The key to understanding current MTG price bumps is that this is not a speculative bubble. This is a rationalization of the market. When you have an extremely limited supply of cards and you have the demand that exists, as it does, these are absolutely where the prices should actually be. Speculation isn't driving these cards high, and so you shouldn't expect some kind of "bubble" to burst. There are only two things that are going to drive cards down:
1) Prices become so high that it genuinely causes people to stop playing. Which doesn't drive prices down so much as it imposes a ceiling on prices.
2) Wizards adopts a much more aggressive reprinting policy. But I don't believe Wizards has the kind of holistic view of the card economy or the kind of basic competence as a company to actually take the broad view and do something like that. They definitely haven't shown any signs of it when you look at things like the performance of MTGO. The most likely thing is that they won't address this problem until people start walking away from the game, and then it'll probably be too late.
Therefore: you should not expect prices to drop anytime soon on eternal and modern cards. It is much more likely that other cards will undergo similar price increases. And it's also important to keep in mind that this is not a Reserve List problem. This is a reprints problem in general. Wizards' reprints policy is just wildly insufficient for the game as it actually exists. They don't reprint cards and when they do reprint cards it's in tiny numbers that are completely disproportionate to demand. So don't expect price increases to be limited to Reserve List cards, and don't expect anything less than substantial and thoroughgoing reprints by Wizards to fix the problem.
I don't get why everyone is bitching.
You've had 15-20 years to get most of these cards. If you wanted them, why didn't you get them years ago?
>>48212458
Turns out five-year-old me wasn't concerned with the prospect of playing legacy elves years down the road and acquiring Cradles before the Reserved List royally screwed everything up wasn't really on my mind.
>>48212599
You were 5-years old three years ago?
>>48212458
I want other people to have them as well because I can't play magic on my own.
I wasn't even aware of the Cradle bump, just the Tabernacle, LED, Moat, and Library of Alexandria jumps. Any others I'm missing?
>>48212458
Is this a meme?
>>48212686
Jesus what the fuck. That's a bubble if I ever saw one.
Welp time to order "proxies" from chinaman.
>>48212686
Obviously not, but I also wasn't in a position to drop 400 on a playset. Such was the plight of being a poor college kid.
>>48212765
Stop being poor.
Also, get smart.
>>48212458
Not everyone started playing magic 15-20 years ago.
>>48212803
You still could've gotten them for less than $400 a playset about 3 years ago.
Can't they just print very similar cards to the ones on the reserved list?
>>48212756
Every now and again, old cards that don't move very much get bought up and the price gets inflated because there's nothing anyone can do to stop it. This was a pretty extreme case.
>>48212849
No.
>>48212849
They could do functional reprints or even semi-reprints. I'd like to see them do that with Serra's Sanctum so that Leylines could maybe be a real deck.
>>48212797
Oh, it was that easy? How could I have been so foolish?
>>48212871
Then they give legacy decks 8 ofs instead of 4 ofs for cards
>>48213008
Ban the reserved equivalent
>being poor
>playing mtg
I don't understand these people
>>48212830
>100$ a card is normal
kek
>>48212458
I own a lot of expensive cards. I would gladly have them lose 75% of their value if it meant people could play Legacy with me in paper and not via shit like Cockatrice.
Cards should be valuable, but this is insane.
>>48212871
Until you remember that they can't do functional reprints.
>>48213249
And why not?
>>48213476
Because of the Reserved List.
>>48213476
See functionally identical.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/official-reprint-policy-2010-03-10
>>48213571
Color shifted? Make them better or slightly worse?
>>48213571
They can just remove the Reserved List if they wanted to, it's not a legally binding agreement.
>>48211789
>1) Prices become so high that it genuinely causes people to stop playing
This is the situation right now with Legacy. Prices don't go down anyway, because they are largely controlled by the big vendors. It's pretty much impossible to move your Legacy cards by now, so you are effectively holding worthless pieces of paper with high potential value that's impossible to cash in.
>>48213640
... There're like entire sets on there.
That's rather retarded.
Of course, the shit that people really want on there are fast ramp, drawbackless flexibility, and cards that are still crazy powerful.
Meanwhile, R&D seem to want to move the meta from turn 4 to turn 6... Which is my most modern ramp costs 2cmc minimum. With land fetching starting at 3 anymore...
>>48213783
They can't just go on and risk the trust on their product. If it might harm them getting rid off RL, they won't do it hence it's never going to go away.
Hasbro just doesn't literally get anything out of getting rid of RL and it can potentially be harmful for the image, which is extremely valuable in companies.
>>48211789
I really can't understand why wizards is okay with this. Control of their game has been stolen from them and they're just sitting there letting it happen.
They try so hard to dumb the game down for new players, but new players want to play the same game they see people telling stories about and making huge plays early on at their lgs or wherever they first saw it. They don't want the castrated cards for babbies, they want in on the action too.
Wizards' solution? Better print some more women and gays!
Modern marketing is so fucked, it's entirely dependent on screwing over the established loyal customer to chase that shiny new minority demographic who will only fleetingly and casually spend their money before hopping to the next fad.
>>48213640
Reading that document, there is no other conclusion than WotC are not telling us the whole truth. Their no-reprint promise says
>Reserved cards will never be printed again in a functionally identical form. A card is considered functionally identical to another card if it has the same card type, subtypes, abilities, mana cost, power, and toughness.
Color shifting and changing creature subtype falls outside of what WotC said they wouldn't do. Therefore, Twincast should have been fine. The reprint policy has nothing to do with the RL promise.
>>48214607
It doesn't matter. They have to follow it in the spirit or the trust isn't there, get it?
And their reprint policy is to milk reprints as selling point and keep standard separated from the eternal power level for whatever the reason they decided on.
If this isn't a speculative bubble, then why did prices only go up when speculators started doing buyouts?
And why is it still possible to buy all these cards at maybe $10 higher than you could a week ago?
Is it because the supply hasn't actually changed, and because cards aren't oil we don't need to buy them, no matter what price they are?
>>48213858
Thats some cute baseless tin foil speculation you've got there.
>>48213202
I think this is the difference between players and collectors. If the bottom dropped out on MTG tomorrow, collectors would be up in arms, while players would be disappointed. Pushing this "magic stock market" retardery to its natural conclusion is probably best for the players.
>>48212458
Because I only have disposable income now you fuck tard. I didn't have it way back when Black Lotus were only 300$, and duals were 25$ (at most).
If I did I would have bought them back then. Now that their are 1000$ and up is a slightly taller order.
>>48214807
Because if you want RL cards, this is the last chance to get them before the price is out in heavens.....
Actually fuck it, the time to buy duals, LEDs etc is gone already. Same with serra's sanctum. If you wanted it, it's already too late. Buy out happened, nobody really wants them anymore with new prices and legacy will die in near future. RL won't go away and WotC will just drop the support for eternal formats. Actually they already did with legacy and vintage ages ago.
>>48214751
>They have to follow it in the spirit or the trust isn't there, get it?
This is another bullshit excuse. Trust in what? WotC is a company, not a politician. Besides, at this point, reprinting RL cards would create such a massive wave of good sentiment from players that the few speculators and grognards that would be pissed because "mah Black Lotus" would have to suck it.
I heard one of the employees talking at my LGS about how TCGplayer changed their pricing system, and as a result the store lost a lot of money. Anyone care to explain that?
http://store.tcgplayer.com/help/buyoutresponse
That's a link to the article, but as far as I can tell they're still winning out. If the store has, say, 40 Gaea's Cradles, and they're now selling for let's say 200 on the low, and they bought them at 100 or something (stores usually pay a little more for Eternal playables), how have they lost money? I'm confused anons.
