[Free Articles] Thoughts on Breaking the Reserve List & Solutions to the High Price [Archive]

jrsthethird

03-02-2010, 07:46 AM

Imperial Recruiter would never be printed in a current set because of color-wheel concerns. Power level is fine. Loyal Retainers as an FNM foil is a bad idea, most stores would probably put them on ebay right away or something and prices would remain high. It would have to be a judge foil to really work (or player rewards; that way Wizards can send them directly to the customer who can then decide whether they want to keep it or sell it). Same issue with Dark Depths. Also DD is a rare and they don't print rares as FNM foils. Rare promos are reserved for judge foils, GP foils, and 20-event player rewards, Game Day prizes, prereleases, etc.

Loyal Retainers is fine as an uncommon on its own. I think the consideration of Entomb in a current format clouded your judgment there (and Entomb+Retainers doesn't even sound like a tier-1 combo to me). Look at Ressurection, it was reprinted in Time Spiral. Flavor is fine for white, they're number 2 at this sort of thing. Retainers can be cast a turn earlier than Ressurection, but needs to wait a turn to be active, so it is effectively at the same speed of Ressurection, and no one plays that (they might with Entomb, but is that really a tier-1 deck anyway?), so giving a more fragile out with Retainers is no problem.

But most cards, considering the recent power creep that has been had lately, would be fine in Standard or Extended. I like the idea of bringing back Mox Diamond. It would really help Extended, with Chrome Mox rotating out soon, and the formats have been fine when you're pitching a spell to make mana. This time you're pitching a land instead. Sure, the card can tap for anything, but you need to adjust your mana base more to accommodate the Diamond, whereas with Chrome Mox you just need to pick the least relevant card in your hand, so it balances out.

Zlatzman

03-02-2010, 09:37 AM

Retainers can be cast a turn earlier than Ressurection, but needs to wait a turn to be active, so it is effectively at the same speed of Ressurection, and no one plays that (they might with Entomb, but is that really a tier-1 deck anyway?), so giving a more fragile out with Retainers is no problem.
You can play Loyal Retainers in your pre-combat main phase and then sacrifice it immediately without even passing priority.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

03-02-2010, 10:31 AM

In Stephen Menendian’s recent article Visiting Wizards, Reprints, and the Reserved List he posits that “You could print a million new Underground Seas in M11, and Alpha and Beta Underground Seas would probably not budge in their value or collectability. In fact, they might become more valuable!” Frankly, more asinine words and a conclusion based on many unaccounted for factors have rarely been written. The basic laws of economics tell us that if demand is relatively even and supply increases, price will naturally go down. Time and time again, history has shown us that when cards are reprinted (and supply is increased) they lose value.

The supply of Alpha and Beta Underground Seas would not go up in this scenario, so you kind of missed the boat. The number of people playing Legacy would probably go up if the duals were reprinted in mass, as cost is a huge barrier. This would increase the number of people exposed to the format and thus the demand for pimped out cards- which is where the high cost of Alpha/Beta Underground Seas comes from.

So in fact you would be raising demand without altering supply. So Smennen's assessment is only incorrect insofar as it suggests a possibility. It is certain that the value of Alpha/Beta duals would go up in the event of a mass reprint. Unlimited and Revised Duals would almost certainly go down as they're not a luxury item but currently a necessity.

You also blatantly ignore numerous cases of cards rising in value as they're reprinted, such as Reflecting Pool and Alpha/Beta Lightning Bolts, the latter of which is the best comparison. Cards whose value comes from oddity may be threatened by a reprint- I had a playset of Underworld Dreams that plummeted in value when that was reprinted- but those whose value comes from high level of play do not.

I stopped reading at this point as it became obvious your articles were nothing but bad hack jobs. And I'm not interested in ad hominem arguments.

You also might consider trimming the verbiage.

Anusien

03-02-2010, 10:52 AM

You're equating high prices based on rarity (original Legends printings, Pithing Needle) with hihg prices based on pimpness. Not many people opened Saviors of Kamigawa boxes, and the art and borders are basically identical from the Saviors to the M10 Needle. Ditto on Crucible of Worlds.

I talked to some Wizards guys at PT:SD. It was interesting to hear them say, "If people aren't complaining and crying that Magic is dead, we're not doing our job." They like shaking things up, and doing new and cool things. People complaining about this change is not prima facie evidence that the change is bad.

Your reprint suggestions are pretty ridiculous. Any card you reprint that is highly playable in T2 will go up. More to the point, I'm pretty sure your suggestions would destroy any reasonable format. Tectonic Edge and Ghost Quarter already see heavy play. So much for all the cool lands Wizards printed, right? Ancient Tomb was banned in 1.x, and you want to reprint it?

qwertyuser

03-02-2010, 12:17 PM

So Legacy people are complaining about the reserved list because a small amount of staples is on there (i think the writer missed some though, survival, dreadnought for example).
"10 Duals (ok these are important)
Tabernacle at the Pendrell Vale
City of Traitors
Gaea’s Cradle
Undiscovered Paradise
Lion’s Eye Diamond
Mox Diamond
Moat"

Cradle, Tabernacle, Moat, Paradise are played in only specific decks, not even staples really. Most of your formats staples are not even on there..... so they can be reprinted regardless of the status of the reserved list. Now vintage players, they do have something to complain about.

JACO

03-02-2010, 02:16 PM

The supply of Alpha and Beta Underground Seas would not go up in this scenario, so you kind of missed the boat. The number of people playing Legacy would probably go up if the duals were reprinted in mass, as cost is a huge barrier. This would increase the number of people exposed to the format and thus the demand for pimped out cards- which is where the high cost of Alpha/Beta Underground Seas comes from.

So in fact you would be raising demand without altering supply. So Smennen's assessment is only incorrect insofar as it suggests a possibility. It is certain that the value of Alpha/Beta duals would go up in the event of a mass reprint. Unlimited and Revised Duals would almost certainly go down as they're not a luxury item but currently a necessity.Actually the demand for Alpha/Beta would drop noticeably, as aside from people looking for minty cards to complete their Alpha/Beta sets, the main difference between Alpha/Beta/Unlimited power has to do with the black borders, believe it or not. Any Vintage or Legacy player I've ever met who is remotely concerned about the aesthetics of their cards balances the extra cost of trading their cards to black border vs. the satisfaction they would get by looking at a more aesthetically pleasing black border. This might sound goofy, but it's true. For example, if I care about how my cards look (even though they all perform the same), it might be worth it to me to spend $350 on a Beta Mox Emerald, when I could instead get an Unlimited one for $295. That $35 might be worth the black border good looks to me. But if the Beta Mox Emerald was $500 compared to a $295 Unlimited one? Probably not for a lot of people. The black border is part of the things that keeps Alpha/Beta very high compared to all other printings. If they reprinted Foil copies I know TONS of people who would ditch their Alpha/Beta copies after about 30 seconds of thought. The market would drop.

