Pssshhh. People are so small-minded, I swear. Guess it's time to pull Skred Red back out and dumpster the meta, because it has literally all positive matchups against that list of decks (with the exception of B/G Rock).
- High prices on cards that can be and are reprinted further indicate that Modern is thriving
Is Legacy thriving?? Because quite a few cards in Legacy "can be and are reprinted", yet I don't believe Legacy is thriving at the moment. They also have extremely high prices, so I disagree that high prices = a thriving format. Tournament turn-out definitely shows that Modern is doing well, but Arena blows it out of the water by a large margin, I imagine.
- People paying that amount for the cards supports Wizards and incentivizes them to directly support Modern, i.e. with Masters or Horizons
No, people paying that amount supports Star City Games, who are also (not coincidentally) the reason Modern is thriving so hard. Singles don't support WotC. WotC barely has any tournaments that regularly force Modern, so SCG and local communities are most of what keep paper Modern thriving. As someone west of Missouri, I can basically just rely on my local community and a few yearly events to actually play Modern at all. So to grow the local community in a small town, in a midwestern state, prices can't be low-level Legacy, or the format is almost non-existent.
Yes, I understand that eastern US and larger cities in states where "middle class" is the majority and pay rates are generally much higher makes it a bit easier to justify $90 for a Scalding Tarn, but when $7.25 is Minimum Wage and the rent is about $700 a month, you cut out a very large portion of players who don't work in middle-class industries.
UMA had like 20 or 30 expensive Modern cards reprinted, and they could have reprinted Manamorphose and a few other Uncommons to really hit the sweet spot if they were actually aiming to ever address this issue, rather than just string the format along on life support in terms of affordability. I just can't imagine any other sets that can hit 20+ needed reprints for the power level that Modern cards have, hence my pessimism. Anything that would actually address the many, many needed reprints of Modern would just be a Scooby-Doo meme of, "Let's see who this set REALLY is...it's just more Modern Masters after they said we aren't doing Modern Masters anymore!!" And honestly, if they want to pull that move and make the set a $4 Booster set, I wouldn't even give a crap. Hell, I'd hold a parade for them! Sure, it'll have taken them 5 years to do exactly what everyone said to do after about Year 2, but I'd love to see it actually happen.
Probably won't though. WotC has never shown they're willing to address the issue in a timely and efficient manner, and I don't expect them to start now.
Allowing older cards to continually balloon in price with only the barest smattering of reprints that take 5-10 years to come around again? This drives more casual players out of a format and shrinks the chances of a local meta developing by a large margin, in my experience. I wanted to see this effect avoided in Modern at all costs, as I've been fairly successful at keeping a small local meta of Modern players engaged; however, I was hoping this year would be a good year for Modern prices (after the last few being abysmal) and that more and more players would be getting into Modern and developing our local meta.
Now it seems more feasible to just sell out of physical cards when they spike and simply buy into MTGO if I feel like playing Modern more regularly.
No reprints whatsoever; I'll be readying my collection for sale some time this year if WotC is planning on giving Modern the Legacy treatment....
Ha, no if anything the modern horizons set is a good thing. The issue modern had is that they tried to do this cash grab thing with nothing but masters sets serving as the reprint set. While this worked early on, the set fell out of favor ages ago after MM2. The combination of the price and the print run levels made modern staples hold their value or even go up as they tried to force people into playing standard. Commander hit a new low as well with Commander 2018, but those will rebound in price.
It "fell out of favor" because WotC started playing a financial market game instead of developing a successful, long-term business and player base. When the Mythics in a Limited Print Run $250 set are worth $1, it's not "the market's" fault that your product failed; you made a terrible product, and it deserved to fail.
Masters sets were a reprint set done terribly. Horizons isn't a reprint set. So the issue will still exist until they deal with it.
The only reason I would sell out of modern right now is because of the reprint promise. If they pull off this plan correctly, I'm envisioning the price on a lot of high cost cards to drop a lot. The reason is the price point on new boxes: If they release a set with liliana of the Veil and two other high cost mythics along with a bunch of legacy cards that only got one printing, along with the set being priced around 90-140 dollars a box on amazon, it will be opened like mad compared to a masters set. That means the price of cards like Noble Hierarch will fall long term as they get reprinted and cracked open.
What promise is this, and where are they reprinting these cards that will see enough of a print run and a price point that they actually affect the prices of Modern staples? An unlimited print run, possibly $6-per booster set exactly like Modern Horizons seems like it would have been the perfect place for such reprints, but that isn't happening, and they're apparently done with large-scale reprints, soooo....what is this set that's going to affect reprints? The Innovation set for the year is announced; what's left?
The fact is they have to get super aggressive on reprinting staples in paper because arena is going to push a lot of new players into paper magic. Once they go there, Modern is currently the defacto eternal format for people now. Legacy is insane due to costs of a few outlier cards because of the reserved list. Modern does not have the same issue. Rather, modern has the problem of too many cards and a company that wanted to milk the economy dry.