>>48215143
If WotC drops support for legacy, then what happens to prices? They always come back down
>>48215519
And that's another fucking bullshit you are saying. If company sets a rule they pledge to obey and they suddenly say "fuck it, we won't follow it", it's a clear fucking sign you can't trust on their action.
Yes. Wotc is a company that wants to make as much money as possible. But they also want to maintain image they have. You won't maybe like it, but people expect their cards to hold a value. That's why they are so careful with reprints for fucks sake. You may think whatever you like, but when people buy cards for 1$, 10$ or 100$, they won't like it if they suddenly drop into 0,1$ range, okay? This is what holds the secondary market up and why so many people don't mind shilling money into new sets, because they expect their cards to hold some value for them. It's stupid fucking illusion, but it works and why they keep such a good care to keep that up.
>>48213783
>What is promissory estoppel
Because the prices have gone so high and it's stood for so long, it's become legally binding.
>>48215571
They lost potential money to be made. When there is a site that makes it easy to find the seller with lowest price point and data for how much the cards are going, you can find the real price point of cards. This is bad for shops that want to fuck people over for maximum monies, as people can just go over this site and buy from someone else because fuck your prices, they suck.
>>48213871
When the RL was printed, the rules were:
>Every rare or U1 that was printed before chronicles that hasn't been reprinted since is Reserved
>Until further notice every Rare/U1 that isn't reprinted in the very next core set is Reserved (this lasted until Tempest Block)
>Any card we deem to be Reserved is Reserved.
>>48215652
>when people buy cards for 1$, 10$ or 100$, they won't like it if they suddenly drop into 0,1$ range, okay?
You just went full potato. This is exactly what happens when you buy new cards. There is no fucking guarantee that your cards are going to hold their value. They can get reprinted at any time, or worse they can get banned. Why are people doing buying cards then? There is no promise protecting their value.
The only thing WotC needs to be careful with is MASSIVE reprints, not reprints per se. And that has nothing to do with promises or the fucking RL. No one is advocating for flooding the market with duals, but the secondary market for RL cards is not healthy. Any retard can see that those formats need new cards in them. If they suddenly reprinted duals and other staples in a sufficient number that they would drop to say, $30 a piece tops, people would then be able to play Legacy without mortgaging their house. Only the fucking speculators could see that as a bad move, or a smear on WotC white soul.
>>48211789
So this is Martin Skrillex General?
Chinamen, you are our only hope!
>>48215838
No I did not go full potato. What I'm saying is that when people open a 10$ card, they expect it to be same price or higher later on. That's why WotC hasn't done massive reprints like you said and are careful to not fuck the prices. This of course has nothing to do with the reserved li- oops, maybe we forgot it fucking does have a lot of things to do with reserved list. Historically reserved list came out as a promise to not do such massive reprints like that, because the card prices people had plummeted into oblivion due to chronicles (if I recall set names correctly). They have done reprint sets lately a lot, but notice how they are very limited and they have made carefully sure that their reprint won't fuck the secondary market.
RL secondary market isn't healthy, I agree. But if they were to reprint anything even the slightest from there, the same illusion they are keeping up wouldn't hold true anymore. And as such, RL won't be going away and wizards are just better off killing the format than make any kind of risk, was it how small or justifiable.
>>48215703
That makes sense. Their prices are usually pretty fair, they tend to use TCGplayer Mid. I guess what hurts them is removing the High from the equation, which in turn puffs up the Mid price?
Also I'm still wondering how many shops lost money on Splinter Twin considering that ban was leaked but seemed a little too outrageous to be true.
>>48215840
already a thread for that.
For real, this card was about 50 cents at best a week ago, and now it's shy of $4.
What the fuck even happened.
I know price wise its not a huge jump, but a jump up of price by over 300% is pretty crazy
>>48216232
>Homelands cards actually gaining value
>>48216022
The amount of players who benefit from the reserved list are painfully small. The bulk of those who want it to remain aren't players, they're collectors who just hoard cards because they're too scared to play the real stocks. The rest who own cards on the reserved list are legacy and vintage players, most of whom would love reprints so there will be more people able to play those formats with them.
No player who doesn't have cards on the reserved list cares that it's kept intact, and the few collectors who would throw a fit would be completely drowned out in the wave of support from the playerbase when that wall comes down and legacy is a playable format again.
Besides, reprinting Moxen or Lotuses will barely devalue the originals at all. They're valuable because they're old and sought after. Alpha Lotus prices aren't going anywhere just because a new version on the awful new border exists. We've seen the same occur with reprints of non-reserve list older cards. Older printings always maintains value above that of reprints, particularly with new art, which I don't think anyone who just wants the cards so they can enter the format will complain about.
>>48216360
I'm not on RL list side, I'm just saying it won't go away no matter how much you rationalize it. Whatever you say is negletted by the fact that there is risk for people getting butthurt by demolishing it.
Besides. I'm quite sure there is many who would agree with your points. But remember that legacy players with huge collection probably bought them when they were cheap ages ago and aren't that active on the game anyway. Other half has paid ridiculous amount of money to be able to play and believe me when I say this, will get assblasted their 2k deck will from this day on cost only 200$. They won't stay in the game. And those guys willing to put 2k into their deck are willing to put money to new cards as well. Usually that's the case.
Mtg is more popular than it has ever been. Legacy jsut isn't WotC in the best of their interest as it's playerbase is so marginal. Of course it would be more popular with lower price point, but why bother when you can just keep on doing standard?
>the eternal formats will die in your lifetime
>>48212458
>You've had 15-20 years to get most of these cards
i'm 25 years old
>>48216660
>Eternal formats die
>Demand plummets
>Card prices follow suit
>Eternal formats live again
Seriously though, Legacy is so fun that people aren't most going to decide that they don't want to play any more. WotC has very little to do with the eternal scene as is, if they axe support the formats aren't just going to go away.
>>48216232
Because it's a Ghostly Prison in black, which is nuts
>>48216556
>it won't go away
It will go away the minute it is in WotC interest that it goes away. The whole "it's a promise, and we don't break promises" rationale is a childish way of looking at it. Hasbro will find a way if they need to. Believing your duals are a safe investment because of the RL promise is living in la la land. The RL stays because Hasbro is concentrated on increasing the player base and in selling sealed product. The RL is just a perfect excuse to tell Legacy and Vintage players that they need to get with the program and trade their duals for basics and start going to FNM. And by the way, I think it is a good strategy on their part. But just stop with the RL bullshit.
>>48215519
Companies care about thier customers trusting them. Consumer trust gets you a loyal consumer base.
The whole twin ban and following pro tour caused trust in the company to lower at least temperarily which could have lost customers if not for changes made.
>>48216847
Finally someone understood what I kept writing for a fucking hour. I'm just saying it will never be in Hasbro's interest to remove RL.
>>48211789
>Print strictly better dual lands
>Old dual lands price plummet
There are ways to drive down the prices, Wizards is just Shit. also there are a lot of people that defend the high prices of cards, but hate counterfeits. if it's freemarket to charge 100 dollars on cardboard, it's also freemarket to sell fake versions of that cardboard
>>48217029
How would you improve the old dual lands?
>>48217044
Volcanic island enters untapped to the BF
when VI enters the battlefield, draw a card
>>48211789
Just buy fakes for 10-20 bucks a sheet depending on the quality.
