MTG Salvation

Quote from itachiitachi »

It's also Wotc being involved in the secondary market.

The secondary market is just that- secondary. It is when product that is no longer factory sealed is sold- often in a piecemeal fashion. Wizards selling factory sealed product is the primary market by definition.

Quote from signofzeta »

All I ask for is for 5 choices per set. As a side effect of the change to planewalker deck, we will be seeing the same planeswalker mug every 2 or 3 sets instead of having a variety of cool creatures as the cover card.

I understand what appeals to you, but I have no doubt that this is as much of a reaction to sales as it is a creative decision. I guarantee that if intro packs sold well they would not have been dropped. I know that LGS could not care less about them, and I see leftover intro decks from previous sets on the racks at big box stores long after the next set has come out.

Imagine that people get to play with cool planewalkers. Imagine that they had 5 to choose from, instead of 2.

imagine that WotC runs out of PW design space twice as quickly (if you are talking about per set). Wizards doesn't want 5 for them to choose from, they want to two that will get bought. The other three are just waste. Having 2/set means that people are much more likely to buy 100% of this product each set, and they don't have to put money into producing a product that so many players ignore and let gather dust on shelves.

As I said, one person would more likely buy the entire set of 5, but now 3 sales are lost because they already completed the set at 2..

No, because most people (who look at this kind of product) will still only buy two no matter how many choices they have. The others would just sit on shelves. I will grant you that 5 PW decks would draw more people to buy for a bit, but as soon as WotC proved that these walkers were not going anywhere near competitive play the sales would drop off again. Very few people are going to spend the $45 extra dollars to get 3 more decks that are aimed at players who are transitioning from Duels or the free decks regardless if they have Timmy walkers in them or not. The threshold for how much the target audience is willing to spend on low level product is finite, and printing 5 choices just makes for more waste.

Besides, psychology has shown that as much as people think they want more choices, they are actually more satisfied with the choice they make if they are given fewer options to choose from.

Quote from motleyslayer »

how would you introduce people to commander?

1. I would have them meet at a quiet neutral place that neither neither the player or Commander has marked as theirs- someplace free of too many other distractions.
2. Then I would make sure you are calm, because new players can sense fear and anxiety and will act out accordingly, and Commander has been known to go for the throat to assert dominance.
3. Commander is rarely too aggressive, but new players can be if they are fearful, so make sure you keep them restrained to begin with so that you can pull them apart easily if they start to get aggressive.
4. Avoid having food bowls at the first meetings because it can be an aggression trigger if boundaries are crossed.
5. Let all parties approach each other calmly and in their own time.
6. Let them play even though it can sometimes look like fighting.
7. Let them sniff each other's butts. A hierarchy will form naturally as long as there are not two alpha personalities competing for dominance.
8. Lastly, keep it short. It may take a few small sessions for players and Commander to become friends.

Always remember- sometimes a player and Commander will just not get along for whatever reason, so be prepared to accept that it was not to be.

Quote from DeadPresident2910 »

That's a good idea, but it would need to be structured differently if it was even going to have a hope of actually helping people rather than just becoming another way for hoarders to stock up on product. IMO WotC isn't nearly being creative or imaginative enough with how they handle their product design and distribution.

If they were actually attempting to grow any given format there are a hundred ways they could do it without affecting current collectors' existing value. What if WotC made "Land Packs" you could order straight from a store and it would only get ordered when an individual requests it, and gets registered against your DCI number so you can only do it once. You could have a Golgari/Boros/etc set of all the guilds where you get 4 Fetch lands, 4 Shock lands and 4 Fast lands in those colors, and pay let's say $100 for a pack like that. They can even give them silver borders or something but make them legal for whatever formats they're allowed in normally.

That would need to be a Print on Demand product and POD for cards whose quality is that of MTG is dramatically more expensive. Small batch printing, proofing, die cutting and packaging is quite a bit more costly to do. Not to mention I doubt that Carta Mundi would do it, since they are such a huge print house, and perhaps the one that the suplimental products are printed by is too big as well, so you might be looking at a new printer house. Security is already an issue, when you start adding more hands in the mix it will only get harder.

