Maro asking about Snow Duals fixing Legacy's RL issues

[Barook]

https://twitter.com/maro254/status/812042770957275137

Pretty interesting that he asks, given that he has no understanding how Legacy works.

[bruizar]

https://twitter.com/maro254/status/812042770957275137

Pretty interesting that he asks, given that he has no understanding how Legacy works.

I don't think he has no inkling of legacy. If you're designing magic for such a long time, you learn a lot by experience. I'm sure he knows a lot more about MTG related stuff than we do.

[Lejay]

I sent a few emails to wotc employees for legendary duals back when they changed the legend rule. As he says, if it hasn't been done already it probably won't. They have no interest in legacy and support it at the bare minimum. If they ever print snow duals it will not be to make legacy sustainable, but because of some other reason (with $$$ included).

[Richard Cheese]

I hate MaRo but he does kinda have a point. It may not be a huge concern in the *current* meta but who's to say a deck won't show up that would love to have access to 8 copies of a single duel. OTOH, maybe that's a good thing, giving better consistency and fixing to decks that aren't abusing cantrips/fetches. Pretty hard to predict though. The real solution to Legacy's Reserved List problems is to abolish or significantly change the Reserved list, AND reprint staple cards in quantities that will actually affect the price.

[Mr Miagi]

The way I'm seeing it is Wizards are trying to do something about the most sought after pieces of reserved list for Legacy (duals) and we as a community dare to be picky and be like.. nah.. that won't solve the problem..

Or I'm reading it wrong (might be,m I didn't read that thorough)?? :eyebrow:

I don't know, with Maro asking this sort of questions we should only show immense support.

And in just my modest opinion and a bit of conspiracy theory, the fact that MaRo is asking this sort of questions now just indicates that sales are recently really dropping or they have identified other problems with MtG game/player sustainability.. why else would they be touching this topic after they so religiously avoided it for so long?

[jandax]

The way I'm seeing it is Wizards are trying to do something about the most sought after pieces of reserved list for Legacy (duals) and we as a community dare to be picky and be like.. nah.. that won't solve the problem..

Or I'm reading it wrong (might be,m I didn't read that thorough)?? :eyebrow:

I don't know, with Maro asking this sort of questions we should only show immense support.

And in just my modest opinion and a bit of conspiracy theory, the fact that MaRo is asking this sort of questions now just indicates that sales are recently really dropping or they have identified other problems with MtG game/player sustainability.. why else would they be touching this topic after they so religiously avoided it for so long?

Why wouldn't a for profit company want to tap into a new or different player base/renenue source?

If they could keep the RL, relieve the burden there of, and make a new and attractive product, seems like a good business model.

Seems like MaRo is casting his net wide enough to let the small fry through

[nedleeds]

Legendary makes way more sense in something like Commander than snow. Snow is arguably better than normal duals given random shit like Skred, Scrying Shits and Into the North.

[Sidneyious]

Tbh snow duals are functional reprints.

[MaximumC]

The real solution to Legacy's Reserved List problems is to abolish or significantly change the Reserved list, AND reprint staple cards in quantities that will actually affect the price.

I completely disagree with this. Abolishing the Reserve List is not possible without inviting opportunistic lawsuits and general negativity from the collector crowd. Just look at California; two lawsuits are pending where judges are suing WotC under fair labor laws. Players/collector groups will probably make trouble. The result of the loss of confidence in giving up such an entrenched position is impossible to predict. This is a terrible idea from a business perspective.

And, the whole thing is a red herring. WotC can and does address the Reserve List by printing new cards. Not just cards that fullfill the same role exactly, though it does happen. (See Imperial Recruiter versus Conspiracy Recruiter). They print cards that compete with and are largely mutually exclusive with the older cards (See Eldrazi and their lands versus Mishra's Workshop).

"Snow Duals" are not strictly possible, since the definition of "functionally identical" that no one ever reads in these threads does not include supertypes. But, so what, it would be easy to print a non-functional dual land that would be situationally better or worse than the original dual lands. Power level concerns stay WotC's hand.

I'd argue that bashing your head against the Reserve List is not only useless, but even counter-productive. New cards mean more tensions in deck building, new archetypes, and new things to do. One fantastic example is the Dredge deck in Vintage. It sprang out of nowhere and established an entirely new pillar, one that largely does not even WANT to share cards with the older powered decks. Another example: Eldrazi in Legacy. WotC is doing a fantastic job printing new cards that enhance old decks AND create alternative strategies. Particularly in supplemental products, creativity among powerful cards has been at a high ebb for awhile now.

Let's thank WotC for what they're doing, not bash em by whining about the list for the 10000th time.

[MaximumC]

Tbh snow duals are functional reprints.

Right you are, but it's not a matter of opinion.

"A card is considered functionally identical to another card if it has the same card type, subtypes, abilities, mana cost, power, and toughness."

This is the official definition. http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/official-reprint-policy-2010-03-10

Since supertype is not listed here, two cards otherwise identical but with different supertypes (snow) are functionally identical.

Now, there is a concept that pops up sometimes called the "spirit" of the Reserve List, but this is a squishy issue that is hard to pin down and is not part of the official policy.

[Lemnear]

Right you are, but it's not a matter of opinion.

"A card is considered functionally identical to another card if it has the same card type, subtypes, abilities, mana cost, power, and toughness."

This is the official definition. http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/official-reprint-policy-2010-03-10

Since supertype is not listed here, two cards otherwise identical but with different supertypes (snow) are functionally identical.

Now, there is a concept that pops up sometimes called the "spirit" of the Reserve List, but this is a squishy issue that is hard to pin down and is not part of the official policy.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=205038&type=card

You may have forgotten how wizards reacted to the shitstorm this card provokd by being a RL reprint just lacking to make the copy a red card and WotC insisting that its functionally completely different. So if they add the SNOW supertype to a Dual it has IN FACT different subtypes which are sufficient by WotCs own, crappy standard

[Barook]

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=205038&type=card

You may have forgotten how wizards reacted to the shitstorm this card provokd by being a RL reprint just lacking to make the copy a red card and WotC insisting that its functionally completely different. So if they add the SNOW supertype to a Dual it has IN FACT different subtypes which are sufficient by WotCs own, crappy standard
Except it is functionally different by the very definition given, no matter how one might spin it. Some people just love to bitch.

Snow duals might not be the most elegant solution to the issue, but it would work. The whole "spirit of the RL" is even dumber than the RL itself.

If they want to avoid that issue, they could easily make duals with Commander-related abilities that play out the same for Eternal, but have different impact in Commander games. E.g.:

"When ~ ETB, if your commander is in your command zone or on the battlefield, every player may Scry 1."

Not strictly better or worse in Commander games as it depends on the situation whether you want your opponents to get a scry or not. "Political duals" are a pretty cool concept imho. Although it's questionable how to distribute those in a sane way, as Commander packs are out of question due to imbalance towards certain duals (see: TNN debacle).

[Vicar in a tutu]

I sent a few emails to wotc employees for legendary duals back when they changed the legend rule. As he says, if it hasn't been done already it probably won't. They have no interest in legacy and support it at the bare minimum. If they ever print snow duals it will not be to make legacy sustainable, but because of some other reason (with $$$ included).
If they made snow or legendary duals, it would slot really easily into Commander / Cube / Vintage / Legacy. It wouldn't be something they did just for legacy.

[Cartesian]

About this so called spirit of the reserved list. It's just a list of cards - we might instead discuss the spirit of the Card Reprint Policy.

Disclaimer: There might be a tiny bit of wishful thinking below, it is yuletide, after all.

In the beginning there was no reprint policy, then Chronicles happened, and Wizards of the Coast made an announcement regarding 1) Why they sometimes choose to reprint cards, and 2) A list of reserved cards they would promise to not reprint again in white or black border, now known as the RL. The RL (2) was a gesture aimed at the disgruntled collectors. On the list were mostly cards from Magic's original sets that had not been selected for inclusion in the future core sets anyway, and I believe that Wizards thought these cards would be of little more than historical interest in the future, and that competitive play would not be influenced by the RL. Remember this happened long before Legacy, and only right after the format seperation of Magic into Type 1 (now Vintage), and Type 2 (now Standard). I believe it was never the intention, or spirit, of the reprint policy to prevent people from playing with the cards, or to diminish any particular formats, known or unknown at the time. In fact, the very beginning of the original reprint policy annoucement (1) states the exact opposite:


Magic: The Gathering Card Reprint Policy
March 4, 1996

Introduction

Wizards of the Coast understands that many of you were surprised by the
quantity and selection of cards from the Arabian Nights(R), Antiquities(R),
Legends(TM), and The Dark(TM) expansion sets that we reprinted in Magic:
The Gathering-Fourth Edition(TM) and Chronicles(TM). We have therefore
created this Magic: The Gathering(R) Card Reprint Policy to explain why we
choose to reprint cards and how many cards from which expansion sets you
can expect to see reprinted in future Magic products.


Why Magic Cards Are Reprinted


Magic: The Gathering has tremendous appeal both as a game and as a
collectible; however, Wizards of the Coast is a game company, and we
believe that Magic is first and foremost a supreme game of strategy and
skill. We choose to reprint certain cards from limited expansion sets in
products like Fourth Edition and Chronicles because we believe that the
cards we reprint make for enjoyable game play and that Magic players
deserve an opportunity to play with these cards.
THAT, in my opinion, is the spirit of the reprint policy.

http://i.imgur.com/M3WPbK3.png

[Barook]

I sent a few emails to wotc employees for legendary duals back when they changed the legend rule. As he says, if it hasn't been done already it probably won't. They have no interest in legacy and support it at the bare minimum. If they ever print snow duals it will not be to make legacy sustainable, but because of some other reason (with $$$ included).
New duals would also be a hit for Commander - and we do know that's a huge market they actually support.

I wouldn't be suprised if they tried to monetize duals in some way sooner or later. The insane growth percentages of MtG have come to end and Wizards can't simply ride the numbers from record year to record year based on a bigger player base alone. So they try to tap new markets to please the shareholders. That would probably also explain why we got Eternal Masters AND Conspiracy 2 in the same year.

Edit: Made a poll regarding snow duals:
https://twitter.com/Barook1985/status/813000579735814144

Looking at the official RL reprint policy, the "spirit of the Reserve List" pisses me off even more. First they made the RL which is later considered a huge mistake that can't be undone, then they even EXPAND on that mistake with silly new additions to the already mentioned fuck-up. :really:

Then we hear Maro cry on social media that he can't use Thunder Spirit for Limited environments when all he has to do is make it a "Bird Soldier" with a fancy new name and be done with it.

[MaximumC]

So if they add the SNOW supertype to a Dual it has IN FACT different subtypes which are sufficient by WotCs own, crappy standard

No, that's backward. If I add a different cat to my house it does not have IN FACT different dogs. Supertypes and subtypes are different things. You cannot print a snow dual, taken literally.

You CAN print a dual that happens to have basic land types and a snow type, but you need to do more to it. Add something to the rules text, for example. Adding "snow" by itself is verborten under the Reserve List.

[Dice_Box]

Two things.

One, adding snow does getting around it. It's been confirmed in the past. I will try and dig that up later.

Two, they tested this already, they actually planed to release Snow Duals in Commander sets before they came up with Command Tower.

[Barook]

Two things.

One, adding snow does getting around it. It's been confirmed in the past. I will try and dig that up later.

Two, they tested this already, they actually planed to release Snow Duals in Commander sets before they came up with Command Tower.
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/139467699598/do-snow-covered-dual-lands-violate-the-reserved

Which is a bunch of horseshit, considering they could be fetched with Into the North and have interactions with Scrying Sheets and Skred, among other things.

But it wouldn't be the first time Maro is wrong and talks out of his ass.

[MaximumC]

http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/139467699598/do-snow-covered-dual-lands-violate-the-reserved

Which is a bunch of horseshit, considering they could be fetched with Into the North and have interactions with Scrying Sheets and Skred, among other things.

But it wouldn't be the first time Maro is wrong and talks out of his ass.

Look, I don't pretend to know what things Maro has or has not said. The Reserve List policy is written down, anyone can read it, in black and white. It does not mention supertypes. If a card shared everything but a supertype, it would literally violate the plain language of the policy. If I was representing a class in a lawsuit on promissory estoppel, that'd be the best possible argument.

So, no, using the literal language of the Reserve List policy itself (not Maro's twitter feed) you cannot print dual lands identical to the first one except including a new supertype. You need to modify something else.

[Barook]

If a card shared everything but a supertype, it would literally violate the plain language of the policy. If I was representing a class in a lawsuit on promissory estoppel, that'd be the best possible argument.

So, no, using the literal language of the Reserve List policy itself (not Maro's twitter feed) you cannot print dual lands identical to the first one except including a new supertype. You need to modify something else.
Same subtypes are also subject of the RL. E.g. a "Island Forest Lair" is functionally different from a Tropical Island. That's why I chose to mention the Thunder Spirit thing since it's a prime example of how stupid the whole "spirit of the RL" actually is.

I agree that Supertypes are still easier to do, though.

[Sidneyious]

Ok so type so type change can make it a thing.

What about power? Ban the original artifact's and reprint say eldrazi lotus and the 5 spawn moxen?

[Dice_Box]

That's beyond fucked up. At the point that where your banning shit and printing copies? Fuck that. Just bite the fucking bullet and reprint shit.

Also, here's the fucking joke. WIZARDS promised not to reprint this shit, not MTG inc. Make a new company, MTG inc, transfer assists, print. Problem solved.

[Barook]

Ok so type so type change can make it a thing.

What about power? Ban the original artifact's and reprint say eldrazi lotus and the 5 spawn moxen?
"Tribal Artifact - Eldrazi" would be functionally different and thus be allowed. Banning the original cards while also reprinting the card in another version would be possible worst thing they could do as it completely devalues the old cards, aside from their collector value.

And that's basically the issue. The RL has enough loopholes to get around it. But just because you could doesn't mean you should, as it creates various problems. Undermining the RL just for the sake of undermining it would mean a loss of customer confidence. And the last thing you want in the format are 8 LEDs, Cradles, etc. - that's what Maro was aiming at in the Twitter conversion when he was talking about Snow duals, not realizing that duals don't work this way due to fetchlands and barely any deck running 4 copies of a dual anyway, let alone would they run more than 4 copies.

This is where the "spirit of the RL" kicks in - to not reprint every RL cards with arbitrary changes to completely nuke their value while also causing problems to the format. Problem is that they took this mantra to the next level to go full retard - e.g. Thunder Spirit sees zero competitive play and only has collector value. Reprinting it with a different creature type for Limited fodder would do jackshit to its value.

I would really love to read a quality article about RL vs "Spirit of the RL".

[Lemnear]

I have a significant issue with the term "customer confidence" in terms of this game. This is no stock market where the company has the duty to inform their stockholders about strategic shifts and products. I know that some players and stores are hoarding cards, hoping they rise in price, not realizing that they "invest" in something no more reliable than books in terms of reprints and printruns. If you dump ten thousands of dollar into an unpredictable market, playing russian roulette due to reprints or devaluing via new printings, its you own fault.

It reminds me of the whining after the Fetchland extension with Zendikar and them taking another hit with the reprints, with all the speculators/hoarders probably still sitting on their 600$ buylist foil onslaught fetchlands.

Having all the expensive shit, I'd still say: Reprint the shit out of all cards. I take no pride in carrying around 3000$ decks or lose the money. I want young players to get the chance to enjoy Legacy/Vintage for the costs which compete with a new snowboard set or a gaming console, not a fortunes worth.

[jandax]

Just curious, so your issue is collectability? Without that the game would have to evolve into something else entirely, for example become purely digital like L.o.L.

[Lemnear]

Just curious, so your issue is collectability? Without that the game would have to evolve into something else entirely, for example become purely digital like L.o.L.

So? Games like Hearthstone pulverized MtG in terms of playerbase, online playability, streaming and marketing within a year after the start of the brand, while WotC still struggles to make their cards available online and in paper, not to talk about providing an attractive and working online environment. They cba to get their products fixed and claim they are "listening to player demands by bringing back the gemlins creaturetype" like MaRo did on Twitter lately. Fucked up priorities, I'd say

[Crimhead]

Two things.

One, adding snow does getting around it. It's been confirmed in the past. I will try and dig that up later.

Two, they tested this already, they actually planed to release Snow Duals in Commander sets before they came up with Command Tower.I could be wrong, but I believe the current definition of 'functional reprint' was determined when they closed the promotional premium loophole. This was after the Snow-Duals were scrapped and Modern was invented.


I hate MaRo but he does kinda have a point. It may not be a huge concern in the *current* meta but who's to say a deck won't show up that would love to have access to 8 copies of a single duel. Well now, WotC will always be printing cards that will impact Legacy. Of all the effects to be concerned about entering the Legacy pool, duals #5-8 seem pretty benign..

[jandax]

Those games were new when magic was turning voting age. Seems like they don't have really any priorities, much less fucked up ones, if they don't build/support a digital platform that competes, while coming from a business model that has been seat-of-the-pants since inception. Collectibility and sustainability are two concepts that have yet to be proven compatible (afaik)


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[Lemnear]

Those games were new when magic was turning voting age. Seems like they don't have really any priorities, much less fucked up ones, if they don't build/support a digital platform that competes, while coming from a business model that has been seat-of-the-pants since inception. Collectibility and sustainability are two concepts that have yet to be proven compatible (afaik)


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"Collectibility" in terms of "cracking boosters and trade cards you don't need with other people at your store" is gone for more than a decade. Today "Collectibility" is barely more than "buying a 4-off from a big vendors online platform". Any card is available everywhere in the world and the price roots on speculation.

The game and secondary market today has nothing to do with the original TRADING CARD GAME idea behind. Its just WotC who, unlike Blizzard, gave a free pass to third parties to control the secondary market, and even worse, cooperate with them to drive prices up

[RobNC]

They can still make usable duals that don't compete with the original duals. I believe I saw someone mention in one of the other threads (or perhaps Reddit) of a fetchable fastland. That would be far more usable than the fetchable BFZ lands now - they're fine for Standard (and probably Commander) but too slow for Modern or Legacy - and also wouldn't compete with the original dual lands as they still have a not-insignificant drawback and are thus not even close to functionally identical.

[Lemnear]

They can still make usable duals that don't compete with the original duals. I believe I saw someone mention in one of the other threads (or perhaps Reddit) of a fetchable fastland. That would be far more usable than the fetchable BFZ lands now - they're fine for Standard (and probably Commander) but too slow for Modern or Legacy - and also wouldn't compete with the original dual lands as they still have a not-insignificant drawback and are thus not even close to functionally identical.

Aka not a solution at all

[jandax]

The only way to get a legit solution is to a grand compromise, or schism in the way the game is brought to market. Lemnear has it nailed on the head that collectibility is out the window, that the secondary and tertiary markets aren't in control of the parent company, and that people aren't trading to get cards they need to play out of necessity.(of course trading happens but because of the ease of online retail the days of hoping something will walk into the lgs are over)

There's no competing with the original duals/power. There's no fixing their old business model. I, for one, am curious to see how it affects the future of the game. Maybe it goes the way of haute cuisine, evolving into something modern and purely technologically innovated.


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[Barook]

So? Games like Hearthstone pulverized MtG in terms of playerbase, online playability, streaming and marketing within a year after the start of the brand, while WotC still struggles to make their cards available online and in paper, not to talk about providing an attractive and working online environment. They cba to get their products fixed and claim they are "listening to player demands by bringing back the gemlins creaturetype" like MaRo did on Twitter lately. Fucked up priorities, I'd say
WotC is a terrible company that has struck gold with MtG. Otherwise, they wouldn't be around anymore. I still wonder how much money they could earn if they didn't miss a single chance to fuck up every time.

Thing is, they had YEARS to adapt to the changing online competition. They didn't - and still use a program stuck in the 90's code-wise. Hearthstone can attract new players (in the same way Magic Duels is the biggest source of new players nowadays) while MTGO does its best to drive enfranchised players away. And both Magic Duels & MTGO are massive clusterfucks since Wizards can't into technology nor are they willing to actually invest into it. I'll grab some popcorn when Magic Next turns out to be crap as well.


I could be wrong, but I believe the current definition of 'functional reprint' was determined when they closed the promotional premium loophole. This was after the Snow-Duals were scrapped and Modern was invented.
This is the latest, current definition of a functional reprint: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/official-reprint-policy-2010-03-10

Reserved Cards

The complete list of reserved cards appears at the end of this document. Reserved cards will never be printed again in a functionally identical form. A card is considered functionally identical to another card if it has the same card type, subtypes, abilities, mana cost, power, and toughness. No cards will be added to the reserved list in the future. No cards from theMercadian Masques set and later sets will be reserved. In consideration of past commitments, however, no cards will be removed from this list. The exclusion of any particular card from the reserved list doesn't indicate that there are any plans to reprint that card.
Everything else is Maro & friends trolling on social media.