>>48217066
That wouldn't lower the prices of duals, that would just be a retardedly OP card that would get banned before even being released.
>>48216877
>if not for changes made.
The changes were made because there was a huge social uproar about them. If people had gone "meh" when the Pros got fucked, WotC would not have gone back on their changes. The immense majority of players are against the RL. Shit, I'm willing to bet that if they announced a paper version of Vintage Masters, people would damn near celebrate on the streets. If you can satisfy a large majority of your consumer base while angering a very small number of them, you do that every single time. Vintage Masters creates customer loyalty.
>>48217105
Is just a fucking example, you can put them to gain you 1 life, to scry 1, or even do tricolored lands that don't enter untaped. yes, original duals are op, if you want to do a better version of them, then they will be more op
>>48217044
You don't need to improve the RL cards, only replace them. Just make snow-covered duals and ban the originals. Underground Sea becomes strictly a collector's item, people are happy playing with $30 Frozen Underground Seas. Problem solved.
>>48216968
The only scenario I can conceive where it would be is if the game goes in the shitter and they need a triumphant return of super classic OP stuff to make a final buck before closing shop.
Banning all cards on the reserved list seems more realistic than hoping Wizards removing it.
>>48217350
I disagree. That is actually a scenario where nobody wins. They would effectively kill the value of all RL cards, while giving players no substitute or making a buck themselves.
>>48216232
Presumably someone used it in some list that someone else took note of. And that someone else decided to buy it out and hike the price to cash in on that list's notoriety.
Same thing happened to Ensnaring Bridge when that gimmicky Lantern Control was flavor of the month. Jumped from 10ish to 40 overnight and only ever settled back down to 30-35.
>>48217350
The reserved list, realistically, isn't even the problem. It's the starkest example, sure, but the problem would still exist if they got rid of the reserved list while keeping to their general reprint policy otherwise. It's not like they've been aggressive about making sure that people can play with Force of Will.
Ultimately, Wizards does not want to reprint cards that are worth money in meaningful numbers. That's not a reserved list thing. Their general policy about reprints is wildly, wildly disproportionate to the demand for cards. I mean, Christ, this is a problem in Modern. There aren't any reserved list cards in Modern.
These cards should have been this expensive for years and probably just never had their prices meaningfully updated to reflect changing interest in Magic as a game and the resulting demand.
>>48217044
Same thing I've always suggested. Snow duals.
>>48217194
>>48217537
RL says no snow reprints. Try cutting the basic land types instead?
>>48217835
Then those would be shit and legacy would still be expensive as fuck
>>48217898
They're budget versions, man.
>>48217937
They're... not really. if we're talking about dual lands, we mean lands gettable by fetchlands that don't CIPT or damage you. The cards they just don't do the job that they need to do. It's not the budget version, it's a totally different thing.
>>48216768
I would love to play Legacy, I've been on the fence of putting aSneak and Showdeck together for a while
I just don't know anyone that plays and I don't know if any LGSes near me have events
>>48217975
What if you just gave them one basic land type and a tap ability for the other color?
Decide on a new, slightly lower power level.
Ban all cards that breach this new power level.
OH FUCK I FIXED ALL OF MAGIC FOREVER
There is no reason to play this game.
>>48218017
They could probably print that.
But that's not the point. They could print those, like they could print Snow Duals, but they won't, because Wizards does not want to print anything that functionally replicates duals. It is a decision that Wizards made, for whatever reason, and they're not going to change it.
>>48218108
Except that what I said isn't a functional reprint because the missing type changes the cards function.
I keep hearing that if they print stuff off of the reserve list, they'll get sued.
Why is this?
>>48218145
The Reserve List is an official promise from the company, collectors could sue due to reprints damaging the value of their collections
>>48217044
>Reserved Cards
>A card is considered functionally identical to another card if it has the same card type, subtypes, abilities, mana cost, power, and toughness. No cards will be added to the reserved list in the future. No cards from theMercadian Masques set and later sets will be reserved. In consideration of past commitments, however, no cards will be removed from this list. The exclusion of any particular card from the reserved list doesn't indicate that there are any plans to reprint that card.
I've got it!
Eldrazi Savannah
Tribal Land- Eldrazi Forest Plains
>>48218253
That sounds like hogshit to me, but I guess 'false advertising' is a broad blanket.
>>48218145
There is a very minor precedent that because it was a promise made, it could be legally upheld. It's iffy, but if they found the right lawyer, they could sue over it. That said, Hasbro is a multi-billion dollar corporation and no grognard who's been sitting on a few Moxen for two decades actually has the funds to take them to court.
It's not a real threat.
>>48217044
Make them artifact lands.
>>48218263
Again: they could do this if they wanted to. The issue is not finding some clever trick.
They don't want to.
>>48215519
Trust is actually more important for a business than a politician
>>48212458
It's not that I don't have the cards, it's that I don't have enough opponents because others don't have the cards.
>>48218639
The average player is the young teenager off the street buying boosters to play standard or casual with their friends.
They don't stand to lose anything with that target demographic, and only stand to lose with the collectors who aren't buying new cards or doing anything for the game community anyway.
>>48212849
Yes, they showed it's so with Harmless Offering and MaRo's rather cut off-ish response to criticism of it in blogatog seems to augur it happening again wether "collectors" believe color-shifting is enough distinction from functional reprints or not.
>>48213710
For a while MaRo was very meek and avoided any talk of the Resseved List other than telling us WotC employees were banned fro discussing the RL at all. He also once said semi-functional reprints violated the "spirit" of the resserved list and would never be attempted.
Now WotC has a new CEO and MaRo stifled all discussion on wether Harmless Offering broke the resserved list as a semi-functional reprint of Donate with a very straightforward "No, it requires red mana instead of blue".
We may be back on track to getting powerful cards and one single word in the card text or different mana symbol being enough to make a card entirely new and unburdened by the list.
>none of this has any effect on me
I've been buying all my cards from chinamen
>>48219067
That whole "can't talk about the RL at all" thing always seemed really weird to me.
>>48218879
Average player of magic is in his early twenties that can afford to pay this fucking ridiculous price point the game has.
>>48219129
Not if you ask the people who actually do the research and gather the information on this stuff.
>>48217029
Just wait till Sheckelli buys all avaliable copies of any blue dual, preferably Volcanic Island.
>>48219129
Average player, if you believe WOTC, never leaves the kitchen table, and cracks boosters at a rate that makes scratchoff addicts looks sane.
I would highly doubt that any of us posting on /tg/ are more than a secondary consideration, at best, to wizards.
>>48217044
>Artificial Tundra
>Artifact Land - Plains Island
>When Artificial Tundra enters the battlefield sacrifice a non-artifact land.
Functionally identical to Tundra in most situations, marginally worse in many, exceptionally better in a tiny fraction of decks.
Most importantly, worth $30 at most if printed in a standard set.
>>48219104
MaRo's afraid of change.
>>48219185
>Artifact
>Land
>Artifact Land
RIP Modern
>>48219185
Calm down Karn!
>>48219185
Am I misreading this, or would it almost always require you to sacrifice a land after turn 1? That seems quite considerably worse.
>>48219104
I always assumed an actionist being the one holding the RL alive since neither R&D, SCG/CF/T&T/CK, or small LGS liked or ever benefited from the resserved list.
That actionist may have sold off or been bought out of his possition of power now, that's why we're seeing a change of tone towards reprints and the RL.
