Traded a Skaab Ruinator and some other zombie stuff for 2x Geist. I came out well and so did he.
I feel its about planning what decks you want to make, make 2-3 and stick with them, don't sit and complain you can't get cards when you have 10+ mythics in your binder people want but yet you won't give up. If you want the cards you can find a way to snag em.
I'm sure it's been said, but Snapcaster and Liliana are seriously overpriced. Snapcaster is a solid support card, but not a win condition. Liliana is a cool planeswalker, and definitely one of the better ones that are in Standard, but $70? C'mon.
Stromkirk Noble jumped from $2.50 to $13 in the amount of time it took my LGS to get their internet back up so they could check single prices. Everyone knew they were $2.50 but they just HAD to check *sigh*.
In all fairness, Innistrad is apparently very popular and very under-printed so that accounts for some of the insane prices.
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"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire." - Jaya Ballard
The chase card prices from Innistrad will drop off some as the set will be drafted for the next year... Supply will continue to increase regardless of what demand does... I think Snappy will stay around 20-25ish because of its value in all formats. Liliana will drop off to 35ish I believe by the time the next set comes out.
My only complaint about Innistrad isn't so much the price of some of the cards.. but the actual rarity of the cards compared to their supposed printed numbers.. I had a friend opened 3 boxes of Innistrad and didn't pull a Snapcaster, Liliana or Garruk out of any of them. It may just be anecdotal on my part but it just seems odd.
snapcaster is in no way overpriced.... yes it doesn't win u the game but a second tinker will, or a 2nd ancestral recall, and jtms which happens to be blue as well bounces him to do real serious things......
these two previously discussed cards are WOTC ways of trying to help vintage i think
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02-02-2010, 02:05 PM #503
raleldor
Common Mage
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Salt Lake City, UT
Posts: 39
I would like to congratulate Jace, The Mind Sculptor on being the most overhyped card ever!
If you guys wanna complain about overpriced cards check out the "slightly played" FOIL Sword of Body and Mind going for $29,993,395.80 on Channel Fireball!
Mythic Rarity is a problem. It's definitely an issue in regards to supply versus demand, since there's automatically less supply of a Mythic Rare than were it a Rare. It also affects how people trade with each other.
I'd rather have rare lands be worth more if it meant cards like new Lily were cheaper and more accessible. It would definitely allow for better trading.
The hivemind is controlled by Open Series and PTQ results. Competitive players are willing to spend $X dollars, secondary market kicks in, affects everyone.
There's no easy solution in that case, really. You've gotta be good at predicting which cards are likely to be more money. This can be especially hard when a set is only partially revealed. We didn't know Unburial Rites would be around until after having the chance to pre-order some of the other cards from Innistrad, for example. Sometimes it's best to wait until a set's fully revealed before making purchases.
WotC just needs to print more cards... I think people would spend the same amount of money anyways.
Player A purchased a new $400 deck because prices are so high.
Alternate universe: player A purchased 4 $100 dollar decks because the prices are so high.
There are tons of players out there that choose to never be competitive because they can't afford 3x of said $30 card. These casual players then choose to not play at FNMs or PTQs because they know that they will get womped on for having a budget deck... many of these same players then choose to play casual EDH with friends on the kitchen table.
High prices drive away a mass player base that could actually be spending more money due to attending FNMs, drafts and other casual sanctioned events.
WotC has not yet figured out the right balance of card worth and the maximum number of players attending events.
My Proposition on "printing more cards"
1. Print more cards. If say, WotC prints 20,000 cases of M12, they should instead print 35,000 cases.
2. They should print more expected money cards in the starter sets.
3. Make more money cards promos. Game day promos, FNM promos, that promo you get when you buy a box...
4. They should print foil packs like they did in alara. I'm guessing they didn't sell well or something... but hey, with the magic player base growing, maybe it could work again? I would like to do an all foil draft
5. Give out MORE booster packs at PTQs, states, regionals etc. and not just up the packs by 6 or 9. I'm talking about BOXES. The winner should get a CASE of product. 5th-8th a box at least. 3rd-4th should get 2 boxes. And 2nd should get 3 boxes.
And to add on to #5 (because top 8 prizes are small compared to the actual player base size) all entrants to said tournaments should get an entry promo from a previous set. For example, if we had a PTQ today, the entry would be a new promo solemn simulacrum!