They can still make usable duals that don't compete with the original duals. I believe I saw someone mention in one of the other threads (or perhaps Reddit) of a fetchable fastland. That would be far more usable than the fetchable BFZ lands now - they're fine for Standard (and probably Commander) but too slow for Modern or Legacy - and also wouldn't compete with the original dual lands as they still have a not-insignificant drawback and are thus not even close to functionally identical.
Everything that isn't a dual isn't a solution the problem. Full stop. A drawback is a drawback. If you play cards that are somehow worse, you're gimping yourself. Otherwise, we would just run shocklands and call it a day. Maro missed the point the same way when he suggested ETB duals (which are even worse than shocklands, what the actual fuck).


The only way to get a legit solution is to a grand compromise, or schism in the way the game is brought to market. Lemnear has it nailed on the head that collectibility is out the window, that the secondary and tertiary markets aren't in control of the parent company, and that people aren't trading to get cards they need to play out of necessity.(of course trading happens but because of the ease of online retail the days of hoping something will walk into the lgs are over)

There's no competing with the original duals/power. There's no fixing their old business model. I, for one, am curious to see how it affects the future of the game. Maybe it goes the way of haute cuisine, evolving into something modern and purely technologically innovated.
How long/often can they renew their patent before everybody can legally print Magic cards? They did renew it a few years ago, but I wonder if there's some upper limit to it.

[jandax]

I believe intellectual property patents renew every 20 years (looked this up because of a great idea that someone way ahead of their time thought or) so think of it as a free agency in sports: the athlete can resign as they will or go up for the highest bidder. Wotc can maintain priority whilst renewing patents and especially intellectual property (see wut I did thur) but given a definite amount of time (which I don't know off the top of my head) they'd risk some other entity taking it over.

With copyright laws, I know that material becomes open source on January 1 seventy years after the death of the author/creator. For example, this past year Mein Kampf became public domain because it has been 70 years since Hitler's death.


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[Fox]

Looking over the Coldsnap set there's a bit more thank Skred/Scrying Sheets/Into the North; anything with "Rime" in it (mainly the blue cards) and some potential enchantress cards come to mind. The Coldsnap stuff is mostly just cute, but Snow-Duals would probably be quite welcome in vintage (fast mana format + Mouth of Ronom = one dead TKS). More issues arise though if you do a quick search of Ice Age and the word "snow." There is of course the cute stuff there....and then you hit Whiteout which would now read sac a dual land, increase hand size by one green card (begins to look a little like Gush +/- in response to Wasteland, better Brainstorms, obvious synergy with draw x then discard x, possible Land Tax abuse, tool for combo vs LotV +1, etc...). The net effect is probably positive, but adding snow to cards is generally a strict upgrade.
When looking at Scrying Sheets, cards like Noxious Revival should come to mind. Maybe snow duals are enough to make it show up, at which point B/R reanimator is now running afoul of maindeck Noxious?? Slapping snow onto a dual isn't necessarily without format-wide consequences, subtle as they may be.

@Barook given R&Ds treatment of Wastes (no named basic land type), I doubt we'd see a named nonbasic land type show up on a dual land.

[Stan]

I see a lot of people who say snow duals would be a strict upgrade, but don't forget WotC has also printed (weak) snowhate in the past. Those duals wouldn't be printed out of the blue, but in a snow matters set, and you can bet that set would also include snow hate. A 'wastesnowland' comes to mind easily enough, for starters.

[Julian23]

Imagine if tomorrow we woke up to a massive buyout on all cards that interacted with "Snow" in a not completly horrible way. The hype would be real.

[Mr Miagi]

imagine if tomorrow legacy populus could double due to introducing snow-covered duals :eek:

But yeah, lets worry about all other niche scenarios that might happen as a result of that :eyebrow:

[Lemnear]

Imagine if tomorrow we woke up to a massive buyout on all cards that interacted with "Snow" in a not completly horrible way. The hype would be real.

Buyouts are a pretty reliable way to tell whats going to be printed as WotC keeps handing insider information to the big vendors. We have seen that with colorless mana Generators, madness and more. Its a filthy swamp

[Julian23]

I always thought that this whole idea of Wotc leaking insider info to traders was nothing more than a conspiracy theory. But last November a couple of (non-WotC) people told me to watch out for very specific cards and "not hold a huge stock" of because they will be reprinted in 2016. Couple months later Eternal Masters was announced, which included all the cards I was warned about.

[Barook]

@Barook given R&Ds treatment of Wastes (no named basic land type), I doubt we'd see a named nonbasic land type show up on a dual land.
Wastes was given no basic land type due to fundamentally changing how some stuff works, like Coalition Victory. I agree it wouldn't be good design, though.


I always thought that this whole idea of Wotc leaking insider info to traders was nothing more than a conspiracy theory. But last November a couple of (non-WotC) people told me to watch out for very specific cards and "not hold a huge stock" of because they will be reprinted in 2017. Couple months later Eternal Masters was announced, which included all the cards I was warned about.
Conspiracy theories? :eyebrow: IIRC, the main sources of those spoilers are either translation teams (who don't give a fuck) or distributors from various countries, e.g. Japan or a country from South America.

[Lemnear]

Yeah, like the New Phyrexia godbook incident, the Kozilek Judge community leak, the second Modern Masters leak by vendors, etc.

WotC has a serious problem with NDAs and leaks affecting the secondary market and obviously there are leaks in several departments, but instead of stopping the bullshit and manipulatiom, they suspend players/judges lol

[SaberTooth]

not printing good replacements for duals is just stupid, i mean, you can make money giving new life to a format that is having issues just printing lands with a new supertype, but instead, you are happy because gremlins are back....

[Fox]

I see a lot of people who say snow duals would be a strict upgrade, but don't forget WotC has also printed (weak) snowhate in the past. Those duals wouldn't be printed out of the blue, but in a snow matters set, and you can bet that set would also include snow hate. A 'wastesnowland' comes to mind easily enough, for starters.
Ice Age is probably the most [delightfully] hateful set card-for-card, but that entire fixed block is generally adhering to the rule of 3-5cmc wherein we first see snow hate (for lands); and while Coldsnap pushes the power level of the block, we're still seeing this reversion to 95-96 power level norms. I'm not sure that R&D would really want to advance the power level of Snow cards (and their hate) to competitive cmcs since decks that would care about snow aren't really playing the same game. While the eternal crowd is all for complexity, going beyond snow duals (which by themselves are enough to theoretically affect a format) would seem to be antithetical to WotC's general push towards oversimplification.

As something of an aside, the whole way R&D approached the snow mechanic in Coldsnap was fairly poor to begin with. There's some pretty large flavor fails when you see the art on some of Coldsnap's Snow Creatures and then you look at a guy made of ice who is telling you to tap snow-covered lands (Karplusan Giant) and inexplicably didn't get an errata'd Snow supertype. That giant versus a card like Chilling Shade is actually a pretty good example how R&D dug themselves into a creative hole in their search for simplicity - individual cards stopped instructing you that they care about snow lands, and this 'snow mana' took on a life of its own. With that new approach to templating the snow mechanic became truly parasitic, and I don't know that there's necessarily a healthy way forward with a snow matters set.

[iatee]

You guys, Wizards is not going to jump through legal hoops just to create a renaissance for a format that allows people to play with the same cards for a decade. If I were Wizards, I would probably do things to make legacy worse, so people don't even ask for dual lands and GPs anymore. Printing Eldrazi was a smart step in that direction, but I think they could go further.

[Richard Cheese]

I completely disagree with this. Abolishing the Reserve List is not possible without inviting opportunistic lawsuits and general negativity from the collector crowd. Just look at California; two lawsuits are pending where judges are suing WotC under fair labor laws. Players/collector groups will probably make trouble. The result of the loss of confidence in giving up such an entrenched position is impossible to predict. This is a terrible idea from a business perspective.

And, the whole thing is a red herring. WotC can and does address the Reserve List by printing new cards. Not just cards that fullfill the same role exactly, though it does happen. (See Imperial Recruiter versus Conspiracy Recruiter). They print cards that compete with and are largely mutually exclusive with the older cards (See Eldrazi and their lands versus Mishra's Workshop).

"Snow Duals" are not strictly possible, since the definition of "functionally identical" that no one ever reads in these threads does not include supertypes. But, so what, it would be easy to print a non-functional dual land that would be situationally better or worse than the original dual lands. Power level concerns stay WotC's hand.

I'd argue that bashing your head against the Reserve List is not only useless, but even counter-productive. New cards mean more tensions in deck building, new archetypes, and new things to do. One fantastic example is the Dredge deck in Vintage. It sprang out of nowhere and established an entirely new pillar, one that largely does not even WANT to share cards with the older powered decks. Another example: Eldrazi in Legacy. WotC is doing a fantastic job printing new cards that enhance old decks AND create alternative strategies. Particularly in supplemental products, creativity among powerful cards has been at a high ebb for awhile now.

Let's thank WotC for what they're doing, not bash em by whining about the list for the 10000th time.

Labor laws are an actual thing though. AFAIK there's no law that explicitly protects the value of a collectible item. WotC sold 99% of the RL cards in $4 randomized packs anyway, so wouldn't the real issue have to be taken up with resellers? Even then I don't think the market price of something is any kind of guarantee of value. I'm not a lawyer though, so maybe I'm wrong or just don't know what terms to be asking Google about.

As for semi-functional reprints and new printings, it's not that I don't appreciate them, but they really don't "address the reserved list" because they don't actually do anything for scarcity issues. Not to mention all the nasty side effects that come with them - buyouts/gouging, hoarders, and counterfeits. Unless they print something that's just flat-out better than card X, or something so good it invalidates entire archetypes, those old cards are still going to be gatekeepers to most of the format. I actually like Eldrazi because it does give people a great, affordable point of entry. Still, I think it's too early to tell if it's going to have any real impact on prices for things like duals. They seem to be dropping a bit, but that's just as likely due to SCG basically dropping the format.

If they really wanted to keep the RL around AND keep the "spirit" of it intact, they could just ban everything on it and print not-quite-functional reprints. Non-sanctioned formats and actual collectors would probably keep the price of the original black-bordered sets pretty stable, and might not even hurt retailers too badly if it generated enough additional interest in eternal formats. Seems like most of the money is in Modern/Standard singles now anyway.

[MaximumC]

Labor laws are an actual thing though. AFAIK there's no law that explicitly protects the value of a collectible item.

Maybe not, but there is a legal concept called "promissory estoppel." If someone makes a promise, that alone is usually not enforceable. But, if you change your position based on that promise, and the other person reneges, you may be able to hold them accountable. On top of that, I'm sure SOME State in the Union has a deceptive trade practice law that might apply to a corporation who makes a promise about the supply of a good specifically to prop up the price of that good and then breaks the promise.

Given how these things work, I think WotC has to assume that SOMEONE will try to send demand letters / file a lawsuit if they break the reserve list. 99.99% of people would be fine or happy with that change, but the small percent that is not would smell opportunity. And, that ignores what kind of non-litigation confidence effect it might have, which is hard to know in advance.



This is the latest, current definition of a functional reprint: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/official-reprint-policy-2010-03-10


No matter how many times we post the link, people still refuse to read the definition and keep talking about "Snow Duals." I've given up :frown:



If they really wanted to keep the RL around AND keep the "spirit" of it intact, they could just ban everything on it and print not-quite-functional reprints.



Everything that isn't a dual isn't a solution the problem. Full stop. A drawback is a drawback.


You're both thinking too myopically. Wizards can do three things:
1) Print cards that are situationally better or worse from RL cards:
2) Print cards with drawbacks that are so insignificant that a deck can exist making them literally irrelevant; or
3) Print cards mutually exclusive to RL cards.

Wizards is absolutely able to print cards that compete with original power cards without being strictly better OR strictly worse. Look at counterspells. There was a time in Vintage when Mana Drain and Force of Will were the last word on countermagic, bar none. Then we got a flowering of countermagic that is conditionally better and conditionally worse than them. Flusterstorm. Steel Sabotage. Spell Pierce. And so on, and so on. Now, they all see play in rotation depending on the metagame.

There is no reason why lands cannot do the same. Take a Revised Dual and slap some rules text on it that is sometimes a good thing, and sometimes a bad thing. "When this ETB, each player Scrys 1." "When you tap this for mana, each player gains 1 life / loses 1 life." "If you have zero cards in hand, you cannot tap this. If you have five cards in hand, this taps for 2 mana." "This ETB tapped unless it ETB from your library. If it does ETB from your library, gain 2 life." Whatever. You get the idea.

Or, if you really must put SOME literal drawback on a card, make it so insignificant that it literally does not matter (ala Reveberate / Fork). Give a dual land only a single basic land type. In a land of fetches, that hardly matters in most decks.

Or, if you want to go somewhere entirely different, just design decks that are mutually exclusive with duals entirely. This is what Eldrazi (and, to a lesser extent, Cavern of Souls) did. You have cards that are potentially as powerful as RL cards, but do not play nicely with them. Print a City of Brass variant that says "When you tap this, sacrifice all lands you control with more than one basic land type" or whatever.

There are ENDLESS ways they can address the Reserve List without breaking it within these three categories.



As for semi-functional reprints and new printings, it's not that I don't appreciate them, but they really don't "address the reserved list" because they don't actually do anything for scarcity issues.

Well, no, new printings do not let people own old cards. I agree. But, it depends on what you goal is. If your goal is to give everyone a playset of Legacy playables as the format exists in 2010, then, no, by definition new printings cannot do that. If you goal is to give everyone a legitimate opportunity to play the Legacy format and choose from a variety of decks at a more reasonable price, that CAN be accomplished. I see the goal as being the latter.

[iatee]

Well, no, new printings do not let people own old cards. I agree. But, it depends on what you goal is. If your goal is to give everyone a playset of Legacy playables as the format exists in 2010, then, no, by definition new printings cannot do that. If you goal is to give everyone a legitimate opportunity to play the Legacy format and choose from a variety of decks at a more reasonable price, that CAN be accomplished. I see the goal as being the latter.

This is our goal. But why would it be Wizards' goal?

[Stan]

Ice Age is probably the most [delightfully] hateful set card-for-card, but that entire fixed block is generally adhering to the rule of 3-5cmc wherein we first see snow hate (for lands); and while Coldsnap pushes the power level of the block, we're still seeing this reversion to 95-96 power level norms. I'm not sure that R&D would really want to advance the power level of Snow cards (and their hate) to competitive cmcs since decks that would care about snow aren't really playing the same game. While the eternal crowd is all for complexity, going beyond snow duals (which by themselves are enough to theoretically affect a format) would seem to be antithetical to WotC's general push towards oversimplification.

As something of an aside, the whole way R&D approached the snow mechanic in Coldsnap was fairly poor to begin with. There's some pretty large flavor fails when you see the art on some of Coldsnap's Snow Creatures and then you look at a guy made of ice who is telling you to tap snow-covered lands (Karplusan Giant) and inexplicably didn't get an errata'd Snow supertype. That giant versus a card like Chilling Shade is actually a pretty good example how R&D dug themselves into a creative hole in their search for simplicity - individual cards stopped instructing you that they care about snow lands, and this 'snow mana' took on a life of its own. With that new approach to templating the snow mechanic became truly parasitic, and I don't know that there's necessarily a healthy way forward with a snow matters set.

There is some nostalgia from people who want to see them return to Dominaria. Instead of making a new Eternal Masters, they could make a new expansion centered around snow, storywise an extension of the Ice Age arc, and announce well in advance it won't be legal for standard or modern. They could even direct it towards eternal. Hell, print some mythic land that taps for 2 that can only be used to cast or activate artifacts, and you'd have a good addition to vintage. Restrict Workshop but give them a new tool, makes the format cheaper and more accessible.

[MaximumC]

This is our goal. But why would it be Wizards' goal?

Well, first, because cash money.

Their player base is a hodgepodge of people looking for different things. They can make money off of whatever they print, sure, but they make the most money when they service multiple groups. Legacy / Vintage players do not buy packs; they will pick up the playable singles at most out of new sets. But, we might by sets heavy in staple reprints we need to round out our older collection. At least, I do. (NOTE: This is not an argument against the Reserve List. New Legacy cards tap into the same market without violating the List.)

Apart from that, the older formats do serve a role in being the Porches and Bugattis of our littler nerdom. Stuff other people will watch with interest and perhaps even aspire to even if they don't buy in. They don't want those formats to die entirely, and tossing them a bone to keep them alive now and then helps Wizards trot them out in the cage to show off in the Circus now and then.

There's a less cynical reason, too, and that is that I believe most of the people in charge over at WotC actually do love this game dearly and want to see it grow. They do not have to reprint old cards or design around the RL, but they do, and that's awesome.


Instead of making a new Eternal Masters, they could make a new expansion centered around snow, storywise an extension of the Ice Age arc, and announce well in advance it won't be legal for standard or modern. They could even direct it towards eternal.

They do! It's called Commander and Conspiracy, and it's glorious and amazing.

[Stan]

Commander sets only offer a few new niche cards. I'm talking about something filled with either reprints or cards specifically tailored to stuff holes in the eternal formats. Plus a nostalgic setting like Time Spiral or Coldsnap.

[MaximumC]

Commander sets only offer a few new niche cards. I'm talking about something filled with either reprints or cards specifically tailored to stuff holes in the eternal formats. Plus a nostalgic setting like Time Spiral or Coldsnap.

Would be sweet, but I think the best we can hope for are the 2 - 4 eternal direct printings we get in products like Commander and Conspiracy each year. Time Spiral was an amazing set -- absolutely bonkers for old farts who played in the 1990s -- but I heard it had a lot of problems with the community as a whole. It seems safer for them to print directly for eternal more slowly and in products with slightly broader audiences. Remember, while we eternal players are a market they need to tap, we're smaller than their other markets. There's a point of diminishing returns in printing cards for us.

[Barook]

This is our goal. But why would it be Wizards' goal?
Wizards doesn't give two shits about Eternal. Hence the dwindling support. But neither do they really care about Modern anymore aside from milking it. People are already trying to making Frontier a thing because Modern is too expensive - a format intentionally built because they can support it with reprints. :rolleyes:

If we have a closer look, things that make Wizards actually money are Casual (aka kitchen table players; this includes Commander), Limited and Standard.

Thing is, duals are staples for Commander. If they printed new duals in some form, they could make a killing, but not because of Eternal players, but the casual crowd. They could easily print some Commander-related duals that play the same like the real thing for non-Commander players. It would be a win-win situation for pretty much everybody (except speculators, but fuck them in particular).

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

People are already trying to making Frontier a thing because Modern is too expensive - a format intentionally built because they can support it with reprints. :rolleyes:.

I have a hard time not being cynical about that format honestly.

The people that think that solves the problem of modern being "too expensive" are either naive/foolish or trying to make a buck off all the excess Dig Through Times and Collected Companies they have.

[Barook]

I have a hard time not being cynical about that format honestly.

The people that think that solves the problem of modern being "too expensive" are either naive/foolish or trying to make a buck off all the excess Dig Through Times and Collected Companies they have.
If you ask me, the format is DoA. The moment it would take off, speculators would buy out everything that could potentially see play, making the entire price thing mood.

[Stan]

I had to look up what Frontier is. Basically, it's more or less what extended would look like at the moment if it were still a thing. Lame lame lame.

[MaximumC]

I had to look up what Frontier is. Basically, it's more or less what extended would look like at the moment if it were still a thing. Lame lame lame.

Not even that; it's like Modern 2.0, starting even later in time. Though, some people want it to be double standard / extended. Of course, we know what a minority these people are, since extended died for lack of interest.

Still, you will always have people who started playing in the last few years pining for a format where they can play the cards they own without shelling out more dollas. As a casual format, let em have their fun.

[Octopusman]

Surprised no one dug this up yet.

http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/153564110643/for-instance-would-a-land-with-island-and

tinyhideoutbouquet-universe asked: For instance, would a land with Island and Mountain land types and "{T}: Roll the planar die" be considered a functional reprint of Volcanic Island?

MaRo: No. It has additional mechanical text.

[Lemnear]

Surprised no one dug this up yet.

http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/153564110643/for-instance-would-a-land-with-island-and

tinyhideoutbouquet-universe asked: For instance, would a land with Island and Mountain land types and "{T}: Roll the planar die" be considered a functional reprint of Volcanic Island?

MaRo: No. It has additional mechanical text.

Simply because the Fork/Reveberate example was even more ridiculous when they adressed it

[MaximumC]

Simply because the Fork/Reveberate example was even more ridiculous when they adressed it

Well, there are two different things going on here.

(1) What the Reprint Policy / Reserve List Actually Says

This is strictly limited to not printing "functional reprints" which, as we've discussed, is well-defined. MARO's tweet is absolutely correct insofar as adding any rules text whatsoever takes it out of this definition as a technical matter.