>>48213926
They get jack shit out of people buying their way into Legacy. All the money from it goes to collectors, with the only exception being their recent exploitation with Eternal Masters. The money is in Standard and they made Modern as a replacement for Legacy.
>>48219277
You fetch for Artificial Tundra, then for Artificial Volcanic Island, then you fetch for basics.
If you're playing against Burn or Goblins you fetch only basics anyway because of Price of Progress so if they board in artifact hate against you they dun goofed.
Now Jund/BUG would have a harder time managing their mana but they have Deathrite Shaman to ease the pain.
>>48219244
>Keep a 1-lander because your hand is tits
>You need that mana to drop a Plating but if you play Artificial Tundra you have to sac your mothland
>cri forever
>>48219356
I see. I guess I've been playing Aluren recently, and I tend to fetch basics when I can with that deck. Makes waste considerably better too.
>>48219138
That's it, I need to see where did you pull your information then.
I wanna answer a bunch of different people
>>48217066
>>48217537
>>48218446
>>48218263
>>48219185
"functional reprints" aren't completely off the table (look at Harmless Offering) but neither are they preferred. Functional reprints sort of break the spirit of the reserve list even if it doesn't break the actual rules of it.
>>48218253
The reserve list is not legally binding at all, it's just a company policy. They could do away with it all tomorrow and a class action suit would go nowhere because of the nature of how it was created and handled.
>>48218087
Half or more of the fun of legacy, vintage, commander and cube is being able to play with these powerful cards with unique abilities that don't often get printed. Plus you can't just assume people forget how powerful early magic was.
In general if a functional reprint does show up for OG duals, they would still likely be lower in power compared to them because the current design policy dictates that dual lands can't be strictly better than basic lands.
If you all want to play an overpowered eternal format for cheap, why not play just Yugioh?
>>48219397
Just use the mana from the moth to animate itself.
>>48219557
>cheap
>Yugioh
Hahahahaha, no.
>>48219515
You don't know what a functional reprint is.
>>48219185
Maybe change that to sac a basic land. What do you think?
People might play no basics and be vulnerable to wasteland and price of progress, and ghost quarter. Or they will have to run some basics and end up sacing them.
>>48219515
>The reserve list is not legally binding at all, it's just a company policy.
Then who gives a flippity flappity fuck about the collectors anymore? All their doing is hoarding cards and keeping people from actually playing the game part of the fucking game.
If I was wizards I would do a one time legacy reprint and start doing a VIP underground draft tour across america with them. Id do a lottery to interested players for half the invites and give regional tourney winners the other half. They would be small, 6 hour long drafts in blacked out offices, you sign a NDA at the door and security pads you down before and after you enter. You dont keep any of the cards, security will charge you with grand theft if you attempt to leave with them, and WotC burns them all after the tour.
How would you feel about that?
>>48219657
That is entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. You're as bad as the custom card fag in the modern generals.
>>48217044
Make them basic, but ultra-mythic to protected limited :^)
>>48218329
Id wager it would only take 10-15 vintage players, each of whom would probably have over $80,000 worth in alpha/beta cards alone, to make a class action lawsuit against Hasbro. This IF there was any sort of truth to the "their sort-of promise is legally binding" shpeel thats being discussed.
>>48219657
Instead of doing all that expensive bullshit, just print the cards with gold borders.
>>48219163
if that were the case, they would never have printed EMA, or MMA, or MMA2. It's clearly a part of the market that's worth servicing. And you can also see the way that they're aware of money cards in expansions and stagger things like fetches across sets.
>>48219304
This was true before they showed they were willing to print things like MMA and EMA. But those fundamentally change the game, since they now have a product that allows them to monetize those formats. So at that point, why not print staples more aggressively in Masters releases, which would mean you sell more of those packs, and dramatically lower the barrier to entry to allow players to get into those formats?
Like, I have to think doing that would be great for the player base overall. It feels like the most obvious opportunity for WotC to make some serious money, second only to building a workable way of doing MTGO. So I have to assume that some combination of bad management and Hasbro directives means they functionally can't do it.
>>48219646
Yes. But - and it's a point I would make again and again - collectors are not really the issue. WotC has some reason that they actively want to do this. I kind of doubt that it's collectors.
Sea Underground
If you both own and control Sea UG and UG Sea you lose the game.
Totally Not UG Sea
ETB tapped if you're playing Commander/if you control 10 or more lands.
These recent price hikes are, by definition, a speculative bubble. The speculation is valid that these cards will hold value, at least in the short term, but eventually the bubble will pop. The only question is whether it will pop because of intervention, counterfeits, or the death of some eternal formats.
Birth of Volcanic Island
Land-Island Mountain
Tap for U/R.
Enters the battlefield tapped.
If a land you control would enter the battlefield tapped, untap it.
>>48219982
Makes 12post broken, get it together anon.
>>48219931
Its speculation but its not a bubble. They wont be printing any more of these cards, so until the day vintage/legacy dies they will still hold value. The only thing that can really kill their value would be a small boom in the chinamen proxies. And by small i mean something around 20%, which is not very likely.
>>48219778
>WotC has some reason that they actively want to do this.
What follows is based on my memory, which is a bit faulty, and things that may have been speculation. At the very least, this was a common perception several years ago.
The List used to have a loophole that they exploited for a couple From the Vault sets, Phyrexia vs. Coalition, and Premium Decks: Slivers. Wizards was taken to court and they settled out of court. There's no official word on what the terms were, but they closed that loophole super quick and they're not allowed to talk about it.
At least I think the courts were involved.
There's also speculation that several key Wizards employees own high dollar Reserve List cards and don't want those to tank.
>>48220120
there's also the promo gaea's cradle from way back when
>>48219750
Hasbro is currently valued at 7.2 billion. I think they can afford to out-lawyer anyone who will put up a fight.
Not that they'll necessarily want to, but it's like swatting a mosquito really.
>>48220250
>I think they can afford to out-lawyer anyone who will put up a fight.
Eh, sometimes when you have nothing esle to loose you go all in. And i garuntee it'll be bad PR nonetheless. IF a group of players actually filed a lawsuit and IF they got far enough to be assigned a judge and court date, the prospect of losing would definitely terrify Hasbro. Sure, you have a 90% chance of winning, but if that 10% means you'll have to, what, pay out a small sum to every single Reserved List cardholder because you broke a verified legal contract, that would be a pretty ugly bruise.
Not saying it will happen, just saying its not impossible, and even the small chance of a bad outcome may force them to play their hand differently.
>>48220120
>Key Wizards employees own high dollar Reserve List cards and don't want those to tank
That makes no sense.
If someone owned, let's say, 10 Alpha Black Lotuses in mint condition. And sold them for $30,000, that's $300,000. You can make way more off the interest of $300,000 than a Black Lotus will ever appreciate above the price of $30,000.
That can't be the reason. And if that's the reason they're just completely retarded.
>>48220555
>10 Alpha Black Lotuses in mint condition.
>And sold them for $30,000
This game about elves fighting mongolians and street mobsters is weird.
>>48220325
Hasbro gains very little from printing things on the list though. It's not like they're going to print them and sell them for their inflated current prices. They can keep printing at the rate they are and ignore vintage and everything will be fine for them.
>>48220325
>you broke a verified legal contract
Except there is no contract.
I want Shekelly to buy all Volcanic Islands, try to sue WotC when they print something relevantly close to it, and lose like a bitch stifling every grognard's pretentions to sue.