You also blatantly ignore numerous cases of cards rising in value as they're reprinted, such as Reflecting Pool and Alpha/Beta Lightning Bolts, the latter of which is the best comparison.It's pretty evident you don't or have never sold cards seriously before as a revenue stream, and certainly haven't recently. Alpha/Beta Lightning Bolts haven't really experiened a noticeable bump with their M10 reprint. They were $20 quite a long time ago, then down to $10-15 when rotating, and now they are what, $10-15 each? People don't need a black border Beta copy when ten million black border M10 copies exist, and when thousands of black border Foil copies exist. In certain scenarios you're right, cards might see a little bump in price temporarily while they're in Standard. Reflecting Pool was a $5 card and then jumped to $15 for a while (this was also the most playable it had ever been, even during its original printing), and now it's back down to about $5. But the amount of Tempest Reflecting Pools was a small amount compared to the amount of each dual land already in existence. Additionally, so many more packs of cards are opened now for drafting and case cracking that the supply is quite a bit more than it used to be, and print runs are gigantic nowadays. Believe it or not, massive supply does regulate the price of cards.

As usual your reply has been relatively worthless, but I appreciate the fact that you took the time to share your thoughts at least.

Your reprint suggestions are pretty ridiculous. Any card you reprint that is highly playable in T2 will go up. More to the point, I'm pretty sure your suggestions would destroy any reasonable format. Tectonic Edge and Ghost Quarter already see heavy play. So much for all the cool lands Wizards printed, right? Ancient Tomb was banned in 1.x, and you want to reprint it?Tectonic Edge sucks balls, if we can be honest. The only reason Ghost Quarter sees any play whatsoever now is because Dark Depths exists in Extended and most decks simply don't have many other tools to fight it. Wizards' keeps trying to print cheap land destruction that borders on being playable but not too good, and has thus far printed mediocre cards.

The reason Ancient Tomb was banned in 1.x was because that was a hell of a lot more broken format than Extended is today. It was also much faster. To suggest that Ancient Tomb in today's format is anything like that is ignoring history my friend, and I think you're aware of how broken and fast that old format was.

Can you actually give me some legitimate examples where my suggestions would destroy a reasonable Standard or Extended format? I currently play all constructed formats and understand the power level of all of them, and the cards I suggested wouldn't really break anything.

Cradle, Tabernacle, Moat, Paradise are played in only specific decks, not even staples really. Most of your formats staples are not even on there..... so they can be reprinted regardless of the status of the reserved list.Bingo! That's part of the point. You don't need to trample on the spirit of the Reserved List when most of the Legacy format's staples can already be reprinted in one way or another without problem.

Smmenen

03-02-2010, 02:57 PM

Jason:

The facts in my article are simple:

1) Beta Underground Sea is worth as much or more than most Moxen, and 2/3s of Power Nine:

http://blacklotusproject.com/cards/Limited+Edition+Beta/

Limited Edition Beta

$12391.89 / 683 volume
Most valuable cards
1 Black Lotus 1379.85 (0.00%) 6 volume
2 Ancestral Recall 860.00 (17.81%) 1
3 Mox Sapphire 791.00 (0.00%) 5
4 Underground Sea 583.00 (0.00%) 2
5 Mox Pearl 508.20 (0.00%) 4
6 Mox Emerald 493.90 (0.00%) 4
7 Mox Jet 490.95 (0.00%) 4
8 Mox Ruby 458.70 (0.00%) 7
9 Time Vault 455.00 (0.00%) 1
10 Volcanic Island 441.34 (0.00%) 5
11 Time Walk 405.01 (0.00%) 4
12 Tropical Island 316.17 (0.00%) 4
13 Timetwister 285.55 (0.00%) 7
14 Tundra 236.51 (9.83%) 5
15 Taiga 219.16 (0.00%) 4

Yet, there are 90% more Seas printed than Moxen. The point is simple: the quantity of Seas is print has very little affect on the price of Beta/Alpha power nine.

You said that of my statement making exactly that point: "more asinine words and a conclusion based on many unaccounted for factors have rarely been written." Yet, the facts support me. Not you.

2) Original edition printings of Alpha and Beta cards do not lose value through reprints. My article carefully documents this in the case of Birds of Paradise, Wrath of God, and Shivan Dragon, which have each seen numerous reprints, but have not affected the price of Alpha and Beta, and arguably have increased their value.

Birds of Paradise (A) - $200
Birds of Paradise (B) - $200
Birds of Paradise (U) - $25
Birds of Paradise (RV) - $12.50
Birds of Paradise (4th) - $9
Birds of Paradise (5th) - $10
Birds of Paradise (6th) - $10
Birds of Paradise (7th) - $10
Birds of Paradise (8th) - $10
Birds of Paradise (RAV) - $10
Birds of Paradise (10th) - $10
Birds of Paradise (M10) - $6

Many other cards make this point: Mana Vault, Demonic Tutor, etc.

Mana Vault:

* Fourth Edition 2.08
* Revised Edition 2.01
* Unlimited Edition 7.84
* Limited Edition Beta 114.72
* Limited Edition Alpha 119.95

Demonic Tutor:

* Revised Edition 4.99
* Unlimited Edition 7.85
* Limited Edition Beta 49.01
* Limited Edition Alpha 80.00

Swords To Plowshares

* Ice Age 2.38
* Fourth Edition 2.79
* Revised Edition 2.39
* Unlimited Edition 4.58
* Limited Edition Beta 15.20
* Limited Edition Alpha 23.84

3) Alpha and Beta Underground Seas, and other A/B dual lands, have recently risen substantialy in price. The demand for Alpha and Beta dual lands is clearly related to the demand for dual lands generally, but it is none the less not the same.

If Wizards were to reprint dual lands in M11, I think the facts clearly show that prices on Alpha and Beta dual lands would not be negatively affected. If anything, I think they would go up since they would be legal in standard, and the demand for pimp duals, the demand for the A/B elite prints, which far outstrips supply, would increase. Prices, accordingly, would increase.

Prices only go down if the supply for a good is fungible or a perfect substitute. Alpha and Beta Underground Seas are not perfect substitutes, to say, Unlimited Seas or M16 Seas or FTV Seas, if they were to print the latter. They are functionally simiilar, but the demand is different.

jrsthethird

03-02-2010, 04:05 PM

You can play Loyal Retainers in your pre-combat main phase and then sacrifice it immediately without even passing priority.

Oh I thought it was a tap ability all this time. My apologies. Still, how much would a 3-mana limited Ressurection hurt the environment? The only reanimator targets from the big Legacy deckilists that are eligible are Iona and Akroma. I mean, Iona is probably the biggest problem, but I don't see anyone trying to cast Ressurection trying to grab a cheap Iona? If Hypergenesis isn't too powerful, how can this card really hurt?

Smmenem, you missed the Duel Decks Demonic Tutor and the Coldsnap precon Swords. I'm sure those printings completely killed Alpha/Beta prices.

In response to standard-legal printings, the only cards that need attention are ridiculous P3K cards and a couple corner cases:
Imperial Seal, Loyal Retainers, Zodiac Dragon, Mox Diamond, Grim Tutor, and personally I'd like to see Word of Command back.

Imperial Seal does nothing for us, but would be nice for extended and standard, and vintage people should be happy. Zodiac Dragon (along with the new Eldrazi guy) could make Sneak Attack viable in Legacy. Mox Diamond is a perfect replacement for Chrome Mox in extended without printing any more cheap 0 mana artifacts to make storm better in Legacy, Grim Tutor is a happy medium between Demonic Tutor (too powerful) and Diabolic Tutor (too weak). Widespread availability would be great for extended, standard, and legacy. Word of Command is a cool card that was discontinued for complexity reasons but the game can handle that now and the card seems like fun. Note that only 2 of those cards are actually on the reserve list.

