Beginning of the end for WoTC? [Archive]

Apex

08-21-2008, 08:01 PM

Hasbro has been banking off WotC for a while now, nearly every other thing it has is either losing money or not taking in enough. Very few of it's products are actually making them nearly as solid money.

I don't know where you are getting your information, but I recently had this debate vs some random dude that was screaming "omg why Hasbro cut on magic BS omfg!it makes so much money for you!!!" on salvation.

I actually went and checked on the annual income report and the quarterly earning report (most universities have databases that have this), and it specifically stated that the product that made the most amount of money was Transformers (due to the movie, this was a while back) and My Little Pony (no fucking clue). Magic was mentioned in like 2 lines, and it came with words like "restructuring, refocus, etc", i.e. all corporate jargon for cutting resources.

So I'm not sold on WotC being the bread earner for Hasbro. I actually don't think WotC constitute a very large part of Hasbro's assets. Which would make sense that it's WotC who's getting the "restructuring and refocusing".

DeathwingZERO

08-22-2008, 07:57 AM

I don't know where you are getting your information, but I recently had this debate vs some random dude that was screaming "omg why Hasbro cut on magic BS omfg!it makes so much money for you!!!" on salvation.

I actually went and checked on the annual income report and the quarterly earning report (most universities have databases that have this), and it specifically stated that the product that made the most amount of money was Transformers (due to the movie, this was a while back) and My Little Pony (no fucking clue). Magic was mentioned in like 2 lines, and it came with words like "restructuring, refocus, etc", i.e. all corporate jargon for cutting resources.

So I'm not sold on WotC being the bread earner for Hasbro. I actually don't think WotC constitute a very large part of Hasbro's assets. Which would make sense that it's WotC who's getting the "restructuring and refocusing".

Until the movie, Transformers was dead. Titaniums was beginning to pick up, then canceled. The Alternators line was randomly canceled (a best selling line up to the point of cancellation), Classics was canceled and later there was word of Classics 2.0, but a year and a half down the road (releasing now), and the Animated toys weren't even fully designed yet (released a few months ago). So yes, the movie toys made an assload, but for nearly a year and a half before that, Transformers was pretty much stagnant, yet the strongest sales they had, and that's telling a lot. Did I mention I'm an avid fan?

And LOL at My Little Pony.

And yes, WotC is still the big money for them. While they lost quite a bit of money on the bad games, they lost very little in comparison to bad choices Hasbro made as far as licensed toy products. Last I heard, WotC was about 20-25% of their earnings. Though that might not be accurate, I never checked on my own.

Skeggi

08-22-2008, 08:16 AM

So yet more discouraging news (http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/13126.html) for Wizards of the Coast, I hate to be "that guy", ya know the one that thinks every change to Wizards is the end, but this doesn't sound good.

Discuss...

Discouraging news? All I read is some normal actions a healthy company undertakes when the economy is bad. CEO's with a small amount of brains know that bad economy + selling stuff you don't need to live (luxury items) = lower turnover, less profit. Companies then always fall back on their cash-cows. As soon as the economy starts flourishing, WoTC will put more money in R&D again.

Plus I don't see why Hasbro is bad for WoTC? If anything is keeping WoTC from going under, it's games-giant Hasbro. It's pretty warm under the wing of a dragon.

ParkerLewis

08-23-2008, 08:10 AM

The thing I'm actually wondering is, "is there anybody here that does ACTUALLY know anything on the subject ?"

I'm not saying that in a demeaning way. It's just that it looks like there's a lot of "flaming" against Hasbro, and how WotC being owned by Hasbro has never been any good to Magic, and so on.

Now, maybe it's true, I don't know. I'm just saying, it doesn't look like any of us here has the slightest bit of actual info about how things are really managed inside.

So, unless there actually is somebody that has real info (and if you do, please say so), i guess any kind of hasbro nay-saying is pure internet forum crap.

FoolofaTook

08-23-2008, 10:12 AM

WoTC should have just stayed in the collectible card game business in the first place and become an engine for the growth and development of that medium.

They got freaked out by the looming prospect of Pokemon drawing the youth audience away from them when it was in development and began making very bad decisions shortly thereafter.

Magic: The Gathering should have become an eternal game with a core set that became the ubiqituous for the ages game, with attendant few and far between expansion releases that produced a limited number of really useful cards as opposed to the endless stream of cardboard waste that The Dark, Fallen Empires, Homelands, Alliances and Cold Snap produced. Adding a hundred cards a year that people might actually use would have far enhanced the collectibility of the game while also allowing WoTC to tailor the overall SINGLE meta that they wanted.

I bought six displays of Unlimited to get my collection started and then added four displays of Legends and a couple of Arabian Nights shortly thereafter. I was willing to pay the premium for mass collection and self-sorting because I had the expectation that the overall value of the cards was worth it. I was right in this.

I bought very little Revised in boosters because the cards were just much less appealing. I bought very little in Antiquities because the overall value in the set (Urza's Lands, please) just wasn't there. Same for the Dark. Fallen Empires was a laughable joke of a set and completed my evolution from buying boxes to buying singles. I never bought any significant number of packaged product again after Fallen Empires convinced me that WoTC thought I was stupid enough to hand them money for nothing.

Magic: The Gathering should have joined Monopoly and Uno as the long-term, although substantially more expensive, games that generations played together and sat around the table with. It had that initial appeal, particularly among the very savvy generation that it was released in.

Instead it's become a pyramid scheme that hopes to lure in enough kids each year to keep the scheme going. Well, obviously that's not working.

stalkerzero

08-23-2008, 10:28 AM

Magic: The Gathering should have become an eternal game with a core set that became the ubiqituous for the ages game, with attendant few and far between expansion releases that produced a limited number of really useful cards as opposed to the endless stream of cardboard waste that The Dark, Fallen Empires, Homelands, Alliances and Cold Snap produced. Adding a hundred cards a year that people might actually use would have far enhanced the collectibility of the game while also allowing WoTC to tailor the overall SINGLE meta that they wanted.

Without all the cardboard waste the game would sell less sealed product because the secondary market would be dominated by 'case buyers' (not to mention that they would either have to make the chase rares extremely, extremely rare or the value would be next to nothing compared to what it is for cards like goyf now).

Bad cards help them make money.

TheAardvark

08-23-2008, 07:02 PM

I can only hope eventually WotC will buy itself out of Hasbro's grip. They've done nothing to make Magic or D&D any better since they bought them out.

I know what you mean. I mean, Invasion was a HUGE flop, and Mirrodin totally didn't completely alter multiple formats, and Ravnica was a disaster. Seriously, what have they been doing for 9 years?

Oh, wait, that's right. Making the game better.

FoolofaTook

08-23-2008, 07:48 PM

Bad cards help them make money.

Selling bad product never helps you make money in the long run. Magic as a stable product without 10,000 pieces of total trash to sort through would have many more buyers than it does now. The population of people who play Magic would be much bigger if it did not require a large continuing investment and a ridiculous amount of time to keep on top of in terms of assessing new stuff and rules entering the arena on at least a twice yearly basis.

I have friends who quit at the same time I did who have contemplated coming back and surrendered because of the effort involved. Most of those friends (and myself) quit in the first place because WoTC decided to split Magic into multiple formats and type I went from 512+ tourneys to 64+ almost overnight. What a way to kill a competitive sport, split the playing field and deprive people of the level of competition they want to play in.

stalkerzero

08-23-2008, 09:32 PM

I suppose I could be very wrong but I just can't wrap my brain around how selling sets with maybe 100 usable cards can make Wizards more money than people having to have the risk of pulling 15 terrible cards in a chase for those 10-15 playable rares that they're really looking for.

I can agree that dropping two of your formats to almost no WotC backed tournaments a year is a pretty bad idea. But those two tournament types are the ones that make Wizards the least money so I can see the logic.

But, I do have to disagree. I think what will keep this game going (and what has so far) is the constant changes (in the form of expansions). It may make it confusing for a while for new or returning players but it gives those players and long time players a lot of opportunity to hand over their money.