I wouldn't even put it past a 7billion company to pay a celebrity who loves playing the villain on twitter for such a fiasco. I mean, Trump is "running" for president nowadays.
We started playing "legacy with RL banned" with some friends at LGS. Also some proxy-tourneys. Some of the greybeards were grumbling at first but came around when they realised they get to play more, and playing the game is what they were there for.
For bigger tournaments, it seems im playing either burn or manaless dredge. Those are only decks that I know of that wont require me to shovel out hundreds of € for cards that some asshats think are stocks.
>>48212458
I know calling out autists is a low blow nowadays, but if you honestly can't think in your mind why someone else might not be able to afford this stuff, you cannot sympathize on even the monetary level, then you definitely have some form of psychological disorder.
>>48218989
Harmless Offering didn't prove shit. The only reason anyone would play Donate is to either abuse it and steal a creature or to play Zedruu style decks, which all suck ass by the way. It's a nonfunctional reprint of a three dollar card.
Maybe if we get a reprint of something fun and straightforward like Moat or Invoke Prejudice we'll see what color shifted reprints can do, but until then it's all up in the air.
>>48219304
>They get jack shit out of people buying their way into Legacy
That's purely BECAUSE they won't reprint those cards. Theros sold a fuck ton of boosters purely because Thoughtseize was $80 at the time. The exact same shit happened with Khans and fetchlands. I wouldn't be surprised if Khans was the biggest selling set of all time, purely because Wizards reprinted something people want. Putting Goyf in a new set would shift cases of the shit.
>>48220908
Most shit in the RL isn't worth a dime but is being price hiked into the clouds by speculators.
Harmless Offering means they can print a Cursed Scroll that activates with 2B and can only target opponents and creatures they control. Or a Null Rod that costs two anus mana instead of generic mana.
The only cards in the RL should be ABU cards that were not reprinted in Revised. Everything else must get semi-functional reprints to crash prices and then actual reprints when the RL is shaved of anything that ins't an actual collectable item.
>>48219931
A speculative bubble implies that it's a disproportionately high valuation, driven by speculative activity.
I don't think it's a bubble at all. I don't think the valuations are disproportionately high, I think they're mostly correct. It's not a bubble, therefore it won't pop. The only thing that would drive it down is the underlying valuation changing for whatever reason.
This is my whole point. It's not a bubble. Stop thinking about it like a bubble.
>>48220038
Exactly.
>>48220643
They can reprint them and sell them in Masters packs. And they could sell an insanely high number of them, at high prices, because the EV on those packs would be very high. It's the same mechanism for how things like fetches drive sales and prices. Like, that's basically what the finance of the game is.
>>48220908
More color shifted reprints and much higher print runs on Masters product would probably be the two biggest signs things are changing.
>>48221096
Exactly.
Same thing with Expeditions in BFZ. Which ultimately goes to the point: Wizards is intensely aware of this shit, and already uses it as a lever to sell packs.
>>48221105
>Most shit in the RL isn't worth a dime but is being price hiked into the clouds by speculators.
I just don't think this is fundamentally true for most cards. I mean, I think there are a few things where it is true, but on the whole, I think these prices are probably mostly correct.
Like at the end of the day, there is a very limited supply of Gaea's Cradles and a lot of people want to play with them. The price should be really fucking high. I agree that speculators are moving the prices but I don't agree that the cards aren't worth money.
It is kind of irritating for cards that have no business being inflated to god knows what kinds of prices thus making it impossible to get into formats. Like fucking Modern is expensive now, legacy is brutal. I understand investing in your hobby but shit, for the amount of money someone spends on a tier 2 deck in modern you could build a decent computer or buy a newer generation console with plenty of games, a monitor, and internet for a year.
The Reserve List is fucking retarded and only serves to make MTG increasingly insular as time goes on.
>>48221369
>The only thing that would drive it down is the underlying valuation changing for whatever reason.
Like counterfeits flooding supply, or Legacy getting abandoned, or the reserved list being dropped. It is inevitable that one of the occurs at some point. When that occurs, the result will be a resounding pop. Like it or not, the intrinsic value of cardboard is not a thousand dollars and claiming this is not a bubble is saying it is.
Tell me just one reason WotC shouldn't get on the secondary market themselves selling modern and legacy staples at halved prices
Someone should tweet at MaRo and see what he has to say about the buyouts, price hikes and RL.
>>48221541
I don't know about "intrinsic value". What I'm saying is that it's an accurate reflection of the price that actual people are willing to pay. It's not an illusion of speculation.
In the long run, yes, maybe everyone is going to stop playing Magic someday and they won't be worth anything. I'm not trying to say you should buy Black Lotus instead of playing the stock market.
But a lot of people seem to think that this is just speculators fucking around and screwing things up, and I just don't think that's the case. And similarly, it's not the fault of the reserve list. This is the inevitable result of Wizards' reprint policy.
>>48215571
>That's a link to the article, but as far as I can tell they're still winning out. If the store has, say, 40 Gaea's Cradles, and they're now selling for let's say 200 on the low, and they bought them at 100 or something (stores usually pay a little more for Eternal playables), how have they lost money? I'm confused anons.
You buy a card at 100
You have to pay rent
You have to pay services
You have to pay employees
You sell them for 200
Now you have to pay taxes
I mean this is a drastic case, but of course you can buy something at certain price, sell it for twice the money and still lose money (Of course when stuff like this happens it is usually fault of a shitty manager/owner, who has no fucking clue how to run a bussiness)
>>48221651
No, I think what they're talking about is that TCGplayer changed the way they calculated the price of cards, so the list prices of a lot of cards went down to reflect that.
Which, like, the new way is more accurate. So they "lost money" but it's completely fictitious losses. Those prices actually WERE speculative BS.
>>48221644
>I'm saying is that it's an accurate reflection of the price that actual people are willing to pay.
And yet everywhere you go people are complaining about it. And yet before buyouts the peice would reach equilibrium at a price close to the ones bought-out cards have "stabilised" at. If these prices were the ones "people were willing to pay" then these cards would have reached this price already. In some cases there has been 15-20 years for these cards to find a price point, but now that they have spiked to an insane degree you say this is where they should be? How much do you know about economics?
>>48221644
Not him, but I take "intrinsic value" to be more akin to how much it is worth to an individual. If you try to charge $20,000 for an unlimited lotus, no one will buy it. If all other Loti were bought out, finding someone who wanted it that badly would not be easy to say the least.
As for the RL being the problem, there are plenty of cards that could be reprinted that are still sitting at $150+ dollars. The RL makes people feel warm, but realistically WotC does not make moves that reduce the pricing of cards drastically.
>>48221541
You have to understand that as prices go up, demand will go down. When demand goes down, prices will drop. If the market becomes toxic, WotC will come in and adjust it. They can do this by either 1. Banning the card from play or 2. Doing a functional reprint. They wont do this now, they have no need to. This business of buyouts and hoarding is entirely in the relm of the secondary market. But if eventually players start to drop or boxes aren't being sold, you can bet they are gonna step in fast.
The fact is this battle will be primarily fought between these factions: New players wanting to get into vintage, regular vintage players, lgs's and the hoarders themselves. What does Wizards care if modern players cant afford vintage because of speculators? How does it hurt their bottom line? If they stick by their guns to hold the RL, which they seem to have some legal reason to do so, its purely in the hands of shops and speculators. Love it or dont, these prices will keep going up and eventually settle, possibly doubling the price of most vintage staples. There wont be a bubble pop, itll just make vintage a very toxic enviornment. And WotC wont do a thing until its too late.