Ya, WotC would be giving away a ton of stuff, but imagine the increased number of participants there would be!
I once decided not to go to states, to go have coffee with a friend that i see regularly... but if I could have gotten a promo fauna shaman..?
All in all, I think WotC can fix things, but they just choose not to.
In regards to this, here's my thoughts on the proposal:
WotC really doesn't need to do more print-runs. There's lots of product available throughout, say, about a two-year span preceding a new set's release, and more cards per print-run would mean too much product. That costs WotC more money (nearly double the budget for your suggestion), and that would mean at least twice as much product would have to be purchased to make similar profit.
Also, if that product were bought by a larger populace, that would mean more people that want the better cards, creating a similar supply-demand effect. On the other hand, suppose the same amount of people we have now bought double the product. I'd wager those people would rather just buy the singles they'd want at that point.
WotC can only predict so much. While they do intentionally make a handful of competitively-powerful cards, making more of them won't guarantee anything. If a powerful card fits into a deck that is a poor choice in the Standard meta, for example, there's a fair chance it will decrease.
If more of such cards were printed, it could upset more people. And some cards increase in price for other reasons, not just because they're aggressively costed and game-winning.
I do like the idea of printing more powerful promo cards to give players more incentive to participate in events. A promo Solemn Simulacrum or promo Fauna Shaman really would be awesome.
Giving out more product in prize support is going a little too far, esp. in your example (A case for 1st and at least a box for 5th / 8th? Really?). Prize support has been quite amazing in the last couple of years.
Foil packs were really cool, I agree they should do that after a certain point. I think all-foil Zendikar block booster packs would really sell.
Whether or not it worked does not validate the play. That's hindsight probability. Let's say I offered you a bet -- I'm going to flip a coin and if it's heads, I'll give you 1 dollar but if it's tails, you'll give me 2 dollars. This is obviously a terrible bet for you. Accepting it is a bad decision. You can't justify it afterwards by arguing that you won the flip, therefore you made the right decision.
In regards to t2 decks over 300 pre mythics might i mention faries
4 mutavault 20 each for 80
4 thought seize 15 each 60
4 mistbind clique 5 each 20
3 vendeylon clique 10 each 30
reflecting pool 20 each 80
cryptic command 15 each 60
rest of deck 20
deck was 350
might have been more
I also forgo t bitterblossem 20 each for over 400
Its strange that the top deck when blue is expensive. jund top deck was 300 flat
faries almost 400, caw blade about 600
mythic was about 1k
In regards to t2 decks over 300 pre mythics might i mention faries
Look Again I said pre-lowryn.
The lowryn block was not like other standard blocks, it shared two of the major problems of mythic blocks. It had cards printed at rairites they should not have been, and it took almost as many packs to get a play set of lowryn as it does to get a play set of a mythic block(800 for a normal block, 1080 for lowryn block, 1120 for a mythic block).
As for jund being inexpensive it revolved around uncommons and need very few mythics. Change bloodbraid elf to lotusbraid elf and print it as a mythic and suddenly you have a $500-$700 deck.
As for mythic as long as you got the cards from e-bay or equvilant sorce the price of the deck at any one time ranged from 600-$800.
A 40 dollar mythic rare would constitute a must have 4 of that goes in many decks.
Stats About Mythics
-Mythics are on average 40% rarer than pre-mythic rares
(old blocks about 200 rares, Mythic blocks 35+ mythics)
-They are printing more new cards a year not less
(about 665 now vs. 630 in most pre-mythic block)
-To drop the value of a rare by $1 a mythic must go up $2
-In a 3 year time span deck prices doubled. I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
Just put 2 rares in each pack you buy. Or sell the packs for half the price you get them today in the shops. one or both of them options would drive down standard prices on cards "simple".
Then people would buy half as much product as they currently do to get the same chase cards, or wizards would make half as much money, and wizards would go out of business.
I don't think so. Lots of people like me have a Budget on what we can spend on Magic each month. I spend 20 and get lets say 5 boosters, or i spend 20 and get 10 boosters. Wiz get the same amount of money but yes they have to print more.
As you say yourself, they are going to get your $20 a month either way. What they want is the people who will buy packs until they get that mythic or set that they want to keep buying packs. Having a greater number of mythics and other hard to find chase cards (which increases their individual rarity) does that.
Then people would buy half as much product as they currently do to get the same chase cards, or wizards would make half as much money, and wizards would go out of business.