You mention ordering from a store, but the way Brick and Mortar stores make money on packaged product is to buy at wholesale and sell at retail. If they are buying at wholesale what is to stop them from selling that land pack for more than your MSRP of $100? I also don't think your system of DCI checks and balances would be as simple as you think and would result in plenty of abuse. It adds one more thing for Wizards to monitor, and we know from their discontinuing the player rewards that they don't feel that managing some system that not most players don't engage with is a good use of their resources.

Quote from Equinox2793 »

I'm almost willing to bet you that they will be in standard within the next year. Fetchlands are free money for wizards to put in a standard.

They are indeed like printing money, but I would argue that WotC already do a bang up job moving product without them, and since the fetches are ammo they have to use sparingly I am hesitant to think that they will print them soon. I think WotC are kinda glad to not have them in Standard for a while.

Quote from MisterDizzy »

I don't know why WOTC doesn't print Modern/Legacy only cards. Like Commander cards with Legacy/Vintage. The reason format gets stale is because the cards need to pass the Standard/Limited test, which means in most cases they're at best at a power level to be a supplement to a existing Modern deck. A "eternal" format only set allows WOTC to have a lot more freedom in card design and encourages creative deck building.

I think from their point of view it complicates the process of knowing what is in the format and what formats supplemental products feed. Right now it is very simple- anything printed in a standard legal set from 8th forward is modern legal. Of course also reprints of cards already legal in modern, but that is already the accepted rule for constructed formats. Supplemental products only bolster eternal formats, which of course Modern is not. Having some supplimental products that do bolster Modern and some that don't is confusing, and just changing the policy by allowing supplimental sets from a given point forward puts a real limitation on what can be included in these sets.

Also people seem to forget that there is a practical limit on how many sets Wizard's has time to design, and that can be printed in a given year. There is also a limit on how much product a player will buy in a given year, so there is a very real risk of spending more money to print more product, only to have a significant portion of the intended target player simply shift their MTG spending rather than increasing it. A player who buys 1 MMA pack rather than 3 boosters of the current set does not justify the printing of addional product.

Quote from Sirius_B »

Cool, localy there are 6 ADV stores and 2 ADV+ stores at 30 minute drive from each other and they'd rather fight for T2 attendance than hold any other kind of event.
One has Modern FNM each week, one has Modern FNM once a month, one holds the Legacy league and has to cater to EDH the rest of the open days because T2 little *****s pretty much boycotted them and won't go to their FNMs.

So at least here, "people will pay to play Modern" is met with "more people we care about more will pay to play Standard".

Well not here. Standard and Modern seem to be about an even split. EDH is big too, with the bigger shops all having a weekly EDH night. You couldn't get enough people here to play Legacy of you offered free pizza and erotic dancers.

Guess neither of us should be making sweeping predictions about the format based on our personal experience.

Quote from ernest_theweedwhackerguy »

as far as my gaming hobby goes, if you must know, my first playstation was a gift from my aunt. the only games i had for it were Final Fantasy VII and Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, which both had more than enough gameplay to keep me busy(i was 9 at the time). my PS2 was a christmas present. four years after it had been released. by that time, a lot of the good games were only $5-$20. the first console i bought was a PS3 a couple years after it was released. i'm patient and can wait until games are only $20 before i buy them. i see no point in buying a new release game for $50-$60 when i know it'll drop to around $20 a year or so after it's released.

It is pretty rare for popular AAA titles to go down to as little as $20 even a year later. That is especially true if they have DLC. Witcher 3 is almost exactly a year old and it is still $35-$40 new, and if you want to play the DLC (which is amazing in this case) you are adding even more. Some titles age worse than others...you might be able to pick up Star Wars Battlefront in a year for $25 since it's popularity has dropp.ed quite a bit

so lets see here: 300(ps3)+300(ps4)+$40(fallout4, only game i have for ps4)= $640. now ps3 games: $20x15= $300. $640+$300= $940. still less than a tier 2 deck.

I actually disagree with your premise that MTG is one of the more expensive hobbies, but I can sort of support the console gaming as being cheaper (depending on how you compare). I sold out of my MTGO collection for cash (+some credit) about a year ago and with that I was able to play with a few hundred, buy a new PS4 and still use the rest to cover 75% of our moving fees. I was shocked, but I also had cards that I had bought for pennies years ago which gained a lot, so it is hard to compare.