>>48221704
Most of the bought out cards end up stabilizing around where the originally were. Prices have gradually risen, but there wasn't one single event that pushed any of these cards up. People deciding to charge $600 for a Moat does not make a Moat worth $600.
As someone who has gained about 3k USD in value from these buyouts, I fuckin hate them unless they push wotc to a point where they break on the reserved list.
>>48216556
"People that spend 2k on their lagacy decks spend money on new cards anyways"
As far as I know they don't though. I know many lagacy players, some better other not so well but almost none of them plays Standard. Out of the about 50 Lagacy players I know almost all of them has at least 1 EDH/Commander deck, more than half of them play modern but only 5 or 6 pf them actually play Standard. Yes, they spend money on the game, nut mostly for old cards, which makes sense if you take into account that most standard cards are too weak for formats like Lagacy, Vintage, EDH/Commander or evem Modern and the few that aren't are fairly cheap anyways.
>>48212686
>400 dollar paper
Disgusting.
Honestly the most baffling part about all of this is how no company has jumped on the opportunity of just making another card game with as much reasonable interactions and depth as Vintage/Legacy.
Instead they either go full retard (YuGiOh) or go full "We want creatures to matter". Like shit, if I want to play a card game where creatures matter, I can play MtG Standard. But there is no way for me to play Spell Matter unless I want to drop fucking 2 grand on rectangles of cardboard.
>>48212761
This.
>Be kikes
>oy vey de free market... SATAN!
>Be based CAPITALIST
>Not so fast semite! The will of Ann Retard and the free market compels you!
If I was WotC I would reprint really expensive cards without telling anyone and sell them straight on the secondary market in small enough amounts to drive the prices slowly down and make mad dosh.
>>48222815
I wish they would, but I'm pretty sure that's illegal.
>>48222834
Why would that be illegal?
>>48222834
Why would that be illegal ? They sure aren't going to sue themselves for counterfeiting.
>>48222851
I don't know, but it sure feels illegal.
>>48222861
A company selling their product doesn't sound illegal to me. What law would that break
>>48222228
As a Legacy player I agree with this. To be fair, Magic today only vaguely resembles Magic back in the day. I don't buy new cards because they look stupid and jamming dudes together isn't what made Magic fun. It was the magic that made Magic fun.
>>48221522
Correction: it makes Legacy increasingly insular, which is exactly what Wizards wants
>>48222921
It's a good thing though.
Magic was fucking horrible 'back in the day'.
>>48221105
They already reprinted a new Null Rod. Stony Silence.
Wizards has printed strictly better and color-shifted version of RL cards several times now. There's nothing stopping Wizards from printing strictly better or color-shifted versions of any RL card at any time.
>>48211789
Why would Wizards care that Legacy/Vintage/Modern or even Standard is more expensive than buying a car?
They have stated time and time again that the majority of their audience and their target demographic are casual players who care very little about Cradle or Moat being expensive.
>>48219067
He said that only "standard powerleved color shifted reserved list cards will make the cut" so that really cuts out every single reserved list card people care about.
>>48211789
>rationalizing extortion rackets
>>48225316
>He said that only "standard powerleved color shifted reserved list cards will make the cut" so that really cuts out every single reserved list card people care about.
This right here is a perfect indication that WotC could reprint whatever they wanted, promissory estoppel or not, if it suits their current interests. They change the actual reprint rules whenever they please.
>>48225388
You have to understand that he didn't word it like that, he didn't say "color shifted function reprints" when red Donate was spoiled, he just kept saying that since it's color shifted that means that different decks will play the card (lol) so that makes it a new card and not a "functional reprint".
Basically it's all just loose definitions and bullshit from all over the place.
>>48222921
Jamming dudes together isn't what people like about magic, modern or otherwise.
The best magic eras weren't even during the retarded days of way too much power. In fact, it was at a peak for a long period after Kamigawa hit.
>>48225415
Exactly. And if colorshifting works for Donate, why doesn't it work for Ancestral Recall? There is nothing in the reprint policy about power level or price. As it stands, all cards in the RL have the same status. Anything beyond the official policy falls outside a potential lawsuit and is just whatever suits Hasbro's current narrative at the moment.
I don't give a shit about the RL, but I'm tired of people buying WotC's bullshit about how they are on the gamers' side on this, and that their hands are tied. Bullshit. You are on the side of making money. And that's okay. But don't pretend otherwise.
>>48222883
Because you have to declare what you sell.
>>48222815
The correct way is basically flood the market slowly, since the price of ALL formats is getting stupid-tier absurdly quickly.
Yes, even fucking pauper.
>>48222815
I said the same exact thing like months ago in a topic like this
imagine them having like a stockpile of black lotus that they slowly trickle out.
cost like 20 cents to make a black lotus
sell it for 10k. sell 10 of those a year
swim in pool of money like scrooge mcduck
>>48225245
"Magic sucked back when I didn't play it."
>>48225445
1997-99 were easily the most fun years of Magic. Kamigawa-Alara was pretty fun as well.
In any case, the current design philosophy is very dull. When Bolt, Llanowar Elves and 2 mana removal spells were deemed "too good" I lost all interest in standard
>>48226822
Admittedly I didn't play from 97 to 99, I started up around 2002.
However, while I actually do enjoy low-powered magic more than all other formats, Llanowar Elves being considered too powerful for anything is a joke.
>>48226296
I don't think there's a law that says that a company has to make a huge announcement of whatever they want to sell. In any case, they could just fire up the printing press and print a pile of big money cards to give out to employees.
>>48226843
The biggest joke to me was that Bolt restricted design space, and without it they could print lightning strike/incinerate/volcanic hammer/flame slash and other pinnacles of brilliant design
>>48226900
They need to shit or get off the pot when it comes to cheap burn.
Either Lightning Bolt is good, or Fiery Temper is good. You can't have it both ways. I say that even as I like Fiery Temper.
>>48226843
Despite what people claim, Necro and Oath led to a lot of interesting sub games. You could play really interesting decks, and had to run slow fetches. As bad as Urza's block was, it did spawn some very interesting decks.
>>48226822
Similar stance here, though I'd narrow it to Rath+Urza (for a couple of months, it got old pretty fast), Invasion thru Onslaught, and then Ravnica thru Zendikar.
Kamigawa was dull, Mirrodin was the worst the game has ever been, and Masques was just... no.
>>48226951
>Ravnica thru Zendikar
>thru
>Zendikar
>The set with Ally, Annihilator, and the Eldrazi hijack
k
>>48226951
Rebels was really boring as shit. As bad as Mirrodin was, it did contain a lot of interesting cards. Kamigawa was really bad, I remember playing some of the precons and thinking it was worse than a draft deck
>>48226995
It was one of the most fun standard formats in recent memory. Hell, none of those things were the bad part of the set. It was terrible to draft until ROE and in general was pretty weak
>>48226995
Zendikar standard before Rise was incredible.
>>48227045
>>48227055
>>48226995
But... JtMS. It's the only time in Standard I enjoyed playing a planeswalker.
>>48227012
Oh yeah, Mirrodin had a ton of interesting ideas and it was nice to see them take such huge risks with the design. It was just fucking terrible to play as there was absolutely no diversity. As bad as Combo Winter was, at least there were different ways to be a degenerate.
Kamigawa is IMO the worst set they've ever made, and that says a lot, because Homelands is a thing.