(2) The Spirit of the Reserve List / Fever Dreams

Back in the case of Reverberate, and even when they did premium versions of cards before that loophole closed, someone whined to WotC or threatened them. Said whine or threat was probably something along the lines of:

"Hey, I know you didn't TECHNICALLY violate your policy, but you came right up to the edge without going over. The whole point of the policy is to avoid crashing the value of older cards by not reprinting them. If you reprint cards that are essentially functional reprints -- the changes you made literally mean nothing in a context that supports the value of this card -- then you're still injuring us. You're violating the 'spirit' of the RL, and undermining its purpose, even without blatantly violating it's text."

At the time, WotC appears to have responded by taking this warning to heart and pulling back from Reverberate-style reprints. Some discussion of the "spirit" of the Reserve List followed.

However, it has not come up much since. I suspect that the argument about violation of the spirit of the list has been eroded pretty badly in the last few years, since Wizards has shown that reprints and new cards have very little if any obvious impact on the cost of older cards, at least in the long term. It has eroded to the point where they're comfortable printing a colorshifted Imperial Recruit, for crying out loud. It may be safe to ignore the "spirit" of the RL in our discussions for the time being.

[Lemnear]

So this means that printing A) anything worse than Duals are, is no solution and B) printing something similar is violating "the spirit of the RL" which means that the only (possible) solution is C) printing something better than Duals, which will never happen. That leaves us with D) aka nothing happens and we wait until the format dies.

[MaximumC]

So this means that printing A) anything worse than Duals are, is no solution and B) printing something similar is violating "the spirit of the RL" which means that the only (possible) solution is C) printing something better than Duals, which will never happen. That leaves us with D) aka nothing happens and we wait until the format dies.

What? No.

A) printing anything worse than Duals are, is no solution

Agreed. Almost. If they print something VERY CLOSE to duals, then the problem of availability is helped. ABUR duals with only one basic land type, for example, are strictly worse than the originals for the most part, but in a world of all 10 fetches many decks would not care one whit about the difference.

B) printing something similar is violating "the spirit of the RL"

Not necessarily, no. As I tried to make clear, we have not seen Wizards talk much about the "Spirit of the Reserve List" lately. If anything, I think that the reprints and new cards that have failed to really hurt old card prices have undermined the whole concept of there being a "Spirit" of the RL at all. The concept may have very little mental muscle left at this point.

which means that the only (possible) solution is C) printing something better than Duals, which will never happen

Even if your premises were true, this conclusion is totally wrong. You have to print something DIFFERENT from the original Duals. Magic cards do not exist on a single-value axis of good<--->bad. It's absolutely possible to print something that is better than duals in one case, but worse in another.

I gave some dumb homebrew examples earlier. Just to drive the point home, here are some of them again:

ABUR Dual but if it ETB tapped unless you play it from your library, and if you do play it from your library, you gain 2 life when it ETB.

This is better than ABUR Duals if you play it with a fetch, and worse if you play it from your hand. Miracles probably takes that trade any day of the week since it helps gain life.

ABUR Dual but it has "When this ETB, each player scrys 1."

This is better than ABUR duals if you have a deck with lots of precise answers or if you need to know your topdeck, and worse if your opponent has that kind of deck.

City of Brass but without life loss and has the text "When this becomes tapped, sacrifice a land that has more than one basic land type."

This is better than a single ABUR dual in a vacuum, but does not allow you to play ABUR duals along side it.

D'ya get the point?

[cartoonist]

Print a new dual with "When X comes into play, exile the top 2 cards of your library. Yeah, Brainstorm could abuse it, but no more than it would with a fetchland.

[Mr.C]

I still think Wizards wishes we'd just quietly go away and stop bothering them.

[Lemnear]

stuff



I think you miss the core problem: Anything incarnation of fetchable multicolor lands which is ANY WORSE OR CONDITIONAL than A/B/U Duals is straight up subpar and ergo NOT REDUCING THE DEMAND FOR DUALS.

[Cartesian]

Back in the case of Reverberate, and even when they did premium versions of cards before that loophole closed, someone whined to WotC or threatened them.
Who? We want names. Who should we blame for this state of misery, if not the spokespeople for the WotC?
Was it Richard Garfield? The CEO of Hasbro? Shareholders? Donald Trump? Who?

[ramanujan]

I really don't see a problem with the price of duals and cards on the restricted list.

I see that there are a lot of people out there that wont buy them due to their price, which is fine. If no one was willing to pay the price, the price would go down.

There were a lot of duals printed, they are constantly available for purchase. It is not an issue of availability.

I think it is not appropriate to devalue the collections of those people that bought duals to support the cohort that didn't/won't. I am aware that my opinion is not shared by the majority, but I am voicing it anyway. These threads always look like a whine fest of people asking for a handout.

[Julian23]

If no one was willing to pay the price, the price would go down.

This is the part where things fall apart when it comes to RL cards. People are still willing to pay. But that doesn't tell you anything about whether more people also play. And for most of the time, if traders can't sell a dual at price X, they don't lower prices - they just don't sell then. Eventually someone will pay.

The consequence? Tournament attendance has been falling a lot. I remember having weeklies with 50-60 players. No we barely gather 15-20 for monthlies.

Also, don't be that guy to start talking about "handouts" (or even worse: "entitlement"). You're probably better than that.

[RobNC]

I think you miss the core problem: Anything incarnation of fetchable multicolor lands which is ANY WORSE OR CONDITIONAL than A/B/U Duals is straight up subpar and ergo NOT REDUCING THE DEMAND FOR DUALS.

It can reduce the demand if the change or "drawback" isn't necessarily worse, such as the fetchable fastland I mentioned before. With tight manabases and Wasteland flying around so much those lands would the overwhelming majority of the time be as functional as ABUR duals.

Shock lands are an obvious drawback that makes them not even close to as good. BFZ "battle lands" are an obvious drawback because it can't enter untapped before T3 most likely, and Legacy decks don't play that many basics. But a land with "Scry 1" on it? A land with another ability such as "when this land enters the battlefield, tap your Commander" that won't affect Legacy? You can bet that will certainly lessen demand for true ABUR duals.

Lands with minimal drawback wouldn't fly in Standard, but they could very easily be added into a Commander set, and would most definitely impact Legacy.

[MaximumC]

I think you miss the core problem: Anything incarnation of fetchable multicolor lands which is ANY WORSE OR CONDITIONAL than A/B/U Duals is straight up subpar and ergo NOT REDUCING THE DEMAND FOR DUALS.

But, that's not true unless you are talking about demand for Tundra (or whatever) in particular as itself for collector's purposes. If they print something that is BETTER than Tundra in SOME decks, then those decks will play the new card. If there are reasonable alternatives that compete with dual lands, then there will be a larger supply of Legacy-playable lands, and this, by definition, will increase supply of things needed to play Legacy.

I think you're stuck on the idea that duals have a particular role in Legacy right now and you're not opening yourself up to the possibility that this role could easily be diminished by situationally better/worse printings. Again, look at how Spell Pierce / Flusterstorm / Mental Misstep / etc diminished the role of Mana Drain in Vintage. That same thing could EASILY happen in Legacy.



But a land with "Scry 1" on it? A land with another ability such as "when this land enters the battlefield, tap your Commander" that won't affect Legacy? You can bet that will certainly lessen demand for true ABUR duals.


See, RobNC agrees with me. Case closed! ;)

[ramanujan]

This is the part where things fall apart when it comes to RL cards. People are still willing to pay. But that doesn't tell you anything about whether more people also play. And for most of the time, if traders can't sell a dual at price X, they don't lower prices - they just don't sell then. Eventually someone will pay.

The consequence? Tournament attendance has been falling a lot. I remember having weeklies with 50-60 players. No we barely gather 15-20 for monthlies.

Also, don't be that guy to start talking about "handouts" (or even worse: "entitlement"). You're probably better than that.

Firstly, there are regular auctions which don't have any buy it now. Secondly, you will have to explain how you have any proof beyond random conjecture that high buy it now auctions have affected tournament attendance.

I have a more plausible conjecture for the decrease in tournament attendance. Modern got popular and Wizards put the ban hammer on stores allowing proxies. I saw these two factors affect several stores I regularly go to.

Honestly, whose explanation makes the most sense?

I am sorry it upsets you that I said handout. I'm not sure what being that guy means, but I guess that's me. I don't think players should expect price changing quantities of reprints or functionally identical reprints at the cost of the people who paid to get in the format.

Most of us that bought in were told no more reprints ever. That piece of knowledge plays a significant factor in deciding to spend huge sums of money on ink and cardboard collectibles. If Wizards abolished the restricted list after so many people and stores bought in assuming it would remain, there would be a significant backlash and thier reputation would tarnish measurably. The same would happen if they printed "snow duals" or any other trick to get around the reserved list.

[nedleeds]

Stop wasting time pontificating about Snow duals. They are, given the card pool, strictly better. Maybe in the same set they print a Snow Stone Rain for 1R or something to punish paupers but regardless. Legendary Duals fit the commander schtick way better, are strictly worse, but help alleviate the burden for poor people who need the gentleman's Volcanic or Bayou for whatever deck they are copying off the internet. Just buyout Mirror Gallery when they are spoiled.

[RobNC]

The ban on proxies was an overreaction which they clarified. You just can't use proxies in sanctioned events.

Plenty of LGS still run proxy events. Mine does, which attracts new players, and it's unsanctioned. They play with proxies, get hooked, and slowly buy the real cards to replace them.

[MaximumC]

I am sorry it upsets you that I said handout. I'm not sure what being that guy means, but I guess that's me. I don't think players should expect price changing quantities of reprints or functionally identical reprints at the cost of the people who paid to get in the format.

Most of us that bought in were told no more reprints ever. That piece of knowledge plays a significant factor in deciding to spend huge sums of money of ink and cardboard collectibles. If Wizards abolished the restricted list after so many people and stores bought in assuming it would remain, there would be a significant backlash and thier reputation would tarnish measurably. The same would happen if they printed "snow duals" or any other trick to get around the reserved list.

A reasonable opinion to have, but please consider that all of us who bought in early (I've been playing since Unlimited) and have all the staples are perhaps injured more severely by a lack of tournaments and people to play with than by loss of value due to reprints.

Which would you rather have:

(1) A collection of cards under glass or in a safe somewhere that you hardly ever use, but you might be able to sell for a tidy profit sometime in the future; or

(2) Cards that you can bust out and play a few times a month.


And keeping the RL in place is a ticking time bomb, as it will be an incentive for the Chinese to perfect their counterfeits (if they haven't done so already). And then many people, stores AND Wizards are pretty much fucked.

Not to mention people getting robbed/murdered over their collection.

Or, if you want a more extreme argument, here ya go, I guess. :)

[Barook]

Most of us that bought in were told no more reprints ever. That piece of knowledge plays a significant factor in deciding to spend huge sums of money on ink and cardboard collectibles. If Wizards abolished the restricted list after so many people and stores bought in assuming it would remain, there would be a significant backlash and thier reputation would tarnish measurably. The same would happen if they printed "snow duals" or any other trick to get around the reserved list.
And keeping the RL in place is a ticking time bomb, as it will be an incentive for the Chinese to perfect their counterfeits (if they haven't done so already). And then many people, stores AND Wizards are pretty much fucked.

Not to mention people getting robbed/murdered over their collection.

[Lemnear]

But, that's not true unless you are talking about demand for Tundra (or whatever) in particular as itself for collector's purposes. If they print something that is BETTER than Tundra in SOME decks, then those decks will play the new card. If there are reasonable alternatives that compete with dual lands, then there will be a larger supply of Legacy-playable lands, and this, by definition, will increase supply of things needed to play Legacy.

I think you're stuck on the idea that duals have a particular role in Legacy right now and you're not opening yourself up to the possibility that this role could easily be diminished by situationally better/worse printings. Again, look at how Spell Pierce / Flusterstorm / Mental Misstep / etc diminished the role of Mana Drain in Vintage. That same thing could EASILY happen in Legacy.

So you want to print SITUATIONAL BETTER DUALS. Great. That means they suck ass in all but one deck concept. Leaves the other 95% of decks still need A/B/U variant Duals. Mind that there is a fine line between being conditional and blatant powercreep

[iatee]

Most of us that bought in were told no more reprints ever. That piece of knowledge plays a significant factor in deciding to spend huge sums of money on ink and cardboard collectibles. If Wizards abolished the restricted list after so many people and stores bought in assuming it would remain, there would be a significant backlash and thier reputation would tarnish measurably. The same would happen if they printed "snow duals" or any other trick to get around the reserved list.

Look, nobody wants to see their collections tank in value, but the long term threat to the value of your legacy collection is not 'Wizards reprints a bunch of stuff', it's 'People stop playing legacy.' Ignoring the demand side of things is silly because that's where all the 'value' comes from anyway. Your Underground Sea isn't worth its weight in gold because it's made of magic paper, it's worth that much because lots of people want to play with the card 'Underground Sea'.

It is totally conceivable that reserve list cards could go up in value if Wizards had a strategic way of reprinting them and also put some effort into growing the format. (They will not do this, however.)

[nedleeds]

The ban on proxies was an overreaction which they clarified. You just can't use proxies in sanctioned events.

Plenty of LGS still run proxy events. Mine does, which attracts new players, and it's unsanctioned. They play with proxies, get hooked, and slowly buy the real cards to replace them.

Proxies are cancer. Players just don't invest in the game and why would they, they don't have to play with real cards? The store gets hammered because players don't have to play with real cards. Players who do invest in their decks feel like shit when they lose to a Griselbrand written on a swamp. Onlookers wonder WTF is going on since all the games are basic lands. Fake decks for practice are fine, but not for events, everyone loses.

[RobNC]

Proxies are cancer. Players just don't invest in the game and why would they, they don't have to play with real cards? The store gets hammered because players don't have to play with real cards. Players who do invest in their decks feel like shit when they lose to a Griselbrand written on a swamp. Onlookers wonder WTF is going on since all the games are basic lands. Fake decks for practice are fine, but not for events, everyone loses.

Not everyone has the eternal scene that Atlanta does, so for some of us that's the only way to get the format kickstarted. Hell, you guys even run a vintage event once a month! We allow proxies for our weeklies to get people to attend, but probably only 25% of people who play each week actually take advantage of that as the rest of us already had decks or have been building decks. Our quarterly tournaments are sanctioned and don't allow proxies; the last one got more people than the standard IQs that ran the night before.

We had one guy who played Modern Burn and eventually bought the few cheap pieces to make Legacy Burn. Another was just borrowing decks until he got a lot of money for the holidays and just dropped $3000 on Sneak & Show in one shot. And yet another has been slowly building Shardless for the last year, every month or two adding another real dual or Tarmogoyf. People will invest in it, but they need to experience it first.

[MaximumC]

Proxies are cancer. Players just don't invest in the game and why would they, they don't have to play with real cards? The store gets hammered because players don't have to play with real cards. Players who do invest in their decks feel like shit when they lose to a Griselbrand written on a swamp. Onlookers wonder WTF is going on since all the games are basic lands. Fake decks for practice are fine, but not for events, everyone loses.

When you complain about "proxies," what are you talking about, exactly? The term "proxy" gets tossed around incorrectly. Wizards actually has specific definitions of different types of non-official cards.

From: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/proxies-policy-and-communication-2016-01-14


...a judge may issue a proxy for use only for the duration of that event so the player can continue playing.

* * *

A playtest card is most commonly a basic land with the name of a different card written on it with a marker. Playtest cards aren't trying to be reproductions of real Magic cards; they don't have official art and they wouldn't pass even as the real thing under the most cursory glance. Fans use playtest cards to test out new deck ideas before building out a deck for real and bringing it to a sanctioned tournament. And that's perfectly fine with us. Wizards of the Coast has no desire to police playtest cards made for personal, non-commercial use, even if that usage takes place in a store.


So, specifically:

Proxy = Approved replacement by a judge when your actual card is damaged in play.
Counterfeit = A not-authentic Magic card that might pass for the real thing in some relevant circumstance.
Play-Test = A not-authentic Magic card that would not pass for real under even the most cursory glance.


So you want to print SITUATIONAL BETTER DUALS. Great. That means they suck ass in all but one deck concept. Leaves the other 95% of decks still need A/B/U variant Duals. Mind that there is a fine line between being conditional and blatant powercreep

You might be a bit hyperbolic, but you're not wrong. By definition, a situationally better/worse dual land would only help some decks and would offer no help to others. But, again, what are we really after here? Do we want everyone to have access to every deck currently played in Legacy, or are we after allowing MORE people to play SOME deck in Legacy at a competitive level? As long as we are after the latter, then any increase in supply of cards opening up SOME decks will help.

[MaximumC]

Your Underground Sea isn't worth its weight in gold because it's made of magic paper, it's worth that much because lots of people want to play with the card 'Underground Sea'.

I was interested, so I ran the numbers on this. It looks like a Magic card weighs 1.8 grams or so. Underground Sea (Revised) retails for 317.85 according to MTG Goldfish, or about 176.58 per gram. 24K pure gold sells at about 37.17 per gram, according to google.

So, your Underground Sea is almost FIVE TIMES as valuable, retail, as an equal weight of pure gold.

[ramanujan]

[QUOTE=MaximumC;984325]A reasonable opinion to have, but please consider that all of us who bought in early (I've been playing since Unlimited) and have all the staples are perhaps injured more severely by a lack of tournaments and people to play with than by loss of value due to reprints.

Which would you rather have:

(1) A collection of cards under glass or in a safe somewhere that you hardly ever use, but you might be able to sell for a tidy profit sometime in the future; or

(2) Cards that you can bust out and play a few times a month.

I agree that between your choices, I would take the latter. However, I don't think that printing more cards will help grow the format significantly. I think it would have a huge initial splash for the cohort that always wanted in but chose not to take the plunge. However, I don't think that the initial happy feeling would last. I think the format would land about where we are now, but the cards would be cheaper. There would be the old guard that are upset that they lost thousands or tens of thousands of value, the new folks would play for a while and then do something different. Legacy is for people that want to play 10 years down the road. Furthermore, I think that reprinting takes a lot away from the allure the format has.

In legacy, you can use almost every card, going back to the early nineties. The cards are valuable and powerful. Choosing to play legacy requires that you take your time, work hard for the cards, and in some small way appreciate the trip those cards have taken. Your choice of deck will be part of you, as much as a magic deck can be. Unlike many formats, your preparation will significantly reward you with more victories.

Legacy was supremely popular when Starcitygames had weekly high end tournaments. The number of duals is still there to support the same number of people playing as there were 5 years ago, less the small number of duals that were destroyed in that time. It isn't a population of cards issue. If we were clammoring for more Zodiac dragons, I would climb aboard that train.

Reprinting can be a useful tool, but it certainly isn't the only one in the box. Wizards has been using that tool to oversell their products the last few years. I honestly worry we might have some 1988 donruss sets on our hands. The greatest tool in Wizards toolbox is their ability to design new, fun, and original cards/strategies for the community. In my opinion, reprints and bannings should be used sparingly, if at all.

I respect your opinion, but I don't come to the same conclusions as you have.

Oh, and to the guy mentioning Chinese Fakes. That is an issue for almost all collectibles these days. I don't think printing cards to the point that they aren't valuable enough to counterfeit holds water. It is more like letting the people that make fakes dictate reprint policy. That is a bad thing to set a precedent on.

[H]

Look, nobody wants to see their collections tank in value, but the long term threat to the value of your legacy collection is not 'Wizards reprints a bunch of stuff', it's 'People stop playing legacy.' Ignoring the demand side of things is silly because that's where all the 'value' comes from anyway. Your Underground Sea isn't worth its weight in gold because it's made of magic paper, it's worth that much because lots of people want to play with the card 'Underground Sea'.

It is totally conceivable that reserve list cards could go up in value if Wizards had a strategic way of reprinting them and also put some effort into growing the format. (They will not do this, however.)

Quoting this so it will be on this page too, since it's the truth. If no one is playing/can afford to play, guess what your collection is worth?

I own an English Imperial Seal, guess what I felt when they printed it as a Judge promo and it's value halved. Nothing. Literally nothing. In fact, if anything, I am happy it's a Judge promo now, it was so stupidly scarce before.

[ramanujan]

Quoting this so it will be on this page too, since it's the truth. If no one is playing/can afford to play, guess what your collection is worth?

I own an English Imperial Seal, guess what I felt when they printed it as a Judge promo and it's value halved. Nothing. Literally nothing. In fact, if anything, I am happy it's a Judge promo now, it was so stupidly scarce before.

When playing legacy costs more than a golf hobby this argument will make sense. You can buy in to the format for less than a grand, play to your hearts content, then exit if you please with most of your money back. Sure, you could buy in at 3 grand as well, but the story is the same. Golf is simply more expensive as a primary hobby. It isn't like you need to set the duals on fire to get the mana out of them.

[Lemnear]

You might be a bit hyperbolic, but you're not wrong. By definition, a situationally better/worse dual land would only help some decks and would offer no help to others. But, again, what are we really after here? Do we want everyone to have access to every deck currently played in Legacy, or are we after allowing MORE people to play SOME deck in Legacy at a competitive level? As long as we are after the latter, then any increase in supply of cards opening up SOME decks will help.

