At what point have I said ignore consumers? I've always said balance. They frequently reprint cards, just not enough for your liking. The fact is that the Magic is a business, and not just for WOTC. Again, accept it or quit playing. You are not going to get cheap cards just because you want them because there are more things at play than just you (or people like you).
You're arguing against a point I never made.
I understand that WotC is a business. I'm a business owner myself, so I understand what it takes to make a profit. I also understand that WotC is not run as well as it could or should be. They intentionally keep card values on the secondary market inflated which does nothing to make them more money. If cards are highly sought after, not being reprinted and cost a lot of money on the secondary market players and stores can't just buy sealed product and open those cards. They have to resort to the secondary market. How does increasing profits for ebay stores and such help WotC or their customers(LGS)? The inflated prices mean your LGS has to pay more to get those cards in their shop to sell to you. The higher the value of the card, the lower the profit margin for the store since anyone can just go to ebay and see what they could get for their cards there.
WotC operates like old fuddie duddies who are slow to react to their consumers and reluctant to make positive changes.
Wizards must be in the business to make others money because that is now the retail economy works. WOTC cannot sell cards directly to consumers, so they must cater to the people who actually sell the cards (largely LGSs). And that is only part of the issue here, because WOTC also can't run a majority of the events that happen nationally, so they have to rely on LGSs to do that as well. If you piss off the people who sell your cards and the people who allow your consumers to play your cards, you have a pretty terrible business model. It is the nature of a TCG that the producer of the cards MUST take into account other people who make money on the game. It is a balancing act between them and the consumers, but for some reason, some people on this board can't seem to understand this, and feel like WOTC should ignore the businesses that have allowed Magic to grow and become what it is today.
And for some reason a lot of people can't seem to understand that more customers=more sales. The high cost of entry to the game prevents a lot of people from ever picking it up. You bring down the barriers enough for more people to play and guess what? They'll buy product.
I can't tell you how many new players I've seen drop Magic once they realize they'll have to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to be competitive on Friday night. No one wants to play a game just to lose every time because more money=better odds.
sure some dicks would be mad and possibly quit, but who cares? good riddance. the type of person that gets mad that their little pieces of cardboard aren't virtually "worth" tons of money weighed against the fact that thousands more people can have fun playing the game (which when you get down to it, that IS supposed to be the whole freaking point, it's a game meant to be played, not Wall Street) is the type of person I couldn't care less about playing with, and their quitting would simply be healthy for the community.
I agree with the point of your post, but also have to disagree here. I've spent a fair amount on Modern and wouldn't mind at all if the prices went down. However, there's some people that have spent literally thousands of dollars on the format, and if the value of their decks dropped by 50+% in one go, I wouldn't blame them for being quite angry. Calling them dicks for being sad that they've wasted a LOT of money is kind of rude and missing the point.
Magic is a hobby, not a wise investment portfolio. If you get mad that that money you put into decks over the years could have been better spent had you just waited a decade or so instead of playing the game then you're clearly doing it wrong. It's an expensive hobby, but it is a hobby none the less. You get out of it what you put into it. To me this is like complaining about paying $12 to see a movie at a theater and then complaining about paying that 5 years later when you see the DVD in the bargain bin for $4.
Is the stated goal of Modern Masters still to make Modern accessible to more players, or have they dropped that farce?
As stated above, the majority of cards printed in Modern Masters One had little to do with the Modern format, regardless of accessibility or cost. Considering most of the Mythics are not Modern staples and that many of the Rare staples were boosted to Mythic it certainly seems in hindsight that the set was designed to generate competitive interest in Modern. Not necessarily to actually make the format more financially approachable. Wizards probably realized their mistake and tried, horrifically, to rectify that by eliminating Modern Pro Tours to possibly attempt to make the format more casual and drive down prices. That failed so now they are trying again with Modern Masters 2015 with a larger print run. Baby steps for them I guess.
