MTG Salvation

Most (nonfoil) commons are not worth the paper they are pritned on. It takes a VERY powerful common to command attention even stuff like Lighting bolt and brainstorm bearly warrent over $1 these days. Basicly everyone has the commons they want or can get them so cheaply that it does not matter. Their is no value or interest in commons (that are not foil.... or part of a VERY select powerful party known as "T1 Tournment staple" )

Is your friend Alpha Investments? Rudy was talking about this a while ago suggesting that WOTC (well Hasbro really) was potentaly going to sell the MTG brand since they are seeing a decline in Player base attending tournments year over year.

Quote from Cardz5000 »

If they didn't suck, they would get bought out quickly by enfranchised players, and thus would not be available for new players.

Not if they you know printed to demand... THEN we just get cheaper good cards and a more healthy and competitive environment but who wants that?

The question is why is this rare? When Coffers was uncommon? Its not like this is better then coffers most of the time but the opposite (most of the time coffers is the better choice), This should be uncommon or should have been made as a better coffers to warrent its boost to rare.

To be honest their isn't alot of things that fit that (maybe combo hate cards? standard rarely ever has combo), IF you wish to expand it to Vintage/Legacy its easy Stuff like Chalice of the Void and Things that add extra costs to spells that are cheap (like 3 sphear), are all prime examples.

ah yes good magic, where you had to interact with yoru opponent, bluffing was part of the game, holding extra lands in hand (both to prevent land and mass land destruction and counter bluff) yes I do. Would love to see counterspell reprinted (or better yet inproved apon I mean creatures keep getting power up after power up, would it be so hard to have UU1 counter target spell, return target permanent to its owners hand?)

Quote from Ava »

[quote from="draftguy2 »" url="/forums/magic-fundamentals/the-rumor-mill/790875-brawl-the-format?comment=116"][quote from="DirkGently »" url="/forums/magic-fundamentals/the-rumor-mill/790875-brawl-the-format?comment=111"][/b] Then why are there Commander players who play Modern or Pauper if the card pool is not as big?

The cards play different in that their is more consistency being allowed to play 4x of the same card adds alittle somthing to the deck and play style and they still have some good cards in said formats. To give you an example the only standard card I feel might fit the bill as "good" currently is fatal push. Thats one lonely good card. Where as in modern/commander/pauper you have options. You should not have to pick the least bad choice you should have choices that are genuine good and hard to choose between. Players want their cup to runnuth over with good choices. IE lots of the cards need to be good both on their own and in very good in their neesh.

Their is no or little demand from the player base for this. They would be better suited to FIX the problems the current modern has (or legacy... or you know vintage) People tend not to be upset about "oh no my mana base is just too darn good" and "Rats I hate having access to this amazing exceleration why wizards why do you give me these great cards that make things more fun, diverse and interesting" never have I seen someone play a lighting bolt and say "man I wish this was a shock instead" The new format would be the real "creatures rule" format. Their would be no land destruction, no combo limited control, just a pure mid range and agro slug fest. At least modern is starting to develop some real deck types.

Or do get luck and do somethign new that no one else is doing but is ALSO very cool/entertaining.

Ok ok.... its ok draftguy2.... as long as the good countermagic, consistent turn 3-4 combos and prison cards come back we can hold off on the slivers.... Yes its dispointing but Dominaria is a return to mtg roots and if the fun good parts of magic come back you may have to make the short term sacrfise of the fun tribe....

Quote from draftguy2 »

Is your friend Alpha Investments? Rudy was talking about this a while ago suggesting that WOTC (well Hasbro really) was potentaly going to sell the MTG brand since they are seeing a decline in Player base attending tournments year over year.

This is the most ridiculous thread I have ever seen, for starters. Yeah, WotC is just going to cut their biggest and oldest card game. Lol what? Your friend needs to stop believing everything he hears.

And just because they see a decline in tourney attendance doesn't mean that the game is failing... and it especially doesn't warrant a "let's just stop making magic cards".

But I'm just ranting and I'm sure everyone else has said it already.

Quote from FunkyDragon »

One of the main draws for me with Commander is that it is a non-rotating format. I continue to buy cards all the time, but I do so knowing that they will remain useful and relevant. I have always avoided rotating formats because it's just a feel-bad to have something I bought no longer be legal or useful. That alone drives me away from this format. If they made it more like Modern Commander-Lite, where it used all new cards starting in Dominaria or some other set and moving forward, without rotation, I might build a deck or two, knowing I could keep tinkering with them and playing them for years to come. but I'm not going to build decks from a limited card pool with suboptimal card options only to have to destroy them in a year or so. I'd rather just play commander with superior card options and unlimited card lifespan.

Give this man a beer. Well said.