Everything else is either too narrow (could argue this for Retainers but it might make Reanimator viable in newer formats), or sucks and shouldn't be killed for the sake of killing prices. Perfect example: Strategic Planning. This card is a great Impulse-variant. It lets you grab a card and fill your graveyard. Should it be a $60 uncommon? No. If it were reprinted as a rare or mythic, people would be pissed because it sucks at that rarity. If it were printed at common or uncommon, where it belongs, it would totally kill P3K ones due to dramatically increased supply. It would see play, but people would not go for a $30 card when they can get the same thing for 50 cents. The cards like Juzam Djinn, which are perfectly playable (and a little weak) in Standard wouldn't see much play and the price would tank, just like the aforementioned Underworld Dreams.

The main cards on the list that need attention due to price concerns are dual lands, Tabernacle, and Moat. Tabernacle could be in an FTV or judge promo, but mass printing would kill it since it is a narrow card. Same with Moat. I think the best choice for dual lands is to print them as either judge promos or MPR cards. For 20 tournaments you get a random dual land. This would actually be great for the game since it would drive people to go to more tournaments, because I'm sure people would love this more than a shiny Lightning Bolt or Cryptic Command. It wouldn't flood the market too much, since there's only a certain amount of time

Everything else on the reserve list (maybe not Grindstone, but there are a ton of $25 cards that no one is complaining about) is either cheap enough or useless, and anything else that's expensive doesn't see much pay anyway. Goyfs, Forces, Wastelands, etc. aren't on the list so reprinting them doesn't go against their word (although Goyf is the only one that *might* get reprinted in a standard-legal set).

majikal

03-02-2010, 04:09 PM

Smmenem, you missed the Duel Decks Demonic Tutor and the Coldsnap precon Swords. I'm sure those printings completely killed Alpha/Beta prices.

Not really. AB Swords are still around 30-40 dollars, and Demonic Tutor is around 100. I don't know where Stephen got his prices for those cards, but I'd buy beta StP for 15.00 all day long!

socialite

03-02-2010, 04:22 PM

JACO I have to commend you on your level head and well thought out article. I have had quite a few heated discussions with other individuals I play MTG with about this very same subject. As someone who has worked hard to dump meager savings into picking up Unlimited Power Nine and other Vintage/Legacy staples, the recent talk of endless new print runs has been worrisome at best. It is refreshing to see the other side of the argument presented in such a regal fashion.

To be quite blunt people who think mass reprints will not effect the prices of top tier cards are out of their fucking mind.

The way I see it the majority of people who have actually invested into this game are against any form of functional reprints.

The people who have no major investment are screaming for reprints.

I just hope WotC finds a mid ground or at least respects the people who have invested so much into the game to not utterly destroy the secondary market.

Here's one for hoping they stick to their guns and for once the moronic mass majority doesn't get their way.

DrJones

03-02-2010, 04:29 PM

To be quite blunt people who think mass reprints will not effect the prices of top tier cards are out of their fucking mind.Wouldn't that be the entire point of reprinting them in the first place?

MattH

03-02-2010, 05:30 PM

Wouldn't that be the entire point of reprinting them in the first place?

No, the point is that SOME version should be inexpensive. It's okay if a reprint doesn't budge the price of originals at all, if the reprint is affordable (for a given value of 'affordable') and tournament-legal.

UrDraco

03-02-2010, 06:19 PM

When is comes to card values and price trends I am going to have to agree with JACO. In my experience he is an extremely knowledgeable collector while Smmenen tends to be an extremely knowledgeable player. About the only people I feel could be more qualified than JACO to talk about card prices would be pickle.69 or gunslinga.

One version of duals that has yet to be discussed is foreign black border copies. I have a lot of these and I know their price would die if there was any sort of reprint. Alpha and Beta would hold a little better but a $160 German black border Underground Sea would loose almost all of its appeal when you could get a Japanese M11 black border copy for 1/8th the price.

One of my favorite aspects of Legacy is that there is some barrier to entry. It tends to keep the riff raff out and keep the more serious players in.

MMogg

03-02-2010, 06:26 PM

when you could get a Japanese M11 black border copy for 1/8th the price.

That assumes a very narrow view of reprinting that it would be reprinted in a standard (small "s") set. If they were reprinted in a white bordered Masters Edition type set, in which case they would be less appealing than even Revised, your FBBs value would be fine.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The key to reprinting cards so that the older cards maintain value is to make the newer cards less attractive than the old ones, so that people use them out of necessity not desire.

FoolofaTook

03-02-2010, 06:37 PM

One of my favorite aspects of Legacy is that there is some barrier to entry. It tends to keep the riff raff out and keep the more serious players in.

Are you suggesting that significantly lowering the price of Legacy staples would turn Legacy tournaments into FNM hell with 13 and 14 year olds picking their noses and then asking to riffle through your graveyard?

One of the really nice things about Legacy at this point is that I virtually never sit down opposite a child except across my kitchen table and those kids are toilet-trained.

Meister_Kai

03-02-2010, 06:46 PM

One version of duals that has yet to be discussed is foreign black border copies. I have a lot of these and I know their price would die if there was any sort of reprint. Alpha and Beta would hold a little better but a $160 German black border Underground Sea would loose almost all of its appeal when you could get a Japanese M11 black border copy for 1/8th the price.

By the looks of your signature it appears that you prefer German black bordered duals. Did you buy them because they were cheaper than English ones, or did you buy them because thats what you found appealing? It seems to me that the latter is true considering your present signature. Why then, would a Japanese foil dual bother you? Because the cards that you bought, because they appealed to you, depreciated? Would you even sell your German duals (notwithstanding quitting the game) regardless of what may happen? I don't think I completely understand your position, but right now it seems to me that you only care about what the mass audience who gives a shit about what is pimp, thinks is pimp.

$160 German black border Underground Sea would loose almost all of its appeal when you could get a Japanese M11 black border copy for 1/8th the price.
Define "appeal" please. Is it purely monetary?

One of my favorite aspects of Legacy is that there is some barrier to entry. It tends to keep the riff raff out and keep the more serious players in.

I usually abstain from doing this, but I have to call immense bullshit on this. Out of all the arguments for not doing reprints, this is the only one that I can truthfully say I despise. It is inherently elitist, and implies that specific people (whoever riff-raff is, I'm guessing people below the age of 15) should never be able to play or be taken seriously. However I am biased, because I am a citadel of tranquility. I honestly don't care if I am beaten by a pro with a $5000 deck or a kid who borrowed his brothers draft deck. It honest to god doesn't phase me. I laugh out loud when I read about how some people quit the game over it.

Tychoides

03-02-2010, 08:25 PM

Statements like this:

One of my favorite aspects of Legacy is that there is some barrier to entry. It tends to keep the riff raff out and keep the more serious players in.

And this:

Are you suggesting that significantly lowering the price of Legacy staples would turn Legacy tournaments into FNM hell with 13 and 14 year olds picking their noses and then asking to riffle through your graveyard?

One of the really nice things about Legacy at this point is that I virtually never sit down opposite a child except across my kitchen table and those kids are toilet-trained.