But MM2015 will still be very limited. It's not like they're going to do it Conspiracy style. The demand will still be much higher than the supply, people will still hoard it to resell it at inflated prices, and it still won't make a notable dent in secondary market prices or make Modern more accessible for new/returning players. They're doing nothing to reduce the barrier to entry for Modern, and this comes at a time when the barrier to entry for Standard feels higher than ever. And it's going to be worse once blocks rotate faster. Having a competitive Standard deck for FNM costs hundreds of dollars these days so where are the average players(who don't have money to burn) supposed to turn? Is EDH their only choice?
WotC needs to reevaluate their goals and practices. This kind of crap is killing the game.
Probably sounds selfish, but I would prefer they didn't print more full-art lands any time soon. I just spent a bunch of money on Zendikar and Unhinged lands after losing my collection in a fire.
Despite the rest of the set? Khans would be selling very well even if the fetchlands weren't in it. The set has a very high power level compared to the sets of the past 2 years.
Aside from like 4 cards(not counting fetches, obviously) KTK hasn't made a splash. Even the underpowered Theros block is more powerful than KTK. KTK is slow as hell and has almost no creatures good enough for Standard play because of that.
I dislike sideloading pages, mainly because I find them harder to take things in and out of. I guess if you are going to jam ~4 sleeved cards in to a pocket, the sideloaders might be better. The clear Ultra-Pro pages can handle 4 cards in perfect fits, but with "regular sleeves" you are going to fatigue the pockets out. The sideloaders might be better for that.
This is for storing my collection so I wouldn't be taking the cards in and out.
I really advise you against whole blocks in a single binder. For example, I have Shards of Alara block in a single 5" D-Ring binder. It does not fit. Also, it's huge and cumbersome. Mind you, Shards has 249 cards, Conflux 145, and Reborn is 145. Newer sets are even bigger, so they are going to be incredibly difficult to put in one binder.
Big-Small-Small too big for a 5" D-ring binder? That's not possible. Even if you double-sleeved every card that couldn't be. Back in the day I stored the Onslaught block in standard pages, sleeveless, in a 2.5" 3-ring binder(made for schoolwork, not card pages).
$9.99 MSRP? Good Lord! This set had better be jam-packed with value. I got good deals on boxes of the last MM set because I knew the owner of my LGS but that place changed hands and the new owner doesn't offer any loyalty/high-volume discounts. If I end up having to pay higher than MSRP on this new set I may just skip it entirely. Modern Masters is fun to draft, but it ain't that fun. This feels like they're testing to see just how much of their crap we'll take. There really is no reason for these sets to cost more than any other. It doesn't cost them any more to print them and they gain nothing by keeping secondary market values inflated.
What are the best pages and binders? I'd like nondescript binders that can accommodate entire blocks with sleeved rares and mythics. I'm also interested in 4-card sleeves and binders to store my Planeswalker cards.
I have all my cards in D-ring binders, in ultra-pro 9 pocket pages (the platinum line). I used to put whole blocks in to one binder, but after the Shards of Alara binder ended up being way too big and unwieldy I now keep each set in a separate binder. I guess if you are only doing rares though, it might be manageable to keep whole blocks that way. The binders being D-ring is essential though, round ring binders are terrible to keep cards in.
Well I would have every card from the blocks in the pages, I would just have the rares and mythics in sleeves for additional protection. I was thinking 3" D-ring binders would work well but maybe 4" would be better? Especially for blocks with 2 big sets?
And are the Platinum Ultra-Pro pages the ones with the black backing and side-loading pockets? When I google it the results are for clear pages but I remember seeing the ones with black backing before and they seemed to be of higher quality.
After losing my collection and re-buying most of it I need to reorganize and find the best storage solutions.
What are the best pages and binders? I'd like nondescript binders that can accommodate entire blocks with sleeved rares and mythics. I'm also interested in 4-card sleeves and binders to store my Planeswalker cards.
What are the best high-capacity, stackable card boxes? Just the standard, white boxes that you can get anywhere? Or maybe something more attractive and functional, like with drawers?
What are the best sleeves? I have a lot of KMC Perfect Fits and Hyper Mats and I really like, but are there better sleeves out there? I hear good things about Ultimate Guard products, but how are their sleeves?
What are the best deck boxes for double-sleeved decks of regular and EDH formats? I don't much care for the standard Ultra-Pro deck boxes(they're flimsy and can't quite accommodate double-sleeved decks) so I'm looking for something better. I don't need artwork or fancy gimmicks.