Quote from Hackworth »

Real talk, most Magic players do kitchen table stuff in private/casual groups, the LGS crowd is mainly more dedicated players. Hell, the forums crowd is pretty skewed towards long term players too.

Yea we dont casual around like all the random people out in the woods.

All the casuals for sure exist, but we never ever going to see them, hiding like the trolls in the dark under the bridges.

Be proud to be part of the Magic elite ;P

Quote from h3x4g0n »

Quote from Dontrike »

Based on MA25 they can't print much in one set.

i feel like a lot of the people complaining about masters 25 are just newer players who don't actually know about the history.

man-o-war is a historic card and brutal in limited. man-o-war deserves a slot in masters 25. i'm sorry it's not another expensive modern staple for you to jam at fnm but that's not really what the anniversary set is about.

A25 has lots of historic cards and is designed to be draftable. if you don't care about history or drafting, HUGE SURPRISE, this set is not for you.

Funny how a lot of people defending that dumpster fire of a set always cite the "historicness" of the cards and blame others for being too new to the game, but then the fact that there's no Serra Angel, Shivan Dragon, Llanowar Elves, Kird Apes, Urza Lands, Wall of Blossoms, Wild Mongrel,
Veteran Explorer or Venser, Shaper Savant among lots of others non "expensive, modern staples" that would make for a great draft environment always goes over their head, thus ironically blowing the whistle about how long they have been playing themselves.

Urza's story was one of MTG's BEST storylines. Perticuarly for people who started at the beginning. Say what you want about jace/Bolas to many old players Urza/Yawgmoth are the major characters of MTG. and Squee... I want to see him again so baddly.... I miss my goblin buddy..... It was Advneture novles at their finest and some of the best mtg books written.

At points, yes. Understand, though, that because Urza was around for so long, he kind of predominates most of the lore. With that in mind, he and Yawgmoth are the best and worst of MtG Lore. The end of the saga was messy as all get up, and I have to say I much prefer the Brothers' War and Yawgmoth's beginnings in the Thran to that later period. Don't get me wrong, some of it is awesome - and Tempest was my first block, so Volrath was my Darth Vader. But the amount of author changes and sloppy writing near the end of Urza's story was not great, to be awfully kind. Commander Guff was breaking the fourth wall with all the blunder and reckless abandon of a 4 year old on a sugar buzz.

By comparison, these days, yes the story does drag on. Not everyone likes Jace, and he is a bit of a Gary Stu. Gideon is one-dimensional. But there's movement, character development, multiple plot lines, and character evolution there, even if it's slow enough that you can't see it right away. And that, as I said, really comes from having the stories tied in to a plot that can only move as fast as card blocks are printed. It's far from the ideal way to tell a fantasy story, and in many ways parallels the way Game of Thrones stalled out. At least in our case we're getting the story, albeit incrementally. In Martin's case, he seems to have more or less given HBO free reign to tell the story for him.

EDIT - I'm really hoping to see Squee in the new Dominaria set. Unlikely, but you never know.

I will give you my take.
Firstly- my background, so that you can see any bias. You are welcome to skip.

I have played a long time, I do drafts where the rares are prizes- redraft and by and large I am strong enough at limited to make whatever skills I had pay. Under the K ranking system I would fluctuate between top 100 uk and just outside the top 10 in limited, without ever doing more than a few rounds of a big event outside nationals. Most of my "best" picks in draft are not the hot cards at the time but the second picks where I took a long term view. I started taking an interest in finance around a decade ago. My ebay sales cleared 100+ last month, in the last two I made £1200 plus private sales of 500, my average per month is closer to £100-200, private sales can vary. Rarely someone comes to me with a collection or high end cards to shift on privately, but mainly it is my cards I sell on to obtain higher value ones. My collection is, well, let us just say I store my cards in a safe, I own a lot of legacy decks in that safe, in full, and a similar number of modern decks, and it has mainly been paid for by dropping out of standard and selling off in 2007 or so. I don't touch vintage, I speculate a little here and there, I bought a lot of old boxes when they were sub 100 Euros from European sources, I take advantage of the disparity between Europe and the US, and the disparity between what cards sell for on Ebay and their trade value in dollars. I read mtg finance reddit and Mtgstocks daily, I never post on finance ever- the major patterns in finance are pretty obvious, and when I do get some inkling or a whisper I don't tell anyone because that is not how it works, and, of course, I always sell into the hype and get out early, I am risk averse. The only secrets I can tell you is that anyone looking at finance needs to not play every format because that is how you get stung, the formats you are not playing in are the ones that makes you cash, and that as ever everyone needs to stay ahead of the curve but by definition they can't, so you have to jump first.