Are not helpful to the format or the format's health. Quite frankly, they reek of elitism and if I didn't already have an opinion on this subject, I'd be more inclined to not agree with people making these kinds of comments. You're not helping your cause, really.

I don't know know about you guys, but when I started playing Magic at 13 or so in 1994, I enjoyed being able to play with adults and learn the game from them. :)

TheInfamousBearAssassin

03-02-2010, 08:40 PM

Actually the demand for Alpha/Beta would drop noticeably, as aside from people looking for minty cards to complete their Alpha/Beta sets, the main difference between Alpha/Beta/Unlimited power has to do with the black borders, believe it or not.

I don't believe it, because if they cared about the BB alone they would buy foreign-language black borders. Anyone who buys Beta duals simply for the black border is retarded.

It's pretty evident you don't or have never sold cards seriously before as a revenue stream, and certainly haven't recently.

Unlike, I guess, Ben Bleiweiss.

Your argument is the definition of weak sauce.

Alpha/Beta Lightning Bolts haven't really experiened a noticeable bump with their M10 reprint. They were $20 quite a long time ago, then down to $10-15 when rotating, and now they are what, $10-15 each? People don't need a black border Beta copy when ten million black border M10 copies exist, and when thousands of black border Foil copies exist.

They were $10 last time I bought one, and are now $20. This does not support the notion that Alpha/Beta cards collapse in value when they're reprinted.

But the amount of Tempest Reflecting Pools was a small amount compared to the amount of each dual land already in existence. Additionally, so many more packs of cards are opened now for drafting and case cracking that the supply is quite a bit more than it used to be, and print runs are gigantic nowadays. Believe it or not, massive supply does regulate the price of cards.

The combined print run for Alpha and Beta was less than 10 million. The print run for Tempest was over 400 million. I would love to see how you did your math.

As usual your reply has been relatively worthless, but I appreciate the fact that you took the time to share your thoughts at least.

You know, only tossers and housewives rely on ad hominem arguments.

The reason Ancient Tomb was banned in 1.x was because that was a hell of a lot more broken format than Extended is today. It was also much faster. To suggest that Ancient Tomb in today's format is anything like that is ignoring history my friend, and I think you're aware of how broken and fast that old format was.

Ancient Tomb was banned for enabling Tinker decks that cheated into play cards like Masticore, Urza's Blueprints and Phyrexian Processor. The spells weren't the broken part of that format, the fast mana was.

I think you're the one that needs to bone up on your history.

Bingo! That's part of the point. You don't need to trample on the spirit of the Reserved List when most of the Legacy format's staples can already be reprinted in one way or another without problem.

Cut the bullshit. Without duals you have very, very few options in deck selection.

jrsthethird

03-02-2010, 10:18 PM

Not really. AB Swords are still around 30-40 dollars, and Demonic Tutor is around 100. I don't know where Stephen got his prices for those cards, but I'd buy beta StP for 15.00 all day long!

Sarcasm and internets don't work well together. That said, I thought those prices looked weak.

What does everyone think of the idea of making dual lands MPR promos? They don't have to be foil or full-art (but you have to admit, full-art duals would be siiiiick, but would probably kill the market...or at least put $50 in the hands of anyone who played 20 tournaments), but that way Wizards can control the distribution of them in a better way than making it a competition of who can get to the store earliest and who can afford the store's massive price-gouging. Similarly Force of Will, Wasteland (again...lol), and others.

At the least this will both reduce the price of Revised lands (because I imagine anything new will make them look bad, since they look terrible to begin with), and give people something to start out with when they want to play Legacy. It would also boost tournament numbers since people will want to get them for free (more than a Cryptic Command or Lightning Bolt).

TooCloseToTheSun

03-02-2010, 10:18 PM

But the amount of Tempest Reflecting Pools was a small amount compared to the amount of each dual land already in existence. Additionally, so many more packs of cards are opened now for drafting and case cracking that the supply is quite a bit more than it used to be, and print runs are gigantic nowadays. Believe it or not, massive supply does regulate the price of cards.

The combined print run for Alpha and Beta was less than 10 million. The print run for Tempest was over 400 million. I would love to see how you did your math.

Probably the right way by adding the 500 million from revised alone and then also the 40 million from unlimited.

You know, only tossers and housewives rely on ad hominem arguments.

"ad hominem"- do you know what this means. Stay Classy IBA

Smmenen

03-02-2010, 10:20 PM

Cut the bullshit. Without duals you have very, very few options in deck selection.

Exactly.

This is the exact same thing I just said in the other thread: unless you want to play a mono color deck, you need dual lands in legacy. They are the foundation and the building blocks of the format. They are as important, if not more so, than basic lands.

Can you imagine if basic Forest cost $50?

@ Majikal: those prices are from the Black Lotus Project dot com, which tracks MOTL sales/trades, I guess.

wcm8

03-02-2010, 10:37 PM

It's a complicated issue, for sure, but might I make an analogy?

Fender, the world-famous guitar company, issued their Stratocaster model in 1954. Models from that era can fetch upwards of $20,000 (sometimes more) on the secondary market depending on condition. However, Fender never stopped producing the Stratocaster. The company doesn't see a penny from sales of those models on the secondary market, but does from selling new ones. The old ones will always be desirable for their "vintage mojo", but just about anyone that wants to play guitar can get an essentially functionally-identical Strat without paying the astronomical prices for an old one. Mass-producing the guitar never diluted the desirability/value of the original models. Owning a stratocaster does not (and really should not) put you into some sort of elitist wealthy circle, it merely gives you access to some of the most famous guitar tones that have become ubiquitous to rock music. (The old Strats were arguably made better, but that is beyond the scope of the point I am trying to make).

Beta duals are similar. A reprint might effect the price of the originals marginally in the short term, but there will always be collectors that "need" to have the original issue. For someone who is more interested in playing the game and not the collecting aspect, a revised dual would serve the same purpose. Yet, because dual lands are so ubiquitous and perhaps even necessary to eternal formats, it seems counter-intuitive for Wizards as a company to keep them from being reprinted to satisfy the desires of a few collection-minded individuals that don't even buy much new product from them.

This doesn't mean Wizards should go out and just print a set full of Legacy staples, nor should they reprint the Power 9. But there are ways of releasing dual lands, arguably a necessity for almost every legacy deck, gradually that won't suddenly kill off the value of the originals on the secondary market. And yeah, I do think that every serious player that loves Magic should be able to manage to get a playset of duals without it costing them an arm and a leg. In competitive play, I don't think money should be a barrier towards competitiveness. I own a couple playsets of duals and bought them just right around the time their price was beginning to raise steadily. But I would much rather see legacy Magic continue to grow as a format than be limited to a niche elitist group of people complaining about playing against people younger than them.

I wonder if we would even be having this argument if the Dual Lands were printed as uncommons and not rares?

TheInfamousBearAssassin

03-02-2010, 11:06 PM

Probably the right way by adding the 500 million from revised alone and then also the 40 million from unlimited.

A difference of, at most, 20% (I'm actually just extrapolating the last expansion I could find print run numbers for, incidentally, which was fucking Fallen Empires, so Tempest almost certainly had far more prints), proves what exactly about the A/B versions, which have a total print run of less than 10 million?

"ad hominem"- do you know what this means. Stay Classy IBA

WHOOOSH!