Selling bad product never helps you make money in the long run. Magic as a stable product without 10,000 pieces of total trash to sort through would have many more buyers than it does now. The population of people who play Magic would be much bigger if it did not require a large continuing investment and a ridiculous amount of time to keep on top of in terms of assessing new stuff and rules entering the arena on at least a twice yearly basis.

I have friends who quit at the same time I did who have contemplated coming back and surrendered because of the effort involved. Most of those friends (and myself) quit in the first place because WoTC decided to split Magic into multiple formats and type I went from 512+ tourneys to 64+ almost overnight. What a way to kill a competitive sport, split the playing field and deprive people of the level of competition they want to play in.

Jak

08-23-2008, 09:59 PM

Selling bad product never helps you make money in the long run. Magic as a stable product without 10,000 pieces of total trash to sort through would have many more buyers than it does now. The population of people who play Magic would be much bigger if it did not require a large continuing investment and a ridiculous amount of time to keep on top of in terms of assessing new stuff and rules entering the arena on at least a twice yearly basis.

I have friends who quit at the same time I did who have contemplated coming back and surrendered because of the effort involved. Most of those friends (and myself) quit in the first place because WoTC decided to split Magic into multiple formats and type I went from 512+ tourneys to 64+ almost overnight. What a way to kill a competitive sport, split the playing field and deprive people of the level of competition they want to play in.

Lol what? You should go check out chess. Once you buy the best pieces in the game, there is no more spending!

thulnanth

08-23-2008, 11:34 PM

FoolofaTook

08-23-2008, 11:54 PM

Lol what? You should go check out chess. Once you buy the best pieces in the game, there is no more spending!

This is actually my point. Once you buy a chess set you are set for life. So there are millions of chess players out there to potentially play with. Once you buy a game of Monopoly you are set until the dog easts half the pieces and you can always pull the Monopoly game out and find somebody who wants to play. Same thing for Uno.

With Magic there is this extremely small community, comparatively speaking, with whom to play, and anybody who takes a few years off has a lot of catching up to do if they want to play effectively when they come back. And the cards that are staples at any given moment tend to be split evenly between familiar cards that are a decade or more old and new cards printed in the last couple of years.

It'd be wonderful if the guys I played against 13 years ago could take their collections and add maybe a hundred cards to them at relatively cheap cost and be ready to go. Instead they are separated by an enormous wall of required upgrades, and new rules and keywords and whatever. There's effectively a barrier in place that prevents people from re-picking the game up to play casually with friends on a relatively stable playing ground.

Chess would be buried in the sands of time by now if new pieces had come out three times a year that fundamentally altered the power structure of the game and added confusing new rules.

FoolofaTook

08-24-2008, 12:06 AM

Actually, WotC owned the rights to produce Pokemon and they did use it as a way to feed kids into MtG....

... just sayin', that's all :smile:

Take it easy,
Jared

You're right on this. I forgot that WoTC had the license initially because the game came out of Japan.

DeathwingZERO

08-24-2008, 12:12 AM

I know what you mean. I mean, Invasion was a HUGE flop, and Mirrodin totally didn't completely alter multiple formats, and Ravnica was a disaster. Seriously, what have they been doing for 9 years?

Oh, wait, that's right. Making the game better.

Hasbro has NOTHING to do with the creative process nor layout of the game, so your claims have absolutely no merit. My thoughts were based on the fact that they have put more effort into killing off tournaments and restructuring the payouts of the tournaments that remain. That at least they do have the ability to dabble in.

TheAardvark

08-24-2008, 12:16 AM

Hasbro has NOTHING to do with the creative process nor layout of the game, so your claims have absolutely no merit. My thoughts were based on the fact that they have put more effort into killing off tournaments and restructuring the payouts of the tournaments that remain. That at least they do have the ability to dabble in.

Your pronoun usage (they) was a little vague. I interpreted it as "what has WotC done to help Magic since Hasbro acquired them?", not "what has Hasbro done to help Magic since they acquired WotC?". I thought it was odd, and it appears I was misunderstanding what you were attempting to say.

My apologies.

Bardo

08-24-2008, 12:27 AM

I can't even imagine what all happened to make them make the decision they did about Hasbro.

$$. Pure and simple. Technically, Garfield & Co. "sold out." There isn't anything necessarily wrong with that, in itself, but that's what happened.

The thing I'm actually wondering is, "is there anybody here that does ACTUALLY know anything on the subject ?"

Totally agreed. Lots of "oh noes," but other than the link in the OP -- which is open to a number of different interpretations -- no one here seems to have the inside scoop, so let's not get too carried away.

Ebinsugewa

08-24-2008, 11:25 AM

Well think of it like this. Would you rather have had simply Alpha? Alpha is the chess of Magic.

FoolofaTook

08-24-2008, 11:41 AM

Well think of it like this. Would you rather have had simply Alpha? Alpha is the chess of Magic.

I'd rather have had Magic as it existed after Unlimited/Legends/Arabian Nights with a new wrinkle and a few extra cards thrown in once a year or so. That would have been manageable for people to play as an eternal format. I do think that Legacy has it right in banning cards that are powerful enough to be restricted, but it boggles the mind that they've actually printed as many of those as they have at this point. They really needed to print Vampiric Tutor after they'd already decided that Demonic Tutor was too powerful, only to restrict it in Vintage and ban it in Legacy?

Arkham

08-24-2008, 12:07 PM

All of this just sounds more like corporate politics than anything else. Any company that is that widespread and carries a product that is sought after the world over is going to want to look for every way it can to save a buck and maximize their potential profit. Nothing really unusual about it.

Though, I suppose, you could argue that all the changes they've made like cutting down on literary production, the advent of mystic rares, and the downsizing of cards per set in the name of 'keeping up with the competition' is a bit overkill. I mean, MTG is still the trading card game. Why bother changing it so much when it's already the lead in the field?

What WOTC really needs to do is fire the marketing team who came up with all these stupid ideas. I mean, you don't put bumper stickers on a roll's royce to attract attention, do you?

stalkerzero

08-24-2008, 12:34 PM

I'd rather have had Magic as it existed after Unlimited/Legends/Arabian Nights with a new wrinkle and a few extra cards thrown in once a year or so. That would have been manageable for people to play as an eternal format. I do think that Legacy has it right in banning cards that are powerful enough to be restricted, but it boggles the mind that they've actually printed as many of those as they have at this point. They really needed to print Vampiric Tutor after they'd already decided that Demonic Tutor was too powerful, only to restrict it in Vintage and ban it in Legacy?

You're looking at it wrong from Wizards point of view though. Eternal formats make them next to no money. New formats make them money. Eternal formats just help other people make money off Wizards product.

That's why eternal formats go so ignored. We may care about the formats. But as a business they don't.

Nihil Credo

08-24-2008, 12:55 PM

the changes they've made like cutting down on literary production

They stopped printing those MtG novels? By the gods, there's still hope.

technogeek5000

08-24-2008, 01:00 PM

They stopped printing those MtG novels? By the gods, there's still hope.

The Kamigawa ones were excelently written. I havent read the other ones so I dont know which to compare them to.

Also I second what stalkerzero said.

Dark_Cynic87

08-28-2008, 11:43 AM

I read the Invasion one and it was SHIT. I read the Lorwyn one and was slightly entertained, but not enough to read the next few after it...

I'm glad that's over with. I would have been much more apt to buy the comics if they would have kept that up.

I'm pretty sure that Wizards and/or Hasbro has nothing to worry about with Magic: the Gathering--this baseless assumption by yours truly was made on how world-wide this game is. After all, it is printed in < 9 languages, is it not? GP's and PT's are held in many different countries and Nationals occur in MANY countries, do they not?

I'm not sure they could put magic under as of now even if they WANTED to, barring them saying "screw it" and shutting down the printing presses.