Essentially, we are looking for a longterm solution for all players interested in eternal formats, so I don't think the situational cards would help in these regards, but might even harm the format if the pendelum swings to them being powercreep. Personally, I want the formst cost to be DRASTICALLY cut, so people can actually enter for the price of a comparable hobby. For me MtG does not seem to be able to attract kids if they have to shell out more money for a pile of cards than for a videogame console plus a bunch of games or a whole snowboard set. And at this point we talk about the madness which is Modern, Legacy & Vintage. How should 1000$ or more decks attract kids from highschool?

[nedleeds]

Quoting this so it will be on this page too, since it's the truth. If no one is playing/can afford to play, guess what your collection is worth?


My vintage ards say otherwise. They've tripled in the last 6-8 years. If you have the money to afford the cards and hold them, you can afford to travel a few times a year to get together with other people with disposable income and enjoy a strategic card game.

[rlesko]

It has eroded to the point where they're comfortable printing a colorshifted Imperial Recruit, for crying out loud. It may be safe to ignore the "spirit" of the RL in our discussions for the time being.

You do realize Imperial Recruiter is not reserved ?

[bruizar]

When playing legacy costs more than a golf hobby this argument will make sense. You can buy in to the format for less than a grand, play to your hearts content, then exit if you please with most of your money back. Sure, you could buy in at 3 grand as well, but the story is the same. Golf is simply more expensive as a primary hobby. It isn't like you need to set the duals on fire to get the mana out of them.

First time someone made a good suggestion for a functional reprint.

Bayou Bonfire
T: Add B or G and burn Bayou Bonfire.

[MaximumC]

First time someone made a good suggestion for a functional reprint.

Bayou Bonfire
T: Add B or G and burn Bayou Bonfire.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=9764&type=card

[Brael]

My vintage ards say otherwise. They've tripled in the last 6-8 years. If you have the money to afford the cards and hold them, you can afford to travel a few times a year to get together with other people with disposable income and enjoy a strategic card game.

Most people who talk about getting to play with cards, are talking about getting to play with them a few times a month not a few times a year.

[ramanujan]

Most people who talk about getting to play with cards, are talking about getting to play with them a few times a month not a few times a year.

I don't want to push this discussion to far off topic, but I think this is worth mentioning.

Things change when a real job, a spouse, kids, faith, etc are competing for your time.

[mistercakes]

Even more reason to get younger people in with smaller budgets.

[Crimhead]

^^^This.
Legacy has a strong following - much moreso than Vintage did when prices became as crazy in that format as Legacy prices became a few years ago. The real threat posed by stagnant growth is that as we get older some of us get out to play more rarely. Young blood is important in order to sustain a vibrant scene.

[Lemnear]

^^^This.
Legacy has a strong following - much moreso than Vintage did when prices became as crazy in that format as Legacy prices became a few years ago. The real threat posed by stagnant growth is that as we get older some of us get out to play more rarely. Young blood is important in order to sustain a vibrant scene.

I agree. Its just a fact that a grand is no viable buy-in into eternal formats

[rlesko]

I agree. Its just a fact that a grand is no viable buy-in into eternal formats

Are you saying that a grand is not a realistic price point to buy in at (most decks cost more), or that the buy in price should not be a grand?

[MaximumC]

Are you saying that a grand is not a realistic price point to buy in at (most decks cost more), or that the buy in price should not be a grand?

Not only that, but as us old folks don't sell out and play less, we take cards out of circulation.

[mistercakes]

When I bought in, I haggled for 60 dollar useas. I don't think I'd have 1/4th of the collection I have had I started within the last 3 years. (I bought in around 2010)

[Stan]

I remember buying French bb USeas in good condition for less than 10 euro apiece. Ah, those were the days.

[Lemnear]

Are you saying that a grand is not a realistic price point to buy in at (most decks cost more), or that the buy in price should not be a grand?

Both.

To play a deck like Miracles or (god forbid) Vintage, you can not get in for a grand. I sure expect that people now come up with some tier 1.5 or tier 2 decks for 500 bucks, but that's missing the point by intent: People don't want to bring knifes to gun fights. For the second point made, its pretty clear that you can not expect that a 12yo can afford a compeditive deck, which probably means that they stick to Standard or never start MtG in the first place, but buy a PS4 and games for the price a damn Standard deck would cost them.

So the question is: How you want to attract young, new players to Eternal if they can't afford it in the first place?

[ramanujan]

Both.

To play a deck like Miracles or (god forbid) Vintage, you can not get in for a grand. I sure expect that people now come up with some tier 1.5 or tier 2 decks for 500 bucks, but that's missing the point by intent: People don't want to bring knifes to gun fights. For the second point made, its pretty clear that you can not expect that a 12yo can afford a compeditive deck, which probably means that they stick to Standard or never start MtG in the first place, but buy a PS4 and games for the price a damn Standard deck would cost them.

So the question is: How you want to attract young, new players to Eternal if they can't afford it in the first place?

I'm sure there are exceptions, but new players should probably learn the game with draft, standard, etc before jumping in to a format like Legacy.

I wouldn't buy a baby grand after a few piano lessons.
I wouldn't get a Patek Philippe based on a new interest in horology.
I wouldn't buy a new set of Pings after one round of golf.
I wouldn't buy a boat just to go fishing.

Legacy is the best format, in my opinion. The mechanics, synergies, long history, and diversity of strategies are unparalleled. In my opinion, the barrier to entry is appropriate. Every one of the formats below can be a very enjoyable way to play Magic.

A night of limited is less than 30 bucks
A good EDH deck costs about a hundred bucks
Standard costs 2-7 hundred to compete
Modern costs about double that
Legacy costs twice as much as modern
Vintage costs about 3 times as much as Legacy

I really don't see a problem here. Maybe I am a bit off on these monetary relationships, but I am materially in the right place.

[kirkusjones]

What watches are at the top of the competitive Horology scene these days?

Magic is a game meant to be played with other people. If people can't afford to play, then all you're left with is a bunch of pretty cardbord. Yes, not everyone needs to play every format. But it is not unreasonable to want to play one of the most fun and challenging formats the game has to offer. This elitist attitude about the status of a ludicrously priced barrier of entry does nothing to grow the game or the community. If you're looking for exclusivity, join a country club and look down your nose at all of us peasants. I'll happily take a a hit to my collection if it means I don't have to resort to playing Modern or god forbid, Standard.

[rlesko]

Both.

To play a deck like Miracles or (god forbid) Vintage, you can not get in for a grand. I sure expect that people now come up with some tier 1.5 or tier 2 decks for 500 bucks, but that's missing the point by intent: People don't want to bring knifes to gun fights. For the second point made, its pretty clear that you can not expect that a 12yo can afford a compeditive deck, which probably means that they stick to Standard or never start MtG in the first place, but buy a PS4 and games for the price a damn Standard deck would cost them.

So the question is: How you want to attract young, new players to Eternal if they can't afford it in the first place?

I would not expect 12 year olds to play legacy. I do agree that price was getting out of hand, but actually prices have been cooling off as of late. I would expect 12 year olds to play standard and dream of legacy, and not accomplish that goal until having a part time job. Even 10 years ago you could not play legacy for the price of a game system, I remember buying underground seas for $50.

Furthermore, the top two decks in legacy (D&T and miracles) have essentially no reserved cards among them (except tundra). Due to power creep and increasing non basic land hate I think it's actually possible most reserved list cards or decks become largely obsoleted. At the very least, this would drive the price of duals down.

[Lemnear]

Furthermore, the top two decks in legacy (D&T and miracles) have essentially no reserved cards among them (except tundra). Due to power creep and increasing non basic land hate I think it's actually possible most reserved list cards or decks become largely obsoleted. At the very least, this would drive the price of duals down.

The D&T from SCG IQ is MORE THAN ONE GRAND according to TCG prices DESPITE no RL cards. Its madness, so why do we even argue?



A good EDH deck costs about a hundred bucks.

You don't even get the manabase of a 2c EDH for that, not to talk about 3c or 4c ones. Or are you arguing based on the boxed EDHs WotC sells?

[Darkenslight]

The D&T from SCG IQ is MORE THAN ONE GRAND according to TCG prices DESPITE no RL cards. Its madness, so why do we even argue?



You don't even get the manabase of a 2c EDH for that, not to talk about 3c or 4c ones. Or are you arguing based on the boxed EDHs WotC sells?

The entry-level decks can be had for $40-50 (excepting the original Commander's Arsenal), and you can modify them to be semi-competitive (ouside the lastest four-color ones) for well under $100. Trust me, I've done it three times now. That said, at the moment, paper Legacy is out of the price range of most players who don't already have the cards, unless that player is willing to liquidate their other format decks. That shouldn't really be necessary to enjoy the game to its fullest.

[ramanujan]

You don't even get the manabase of a 2c EDH for that, not to talk about 3c or 4c ones. Or are you arguing based on the boxed EDHs WotC sells?

I play quite a bit of edh, I have found that the benefit from an expensive mana base to be relativy small. EDH games are won by playing politics well, understanding your opponents, and timing your big threats. I actually stopped putting expensive lands in my decks and did better! I found that when random opponents see fetches and duals, they view it as sign of a more threatening deck, which resulted in me getting taking out early. Also, fetching in EDH is a time consuming process. Lastly, my point about EDH wasn't to say that a fully tweaked out amazingly powerful EDH deck costs a hundred, it was that a good EDH deck can be had for a hundred.

[Crimhead]

II think it's actually possible most reserved list cards or decks become largely obsoleted. Competetive (and Tier two) decks that run RL cards:

Miracles
Lands
Shardless
Eldrazi
Infect
Aggro Loam
Delver/Pyro decks
MUD
12 Post
Jund
Maverick
Stoneblade
Enchantress
Reanimator
Dredge
Sneak Show
Omnitell
Storm
Elves
Alluren
Pox
Imperial Painter
Nic Fit
And you think it's possible most of these decks will become largely obsoleted due to non-basic land hate? Leaving the format with what?

D&T
Merfolk
Burn
Manaless Dredge
Reset Tide
Affinity
I'm just not seeing this as even remotely realistically.



A night of limited is less than 30 bucks
A good EDH deck costs about a hundred bucks
Standard costs 2-7 hundred to compete
Modern costs about double that
Legacy costs twice as much as modern
Vintage costs about 3 times as much as Legacy

I really don't see a problem here.Then you obviously don't have a problem with Legacy getting almost no new players ever. Legacy became popular when Standard decks costs $200-$300 and (Tier one) Legacy decks were only about double that price. That was a reasonable entry barrier allowing a lot of people to join in and play the greatest format ever. Not so anymore.

My question is how much money should it costs to buy a typical competetive deck before you would agree that it is a Problem? Right now most Tier one decks run at least $2000.00. What price point would be "problematic"? $3500.00? $5000.00? $10000.00?

[Dice_Box]

There was an "Eternal" Format locally, back when that was a thing. (Reserved list banned) It was DnT, the format.

[ramanujan]

Then you obviously don't have a problem with Legacy getting almost no new players ever. Legacy became popular when Standard decks costs $200-$300 and (Tier one) Legacy decks were only about double that price. That was a reasonable entry barrier allowing a lot of people to join in and play the greatest format ever. Not so anymore.

My question is how much money should it costs to buy a typical competetive deck before you would agree that it is a Problem? Right now most Tier one decks run at least $2000.00. What price point would be "problematic"? $3500.00? $5000.00? $10000.00?

Most of the restricted list cards that are used in competitive decks are dual lands. I guess that is why this topic is being discussed here, snow duals. There is a great eternal format which supports reprinting scarce and expensive cards, it is called Modern. There are a lot of folks that think modern is way too expensive as well. I don't have an answer for your question, because I don't think the question should play a role in reprint policy for legacy. Market conditions and the meta game currently decide the price of entry, which is fine. There will always be a a group that complains about prices.

[Lemnear]

Pls answer the question asked instead of pointing to "people always complaining". What do you think is a reasonable cost for 10-16 yo kids to get into the game/format on a compeditive level?

P.S.: Please spare us with nonsense like "You can buy a DUEL DECK and slowly build from there". We all know that it does not work at all, because people will win nothing, get slapped left and right, losing interrest/fun fast as a result

[ramanujan]

Pls answer the question asked instead of pointing to "people always complaining". What do you think is a reasonable cost for 10-16 yo kids to get into the game/format on a compeditive level?

P.S.: Please spare us with nonsense like "You can buy a DUEL DECK and slowly build from there". We all know that it does not work at all, because people will win nothing, get slapped left and right, losing interrest/fun fast as a result

I did answer your question, in a way. I'm not sure that my answer was what you wanted, but it was my answer. Here it is again.

A reasonable cost for getting in to the format is dictated by the market and metagame. Right now that is about a grand. A grand can buy Death and Taxes or Eldrazi.

I really don't think that the age of a person should affect the price of the magic cards they purchase. My definition applies to people of all ages. I know I'm being a bit silly here. Teenagers are typically new players. I have no problem with teenagers buying in to the format. Save your money and buy in to the format, no one is stopping you. I made a couple hundred a week when I was a teenager, that amounts to a little over a month of savings to get a tier one deck.

I don't think Wizards should measurably deprecate the collections of stores and long time players to let the new blood get a free pass to the format. New players are the least likely group to be playing 5 years from now. Long time players and brick and mortar stores are far more likely to be part of the community in 5 years. Alienating the stores and lifers has a greater long term detrimental affect on the game than telling this years new blood that they won't get a handout.

It is as simple as that and it is just my opinion.

[kirkusjones]

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that reprints happen. That means either they're going into packs or into supplemental product like Commander. Which stores get at a wholesale price. Aren't they going to make more money off selling sealed product to all of these undeserving upstarts looking for a handout than they would off of the one kid who saves up and buys a dual a month? Giving people access to the cards will translate into profit much faster than hoping new players pony up the ridiculous cost of entry that currently exists. So the only people who have anything to lose are the hoarders and collectors, who the GAME was not created for.

[dragonwisdom]

[QUOTE=MaximumC;984325]A reasonable opinion to have, but please consider that all of us who bought in early (I've been playing since Unlimited) and have all the staples are perhaps injured more severely by a lack of tournaments and people to play with than by loss of value due to reprints.

Which would you rather have:

(1) A collection of cards under glass or in a safe somewhere that you hardly ever use, but you might be able to sell for a tidy profit sometime in the future; or

(2) Cards that you can bust out and play a few times a month.

I agree that between your choices, I would take the latter. However, I don't think that printing more cards will help grow the format significantly. I think it would have a huge initial splash for the cohort that always wanted in but chose not to take the plunge. However, I don't think that the initial happy feeling would last. I think the format would land about where we are now, but the cards would be cheaper. There would be the old guard that are upset that they lost thousands or tens of thousands of value, the new folks would play for a while and then do something different. Legacy is for people that want to play 10 years down the road. Furthermore, I think that reprinting takes a lot away from the allure the format has.

In legacy, you can use almost every card, going back to the early nineties. The cards are valuable and powerful. Choosing to play legacy requires that you take your time, work hard for the cards, and in some small way appreciate the trip those cards have taken. Your choice of deck will be part of you, as much as a magic deck can be. Unlike many formats, your preparation will significantly reward you with more victories.

Legacy was supremely popular when Starcitygames had weekly high end tournaments. The number of duals is still there to support the same number of people playing as there were 5 years ago, less the small number of duals that were destroyed in that time. It isn't a population of cards issue. If we were clammoring for more Zodiac dragons, I would climb aboard that train.

Reprinting can be a useful tool, but it certainly isn't the only one in the box. Wizards has been using that tool to oversell their products the last few years. I honestly worry we might have some 1988 donruss sets on our hands. The greatest tool in Wizards toolbox is their ability to design new, fun, and original cards/strategies for the community. In my opinion, reprints and bannings should be used sparingly, if at all.

I respect your opinion, but I don't come to the same conclusions as you have.

Oh, and to the guy mentioning Chinese Fakes. That is an issue for almost all collectibles these days. I don't think printing cards to the point that they aren't valuable enough to counterfeit holds water. It is more like letting the people that make fakes dictate reprint policy. That is a bad thing to set a precedent on.

Well said and agree.
Legacy is a format that is earned through years of collecting and not after 1-2 years of playing.

[ramanujan]

To kirkusjones:

I don't look down at people.

I think a short windfall of profit that would emerge from your scenario would be vastly outweighed by several other factors. Each of the factors below should be more important, financially, than that short duration windfall of profit.

Breaking a promiss that was made to your customers would tarnish the reputation of the company.
Devaluing people's and stores collections has long term affects, why should anyone buy or keep any expensive cards if they are just going to be reprinted?

Magic has been around almost a quarter century. It did this by avoiding bad business tactics like short term money grabs.

I really do understand that it seems unfair that some people got duals for 10 bucks each and now they are over a hundred, but sometimes things are unfair. Most of our parents were offered pensions that were far more valuable than the 401k matches we see today. A lot of the student loans taken out by college students today won't ever get repaid, but mine had to be. I'm not upset, life is just unfair sometimes. I bought in to the market when it bottomed out in 2008 and finished my set of forty duals the day the restricted list final update was made. I have had some good luck in life and some bad, life is just unfair sometimes. I'm not trying to be rude or insincere, but maybe that is a lesson I didn't learn until I was older. Perhaps it is a lesson that some of my peers that want cheap duals have yet to learn.

[dragonwisdom]

Pls answer the question asked instead of pointing to "people always complaining". What do you think is a reasonable cost for 10-16 yo kids to get into the game/format on a compeditive level?

P.S.: Please spare us with nonsense like "You can buy a DUEL DECK and slowly build from there". We all know that it does not work at all, because people will win nothing, get slapped left and right, losing interrest/fun fast as a result


It depends on how long they have been collecting and playing. There are different price points for MTG.

Draft, Sealed, Standard, Modern, Legacy and Vintage for constructed play.
There are others but these are the big ones.

At 10-16 age - Draft, sealed and in some cases Standard are probably the best for most 10-16 year olds. My local LGS has a special league for them. Older players are not allowed in and you don't pay much.
5-10 dollars per week is fair for an LGS. Maybe closer to 5 bucks or free for the younger players.

I have seen 16 year olds play Legacy, but it was clear they were not avg 16 year olds. Their binders were stacked.

Modern and Legacy are for players who have played a while. People don't seem to get or even understand that. Also, people are not entitled to play every deck. Though we live in an age of entitlement. I play
Burn, Deadguy, Death and Taxes, No-Port Goblins all of which are affordable by legacy standards.

[nedleeds]

Who the hell wants 10-16 year olds playing Legacy? Go play pokemon.

[kirkusjones]

Ramanujan, at what price point do people just stop buying to Legacy? The format, in its current form, is unsustainable. At that point, what value will the cards have? What will the shops do with their duals? You want to think long term, let's think long term. Why would a company like Star City phase out Legacy if there was still profit to be made?

There will always be a market for older cards, especially among older players and those looking to pimp their decks.

Why is there all this devotion to exclusivity? Want exclusive? Play 93/94. I want to be able to burst onions all over people's faces, not play against Tron or Splinter Twin.

[non-inflammable]

Who the hell wants 10-16 year olds playing Legacy? Go play pokemon.

not to quote you for specifics but for timing...
a local 15 y.o. that had a knack for opening lots of standard packs also got very lucky with opening expeditions.

he handed me several full art expeditions and his birthday money and i gave him a complete D&T deck with 3 karakas.
it took a month or two with him getting me all the money but he had a fully powered D&T deck.
this was also an opportunity for me to get rid of all my "played" ports and wastelands.

2 months later he gave me his christmas money and more full arts and i gave him a complete "oops all spells" deck.
and previously, at a SCG NJ he took miracles with no duals but SHOCK LANDS and went further than any one else from our LGS.

15 year old kid, did it all by himself from just playing standard and opening packs.

an aside to this story but just as relevant since we are talking about TEENAGERS...
he sold the D&T deck for some such stupid reason and now COMPLAINS that "oops all spells" isn't competitive enough!

[ramanujan]

Ramanujan, at what price point do people just stop buying to Legacy? The format, in its current form, is unsustainable. At that point, what value will the cards have? What will the shops do with their duals? You want to think long term, let's think long term. Why would a company like Star City phase out Legacy if there was still profit to be made?

There will always be a market for older cards, especially among older players and those looking to pimp their decks.

Why is there all this devotion to exclusivity? Want exclusive? Play 93/94. I want to be able to burst onions all over people's faces, not play against Tron or Splinter Twin.

What do you mean by exclusive? Take a look at the attendance numbers from the Legacy GPs.

I think you have made several big assumptions on the future value of cards. Assuming inflation stays low, I would not expect huge increases to the value of duals going forward. I'm not sure why you do? Could you write out why you think that Legacy is not sustainable? I might want to quote it to someone here 5 years from now.

[Dice_Box]

I think this thread is hitting a merry-go-round much in the same way that the B/R thread does. I am not sure where it has to go from here. That said its not doing any harm.