I will. Worry not.

bakofried

03-03-2010, 03:41 AM

@JACO
This is a completely serious question:
Do you buy, sell, and trade older cards as a secondary, or perhaps primary, source of income?
If so, that might not be the wisest move. This is a game. Not something to invest money in. If you collect it, you should collect it because you like the art, nostalgia, cool factor or what have you. Not because you can resell the cards you've acquired.

socialite

03-03-2010, 07:45 AM

Wouldn't that be the entire point of reprinting them in the first place?

Yes. Yet people here and on various other forums seem to be spewing the bullshit that highly collectible and expensive cards such as Beta Edition Dual Lands are not going to plummet in price due to reprints.

@JACO
This is a completely serious question:
Do you buy, sell, and trade older cards as a secondary, or perhaps primary, source of income?
If so, that might not be the wisest move. This is a game. Not something to invest money in. If you collect it, you should collect it because you like the art, nostalgia, cool factor or what have you. Not because you can resell the cards you've acquired.

Magic The Gathering is a collectible trading card game. Like any hobby there are multiple layers of investment, be it currency or emotional based. Reprints will fuck the secondary market, by posting something like this you are asking people who have put in both a significant emotional and monetary investment into this game to give it up for people who have not put forth the same effort. Kind of hard to swallow in my book.

One of my favorite aspects of Legacy is that there is some barrier to entry. It tends to keep the riff raff out and keep the more serious players in.

Also this, call me elitist but I avoid standard and extended for a reason. I'd rather play with quality over quantity, then again I live in New England and there are plenty of Eternal events for me to attend. While it may be difficult for some people to make regular events due to their location, I do not believe reprints will alleviate this problem.

Comments directed at a person's place of residence have absolutely nothing to do with this conversation. If the post you made following this had not resulted in an infraction, this comment was borderline anyway. Consider it a verbal warning. ~Nightmare

I disagree when people hope that reprints will fix Eternal attendance. I would imagine that it is their less ideal location rather than available card pool that results in poor attendance.

UrDraco

03-03-2010, 10:25 AM

Perhaps I should clarify my apparently controversial statement. I believe the small barrier to entry keeps more serious players in the format. Because it costs more money and time to make a deck for legacy you tend to have people that have been playing for a longer amount of time. Yes, this does mean you are less likely to play against "nose picking 14 year olds" but personally I don't care who it is I play against so long as they like Magic, and legacy players generally love magic.

The player turnover rate for legacy, and especially vintage, is also a lot lower than standard and extended. I know of countless people that start playing magic heavily during a standard season and end up quitting during the next rotation. Legacy players tend to have been playing for years. This also leads to a more social game because when you play against someone in a Legacy tournament it probably won't be the last time you ever see him or her. That being said people tend to behave a little better while playing when you have seen them before and will see them again. Yes, I still see a lot of immature behavior in eternal formats, but less than standard.

By the looks of your signature it appears that you prefer German black bordered duals. Did you buy them because they were cheaper than English ones, or did you buy them because thats what you found appealing? It seems to me that the latter is true considering your present signature. Why then, would a Japanese foil dual bother you? Because the cards that you bought, because they appealed to you, depreciated? Would you even sell your German duals (notwithstanding quitting the game) regardless of what may happen? I don't think I completely understand your position, but right now it seems to me that you only care about what the mass audience who gives a shit about what is pimp, thinks is pimp.

I bought the German fbb duals because I like older and more rare cards. I would buy Alpha if I didn't have a girlfriend. The Japanese dual would bother me because I think it would devalue my current investment in fbb duals. I would still like my German duals if they lost value, but I doubt any of us are happy when our cards loose value. I would like to use them as a down payment on alpha duals eventually.

MattH

03-03-2010, 02:39 PM

I know it's a minor nit to pick in the grand scheme of things, but I have to take issue with some of the paranoid, conspiratorial language/implications in your first article.

Wizards is not inventing the “premium=foil” loophole out of ambiguous language. ‘Premium’ has ALWAYS been Wizards-speak for foils, from 1999 to the present day. Note that this includes 2002, when the official reserved list and reprint policy were written.

The original intent of that clause absolutely meant foil cards.

Citations:

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/images/ULInter.pdf
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/expert/urzas_legacy/Urzas_Legacy.asp

Look for foil-finished premium cards randomly inserted in select Urza's Legacy boosters.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/arcana/614

Lightning Dragon was the first widely-available foil premium card. It was the card given away at the Urza's Saga prerelease. Foil premium cards began showing up in regular booster backs in the next set, Urza's Legacy, and have been a part of Magic ever since.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Events.aspx?x=dci/mpr/faq

"Premium cards are playable Magic cards that have a shiny finish to them; many players call them "foils". Here is an example of a recent premium promo foil card."

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=magic/online/rewards/welcome

A wide variety of promo card types will be available. These range from, but are not limited to, well known promo cards previously released in paper Magic, premium foil versions of cards, alternate art cards, and textless spells.

'Premium' being synonymous with 'foil' is a loooong-established convention. Any suggestion that this definition of 'premium' is a recent invention is completely ahistorical and wrong.

MattH

03-03-2010, 02:52 PM

What does everyone think of the idea of making dual lands MPR promos?
It's a good start, but it's only a drop in the bucket. Duals don't make a lot of sense as MPR, since people generally need playsets of them. Something that you only need 1-2 of makes more sense (like...uh Moat I guess? most pricey cards are 4-ofs)

I bought the German fbb duals because I like older and more rare cards. I would buy Alpha if I didn't have a girlfriend. The Japanese dual would bother me because I think it would devalue my current investment in fbb duals. I would still like my German duals if they lost value, but I doubt any of us are happy when our cards loose value. I would like to use them as a down payment on alpha duals eventually.

So what I am hearing is that you would not buy hypothetical foil reprints of duals even if they were much cheaper. So there you go, proving Meister_Kai's point: you yourself are an example of the consumer who would maintain demand (price) of alpha/beta duals!

Zilla

03-03-2010, 03:49 PM

The way I see it the majority of people who have actually invested into this game are against any form of functional reprints.
Do you have any evidence to support this assertion outside of the fact that it coincides with your personal opinion? I own a playset of most duals, FoWs, Wastelands, etc., and I'm strongly in favor of reprints, because I care much more about the long term health of this format than I do about the resale value of my cards, despite having a significant monetary investment in them.

Jak

03-03-2010, 04:22 PM

I would also like to point out that if Duals are reprinted in any way (new set, Duel Decks, etc), the prices won't crash. With duals easily available and cheaper (due to reprint), more players will look into and try out Legacy. The demand will increase and the supply would increase a bit more than that. It will lower prices a bit, which is great for the long term health of the format. I think a lot of people are overreacting to their "investments" going down the drain and not realizing that their cards will still be worth something.

socialite

03-03-2010, 04:30 PM

Do you have any evidence to support this assertion outside of the fact that it coincides with your personal opinion? I own a playset of most duals, FoWs, Wastelands, etc., and I'm strongly in favor of reprints, because I care much more about the long term health of this format than I do about the resale value of my cards, despite having a significant monetary investment in them.