We've been saying this for half a decade. Consider me jaded, but I'm fairly pessimistic about the entire situation right now.
$10 was juse worst-case; my point was no limit, less than UMA Booster prices...sounds like the perfect place to reprint Fetches and Fastlands and Manamorphose to drive prices down so that more people can play a format WotC now have a VERY heavy investment in. Instead, I just have to keep hoping, I guess? Where else could they possible print Fetches and Fastlands that seems reasonable or will actually make a difference in the prices of said cards? I just don't see it; however, like I said, I'm giving them until later this year to communicate SOMETHING about the issue, or maybe they will do something and I'll be pleasantly surprised!
Cards hold price history; players hold WotC behavior history. I think my history with WotC is just really hurting my optimism in regards to Modern prices, so please excuse my bias, as that's all it is, honestly. Your arguments are definitely good ones, tronix; thanks!
No reprints whatsoever; I'll be readying my collection for sale some time this year if WotC is planning on giving Modern the Legacy treatment....
...I'll buy your fetches. Those suckers are going to explode since they already confirmed the reprints will be pre-8th edition.
This is what I was referring to. Surgical Extraction? Fetches? Manamorphose? No reprints of anything already IN Modern in this supplemental set with no limited print run and an expected price of ~$10 per pack. So those prices are just going to explode in the next 6 months, and at this point, this means very very few of the people I regularly see at my LGS will be getting in to the format. So less and less players to play against in paper as time goes on, while my cards balloon in value this year. So the obvious choice is to wait for my SINGLE Modern Staples binder to hit about 5 digits in value, sell it all off, and buy into MTGO for 200 bucks.
Disappointing, but whatever, WotC. I was pretty much prepared for either eventuality.
I find there's a bit of a difference between, "Meaningful Repercussions," and, "You Lose." Most people don't like the second one just because they tapped out once on Turn 3, especially if the deck in question has plenty of room for other interaction that can shut other people down while they wait for them to tap out and lose. Jund has a lot of interaction...but doesn't just kill you if you try and push through it with multiple spells a turn. Storm has a nasty combo that's fairly easy to interact with, but very little protection or interaction of their own. Twin just got to do both of those things, and a lot of people just don't seem to like that being a consistent thing in the format, WotC included.
So this is a bit of a blunt approach, but let me put it like this: My first deck was in 1995 or so, and it was about 90 cards, all of it Lightning Bolts and Mesa Pegasus with "enough" lands to play enough of them out to win a game here or there. It was a ton of fun, and I've enjoyed Magic ever since! However, I much prefer playing a finely-tuned 3-Land Belcher deck in Modern to running old Kamigawa-block White Weenie or some such. Sure, games went longer "Back in the Day", but there's plenty of potential in interesting, interactive decks in most formats right now, and Standard is quite enjoyable. All these Rose-Colored Glasses feel like a bunch of BS to me; decks weren't necessarily "more fun" in the past, we just played in a manner that felt more fun in our small groups.
Anger of the Gods. Terminus. Settle the Wreckage. Nihil Spellbomb in Goyf decks. Scavenging Ooze. There are options you can even MD to hate out heavy GY decks, and plenty of good SB options. When the numbers show Dredge is a problem, then we can look at it as a problem. Until then, it's a deck with plenty of options available to fight it.
Just a heads-up: many stores seem to be getting these at a very low Buy price. This set seems to be more of "We're sorry" from WotC to LGSs after the horribleness of Mythic Edition, allowing the LGS to charge up to the "Retail" price if they want to make a large profit on this product. Here's hoping we can all get one of these for around $250 instead, which is an extremely good price, IMO!
It's just hard to have faith in a company that has spent half a decade destroying consumer confidence. Their words are worth less than the cardboard they sell for so much.
"Destroying consumer confidence"? Even though their past few blocks have all been major hits? As have been the Commander products, Conspiracy sets, and Battlebond? Hell, pretty much all of their sets since Shards of Alara? About the only products that haven't done well are secondary products like Duel Decks and Masters. I don't know what evidence you have to back up that claim, but it sounds like distorted perception of reality to me.
No, their past few blocks have SOLD decently, though they ended print runs for Khladesh before the set even rotated due to their earlier mistaken ideas of "Quicker rotations is great, guys!" Which is the real problem: HASBRO directives that have led to constant shake-ups in how Standard works, more cards banned in 2 years than had seen banned in the last decade combined(!), and multiple terrible Masters sets smashed into the same year. Also, their newest Commander set wasn't highly-regarded, their treatment of Pros and Cheaters is constantly being addressed by fans and some of the best Pros around as "incredibly inadequate," and their communication is among the worst.
PROFIT MARGINS!!! do not inspire confidence in a consumer, IMO. A company that can actually adapt and move in tandem with their player-base is much more successful than a Blockbuster that just continues to make a ton of money doing things exactly one way....until it doesn't.
It's just hard to have faith in a company that has spent half a decade destroying consumer confidence. Their words are worth less than the cardboard they sell for so much.
Are we talking about Konami? Because relative to what I've seen, I know we're not talking WOTC. And even if we were, I'd blame Hasbro first.