On the topic of the "Promise". That Promise of not reprinting things was done in a different situation, with different priorities. Wizard's "Promise" is actively hurting the game now, the thing that the promise was made to save. When you do something to save someone else and then later that same thing starts hurting them, it is time to check your priorities and adapt them for the new situation you find yourself.

[kirkusjones]

There is an attitude that cost of entry to the format rightfully keeps out younger/inexperienced players. Reprints would help lower that cost. Some oppose reprints for purely financial reasons, others seem to be of the opnion that the exclusivity of the format based on that barrier lends it a certain prestige that would be diminshed if it was easier to obtain a viable Legacy deck.

As for GP numbers, if things are so great, why is there only Legacy GP in 2017? Why is Star City phasing out Legacy tournaments? Sure shops like Tales of Adventure are stepping up, and the Europeans are keeping things alive despite the screw you from Wizards, but the point remains that Legacy is on the decline, and a big part of that is the cost of entry. I will grant you I've been a bit hyperbolic, but this is the internet, after all.

Here's some tin-foil hat theorizing, just for good measure. Say Wizards does nothing about the Reserved List and just keeps printing creatures that push the format away from the need for RL cards? As people have mentioned, D&T doesn't need any cards from the list. Eldrazi uses one? Two, maybe? We could see a fundamental shift over the next five years in what the format looks like as a whole. Maybe at that point there won't be as much of a need for duals. Who knows? There is a trend of dissatisfaction though with the cost of playing eternal formats. Frontier, that weird grassroots flipper child of Modern, should be a pretty decent indication that players are tired of shelling out too much to play.

[rlesko]

Competetive (and Tier two) decks that run RL cards:

Miracles
Lands
Shardless
Eldrazi
Infect
Aggro Loam
Delver/Pyro decks
MUD
12 Post
Jund
Maverick
Stoneblade
Enchantress
Reanimator
Dredge
Sneak Show
Omnitell
Storm
Elves
Alluren
Pox
Imperial Painter
Nic Fit
And you think it's possible most of these decks will become largely obsoleted due to non-basic land hate? Leaving the format with what?

D&T
Merfolk
Burn
Manaless Dredge
Reset Tide
Affinity
I'm just not seeing this as even remotely realistically.

Then you obviously don't have a problem with Legacy getting almost no new players ever. Legacy became popular when Standard decks costs $200-$300 and (Tier one) Legacy decks were only about double that price. That was a reasonable entry barrier allowing a lot of people to join in and play the greatest format ever. Not so anymore.

My question is how much money should it costs to buy a typical competetive deck before you would agree that it is a Problem? Right now most Tier one decks run at least $2000.00. What price point would be "problematic"? $3500.00? $5000.00? $10000.00?

Congratulations on listing decks with dual lands. That was clearly something I already pointed out and if better fetchable lands get printed (than shocklands), watch out! There are basically 5 reserved cards that actually matter and they are mox diamond, city of traitors, tabernacle, LED, and gaea's cradle. I am aware there is other stuff like intuition and aluren, but they don't make top 5. Anyways, this is digressing into a no reserved list legacy topic. I'm merely saying that I wouldn't be surprised if power creep Leads to some obsolete reserved cards. But someone already said it and it's my original point you can build D&T and eldrazi which are both T1 for 1k or less. And I don't find that price point to be too prohibitive.

[dragonwisdom]

[QUOTE=kirkusjones;984617]There is an attitude that cost of entry to the format rightfully keeps out younger/inexperienced players. Reprints would help lower that cost. Some oppose reprints for purely financial reasons, others seem to be of the opnion that the exclusivity of the format based on that barrier lends it a certain prestige that would be diminshed if it was easier to obtain a viable Legacy deck.



Some of you might remember when Legacy was the new kid on the block. I remember when everyone laughed at Legacy much in the way people mocked modern when it first came out. Ditto for Frontier.

I recall there was a time when the moxes would sell for 100 and black lotus went for 250-300. I could not afford to play vintage at anytime in my life even at those prices. For the most part I could only afford a few packs here and there or perhaps a starter or two. But here is the thing, I never complained or whined like I see many players do here. I just played mtg with friends and played in a few "standard" tournaments now and then.

You all realize that the answer to the reserved list was Modern right. How are some of you missing this. In Modern Wotc can reprint what they want. If you want to play Legacy, there will be new decks for new players who have played 5-8 years or so, because it is a collectible card game. You cannot have it both ways.

In Frontier, all the sets have been reprinted to death. Is this what some of you want for Legacy. All the "Frontier" and new players are in for a rude rude awakening. They will find out that they all paid way too much for their cards at 90-100 dollars a booster box shipped.
Wotc has over printed and many of the new cards are really for practical purposes worthless much like the baseball cards of the 90's

And Wotc did support Legacy. It is called eternal Masters where FoW and wasteland and a slew of other staples were printed and some of you are still complaining. Do I need to list them for you. Eternal masters contained the most reprints in MTG history by a mile for mtg sets for Legacy.

If Wotc makes Legacy and Modern too cheap, standard is dead and most of you know this. It won't completely vanish, but it will be dead. Do you really want standard to die? I don't play standard much anymore, but I don't
want it to die. Who would want to invest their resources in a format that changes all the time. Eventually people transition into Modern or Legacy if there is a Legacy scene.

Standard is for the newer players. This is what I played ( a few times) when I was new. They did not call it standard, but that it what is was. We all went through the period where we had to collect cards and trade for them. There are no shortcuts.

If you don't like the reserved list, than go play Modern. If Modern is too expensive, you can try frontier. If frontier is too expensive, then you can try standard. If that is too expensive, you can try draft.

[kirkusjones]

Tarmogoyf has seen three printings and has maintained its value. It's not like I'm saying reprint duals at common. There is a some kind of compromise that can be made. Legacy isn't for everybody, sure. But that doesn't mean that the format shouln't grow more than the current climate allows.

[nedleeds]

As for GP numbers, if things are so great, why is there only Legacy GP in 2017?

There are 2 Legacy GPs in 2017. One is getting no support and is being held in a fucking dreadful spot for eternal.

Because WotC makes money on packs of new sets. That's it. Legacy GPs consistently bring in great numbers when held by competent TOs and given any level of support. Chiba sold out in like 2 days. See: GP Seatac great city filled with wealthy middle age people with tons of cards. Vegas will be the same way despite being on the worst day.

[dragonwisdom]

1) Wotc of the coast is on thin ice from RTR on forward due to excessive reprints. They are currently surviving on the appreciation or a savings bond of old cards - analogy taken from someone on Reddit.


2) No collectible to date has survived corporate greed. Beenie babies, Baseball cards of the mid 80's and all of the 90's, comic books bronze age and to some extent silver age are basically worthless,
stamps - 1933 and newer. Look at all those hobbies that people invested in that are basically worth less because corporations wanted a cash grab and reprinted everything to death. Like MTG with alpha/beta, and the reserved list, 1970's and below baseball cards, and rare stamps from the 1800s still have value. Do you know why? Scarcity, and that is the only reason.It is not just the digital age that caused the demise of these hobbies since the old and rare items still have major value.
And if you as a player and collector and vise versa are not vigilant, your collection will become just like the other hobbies. Corporate greed will get you. MTG is not immune and different from the above collectible hobbies.
Confidence is the only thing that keeps MTG expensive and once prices rise a certain amount, there is no going back since players and stores paid those prices. And you should not cheer for it to go back either. If you want
a game with cheap cards, then that has to be decided earlier and not later when people have bought in at those prices. Frontier will be a good example of this. Wotc will not release the print runs, because they don't
want you to know how worthless the new cards are. It is that simple. Will Frontier be popular. Perhaps. But it could also backfire on Wotc. If the playerbase gets a feeling that the cards are completely worthless, they will leave the hobby
just like the other hobbies before it. Or they will demand that a booster box should not cost 90-100 dollars. Something will give.


3) Look at Force of Will the TCG game. The company got very greedy and decided to have massive reprints. They have no reserve list or a history of rare cards to to fall back on where people were invested. The players and storeowners who bought FOW have no confidence. Some have confidence, but most do not in the product. The game is on life support.

4) snow-covered lands as pointed out by the others do indeed violate the reserve list. There is a compromise

Snow-covered tundra, with the new sub-type "Epic" (restricted to two per deck). If there is a "Legendary" land, why can't their be an "Epic"
Print these at mythic rarity in a masters set and then at expedition/invention rarity going forward.
You might have a rule that says, they cannot be played with the original dual lands to prevent wasteland-proof manabases
Epic gets around snow-covered being strictly better than non-snow covered with a restriction at two
Though two is not perfect, it should be enough with fetches and fastlands to have a solid manabase.

[ed06288]

recently i've been singing a different tune about reprints. i'm usually heavily in favor of reprints, but with modern being slow in my area and with all the stuff going on with standard and frontier, i'm starting to think they may as well leave our collections alone and let them be worth something. apparently 500-700 for a modern deck is too much, and many draft/standard players tell me that $10 shock and fetchlands for modern is too much... How much cheaper can you make it? i'm beginning to think that a modest reprint of legacy staples wouldn't help legacy much anyways. or it would just get some new people in for a few months and then they would quit/sell like so many already do for modern.

i probably have no business posting in these threads as my legacy collection is pretty modest, but i have... a really big modern collection lets put it that way and could always import a bg/x deck into legacy. it'd be alright for fnm type of stuff i guess. i wouldn't play it in a grand prix though.

and i don't think snow duals would work for legacy. odd interactions with skred and stuff. maybe they will put snow in an upcoming standard set though.

[ed06288]

also, not liking frontier as i feel it diverts attention away from standard and modern. despite frontier having massive print runs, i think cards can be expensive. flip jace is what, 40-ish now? i thought origins was printed heavily, no? either way, collected company and ugins are still $10 to $20-ish.

[RobNC]

Comparing MTG to other collectibles (baseball cards, comics, Beanie Babies) isn't a direct comparison because MTG is first and foremost a game. Most of the time a $1000 Mox will get double sleeved and shuffled and played in a deck. A $1000 comic book will sit in a case in a box, or maybe hang on a wall. As for baseball cards and Beanie Babies, people just don't care about them. They don't do anything.

[ramanujan]

1) Wotc of the coast is on thin ice from RTR on forward due to excessive reprints. They are currently surviving on the appreciation or a savings bond of old cards - analogy taken from someone on Reddit.


2) No collectible to date has survived corporate greed. Beenie babies, Baseball cards of the mid 80's and all of the 90's, comic books bronze age and to some extent silver age are basically worthless,
stamps - 1933 and newer. Look at all those hobbies that people invested in that are basically worth less because corporations wanted a cash grab and reprinted everything to death. Like MTG with alpha/beta, and the reserved list, 1970's and below baseball cards, and rare stamps from the 1800s still have value. Do you know why? Scarcity, and that is the only reason.It is not just the digital age that caused the demise of these hobbies since the old and rare items still have major value.
And if you as a player and collector and vise versa are not vigilant, your collection will become just like the other hobbies. Corporate greed will get you. MTG is not immune and different from the above collectible hobbies.
Confidence is the only thing that keeps MTG expensive and once prices rise a certain amount, there is no going back since players and stores paid those prices. And you should not cheer for it to go back either. If you want
a game with cheap cards, then that has to be decided earlier and not later when people have bought in at those prices. Frontier will be a good example of this. Wotc will not release the print runs, because they don't
want you to know how worthless the new cards are. It is that simple. Will Frontier be popular. Perhaps. But it could also backfire on Wotc. If the playerbase gets a feeling that the cards are completely worthless, they will leave the hobby
just like the other hobbies before it. Or they will demand that a booster box should not cost 90-100 dollars. Something will give.


3) Look at Force of Will the TCG game. The company got very greedy and decided to have massive reprints. They have no reserve list or a history of rare cards to to fall back on where people were invested. The players and storeowners who bought FOW have no confidence. Some have confidence, but most do not in the product. The game is on life support.

4) snow-covered lands as pointed out by the others do indeed violate the reserve list. There is a compromise

Snow-covered tundra, with the new sub-type "Epic" (restricted to two per deck). If there is a "Legendary" land, why can't their be an "Epic"
Print these at mythic rarity in a masters set and then at expedition/invention rarity going forward.
You might have a rule that says, they cannot be played with the original dual lands to prevent wasteland-proof manabases
Epic gets around snow-covered being strictly better than non-snow covered with a restriction at two
Though two is not perfect, it should be enough with fetches and fastlands to have a solid manabase.

I completely agree. Thanks for being a sane voice in the conversation. Furthermore, I share the same fears that you do about the future of the game. I think I care too much sometimes, but I have more than half of my life vested in this game, and I am more than halfway to retirement. Magic, in all of its forms, is important to me. Again, thanks.

[non-inflammable]

I've wanted to bring up this collectible GAME that was produced into oblivion (even distributed in Happy Meals) and now is laughable...
funny thing is, it started at about the same time as MTG...

POGs...

from wiki: "By 1993, the previously obscure game of milk caps, which had almost been forgotten, was now played throughout the world.
The Pog fad soared, and peaked in the mid-1990s. Pogs were being handed out for opening bank accounts and in McDonald's Happy Meals."

who still plays? got any slammers you want to trade?
or are you crying for a reprint because timmy down the street always beats you and you can't afford to buy a better slammer?

[ed06288]

high prices killed pogs, pretty much everyone sold their stuff online where the foreigners went and bought it. it now has a scene only in parts of europe, where some pro's are really good at slamming. most people have never seen a pog in their life. reprints would have saved pogs.

but idk. alpha and beta birds of paradise are a billion dollars despite all the reprints. reprinting legacy staples could give people playable proxies and keep the format healthy. and maybe the originals hold some value.

i think magic is really far away from the kind of mass "printing" seen by other collectibles. maybe a modest reprint every ten years of staples could be okay. some of the stuff really needs a facelift.
this is in contrast to my other post about 12 hours ago.

[Dice_Box]

Post once, then update, do not post over and over again.

[ramanujan]

but idk. alpha and beta birds of paradise are a billion dollars despite all the reprints.

Alpha Magical Hack is worth a lot as well, primarily because it is a alpha rare. Revised duals make up the vast majority of dual lands. Revised had a huge print run compared to the previous base sets. Revised cards were often played without sleeves. The washed out look and white boarder make revised a set that looks ugly. The reason people are upset about the barier of entry to Legacy is based significantly on the price of revised dual lands, not alpha or beta duals. Printing snow duals would have a significant adverse affect on the price of revised duals.

Think about it, would you want to play an ugly, white boarder, heavily played, underground sea or a new black boarder snow covered underground sea.

People would rarely need more than 4 duals of a specific color combination. The value of revised duals would drop like a stone. Alpha cards prices are not germane to the discussion.

[Crimhead]

I don't think Wizards should measurably deprecate the collections of stores and long time players to let the new blood get a free pass to the format. New players are the least likely group to be playing 5 years from now. Long time players and brick and mortar stores are far more likely to be part of the community in 5 years. Alienating the stores and lifers has a greater long term detrimental affect on the game than telling this years new blood that they won't get a handout.

It is as simple as that and it is just my opinion.
Handouts? No, we want WotC to print playable duals and sell them. Big difference, right?

Also I think players inclined to pay $50-$100 per dual (which is where I'd like to see them) are not "this years new blood". More likely these would be players who have been in the game for a few years and want to make the jump, or old school players - either returning to the game or finally moving up from casual to competetive. Also there are established Legacy players wanting to fill out a gauntlet or otherwise increase their options for deck selection - the integrity of this game is certainly hurt by players being unable to switch decks in responsd to their meta!

Anyway, if we were to hypothetically return to ~2010 prices, I suspect most people willing to shell out hundreds of dollars (or more) for their mana-base would have a high probability of still playing in five years.

And me, im a long time player with several high end RL cards. Reprints won't allienate me from the community, but being unable to scrape together 8-10+ people on a regular basis very well might. That's my point of view.

[Lemnear]

I think we hit the end of this thread. People who want the game/format to be accessible for everyone so it stays alive and healthy versus people who want their investment protected and rising prices for the next ten years, hoping demand does not collapse

[Crimhead]

I think we hit the end of this thread. People who want the game/format to be accessible for everyone so it stays alive and healthy versus people who want their investment protected and rising prices for the next ten years, hoping demand does not collapseI agree with you, except watch your wording. Nobody wants Legacy to be accessible to litterally everyone. This confusion invites nonsense about handouts and ten yesr olds buying in. We just want these $200-$300 duals reigned in is all.

[ramanujan]

Handouts? No, we want WotC to print playable duals and sell them. Big difference, right?

What if WotC decides to print them on demand. The price for them would be set equal to the current market price. Would that address your concerns?

There are duals for you to purchase right now. If you don't think they are worth the money, then others will buy them instead of you. If you do think they are worth it, purchase them.

It is a slippery slope to say what price is appropriate. What is appropriate to you is inappropriate to others. Modern is a great format for people that have an expectation of reprints. I don't think I am going to say anything more here as I have said my peace about 10 different ways.

Thankfully, the reserved list is something that is here to stay. If you have every read the announcement, it is pretty clear that it isn't going away. Snow Duals will almost certainly not get printed.

[Crimhead]

What if WotC decides to print them on demand. The price for them would be set equal to the current market price. Would that address your concerns? Five or six years ago it would have. Even now it would be welcome.


.
It is a slippery slope to say what price is appropriate. What is appropriate to you is inappropriate to others. Modern is a great format for people that have an expectation of reprints. I don't think I am going to say anything more here as I have said my peace about 10 different ways. I might sooner quit the game than play Modern. Id rather just play board games I think.

As for whats appropriate, Id look at the growth rate of Legacy and pick prices where the growth was less stagnant. I think igs possible for WotC to print these down to more enticing prices, make money off the format, but still not tank values bellow ~2011 prices.



Thankfully, the reserved list is something that is here to stay. If you have every read the announcement, it is pretty clear that it isn't going away. Snow Duals will almost certainly not get printed.Yet Sol Ring was once on the RL - now it is not. Also, the "spirit" of the RL is not exactly spelled out. Otherwise we wouldn't have this thread.

[Lemnear]

I agree with you, except watch your wording. Nobody wants Legacy to be accessible to litterally everyone. This confusion invites nonsense about handouts and ten yesr olds buying in. We just want these $200-$300 duals reigned in is all.

"We" don't want 200-300$ Duals as thats the current price, which is toxic.

[Crimhead]

"We" don't want 200-300$ Duals as thats the current price, which is toxic.
Agreed. That's what I meant be "reigned in".

[Stan]

"We" don't want 200-300$ Duals as thats the current price, which is toxic.

They're still selling though. Some people at least are buying them. If you're willing to play with foreign white bordered cards, you can get them even slightly cheaper.

[Darkenslight]

Agreed. That's what I meant be "reigned in".

IMO, the MAsterwork series is one of the best places to test this kind of thing out, possibly by having a Zendikar-like promotion for these things. Hell, I'm curious if a Check-dual cycle (like Sunpetal grove) would be printable in an Eternal-only set, like Commander.

[Lemnear]

IMO, the MAsterwork series is one of the best places to test this kind of thing out, possibly by having a Zendikar-like promotion for these things. Hell, I'm curious if a Check-dual cycle (like Sunpetal grove) would be printable in an Eternal-only set, like Commander.

I disagree based on the fact how non-existant the impact of a) reprinting Tarmogoyf, b) reprinting FoW and c) Zendikar Treasures were to bring down the cost of any card. Super Mythic rarity bullshit has no effect at all.

[RobNC]

"We" don't want 200-300$ Duals as thats the current price, which is toxic.

People probably said the same thing with $50 duals.

[Lemnear]

People probably said the same thing with $50 duals.

I payed 60€ for german FBB Underground Seas and 160€ for a ex-played Mox Emerald at a time Legacy & Vintage events fired weekly in Munich with more than 40 players even in Vintage! Today there probably isn't even a single event of that size all month. The point is that Eternal was affordable at that time, no matter if people considered 60€ for FBB Duals a good or bad deal.

[Lord Seth]

2) No collectible to date has survived corporate greed. Beenie babies, Baseball cards of the mid 80's and all of the 90's, comic books bronze age and to some extent silver age are basically worthless,
stamps - 1933 and newer. Look at all those hobbies that people invested in that are basically worth less because corporations wanted a cash grab and reprinted everything to death. Like MTG with alpha/beta, and the reserved list, 1970's and below baseball cards, and rare stamps from the 1800s still have value. Do you know why? Scarcity, and that is the only reason.It is not just the digital age that caused the demise of these hobbies since the old and rare items still have major value.
Corporate greed? What corporate greed? Comic books and stamps were made so people could use them, not collect them. Some of the old ones might have become collectibles over time, but they were always meant to be mass produced. And please explain how the post office, which isn't a corporation, could somehow have "corporate greed."

Beanie babies were a little more collectible in that some were tougher to get, but really they were just made to be fun stuffed animals, same as any stuffed animals, and somehow it caught on as a big craze for a while. They made a lot of them because people wanted a lot of them. And they're still made today! They might not be the phenomenon they were before, but then again how big is The Lion King today compared to when it was released?