Pce,

--DC

MattH

08-29-2008, 05:40 PM

The first two Saga novels, Brothers' War and Planeswalker, were great. Most every other book stunk. Prophecy was the worst (surprise!) but the Invasion and Mirrodin books also were garbage.

I'm glad they print all the cards they do. Limited is fun, even if the cards can't hack it in constructed.

Raider Bob

08-30-2008, 09:44 AM

This isn't bad news for Magic, looking in the near future. However Hasbro purchased WoTC when WoTC was having over a 20% growth rate or in normal terms they were earning 20% interest on their investment. A company like Hasbro or any other large corporation wants to see at least a 20% return on their investment every year. So Where WoTC is falling short of hitting that growth mark Hasbro is pulling those plugs. Also there is a HUGE push to get new players into Magic along with the 700 locations for Pre-Release Tournaments this time around as opposed to the 50-60 locations that were available in the past. With the introduction of 'Launch Parties' wizards is pushing Magic hard to get the growth Rate its parent company wants to see. A lot of times what will happen when these changes start to happen inside a company is in about 5 years Hasbro will sell WoTC to another company and that company will keep it going for a few years then bring in analysts to see how the company can make money.

WoTC could profit 300 Million Dollars a year and if that number doesn't increase 20% of what it made the year before it is a loss for a big corporation, because if you can invest 300 million dollars somewhere else and make 380 million dollars wouldn't you want too.

Captain_Morgan

08-30-2008, 03:23 PM

I'm glad they print all the cards they do. Limited is fun, even if the cards can't hack it in constructed.

That's inherently the issue with printing and developement. It's supposed to be cool for limited, but what's good in limited sucks in constructed. To be honest, a card should hack it in constructed tournament level AND limited. If either do not compute, the card gets the ax.

Most of the stuff really is simple overcosted stuff to the obvious if you've played the game for more than a year. While I like them "pushing the envelope," but making a 1/1 trampling for the "sake" of making a 1/1 trampling isn't good design. Nor is making it GG "because we lack something."

Making a 1/1 trampler because mechanically it has synergy with other cards, or forces people to think is good developement.

Overall I'm disapointed in the base set's power as compared to the past. There's no Moxen, Mishra's Factories, and other old school staples that aren't particularly disrupting. 5th was a joke for bloated power, 6th was a step in the right direction, but after that came power nerfs and cards like Counterspell were cut.

I am all for a "Begginer's set," but a lot of the cards are just crap or when we do get a card that is simple for begginers and tournament worth it gets the ax and does not stay forever in the base set. Duress being one, perfectly balanced yet Kawigama garbage placed in it's stead.

We don't need 10,000 of the same card but different names, just print Shock in the base set of a block if you need to rather than rebuilding it into a retarded card with cheezy gimmicks. If it's revolutionary, then do so.

Also, I think it's about time that there was a Master's Level set for Base Set and keep it split between "Begginers" that doesn't cycle much and retains the "crap" and a "Master's Level set" that returns cards from the past like Time Spiral did and reinject old cards to new values and to new strategies.

Return to what made the base set worthwhile also, Moxen, Lands, classic creatures that held power, and ect. Don't need the original 5 moxes (duh) or even Mox Diamond, but a new one or a cycle would do something useful for scrubs.

MattH

08-31-2008, 06:52 PM

That's inherently the issue with printing and developement. It's supposed to be cool for limited, but what's good in limited sucks in constructed. To be honest, a card should hack it in constructed tournament level AND limited. If either do not compute, the card gets the ax.
Under your proposed criteria, pretty much no dual lands would ever see print (on a power level, they're only high picks in a gold set like Ravnica which needs mana fixing - when they're taken highly, it's only for being chase rares), nor cards like Xantid Swarm, Orim's Chant, Tendrils of Agony, Counterbalance, Cabal Therapy, Enchantress effects, most mana accel (Has there EVER been a limited-worthy Ritual effect? besides Black Lotus?), and tons more that define Legacy. Even FoW is only marginal in limited. By cutting out every card that isn't good in limited, you make it nearly impossible to make creatureless decks, or prison decks, or combo decks (that don't use creatures).

It wouldn't be practical (and might not be possible) to make cards only good for both Limited and Constructed, because what is constructed-viable is dependent on what else is in print. In ANY constructed format, some cards are going to be better than others, and hence in ANY constructed format, most cards aren't going to be useful. Some have more useful cards than others (Ice Age being notorious for having a very low constructed-playable ratio, whereas the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor block decks keep digging up cards I never would have expected

It's also one of the big psychological rewards of Magic when you find a use for a card ('breaking' it) that everyone else thought was crap. That's not something to throw away lightly. Sometimes it isn't apparent what's good and what isn't.

Furthermore, what format do you mean when you say 'constructed playable'? Lots of cards which are excellent in one constructed format fail to make the cut in others. There's too many standard cards which don't work well enough for Legacy to count, and there's even plenty of cards that are strong in Eternal formats which are useless for Standard (Brainstorm is WAY better in formats with fetches, Gaea's Might only works with certain kinds of duals, Merchant Scroll is the flagship example of this class of card, Burning Wish is strong but fair in formats that can't get Balance or YWill [while being utterly useless in draft], and oh my god Gush!).

Even One With Nothing saw constructed play, for a given constructed format. It isn't really possible to sort cards into just two piles, "for limited" and "for constructed." For any given card, it's possible to devise a constructed format where that card is horrible, and a constructed format where that card is good (and the same goes for limited: canonically, see the pick order of Terror vs. Shatter in 4th edition vs. their Mirrodin reprints).

And that can extended: it's fun to design new formats, just to see how card valuation changes. How many cards are useful in Skittles that haven't otherwise seen the constructed light of day, ever? How about Type Four? Peasant Magic? Multiplayer?

Like Wizards constantly refrains, not every card is for every player, nor should it be. Some truly wretched cards that aren't useful in EITHER constructed or limited AND aren't particularly interesting for deckbuilders (a lot of people like playing their funky little homebrews, and aren't concerned with how 'good' those cards are, they play just for that one time out of twenty that all the pieces for their crazy contraption fall into place) probably don't need to see print (Rakalite from days gone by, Dripping Dead more recently, Toil to Renown even more recently) but the percentage of cards like that is VERY low these days, and getting lower every set (I don't know how familiar you are with Shadowmoor limited, but it's not shocking to find some of your 12th or 13th picks making your final deck).

FoolofaTook

08-31-2008, 07:22 PM

What would be wrong with WoTC printing cards that everybody wanted to use enough to make it worthwhile for the average player to want to buy packs?

There is no format, aside from booster draft, that makes it worthwhile for me to buy packs at any point. I have not bought a booster pack (outside of draft tournaments) or box since Legends where I thought I got, on average, value for the amount invested, so I don't do that any more.

How can a company survive long-term when it's average customer has contempt for it's average product and relies largely on other fools (who do open sealed content) to trade with or resellers to buy from?

I just don't understand the model at all. I spend probably half the amount of money on MTG that I would if the product was actually worth buying.

Captain_Morgan

08-31-2008, 11:13 PM

Like Wizards constantly refrains, not every card is for every player, nor should it be. Some truly wretched cards that aren't useful in EITHER constructed or limited AND aren't particularly interesting for deckbuilders (a lot of people like playing their funky little homebrews, and aren't concerned with how 'good' those cards are, they play just for that one time out of twenty that all the pieces for their crazy contraption fall into place) probably don't need to see print (Rakalite from days gone by, Dripping Dead more recently, Toil to Renown even more recently) but the percentage of cards like that is VERY low these days, and getting lower every set (I don't know how familiar you are with Shadowmoor limited, but it's not shocking to find some of your 12th or 13th picks making your final deck).

Some are sketchy, most are obviously retarded that are equal to Chimney Imp and the like. Those cards should be zero in existance, no expections. Bloated costs and weak abilities are the mainstay of what makes shit stays shit.

