they'll make these progressively worse, then discontinue them claiming people weren't buying them
And then 6 months later bring back a worse version of Duel Decks, using what was the Planeswalker decks (Guilds of Ravnica Planeswalker Showdown Pack: Ral vs Vraska). Remove the boosters, add 2 spindown dice, charge $24.99
Got payment success message, with a "continue shopping" button. No email though, and nothing in order history. Credit Card looks like it has both a pending charge, and a negative charge, so I guess they were sold out very quickly and I saved $250...
From what I recall, in the days of tournament packs, sealed deck limited was a tournament pack, plus 2 boosters (when a full block was out, it was a tournament pack of the big set, and 1 booster each of the small set). So effectively a sealed pool was made up of 5 packs (approximately-you had the extra uncommon in the tournament pack).
I do recall on MTGO, since there was no way to "win" tournament packs but yet they were needed to enter sealed events, that these maintained a premium price in the online market. If you ever wanted to buy event tix, buy a tournament pack and you could trade it for more than its value in tix...
I sort of remember the move to 6 pack sealed coming at the same time that tournament packs were removed. Cynically, this moves more packs per event, but as most limited outside of pre-releases are drafts, probably not a huge impact on the decision. It's probably more likely that since draft has become the dominant way to play limited, the demand for these simply dried up...
I'd love if they didn't tell us which are "Mythic" or "Rare", and rather just have different cards printed different numbers of time on the rare sheet, and all be marked as rare (since they take up the same slot in the pack).
Some may be printed once, some twice, some maybe even three times. Sure, with the internet, it wouldn't take long for people to figure out which the rarer rares are. But Wizards could have more flexibility in controlling how often things show up in a draft, and maybe keep the only true mythics (once per sheet) as things like Planeswalkers. People would then never have a "feel bad moment" of opening something labeled a mythic rare that is complete junk.
Another option (that I would greatly prefer, but probably has close to a zero percent chance of happening) is to not have a mythic take the rare slot, but much like foils replace a common, have a mythic replace something else in approximately 1 out of every 8 packs (whether it's a common, an uncommon, the land, whatever). If you don't lose your rare to a bad mythic, and the mythic becomes something "extra" (like a foil does), then you eliminate much of those bad feelings of opening a useless mythic.
Hasbro: That Modern Masters 2017 set sold great and made us lots of money! What can we expect for Modern Masters 2019?
Wizards: OH WE DON'T DO THOSE ANY MORE THE PROS DON'T LIKE MODERN
Exactly, I don't know why they would stop printing $9.99 MSRP sets that sell well. That wouldn't make much sense.
If Wizards continues to move away from Modern, maybe a rebranding would be in order. Just something like "Magic Masters 2019". A place to reprint cards for any older format...
Also, is there anything that would stop Wizards from just reissuing previous Masters sets? (if they don't have enough newer cards that need reprinting) That would even save them on the costs of developing a limited environment.
While I'm disappointed in the upshift, mainly because it was considered fine at rare in Innistrad, and the Masters sets are "supposedly" a more powerful than usual draft environment, I can't say that I'm surprised.
What I find most disheartening is that we let Wizards continue to get away with claiming the nonsense that they don't look at the secondary market. We all know that they do, and that they are carefully putting just enough value, spread out in a way to entice the maximum sales, while not making it too easy to obtain these expensive reprints. That is fine, it's their right and goal to maximize their profits. I personally just hate the statements to the contrary, and then that there is a certain segment of the player base that lets them get away with anything (just as there is a segment that complains about anything). I could even say that Wizards could wrap up $5 bills and charge $10, and there would be people who would buy it if the wrapper said "Magic the Gathering" ;-)
I just wish that they would stop the lying about not looking at secondary market values!
And as an aside to MaRo's comment about exciting cards at both rare and mythic: when they utilize the same slot in packs, they really are not that different. Moreso that some are just rarer rares...
Its not a very popular position but I wish Wizards would ignore limited/drafting when it comes down to a product like this. Design it for constructed. There are already other outlets for limited/draft. Heck Conspiracy 2 is coming up and it is based solely on drafting. Standard is draft based. Why does every set have to be draft based? I know its probably an unpopular position, but give Constructed a little love too Wizards. I think I'm going to start to call them Modern Drafters and Eternal Drafters if this keeps up.
yes, especially since most people won't be able to draft this more than once anyway, due to cost and limited availability.
You can literally draft with anything, if it's not an ideal draft environment, is that really so much of a problem?
I would love to see these sets forego Mythic Rares as a "throwback", but even if that's wishful thinking, at least be upfront about what you're printing at different rarities, and don't hide behind the "for limted" reasons...