Baseball cards are the only ones that were really meant to be collectibles, but the problem is that's all they ever had. People lost interest because you couldn't do anything with them; and that's why Magic survived, you could actually do stuff with the cards besides look at them.


And if you as a player and collector and vise versa are not vigilant, your collection will become just like the other hobbies. Corporate greed will get you. MTG is not immune and different from the above collectible hobbies.
Okay, so... do people still buy stamps? Yep. Still buy comics? Yep. Still buy beanie babies? Not as much as before, but yep. Baseball cards are all but gone, but that seems to be more due to the fact you can get the same stuff with a TCG but you can actually do something with the cards instead of just look at them.


3) Look at Force of Will the TCG game. The company got very greedy and decided to have massive reprints. They have no reserve list or a history of rare cards to to fall back on where people were invested. The players and storeowners who bought FOW have no confidence. Some have confidence, but most do not in the product. The game is on life support.
Er... no. There were a number of problems with Force of Will, but the big problem the game suffered from goes to one card: Reflect/Refrain. The card was crazy powerful and was in something like 90% of decks as their Ruler (all Force of Will decks have a "Ruler" card, it's similar in function to your Commander). The smart thing to do would have been to ban that card quickly, but they instead seemed determine to do anything but ban the problematic card, first issuing a power level errata that made it a little less dominant but still didn't really sole the problem. Then there was an attempt to change a lot of the tournaments from New Frontiers (basically Standard) to Alice Cluster (basically Block Constructed) in the hopes that Reflect/Refrain, while still legal, would lose some of the synergies that made it powerful. Didn't work either, and that probably hurt the game even more (I know I cancelled my plans to go to a big tournament because all of a sudden the deck I had put together wasn't legal in the format). Finally they banned that card, but leaving it legal for so long had made some people get bored of the game and move on.

It was sort of like Jace, the Mind Sculptor in Zendikar-Scars Standard, except Magic had been around for a while and could handle a really unpopular Standard, but Force of Will was new and really suffered from having a Caw-Blade Standard (especially considering it lasted longer than Caw-Blade Standard did). In fairness, it wasn't quite as bad as Caw-Blade, because Reflect/Refrain could go in a number of different kinds of decks, but again the game didn't have the base Magic did.

Okay, Reflect/Refrain wasn't the only issue, but it was a fairly notable one. But even if we disregard that, trying to blame it on "mass reprints" is silly because there weren't mass reprints, as far as I remember. What are you referring to?

And if we're going to play this game of "oh look at this card game that did mass reprints," let's look at a counterpoint: Yu-Gi-Oh. Yu-Gi-Oh is infamous for printing cards at some kind of super rarity, then later mass printing it and crashing the price. And Yu-Gi-Oh is... one of the most popular TCGs in the world, and has been for years and years. Huh! Looks like mass reprints don't necessarily kill your game!


4) snow-covered lands as pointed out by the others do indeed violate the reserve list.
Um... no. As people have pointed out, they do not violate the reserved list. Maybe they violate some "spirit" of the reserved list, but based on what it actually says, there is no violation.

[MaximumC]

Um... no. As people have pointed out, they do not violate the reserved list. Maybe they violate some "spirit" of the reserved list, but based on what it actually says, there is no violation.

I dont understand why people are confused about this still. The definition of a functional reprint does not mention supertypes. That is, you don't look at supertypes when evaluating if cards are functionally identical. So, no, you may not slap a Snow supertype on a dual. It would share the same type, subtype, cost, color, and rules text. It would directly violate the explicit language of the RL.

We've linked you like five times to the definition. What about this is still confusing people?

[phonics]

I disagree based on the fact how non-existant the impact of a) reprinting Tarmogoyf, b) reprinting FoW and c) Zendikar Treasures were to bring down the cost of any card. Super Mythic rarity bullshit has no effect at all.

Masterpieces are WOTCs long term plan to prevent supply issues in the future. The idea is that Masterworks will hold the value of sets, which will cause all the other cards to be a lot less cheaper (max 20$~). I am not sure how this would work long term, since people are buying into it now because it is still in the honeymoon phase, and they are able to print very desirable reprints that everyone wants. The masters sets are for the most part just cash grabs, they may have some effect on commons and uncommons, or rares that were only expensive because of supply and not demand, but the MSRP combined with the limited print run, the increased interest they create, plus the fact that they only come once every couple of years, negate any effects they could have on most staples.

They are basically saying that they are fine with there being expensive cards, even if they could reprint them. The only impactful reprints I can think of are the fetchlands and shocklands, which I think were only reprinted because modern was still a pro tour format, and they were pretty much necessary for modern to be a thing and for WOTC to pretend that they were going to make an earnest effort to manage the card supply of modern staples.

[ESG]

I disagree based on the fact how non-existant the impact of a) reprinting Tarmogoyf, b) reprinting FoW and c) Zendikar Treasures were to bring down the cost of any card. Super Mythic rarity bullshit has no effect at all.

Lemnear, reprinting does have an effect, although perhaps not as significant as you desire. According to MTGStocks, a Future Sight Tarmogoyf is one-third cheaper today than its high about two years ago (~$140 vs. ~$210). A Modern Masters Tarmogoyf has dropped by almost half (~$120 vs. ~$210) during the same period. If it's reprinted another time, we can predict that it will drop again. Force of Will is significantly cheaper now that it's been reprinted. The same period (March 2015 to now) shows a drop of $30. Also, we should keep in mind that this is for NM market price. Anyone with patience or networking can find copies for cheaper than that, and played copies at an even larger discount.

We can also look to Thoughtseize and Onslaught fetchlands to see examples of high-dollar cards that were trimmed down in a hurry due to being reprinted in sets with a large print run. Thoughtseize commanded $60-plus before its reprint. Now that there's a Theros version, a playset can be had for $40. Polluted Delta was almost $120 a few years ago. In the wake of Khans, though, it has shed three quarters of its value. Wasteland and Karakas were notable recent reprints.

These are positive changes that I'd like to see repeated with other format staples.

[Lord Seth]

I dont understand why people are confused about this still. The definition of a functional reprint does not mention supertypes. That is, you don't look at supertypes when evaluating if cards are functionally identical. So, no, you may not slap a Snow supertype on a dual. It would share the same type, subtype, cost, color, and rules text. It would directly violate the explicit language of the RL.

We've linked you like five times to the definition. What about this is still confusing people?
Hrm... I thought supertype and type were the same, but looking into the comprehensive rules it looks like they're different. So that's on me, sure. I stand by the rest of my message.

However, there's something about snow lands people seem to be forgetting. For a long time it wasn't a supertype; it was an ability. Meaning for years and years and years, there was no issue with the Reserved List in regards to snow-covered duals, and it only became one after they errata'd it into a supertype. So all you actually have to do to make dual lands reprintable in that manner is to swap it back from a supertype to an ability in the rules and errata the cards that interface with them (e.g. Into the North becomes "search your library for a land card with snow")

[MaximumC]

Hrm... I thought supertype and type were the same, but looking into the comprehensive rules it looks like they're different. So that's on me, sure. I stand by the rest of my message.

It seems like it's pretty rare that someone is man enough to admit a mistake and change course, particularly on the internet. I wanted to give you a shout out for being a Cool Dude on that. There's faith in humanity where people can learn and correct each other with civility.



However, there's something about snow lands people seem to be forgetting. For a long time it wasn't a supertype; it was an ability. Meaning for years and years and years, there was no issue with the Reserved List in regards to snow-covered duals, and it only became one after they errata'd it into a supertype. So all you actually have to do to make dual lands reprintable in that manner is to swap it back from a supertype to an ability in the rules and errata the cards that interface with them (e.g. Into the North becomes "search your library for a land card with snow")

Yep, that's true. It's even easier than that, though. Literally all they need to do is add rules text, any rules text, and the card no longer violates the Reserve List.

[dragonwisdom]

Corporate greed? What corporate greed? Comic books and stamps were made so people could use them, not collect them. Some of the old ones might have become collectibles over time, but they were always meant to be mass produced. And please explain how the post office, which isn't a corporation, could somehow have "corporate greed."

Beanie babies were a little more collectible in that some were tougher to get, but really they were just made to be fun stuffed animals, same as any stuffed animals, and somehow it caught on as a big craze for a while. They made a lot of them because people wanted a lot of them. And they're still made today! They might not be the phenomenon they were before, but then again how big is The Lion King today compared to when it was released?



Baseball cards are the only ones that were really meant to be collectibles, but the problem is that's all they ever had. People lost interest because you couldn't do anything with them; and that's why Magic survived, you could actually do stuff with the cards besides look at them.


Okay, so... do people still buy stamps? Yep. Still buy comics? Yep. Still buy beanie babies? Not as much as before, but yep. Baseball cards are all but gone, but that seems to be more due to the fact you can get the same stuff with a TCG but you can actually do something with the cards instead of just look at them.



Er... no. There were a number of problems with Force of Will, but the big problem the game suffered from goes to one card: Reflect/Refrain. The card was crazy powerful and was in something like 90% of decks as their Ruler (all Force of Will decks have a "Ruler" card, it's similar in function to your Commander). The smart thing to do would have been to ban that card quickly, but they instead seemed determine to do anything but ban the problematic card, first issuing a power level errata that made it a little less dominant but still didn't really sole the problem. Then there was an attempt to change a lot of the tournaments from New Frontiers (basically Standard) to Alice Cluster (basically Block Constructed) in the hopes that Reflect/Refrain, while still legal, would lose some of the synergies that made it powerful. Didn't work either, and that probably hurt the game even more (I know I cancelled my plans to go to a big tournament because all of a sudden the deck I had put together wasn't legal in the format). Finally they banned that card, but leaving it legal for so long had made some people get bored of the game and move on.

It was sort of like Jace, the Mind Sculptor in Zendikar-Scars Standard, except Magic had been around for a while and could handle a really unpopular Standard, but Force of Will was new and really suffered from having a Caw-Blade Standard (especially considering it lasted longer than Caw-Blade Standard did). In fairness, it wasn't quite as bad as Caw-Blade, because Reflect/Refrain could go in a number of different kinds of decks, but again the game didn't have the base Magic did.

Okay, Reflect/Refrain wasn't the only issue, but it was a fairly notable one. But even if we disregard that, trying to blame it on "mass reprints" is silly because there weren't mass reprints, as far as I remember. What are you referring to?


And if we're going to play this game of "oh look at this card game that did mass reprints," let's look at a counterpoint: Yu-Gi-Oh. Yu-Gi-Oh is infamous for printing cards at some kind of super rarity, then later mass printing it and crashing the price. And Yu-Gi-Oh is... one of the most popular TCGs in the world, and has been for years and years. Huh! Looks like mass reprints don't necessarily kill your game!



Um... no. As people have pointed out, they do not violate the reserved list. Maybe they violate some "spirit" of the reserved list, but based on what it actually says, there is no violation.

*** The parent company of beenie babies got wind that their was a secondary market for them. Then they produced them in mass quantities. Collectors eventually figured it out and the market crashed.

**Well your argument would hold up except that baseball cards of the 70's and below are still worth money. Baseball cards from 1985-2000 have no value. I remember arguing with my friends that swore to me that baseball cards would not lose value. I told them they that there wasting their money and that Topps, the parent company and other companies like FLeer and Donruss, was reprinting them to death. They called me stupid. Later on in life a few of them admitted that I was right and the rest were too embarrassed. Think about it, you can't do anything with 1970's and below baseball cards, but they still hold value. Ask yourself Why.


**The post office realized in 1940 that stamps were collectible. Thus they printed more than "to demand". To this day you can buy stamps at or below face on Ebay. You can ask any stamp dealer to confirm my fact.
They will cite less than 1940. I just put that date in to be safe.


**I have yet to see a greedy company not come after someone's collection if they have the ability to reprint and raid the value of the collection. The investors and CEO would love to raid
each and every collection. And they WILL DO IT if you as the player/collector are not vigilant.

**Yes, Force of will does have other problems. However, confidence was still shaken by the mass reprints.



**Any abolishment of the reserve list needs to start out with, how can Wotc reimburse/reward collectors and store owners who are investors or else there will be lawsuits that Wotc will lose.
If they do that, than I can see it.

[Crimhead]

Any abolishment of the reserve list needs to start out with, how can Wotc reimburse/reward collectors and store owners who are investors or else there will be lawsuits that Wotc will lose.
If they do that, than I can see it.
The idea is for WotC to print "Reverberate" style cards which do not violate the reserved list. Its been noted that extra copies of Tabernacle, LED, and Cradle could lead to power level issues in the decks that run those cards; but that dual lands #5-8 would not. Also worth noting is that City, Nether Void, Moat, Abyss, and Chains could also see effective reprints without causing issues.

[Lemnear]

@dragonwisdom
You still seem to think that MtG has to have any traits of a "collectors item" and that WotC has to guarantee to maintain your cardstocks worth, rather than maintaining it a GAME TO BE PLAYED.

Dood, you sound as if you look at MtG as a no-skill-no-effort-stockmarket in which WotC should guarantee your dividends, despite them earning no money from it

[iatee]

They're still selling though. Some people at least are buying them. If you're willing to play with foreign white bordered cards, you can get them even slightly cheaper.

I think very expensive magic cards mostly end up sitting in cases and peoples' binders. They're 'still selling' but that's not what the price really reflects. The price reflects fear - nobody wants to part with their Volcanic Island. These bubbles feed themselves - nobody will ever trade me a Volcanic Island and I don't want to have to pay $200 for one, so I'm not going to trade mine or sell it for $200.

Occasionally people who have no choice end up dropping big money on old cards, but the market is very small and sluggish and not comparable to something like the market for Standard rares.

[rlesko]

I think very expensive magic cards mostly end up sitting in cases and peoples' binders. They're 'still selling' but that's not what the price really reflects. The price reflects fear - nobody wants to part with their Volcanic Island. These bubbles feed themselves - nobody will ever trade me a Volcanic Island and I don't want to have to pay $200 for one, so I'm not going to trade mine or sell it for $200.

Occasionally people who have no choice end up dropping big money on old cards, but the market is very small and sluggish and not comparable to something like the market for Standard rares.

Yes, this is 100% true. Additionally, I also am now forced to hoard hundreds of cards and other duals I am not using "just in case".

[Lord Seth]

*** The parent company of beenie babies got wind that their was a secondary market for them. Then they produced them in mass quantities. Collectors eventually figured it out and the market crashed.
Beanie Babies was a fad. People lost interest in it eventually, as is the case for a fad, and that's why it lost popularity.


**Well your argument would hold up except that baseball cards of the 70's and below are still worth money. Baseball cards from 1985-2000 have no value. I remember arguing with my friends that swore to me that baseball cards would not lose value. I told them they that there wasting their money and that Topps, the parent company and other companies like FLeer and Donruss, was reprinting them to death. They called me stupid. Later on in life a few of them admitted that I was right and the rest were too embarrassed. Think about it, you can't do anything with 1970's and below baseball cards, but they still hold value. Ask yourself Why.
Why? The fact that when something's only value is as a collectible, it has to actually be a collectible. Not sure what's so odd here. Magic cards, for the most part, don't solely derive value from collectibility.


**The post office realized in 1940 that stamps were collectible. Thus they printed more than "to demand". To this day you can buy stamps at or below face on Ebay. You can ask any stamp dealer to confirm my fact.
They will cite less than 1940. I just put that date in to be safe.
And last I checked, people still use stamps frequently. I don't think the post office is exactly hurting because they decided to, horror of horrors, mass produce stamps. They may be hurting for other unrelated reasons (who wants to spend money on a letter when you can send it for free online?), but stamps aren't the issue.


**I have yet to see a greedy company not come after someone's collection if they have the ability to reprint and raid the value of the collection. The investors and CEO would love to raid
each and every collection. And they WILL DO IT if you as the player/collector are not vigilant.
I am not sure what this is supposed to be in response to.


**Yes, Force of will does have other problems. However, confidence was still shaken by the mass reprints.
Right! It was shaken by the mass reprints! Like when they mass reprinted... um... er... yeah, I've got nothing. What are these "mass reprints" you're claiming put the game on life support? The game's actually been rather light on reprints, let alone "mass reprints." The only thing I can think of was the dual stones getting reprinted in the Vingulf sets, but that's it, and that's hardly a mass reprinting.

Essentially, you're pointing to a game that lost popularity, ignoring the main things that caused it to lose popularity, and then inventing something that as far as I can tell didn't actually happen and claiming that thing that didn't happen caused it to lose popularity.

I also noticed you completely ignored my counterpart in regards to how there are TCGs that, despite having no problem with reprinting expensive cards, are still hugely popular.


**Any abolishment of the reserve list needs to start out with, how can Wotc reimburse/reward collectors and store owners who are investors or else there will be lawsuits that Wotc will lose. You seem to be making an awfully big assumption that they'd lose a lawsuit for a contract that doesn't exist. Especially considering they've taken cards off the Reserved List in the past.

Such a lawsuit is dubious in merit from the get-go and it's going up against a company with lots of legal resources. Now, granted, there is always a small chance of them losing, and there'd be a loss of PR regardless of the result, so I can see the desire to avoid that. But to claim "they will lose" is all kinds of silly.

[rlesko]

I dont see why people keep discussing the abolishment of the reserved list. Its been stated many times that it cannot and will not happen. I would be thrilled if they removed everything except power 10, bazaar, and workshop from the reserved list, but its been made abundantly clear thats a pipe dream.

[Crimhead]

I dont see why people keep discussing the abolishment of the reserved list. Its been stated many times that it cannot and will not happen. I would be thrilled if they removed everything except power 10, bazaar, and workshop from the reserved list, but its been made abundantly clear thats a pipe dream.
They've removed cards before, so there's no reason they couldn't do so again. Maybe they dont have the appitite for this at present, but that could change st any time.

Also, we're mostly talking about designing around the list without violating it. The "spirit" of the list is vague and inexplicit.

[rlesko]

They've removed cards before, so there's no reason they couldn't do so again. Maybe they dont have the appitite for this at present, but that could change st any time.

Also, we're mostly talking about designing around the list without violating it. The "spirit" of the list is vague and inexplicit.

Well, lately they've doubled down on their claims about the reserved list staying, and not modifying it any further. Saying they removed stuff in the past is an apples or oranges comparison. They also used to print premium foils of reserved cards.

Some people are talking about designing around it, some people are talking about removing it.

[dragonwisdom]

MTG and Pokemon seem to be the only TCGs with staying power. Dozen's of TCGS fail and it is true ( and I agreed with you in the case of FoW) that many of them fail, because the game sucked to begin with. Reprints have to happen in a TCG. However, excessive reprints can have a negative effect. I can't express this enough. Confidence is the only reason you pay a premium for MTG cards. They are made of cardboard. If people don't have confidence that they will hold value in the long term, then they will simply not buy it. Even standards cards which drop like rock post rotation, eventually go up in modern or commander. This is all I am saying and there is strong proof with other "collectibles" that once companies start to over produce them, their collectibility starts to fade, due to over supply and loss of confidence.

With MTG it is both collectible and playable. Legacy with the reserve list is part collectible. There is a non-rotating format that can be reprinted at anytime and that is Modern. That is Wotc's response to the
reserve list. No one seems to be happy with that.

Legacy will not fall as far as Vintage, but it will be a fringe format. Modern is the new standard for non-rotating formats. I love Legacy like most of you do. But I have accepted that Modern is the new King with
respect to non-rotating formats. Remember, that Vintage was the King before Legacy. All good things come to an end. It's Modern's turn to shine.

If Wotc violates the reserve list, there will be lawsuits and alot of them. Based on the clear and strong language and the fact that people made financial decisions on MTG's policy, I would not want to be the lawyer to defend Wotc.
I would much rather be the lawyer defending the store owner who can claim damages in the thousands.
Think about the stupid things that people sue for. One person sued because the coffee was too hot, Another sued because they got too much ice in their drink. Wotc will get sued and have to defend
thousands of lawsuits.

[square_two]

One person sued because the coffee was too hot

To be fair, she was hospitalized for a week for skin grafts and had two years of treatment that totaled $18k in expenses. Her own defamation as the "hot coffee lady who sued McDonalds" has led to a steep decline in lawsuits since then (also she did not live long after everything was settled). Hard to imagine that disputes over a reprint policy (not contract) for a card game is more reasonable than actual physical harm done.

Maybe I could be wrong. I doubt they'll ever change it though since they seem to be cutting off support for Legacy anyway.

[dragonwisdom]

To be fair, she was hospitalized for a week for skin grafts and had two years of treatment that totaled $18k in expenses. Her own defamation as the "hot coffee lady who sued McDonalds" has led to a steep decline in lawsuits since then (also she did not live long after everything was settled). Hard to imagine that disputes over a reprint policy (not contract) for a card game is more reasonable than actual physical harm done.

Maybe I could be wrong. I doubt they'll ever change it though since they seem to be cutting off support for Legacy anyway.