I don't refer to the puppeteer and the puppet by different names; they are one and the same, despite their different appearances.
It's just hard to have faith in a company that has spent half a decade destroying consumer confidence. Their words are worth less than the cardboard they sell for so much.
It's nice to see some sensible approaches to this product here; there hasn't been any indication of how much product large chain stores will see, as "A Limited-Run Printing" could mean almost anything, and didn't instill much hope of solving price issues in Modern IMO. However, hopefully the blister packs will solve some of the issues by being heavily produced and distributed.
Is Legacy thriving?? Because quite a few cards in Legacy "can be and are reprinted", yet I don't believe Legacy is thriving at the moment. They also have extremely high prices, so I disagree that high prices = a thriving format. Tournament turn-out definitely shows that Modern is doing well, but Arena blows it out of the water by a large margin, I imagine.
- People paying that amount for the cards supports Wizards and incentivizes them to directly support Modern, i.e. with Masters or Horizons
No, people paying that amount supports Star City Games, who are also (not coincidentally) the reason Modern is thriving so hard. Singles don't support WotC. WotC barely has any tournaments that regularly force Modern, so SCG and local communities are most of what keep paper Modern thriving. As someone west of Missouri, I can basically just rely on my local community and a few yearly events to actually play Modern at all. So to grow the local community in a small town, in a midwestern state, prices can't be low-level Legacy, or the format is almost non-existent.
Yes, I understand that eastern US and larger cities in states where "middle class" is the majority and pay rates are generally much higher makes it a bit easier to justify $90 for a Scalding Tarn, but when $7.25 is Minimum Wage and the rent is about $700 a month, you cut out a very large portion of players who don't work in middle-class industries.
Do garbage men not "deserve" to play Magic now?
Probably won't though. WotC has never shown they're willing to address the issue in a timely and efficient manner, and I don't expect them to start now.
Allowing older cards to continually balloon in price with only the barest smattering of reprints that take 5-10 years to come around again? This drives more casual players out of a format and shrinks the chances of a local meta developing by a large margin, in my experience. I wanted to see this effect avoided in Modern at all costs, as I've been fairly successful at keeping a small local meta of Modern players engaged; however, I was hoping this year would be a good year for Modern prices (after the last few being abysmal) and that more and more players would be getting into Modern and developing our local meta.
Now it seems more feasible to just sell out of physical cards when they spike and simply buy into MTGO if I feel like playing Modern more regularly.
It "fell out of favor" because WotC started playing a financial market game instead of developing a successful, long-term business and player base. When the Mythics in a Limited Print Run $250 set are worth $1, it's not "the market's" fault that your product failed; you made a terrible product, and it deserved to fail.
Masters sets were a reprint set done terribly. Horizons isn't a reprint set. So the issue will still exist until they deal with it.
What promise is this, and where are they reprinting these cards that will see enough of a print run and a price point that they actually affect the prices of Modern staples? An unlimited print run, possibly $6-per booster set exactly like Modern Horizons seems like it would have been the perfect place for such reprints, but that isn't happening, and they're apparently done with large-scale reprints, soooo....what is this set that's going to affect reprints? The Innovation set for the year is announced; what's left?
We've been saying this for half a decade. Consider me jaded, but I'm fairly pessimistic about the entire situation right now.
Cards hold price history; players hold WotC behavior history. I think my history with WotC is just really hurting my optimism in regards to Modern prices, so please excuse my bias, as that's all it is, honestly. Your arguments are definitely good ones, tronix; thanks!
This is what I was referring to. Surgical Extraction? Fetches? Manamorphose? No reprints of anything already IN Modern in this supplemental set with no limited print run and an expected price of ~$10 per pack. So those prices are just going to explode in the next 6 months, and at this point, this means very very few of the people I regularly see at my LGS will be getting in to the format. So less and less players to play against in paper as time goes on, while my cards balloon in value this year. So the obvious choice is to wait for my SINGLE Modern Staples binder to hit about 5 digits in value, sell it all off, and buy into MTGO for 200 bucks.
Disappointing, but whatever, WotC. I was pretty much prepared for either eventuality.
No, their past few blocks have SOLD decently, though they ended print runs for Khladesh before the set even rotated due to their earlier mistaken ideas of "Quicker rotations is great, guys!" Which is the real problem: HASBRO directives that have led to constant shake-ups in how Standard works, more cards banned in 2 years than had seen banned in the last decade combined(!), and multiple terrible Masters sets smashed into the same year. Also, their newest Commander set wasn't highly-regarded, their treatment of Pros and Cheaters is constantly being addressed by fans and some of the best Pros around as "incredibly inadequate," and their communication is among the worst.
PROFIT MARGINS!!! do not inspire confidence in a consumer, IMO. A company that can actually adapt and move in tandem with their player-base is much more successful than a Blockbuster that just continues to make a ton of money doing things exactly one way....until it doesn't.
I don't refer to the puppeteer and the puppet by different names; they are one and the same, despite their different appearances.