No offense. You're what I like to call a moderate collector/player. When I say invested I mean invested, yes you have put a decent amount of money into acquiring staples for playing Legacy. Ok. Great. I suppose I should have been more clear, I was referring to high end collectors. People with Power Nine and play sets of high end cards from base sets like Beta and "pimp cards". People like OCCAM, JACO, Pickle69, Andrew77, the majority of people over at Magic Librarities. People with actual investments who put a lot of time and money into tracking down PSA/BGS 9 and 10 graded cards. You bought your cards to play with and I cannot speak of your collection as I know nothing about it but I assume you are running played cards and white boarder duals. You have a lot less to lose than someone like myself.

TLDR: No I don't it is my opinion. However I have a very modest collection compared to some of these people and I am against it, I can only assume the others would be as well and for the record the majority of high end collectors that I have actually seen post on this subject across multiple boards and sites are against it.

I realize I am breaking individual investments into tiers and there is a lot of gray area, but shouldn't the people who have the most to lose in this situation make the decision?

Volt

03-03-2010, 04:41 PM

UrDraco

03-03-2010, 04:47 PM

So what I am hearing is that you would not buy hypothetical foil reprints of duals even if they were much cheaper. So there you go, proving Meister_Kai's point: you yourself are an example of the consumer who would maintain demand (price) of alpha/beta duals!

This point is getting too complicated. I agree that A/B duals will always be expensive, no matter what. I would be sad if my investment in fbb duals were to die because of new duals. I want to use that investment to buy A/B some day.

It seems to my like there are two major camps, players and collectors. If you are a player first then sacrificing an investment for more players is worthwhile. If you are a collector first then the idea of Wizards killing your investment is uncool. I guess I just realized that I am a collector first, and a player second. I guess thats why most pro-players I have seen/met don't really collect, they are purely in it for the playing.

The million dollar question is, how do you get more players into an expensive format without pissing off collectors? My favorite answer thus far (not my idea) is printing official proxies and distributing them in some way and only allowing a small number in sactioned tournaments. The reason for official proxies is so that Wizards can somehow make money off them. Players will get more people and those who want to collect and have a proxyless deck can still pay for it.

MMogg

03-03-2010, 04:55 PM

No offense. You're what I like to call a moderate collector/player. When I say invested I mean invested, yes you have put a decent amount of money into acquiring staples for playing Legacy. Ok. Great. I suppose I should have been more clear, I was referring to high end collectors. People with Power Nine and play sets of high end cards from base sets like Beta and "pimp cards". People like OCCAM, JACO, Pickle69, Andrew77, the majority of people over at Magic Librarities. People with actual investments who put a lot of time and money into tracking down PSA/BGS 9 and 10 graded cards. You bought your cards to play with and I cannot speak of your collection as I know nothing about it but I assume you are running played cards and white boarder duals. You have a lot less to lose than someone like myself.

TLDR: No I don't it is my opinion. However I have a very modest collection compared to some of these people and I am against it, I can only assume the others would be as well and for the record the majority of high end collectors that I have actually seen post on this subject across multiple boards and sites are against it.

I realize I am breaking individual investments into tiers and there is a lot of gray area, but shouldn't the people who have the most to lose in this situation make the decision?

But for the most part, major investors make up a fraction of the total player base, if they are players. And for many of the collectors you mentioned, they collect niche, hard-to-find items that are unaffected by reprints. Graded cards, miscuts, test-prints, etc.

Come on now, people. Reprinted duals are not going to be "cheap" while old duals retain all (or nearly all) of their value. Maybe the alpha/beta duals would retain most of their value, but the Unlimited and Revised ones would depreciate significantly. Either that, or the reprinted duals would immediately be worth $20 to $40.

For the millionth time, this assumes they'd be more sought after than RV and UL. If they were more akin to Anthologies, RV and UL would be fine. Anthologies is objectively less sought after and who plays with them? People who can't afford/find other copies, precisely who reprints are meant to help.

Zilla

03-03-2010, 04:56 PM

shouldn't the people who have the most to lose in this situation make the decision?
God no. WoTC should.

Also, I think it's an oversimplification to suggest that those who have invested heavily monetarily are the only ones who stand to lose something in this quandary. What about the players who care deeply about Legacy as a format? Vintage has taught us that prohibitive cost of entry can absolutely decimate a format and the community that developed it.

I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that large investments of time and effort are less relevant than money. That's really what this argument boils down to: players that care about the format on one side, and collectors that value their investment on the other. I think it's assinine to suggest that either side is inherently more entitled to an opinion than the other.

Volt

03-03-2010, 05:03 PM

For the millionth time, this assumes they'd be more sought after than RV and UL. If they were more akin to Anthologies, RV and UL would be fine. Anthologies is objectively less sought after and who plays with them? People who can't afford/find other copies, precisely who reprints are meant to help.

You can say it a million times, and I'm still not going to believe it. You're not going to have "cheap" new duals while the old duals retain their value. Just. Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

Jak

03-03-2010, 05:09 PM

Come on now, people. Reprinted duals are not going to be "cheap" while old duals retain all (or nearly all) of their value. Maybe the alpha/beta duals would retain most of their value, but the Unlimited and Revised ones would depreciate significantly. Either that, or the reprinted duals would immediately be worth $20 to $40.

That's not to say that duals shouldn't be reprinted. I think they should be reprinted in limited quantities. As usual, I'd just like to see some intellectual honesty in these debates.

Oh no, I was talking about Unlimited and Revised duals as well. They will drop in value but not to the point that they are $10. Alpha and Beta will most likely stay put since they are a collector's item.

Look at Berserk, for example. When it was reprinted in FTV:Exiled, the Unlimited copies took a hit, but are still of value. The FTV ones are much cheaper than the Unlimited ones. I think if the same thing were to happen to duals, much of the same would come.

I do agree with the small quantities. I think if it was a Master's Edition type thing, it would all happen way too fast.

Meister_Kai

03-03-2010, 05:14 PM

This point is getting too complicated. I agree that A/B duals will always be expensive, no matter what. I would be sad if my investment in fbb duals were to die because of new duals. I want to use that investment to buy A/B some day.

It seems to my like there are two major camps, players and collectors. If you are a player first then sacrificing an investment for more players is worthwhile. If you are a collector first then the idea of Wizards killing your investment is uncool. I guess I just realized that I am a collector first, and a player second. I guess thats why most pro-players I have seen/met don't really collect, they are purely in it for the playing. .

Well, as with investing in basically everything else, there is a possibility of stuff bottoming out. Speaking from a purely financial standpoint, maybe now is the time you take your "investment" and sell while the price is still good, to try and get your big prize item. Why is Magic this serene bubble where investments only appreciate? If duals are reprinted and you lose on your investments, well, thats just how real investments work. Again, why should collectors be able to have their cake and eat it too?

Also, for those who want reprints, isn't the point of reprinting duals to make Unlimited and especially Revised duals drop in price? You know, the ones which where originally printed to help curb supply problems?

I don't understand what many people in these debates consider "collecting". I think we really need a definition. It seems to me that many people in this thread collect to eventually meet some goal. What is the goal? To have all the cards in a given set, to reach some sort of critical mass and then sell them? Or are you simply buying lower priced cards (such as German fbb duals) to eventually factor into buying even more expensive cards? Where does it begin? Where does it end?

As mean spirited as this sounds, I believe that Wizards should put players a good distance ahead of collectors when it comes to determining the "health of the game". If collectors were to be put first, what would happen to Magic? I believe it would suffer the same fate as Baseball cards; a distinct few are worth boatloads while the overwhelming majority are worth nothing (we sort of already have this).

