not special anymore. ("so you got a full art xxx... yea, i got that too")
the price is ridicolous, and with all these premium products i dont get why they still had to increase the normal display price. i dont get why there are still soooo many people willing to buy this. but ok, if you dont know anything better to do with 40 dollar than buying alternate arts of existing cards, enjoy it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
The second one is nothing more than one of each basic land (snow lands ofcoarse)
So guru lands all over again potentially
Seriously? I’m feeling more and more relaxed with each reveal of these to eventually keeping my credit card in my wallet.
Yes it’s true
If it was 5 or 10 of each basic then we be talking
They are beautiful art though
The biggest reason this is stupid is because modern horizon just reprinted snow basics recently and in full art
Yes
Still they are foil, and each basic foil snow land is like $10 in NM and up to $8 light played. (for the box it is close to $6 each)
https://shop.tcgplayer.com/magic/product/show?ProductName=snow-covered&newSearch=false&orientation=list
Bitterblossom is about (normal non foil) $40 and they are selling it for $30 (foil)
https://shop.tcgplayer.com/magic/product/show?ProductName=Bitterblossom&newSearch=false&ProductType=All&IsProductNameExact=true
Wizards is printing money and going to the seccondary market, just that.
So far I’m saving my money for either a Pioneer Masters set or a Pioneer Horizons set.
For me it’s the year of commander (Ikoria decks, zendikar decks, Green commander cards (from the vault), commander legends and decks.)
I used to play regularly, but now time constraints and adult life have gotten me to the point where I only get to play a few times a year anymore, so I've cut back to just my commander decks and my personal collection. And now I may be getting to the point where I can't keep collecting because I can't keep pace.
Feels bad, man.
And kaleidoscope killers shown a little early by both command zone and jumbo commander (this is only one that has my attention)
Surprised progenitus and Scion of the Ur-Dragon weren’t in this one
However WotC learned that players are dumb and pay way over the top.
So this will sell to some degree regardless.
----
The contents of this entire series is like a single commander deck.
Bunch of semi useful cards here and there, some foils.
People buying this simply pushes WotC into making less product steadily more expensive, and the trend will keep going.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
what the ****.
Commander
U Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
RG Zilortha, Strength Incarnate
WU Yorion, Sky Nomad
Wizards has a number of ways to go about rectifying the high prices of cards. They can do what they have said they have been doing and print cards they think people want or cards that fit with whatever set they are making but realize people who already have the cards don't want to lose value. This doesn't seem to work because it doesn't do anything. In order to really make things accessible, they need to print more copies or put the packs of cards at a reasonable price point. Something they are not willing to do. Plus, there are too many cards people want and not enough avenues to print them.
Or, they can ignore the secondary market, and the value of people's collections entirely, and just print these supplemental sets to demand. No more limited print runs. No more high cost packs. They seem reluctant to do this to because they don't want people to lose focus of the "cheaper" format of Standard so getting reprint sets always command a premium. But this would arguably be a pretty decent route for accessibility.
Or, they do what they have done here with these "Secret Lair" boxes: they print cards and price them based on the secondary market. That is, they have given us sets that are priced based on the individual cards' values on the secondary market. This is Wizards saying "we don't pay attention to the secondary market (wink, wink)". This is especially egregious with Bitterblossom as they are selling us a Single for lower than, but still close to, current market value. There is a reason this card is the only one included in that box.
This is why I think arguing that these boxes are a "good deal" misses the point of people's complaints entirely. This product, if successful, creates a conflict of interest within Wizards. There will now be a reason not to reprint cards to make them accessible. They are better off *not* making things accessible so the prices jump. With this product, they could cease major reprints going forward. Instead, and the fetchlands are a good example for this right now, they could simply allow prices to skyrocket out of control and then come in with their own product for cheaper.
If they neglect to reprint a Pioneer staple and it gets to $100 over the course of the next 3 years. And then they come out with a product that gives us a single, "special edition" copy of that card for $50. That is certainly a "good deal" but why is that card $100 to begin with? At what point do we no longer accept their excuse not to reprint as simply "we couldn't find room for it in a set" and start seeing it as "we wanted it to get high enough where we could make money selling that same card direct to players".
Now, as this is the beginning of this product line, it is difficult to go too far down the rabbit hole on what they will do. This is only speculation but this opens the doors to some pretty scummy stuff Wizards could do.
So, no, I don't think getting 5 foil basic lands is a deal since there should have been more than 2 reprints of snow basics in the last 20 years (and definitely should not have been in a limited, overpriced product). I don't believe getting a Single, Alt-Art Bitterblossom for $30 is a good thing just because the current version in $40.
There is a way to do these products right. Releasing the basic land pack with 2 of each would have been more acceptable. 3 of each I think would have been the sweet spot. Perhaps more than that is giving a bit too much, but they are still basics that are only expensive because of scarcity. This product doesn't change that and only exacerbates it by setting an artificial floor on these lands right out of the gate.