There's been some power creep, but still a lot of questionable ones. Overall, I don't really think that the "casual that plays strange decks" would be ultimately harmed if things such things ever saw print. I'm fine with stuff like Sliver Queen (it actually can be useful AND fun at the same time), but I can live without the Hoof Skullkins that have worthless/overcosted abilities.

Altogether, I'd say the "casual with an odd duck deck" like an all scarecrow one is fewer and far between the scrub that wants to play against his or her friends that have more competitive decks. Portal power does not make for fun games when you're trounced by a casual with a stronger deck consistently.

I've had far more games played against someone that's said "man I wish I had slightly better cards" versus "man I wish I could've gotten out my Sliver Queen and Chromat at the same time."

Also, stronger cards encourage deck building for things like Ghost Dad that
weren't horribly expensive and yet are good enough to be played competitively. Also, stronger cards brings more people and newer deck types into Constructed and often times things like Ravenous Rats are still good in Limited.

I'm failing to see the need to just simply say no to overbloated haggis.

Artowis

09-01-2008, 04:20 AM

So basically you want the impossible, good to know.

Captain_Morgan

09-02-2008, 07:53 AM

So basically you want the impossible, good to know.

Highly unlikely they'd do it, and impossible are two separate realities. Considering the manual design of the sets, it is rather easy to spot "junk" with overcosted abilities. I'm talking cards like Urborg Skeleton, not everything has to be winner. Hell, I consider Ravenous Rats a "good card." Not everything has to be up there with Rancor or Sinkhole, but do we really need some of the garbage we see in base sets of blocks and reprint sets? I can say without a doubt, no.

Ironically, most combo cards aren't overcost pieces of junk either like the Mill combo decks. The scarecrow is very limited in power, however altogether it "serves a purpose without being overcost." Urborg Skeleton's kicker cost at 4 mana doesn't. Of course you have to look at the context of the card, but for the most part a lot of these are really obvious to anyone that's been playing more than 3 months.

MattH

09-06-2008, 04:58 PM

How can a company survive long-term when it's average customer has contempt for it's average product and relies largely on other fools (who do open sealed content) to trade with or resellers to buy from?
Because you are not the average player, of course. You're projecting your own biases onto the Magic-buying populace at large. That said...

There is no format, aside from booster draft, that makes it worthwhile for me to buy packs at any point. I have not bought a booster pack (outside of draft tournaments) or box since Legends where I thought I got, on average, value for the amount invested, so I don't do that any more.

What makes you think that doesn't apply to every other player? It should not come as a surprise that packs contain less, dollar-wise, than they cost to buy, because if/when that's ever NOT the case, it is in everyone's interest to open as many packs as they can find, increasing the supply of that set's singles, and hence, dropping the price of those singles until the expected cash value of a pack is less than the selling price (alternately, sellers may raise the price on packs until the expected value of a pack's content is less than the sales price of the pack, and in fact in the real world, both of these phenomena occur, often simultaneously).

There's some fudging around the margins - for example, for awhile the expected value of a box of Future Sight was less than Starcity was selling the boxes for, but that's because as a store they have to add in costs for paying their employees' time spent opening, sorting, cataloging, and updating the inventory, which lowered THEIR value-per-opened-pack to less than the selling point, and there's other factors like availability of certain products. But generally this is why it's so rare for a pack to have an E$V higher than its sales price - if a pack can be expected to contain $5 worth of cards, who would ever sell that pack for $3.50?

Welcome to a market economy, enjoy your stay!

Captain_Morgan

09-07-2008, 02:13 PM

Because you are not the average player, of course. You're projecting your own biases onto the Magic-buying populace at large. That said...

What makes you think that doesn't apply to every other player? It should not come as a surprise that packs contain less, dollar-wise, than they cost to buy, because if/when that's ever NOT the case, it is in everyone's interest to open as many packs as they can find, increasing the supply of that set's singles, and hence, dropping the price of those singles until the expected cash value of a pack is less than the selling price (alternately, sellers may raise the price on packs until the expected value of a pack's content is less than the sales price of the pack, and in fact in the real world, both of these phenomena occur, often simultaneously).

There's some fudging around the margins - for example, for awhile the expected value of a box of Future Sight was less than Starcity was selling the boxes for, but that's because as a store they have to add in costs for paying their employees' time spent opening, sorting, cataloging, and updating the inventory, which lowered THEIR value-per-opened-pack to less than the selling point, and there's other factors like availability of certain products. But generally this is why it's so rare for a pack to have an E$V higher than its sales price - if a pack can be expected to contain $5 worth of cards, who would ever sell that pack for $3.50?

Welcome to a market economy, enjoy your stay!

Perhaps for a money market economy with a fixed limit on the commodity. However, we also have an effect of a mixed economy on cards with the a barter system. The market is manic, it goes high and then it crashes down and back up. It will also eventually reach homeostasis overtime.

The question is what is homeostasis? Sure the rush for packs to get the "first big power set" would occur if there was a huge power creep. Overtime? The cards would outshine the crap we have today with 25 cent rares or whatever. If these cards were more competitive, more of them would retain a $2-$10 because of rarity or popularity. However, they wouldn't climb as sharply or fall as sharply like rotations do right now.

You're assuming hoarding wouldn't increase the need to print cards, which would actually screw over the secondary market. Hoarding tends to becomes extremely useless, because in the long run things that are hoarded people will ignore and pick something else.

If there are several competitive decks, it also brings prices down overall. Options equal price reductions as well as price increases on certain cards. Universally good cards? Yea, I can see Mutavaults being still whacky in price. Other stuff of power? Probably not depending on the Tier 1 choice decks. However, it would also steadily increase the amount of casuals on the tournament field.

A lot of casuals stay out of tournaments because of fear of losing, get them to disregard that fear then they will engage in more tournaments. Also, if they can increase their power from getting packs. Then packs will become sold more, and as well as increase the amount of players in the game.

Affordability is what keeps kids in the game. Not $30 Mutavaults.

You're also assuming that the intrinsic value of a card would increase over the pack. Perhaps if there was a sharp uptick in power, however we've already seen this with other sets (Urza's Saga) that never manifested itself. Assuming a gradual power creep overtime (which seems to be occuring), keeps the impact of hoarding down. Homeostasis comes when that stability is reached.

However, I seriously doubt if not seeing cards ever like Chimney Imp would disproportionally effect the downward spiral of the game. It would actually perk the interest of more casuals to buy more packs, since the intrinsic value of the cards in the pack actually makes them want to buy it for the "value."

Markets are never stable, and a lot of times underscore or overshoot the intrinsic value of a card. The intrinsic value of a card also degrades, my argument that long term for secondary sellers as well as players that having cards that are "junk" creates issues on the overall stability of the game.

More good product that moves creates more revenue, no?

ParkerLewis

09-07-2008, 04:00 PM

However, I seriously doubt if not seeing cards ever like Chimney Imp would disproportionally effect the downward spiral of the game. It would actually perk the interest of more casuals to buy more packs, since the intrinsic value of the cards in the pack actually makes them want to buy it for the "value."

Markets are never stable, and a lot of times underscore or overshoot the intrinsic value of a card. The intrinsic value of a card also degrades, my argument that long term for secondary sellers as well as players that having cards that are "junk" creates issues on the overall stability of the game.

More good product that moves creates more revenue, no?

Oh no ! Not another "why do they do bad cards ??" discussion...

Why can't people comprehend the simple and obvious fact that no matter what you do or even whish to do, some cards will be better than others ? And that when you remove the "bad" ones, that just makes all the other cards worse ?

It's like hearing kids saying they want to remove the 2's from a deck of cards because the 2's are the worst cards. That's STUPID.

Seriously. Anyone raising this question should read this article on the subject : http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr5. At least the first point (they are numbered), and I guess it's the most important since it's basically the one that you can't do anything about even when you're Magic R&D.

Or simply think about it. It's NOT hard to understand.

Bardo

09-07-2008, 04:54 PM

More good product that moves creates more revenue, no?

IMO, the sets printed since Ravnica have been some of the most balanced, enjoyable and awesome sets printed in the game's history (outside of Alpha).