On this set I have no special wisdom but I think this will be the last set of its kind. Their formula for all masters sets has been consistent since the second, and it takes no account of price after release, only initial price pre reprint. The formula simply does not work outside of Modern, and barely works within it. We all know a cards value is a function of supply and demand, and that cards can maintain a high price as a function of scarcity rather than widespread demand. Goyf and its ilk drop a small amount and rapidly rebound, because now you need another 3 Goyfs. Imperial Recruiter won't work like that- it has a direct replacement for most decks and inconveniently for WOTC the Top ban killed Imperial Painter, the deck now best as a fring mono U deck. As in the disparity between Chronicles City of B and it's AN counterpart, the original will hold a lot of value, but the reprint won't- 40 dollars or so, maybe 50 if few boxes get openened. For IR read Mana Drain and you are basically there.
Similarly let us assume we all know that the value of the rares and uncommons is a huge driver of the "feel bad/feel" good in a pack. Opening a Bident of Thassa does not feel as bad when it comes with a Brainstorm and foil Swords. This set will feel bad way too often whichever way you run the maths. There is some uncommon value, and common value, but the rare/myhtic value is awfully centered on fewer cards than usual. Even those opening, say for example, a Rishadan Port will feel "great this card is worth X" but then have to try and find a buyer who does not own them already for D N T, brown Stax or Lands. That is a tall order in terms of Lands- if you own a Tabernacle then Ports were unlikely to be an issue, and your Lands deck may run without them. If you are lucky enough to find a Brown Stax player they will probably own all the cards too. If you don't own a Tabernacle then Lands probably should not be your deck choice. Port may be the bottleneck to D N T, and you will find out if it truly is if you check the price of the other cards in the deck, assuming the demand is real and not speculator driven. Chalice and Bridge are cards that are notable for being used in multiples, they will hold a lot of their value. The optimum number of Chalice is 4 in Legacy, but that will lead to a lot of frustrated players. In fact that is this set over - an awful lot of packs will annoy or upset, meaning repeat buyers will be few and far between.
In short the set will bust by virtue of rotting on shelves, low player confidence and a myriad of other factors including the disenfranchisement of the player base by a host of feel-bad decisions over the past 6-12 months. Wizards as ever will get sales to LGS, but they will have cut back on orders after Iconic, and they will not fly off the shelves nor will LGS be clamouring for a second printing. If you assume they saw what happened to Iconic, realised the distribution of A25 is similar, it is likely that they unbanned JTMS to boost sales of a set made with a similar calculation- a few high end mythics, little value in the rare slot, and a large number of cards who maintained a high price due to scarcity rather than organic demand. In short the set is only really worth it as a draft experience, as is often the case, but this is more true than ever. Their careful management of spoiler season felt like Punch and Judy show where everyone can see the hand and the curtain has fallen down, as soon as we got into the third day it was obvious where it was heading.

I know my local LGS ordered less of this set than Iconic. Unless there is some sweet "treasure" esque suprise, the set will basically be Iconic II, but with the added bonus that people's expectations are lower, meaning a few more may buy it and sales might kick in earlier. As Atari found in 1985, when a product is talked of as being dead (8bit e.g. 800XL), and retailers cut prices, it can act as a short term shot into the arm. Pauper too may cause a shot in the arm as there are a few goodies for Pauper players, but it is not enough. If the worst happens with Iconic, and prices get slashed early then all bets are off. If it does not, then I would wager the next masters set has an RRP of about 8$, and may even have some kind of masterpiece/alternate art theme running through them, even affatecting uncommons/commons- rarer art foil Brainstorms, for example, even old style foil ones. The alternative is a masters set with fetches in, which is a sure way to make a set sell, albeit one that cannot be continued indefinitely.

They should just get rid of the mythic rarity all together.

Now, if only Wizards would do this for Modern...

Quote from draftguy2 »

Quote from ET1 »

Quote from draftguy2 »

I agree with your end result but not your reasoning, I feel wizards should return complexity to lower raritys. However I feel they need to pay MORE attention to older formats not less. They need to take standard and go "here are 5 cards that help with the following arctypes that exsist in modern/legacy as good potental valid choices to play with" Boom here is a new burn spell its 1 mana sorcory and deals 4 damage to each player, helps burn, Here is a New artifact that nicely fits in to affinity as a potential play choice, Here is a Great libary self miller say 1 black to put the 7 cards of your libary in to your graveyard yoru welcome dredge. Basically assume the other formats can take anything you throw at them and every set print 2-5 cards that slot in to existing decks in the meta game, Preferable T 2 and T1.5 decks that push them alittle bit. By printing cards that helps decks that don't exists in standard it only adds value to standard which takes away value from standard staples. This makes standard cheaper withlut warping it since most of the types of cards I am talking about are uselss in standard itself.