The problem is your standard for gaming is the most casual of casual console gamers (I am in that boat myself, though I spend a little more than you), is not analogous to building most tier 2 Modern decks. You build tiered Modern decks to compete on some level, even if it is only at FNM. Even casual console gamers who compete with other randos online have to add an additional PS+ monthly fee, and many feel specialized controlers and good headsets are part of that. You might even add in some portion of your highspeed connection, since online gaming puts a real demand on your connection. The level that you (and me) game at would be more analogous to the casual MTG player who can play with some theme decks and the odd single or booster pack. I took time off from paying attention to magic and played for a year and a half without paying anything. Was I making tier 2 Extended decks? No, but I was playing the hell out of my mono black Rogue tribal deck that had no rares in it, and mining by back collection for gems that I hadn't tried yet. The last PS3 game I bought was Dragon Age Inquisition when it first came out (didn't have my ps4 yet), but I have logged scores of hours on it since, playing old classics like the Mass Effect trilogy, Skyrim, and Fallout 3. I even pulled out Orange Box at one point, though only to find that the disc was not reliably playable due to a scratch. That seems pretty similar to how I played casual magic.

Quote from Oopssorryy »

Please do not call D&D cheap. Have you seen the price of books? I've got PDFs of all the 3.5 stuff, and it's around 13gigs. Each book can go for 20 bucks and there are soooooooo many books.

True, but I have been playing tabletop RPGs for decades and have gone through periods when all I could or was willing to spend was enough to get the most basic elements, some graph paper, and a mechanical pencil. Hell, the 5th edition D&D ruleset is so robust, simple, and flexible that all I have bought are the PHB, DMG, and MM. On the other hand I can fully backup how expensive it can be. I went deep into Fantasy Flight's 3rd Edition Warhammer FRPG, and that system is so reliant on the high quality gaming accessories that went with it that it would be very limiting to only get the compiled box set.

Quote from Colt47 »

I'm kind of curious what would happen if Wizards did something like, "These lands will never be printed in a standard set again, but we will continue to print them regularly in commander and modern/eternal masters" with the zendikar fetches and shock lands, then reduced the rarity to uncommon.

I'm curious what would happen if they started making the cards out of beef jerky. That is about as likely as what you're wondering about. Supplemental products are not made to drive prices, they are designed to be good to play. As much as I hate it, X Masters type sets are designed around Limited play almost more than whatever format is in the name. Commander decks are designed for Commander players primarily, and while the Fetches are great in EDH having them in the precons would result in product shortage for sure. Since they put a lot of weight on these decks being easily accessible for people wanting to get into EDH, that seems like a bad outcome. Tying the hands of the people that design these product, so that they can pump lands into Modern is lazy design, and makes for stale products.

Not to mention the secondary market is increasingly becoming a problem for the company thanks to the games image being tarnished as a game for the overly rich, and this isn't hyperbole.

It may not be hyperbole for you, or your friends, or the people people who write about magic that you choose to read, perhaps. What does "overly rich" even mean? By "increasingly" are you talking about raw numbers or percentage of the total magic population? I suppose all it takes for your sentence to be accurate is one more person every year, since that is technically an increase, but is it even meaningful? I suspect your sentence is in fact hyperbole, but I don't know for sure since I try not to be stuck in the viewpoint that my MTG bubble represents the whole.

How boring would it be for the same lands being printed in some product even every other year? It would kill a lot of anticipation (which drives sales). Personally I look forward to each new set for what new things it brings to the game. KTK was perfect because it took some pressure off the absolute need to get the Zen fetches, and at the same time added 5 new staple lands to a growing format. I remember being pretty bored with the Painlands being so long in print this last time around, and I like the painlands quite a bit.

Don't get me wrong...I am eager for the enemy fetches to be reprinted- I have been holding on to a couple hundred bucks in store credit I have from getting out of MTGO that I ear-marked for that purpose like 18 months ago. I would like that to happen sooner rather than later, but I also understand that my wants or play needs are not always the same as what drives game popularity. I am a reasonable adult so I have no ill will towards WotC for continuing to do what has worked for so long in order to protect the longevity of the game.