Also, I hate to sound like a Rosewater cheerleader, but not every card is made for everyone. It's an impossible task. And every set has unplayable rubbish. Have you gone through Legends recently? Lots of insanely bad cards there. And have you heard of this set called Homelands?

The fact that WOTC is restructuring their departments and examining assumptions about their business model is a good thing for the game -- it's just that people are wary of change.

Re: $30 Mutavaults. I think a lot of it has to do with the shitty exchange rate of the US dollar in the global market. I don't want to steer this thread into a discussion of politics, but for whatever reason, the US economy is shit, the popularity of the game is increasing around the world, which increases the demand on constructed staples (Bitterblossom, Tarmogoyf, Thoughtseize, etc.).

Increased global demand on MtG staples + shitty value of the US dollar = unusually expensive MtG cards in the States.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/06/national/main4235477.shtml

As the Ferrett has mentioned, once WOTC reprints Mox Sapphire & Co., the end has come.

Nihil Credo

09-07-2008, 05:34 PM

I urge everyone who asks "But why do bad cards exist? Who would ever want to open one of these?" to go read through the casual forums on the WotC site and magicdeckvortex.com

Mayk0l

09-07-2008, 05:38 PM

Or play some limited with friends that don't have access to the Legacy staples you own. You and your friends buy 5 boosters and make a deck with that. Every week you add a booster.

That way, Rendclaw Trow became a feared creature and a staple in my sealed/limited pile :D
If you get off the Legacy pedestal, you might come to realise that 'bad' cards can be fun. Like MaRo said; some cards are fun to other players; you'd see that if you became one of those other players.

ParkerLewis

09-07-2008, 06:09 PM

Re: $30 Mutavaults. I think a lot of it has to do with the shitty exchange rate of the US dollar in the global market. I don't want to steer this thread into a discussion of politics, but for whatever reason, the US economy is shit, the popularity of the game is increasing around the world, which increases the demand on constructed staples (Bitterblossom, Tarmogoyf, Thoughtseize, etc.).

Increased global demand on MtG staples + shitty value of the US dollar = unusually expensive MtG cards in the States.

I second that. I live in the Euro zone. For something like a year now, I've stopped buying from european card sites / people selling cards. I just order them from US sites. Even with a few extra bucks for shipping, it's still a lot cheaper for me thanks to the huge current euro/dollar exchange rate.

So yeah, if some of you americans wanna blame someone for your more and more expensive Legacy staples, blame me. Or your government. Or the ECB. Whatever.

Captain_Morgan

09-10-2008, 08:10 PM

Oh no ! Not another "why do they do bad cards ??" discussion...

Why can't people comprehend the simple and obvious fact that no matter what you do or even whish to do, some cards will be better than others ? And that when you remove the "bad" ones, that just makes all the other cards worse ?

It's like hearing kids saying they want to remove the 2's from a deck of cards because the 2's are the worst cards. That's STUPID.

Seriously. Anyone raising this question should read this article on the subject : http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr5. At least the first point (they are numbered), and I guess it's the most important since it's basically the one that you can't do anything about even when you're Magic R&D.

Or simply think about it. It's NOT hard to understand.

Except that overcosted pieces of shit actually never live up to their "legendary" ability to jump into champion level decks. As for casuals there's a number of them, however quality cards that move more towards "Merfolks" or Sliver Queens are good prints over Chimney Imps. At least you can justify the existance of Sliver Queen, can the same be said for Chimney Imp and it's ilk?

1. By definition, some bad cards have to exist. (The most important
reason.)

Don't buy it, poor excuse to waste resources
2. Some cards are “bad” because they aren’t meant for you.

Understandible, however keeping in mind a broader base of players is equally key. Overcoast pieces of junk don't pass the laugh test.
3. Some cards are “bad” because they’re designed for a less advanced player.
Nice argument for noob editions that I support, expert level products nice try but thanks for playing
4. Some cards are “bad” because the right deck for them doesn’t exist yet.
To an extent, however obviously redundent cards add to the "blah" factor of the game in larger sets where they're prone to historically occur. People are short sighted creatures, not waiting 5 years for a card to be marginally useful isn't a good product
5. “Bad” cards reward the more skilled player.
True, but for every one broken card there are about 5 or more Chimney Imps that avoid being "broken."
6. Some players enjoy discovering good “bad” cards.
Sliver Queens are "stylish," Naruto Shrine has a future, things like Chimney Imp are devoid of logic, sorry but this logic doesn't hold up.
7. Some “bad” cards are simply R&D goofing up.
Just give me the sauce, you design.

FoolofaTook

09-10-2008, 10:14 PM

Bad cards are just bad business. I guarantee you that nobody who wants to build business makes a product that nobody in their right mind would use. It's just not done.

Sanguine Voyeur

09-10-2008, 10:17 PM

Bad cards help avoid power creep. If they only printed 'good' cards, old ones would be obsolete much faster. That's very bad.

DeathwingZERO

09-10-2008, 10:21 PM

MaRo said it best: If they printed ONLY good cards, the power level would not be a creep, it'd be an UPHILL SLIDE of power, and spin out of control.

Think of what will happen to not only the primary, but the secondary market when you realize that in time (and a short amount of it, if 800 cards a year were "good") that the Power 9 were no longer "Power" anything. It would happen, and with that many cards being printed per year (plus core sets @ 300 or so every other year), I'd say it'd take less than 5 years.

"Bad" cards MUST exist for this game, end of story.

Bardo

09-10-2008, 10:41 PM

"Bad" cards MUST exist for this game, end of story.

With the caveat that "bad" is such a relative term, and is often "good" for the casual crowd (WOTC's bread and butter), this is absolutely the case. The "no bad cards" crowd in this thread are personalizing "bad" cards to an unrealistic extent.

The game appeals to a very wide audience. Designing just for the Spike crowd would kill it just as quickly (probably quicker) as if it was made for the Timmys of the game. There's a happy balance, between all competing interests, that they have to find if this game is going to survive another 10 years.

FoolofaTook

09-11-2008, 12:26 AM

[/B] Designing just for the Spike crowd would kill it just as quickly (probably quicker) as if it was made for the Timmys of the game. There's a happy balance, between all competing interests, that they have to find if this game is going to survive another 10 years.

Or they could just recognize that they have a flawed model that is not growing the business the way that it needs to and try something different.

They had the right model for the first four expansions and what they did with Beta, Unlimited and Revised: Make the expansions interesting and thematic, phase out a few overly powerful cards and remove the dreck when you reprinted expansion cards in the core set (no Glyphs made it out of Legends as an example).

Then they printed Fallen Empires and Homelands back to back and damn near ruined the game. Yes, there were a vanishingly small number of good cards in those two sets but they were mainly garbage.

What they should have done was to make smaller sets and just left out the trash. I remember being outraged when I bought 2 boxes of Fallen Empires and realized I'd been ripped off for about a hundred bucks in the process. That outrage translated into me not buying boxes of boosters for a long time. You can still get boosters of Fallen Empires for close to list price 13 years after the set was printed. Why? Because it's a severely flawed product that has very little value even to the core players of the game.

The concept that WoTC has to print bad cards to make the good ones valuable is absurd. Creating a false paradigm where values are fixed by the creation of a really bad baseline is the strategy of a company that does not believe that it's product is inherently valuable in and of itself. Not surprisingly very few people actually stick around for the long-term, which is why the Legacy community is largely populated by people who have picked up the game in the last half dozen years and not by people who have been playing Magic since it's inception. This despite the fact that there was a large and active Magic playing community in virtually every region of the country.

It isn't hard to see what caused the decline in interest of older players as the years went by: it was the inability to play with the majority of their cards in organized competition due to WoTC deciding they needed to sell new cards to everybody who wanted to participate in the action. WoTC directed the flow of organized competition away from people who had invested in the game already and towards new investors. This was a profoundly dishonest and amoral way to treat the people who initially invested in the game and fueled it's rise to prominence. Not surprisingly most of us went away.