However, this is not to say collectors should be completely shut out. Look at what happened to Pokemon. I am relatively young, but I remember when a first edition Charizard was worth $100 or something stupid. Last I heard it was worth $10 or so? I'm not really sure I know why this happened, but I remember hearing something about the company that handled Pokemon TCG making sure it was a Trading Card Game and not a Collectible Card Game.

Obviously the good answer is somewhere between Baseball Cards and Pokemon and for both aspects of the hobby to survive (or even thrive) a middle ground should be established. It was once before with the reserved list, but this is slowly starting to push far too hard on the actual player half of the consumer base. This is not to say that Magic SHOULDN'T have its Michael Jordan rookie cards, because as a CCG it should. However, you can't play a game with Baseball cards (that I know of). Not all collectors NEED duals and to people who purely want to collect something for the sake of collecting, price means no difference. However, many players NEED duals.

I don't know why Michael Jordan rookie cards are worth so much, and their reprints are worth nothing. Conversely, I don't know why first print Charizards are now worthless even though it was reprinted only once or so (I will admit I don't really know much about the Pokemon TCG). What I do know however, is that when taking just shear numbers into consideration, MANY more people have fun drafting, playing starndard, legacy etc than just collecting. Of course I have no hard numbers, but I assume many of us hold the gut feeling that the majority of people that deal with Magic primarily play and not collect. As horribly "majority rule" as it sounds, it is Wizard's obligation to make sure the grand majority of its user base is happy. It just so happens that Magic makes more people happy being played in tournaments than in sitting in display cases and binders.

MMogg

03-03-2010, 05:19 PM

You can say it a million times, and I'm still not going to believe it. You're not going to have "cheap" new duals while the old duals retain their value. Just. Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

Well, I never said they wouldn't drop, but as we can agree, duals have a hierarchy of desire. Alpha/Beta, then FBB, then UL, then RV, yes? If they reprint them as fugly Anthologies style, that would place the new duals at the bottom of the hierarchy, whereas if they reprinted them as BB or worse, BB in foreign languages, that would put UL and RV at the bottom. So, what I'm suggesting is not that there will be no price movement, and let's face it, no one can be certain of that because the future hasn't happened yet, but that you can control that hierarchy of demand and thereby control the prices a bit in relation to each other.

Jak

03-03-2010, 05:26 PM

Well, i never said they wouldn't drop, but as we can agree, duals have a hierarchy of desire. Alpha/Beta, then FBB, then UL, then RV, yes? If they reprint them as fugly Anthologies style, that would place the new duals at the bottom of the hierarchy, whereas if they reprinted them as BB or worse, BB in foreign languages, that would put UL and RV at the bottom. So, what I'm suggesting is not that there will be no price movement, and let's face it, no one can be certain of that because the future hasn't happened yet, but that you can control that hierarchy of demand and thereby control the prices a bit in relation to each other.

Again I'll say this, fuck that. I don't want to play or play against fugly duals. Print them normal and it will be fine. The Unlimited and Revised duals should drop in price which is what most people want to happen. I think the goal should be to get the Revised and Unlimited duals down to $20. I think this is where most people bought them at or at least the non-blue ones. Hopefully people who did invest in them won't lose a ton of money since the duals will still hold most of its value, but it is also much cheaper for new players to enter the format.

But don't print ugly duals. We don't want Legacy decks looking like shit (ie new border AND white border duals).

MMogg

03-03-2010, 05:31 PM

Again I'll say this, fuck that. I don't want to play or play against fugly duals. Print them normal and it will be fine. The Unlimited and Revised duals should drop in price which is what most people want to happen. I think the goal should be to get the Revised and Unlimited duals down to $20. I think this is where most people bought them at or at least the non-blue ones. Hopefully people who did invest in them won't lose a ton of money since the duals will still hold most of its value, but it is also much cheaper for new players to enter the format.

But don't print ugly duals. We don't want Legacy decks looking like shit (ie new border AND white border duals).

I don't want to sit across from some fat ass who smells of butt sweat but thems the breaks. :tongue:

I don't see why WotC should shit all over those who have duals already.

Edit: BTW, I'm well aware that I am probably a lone voice on this point and I'm also well aware that if and when they reprint them they will probably be foiled out or at least BB, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with the underlying philosophy behind it. I don't agree with punishing players who have them and I also think that foil variants (like promos) are bringing in new stock at the top of the hierarchy of desire instead of at the bottom where it's needed. The argument that players will get rid of their old RV and UL for BB thus freeing up those RV and UL for newer players is horrible, imho, as it's predicated on forcing players who have already bought into Legacy to buy in again or just keep their RV and be happy with them, thereby NOT freeing up extra copies.

jrsthethird

03-03-2010, 05:58 PM

Bardo

03-03-2010, 06:05 PM

But don't print ugly duals. We don't want Legacy decks looking like shit (ie new border AND white border duals).

Not trying to rationalize the fugly, but I like white bordered duals. Makes land easier to find after I pop a fetchland. With usually 7-8 fetches in my decks, that's a lot of searching.

The bottom line is, by buying Magic singles you need to accept the consequence that the market can change over time. If people hate the loss of card value over time so much they should not be playing Magic

/ totally agree. There are exceptions, but I'll bet about 95% of people that care about their collections (as opposed to people who have shoe boxes of cards rotting in the attic) have their cards to play; not speculate and try to make a profit. Magic is primarily a game and secondarily a collectible to the majority of people who own cards.

Jak

03-03-2010, 06:07 PM

I don't want to sit across from some fat ass who smells of butt sweat but thems the breaks. :tongue:

Yeah, but here Wizards has a choice :)

I don't see why WotC should shit all over those who have duals already.

But it really isn't. Sure the duals will go down but it also makes completing your set much cheaper. The people that already have their set hopefully have had their duals for a while and bought them for what the reprints will hopefully return them to. I am really just assuming here. I think some might get hit a little harder if they just recently bought a bunch of duals, but thems the breaks if we want to keep the format alive.

Not trying to rationalize the fugly, but I like white bordered duals. Makes land easier to find after I pop a fetchland. With usually 7-8 fetches in my decks, that's a lot of searching.

I don't mind them either. I really don't mind white bordered old cards. What I do hate is stuff like 8th edition Kird Apes and the like. I can't stand new bordered and white bordered together.

bakofried

03-03-2010, 06:47 PM

Can I put something forward?
I'm not going to say that players should be put ahead of the collectors, (even though I agree with it) because it's been said before. But how exactly does a collector base, and how quickly, does it multiply? It would happen at a very slow rate, and I don't believe people actually collect cards if you haven't started quite a bit ago. So this base is most likely not only not growing, but dwindling. Whereas players multiply. I was brought in by other players, I brought in my brother, his friends, and a few friends of mine. They brought in friends. And we have more players. So, not only are we ALREADY the larger base, but we're expanding. WotC, while it shouldn't ignore them (collectors) by tanking the value of Duals or whatnot, should have a more vested interest in the player base, and their decisions should reflect that.