You know, if you guys each put a nickel in a jar every time you saw someone else ***** about Damnation not getting reprinted, within a month you'd have enough to buy a playset of it. It's so, so tiresome to see the same thing in every thread about every sweeper in every set. They wanted a white Wrath effect, so they went with - GASP - Wrath of God! How dare they not print Damnation to fill their "white Wrath effect" quota!
Very true about putting a nickel in a jar every time there's a complaint about Damnation not being reprinted.
Which just proves the fact that it's something players have been wanting for some time, and for whatever reason Wizards doesn't want to give us!
I imagine that Damnation will be in next year's Modern Masters 3: The Search For More Money.
Yes, as a card that has more appeal for Commander and Cube, rather than competitive modern, and a card that players have been clamoring for a reprint for quite awhile now! This seemed like a good place to put it. Would be SHOCKED if it was in a $3.99/pack set like Conspiracy 2! I guess we can wait to be disappointed again next summer when it's not in MM3...
Was hoping they wouldnt reprint this, as its one of the tiny amount of cards from Conspiracy that have a "real" value.
So the reprint will most likely further reduce the sets value (instead of growing it over time).
Conspiracy boxes are still easily attainable for ~$95-$100 though, and his value is still up there. As a Mythic in a limited print set, I wouldn't be too worried that this will increase his circulation #s (and thus devalue him) too much. Especially when you consider that there has been more copies waiting in unopened conspiracy boxes anyway...
Not sure what it will do to his foil value though (with foils in every pack). But even there-a foil in every $10 pack (likely to be marked up) vs a foil in every 3 packs of a set that can be had for under $3 per pack)...
I'd like a commons + uncommons format, replacing Pauper which is overly stale.
Especially considering that new commons are typically rather boring thanks to NWO.
Rarities in newer sets definitely feel like Mythic/Rare/Uncommon/Limited Chaff. A format of common/uncommon would be MUCH more interesting!
Wizards should consider putting gold-bordered versions of the ABUR duals, and maybe a few other sought after RL cards into Eternal Masters as "Expedition-type" special inserts.
This would be HUGE for kitchen table players, as these cards would effectively be high quality proxies, and may also be valuable in their own right as collectibles.
I know that MaRo has stated that they consider gold-border as breaking the spirit of the reserve list, but the policy is clearly stated that it only applies to tournament legal cards. And if they were to do a special rarity insert of gold bordered cards, it wouldn't seem like an action that would cause any legal headaches...
Note that MaRo used Tenth edition and it's 121 rares to make his explanation of Mythic rarity look as "customer-friendly" as possible. This was a HUGE set, and not typical of normal "large sets".
For large sets, mythic rares vs old large set rares: (I'm just pulling Battle for Zendikar vs original Ravnica for a comparison - I believe sets like Mirrodin and Kamigawa were the same size as Ravnica)
BFZ: chance of a particular mythic: 1/121 (53 rares x 2, plus 15 mythics)
RAV: chance of a particular rare: 1/88
You using Rav as your baseline is every bit as loaded as Maro using 10th. Several older sets had 121 rares - Revised, 4th, Legends, Ice Age (and the aforementioned 10th). 5th Ed actually had 132 rares, so if Maro really wanted to use a false number he could have used 5th. Every core set from 6th to 9th and every large expansion in that period had 110 rares; the number as low as 88 used in Mirrodin to Ravnica was the anomaly.
Mirrodin and Kamigawa were the same size as Ravnica, so that was a size they were using for a few years. Time Spiral was different with its Time Shifted cards that would be the same 1/121 as a current large set mythic, but it only had 80 rares. Lorwyn and Shadowmoor both had 80 rares. Let's not seriously use the much older sets for comparison of sizes prior to the introduction of mythics. The sets were just NOT as big as MaRo would have you believe, but hey-he was doing his job of putting a positive spin on the change!
Core sets were a different animal before the switch to M10/M11/etc, as they were all reprints, and continuing players could ignore them assuming they already had the cards.
And then 6 months later bring back a worse version of Duel Decks, using what was the Planeswalker decks (Guilds of Ravnica Planeswalker Showdown Pack: Ral vs Vraska). Remove the boosters, add 2 spindown dice, charge $24.99
I do recall on MTGO, since there was no way to "win" tournament packs but yet they were needed to enter sealed events, that these maintained a premium price in the online market. If you ever wanted to buy event tix, buy a tournament pack and you could trade it for more than its value in tix...
I sort of remember the move to 6 pack sealed coming at the same time that tournament packs were removed. Cynically, this moves more packs per event, but as most limited outside of pre-releases are drafts, probably not a huge impact on the decision. It's probably more likely that since draft has become the dominant way to play limited, the demand for these simply dried up...