Now WoTC is trapped in a cycle where their prime audience is 15-25 year old players who are willing to invest for a few years and then sellout and leave the arena when life creates other demands on their available resources. The game doesn't grow because for every 25 year old leaving at the top there is probably just one 15 year old coming in at the bottom.

This game doesn't have 10 years left at this point. WoTC has already created the conditions for it's demise by frantically printing as many cards as they can each year, up to 4 sets now, and making most of those cards increasingly uninteresting to their core customers. What they've lost in the process is any chance that a large number of people would continue to play the game as a hobby or recreation for most of their lives. Almost nobody does this. Whatever is next will come along and Magic (and probably all the other CCG's) will be relegated to the back shelves. People old enough to remember complex board games, or war games if you will, will see what I am getting at here. If you make a competitive hobby only accessible to a relatively small number of people who can grasp it's rules and afford the costs you make it short-lived as the aficianados thin out and the ability to find competition withers.

DeathwingZERO

09-11-2008, 05:39 AM

Fool, have you even paid attention to what MaRo has been saying lately? They have printed 4 sets a year now, because the print LESS per set. They've come to the conclusion that 2 smaller expansions and 2 stand alone expansions are better than 1 stand alone and 2 expansions.

And your argument that nobody is going to be playing this game in 10 years due to it's cards power level is absurd. The game has gotten hand over fist WAY more powerful than it ever was, and that balance has been kept in check for years. Want an example of a block that hand over fist caused more people to leave than Fallen/Homelands?

Urza's.

Ya, that's EXACTLY what we need again, another block filled with chase rares, uncommons, and commons that break the concept of power level over their knee, then let those "good" cards from Tempest block and Masques block pretty much die.

And Wizards will not die like the war games did. You are comparing a tabletop game someone needs to shell out $50 bucks for, then find multiple friends who are willing to invest the time into learning and playing, compared to a game that you can pick up the general rules in a few hours time, and a starter deck for $10. Audiences are VERY different here.

ThatGuyThere

09-11-2008, 01:27 PM

Or they could just recognize that they have a flawed model that is not growing the business the way that it needs to and try something different.

They had the right model for the first four expansions...

Then they printed Fallen Empires and Homelands...

I would rather - dollar value of cards due to rarity (and only rarity) aside - open a case of Shadowmoor than Legends. And I've opened booster boxes of both. If I could only play with one set for the rest of my life, it'd be Ravnica, not Revised, Unlimited, or Alpha.

Legends - I'm going to be honest here - sucked. The cards were ass. Like, seriously. Read them. They blew. If you opened stuff like that in a modern booster, you'd demand a refund. There was amazing innovation there, yes - multicoloured cards; the colours began to come into their own for identity, White actually had useful cards, and so forth. But oh, there was crap. Aisling Leprecaun. Glyphs. Great-flippin'-Wall. These are cards that should not - and nowadays very likely would not - see print.

Card quality has improved immensely. Because what's happened is that the "outliers" - on either side - have been reduced - fewer cards are beyond-good, but many fewer are unplayably bad, too.

Crap cards like Mudhole, One with Nothing, and Bloodbond March at least do something. I mean, they don't do anything *great*, but they do something; someone, somewhere is thinking, "You know, Mudhole plus Planar Birth is awesome tech". Great Wall? Adventurer's Guildhouse? They do nothing. (Yes, I'm picking on Great Wall. It deserves it.) Nobody, anywhere, has EVER considered them tech. Ever.

Ever. Not even against Graceful Antelope (another crap-rare that's playable in some formats - er, maybe).

Modern chase-rares - I'll choose Demigod of Revenge - aren't as impressive as, say, the Black Lotus; but the plus side is, they aren't as abusive as the Black Lotus, either. Without a Demigod, I can play against someone with a Demigod; without four of them, I can play against someone with for of them. I don't think the same is true of a Black Lotus; the advantage it presents (and the restricted / banned lists agree with me) is close to insurmountable.

Everything - crap and awesome - has been brought closer to the middle - and that's a good thing, overall. The majority of cards, nowadays, are playable by somebody, somewhere. Unlike Great Wall.

Speaking as someone who *has* opened boosters of both Legends and Eventide, I'm more likely to get 10+ playable - in some format, somewhere; Standard, Limited, Legacy, Vintage, Extended, EDH, Multiplayer, 2HG and all the others - cards out of the Eventide booster. And I may get a playable card in one-out-of-three Legends boosters.

Yes, the 1/3rd of a playable card I get out of a Legends booster will probably be far, far superior in 'quality' and certainly power, and very likely price (because of rarity), than all the Eventide playables - but that's a really weird standard of excellence.

That's the equal of "one home run out of 45 at-bats (cards) is better than 30+ doubles & singles in 45 at-bats". I'm pretty sure I don't agree.

((PS - I agree about "if you get rid of the bottom 50%, there's just going to be a new bottom 50%". You can never get rid of the "worst cards" - you'll just make new "worst cards". And when you get rid of them, there's new "worst cards". And so on.))
((PPS - Anyone yearning for the "good old days" is invited to read over the Reserve List for cards they'd actually want reprinted. It's a sobering activity - there's very, very, very few after Revised. Seriously. Most of the Reserve List is *also* crap. Really, they did *not* know what they were doing; that's not their fault, it's just the truth.))

m03

09-11-2008, 03:02 PM

I would rather - dollar value of cards due to rarity (and only rarity) aside - open a case of Shadowmoor than Legends. And I've opened booster boxes of both. If I could only play with one set for the rest of my life, it'd be Ravnica, not Revised, Unlimited, or Alpha.

Legends - I'm going to be honest here - sucked. The cards were ass. Like, seriously. Read them. They blew. If you opened stuff like that in a modern booster, you'd demand a refund. There was amazing innovation there, yes - multicoloured cards; the colours began to come into their own for identity, White actually had useful cards, and so forth. But oh, there was crap. Aisling Leprecaun. Glyphs. Great-flippin'-Wall. These are cards that should not - and nowadays very likely would not - see print.

Sure, at the time, Time Elemental, Whirling Dervish, Carrion Ants, Killer Bees, Land's Edge, Underworld Dreams, Kismet, etc. were all considered sought-after cards from the set. They're crap now, due to the variety of better alternatives that exist. But, the set was still full of decent cards at acceptable casting costs that didn't have stupid/crippling drawbacks. Don't forget about:

The Abyss, Mana Drain, Eureka, Mirror Universe, Force Spike, In the Eye of Chaos, Nether Void, Land Tax, Chain Lightning, Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Recall...I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple.

Also, Shadowmoor was meant to be a standalone set. Legends was not. If adding in a related base set to make it a better comparison, and from a fun-to-play + powerful aspect, I'd take Unlimited + Legends over 10th + Shadowmoor any day of the week.

freakish777

09-11-2008, 03:30 PM

I haven't really read this thread much, but here goes:

@Bad Cards:

MaRo had an article after One With Nothing was printed (and people were upset with bad cards), defending not just bad cards, but bad rares. Not just bad rares, but also bad rares that nobody wants. Basically he was telling people to STFU because they're fine cracking a pack with a rare they don't want. The problem with the logic is (and always was) that [i]this is a trading card game, jerkface, it's not ok to buy a pack at $3.99 USD and open a rare that no one wants because I can't even trade it to someone for a Shock or a Terror, and as a result I feel like Wizards of the Coast is ripping me off.[i]

I have no problem with Crawling Filth (aka, "Why is it puking out of every orifice?"). It's down right awful. Like unplayable in all formats, ever, awful. As in, if you're playing GB (because you got the savage bombs) in sealed during Kamigawa Block, and literally have no other GB cards to put in that slot and are already running 18 lands, you run the 19th land, or splash a color for 1 card. It's also not a rare.

Busting a rare that's bad, sure, it sucks. But at least you get to trade whatever you think is bad to someone else who thinks "Hey cool."

If Crawling Filth were printed as a rare? Yeah, that would be terrible for business because you wouldn't want to buy a set in which you might open Crawling Filth as your rare.

