[Official] Bitching About Prices, Buyouts and Reprints Thread

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Originally Posted by Mr.C

I'd be happy to lose my "investment" if it meant that more people played.

Who cares, anyway.

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Those of us who bought into the format recently because we were upset with how the finances of Modern and Standard worked. If WotC didn't basically have a policy that guaranteed that I didn't need to worry about my $600 card becoming $200 overnight, I wouldn't have bought into Legacy. And I know several players coming from similar circumstances, whether it be buying into Legacy because Modern is garbage or because keeping up with the Standard metagame and cost of rotation was not what they wanted to be doing for the rest of their MTG career.

I can kind of understand some of the reprint policy, as I traded quite heavily for a mint condition English tabernacle of pendrell vale, but for the rest of legacy stuff I wouldn't mind reprints, not many people play legacy because of the price, though I argue that modern has some overly expensive pieces, it would be nice to have more players in the (best) format ever.

Edit: not to mention playing standard where you have to replace your entire deck every so often.

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

Those of us who bought into the format recently because we were upset with how the finances of Modern and Standard worked. If WotC didn't basically have a policy that guaranteed that I didn't need to worry about my $600 card becoming $200 overnight, I wouldn't have bought into Legacy. And I know several players coming from similar circumstances, whether it be buying into Legacy because Modern is garbage or because keeping up with the Standard metagame and cost of rotation was not what they wanted to be doing for the rest of their MTG career.

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If you want to protect your $600 go put it in a bank. If you're lucky it'll become $606.50 by next year. If you think you're protecting your finances by "investing" into some cardboard, the only person you're trying to fool is yourself.

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Originally Posted by Stevestamopz

If you want to protect your $600 go put it in a bank. If you're lucky it'll become $606.50 by next year. If you think you're protecting your finances by "investing" into some cardboard, the only person you're trying to fool is yourself.

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This.

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Originally Posted by Stevestamopz

If you want to protect your $600 go put it in a bank. If you're lucky it'll become $606.50 by next year. If you think you're protecting your finances by "investing" into some cardboard, the only person you're trying to fool is yourself.

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Can't have fun every Friday with $600 sitting in a bank account.

A board game, beer and friends cost a lot less than Magic. Your making a choice to play this game, you have other options.

Hobbies are expensive. You're lucky that this hobby retains any value at all. A lot don't.

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

Hobbies are expensive. You're lucky that this hobby retains any value at all. A lot don't.

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Completely agree.
Related to this, I don't understand people who's always trying to sell their cards for at least the money they payed for them, regardless of their market value. I think this is one of the reasons why Legacy is dying...

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

A board game, beer and friends cost a lot less than Magic. Your making a choice to play this game, you have other options.

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You're right, I do have a choice. And I chose the hobby that has a policy that says I can expect a significant return (maybe a little more, maybe a little less, but not significantly less) on the money I put in.

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

Hobbies are expensive. You're lucky that this hobby retains any value at all. A lot don't.

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And for Legacy, it's a feature not a bug.

The only reason cards are worth anything is due to demand from players. Investing in cards seems, to me, to not be the most profitable thing to be doing with your hard earned money. It's a game first after all and I think that gets lost sometimes.

I've bought into modern and legacy in a big way, and I would have no issue with my cards betting worth nothing because of reprints. If that means that more people start playing than I'm all for it.

Hell if it was down to me I'd put in a gradual phase out of the reserved list over the next 5 years. Gives people plenty of time to sell up if that's what they want to do. I mean its not like homarid shaman is too powerful that it should never get a reprint.

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Originally Posted by MaximumC

As someone who owns many cards that are getting devalued by reprints, I say, bring it on. This kind of aggressive policy helps make sure people can actually play. People still buy packs, which still have an msrp, so there is a minimum price point. Above that, it's far better for the game if cards max out at $20 on the high end.

Of course, there is always the reserve list of you simply must own cards that won't get reprinted.

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I am not sure you own that many cards that you paid a high price for. If you bought an underground sea for 200 dollars and it dropped to 20 dollars you would be mad.

If you are not mad, than there are many people who would be happy to buy your collection for 10 cents on the dollar.

Magic is not expensive. You can buy thousands of cards for like 20 bucks on ebay.

Modern and Legacy are expensive. These formats are earned through years of collecting. You have to pull your dues. Contrary to the media propaganda, you are not owed anything in life. If you are a new player, there is a constructed format for you. It's called standard and if you don't want to spend that much on standard, you can play commander, draft, planechase, kitchen table etc ..... Hell you can play pauper and any tier one deck for 30-40 bucks.

I don't even play or own a single planechase card, but I feel sorry for anyone who paid 400 dollars to collect those previous sets, since you can now get it for 100.

