As purple blood said you need four elements:
1 a promise: wizards announces a set
2 an expectation: wizards keeps releasing sets, so I expect them to release the announced set
3 an action: to release the announced set
4 an injustice: any plans I made to use the set, I have to cancel which can only be done with the now non-existent set
Congrats, you've now established the legal case that wizards can never cancel a set. Now if you say "wait a minute! That's nuts" then congrats! You're one step closer to understanding that the legal case for keeping the reserve list is only as strong as the lawyers paychecks
I found this funny from the Banned and Restricted List page for Legacy:
“Like Vintage, you can play cards from any set. The twist? A longer banned list makes this format more accessible to new players.“
Look guys, we've been over this. I watched themanadrain slowly become dormant because all they did was discuss proxy 10 tournaments and abandoning the reserve list with the odd mention of legalizing collector's edition to infuse more power to the format. Vintage was my one and only love in Magic, but I had to move to Legacy to be able to play regular tournaments. There is no indication that the same won't happen to Legacy, with people gradually moving to Modern and Pioneer over the years, or retiring from Magic all together. We can accept this, and just go to tournaments like Eternal Weekend once or twice a year, play some Vintage and Legacy and call it a day, or we can do something about it. If you want to do something about it, try to do things that are in your control, not in someone else's control. Abolishing the reserved list is out of our control, so this won't bear any fruit.
First of all, what problems do we have in Legacy? Well, it's not popularity, it's cost. Given the means, any Modern player would play Legacy. But they can't afford it so they play the next best thing. To make the format more affordable there are 3 options:
OPTION 1) Innovate budget decks that do not require original duals
Shock dual synergies: Watery Grave + Death's Shadow as mentioned before.
Pain land synergies: GW-Eldrazi with Brushland. We will see Emrakul again soon. There's a new zendikar set coming up and some people have identified War of the Spark's The Wanderer as Emrakul. That means we're getting new Eldrazi and the chance to innovate with pain lands is higher
Land type hate synergies: Choke hates on dual lands and basic lands, the problem is that you can't play Islands yourself. But that isn't a problem when you are running fast lands like Botanical Sanctum
Scry land synergies: We haven't seen much competitive play from the Theros scry lands yet, due to the enter the battle field tapped clause, but Zhalfirin Void shows WOTC is willing to increase the power level on Scry lands. Delver of Secrets and Predict are two examples that care about top of deck information. Lantern control, Stompy decks and A+B combo like Show and Tell or Reanimator also care more than others about their top decks. Since we already have 10 scry duals and a colorless scry land, there is a good chance that Theros Beyond Death will feature mono colored, untapped scry lands.
Snow land synergies: Scrying Sheets, Into the North, Dark Depths and Arcum's Astrolabe are all high potential cards. 2 of these already take up an important place in the Legacy metagame
Monocolored decks Basics are the cheapest alternative to duals, unless you're playing guru lands of course.
Manaless decks like Dredge, or decks that operate mostly without lands using cards like baubles (Bomberman), mox opals, artifact land and springleaf drums, lotus petals, spirit guides, etcetera
Colorless decks City of Traitors isn't cheap, but it enables a lot of decks that don't require duals
Fast combo decks Make more fast combo decks so that the life loss of Shock Duals is irrelevant. Reanimator and Ad Nauseam both care too much about the life total to pull this off.
OPTION 2) Change the format
a: Trinity: Reduce the card limit so that cards flow back into the market, and decks require one less card to finish the playset, making the decks cheaper while also giving a chance for outmoded cards in the competitive scene. That leaves room for price appreciation on the new cards that currently see no play, which could entice parties like Starcitygames to jump back in if there's enough room for price appreciation.
b: Convert the Reserved list into a Restricted list. Legacy would lose the unique identity it has, and would compete and lose out against Modern
c: Ban all cards on the Reserved List. The same as the above, but even worse.
d: Ban Fetch lands so that Dual Lands are much less powerful than they are right now. Most of the cost is in dual lands. Without Fetch lands, original dual lands are a liability more than an asset with cards like Boil and Choke in the format.
e: Introduce a point system. You can play with a maximum of 10 cards from the reserved list.