I don't think this argument is synonymous with the end result I suggested. This argument is to use new sets to print cards for existing archetypes in older formats that have no impact in standard. What this does is decrease Wizards' demand for standard game play and likely decrease the longevity of magic's success. Wizards does actually need to make money from the game for magic to exist and the best way to do that is by ensuring that standard is fun to play, is interesting and can appeal to both new and enfranchised players. Something it has severely lacked in recent years.

How so? Modern players tend to not purcahse standard product right now, They don't play standard, Remember wizards does not need more people playing standard they need more standard product sales. By putting in the cards for older formats, the eternal format people will purchase said cards, They means packs must be cracked for these people and these people are mostly ok spending $10, $20 for a card that will tweek their deck that extra 1%. by putting say 3 extra $20 cards in a standard enviroment will leach away value from standard decks, This makes the cost to enerty for standard go down, since their is a fixed total EV in every set. It is likely that even if standard players get these cards they will not just go "well I just got Archbound Ravager V2 I guess I should spend the extra $900 for a full affinity deck, they will likely go Hey free $20 that I can trade for the a top tier card for my current standard deck. I agree standard does need to be more interesting, However putting "fun" cards back in standard (cough land destruction, good counterspells, Real combo, Prison decks cough) just likely is't in the cards.

It's not just what cards get printed into standard that brings people into playing it or buying product, though. They have become incredibly tame with their artwork and themes, and it feels like each set moving forward has been playing it a little safer than before. It's not exactly like they aren't showing blood, as Eliminate the Competition is pretty blatant, but Scars had Tel-Jilad Defiance, Necrotic Ooze, etc, that really pushed the kind of feeling one is looking for, from being disturbing to having a sense of understanding human nature. I really wish they'd bring some of that back.

Honestly, for me it's the fact the game thrives around organized events and gatherings that adhere to certain formats and wizards of the coast creating products that don't really help new players gain entrance to these gatherings that is problematic. They print planeswalker decks, anthology sets, and duel decks that sometimes have value in them, but what is the point if that value is from cards that aren't currently playable in the popular formats supported by the events and gatherings? If the products that wizards was pushing to new players at least had more playable cards in them it would be possible to at least help steer someone into a deck that can give some fair match ups, but when you have to tell someone that what they bought is essentially worthless and that they have to spend about 30 to 40 more dollars to build a decent deck, that's a problem. That might be cheap to people who are enfranchised crazy folks like myself, but that's 40 dollars on top of a 20 dollar sealed product someone just spent money on. That's not even going into purchasing sleeves, a play mat, a way to store the cards when not playing, tokens, etc.

Why can't wizards give someone a fetchland in a starter deck, or a Dark Confidant? If the price is too high now on the market to do it, who's fault is it at the end of the day? They had ample amounts of time to do something like this to help newer players get started in the game and have some spotlighted and popular cards. Now they can get barely anything.

Quote from draftguy2 »

Quote from KamikazeArchon »

Quote from WarMachinePrime »

Variance that could be more under control by Wizards if they changed their collation/sorting of cards into packs for Masters sets. Iconic is a dumpster fire compared to the others. They can't continue in the fashion of IM, they need to load up the power/value more (ala MM1 2 and 3) in M25 or if they don't drop the price per pack, plain and simple.

*shrug* I've provided the data about EV specifically. If you also have a problem with the variance, that's a different issue.

Personally, I doubt that Iconic Masters or any Masters product has any effect on the "younger/newer players" demographic; they're not the target audience and are unlikely to be the primary consumers. (if we assume that commons/uncommns have no value and to most players they don't and the foils are valued at 0. ) Looking at just rares/mythics.

The Masters edition seems to have followed a very natural course. The first Masters product was aggressively undercosted, as part of a first foray into a product space. They found out that it was way undercosted/overvalued, and they have been trimming the "fat" down to ensure it's a sustainable product line. They can continue to use the Masters edition as a "high variance" product line with normal sets as a "low variance" reference point. People who like high variance will continue to buy Masters, people who don't will not. Wizards is likely going to be fine with lots of players choosing to buy only a subset of the Magic product, and that should already be part of their overall business strategy.

Thank you for posting the EV's that was quite helpful. However I feel that while average EV % is important, for the common player knowing the medum value is also important that would give a player a better idea of the value without the swimgy nature of uber mythic/draft garbage.


Based on finding the math and some help from SCG the medium for eternal masters is only 2.24, a far cry from the $10 price.... This is assuming you only look at rares mythics and assune a don't countfoils. (which most players do,)

I believe you are referring to the median value possibly? I could see the median value being 2.24 a pack for EM. I would expect the mean or average price to be higher as pricey cards skew the average upwards. And yes median would be far more indicative than mean(average) when discussing variance. Thanks.