>>48227012
>Rebels was really boring as shit
>Flashbacks of Lin Sivi, Defiant Hero
... I'm fucking beyond triggered right now.
>>48216232
>Bought a playset because I wanted a playset of every Homelands card for my folder, the whole set costs me practically nothing
>Koshkun Falls alone is now shy of 4 dollars
Holy shit, you serious anon? I guess soon we'll see every even somewhat playable old card mass-bought and driven up by pure speculation huh.
>>48227071
>JtMS
Not at all balanced, and planeswalkers are gay. Enough to throw Lorwyn and Alara out.
>>48227071
No way kamigawa is worse than homelands
At least kamigawa has good art and flavor, and pretty decent array of cards that didn't end up horribly underpowered
Homelands has some decent art too but much more of it has bad art and literally 99% of the cards are unplayable in any format
>>48227616
Kamigawa is not worse than Homelands. Homelands gets a pass because design was in its infancy then. By the time Kamigawa came out, they should have known better.
>>48226296
>Because you have to declare what you sell.
Not really, no.
>>48227802
>>48226863
Yes, yes you do.
It's called TAXES moron.
>>48227952
You declare revenue, you don't send the IRS a line-item of every individual item you sold.
How much did you get for your tax return this year?
>>48215690
>making things up
Promissory estoppel needs to be decided in court. Hasbro is a company that lives on their IPs and therefore has a huge and very good lawyer team. If they wanted the RL gone it would be gone.
>>48227952
Even if they had to report it, that wouldn't make it illegal
And they could just go like: "cards. $25000000"
A couple black lotuses would fly so low under the radar that it would be ridiculous
so has anyone been killed yet over Black Lotus?
has a Black Lotus card ever been held hostage? like "give me $40k, or I'll burn the card!"
>>48228487
Yes. It happens more than you think.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5957029/florida-man-murdered-for-his-magic-the-gathering-cards
>>48228540
>florida-man
DAMMIT FLORIDA MAN! NOT AGAIN!
>>48228155
I always figured that if the RL was actually legally binding, they would be more upfront about why they couldnt deal with it. I just figure its not worth it for them to remove it.
>>48219067
>We may be back on track to getting powerful cards and one single word in the card text or different mana symbol being enough to make a card entirely new and unburdened by the list.
Wizards.
Does.
Not.
Want.
People.
Playing.
Legacy.
>>48228926
This.
Same reason they don't want people playing dredge, it opens their mind of the NWO evil.
>>48228958
What the fuck is New World Order? Is it a meme? A joke? A pisstake? What?
>>48228984
NWO=Muh casuals! MUH LIMITED! This means all cards have to be bad except very rare exceptions, normally at rare and upper, because limited! And we can't have complicated "toxic" and "unfun" mechanics, like dredge, cheap top-deck manipulation, otk combos, storm, spell-based interaction commonly or ever (reminder dredge is at the spot 14.88 on the storm list) since they make cashuls upset!
>inb4 shills trying their best to avoid the issue or say I lie when it's 100% true
>>48229024
You need to add cheap mana dorks, efficient burn and land destruction to that list too. Too powerful for Standard = No print.
>>48229024
So it's somebody's name for WotC's favouring of limited? Where did NWO come from?
And I mean, I guess I'm casual scum because I enjoy limited, but even they should be able to figure out that mechanics aren't inherently toxic
>>48229219
It's an actual thing anon.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/new-world-order-2011-12-02
>>48229219
The problem isn't that, the problem is the implicit ban on it.
Sometimes, being able to draft storm is fun.
>>48229219
Have it straight from the horse's mouth.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/new-world-order-2011-12-02
>>48229236
>>48229256
This is complete horse shit.
>players joining magic are confused by the complicated mechanics in advanced sets, especially this one that was a love letter to older players
>let's nuke the core sets because the people playing the game religiously find them boring, instead of having core sets built for new players and not for a limited environment
>common cards should not be mechanically complex
>mechanically complex means 'does lots of stuff'
>therefor, rare cards should do more stuff than common cards, thus making commons 100% worthless
What the dribbling fuck is this.
>>48229316
I especially loved "Hey, make two decks of vanilla creatures and common sorceries and mash them together, it's fun and skill intensive, really!" I thought /tg/ was full of shit on Midrange Creatures The Gathering, but holy fucking hell.
>>48229316
>>48229376
Welcome to the NWO boys, leave your lightning bolts at the door and enjoy the ride.
>>48229376
Ironically I think things have been made more complicated for new players.
If a new player wanted to take a bunch of just good creatures and spells to keep those creatures safe to throw them at the enemy, then they should have the tools to do that without being overcharged completely. To me, that's why Core Sets were nice. Sure, they might not be 100% the greatest thing on the planet, but a passionate newbie could have in theory won FNMs like that, and then slowly evolved their strategies the more they understood about the game.
Instead, to even stand a chance in Standard (the "intended" constructed format) you need to understand the inner workings of aristocrats, bant company, and madness right out of the gate. (Madness being a mechanic I would say is about as complex as Suspend)
>>48229101
Efficient discard and counterspells, too. Don't forget cheap wraths and cheap red board clears.
>>48229514
Yeah, anything that's "unfun" for new players.
>>48229024
Uhh. NWO does not forbid good cards below rare; specifically what it prohibits is COMPLICATED cards at lower rarities.
Non-rare+ cards being universally shit isn't NWO's fault, but Development's fault. Nothing to do with NWO at all. Complicated cards can be fantastic or shit.
>>48229793
Thalia's Lieutenant is not a complex card.
>>48229841
For a new player, it can be. It introduces +1/+1 counters, permanently adding something more to track -- and it has a triggered ability. If you had cards like this at common, new players could definitely get swamped with the bookkeeping.
That said, I have two more things to say about this card:
1. It's probably fine at uncommon
2. R&D assigning rarities in shitty ways is undeniably powered by Judaism (why is Gisela, the Broken Blade at Mythic but Bruna, the Fading Light at rare? Why couldn't it be the other way? Oh, because Gisela is actually good...), but that's not a fault of NWO. That's just R&D being jews.
>>48229424
There's wisdom in what you say.
Decades of marketing research goes against what I'm about to say.
As you said, new players are just hit in the face with a billion things and they're just lost with their own deck. The transfer of product to a new player should be to ensure that a player has two decks - one for themselves and one for the person they're playing against. That way, if they have a shit deck, their opponent will have a shit deck too and they can have time to appreciate the intricacy of how a deck works without getting stomped due to power level differences.
This means that players shouldn't be lied to that the Intro Decks or Commander Precons are going to hack it at all. You can retain the product but there should be some small caveat on the fucking box that says, "Play this against other decks of the same sort!" Because all that ever happens is they buy this newbie stuff and proceed to get their shit kicked in - then they're told to get better cards and build off that crap deck and they still get their shit pushed in because they're building off a garbage rickety foundation.
But if both players are working on a level playing field, the new player will be less discouraged. We have to slightly discourage that sense of personalization until the player understands how the game works. Tell the player to share their deckbuilder's toolkit with a friend and build decks together.
Players are encouraged to have this sense of personal identity in this game and that runs completely contradictory to how the environment actually presented to them when people are lugging around very similarly powered nuclear weapon decks.
>>48229939
I found Zulaport Cutthoat, Catacomb Sifter, Sultai Emussary, Blisterpod, Fleshbag Marauder, Complete Disregard, and Nantuko Husk to be pretty good inspite of their rarity. If I recall, Blisterpod saw alot of play.