Option 2b, 2c and 2d are the most drastic measures because you remove the ability of some players to play the way they want to play. I would rank them in the following order: 2a, then 2e, then 2d.
OPTION 3 Leave things as they are.
The format will slowly follow the same trajectory as Vintage and will be played only in long intervals on big international tournaments like Eternal Weekend. Format innovation is done exclusively on MTGO.
From a price point of view, this is all we can do as players to stimulate new players to join.
That's why I play Legacy, actually, because I want to look at an obviously better card and say "nah, shocks instead"
FYI found this article from an actual lawyer regarding PE and the RL https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles...-reserved-list (although it seems like it was part of a series and I can't find the rest of the series).
I read the article, and I have a couple questions folks here might be able to help me answer.
1) It appears that even if a lawsuit (class action?) happened against WOTC and it's found to violate promissory estoppel, the court seems to still have broad power of interpretation. So it could amount to lots of damages, or none at all. Is this correct?
2) You would need proof of purchase of your RL cards (receipt, etc.) right? In order to claim the amount paid vs. the amount lost based on the drop in value after reprint. The example was a USea bought for $300, it drops to $100, so you would be eligible for $200 worth of damages.
3) Promissory estoppel doesn't allow for potential loss in profit, which can normally be claimed in reference to a breach of contract, which seems to be the biggest argument against abolishing the reserved list. It seems like according to this lawyer, collectors cannot sue WOTC for loss of potential future value (profit) but only for lost value. Is this correct?
It doesn't seem like such a mess as most people make it out to be, honestly. It looks like WOTC could honestly take the chance, at some point, at abolishing the RL and just taking the losses if damages are incurred (see Q#1.)
EDIT: Sorry I sabotaged the thread with RL discussion.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
What baffles me is how a collector can sue for loss of value on some cards because of the abolishment of the RL, but organic price change on the secondary market (i.e. a USea going from 700 to 400 dollars in two months) is not grounds for being able to sue. The very nature of these cards is that they fluctuate in price because of their age, scarcity and playability. You're telling me that only an artificial outcome that affects pricing is the only measure that a collector could use to sue?
Something about this doesn't make sense. I'm not a lawyer, but this feels like hogwash to me. I honestly believe this would get laughed out of court, regardless of the investment one made into the product. Precedent has been set that this list has changed in the past. So if you're a collector, regardless of what WOTC says, you have to at least invest operating under the pretense that at any time they could make the decision to change it again or abolish it entirely - and that's on you, not WOTC.
I agree that it isn't as big a deal as people think. However, while damages don't seem that high, like I said before it seems like a business consideration. Consider the formula I posted earlier: [Profits from new print run of RL cards] > ([Legal expenses billed hourly until settlement ]+[Settlement Cost]+[print runs of RL cards]+[promotion of legacy events]+[Cost of Misdirected Hours/Time]+[Lost opportunities])*([Percentage likelihood of [Profits from new print run of RL cards]>[Lost opportunities]]). I just doubt that wizards wants to go through the effort since the potential profits are lower than the headaches such a move will cost. Even if wizards lawyers say they have a slam dunk defense and a damages won't be high, there is still the cost and time of a lawsuit which they'll have to defend all the way to judgement or settlement (and they will have to play hardball because if they give in early other people may bring the same suit against them, and again the damages for each individual suit wont be high, but just the sheer cost of litigation itself will add as well as the time for each of the executives/people in charge).
I mean the difference is organic change versus inorganic right? Like the idea behind the law is fraud right? Like think about it like stock - if you buy Facebook stock thinking it will go up but the market tanks you can't do anything. But if you buy facebook stock with facebook making the promise it will go up and then the market tanks you can sue facebook. That's what happened to Elon Musk and Tesla with his tweets. The market is volatile, but if people make purchases based on future expectation in reliance on an insiders or whatever promise that's when the law gets involved.
I honestly believe that if WOTC abolishes the RL that they would make more friends than enemies. If their goal is to have people sink money into new product, can you imagine the influx of new Legacy and Vintage players if those cards were reprinted?