It used to take 800 packs to get a playset of standard each year now it takes 1600, Wotc didn't go out of business those 10+ years of only taking half as many packs to get the cards.
A 40 dollar mythic rare would constitute a must have 4 of that goes in many decks.
Stats About Mythics
-Mythics are on average 40% rarer than pre-mythic rares
(old blocks about 200 rares, Mythic blocks 35+ mythics)
-They are printing more new cards a year not less
(about 665 now vs. 630 in most pre-mythic block)
-To drop the value of a rare by $1 a mythic must go up $2
-In a 3 year time span deck prices doubled. I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
It used to take 800 packs to get a playset of standard each year now it takes 1600, Wotc didn't go out of business those 10+ years of only taking half as many packs to get the cards.
Sure, but what incentive do they have to make half as much as they are now?
Personally, I like having cards that not everyone can afford. It makes this collectible card game truly collectible.
Just looking at the numbers on MTGO at the swiss Innistrad Pre-Releases. In 40mins over 100games = 288,000 tickets.
Snapcaster Mage looks to be going up & up in price. And now its been used in legacy i dont see it going down in the near future.
It'll go down a little bit after all this States scrambling is over with. Hopefully.
It's a good card, but it has a little too much going for it in terms of interactions and wide playability in just about every format. So I really do doubt it's going to drop a lot. Kind of a shame.
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If more people comes to play at lower prices, more profit. It's not so simple as rise the price/rarity for us to pay more. We have the chance to quit anytime. Elasticity is your word.
If there comes a moment when less people can afford playing Magic at current costs, they will have to balance the prices.
That's a pretty obvious statement, but we're no where near there yet.
Wizards has been selling more now than they ever have been, so what they are doing in regards to Magic and Mythic rarity is working.
Sure, but what incentive do they have to make half as much as they are now?
By that logic why not make it take 5,000 packs to get a playset of standard?
What will attract more people to a competitive enviorment with $200 decks where it's not unussual for $50 worth of cards to be reprinted, or one with $500 decks with where maybe $20 worth of cards will be reprinted.
That's a pretty obvious statement, but we're no where near there yet.
Wizards has been selling more now than they ever have been, so what they are doing in regards to Magic and Mythic rarity is working.
Just because the are selling more doesn't mean they are growing the game, If 49% of competitive players quite due to mythics they would still show a growth in sales. Short term trends are not indicative of long term results.
A 40 dollar mythic rare would constitute a must have 4 of that goes in many decks.
Stats About Mythics
-Mythics are on average 40% rarer than pre-mythic rares
(old blocks about 200 rares, Mythic blocks 35+ mythics)
-They are printing more new cards a year not less
(about 665 now vs. 630 in most pre-mythic block)
-To drop the value of a rare by $1 a mythic must go up $2
-In a 3 year time span deck prices doubled. I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
I'd like to have a good moan about how expensive the top decks are right now.
Wolf run is crazy, not just due to sheer volume of mythics (Garruk, Primeval Titan), but there's some pretty notable money tied up in rares as well (Inkmoth, GSZ)
The worst part though is how fast the market is moving...Thrun up in price, Dungrove Elder going up in price. Some of these builds are starting to approach mouth watering level for actual price and it's actually quite off-putting.
If I wanted to change up deck this week I'd have to shell out an amount not too different to a videogame system AND some games for tier 1 right now. Tier 1.5 or 2 and I could still grab a handheld and games.
I had planned on riding G/B Heartless Pod as far as it'll go until picking up a more powerful deck...unfortunately though the price jumped far above what I expected to invest ($250ish) since I have little in paper having played online only last season.
Just means more likely I'll play until I'm bored and then stop showing at FNM in time for Old Republic.
Part of the problem is that people by boxes to get rares/mythics. Thats a huge gamble. Boxes are printed in a singular print run... one giant run. They are also printed so that exactly so many mythics get into each box. That means that there are between 30-40 different versions of "boxes". This leaves the possibility of buying two boxes which are almost exactly the same (the only variation being in foils, which run off of different prints).
AND, you KNOW that you're not going to get anymore than 4-5 mythics (foils and DSC's the exception). So now you're shoveling out $100 (avg) for four mythics and a couple of decent rares. Sure, most times you get your money back in value, but the chance of pulling THE mythic you want is 1/4. Your rare? Slightly better.