You're arguing against a point I never made.
I understand that WotC is a business. I'm a business owner myself, so I understand what it takes to make a profit. I also understand that WotC is not run as well as it could or should be. They intentionally keep card values on the secondary market inflated which does nothing to make them more money. If cards are highly sought after, not being reprinted and cost a lot of money on the secondary market players and stores can't just buy sealed product and open those cards. They have to resort to the secondary market. How does increasing profits for ebay stores and such help WotC or their customers(LGS)? The inflated prices mean your LGS has to pay more to get those cards in their shop to sell to you. The higher the value of the card, the lower the profit margin for the store since anyone can just go to ebay and see what they could get for their cards there.
WotC operates like old fuddie duddies who are slow to react to their consumers and reluctant to make positive changes.
According to who? I've been hearing mostly complaints about Theros and Khans as well as Commander 2015.
And for some reason a lot of people can't seem to understand that more customers=more sales. The high cost of entry to the game prevents a lot of people from ever picking it up. You bring down the barriers enough for more people to play and guess what? They'll buy product.
I can't tell you how many new players I've seen drop Magic once they realize they'll have to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to be competitive on Friday night. No one wants to play a game just to lose every time because more money=better odds.
Magic is a hobby, not a wise investment portfolio. If you get mad that that money you put into decks over the years could have been better spent had you just waited a decade or so instead of playing the game then you're clearly doing it wrong. It's an expensive hobby, but it is a hobby none the less. You get out of it what you put into it. To me this is like complaining about paying $12 to see a movie at a theater and then complaining about paying that 5 years later when you see the DVD in the bargain bin for $4.
But MM2015 will still be very limited. It's not like they're going to do it Conspiracy style. The demand will still be much higher than the supply, people will still hoard it to resell it at inflated prices, and it still won't make a notable dent in secondary market prices or make Modern more accessible for new/returning players. They're doing nothing to reduce the barrier to entry for Modern, and this comes at a time when the barrier to entry for Standard feels higher than ever. And it's going to be worse once blocks rotate faster. Having a competitive Standard deck for FNM costs hundreds of dollars these days so where are the average players(who don't have money to burn) supposed to turn? Is EDH their only choice?
WotC needs to reevaluate their goals and practices. This kind of crap is killing the game.
Aside from like 4 cards(not counting fetches, obviously) KTK hasn't made a splash. Even the underpowered Theros block is more powerful than KTK. KTK is slow as hell and has almost no creatures good enough for Standard play because of that.
This is for storing my collection so I wouldn't be taking the cards in and out.
Big-Small-Small too big for a 5" D-ring binder? That's not possible. Even if you double-sleeved every card that couldn't be. Back in the day I stored the Onslaught block in standard pages, sleeveless, in a 2.5" 3-ring binder(made for schoolwork, not card pages).
Well I would have every card from the blocks in the pages, I would just have the rares and mythics in sleeves for additional protection. I was thinking 3" D-ring binders would work well but maybe 4" would be better? Especially for blocks with 2 big sets?
And are the Platinum Ultra-Pro pages the ones with the black backing and side-loading pockets? When I google it the results are for clear pages but I remember seeing the ones with black backing before and they seemed to be of higher quality.
What are the best pages and binders? I'd like nondescript binders that can accommodate entire blocks with sleeved rares and mythics. I'm also interested in 4-card sleeves and binders to store my Planeswalker cards.
What are the best high-capacity, stackable card boxes? Just the standard, white boxes that you can get anywhere? Or maybe something more attractive and functional, like with drawers?
What are the best sleeves? I have a lot of KMC Perfect Fits and Hyper Mats and I really like, but are there better sleeves out there? I hear good things about Ultimate Guard products, but how are their sleeves?
What are the best deck boxes for double-sleeved decks of regular and EDH formats? I don't much care for the standard Ultra-Pro deck boxes(they're flimsy and can't quite accommodate double-sleeved decks) so I'm looking for something better. I don't need artwork or fancy gimmicks.
Merged into official thread - cryogen