Keep in mind those collectors would eyeball the secondary market like hawks. And I bet you anything that the original versions of those cards from a pricing standpoint wouldn't go anywhere. (Revised, possibly. Alpha and Beta and to a lesser extent Unlimited? Highly unlikely.) And in the process make those folks look pretty dumb for thinking their cards aren't worth anything anymore.
The bottom line is that I don't think these "collectors" would get anything out of a RL abolishment sue, because they would need - like Safety mentioned - proof that they've incurred damages upon receipt of the cards they own and that it was actually because of the RL abolishment they lost money. Good luck with that.
I think this misses the incentives of a class action. If there is a case to be made that can survive summary judgement (aka judge laughing it out of the court or not) then a class action firm would reach out to vendors or individuals and ask to represent them in a class action on contingency (so no cost at all for the vendors to pursue the trial, they just sit back and let lawyers do everything). Then the class action lawyers will bring the case and drag it out because modern litigation always always goes to settlement. Wizards will want to settle because if it goes to trial and they lose then anyone will be able to jump in and bring a similar case.
With the above dynamic the move will always cost wizards money and time. It is only worth it if they think the profits the move will generate will make that money and time worth it.
No one is making the case that one would win with the suit of PE vs the breaking of the RL. The point is that you can bring the case and it likely has enough merit to pass an evidentiary hearing. Which means a trial and likely some amount of disclosure on the part of Wizards that they would rather not make. It's not really about winning the case. There is, in all likelihood, a legal reason why Wizard employees are forbidden to acknowledge the secondary market. I'd imagine they have done their best to sanitize internal documents of this as well, but it's still likely to be an embarrassing and detrimental level of disclosure involved in an actual trial.
You can't "realistically" get past an evidentiary hearing on Underground Sea "organically" dropping in price because Wizard's made nothing that could legally be construed as a promise on it's price or playability. It really is that simple. Can you show me anything that could be considered a promise on Wizard's part that a Sea will always be playable? Their only statement is on it's reprintability.
These curious notions about suing them for canceling a set, or whatever, have no bearing on the real world because they aren't things that actually happened. Could you sue them for that if they actually did that? Sure. To what end? Likely nothing but wasting your own time. You can also sue them if you cat dies from eating a Magic card, so I hardly see what pointing out that you can sue them for literally anything actually proves.
Like I said though, since it seems like we've got some real stellar legal-eagles here, don't quibble with me, I don't know shit. Go out and actually sue them and see what happens.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Easy tiger. That would be if your cards were of the same standard as the one being sold by $100 and of the same standard as the ones being sold by $300, this would be open to experts opinions fighting it out in the absence of any regulatory body. In devaluation you have prove value at origin and after depreciation. It could easily be concluded that the card you paid $300 for was actually inflated comparatively, hence only worth $150 (for example). Also, you would need to agree in advance on a base market price for all cards of the same condition, prior and post devaluation, good luck on that.
And herein (IMO) lies the real issue, acknowledgment or denial of the secondary market. It would be hilarious if this caused wizard's employees to, for example, disclose their personal financial transitions before a ban. Or, if it caused wizard's to be forced to acknowledge value devaluation of cards for all future actions like bans, releases, reprints, etc for fear of future litigation on the same grounds (devaluation).
1: Yes. Welcome to law: Where the points are made up and we only pretend the rules matter.
2: No. If you own a classic car, do you insure it for what you paid in 1950 for it, or it's value today?
3: Maybe. Despite what lawyers will tell you about law being fixed and set in stone interpretations of it are fluid and ever changing. Juris Prudence is a myth.
Right, not to mention the scrutiny payed to the distribution model. Given how much of a flap "loot boxes" and the like have been causing, publicity of a system not all that dissimilar (at least, prima facie) is not what would make Hasbro shareholders happy at all.
Not to mention, as Cire already pointed out, the RL really could be done away with in a variety of manners, but the simple fact is that it is not regarded as the marketing strategy of choice, because while it seems real lucrative at face value, the fact is that focusing on Standard and Limited are way more valuable, since they are largely predicated on (en)forced spending.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
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