The kaleidoscope box is a good way to do this too. Overlord was $30+ before this box and they gave us a couple other good cards with it. It won't drastically reduce the buy in, but it does a lot to lower existing prices. Overloard is already down about 50% from where it started. That is a good thing for accessibility.
We can enjoy these products for what they are and buy the ones we want to buy. Overall, while I don't feel any but two of them are worth it (and I am being very generous with the Cats one since the cards themselves are worth less than half what they are charging) others may like certain ones for different reasons. But the Basic Land box is the most damning of them all. There is nothing special about them and there is nothing that dictates that price beyond what the current market says because of lack of supply. These could have arguably been in a Holiday Gift Box and would make perfect sense (in NA anyway) as Winter = Snow. But Wizards chose to put them in this product, where people need to spend hundreds to get enough for a deck when they could have done so much more with them. If only they would truly ignore the secondary market like they want us to think they do.
But then you find out they curl like a FTV card. And if you were going to stock up on foiled snow basics, you might as well buy the Modern Horizons versions instead as the foils are only $5-7 each, except for a foil Snow-Covered Island from MH which costs $10 and is about the same as the Forest/Plains/Swamps from the Coldsnap set.
Also not all the cards are foiled, but are alternate artwork:
Bitterblossom Dreams (Bitterblossom)
Restless in Peace (Life from the Loam, Bloodghast, Golgari Thug)
<Explosion Sounds> (Goblin King, Goblin Lackey, Goblin Piledriver, Goblin Sharpshooter, Goblin Bushwhacker)
Which shows effort was made to make some not suffer from the poor foiling process so they would have more usability in tournaments.
there foil that’s a steal since foils are averaged at 14$ so that’s about 56$ Of value if foil
But the bad news it was spotted in the lands and kaleidoscope cards that same stupid idiot mistake they always make in FTV the cards in mint condition freshly seal but yet are curled
Because lets say the player only needs 20. This puts them at $119.96. Which is comparable to wanting to buy 4x of Restless in Peace for example at $119.96.
And if WotC really wanted to scrimp, make it the first of the five for each basic is a foil while the rest aren't. Which doubles in that while the foils for Eldraine Wonderland would bend like a FTV foil, the rest of the 16x don't. As the goal would be to entice the player to buy the same product more times. As the customer rationalizes how its actually a good deal comparatively to the rest when compounded with any sunk cost the customer has.
Plus the cost of making a non-foil to a foil is literally pennies.
(I don't even have a masters degree in economics, let alone study it, and I noticed how they could get away with basically murder.)
My argument was more about 1 of each being very overpriced. There are likely a number of things they could have done to make it worth more. I like your idea in theory though I wouldn't buy any with 1 foil and 4 nonfoil since I only want foils (I realize that is not everyone). This is also the reason I won't get the Bitterblossom. Perhaps 2 of each being foil and 2 or 3 of each being non foil might have worked.
Part of my thought is that I won't buy any at this price point. I love the artwork on these and would have given serious consideration to buying them with 2 of each and easily would have picked up all 10 I could have picked up (and likely would have gotten as many of my friends to pick up some for me as well) if there were 3 of each. I am sure someone who is better at math and economics than I am can come up with the right number to sell the most and make the most money. As it is, this price has priced me out of it entirely where I will spend $0 on the lands whereas I could have spent $300 - $600 if there was just more value to the box.
And I do agree they are overpriced. Best use I can even think of them for such a low quantity is maybe a Goblin Charbelcher deck. Or if you bought like 3, maybe a snowgreen tron deck.
Personally wouldn't surprise me if they said later on the Eldraine Wonderland did the worst in sales for their Lair line. (Can't imagine why /s)
you're pretty much spot on.
there's also the issue of cards reprinted in with those premium cards being obliterated in value too, reducing the overall value of the product, yet we still gobble it up because we might miss out on those promo lands, or we feel that a precon with a bitterblossom for 30 bucks is a good deal.
40 dollar for 3 cards ? / and another set has 5 for 30... tell me again you dont look at the secondary market wizards
and here we are with another premium product. thank god, cause magic players dont know where to go with all their money. and the last premium product is already 2 months old... doesnt feel special anymore, the players need something new.
the thing they forget is, if they want to make some special cards copying the alternation of cards from artists, they dont get that people like to have the unique cards... if everyone can buy them, they are not special anymore. ("so you got a full art xxx... yea, i got that too")
the price is ridicolous, and with all these premium products i dont get why they still had to increase the normal display price. i dont get why there are still soooo many people willing to buy this. but ok, if you dont know anything better to do with 40 dollar than buying alternate arts of existing cards, enjoy it.