Nihil Credo

09-11-2008, 04:19 PM

Claim: Six years from now, universally despised One With Nothing will be worth eight times as much as *checks SoK spoiler for a then-played rare* Celestial Kirin. Heck, it's probably already worth more.

EDIT: Confirmed. Foil OwN = 1,47$; foil Kirin = 0,33

Ewokslayer

09-11-2008, 04:49 PM

Question:
In Six Years will 8 times zero still equal zero?

Brushwagg

09-11-2008, 07:20 PM

@"Bad Cards": Without these less played cards then we wouldn't have the fun of Type 4, Skittles, and EDH!!!!!!

freakish777

09-11-2008, 07:22 PM

@"Bad Cards": Without these less played cards then we wouldn't have the fun of Type 4, Skittles, and EDH!!!!!!

Of course not. So long as the bad cards aren't also "Cards no one wants, and to make our customers feel like they got fucked over let's print it at the rare slot."

FoolofaTook

09-12-2008, 12:03 AM

@The Guy There

When Legends was released there were many, many good cards in the set that had a power level similar to the top of the existing power curve minus the power 9. This was because it was a 300+ card set and the entire universe of Magic cards that preceded it was at about 450. It was also because WoTC had figured out what was broken in the initial game design (randomness brought about by the luck factor in terms of who actually had their card advantage and fast mana in their opening hand) and had begun to fix the system.

The Legends cards that saw extensive play in tournaments numbered about a quarter of the overall set, which was a number similar to the total number of cards from the core set and the first two expansions. There were about 30 cards in the set that saw enough play that they became defining cards in the Magic metagame.

An entire archetype, UW(b) Control, became dominant with the printing of Mana Drain, Moat, The Abyss and Recall. Land Tax was momentarily very strong in that archetype also until the Balance explosion, which is most closely approximated by what Flash-Hulk momentarily did to Legacy in the spring and summer of 2007.

Here's the list of cards that saw play, just to refresh your memory:

Lands

The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale*
Karakas
Pendelhaven

Artifacts

Mirror Universe*
Black Mana Battery
Blue Mana Battery
Red Mana Battery
Kry Shield
Life Chisel
Relic Barrier*

Multi-color

Adun Oakenshield*
Angus McKenzie
Nebuchadnezzar
Rasputin Dreamweaver
Sol'Kanar The Swamp King
Xira Arien

I'm going to leave out the big dragons because although they saw use in reanimator decks I never saw a good deck built around them.

Black

The Abyss*
All Hallows Eve
Carrion Ants
Chains of Mephistopheles*
Greed
Jovial Evil
Nether Void*
Fallen Angel
Underworld Dreams*
Darkness
Spirit Shackle

Blue

Acid Rain
Field of Dreams
Land Equilibrium*
Recall*
Time Elemental*
Mana Drain*
Relic Bind*
Reset
Anti-Magic Aura
Boomerang*
Enchantment Alteration
Energy Tap
Flash Counter*
Force Spike*
Psychic Purge*

Green

Concordant Crossroads*
Eureka*
Killer Bees
Living Plane
Typhoon
Arboria
Rabid Wombat*
Reincarnation
Storm Seeker*
Sylvan Library*
Whirling Dervish*
Rust

Red

Gravity Sphere
Land's Edge*
Storm World
Blood Lust*
Eternal Warrior
Winds of Change
Chain Lightning*
Pyrotechnics

White

Cleanse
Moat*
Thunder Spirit
Kismet*
Land Tax*
Presence of the Master
Spirit Link*
Visions
Clergy of the Holy Nimbus
Divine Offering*
Equinox
Holy Day
Remove Enchantments
Tundra Wolves*

To give you an idea about what the difference in quality in those days was vs what we get today you merely need to look at the four cards in that 14 year old set (The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Sylvan Library, Chain Lightning and Moat)that still see wide play in today's Legacy meta.

Future Sight, a set supposedly more in tune with the strength of the times and 13 years after the printing of Legends only has 9 cards out of 180(Narcomoeba, Bridge From Below, Tombstalker, Yixlid Jailer, Gathan Raiders, Magus of the Moon, Tarmogoyf, Epochrasite, Tolaria West) that see much play in Legacy and less than half of those over a wide range of decks.

Why would I buy boxes of any expansion at this point when WoTC is aiming 95% of the content at people who play in very limited constructed formats? In 1994 they were aiming 25% of the content (at least) at the customer base and now they've segmented the customer base in a way that for many of us, particularly the long-term customers, their product just stinks.

DeathwingZERO

09-12-2008, 03:21 AM

FoolofaTook

09-12-2008, 12:30 PM

Why buy boxes at all at this point? With a 300 card set, and the almost guaranteed need for a deckset of a specific rare, you need to invest in at least a case in order to do that.

Multiply that by X number of cards you want, and you're better off just buying singles, because the market is so open and competitive.

Realistically Fool, you ARE in the minority here. They don't cater to you. They don't really do it much for me either, as I don't really draft like I used to.

I'd be happy if there were enough usable commons and uncommons to justify buying a booster box to fill those playsets (with a couple of playsets of the commons) before I started looking at chase rares and buying a few uncommons to flesh things out.

Some of the absolute best cards in the game used to be commons, and they never seem to do that anymore. Certainly not in multiples in a set.

Commons from the MTG universe through Antiquities that were worth playing (not going to repeat the Legends listing above although many of those cards are commons also):

Dark Ritual
Drain Life
Paralyze
Pestilence
Sinkhole
Terror
Unholy Strength
Blue Elemental Blast
Power Sink
Spell Blast
Unsummon
Fog
Giant Growth
Grizzly Bears
Llanowar Elves
Tranquility
Wild Growth
Disintegrate
Fireball
Firebreathing
Ironclaw Orcs
Lightning Bolt
Red Elemental Blast
Shatter
Stone Rain
Circle of Protection: Black
Circle of Protection: Green
Circle of Protection: Red
Circle of Protection: White
Disenchant
Healing Salve
Holy Strength
Erg Raiders
Oubliette
Stone Throwing Devils
Dandan
Flying Men
Unstable Mutation
Ghazban Ogre
Sandstorm
Hurr Jackal
Kird Ape
Army of Allah
Dragon Engine
Ornithopter
Mishra's Factory (one of four was common)
Stripmine (ditto)
Phyrexian Gremlins
Drafna's Restoration (used with Nevy's Disk to be a triple or more Timewalk on opponent in draw-go mode as well as getting back your disks)
Crumble
Atog

From Future Sight we got Gathan Raiders, a common that fits in just a couple of decks.

DeathwingZERO

09-12-2008, 07:57 PM

You keep listing cards that were "good" but have failed to actually back up the claim with sound reasoning as to why it makes a difference that they are "good" compared to the 300 card Beta set.

You are listing cards off the first expansions fully knowing the only cards they were compared to as far as power level was the original production. That's hardly fair for your argument that cards now don't have nearly the same ratio as "good" cards.

Not to mention, you are also not listing the absolute dreck (Firefox doesn't know this word) that was a majority of the original sets, because they didn't have anything to compare themselves to. In fact, half your lists so far are complete and utter garbage by terms of power now.

So really, what are you getting at, other than saying buying booster boxes isn't worth it for YOU? I happen to have a number of friends in just the opposite that are completely happy shelling out money for their 4 boxes each release, and doing sealed and drafting before they organize their decksets of them, and selling off the rest. Like I said, the market is still the same, you and most of us here, have changed.

frogboy

09-12-2008, 08:26 PM

One With Nothing was in at least one person's sideboard at PT Honolulu, and I'm pretty sure that guy actually made day two.

Dan Turner

09-12-2008, 09:00 PM

Ok, I have to jump in here, I have been playing magic since my sophomore year in high school, I graduated in 1996. I am currently 30 years old. I play Vintage, Legacy, Extended, and Standard. I own at least one of every regular print card since Beta and I have this to say.