If you want a gamble which is worth your money, multiple fat packs is the way to go. And if you're patient, you can get great prices.
Tiger
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Yo Dawg, I heard you like Flashack, so we put Flashback on a Snapcaster so you can Flashback while you Snapcast...!
To me, it is like hunting with a bow and arrow, or hunting with a bazooka. One takes more skill, precision and understanding, the other is a bazooka.
Currently playing: EDH
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What I don't understand is the mentality of people who want some $X rare and go out and spend $X+ on boosters hoping to pull said rare. There is a possibility that they will get it but if you are already willing to part with that money, why not just get what you actually want?
Also, I don't see why people resolve themselves to paying outright for their decks. I understand if you are just getting into the game or have been playing online/paper and are switching to the other format, then you will have to make that initial investment. I have been playing since Zendikar and I have only bought one box of each set since Scars (excluding NPH because I love that set) and I have access to ever single card I could ever need for a deck. I have been trading effectively to get the cards I need. Trading up in value isn't that difficult to do once you get some practice with it. And anything that I can't trade for, there are always friends that are willing to let me borrow cards that I don't have for a tournament or whatever.
I guess what I'm getting at is that there is always some investment in this game but as you play and trade you should be increasing your net worth in cards. Then you can use trading and friends to help you develop your collection to meet your needs. Just be smart about how you use your money/cards and you can make them do a lot of work for you when it comes to getting the cards you need.
I guess what I'm getting at is that there is always some investment in this game but as you play and trade you should be increasing your net worth in cards. Then you can use trading and friends to help you develop your collection to meet your needs. Just be smart about how you use your money/cards and you can make them do a lot of work for you when it comes to getting the cards you need.
In order for you to gain net worth someone else must be losing net worth, so it's not something everyone can do. And with more expensive decks that means more time that must be invested in trading.
A 40 dollar mythic rare would constitute a must have 4 of that goes in many decks.
Stats About Mythics
-Mythics are on average 40% rarer than pre-mythic rares
(old blocks about 200 rares, Mythic blocks 35+ mythics)
-They are printing more new cards a year not less
(about 665 now vs. 630 in most pre-mythic block)
-To drop the value of a rare by $1 a mythic must go up $2
-In a 3 year time span deck prices doubled. I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
Standard prices dont seem to be that bad currently, Sure snapcaster is higher then the amount of play that it sees in standard warrents however it sees a stupid amount of play in legacy already (not sure if this was already mentioned) but i thought that it would be good to remind everyone about that and to be thankful that there is no JTMS. Also from my experience this is a comparatively cheap standard enviorment (its still fairly possible to build a moderately competitive deck for around $100 dollars) it may not be the deck that you want to necessarily play but its still going to be good
Personally, I like having cards that not everyone can afford. It makes this collectible card game truly collectible.
Actually they reclassified it at some point as a "Trading" card game... So you're quite wrong there.
If you go to the Wizards site at every instance they refer to it as a Trading Card Game now, including under a header that states what MtG is:
You're here because you want to learn the Magic: The Gathering game, the world's premier trading card game. It was the first of its kind, and it's still the best and the biggest.
Of course Magic still has a collectable aspect to it, but it's a game first and a collectable item second, hence the reserve list no longer receiving new additions to itself.
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I feel its about planning what decks you want to make, make 2-3 and stick with them, don't sit and complain you can't get cards when you have 10+ mythics in your binder people want but yet you won't give up. If you want the cards you can find a way to snag em.
Standard
WBGWBGABZAN AGGROWBGWBG
Stromkirk Noble jumped from $2.50 to $13 in the amount of time it took my LGS to get their internet back up so they could check single prices. Everyone knew they were $2.50 but they just HAD to check *sigh*.
In all fairness, Innistrad is apparently very popular and very under-printed so that accounts for some of the insane prices.
"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire." - Jaya Ballard
My only complaint about Innistrad isn't so much the price of some of the cards.. but the actual rarity of the cards compared to their supposed printed numbers.. I had a friend opened 3 boxes of Innistrad and didn't pull a Snapcaster, Liliana or Garruk out of any of them. It may just be anecdotal on my part but it just seems odd.
these two previously discussed cards are WOTC ways of trying to help vintage i think
http://store.channelfireball.com/catalog/magic_singles-scars_of_mirrodin_block-scars_of_mirrodin/564
If that dont tickle your fancy how about a FOIL Copperline Gorge for $15,980,000.00
I'd rather have rare lands be worth more if it meant cards like new Lily were cheaper and more accessible. It would definitely allow for better trading.