Some may be printed once, some twice, some maybe even three times. Sure, with the internet, it wouldn't take long for people to figure out which the rarer rares are. But Wizards could have more flexibility in controlling how often things show up in a draft, and maybe keep the only true mythics (once per sheet) as things like Planeswalkers. People would then never have a "feel bad moment" of opening something labeled a mythic rare that is complete junk.
Another option (that I would greatly prefer, but probably has close to a zero percent chance of happening) is to not have a mythic take the rare slot, but much like foils replace a common, have a mythic replace something else in approximately 1 out of every 8 packs (whether it's a common, an uncommon, the land, whatever). If you don't lose your rare to a bad mythic, and the mythic becomes something "extra" (like a foil does), then you eliminate much of those bad feelings of opening a useless mythic.
Exactly, I don't know why they would stop printing $9.99 MSRP sets that sell well. That wouldn't make much sense.
If Wizards continues to move away from Modern, maybe a rebranding would be in order. Just something like "Magic Masters 2019". A place to reprint cards for any older format...
Also, is there anything that would stop Wizards from just reissuing previous Masters sets? (if they don't have enough newer cards that need reprinting) That would even save them on the costs of developing a limited environment.
What I find most disheartening is that we let Wizards continue to get away with claiming the nonsense that they don't look at the secondary market. We all know that they do, and that they are carefully putting just enough value, spread out in a way to entice the maximum sales, while not making it too easy to obtain these expensive reprints. That is fine, it's their right and goal to maximize their profits. I personally just hate the statements to the contrary, and then that there is a certain segment of the player base that lets them get away with anything (just as there is a segment that complains about anything). I could even say that Wizards could wrap up $5 bills and charge $10, and there would be people who would buy it if the wrapper said "Magic the Gathering" ;-)
I just wish that they would stop the lying about not looking at secondary market values!
And as an aside to MaRo's comment about exciting cards at both rare and mythic: when they utilize the same slot in packs, they really are not that different. Moreso that some are just rarer rares...
yes, especially since most people won't be able to draft this more than once anyway, due to cost and limited availability.
You can literally draft with anything, if it's not an ideal draft environment, is that really so much of a problem?
I would love to see these sets forego Mythic Rares as a "throwback", but even if that's wishful thinking, at least be upfront about what you're printing at different rarities, and don't hide behind the "for limted" reasons...
Very true about putting a nickel in a jar every time there's a complaint about Damnation not being reprinted.
Which just proves the fact that it's something players have been wanting for some time, and for whatever reason Wizards doesn't want to give us!
Yes, as a card that has more appeal for Commander and Cube, rather than competitive modern, and a card that players have been clamoring for a reprint for quite awhile now! This seemed like a good place to put it. Would be SHOCKED if it was in a $3.99/pack set like Conspiracy 2! I guess we can wait to be disappointed again next summer when it's not in MM3...
Conspiracy boxes are still easily attainable for ~$95-$100 though, and his value is still up there. As a Mythic in a limited print set, I wouldn't be too worried that this will increase his circulation #s (and thus devalue him) too much. Especially when you consider that there has been more copies waiting in unopened conspiracy boxes anyway...
Not sure what it will do to his foil value though (with foils in every pack). But even there-a foil in every $10 pack (likely to be marked up) vs a foil in every 3 packs of a set that can be had for under $3 per pack)...
Especially considering that new commons are typically rather boring thanks to NWO.
Rarities in newer sets definitely feel like Mythic/Rare/Uncommon/Limited Chaff. A format of common/uncommon would be MUCH more interesting!
This would be HUGE for kitchen table players, as these cards would effectively be high quality proxies, and may also be valuable in their own right as collectibles.
I know that MaRo has stated that they consider gold-border as breaking the spirit of the reserve list, but the policy is clearly stated that it only applies to tournament legal cards. And if they were to do a special rarity insert of gold bordered cards, it wouldn't seem like an action that would cause any legal headaches...
Mirrodin and Kamigawa were the same size as Ravnica, so that was a size they were using for a few years. Time Spiral was different with its Time Shifted cards that would be the same 1/121 as a current large set mythic, but it only had 80 rares. Lorwyn and Shadowmoor both had 80 rares. Let's not seriously use the much older sets for comparison of sizes prior to the introduction of mythics. The sets were just NOT as big as MaRo would have you believe, but hey-he was doing his job of putting a positive spin on the change!
Core sets were a different animal before the switch to M10/M11/etc, as they were all reprints, and continuing players could ignore them assuming they already had the cards.