1.)Wizards has to print bad cards.
How do I justify this-Let us say we are playing poker the deck has 2-A. If we get rid of the 2's, yea the power level of the deck just went up but 3's are now the worst card and no-one would want them. Everyone wants the A's. If we had no bad cards what we justify as good would be a smaller percentage of the cardpool. Let us say we have a choice of only the 5 moxes in terms of power they are all equal but wich would you rather have four of, I mean compared to a Sapphire, a Emerald is Crap since Green Back in the day didn't need the extra mana acceleration as bad. I think that is all I have to say about that.

2.) I applaud the changes in Tournament types. I believe that the old school Vintage players should not have to play with the Noob (WARNING: I am using NOOB in a relative term here please don't flame me.) Type 2 player. Yes it does limited the number of Type one events since it is not all one or two formats, but you have to take it from a business prospective are you going to dump your money into something that is not making players buy more cards or a format like Standard that cause's them to have to buy new cards every three months. Personally I like having the different formats I allows for a more diversified play experience. If we had only one format then it would get stale really quick. I diversification of formats allows for an ever changing play experience.

Well thank you for reading if you did, if you didn't then Screw Off :)

Captain_Morgan

09-13-2008, 08:47 AM

There's a median point though between Chimney Imp and Ravenous Rats. Ravenous Rats a portal card that has seen play in tournament decks and an actually competitive card. Does everything have to be generally super good? No, look at goblin tribalism. Tons of mediocre cards that have coallesced into a Tier 1 deck.

There's also a big difference between the new lifegain win condition card in green and something like Sapprazam Spray vs. Painter. I like cards like Painter or the new Helix, however I desprately despise Sapprazam Spray. Painter and Helix are designed for combo players, pure and simple. That's totally understandible.

I don't see "power creep" being an issue if Expert level commons are on the power curb of Ravenous Rats and sustained at that level. It's a contribed argument really when they have already proven that they can in fact make a strong and coherent set.

MattH

09-14-2008, 04:57 PM

Take ANY pre-Tempest set (besides A/B/U) and try to build a deck that can hang with today's block constructed (or worse, standard) decks. You can't. Hell, some of the better DRAFT decks can put up respectable numbers against old type-2 decks.

Cards have gotten much, much more powerful across the board (and not to mention more interesting). You only don't notice because you've been accumulating the powerful ones for a decade or more.

If your poker hand already has three aces, you're not going to notice if the average card goes up from a 6 to a 9, because you're just looking for that fourth Ace.

Chimney Imp is only notable for being bad because it's the exception. Looking at Shadowmoor, there are almost NO cards that are totally unusable across all formats. In fact the only ones I can see are:

Bloodshed Fever (very limited use but theoretically can be used against a Witch in draft)
Goldenglow Moth (people DO like this card, even if it's not good - lifegain is very popular with newer players)
Toil to Renown (lifegain again)

So what, three cards? And none of them are really that bad; only Toil to Renown is difficult to argue for its printing. I'd much rather open a One With Nothing than a Lady Orca. At least OWN makes me think about how I can use make use of it (madness! Ichorid!).

Modern sets have much, much, much more value per dollar than old sets. You can actually have a functional limited environment with them, then use the constructed-level rares in constructed tournaments, and the other cards in casual decks, etc. If you CHOOSE not to do these things, then yeah, you're going to get less out of a pack, but that's your own fault for not taking advantage of the opportunities presented to you.

ThatGuyThere

09-15-2008, 06:56 PM

@That Guy There

When Legends was released there were many, many good cards in the set... The Legends cards that saw extensive play in tournaments numbered about a quarter of the overall set, which was a number similar to the total number of cards from the core set and the first two expansions...

Of those, how many, if printed today, would see play?

Let's say, a quarter of Legends saw "regular tournament play" - when they composed half the environment (that is, about 600ish cards existed, 300 Legends, 300 not).

How many Shadowmoor / Eventide cards see play - even if not in environments you play in, see play, period?

I cannot honestly believe someone who has opened Legends boosters, and opened modern boosters, does not believe that card-quality has improved. It might not be better for you or for me (because we're still stocked up on the overpowered / super-rare Legends stuff) - but it's quantifiably better, in that it gets play.

See Great Wall. No, seriously. Or Adventurer's Guildhouse. Or Seafarer's Quay, or any of the rest of that cycle of lands. Or that whole cycle that made all creatures that color. Or the immensely overpriced vanilla Legends.

What you're missing is that while 25% saw serious tournament play, the other 75% saw no play at all. Nowadays, I'd wager, 30% of cards see "tournament play" somewhere, and 60% see casual or draft play.

Plus, I have to point out - printing three playable cards in a set, that are playable in a format that draws on over 8,000 cards, is actually a pretty good ratio.

Let's say there's 100 playable Legacy cards right now, out of 8,000 magic cards. Every new set makes 300 new cards, and 3 new playables. That would mean that with every set, the total card pool increases by about 4%. The playable cards increases by about 3% - very close to the same.

Which, honestly, isn't bad, when you think about it.

FoolofaTook

09-15-2008, 07:05 PM

Nowadays, I'd wager, 30% of cards see "tournament play" somewhere, and 60% see casual or draft play

What you're saying here is that you're satisfied with buying a product in which 40% of what you're buying has no value at all. Literally no value.

There should never be a Magic card printed at this point that has literally zero value. That's just creating enormous waste in the system and it deters people from buying the product. If they only want to have 9 cards in a booster that are usable in some way then they should only put 9 cards in a booster and they should stop printing the completely useless stuff.

It's a bad business model to make any intentionally defective product that is defective at the moment it is sold. Planned obsolescence works, planned garbage does not.

ThatGuyThere

09-15-2008, 07:36 PM

[QUOTE=FoolofaTook;274426]What you're saying here is that you're satisfied with buying a product in which 40% of what you're buying has no value at all. Literally no value.[QUOTE]

You misunderstood, but re-reading my post I get why. I meant, 30% + 60%, leaving 10% Pure, Unadulterated Crap.

And if you've ever played against a new player, fresh from the Starter or with about twelve boosters under their belt, you know where 5% more of the cards are intended for - teaching new players how to spot Crap.

And finally, as people have pointed out - most "crappy" cards nowadays get some love, some time - One with Nothing, Mudhole, Choice of Damnations, Null Profusion, Mesa Enchantress, Serendib Sorcerer - they might not exactly be lighting formats on fire, but I can assure you that somebody somewhere is playing these cards.

'Cept Great Wall. Friggin' Great Wall.

Or Verdegris, which is my personal choice for Worst Card Ever Printed.

Regardless, we must agree to disagree; you're unpersuaded, I'm unmoved.

*Shrug*

To each their own.

kirdape3

09-15-2008, 07:53 PM

The only way to counter that is of course that it is working; Magic: the Gathering's made Wizards of the Coast enough money (and indeed Hasbro after it) to keep it around for now fifteen years. Most of this time (ever since at least the advent of blocks in 1996), they've been using this model.

Not only has it made them money, but it allows them to absorb losses from other franchises that have failed miserably on them.

Captain_Morgan

09-21-2008, 07:52 PM

Which, honestly, isn't bad, when you think about it.

Actually, it's fairly well, bad. It's nice for the secondary market for people that have a play set, however for every few cards that are staples there are a number of worthless drecks. Some part of it has to do with the lack of support for certain mechanics (tribal for instance), the other is just that over the years shit that's designed for constructed doesn't work in standard.

Alara I believe will for once shows you can have a good constructed environment AND standard environments that make people want to play. These are the types of sets I like to see, not ones where a bunch of shit won't see the light of day years after rotation(Hello Prophecy).

Plus, I enjoy seeing new decks rather than the same shit every week. When the ability to play multiple decks has a low cost to be competitive worthy, it makes for more players. Rather than lets say having a standard with a few rogue decks and a ton of a single type of deck or two from tier 1.

More difference is good, it brings in different types of players and gives would-be rogues on a budget a chance to shine.