MattH

03-03-2010, 06:54 PM

I think the goal should be to get the Revised and Unlimited duals down to $20.
Well, not necessarily. The goal is to have the cheapest version of a dual at $20. Probably that means that the reprinted dual is $20, while the RV and unlimited duals will still be higher.

bakofried

03-03-2010, 06:58 PM

I would be much happier if the cheap versions cost $20. That would also be more than enough to keep those "runny-nosed" children others are complaining about from destroying your precious peace of mind.

Pastorofmuppets

03-03-2010, 07:08 PM

It's hard to make something uglier than RV duals, so I doubt Wizards would force that. The RV duals will still have value, so people who want to get prettier new duals can do so and it frees up cheaper duals for other players.

The bottom line is, by buying Magic singles you need to accept the consequence that the market can change over time. If people hate the loss of card value over time so much they should not be playing Magic.

I think white-border in the new frame with no availability to foil is about as bad as it gets for ugliness.
And the Duals will probably stay the same pricewise, 4th Edition Bolts really didn't go down too far in price with M10, right?
Ah yes, little bit of market speculation here, but stock up on Wu Spies while you can. Some guy on Salvation is going full retard promoting his new "Wu Dragon" deck.
EDIT: Also, the guy with the "solutions" article really offers no point as to why the cards' prices would drop. I could've written that with a fifth of whiskey running through my veins, albeit with a few spelling errors. Also, according to him, Undiscovered Paradise sees more play than Humility, which makes me lol, and Badlands sees so much play it isn't funny, right?
tl;dr who plays Badlands?

SpikeyMikey

03-03-2010, 07:57 PM

Jaco:

I think that you're missing out on a major point at your look at the economic impact of reprints. And I know that the lines have been seriously blurred here, but we have to remember there's a difference between junking the reserve list and reprinting cards. But even if we're talking abour reprints, if you look at card values through reprints, you can see that cards with a heavy play value will retain their monetary value through any number of reprints. The examples of BoP and WoG were given by Ben Bleiwess. Those were the best examples because they were valuable cards that have been reprinted umpteen million times, but even with lower value cards or cards that have only been reprinted once, you can see this. If a card is ubiquitous to a format or to a color, it will retain value. When a card has gained value through rarity alone or through rarity and slight play value, then yes, the card will take a big hit in value. While Reflecting Pool was in Standard, prices went up, then fell when it rotated out. But it has no play value in older formats, and hasn't since the printing of the Odyssey fetch lands. It's price was bouyed entirely by scarcity and age. That is not the case with dual lands. You're right about cards like Tabernacle, which see limited play, or even Imperial Recruiters, because the playability factor of these cards is low. They're niche cards and as such, their primary value is in scarcity, not in play value.

Dual lands are ubiquitous to Legacy and Vintage. I speculate (and at this point, this whole discussion is speculation) that if reprinted in any fashion short of a full reprint in a Standard legal set (which seems about as likely as a mass printing of Splendid Genesis), the price on duals would not drop dramatically. You would see the initial surge of demand like you do with any other reprint (Serra, Pool, etc.) but that demand would not die off because it would be bouyed by *players*, not collectors. The pool of Magic players far outstrips the pool of collectors. Additionally, reprints only affect price if the quantity of reprints is roughly equal to or larger than the original run. Small prints of foil promo versions of cards have no effect one way or the other on the price of the base card. When Pernicious Deed was offered as a foil, regular Deeds did not move one way or the other because the demand for foil Deeds is almost entirely based on a small population of collectors and players like yourself that want to have the absolute best and rarest of everything. The FTV sets did not affect the prices of the original editions of any of the cards in that set. If you were to release duals at a reasonable rate, say through Player Rewards or as a GP promo, etc. then you would see no change in the price of A/B/U/R duals. If you were to release these duals at a much higher rate, you would temporarily see small drops in price, as cheaper reprints allowed poorer players to buy into the format. It's my opinion that it would take a very significant reprint quantity to affect the price of duals, however, because there are a lot of players that don't play Legacy because of the cost barrier. Every time card values went down on staples, people would buy them until the card values rose to their previous position and priced people out again or until there were simply no more people interested in playing Legacy to absorb the extra supply.

Like you said in your article, if you can buy a Beta Mox Emerald for $350, maybe you do, but if it's $550, maybe you don't. You stick with what you can afford at that point, which is the $280 Unlimited Mox Emerald. The demand is there for the Beta, but not at the price. Because that's what's wrong with the basic "supply and demand" model. There's feedback. Supply and demand is far more complex than just supply and demand. Demand goes up, price rises, demand goes down, because it's no longer a good value (in this case, value being from a player standpoint, not a collector standpoint, although decreased demand removes value from it as a collectible as well). We keep talking about the amazing turn out of 2,220 players at Madrid. Some people point to it as a sign that prices can and probably will rise too high for the format to grow, some people see it as a sign that the format is healthy and needs no fixing. But that number only tells us one thing. It tells us that 2,220 people went to GP: Madrid. It does not tell us how many people would've went if duals were $10-$15 each. It does not tell us how many people would've went if duals were $60-$80 each. You can't extrapolate anything from that number. To borrow from Geometry, you can't, from a single point, extrapolate a line. Two points or more points can make a line, but a point is just a point. If you can extrapolate anything from the attendance at GP: Madrid, it's that Legacy is an incredibly popular format. Perhaps it's as popular as it will ever get. Perhaps we're already at max absorption and any further flooding of the market with Legacy staples will devastate prices. But I don't think it will. And honestly, I don't think that you think it will either.

All I can provide for evidence in favor of my opinion is anecdotal evidence. I can tell you that Chris sold his collection over Christmas. Prices on cards had gone too high for him not to. I can tell you that the 4c Landstill deck that I played at GP: Chicago was not what I wanted to play. You and I talked about decks that I was looking at for Chicago, but in the end, I played with what I already had built, even though it was 2 or 3 years old and no longer a tier 1 deck. I played it because I couldn't shell out a couple hundred bucks to put ANT together and even that wasn't my first choice, it was just the cheapest of the competitive choices. I think at the time I was more interested in playing R/W Chalice Aggro or my Ice Blue Zoo, but I just couldn't shell out the money for the Chalice shell or for Goyfs/Confidants/etc. for IBZ. I know that in San Diego, even though there was a thriving Legacy community before I left (for those of you not familiar with the area, around the time of the split from T1 and shortly thereafter, we had 40-50 man events weekly) there were plenty of players who played subpar decks because they couldn't afford better cards. This is why I think that increasing supply will not have any serious adverse effect on value. The cyclical nature of demand with price allow WotC to reprint without destroying collectors. It will certainly increase profits for stores and online retailers.

Finally, I posted in another thread on this subject about the rise in cost of Magic cards, but it has far outstripped almost any other commodity. The explosion in the price of duals over the last 10 years compared to the rate of inflation is ludicrous. In 2002, I bought my first Mox. It was an Unlimited Mox Emerald. I paid $60. I also picked up duals at that time for around $3-$7 from Don, depending on condition and which dual. I paid $120 for an Alpha Ancestral Recall. Only the mox has failed to reach 1000% appreciation over the last 8 years. If collectors take a hit on the value of their collections, most of them (like yourself) will still be making an excellent interest rate on their investment if they decide to sell.

Edit: I should've proofread this before I posted, but I'm tired and late for a date, so I rushed it. I know I made a few intellectual leaps without really documenting what was taking me from point to point, so I'm editing quickly to try and fill those holes.