You can argue whether you think the "coffee" lawsuit was frivolous or not. I can see both sides. If you boil water, and if YOU spill it on yourself, you will burn yourself. If YOU fall on top of a hot stove, you will burn yourself. If YOU
drop a knife on your foot, you will likely cut yourself. Many people blame the flatware company, stove company or knife company.

Now if in her case the coffee was hotter than all the other cups of coffee sold to millions of people, than she has a strong case. And if her lawyers proved this fact, than I an see her winning the case.

Imagine this for a lawsuit.

Store owner invests 20,000 dollars in reserve list cards
Wotc violates reserve list
Store owner goes out of business
Store owner sues Wotc for 300,000 dollars claiming that Wotc's reversal of policy caused the business to fold
This is a very real scenerio.


Here is a more inventive one

Store owner invests 30,000 in modern cards
Wotc violates reserve list
Store owner goes out of business claiming that modern card prices dropped when everyone wanted to play Legacy instead of Modern. And this person said that he/she made her business decisions based
on the reserve list.
Less likely scenerio, but I have seen people sue for less.

Some people have their lives invested in MTG. Decisions were made based on the reserve list. There is no way any CEO of Wotc will take a chance abolishing the reserve list.
There are ways around the reserve list, but an outright violation of it, has the potential to blow up in their face.


And these are just the store owners. Have you met the MTGfinance people.

[Mr.C]

You can argue whether you think the "coffee" lawsuit was frivolous or not. I can see both sides. If you boil water, and if YOU spill it on yourself, you will burn yourself. If YOU fall on top of a hot stove, you will burn yourself. If YOU
drop a knife on your foot, you will likely cut yourself. Many people blame the flatware company, stove company or knife company.

Now if in her case the coffee was hotter than all the other cups of coffee sold to millions of people, than she has a strong case. And if her lawyers proved this fact, than I an see her winning the case.

Imagine this for a lawsuit.

Store owner invests 20,000 dollars in reserve list cards
Wotc violates reserve list
Store owner goes out of business
Store owner sues Wotc for 300,000 dollars claiming that Wotc's reversal of policy caused the business to fold
This is a very real scenerio.


Here is a more inventive one

Store owner invests 30,000 in modern cards
Wotc violates reserve list
Store owner goes out of business claiming that modern card prices dropped when everyone wanted to play Legacy instead of Modern. And this person said that he/she made her business decisions based
on the reserve list.
Less likely scenerio, but I have seen people sue for less.

Some people have their lives invested in MTG. Decisions were made based on the reserve list. There is no way any CEO of Wotc will take a chance abolishing the reserve list.
There are ways around the reserve list, but an outright violation of it, has the potential to blow up in their face.


And these are just the store owners. Have you met the MTGfinance people.

Extremely accurate, which is why the solution would be to repeal the Reserve List and do absolutely nothing for a while. Let the market adjust, because you can be damn sure it will.

Edit: Also, the hot coffee lawsuit was far from frivolous.

[dragonwisdom]

ideas to get around reserve list.

1) Allow sanctioned proxies that Wotc produces and make it a card type or something like it

2) trade in program for reserved list cards

3) Alter the cards just a little

4) Someway to compensate the collectors/investors

5) Abolish and wait - that might be possible. This would eliminate some and maybe many but not all lawsuits.

6) Once Wotc loses popularity and the value of ALL cards fall, I can see it as well.

I am sure that their are others.

[dragonwisdom]

coffee- I will agree with you there. If you can argue the other side of the case, it does not make it frivolous. Though as a juror, I would have given weight to the fact that the person spilled it.

However, if her lawyers could prove that her coffee was hotter than all other cups of coffee among millions and millions sold, I would side with her right away.

[CutthroatCasual]

ideas to get around reserve list.

1) Allow sanctioned proxies that Wotc produces and make it a card type or something like it

I've often posted the "Official Proxy" idea and I've not yet seen a good rebuttal to it.

This is how it would work:

WotC releases official tournament-legal proxies of RL cards, but with a catch: for each proxy you register in your deck, you have to pay a fee per card on top of the tournament entry fee. The fee I've proposed is $5 because most of the time people would be proxying duals, so the average player would be paying around $30 more to register a deck for a Legacy event, which is not a lot of money for a single payment. Now, people have complained that this is "too expensive" but that's a misguided line of reasoning: people who want to go to many Legacy events will most likely have all their cards already, and these proxies are targeted at the occasional Legacy player (e.g. a disgruntled Modern player who can't afford or doesn't want to buy in just yet–aka the players that are priced out of Legacy right now) so they can get a taste for the format in a competitive setting. Proxies aren't meant to replace the real thing, so if you only go to 1 or 2 Legacy events a year then it's much more financially sensible to use the proxies and pay $60 more on top of the tournament entry fee rather than drop $1000 on a manabase. However, it's much less financially sensible to use these several times, and why shouldn't it be? Again, these aren't meant to replace RL cards, just hold their place as the user explores the format. People who don't want to dedicate themselves to Legacy would still be able to use these in their EDH decks and for casual events, and people who want to commit to Legacy (or Vintage) would start saving up while still being able to go to the occasional Legacy event and just pay the usage tax.

In short, it's a win-win-win-win-win situation:


WotC gets money from players for the proxies, less people pay Chinese counterfeiters for fakes
TOs running Legacy events get more money (addresses the "eternal doesn't make stores money" problem)
Players priced out of eternal formats can now OFFICIALLY try out the format for much cheaper than buying in only to find out they don't like it
If the proxy user ends up not liking the format, they can still use their proxies in casual/unsanctioned play
It wouldn't hurt RL card prices a lot–if at all–because in the long run repeated use of the proxies would be more expensive than owning the cards outright for someone who wants to become a regular eternal player, so demand for the expensive RL cards (e.g. duals) stays the same and keeps the prices where they are at




2) trade in program for reserved list cards

This could work as well, but it only really addresses the counterfeit concern (in other words, 1000 Revised duals traded in for 1000 holostamp duals is lateral movement, so you would expect prices to stay relatively constant). Values would still go down if the RL gets abolished.



4) Someway to compensate the collectors/investors


I don't see how they would be able logistically to do that; there's a LOT of people with expensive RL cards that WotC probably wouldn't be able to compensate all of them, not to mention people would have to prove that they actually own these RL cards in order to receive money. I guess one way would be to have LGSes act as intake centers for the vetting process and submit official WotC-supplied compensation request forms before a set deadline, after which point anyone with RL cards that haven't opted in would have missed the boat, though this would have an extremely high risk of being abused. Another idea would be to have WotC representatives at large events (Opens, GPs) and just have players queue up to sign up for the compensation. But then how do you know these players aren't just borrowing their friend's duals? There aren't serial numbers so there's no way of tracking this.

The only sure-fire way would be to have all the RL card owners mail the RL cards they own that they want compensation for to WotC, WotC then holds them until the compensation opt-in deadline, then returns all the cards to their respective owners along with a compensation I.O.U. with a TBD value based on what cards were sent in to be tallied and a notation of their price at the time of opt-in deadline. Then, abolisht the prices stabilize. Then after say 2 months everyone with an I.O.U. would be able to return that I.O.U. form and get compensated for whatever value was lost off the cards that WotC "registered" to them.

I don't think compensation is possible to do in a way that wouldn't be a logistical nightmare.

[Lord Seth]

MTG and Pokemon seem to be the only TCGs with staying power.
Er... Yu-Gi-Oh? That thing is relentless in reprinting expensive cards, and it's still really popular.


Dozen's of TCGS fail and it is true ( and I agreed with you in the case of FoW) that many of them fail, because the game sucked to begin with.
But my problem with your claim of Force of Will is that you claimed "massive reprints" hurt the game, but there weren't massive reprints. You ignored the factors that existed that caused it to lose popularity (the halfhearted attempts to subdue Reflect/Refrain instead of just banning it outright, for example) and then made something up and claimed that made-up thing was the reason for its loss of popularity.

It's a shame, too. I thought its base system was essentially a better version of Magic's, and it was one of the few TCGs outside of Magic that actually seemed to care at all about its art quality. I'm hoping they manage to recover and come back, because the game was actually quite fun.


If Wotc violates the reserve list, there will be lawsuits and alot of them. Based on the clear and strong language and the fact that people made financial decisions on MTG's policy, I would not want to be the lawyer to defend Wotc.
I would much rather be the lawyer defending the store owner who can claim damages in the thousands.
You'd rather be a lawyer who doesn't exist? Okay.

No, seriously. A lawsuit is going to run you, at a minimum, $10,000. Maybe a lot more than that. Are you going to spend $10,000+ to get, in your words, several thousand dollars? And let's not forget what happens if you bring a lawsuit and lose: The court can, if it deems your lawsuit frivolous enough, force you to pay them for the expenses your lost lawsuit cost them.

You claim there will be "alot [sic] of lawsuits". But again, look at how much money it costs to get a lawsuit going. Do you think many store owners are going to spend all that money (assuming they even have that much to spare to begin with) and take all that risk just to recoup a small amount? And in doing so, annoy the company that creates a product they likely rely heavily on?

To be fair, many such cases have the lawyer pay for the bulk of it, in exchange for a certain percentage of the amount that's won (if they win the case). But that means that the lawyer you're claiming you want to be is the guy spending a lot of money and taking on risk... rather than the guy who works for WOTC and presumably has a steady job and high income.


Think about the stupid things that people sue for. One person sued because the coffee was too hot,
No, the person sued because the coffee was so hot that they had to get surgery after it spilled on them. She spent a week in the hospital. To say it was "because the coffee was too hot" was is completely disingenuous. Here (http://injury.findlaw.com/product-liability/the-mcdonald-s-coffee-cup-case-separating-mcfacts-from-mcfiction.html) is a better description of the case than "the coffee was too hot."


Another sued because they got too much ice in their drink. Wotc will get sued and have to defend
thousands of lawsuits.
No comment on the ice one, which I'm not familiar with. I wouldn't be surprised if it, like the coffee one, had more to it than you're claiming, however.

But as noted above, I think you're also overestimating how many people would actually bother to sue over it. Lawsuits are darn expensive. In practice, you'd see only a handful of lawsuits, maybe even just one, either because all those plaintiffs combined into one class-action lawsuit (which is one lawsuit, not thousands), or because most people would rather stay back and see how the handful of plaintiffs end up being. If someone sues WOTC and loses, that'll be the end of it because why would anyone else go through the time and expense just to end up losing like the first person did? Now, granted, if someone sues them and wins, then there'd probably be a lot more lawsuits, though due to the high cost you'd likely see it all settled in a few class-action suits rather than "thousands."

[RobNC]

Referencing people who sue doesn't mean anything at all. In the US (and probably most other countries represented on this forum) you have the right to sue anyone for anything, that's how the legal system works. It doesn't guarantee you'll win or even that the case will go to court.

As for compensation, playing the MTG finance game is like a bad version of the stock market. Are you going to sue a company you own stock in because the market fluctuated?

[Barook]

Er... Yu-Gi-Oh? That thing is relentless in reprinting expensive cards, and it's still really popular.
I remember it outselling Magic by quite a bit in 2011, world record and all. I do wonder how the numbers look nowadays, especially revenue-wise.

[Lord Seth]

I remember it outselling Magic by quite a bit in 2011, world record and all. I do wonder how the numbers look nowadays, especially revenue-wise.
I'm not sure if Yu-Gi-Oh ever outsold Magic in the United States. The best place I know of to try to figure out how the TCGs are stacking up against each other is ICv2's Internal Correspondence Report, which ranks the most popular based on interviews with distributors/retailers/manufacturers. Their three categories are mass channel, hobby channel, and overall. It's unfortunately limited to the US and it only gives rankings without much of a clue how close those rankings are, but it still can be useful. Here (http://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/35148/top-collectible-games-spring-2016) is their most recent one and here (http://icv2.com/articles/games/view/21400/top-collectible-games-summer-2011) is their issue from summer 2011. In both editions, Magic beat out Yu-Gi-Oh in all three categories (interestingly, Pokemon has jumped from #5 to #2 in the hobby channel in the intervening years, and swapped space with Magic in the mass channel, going from #2 to #1).

It's my understanding that Yu-Gi-Oh, at least back then, made up the difference internationally. Though I don't know if it still outsells it on an international basis.

[Barook]

Thanks for the info. Although I don't understand what exactly the difference between the hobby channel and mass channel is.

[Mr.C]

Thanks for the info. Although I don't understand what exactly the difference between the hobby channel and mass channel is.

LGS vs WalMart, I believe.

[CutthroatCasual]

No, seriously. A lawsuit is going to run you, at a minimum, $10,000. Maybe a lot more than that. Are you going to spend $10,000+ to get, in your words, several thousand dollars? And let's not forget what happens if you bring a lawsuit and lose: The court can, if it deems your lawsuit frivolous enough, force you to pay them for the expenses your lost lawsuit cost them.

You claim there will be "alot [sic] of lawsuits". But again, look at how much money it costs to get a lawsuit going. Do you think many store owners are going to spend all that money (assuming they even have that much to spare to begin with) and take all that risk just to recoup a small amount? And in doing so, annoy the company that creates a product they likely rely heavily on?

To be fair, many such cases have the lawyer pay for the bulk of it, in exchange for a certain percentage of the amount that's won (if they win the case). But that means that the lawyer you're claiming you want to be is the guy spending a lot of money and taking on risk... rather than the guy who works for WOTC and presumably has a steady job and high income.


If there's enough clients, a large(r) firm could make it a mass-action lawsuit and not charge the plaintiffs anything unless they win the suit. Even a 40% cut of "a few thousand dollars" would still leave the investors/collectors with a couple grand.

[Lord Seth]

If there's enough clients, a large(r) firm could make it a mass-action lawsuit and not charge the plaintiffs anything unless they win the suit. Even a 40% cut of "a few thousand dollars" would still leave the investors/collectors with a couple grand.
Sort of true. A larger firm doing a mass-action lawsuit might be feasible, as individual people don't have the luxury of spending tens of thousands of dollars to try to get a few thousand. Though if the lawyers take on all the expenses, a 40% cut of "a few thousand dollars" would not be close to enough to warrant their time. They'd have to get a lot of people together to demand a pretty high amount.

At any rate, even if such a thing is on the table, my point was that the scenario that was proposed was quite frankly ridiculous. The funny thing is that stores were mentioned when stores would actually not be particularly affected adversely by a Reserved List repeal. Remember that stores are constantly selling those cards, so they wouldn't be particularly hurt, if hurt at all, by a reduction in their value, unless the price crash is completely unexpected and happens extremely quickly; I can't think of any cases of that offhand. People either knew it was coming (a reprint) or it was gradual. Or both. So all you have to do is to reduce your buying price along with your selling price and you come out ahead still. That's what stores, at least the smart ones, do when a card's value is trending downward. A removal of the Reserved List just means they treat those cards the same as all the other cards, which for the most part they already do. Remember, they're constantly buying and selling, not just buying a card and planning to sell it months or years down the road. There was actually an article on Star City Games from quite a while ago going into how the removal of the Reserved List wouldn't cost them money and discussing things like the buying/selling price as a factor in preventing that, but unfortunately I can't remember where I saw it.

Also I can't help but feel that a store would have reservations about suing the company whose product brings them a lot of business. If anyone was going to try to file a lawsuit over this, it would be the speculators who just buy cards and product and sit on it, hoping for them to spike. A mass reduction in their assets would be more aggravating because they aren't selling the stuff constantly like a store. They might band together, as they'd be the ones most adversely affected and have no particular loyalty to WOTC. But again, to be able to claim a high amount that might be able to be worth it, you need to get at least a decent number of people together.

Though, of course, for a larger firm to take it, they would have to believe that it has at least a reasonable chance of winning to warrant spending all that money and time on the case. I'd actually be very curious to see any similar cases to this and see what the results were or the opinion of an actual lawyer who works in these kinds of cases.

[Chronatog]

Think about the stupid things that people sue for. One person sued because the coffee was too hot, Another sued because they got too much ice in their drink. Wotc will get sued and have to defend
thousands of lawsuits.

About this coffee case that everybody talks about but knows nothing, please watch this documentary - http://www.hotcoffeethemovie.com/

And how much do you think it will cost for an individual to sue WotC anyway? Are you a layer? Have you talked to to a lawyer? What are chances to win? These are rhetorical questions, by the way.

The reserve list (or broadly speaking old cards) is important only for those folks who started playing in the 90s of the last century, like myself, and for sentimental reasons still keep their collections. And it doesn't look like monetary considerations are really important for them. You know, MtG is a hobby. And any hobby costs money and time. It's a different story though, if one speculates or runs a trading business, but these folks should accept business risks.

WotC doesn't make any money on the secondary market and doesn't have any binding obligations. Other than reputation, there is nothing to lose for the company. So yes, the company can reprint whatever it wants. However, soon or later those stubborn players who continue playing Vintage and Legacy will change priorities, kids you know require a lot of time and money, and there will be no issue with shortage of the cards from the list. And new players ... new players will not know anything other than Standard, or perhaps Modern too.

Life goes on. And a decade or so later there will be only a bunch of old dudes bidding for stupid painted cardboards that have some collectible value only for them because they want to remember their childhood and all those good memories.

And a good example for you about value of collectibles. Do you remember beanie babies? If not, for example please check this - http://fortune.com/2015/03/11/beanie-babies-failure-lessons/

[non-inflammable]

I have suggested this before: player trade ins for revised duals.
Send two duals to wotc to be destroyed.
You get one mint bb anti-counterfeit stamped dual in return.
The other dual gets randomly inserted in some pack.
Mail three duals to wotc and get a foil bb version. Sign me up today!

[Ace/Homebrew]

I have suggested this before: player trade ins for revised duals.
Send two duals to wotc to be destroyed.
You get one mint bb anti-counterfeit stamped dual in return.
The other dual gets randomly inserted in some pack.
Mail three duals to wotc and get a foil bb version. Sign me up today!
Wouldn't such a policy only raise the value of Revised duals? As more and more are turned in to be destroyed, they become more rare...

[Lemnear]

I have suggested this before: player trade ins for revised duals.
Send two duals to wotc to be destroyed.
You get one mint bb anti-counterfeit stamped dual in return.
The other dual gets randomly inserted in some pack.
Mail three duals to wotc and get a foil bb version. Sign me up today!

And its still stupid, starting the logistics and insurance matter on hand over to card condition going further with talking duals out of circulation and ending up with having to reprint RL cards.

[CptHaddock]

However, if her lawyers could prove that her coffee was hotter than all other cups of coffee among millions and millions sold, I would side with her right away.

Do you even know anything about the lawsuit? The point was that the coffee was being served at temperatures of around 80-90 C and this was a standard for McDonalds coffee around that time. She was one of hundreds of people who had reported that they got serious burns from coffee. She asked for $10,000 to cover medical expenses and McDonalds offered her $800. Making it sound like she just got free money is just a tad insulting. :rolleyes:

[non-inflammable]

And its still stupid, starting the logistics and insurance matter on hand over to card condition going further with talking duals out of circulation and ending up with having to reprint RL cards.

this entire thread was about getting duals into (packs) player's hands; because ANY card that wasn't a REAL dual wouldn't be good enough?
consider it an "elective exchange" of crappy white bordered duals for black-bordered ones. i can only play one deck at a time...
i'm not sure what else you're prattling on about...

[Dice_Box]

Two things.

A ten minute video on Macers Hot Coffee:
https://youtu.be/PAzMMKIspPQ

This thread is on a merry-go-round of little consequence. The idea is not to debate if the reserve list is a legal minefield, if it can be avoided or other such shit, the point of the thread is to discuss the impact and creation of new duals, if a solution was found to all known standing issues was found, would have on Legacy.

I feel like that topic has been canvassed and morphed into a topic on the reserve list proper, something that, ironically, was trying to be dodged when starting this talk. I wish to ask those of you who wish to talk about the list to please take it to the "Bitching about Reprints" thread. That I feel is its natural home.

[Crimhead]

The idea is not to debate if the reserve list is a legal minefield, if it can be avoided or other such shit, the point of the thread is to discuss the impact and creation of new duals, if a solution was found to all known standing issues was found, would have on Legacy.
Im going to make two assumptions:

RL staples (which do not see "suitable replacements printed) will continue to rise ove time ala Vintage staples.
WotC will continue to reprint non RL staples thus (more or less) stabilising these prices.

If Wizards does print duals which work around the list, two things can happen to the format:

Growth will stagnate altogether, and/or...
The format will continue to grow, but become more and more full of decks that dont need reserved list cards.
#2 would mean:

D&T
Merfolk
Burn
Manaless Dredge
Other fringe/bad decks
All become grossly over-represented.

But if WotC prints work-around duals, that list of decks expands to include:

All Delver variants
Infect
Jund
Miracles
Maverick
Stoneblade
Shardless
UB Reanimator
RB Reanimator

Obviously this is still not perfect - in particular the format would be lacking non-gy combo decks*. Still this is a vastly preferable scenario to the case where only four competitive decks are actually affordable.