The hivemind is controlled by Open Series and PTQ results. Competitive players are willing to spend $X dollars, secondary market kicks in, affects everyone.
There's no easy solution in that case, really. You've gotta be good at predicting which cards are likely to be more money. This can be especially hard when a set is only partially revealed. We didn't know Unburial Rites would be around until after having the chance to pre-order some of the other cards from Innistrad, for example. Sometimes it's best to wait until a set's fully revealed before making purchases.
In regards to this, here's my thoughts on the proposal:
WotC really doesn't need to do more print-runs. There's lots of product available throughout, say, about a two-year span preceding a new set's release, and more cards per print-run would mean too much product. That costs WotC more money (nearly double the budget for your suggestion), and that would mean at least twice as much product would have to be purchased to make similar profit.
Also, if that product were bought by a larger populace, that would mean more people that want the better cards, creating a similar supply-demand effect. On the other hand, suppose the same amount of people we have now bought double the product. I'd wager those people would rather just buy the singles they'd want at that point.
WotC can only predict so much. While they do intentionally make a handful of competitively-powerful cards, making more of them won't guarantee anything. If a powerful card fits into a deck that is a poor choice in the Standard meta, for example, there's a fair chance it will decrease.
If more of such cards were printed, it could upset more people. And some cards increase in price for other reasons, not just because they're aggressively costed and game-winning.
I do like the idea of printing more powerful promo cards to give players more incentive to participate in events. A promo Solemn Simulacrum or promo Fauna Shaman really would be awesome.
Giving out more product in prize support is going a little too far, esp. in your example (A case for 1st and at least a box for 5th / 8th? Really?). Prize support has been quite amazing in the last couple of years.
Foil packs were really cool, I agree they should do that after a certain point. I think all-foil Zendikar block booster packs would really sell.
4 mutavault 20 each for 80
4 thought seize 15 each 60
4 mistbind clique 5 each 20
3 vendeylon clique 10 each 30
reflecting pool 20 each 80
cryptic command 15 each 60
rest of deck 20
deck was 350
might have been more
I also forgo t bitterblossem 20 each for over 400
Its strange that the top deck when blue is expensive. jund top deck was 300 flat
faries almost 400, caw blade about 600
mythic was about 1k
also check me out on fb
Look Again I said pre-lowryn.
The lowryn block was not like other standard blocks, it shared two of the major problems of mythic blocks. It had cards printed at rairites they should not have been, and it took almost as many packs to get a play set of lowryn as it does to get a play set of a mythic block(800 for a normal block, 1080 for lowryn block, 1120 for a mythic block).
As for jund being inexpensive it revolved around uncommons and need very few mythics. Change bloodbraid elf to lotusbraid elf and print it as a mythic and suddenly you have a $500-$700 deck.
As for mythic as long as you got the cards from e-bay or equvilant sorce the price of the deck at any one time ranged from 600-$800.
Stats About Mythics
-Mythics are on average 40% rarer than pre-mythic rares
(old blocks about 200 rares, Mythic blocks 35+ mythics)
-They are printing more new cards a year not less
(about 665 now vs. 630 in most pre-mythic block)
-To drop the value of a rare by $1 a mythic must go up $2
-In a 3 year time span deck prices doubled.
I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
Then people would buy half as much product as they currently do to get the same chase cards, or wizards would make half as much money, and wizards would go out of business.
You guys need to quit whining in here about Mythics and get back out there buying up Lilis so she maintains her price.
As you say yourself, they are going to get your $20 a month either way. What they want is the people who will buy packs until they get that mythic or set that they want to keep buying packs. Having a greater number of mythics and other hard to find chase cards (which increases their individual rarity) does that.
It used to take 800 packs to get a playset of standard each year now it takes 1600, Wotc didn't go out of business those 10+ years of only taking half as many packs to get the cards.
Stats About Mythics
-Mythics are on average 40% rarer than pre-mythic rares
(old blocks about 200 rares, Mythic blocks 35+ mythics)
-They are printing more new cards a year not less
(about 665 now vs. 630 in most pre-mythic block)
-To drop the value of a rare by $1 a mythic must go up $2
-In a 3 year time span deck prices doubled.
I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
Sure, but what incentive do they have to make half as much as they are now?