Quote from Colt47 »

For lands that see use in every major deck there really isn't a point to NOT printing them to make them accessible.

There is a point- scarcity drives up demand. Psychologically is feeds the aspirational part of our human nature, whether we are conscious of it or not. Corporations know that the demand that is driven up by scarcity gives them greater benefit than making luxury goods cheap enough and easy enough for anyone to be a part.

Personally I put a higher value on Modern shocks and fetches than their monetary value would suggest, because I have yet to own a single one that I have not needed in a given year of deck tweaking and brewing. If I traded my Marsh Flats the first time I was going through a spell of not using them I would have been sorry a few months later when I did need them.

One thought that occurred to me is if this person is a good enough friend (and they take as good care of their cards as you do) is to trade them with a verbal promise that if your friend ever wants to trade them off they give you first crack at the trade. You would probably want to offer the same insurance for the chalices to be fair, though either instance wouldn't necessarily be for the same cards. This way you both get to make use of cards that you are not using, but you also get a chance to get Mistys back later down the line. The things you (both) would need to consider is:

1. If your friend was using all of their Mistys when you are interested in building with them again you would be out of luck.
2. Your friend would be free to trade them to you later their future value (whatever that may be).
3. If this person is more casual friend, like a buddy you see at the card shop regularly but don't hang outside of that, then this is probably not a great idea.
4. This may just generally be a bad idea, as it only occurred to me ten minutes ago and I have not really thought much about it.

Quote from xxhellfirexx3 »

AV prices tell me: time to print modern masters every year wizards! so this format doesnt turn into legacy prices one day?

Who's to say the price is wrong? Lots of people are currently telling retailers that AV is worth $43, so why should it be cheaper? For me it is too expensive, but for enough people it is a good value. Who am I to say I'm right and they're wrong?

The floor for video games is much higher with the need for a decent computer or console, a good screen to play it on, peripherals, and games. The floor for Magic is a duel deck or a couple intro decks. The ceiling on Magic is much higher with rotations and constant switching of T1 decks to have the best 75 for the week at any given tournament. Not to mention travel times if you're not just playing FNM (which isn't really competitive).

What I like about Modern and Legacy though is that they have low upkeep costs. Once you build into the format with something to play, it's pretty inexpensive to expand and always gain options.

Comment Hidden

Quote from rocked »

With this Vendgate WOTC and Major Vendors are in right now, I think it is just a matter of time before people realizes that WOTC has been printing a lot of magic cards lately (More than the chronicles print run) and that this "secondary market" is just a few people manipulating the actual supply. I mean, you may have a Dozen beta black lotuses and sure, they sell for >10k usd, but who can afford them at that price?

STOP.

Yes, the secondary is subject to market manipulations, but there is ALSO organic demand for things like modern and legacy staples.

Quote from Yonekura »

April is a long wait. I am not sure the player base would want to wait till april.

My article tomorrow will speak directly to this. There is strong evidence to suggest Modern's attendance will not suffer in the longterm, and that Wizards can use the two months to make the proper ban. The risks of waiting are very low. The costs of premature action could be very high, so Wizards is doing the right thing in waiting.

Quote from DeadPresident2910 »

Quote from TappingStones »

No, eye of Ugin allows for too much free mana. Just in the day two games alone I say starts like T1 Eldrazi mimic, eldrazi mimic. T2 Realti Smasher attack for 15. In the top 8 12 mana worth of spells were played by JC Tao by t2.

This is not reasonable.

"Don't worry, the meta can fix it". - Wizards

Apparently, the meta can fix anything, according to a few players and a lot of Wizards' acolytes. Except when, like, you know, they print abhorrently overpowered cards or the meta breaks things, like Amulet Bloom or Eldrazi lists.

The level of alarmism in this thread is both too damn high and unwarranted. Neither Wizards nor many of the "wait and see" proponenta are saying the metagame HAS the tool to fix this. Rather, they are saying we need to WAIT AND SEE if the metagame jas the tools. There is a huge difference between the two. The former implies an unsupported certainty that Eldrazi is manageable. We do not know that at all. The lattter, however, admits they might not be manageable, but also that we need to wait and see if the data suggests that.