Anybody who would object to these printings is pretty much putting monetary interests above the health of the game. Note I am not talking about "mass reprints". Rather printing these in similar quantities to Goyf, FOW, etc. Enough to stabilise prices around the $50-$150 range.

*Printing a substitute for City of Traitors (eg, destroy instead of sacrifice) would add S&T decks, Eldrazi, and Painter (assuming a Recruiter reprint) to the mix.

[Dice_Box]

I like that idea for City, you really do not want a ton of lands that commit suicide on you. I doubt many people would run more than 4.

[Crimhead]

I also dont buy the argument that these printings would hurt stores. Stores make money selling packs. Any store that needs to move $200-$300 duals in order to keep their doors open is probably doomed either way because the demand is simply not there.

Look at SCG. Why have they cut support for Legacy? Obviously because they are no longer making money off the format because too few people are buying these slow-moving outrageously expensive staples.

[RobNC]

Functional reprints will only hurt older cards to a point. ABUR duals, especially black bordered, will still hold a prestige and be worth a lot.

It can go two ways based on recent examples:

Show and Tell: Conspiracy 2 reprint caused Urza's Saga value to tank; original $60+, now close to $20 if you look hard, only $5-10 more than the CN2 reprint at mythic.

Berserk: Conspiracy 2 reprint can be had for $10 at rare, Unlimited version went from $90-100 to still $60-70.


I suspect a functional reprint such as snow duals would have a trajectory similar to Berserk in these two examples.


Berserk being much older allowed it to hold a lot more of its value.

[Crimhead]

It depends how they print them. There is a big difference between a rare in CN2 vs a mythic in EMA.

[MaximumC]

LIST O' DECKS


I think that list is a bit too narrow. Elves should be on it, for example. It was playable before Cradle was adopted bigtime, and it's still playable without it today.

The other thing I think that isn't represented here is the shift of the relative order of decks and how they are affected by new printings. The metagame waxes and wanes as things get printed. We've seen a renaissance in Death and Taxes recently, fueled by new printings. Who is to say that Pox or Chalice Stompy or something else won't stop being a "bad deck" entirely based on new printings?

Remember, one of Wizards' options (other than reprinting situationally better RL cards) is to print cards that are as powerful as but incompatable with those RL cards. Maybe, just better punishers; heck, we've seen how badly Show and Tell was punished by Containment Priest. Here are some more examples:a dual land without land types that had Wasteland's ability but only for other lands with two or more basic land types. Or imagine if Thalia 2.0 was only 1 mana for a 2/1 instead of what she is. Those kind of cards would push RL duals waaaay back in the format.

The point is that people (many in this thread!) view Legacy's problem as access to PARTICULAR DECKS when they should view the problem as access TO THE FORMAT. The top tables of Legacy of five years from now may look nothing like it does today. And, if they're full of new printings, then the problem IS being fixed.

[Lord Seth]

Do you even know anything about the lawsuit? The point was that the coffee was being served at temperatures of around 80-90 C and this was a standard for McDonalds coffee around that time. She was one of hundreds of people who had reported that they got serious burns from coffee. She asked for $10,000 to cover medical expenses and McDonalds offered her $800. Making it sound like she just got free money is just a tad insulting. :rolleyes:
I thought she asked for $2,000, not $10,000.

[ParkerLewis]

I also dont buy the argument that these printings would hurt stores.

On that subject :


For my own part? I wish that Wizards would have just gone ahead and done away with the Reserved List entirely. It is nothing but a blight on the game and one that long outlived its purpose.

[...]

I am wholeheartedly in favor of getting rid of the Reserved List and reprinting higher-dollar staple cards from EDH and Legacy. Pete Hoefling the owner of StarCityGames.com agrees with my point of view as well. We both believe that this would benefit the long-term health of the game and that any temporary drop in value of specific cards would be balanced out by the increased interest in older cards and formats and a cyclical rise-in-value/reprinting of cards as needed.

- Ben Bleiweiss, SCG General Manager, Feb 2010 (link (https://goo.gl/OQIeWp))

I remember these couple weeks as there had been massive hope at the time that this was finally it and that WotC would finally send the RL back to where it belongs, the garbage bin.

Whenever someone rehashes the horrible argument that this would hurt stores, well, feel free to point them to this article presenting the thoughts and arguments of actual storeowners.

I'd sig it if I could, but apparently it's too long, and it's not like I post that much anyway.

[dragonwisdom]

Sort of true. A larger firm doing a mass-action lawsuit might be feasible, as individual people don't have the luxury of spending tens of thousands of dollars to try to get a few thousand. Though if the lawyers take on all the expenses, a 40% cut of "a few thousand dollars" would not be close to enough to warrant their time. They'd have to get a lot of people together to demand a pretty high amount.

At any rate, even if such a thing is on the table, my point was that the scenario that was proposed was quite frankly ridiculous. The funny thing is that stores were mentioned when stores would actually not be particularly affected adversely by a Reserved List repeal. Remember that stores are constantly selling those cards, so they wouldn't be particularly hurt, if hurt at all, by a reduction in their value, unless the price crash is completely unexpected and happens extremely quickly; I can't think of any cases of that offhand. People either knew it was coming (a reprint) or it was gradual. Or both. So all you have to do is to reduce your buying price along with your selling price and you come out ahead still. That's what stores, at least the smart ones, do when a card's value is trending downward. A removal of the Reserved List just means they treat those cards the same as all the other cards, which for the most part they already do. Remember, they're constantly buying and selling, not just buying a card and planning to sell it months or years down the road. There was actually an article on Star City Games from quite a while ago going into how the removal of the Reserved List wouldn't cost them money and discussing things like the buying/selling price as a factor in preventing that, but unfortunately I can't remember where I saw it.

Also I can't help but feel that a store would have reservations about suing the company whose product brings them a lot of business. If anyone was going to try to file a lawsuit over this, it would be the speculators who just buy cards and product and sit on it, hoping for them to spike. A mass reduction in their assets would be more aggravating because they aren't selling the stuff constantly like a store. They might band together, as they'd be the ones most adversely affected and have no particular loyalty to WOTC. But again, to be able to claim a high amount that might be able to be worth it, you need to get at least a decent number of people together.

Though, of course, for a larger firm to take it, they would have to believe that it has at least a reasonable chance of winning to warrant spending all that money and time on the case. I'd actually be very curious to see any similar cases to this and see what the results were or the opinion of an actual lawyer who works in these kinds of cases.


Let's assume that Wotc has lawyers. Wotc since being bought from Hasboro is now a greedy corporation that is beholden to shareholders. If they could abolish the reserve list they would have done so already, because they are a greedy company and money is the driving purpose of the company. The reason they don't despite your arguments is over lawsuits. Agreed, I doubt that cheerleader stores like Star City will sue. The stores that would sue would be the ones going out of business or the ones losing their investments. Collectors would also sue. MTG finance people would definitely sue. I think that the lawsuits will be massive. This is where we disagree. You are welcome to disagree, but I think that Wotc lawyers have also made that determination based on the fact that the reserve list has not been violated. The secondary reason the reserve list exists is to instill confidence of MTG as a collectible. They need this confidence to overcharge the public on booster boxes.

Second. I am sure that your argument that massive reprints will never kill a collectible. This collectible card game MTG is all about confidence. Baseball cards from the mid 80s to 2000 are worthless because the companies got greedy and over printed. Had beanie babies not been produced to oblivion, they would still have collectible value today. It was a "Fad" because collectors lost confidence. They got a clue that their collections could just be reprinted to oblivion, so they stopped buying. People lost confidence in baseball cards and Beanie Babies as as collectible. MTG will always be a game that will be available in that it is as popular as any board game out there. But their ability to charge 90-100 dollars a box only lasts as long as you have confidence that the cards will have value over the long term. There is no way any person should pay 90-100 dollars for 540 cards of cardboard unless they have some confidence in value over the long term. You can either see that our you can't.

Stores need card prices to be high. That is how they make a profit. Contrary to popular belief, stores don't make as much money off sealed booster boxes as you would think, since most of you buy online and margins are thin. Many stores need to make money off selling singles to stay afloat. Everyone seems so concerned with Wotc making money. Players need to be more concerned about their own collections and the inventory of your store owner maintaining value.

As far as the lady with the coffee is concerned. If millions and millions of cups of coffee sold were all the same temperature and only a handful of people hurt themselves by spilling on themselves then I am unsure what the case is. Other than that, I mean if you don't do what is intended with any product you can hurt yourself. Did you know that you can burn yourself on a light-bulb when it is on? Did you know that a TV can fall on you if you climb on it? Did you know that you can cut your finger off with a saw or knife? Did you also know you can even drown yourself in a pool? See what I mean. If her coffee was hotter than all the millions and millions of cups of coffee sold, then I am in complete agreement with the jury. It's like a car defect. If a car is defective, from the millions of cars sold, the car company is at fault, when your hurt yourself.

[dragonwisdom]

Okay lets get this thread back on track.


What else could they add to the card that would get around the reserve list?

I like adding the card type "Epic" which is restricted to two as supposed to Legendary, which is restricted to 1?

[dragonwisdom]

or how about when snowcoverd tundra comes into play, you get a snowflake counter.

I am unsure what a snowflake counter would do, but it does change the card.

[Lord Seth]

Let's assume that Wotc has lawyers. Wotc since being bought from Hasboro is now a greedy corporation that is beholden to shareholders. If they could abolish the reserve list they would have done so already, because they are a greedy company and money is the driving purpose of the company. The reason they don't despite your arguments is over lawsuits. Agreed, I doubt that cheerleader stores like Star City will sue. The stores that would sue would be the ones going out of business or the ones losing their investments.
Stores wouldn't be going out of business because of the abolishment of the Reserved List unless they were run by idiots. The SCG article had a fairly good argument as to how stores would not be hurt.


Collectors would also sue. MTG finance people would definitely sue. I think that the lawsuits will be massive. This is where we disagree. You are welcome to disagree, but I think that Wotc lawyers have also made that determination based on the fact that the reserve list has not been violated.
Or simply desire to avoid bad press from a lawsuit, even if it's lost by the plaintiffs.


The secondary reason the reserve list exists is to instill confidence of MTG as a collectible. They need this confidence to overcharge the public on booster boxes.
One wonders how Pokemon and especially Yu-Gi-Oh are such massive hits, then. You can't keep insisting that this "confidence" is required for MTG to be popular when one can easily point to other popular TCGs that do not have a problem with reprinting expensive cards.


But their ability to charge 90-100 dollars a box only lasts as long as you have confidence that the cards will have value over the long term. There is no way any person should pay 90-100 dollars for 540 cards of cardboard unless they have some confidence in value over the long term. You can either see that our you can't.
Please explain how Yu-Gi-Oh, then, is able to charge similar prices for their boxes as Magic, despite constant reprints of expensive cards.

Before you object by saying Yu-Gi-Oh boxes are cheaper than Magic, they also contain fewer booster packs (36 vs 24). So let's compare them on that basis. On Coolstuffinc.com, a Kaladesh booster box for Magic will cost $94.99 and a booster box of the newest Yu-Gi-Oh set, Invasion: Vengeance, costs $59.99. But when we take the number of packs into account, that comes to $2.64/pack for Kaladesh, and $2.50/pack for Invasion: Vengeance.

People clearly are willing to spend about as much for Yu-Gi-Oh booster boxes despite lacking this critical "confidence" you insist is the only reason people would ever pay those prices.


Stores need card prices to be high. That is how they make a profit. Contrary to popular belief, stores don't make as much money off sealed booster boxes as you would think, since most of you buy online and margins are thin. Many stores need to make money off selling singles to stay afloat. Everyone seems so concerned with Wotc making money. Players need to be more concerned about their own collections and the inventory of your store owner maintaining value.
High card prices are not particularly useful when you don't have as many cards to sell, as is the case with the Reserved List.


As far as the lady with the coffee is concerned. If millions and millions of cups of coffee sold were all the same temperature and only a handful of people hurt themselves by spilling on themselves then I am unsure what the case is. Other than that, I mean if you don't do what is intended with any product you can hurt yourself. Did you know that you can burn yourself on a light-bulb when it is on? Did you know that a TV can fall on you if you climb on it? Did you know that you can cut your finger off with a saw or knife? Did you also know you can even drown yourself in a pool? See what I mean. If her coffee was hotter than all the millions and millions of cups of coffee sold, then I am in complete agreement with the jury. It's like a car defect. If a car is defective, from the millions of cars sold, the car company is at fault, when your hurt yourself.
People have repeatedly given you information and linked you to more information about the case. I'm not sure how you still seem in the dark about the details.

[ParkerLewis]

or how about when snowcoverd tundra comes into play, you get a snowflake counter.

I am unsure what a snowflake counter would do, but it does change the card.

There have been numerous examples of options already.

An example of sidegrade (sometimes better, sometimes worse, depending on gamestate) : When ~ ETB, each player Scrys 1
An example of a downgrade that is so insignificant I dare anyone to claim he/she would not be fully comfortable playing it over a standard dual : When ~ ETB, if you control 10 or more lands, reveal the bottom card of your library
An example of a functional reprint that technically isn't and thus gives the middle finger to the RL : When ~ ETB, roll the planar die
[Or just take a regular dual, and give it an additional "FURL" type which has no rules text attached]

The point is, coming up with "copies" of duals that could totally viably being used by players as replacements is not an issue no matter how you want to approach it. This is not a problem.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Or:

Snow-Covered Underground Sea

Swamp Island

For you control a card named Underground Sea, sacrifice Snow-Covered Underground Sea.

The main thing I have an issue with is getting to play 8 of the same dual land, or any prohibitively powerful card for that matter. That is where the issue becomes a problem for me.

I think my idea is flawed. I don't really want them allowed in the same deck at all because that kind of a redundancy is too powerful and a definite slippery slope that could ultimately undermine the Reserve List in the end. However, I still want a functional reprint.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[MaximumC]

Or:

Snow-Covered Underground Sea

Swamp Island

For you control a card named Underground Sea, sacrifice Snow-Covered Underground Sea.

The main thing I have an issue with is getting to play 8 of the same dual land, or any prohibitively powerful card for that matter. That is where the issue becomes a problem for me.

I think my idea is flawed. I don't really want them allowed in the same deck at all because that kind of a redundancy is too powerful and a definite slippery slope that could ultimately undermine the Reserve List in the end. However, I still want a functional reprint.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

A fine argument, but the ship sailed on that years ago. The moment they printed the comes-into-play untapped Fetches in Invasion, they gave everyone access to that redundancy. They doubled down on the same thing in Zendikar.

[ParkerLewis]

I don't really want them allowed in the same deck at all because that kind of a redundancy is too powerful

This has been beaten to death too. Can you name a somewhat known Legacy deck that would really want to play the full 8 ? I could see some decks considering playing a fifth dual, but that's about it. As MaximumC said, at this point fetches become a better option. The ability to go get a basic (or a different dual) is worth more than duals 5+.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

This has been beaten to death too. Can you name a somewhat known Legacy deck that would really want to play the full 8 ? I could see some decks considering playing a fifth dual, but that's about it. As MaximumC said, at this point fetches become a better option. The ability to go get a basic (or a different dual) is worth more than duals 5+.

Not yet, but you do remember that LED was a crap rare for years, right? I didn't say now, but somewhere down the line, the condition will be met that breaks the situation and new issues will arise out of that. It's not currently a problem, but I think if you can have double the duals, you are asking for it.

Can you tap mana in response to a static effect? If not, all you must put is "As a land enters the battlefield under your control, if it is named Underground Sea, it enters the battlefield tapped, and sacrifice it as it enters the battlefield."

I'm sure that wording is nonsense and would need fixed, but the concept is closer.

[dr.philgood]

or how about when snowcoverd tundra comes into play, you get a snowflake counter.

I am unsure what a snowflake counter would do, but it does change the card.


Then they could make a card called
"join the club"
Each person with a snowflake counter sacrifices all snow permeanants they control, then loose all snowflake counters.
You are not special. You are not a unique or beautiful snow flake. Tyler Durdan- the mind sculptor

[Mr.C]

Hmmm, Fork vs Reverberate. Unlimited versions of Fork were $15, now they're $35.

Oh, wait.

Ok, let's try something else. Valor Made Real is basically Blaze of Glory. Unlimited was $10, it's still $10.

Hmm...

[Lemnear]

Hmmm, Fork vs Reverberate. Unlimited versions of Fork were $15, now they're $35.

Oh, wait.

Ok, let's try something else. Valor Made Real is basically Blaze of Glory. Unlimited was $10, it's still $10.

Hmm...

You could have picked Juzaam Djinn and Plague Sliver for a much more drastic example, but its still none fitting as we previously discussed cards which have their pricetag due to player demand and not due to collectibility

[Crimhead]

I think that list is a bit too narrow. Elves should be on it, for example. It was playable before Cradle was adopted bigtime, and it's still playable without it today. Elves without Cradle or Bayou?

People can always buy in with sub-optimal budget versions of established lists. This doesn't help! For one thing, people are reluctant to buy in with out an optimal deck (or at least the possibility of eventually upgrading it). For another thing, the format being overrun by sub-optimal lists is as bad or worse as the format being flooded with too many copies of too few decks.

And for the record Elves has pretty much always run Cradle - just not a playset.



The point is that people (many in this thread!) view Legacy's problem as access to PARTICULAR DECKS when they should view the problem as access TO THE FORMAT. The top tables of Legacy of five years from now may look nothing like it does today. And, if they're full of new printings, then the problem IS being fixed.What Legacy needs to be healthy is a wide range of (competitive) decks to be accessible. That's the only way the format can grow and remain diverse. The problem is not being solved (and note that the Eldrazis do in fact require RL cards to be optimal).


The secondary reason the reserve list exists is to instill confidence of MTG as a collectible. They need this confidence to overcharge the public on booster boxes. The confidence required to by a box has nothing to do with the RL, as none of the cards in that box are actually protected by the RL!

People who buy boxes or chase rares do so because they are confident that WotC will reprint high end staples responsibly and with restraint so as to not tank values. WotC have proved they can do this (see Goyf).



Second. I am sure that your argument that massive reprints will never kill a collectible..."Massive reprints" shouldn't even be being discussed. Nobody is wanting "massive reprints". We want duals (or lands that are effectively duals) printed only just enough to scale them back to ~2010 prices. Mythics in limited print runs, "expeditions", judges promos, etc. Nobody's talking about another Chronicles!

[hymnyou]

Do you like your cards to have some value? Me too- so does wizards (see tarmogoyf). Wizards prefers to reprint little, notice how much they squeezed out of goyf. There is a happy medium of value they have met per box, and they have teams following how much people are willing to spend, peaks etc. They will hold back all the cards they can, but realize they do need to continue to reprint cards to sell. The days of chronicles are long gone, lessons were learned about how to reprint magic cards. Expeditions are mythic rares on cocaine, they are so far from chronicles at this point the hysteria about reprints just sounds foolish- they basically trolled out the finance community. They are dedicated to making their lottery tickets desirable, the snow duals would prob be legendary expeditions. If anything people should be worried about the powercreep we've been seeing, not 8 of the same fucking dual land in a legacy deck. Or worry about the next retarded thing show and tell can dump out etc.

80% of the the magic market is casual-most prob have no clue what the reserve list is and would buy cards at the exact same rate or higher if the reserve list broke. Wizards just doesnt want to be tied up with court antics with over zealous collectors with too much income. If they ever decided to do so collectors with older cards would gain value for the most part (See beta birds of paradise) despite reprints.

Truth is, more players and your cards go up, this applies to printing snow duals. More players increases the overall potential of players wanting to buy original printings. Legacy card collections had their most value overall when it was most supported. This leads to me asking is the problem really the amount of cards available at a low price or just tournament support. I guess they cannot support a mass of large events if they dont have a solution to the fundamental problem of the amount of duals in circulation, but I think snow covered work just fine as a solution. It seems like those that are worried about their duals going down in value are missing the bigger picture which is that your overall collection would prob grow if you're worried about that sort of thing. Anyways even with snow duals people will start complaining about tabernacle's price etc- seems players are always going to complain. My biggest concern is more tournament support with coverage at the end of the day but I think snow covered duals would help, without disrupting the format in any real notable way.

[Lemnear]

I really can't help anyone thinking its sane to expect that bought booster packs should contain more money than they payed for the pack itself. Its the same ridiculous idiocy every FtV set, every Masters Set, etc

"If I buy a 9€ eternal masters booster, it should at least contain 20€ worth of cardboard"

[Barook]

I really can't help anyone thinking its sane to expect that bought booster packs should contain more money than they payed for the pack itself. Its the same ridiculous idiocy every FtV set, every Masters Set, etc

"If I buy a 9€ eternal masters booster, it should at least contain 20€ worth of cardboard"
Exactly - that's not how EV works. If they're worth more than their sell price, then

a) shops would prefer to crack the pack themselves and sell the singles or
b) they charge sky-high prices way above the MSRP.

If one follows the EV and booster prices for MTGO on Goatbots, you get a pretty good grasp of that.