These are all Wotc cash grabs. They could just as easily print new planechase cards for new players and maybe reprint a few of the old ones. But instead they decide to steal from the collectors yet again. There are some people here who don't care. Maybe your sitting on Beta power which you know they can't reprint, maybe you don't have that many good cards to begin with. But overall, it is obvious that Wotc is now serving the Hasboro shareholders. I still find it funny that many people seem to really care how much Wizards of the Coast is making and everyone seems so concerned with Wizard's financial well being.

For once I wish players would look out for themselves and for the store-owners who survive on selling singles. That's right did you know that most LGS's would fail selling just booster packs. They make like 10 bucks per box after competing with online vendors. Any store owner who bought into plane chase sealed or open just lost a lot of money.

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Originally Posted by and3h

The only reason cards are worth anything is due to demand from players. Investing in cards seems, to me, to not be the most profitable thing to be doing with your hard earned money. It's a game first after all and I think that gets lost sometimes.

I've bought into modern and legacy in a big way, and I would have no issue with my cards betting worth nothing because of reprints. If that means that more people start playing than I'm all for it.

Hell if it was down to me I'd put in a gradual phase out of the reserved list over the next 5 years. Gives people plenty of time to sell up if that's what they want to do. I mean its not like homarid shaman is too powerful that it should never get a reprint.

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If they phased out the reserve list in 5 years, no one would buy. Why would anyone buy any cards that were going off the reserved list? That does not give anyone time to sell. You would only be able to sell to noobs who had no idea that the reserve list would go away. Who wants to pay 200 dollars for a card that will be worthless in 5 years. Just think about it. Would you buy a single card that in 5 years that will be worthless.

This is a collectible card game. And if you have no issue with your cards being worthless, no one is stopping you from selling your collection really cheap so that a new player can get in. But those of us who paid 400 dollars for their modern deck would like to keep it that way. I mean a 20 percent hit now and then is okay, but worthless???

In case it is not clear, I am not against reprints. The game needs reprints to survive. Responsible reprints are good for the game.

What I am against is cash grabs by Wotc and their shareholders. They pretend to be "for the people". They love it when players don't care that their collections are being reprinted to death. They love those players the most. If they could, they would eliminate Standard, Legacy and Modern for draft. Every week you pay 16 bucks for draft to have fun and then you have to buy a new deck again every week. After 300-400 dollars per year, you do it all over again the next year. In the end they want you to have nothing to show for your collection. If they could get away with that, they would. You see no other game on the planet get's away with how much money Wotc can extract from it's player base. You only do so, because in the back of your mind you know that your cards could be worth something. And they will as long as the player base is vigilant from Wotc cash grabs.

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Originally Posted by dragonwisdom

Just think about it. Would you buy a single card that in 5 years that will be worthless.

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If your a standard player yes.

The list is constricting the format. If prices get to high people will just stop playing period. We need to find a release valve.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

If your a standard player yes.

The list is constricting the format. If prices get to high people will just stop playing period. We need to find a release valve.

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Standard cards are not completely worthless. All those Urza cards were once standard cards right? Once the secondary market crashes, so does Wotc as a game. Many of you forgot chronicles or were not around for it. MTG was on life support back then due to the collapse of the secondary market.

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Originally Posted by dragonwisdom

If they phased out the reserve list in 5 years, no one would buy. Why would anyone buy any cards that were going off the reserved list? That does not give anyone time to sell. You would only be able to sell to noobs who had no idea that the reserve list would go away. Who wants to pay 200 dollars for a card that will be worthless in 5 years. Just think about it. Would you buy a single card that in 5 years that will be worthless.

This is a collectible card game. And if you have no issue with your cards being worthless, no one is stopping you from selling your collection really cheap so that a new player can get in. But those of us who paid 400 dollars for their modern deck would like to keep it that way. I mean a 20 percent hit now and then is okay, but worthless???

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This is totally ridiculous, dood. The whole fucking Standard format is build on chase rares/mythics which are worthless 5 years later and people still pay absurd prices to get them.

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

This is totally ridiculous, dood. The whole fucking Standard format is build on chase rares/mythics which are worthless 5 years later and people still pay absurd prices to get them.

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Try this as an experiment. Pay 500 dollars per year in standard. Than after the year give your cards away to a new player. I mean if your point is so valid, please try that out.

Here is another food for thought.

But what if Wizards printed every card 4x MTG for any set and sold it like the game Dominion for 40 bucks.

Would you pay 500 dollar a year for that product. Hopefully the answer is no. There needs to be balance for a collectible card game.

If I thought I could trust Wizards, I
could see an end to the reserve list. But I don't trust them anymore. They are now beholden to their shareholders. And even if I trusted Rosewater, what happens when he dies. All it takes is one greedy CEO and your collection is done.

Pay for Standard... No thanks. I won't touch that dumpster fire.

For the record, I hand out a lot of Standard cards. I draft, I very rarely keep what I draft. I have enough junk already in my home.