The next ban update is in April. If Eldrazi proves to be a problem in the March GPs, we only have to wait a month for bans. The format could easily rebound from a 2 month period of Eldrazi: even if we say this current metagame is twice as bad as the Cruise one, it's only around for half as long. Modern attendance and support soared after the 2015 bans and 4 months of Cruise/Pod, which suggests it would be just fine after 2 months of Eldrazi.

You know what is much worse than 2 months of Eldrazi? Wizards setting a precedent that they ban cards after one event. That would be a disaster for longterm format confidence because it could repeat whenever a new deck had a breakout performance.

Modern will be fine in April, especially if Wizards unbans a card! Either the Eldrazi get reined in during the March GPs and nothing gets banned, or April sees an Eldrazi banning. Either way, the format will quickly rebound from the two month imbalance.

So we've begun judging sets by the color chosen for the set names font? This is great, please elaborate.

I'm just glad this thread doesn't make banning decisions.

Ban everything besides my deck basically.

Quote from bacepi »

Quote from MantisRider »

Quote from bacepi »

Quote from DoggieDoo »

Frank Lepore's UBC Eldrazi Deck still had some processing effects.
Here's my guess at a main deck.

DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Lands (24) 4 Cavern of Souls 4 Eldrazi Temple 4 Eye of Ugin 3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 4 Ghost Quarter 3 Corrupted Crossroads 1 Island 1 Swamp Creatures (28) 4 Drowner of Hope 4 Blight Herder 4 Wasteland Strangler 4 Eldrazi Mimic 4 Matter Reshaper 4 Thought-Knot Seer 4 Reality Smasher	Spells (8) 4 Relic of Progenitus 1 Scrabbling Claws 3 Dismember

Can you guys please stop playing B based Eldrazi.

U/x is clearly the best version. Preferably R for Vile Aggregate and Obligator.

The only B card that is remotely playable is Strangler and Doom Blade (which isn't even played even though it hits Eldrazi and Affinity decks). But I would rather just play Roast and stay UR.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how decklists interact and change with the meta. The fact that three different builds of Eldrazi have now top 8'd indicates that the core cards, the ones that all the decks share, are what is powerful. The rest, meta dressing. Blue Red seems to beat other eldrazi decks via flyers. Colorless eats burn, affinity, and infect alive. Processer version also has some tech against the mirror, and packs a more generally interactive build good for diverse meta games. Of course, this is all first impression based. It is, however, pretty clear that moving forward a core of 4 Eldrazi Mimics, 4 Thought-Knot Seer, 4 Reality Smasher, 4 Eye of Ugin, and 3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is correct and the source of this decks current dominance.

And by fundamental understanding you mean I play UR, don't play Urborgs because the format is warped with Eldrazi and Urborgs so I don't need to play my own Urborgs, play Drowners, Viles, and Roasts that trump the mirror?

Yeah. Ok. Diverse metagame? It's literally nothing but Eldrazi variants, Affinity, Grisshoalbrand variants, and Infect variants. That's about it. Want to be successful? Play one of those 4 decks.

Have you played the UR version after SB? It eats Affinity, Infect, and Burn alive ...

You want to know the real tech is in the mirror? Roast or Doom Blade. Also I have even tested Outnumber in the UR list to see if it was any good ... it was ok. That being said ... Play UR and SB Relics, Ratchet Bombs, Chalices, and maybe Spellskites that the CFB play MD vs the other big 3 decks. You have your bases covered and find "tech" in the mirror which is a removal spell and probably Crucible of Worlds?

This isn't a meta change. This is a broken format. And with a broken format you find the best deck and learn how to win the mirror. That's all you care about. It's like caw blade all over again.

95% win record day 1 and you are trying to figure out how to play BW. Are you kidding me? Pros literally handing you the keys to a banned car in 3 months and you deny it?

Enjoy the ride before this deck gets banned in 3 months.

Pack it up guys, this guy beat magic apparently, including the meta's of every lgs on the planet. He found the best deck. It's all over. Too bad, I liked this game