Personally, I like having cards that not everyone can afford. It makes this collectible card game truly collectible.
It's a good card, but it has a little too much going for it in terms of interactions and wide playability in just about every format. So I really do doubt it's going to drop a lot. Kind of a shame.
And yeah, MTGO pukes out tickets during PreRes.
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That's a pretty obvious statement, but we're no where near there yet.
Wizards has been selling more now than they ever have been, so what they are doing in regards to Magic and Mythic rarity is working.
By that logic why not make it take 5,000 packs to get a playset of standard?
What will attract more people to a competitive enviorment with $200 decks where it's not unussual for $50 worth of cards to be reprinted, or one with $500 decks with where maybe $20 worth of cards will be reprinted.
It was perfectly collectible in the past just because decks where more affordable, in no way means that people had all the cards.
I like it when people where collecting the cards they wanted, rather than all trying to collect the same mythics.
Just because the are selling more doesn't mean they are growing the game, If 49% of competitive players quite due to mythics they would still show a growth in sales. Short term trends are not indicative of long term results.
Stats About Mythics
-Mythics are on average 40% rarer than pre-mythic rares
(old blocks about 200 rares, Mythic blocks 35+ mythics)
-They are printing more new cards a year not less
(about 665 now vs. 630 in most pre-mythic block)
-To drop the value of a rare by $1 a mythic must go up $2
-In a 3 year time span deck prices doubled.
I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
Wolf run is crazy, not just due to sheer volume of mythics (Garruk, Primeval Titan), but there's some pretty notable money tied up in rares as well (Inkmoth, GSZ)
The worst part though is how fast the market is moving...Thrun up in price, Dungrove Elder going up in price. Some of these builds are starting to approach mouth watering level for actual price and it's actually quite off-putting.
If I wanted to change up deck this week I'd have to shell out an amount not too different to a videogame system AND some games for tier 1 right now. Tier 1.5 or 2 and I could still grab a handheld and games.
I had planned on riding G/B Heartless Pod as far as it'll go until picking up a more powerful deck...unfortunately though the price jumped far above what I expected to invest ($250ish) since I have little in paper having played online only last season.
Just means more likely I'll play until I'm bored and then stop showing at FNM in time for Old Republic.
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AND, you KNOW that you're not going to get anymore than 4-5 mythics (foils and DSC's the exception). So now you're shoveling out $100 (avg) for four mythics and a couple of decent rares. Sure, most times you get your money back in value, but the chance of pulling THE mythic you want is 1/4. Your rare? Slightly better.
If you want a gamble which is worth your money, multiple fat packs is the way to go. And if you're patient, you can get great prices.
Tiger
Currently playing: EDH
GWBGhave, Guru of BeatdownsGWB
BWRKaalia of the FacesmashBWR
Also, I don't see why people resolve themselves to paying outright for their decks. I understand if you are just getting into the game or have been playing online/paper and are switching to the other format, then you will have to make that initial investment. I have been playing since Zendikar and I have only bought one box of each set since Scars (excluding NPH because I love that set) and I have access to ever single card I could ever need for a deck. I have been trading effectively to get the cards I need. Trading up in value isn't that difficult to do once you get some practice with it. And anything that I can't trade for, there are always friends that are willing to let me borrow cards that I don't have for a tournament or whatever.
I guess what I'm getting at is that there is always some investment in this game but as you play and trade you should be increasing your net worth in cards. Then you can use trading and friends to help you develop your collection to meet your needs. Just be smart about how you use your money/cards and you can make them do a lot of work for you when it comes to getting the cards you need.
In order for you to gain net worth someone else must be losing net worth, so it's not something everyone can do. And with more expensive decks that means more time that must be invested in trading.
Stats About Mythics
-Mythics are on average 40% rarer than pre-mythic rares
(old blocks about 200 rares, Mythic blocks 35+ mythics)
-They are printing more new cards a year not less
(about 665 now vs. 630 in most pre-mythic block)
-To drop the value of a rare by $1 a mythic must go up $2
-In a 3 year time span deck prices doubled.
I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
Actually they reclassified it at some point as a "Trading" card game... So you're quite wrong there.
If you go to the Wizards site at every instance they refer to it as a Trading Card Game now, including under a header that states what MtG is:
Of course Magic still has a collectable aspect to it, but it's a game first and a collectable item second, hence the reserve list no longer receiving new additions to itself.