The free market fixes everything. Based Chinaman can offer a nearly identical product at 1/100th the cost. Capitalism ho motherfuckers.
>>48227111
T1 Ramosan Sergeant
>>48229992
Well, there you go. Exactly. Rarity != powerlevel, with or without NWO. In the cases where it is, it isn't NWO's fault.
>>48230222
Powerlevel of creatures has gone up, everything else has gone down. Notice how most of your cards are creatures?
Figuring out that commons and uncommons have gone down in power is trivial. You don't need to go as far as the 1990s either. Look at Ravnica's block cycle of Lighning Helix, Putrefy, Mortify, and Electrolyze. All at uncommon. Today, those would be rares. How many commons and uncommons from the last 5 years see play in modern? Mtg is being treated as a collectible first, game second for a while now.
>>48229316
Somebody needs to open aproximatedly 110 boosters to get a specific Mythic Rare.
If every player needs 4 copies of that specific Mythic Rare, WotC wins.
If a Common can defeat that Mythic Rare, WotC loses.
It's that simple.
>>48229793
There is notthing complicated about Hero's Downfall or Ruinous Path.
And now Murder is an uncommon.
They will eventually print an overpowered vanilla creature and it will be Mythic because it can compete with Tarmagoyf. Screecap this.
>>48230506
>Powerlevel of creatures has gone up, everything else has gone down.
Maybe if you are not playing black :^)
>>48229939
Treasure cruise is a common
I prefer to have 4 treasure cruises than 4 giselas in my deck, and i love angels
>>48230785
Griselbrand, Phyrexian Obliterator, Tasigur, Nighthawk Vampire, ...
They even came up with what is basically a Juzam Djinn in Plague Sliver and nobody gave a shit.
>>48230506
Those statements are all true. And they still have exactly nothing to do with NWO and everything to do with R&D being jews.
>>48230588
Hero's Downfall and Ruinous Path are at rare because they mention Planeswalkers specifically. Even if they weren't, though, that's STILL not a NWO problem. In fact, if these cards WERE complicated, then having them at rare would actually be violating NWO.
So yet again, you shouldn't be angry about NWO; you should be angry at R&D pushing good shit to higher rarities, which has nothing to do with NWO.
>>48230877
Yes, TC is a common. Yes, it's a stronger card than Gisela. Are you arguing with me or just helping me prove my point?
>>48231005
Ups i quoted wrong
>>48231005
>In fact, if these cards WERE complicated
Fug. I mean, if they were UNCOMPLICATED, then having them at rare would be NWO-violating.
>>48231005
>And they still have exactly nothing to do with NWO and everything to do with R&D being jews.
Playable non-creatures go up in rarity, or downright disappear. Creatures become better. If you want to be competitive in standard, that is the writing on the wall. It also has the effect that new players have an easier time getting into the game. That is the NWO. And that is why we have more players now than ever. Magic is a lot easier than it used to.
>>48230901
Was saying that both black spells and creatures are always great, regardless of what era we are in. One time I went to pre-release and got 6 Read the Bones along with 6 Stratus Walks along with a jank rare in every pack+seeded kit. That was also the last time I skipped out on work to play at prerelease.
Thanks for reading, just wanted to share this.
>>48231099
Everything you're saying is true, but still has nothing to do with NWO. NWO has nothing to do with power level, and only has to do with complexity and rarity.
I encourage you to reread the article on NWO, and remember that the complexity of a card doesn't correlate with power level.
The one thing Konami did right is printing godlike cards that all players used as staples as commons and uncommons in Japan. Although they made them $100 retardedly rare cards in the US, they also eventually reprinted them in tins or as commons which would tank the secondary market as $65 staples dropped to $1 or $5.
>>48231252
Well, WotC has printed many ridiculous cards at common/uncommon.
Lightning Bolt, Ponder/Preordain/Brainstorm, Counterspell, Dark Ritual, Treasure Cruise, Cloudpost, Cranial Plating off the top of my head.
If you allow for uncommon, Swords to Plowshares and many more.
>>48230506
Ruinous Path was a sorcery-speed Murder. Jesus Christ. Meanwhile cards like Collected Company get printed. It really does led credence to the accusation that WotC is trying more and more to push the game towards "Combat Math: The Reckoning"
>>48231139
I encourage you to re-read the article with a more critical mind and not swallow the official party line. Have you noticed that most of the complexity inducing mechanics end up being the most powerful? Have you notice the hatred he has for Storm. The whole argument that there is a need to get rid of complex interactions that make the game state too hard too figure out would be the equivalent of saying that chess is too hard for beginners, so let's get rid of rooks, knights and bishops. And Maro's argument is that a game of chess with just pawns, a king and a queen is fun. Sure, why not. But it is not chess. Instead, if you want to play chess you need to get used to its complexity. Or else, play checkers.
I get it that old school mtg can be too daunting for new players, but that is what the game is. If you want, you can make up a house rule that bans all complicated cards. No one can stop you. But why make everybody play the dumbed down version of the game? The answer is simple. An easier to grasp game makes it more appealing to new players, who start spending money on it, and can go to FNMs and not get curbstomped and feel stupid. It is all part of the same plan to make the game more accessible to new players, so they can start spending money.
>>48231337
In Japan, competitive decks have like 34-37 cards as common/uncommon and only like 3-6 extremely rare cards out of a deck of 40.
In M:tG you have staple commons but also a lot of expensive stuff. Probably has to do with WotC's design philosophy of tending to justify rarity by card strength or usefulness. Bombs are almost always rare.
>>48231337
Nono of those, with the possible exception of Treasure Cruise and maybe Dark Ritual, are format warping. They are just really efficient cards. I remember when LBolt came back to standard. Many people said it was the end of the world. Turns out it wasn't.
>>48231568
Just throwing this out, dark ritual would be fine in standard
>>48231453
>most of the complexity inducing mechanics end up being the most powerful
Delve isn't very complex, and yet it entirely snapped Legacy and Vintage. Storm isn't very complex, either. MaRo putting Storm at a 10 on his Storm Scale has nothing to do with complexity and everything to do with him and the rest of R&D being completely averse to the "problems" that come with storm -- but certainly not complexity. What's complex about Storm? And if you agree with me that it is not complex, then you should agree that them shying away from Storm has nothing to do with NWO.
>hatred he has for Storm
Yes, MaRo has incredible hatred for storm. That makes him a faggot, but has nothing to do with NWO.
>get rid of complex interaction
They haven't gotten rid of complex interactions. Hell, not too long ago there was a combo-kill deck in Standard.
As for the rest of your rant, hey, I agree with you. For the most part, the game has gotten dumbed-down and creature-focused, so I don't play standard.
Still doesn't have anything to do with NWO.
>>48231568
Lightning Bolt surely is format-warping. In Standard, it strongly influences R&D's decisionmaking regarding toughness on creatures they want to print.
That said, I didn't say anything about "format warping." All I said was that they're ridiculously good cards printed at common/uncommon.
>>48231568
>mfw he listed Cranial Plating as a "ridiculous" common
>mfw Skullclamp
>>48231651
>mfw I forgot skullclamp
>mfw you have no face
>mfw I have no face
>>48231613
>Delve entirely snapped Legacy and Vintage.
When did this happen? Treasure cruise was the problem, not Delve per se. Tasigur and Angler are barely Legacy playable, and nowhere to be found in Vintage.