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Originally Posted by chaosjace

I can kind of understand some of the reprint policy, as I traded quite heavily for a mint condition English tabernacle of pendrell vale, but for the rest of legacy stuff I wouldn't mind reprints, not many people play legacy because of the price, though I argue that modern has some overly expensive pieces, it would be nice to have more players in the (best) format ever.

Edit: not to mention playing standard where you have to replace your entire deck every so often.

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Why would tabernacle be exempt? So the one card you paid a high price for is okay, but the rest is free game. I don't even own a tabernacle, but if the other reserved list cards are on block so is tabernacle. It can go from 1200 to 1 dollar according to those who want it to be worthless. Once that happens would you ever buy an MTG product again. Would you feel sore that your collectible is now worthless.

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Originally Posted by dragonwisdom

It can go from 1200 to 1 dollar according to those who want it to be worthless.

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I think your twisting peoples words here. Affordable and worthless are not the same. As an owner of 3 Tabernacle (And I use them. All 3 are in Stax) I want to see this card affordable not worthless.

I don't think there is any great crime in making Duals all cost less than 100 each. I don't think there is a crime in Tabernacle costing 1/4th of what it does now.

Having a look at Modern reprints, like Goyf, Wizards has shown a desire to increase card availability without totally tanking the value. I don't mind seeing that in Legacy. Your cardboard would have decreased value tomorrow than it has today, but more people would play. If you dislike that, your welcome to find another hobby, I suggest not treating that hobby as an investment and spending less money on it.

Stick to the basics. Buy only what you need. Buy nonfoil playsets. No more than 4 cards, no less than 4 cards. And buy these cards after a reprint. Do not speculate. Do not sell or break up playsets either, I know a lot of people who sold goblin guides before mm15 in anticipation of a reprint. This is assuming you still want them/use them. The only exception is if you're not using something at all and it spikes super high, then I feel it is okay to get rid of stuff. I think this is the best route to build a collection.

Usually when one card gets reprinted another spikes, so nobody should be crying over reprints. Unless we're talking legacy staples here, different story when we're talking about $100+ cards. I can understand people getting upset over U-Sea/tabernacle hypothetically getting reprinted.

I know some people who bought a lot of reserved stuff after eternal masters was announced. I think it's a bad idea, I'd feel nervous about holding onto excess legacy stuff.

besides, legacy is a proxy format anyway. unless you religiously play in grand prix's, these cards have no tournament value anymore. they may as well reprint away.

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Originally Posted by dragonwisdom

Standard cards are not completely worthless. All those Urza cards were once standard cards right? Once the secondary market crashes, so does Wotc as a game. Many of you forgot chronicles or were not around for it. MTG was on life support back then due to the collapse of the secondary market.

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I was not around back than, but the stories I heard was, that the big problem was, that Wizard just delivered the amount of cases the stores ordered. Since previously, there was only a limited print run and thus, as a store owner you only got like 3-4 cases even IF you ordered 60, the stores just over ordered (so the 60+ cases) as usual to get those few cases but suddenly wizard delivered those 60+ cases. THAT was the problem afaik.

Greetings,
Kathal

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Originally Posted by ed06288

besides, legacy is a proxy format anyway. unless you religiously play in grand prix's, these cards have no tournament value anymore. they may as well reprint away.

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Depends on where you live, but here in Austria you can play Legacy every week at least semi competitive, which is nice.

Greetings,
Kathal

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

I think your twisting peoples words here. Affordable and worthless are not the same. As an owner of 3 Tabernacle (And I use them. All 3 are in Stax) I want to see this card affordable not worthless.

I don't think there is any great crime in making Duals all cost less than 100 each. I don't think there is a crime in Tabernacle costing 1/4th of what it does now.

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You might be okay with 250 euro tabernacles, but someone else might prefer 25 euro tabernacles. After tabernacle hits 250, do we keep reprinting it until it is a 25 euro card? Where do you draw the line? Why is your opinion better than others'? (FYI: not too many years tabernacle was a 25/30 euro card)

You can never please everybody, period.

and if you really want to do something like this, then use some version of the following:
http://kokminglee.125mb.com/economics/caldands.html

The problem, why I dislike this approach (posted by @bruizer) is that is nigh impossible to properly represent the reality, when analysing something like Magic.

I mean, the best example was MM1 and what it did to Modern. Modern got anything but cheaper because of this, heck, the average cost of the decks went up by 36% IIRC. Partly is true for MM2, where Affinity got more expensive, even though the staples got reprinted.

Hence, it really depends on the print run. If the print run is in MM1 territory I doubt, that the prices drop significant, if at all. You would need double the MM2 print run to make a remarkable dent into the prices of Legacy decks (I'm thinking about -35-40% here). And even THAN, the prices will recover rather sooner than later (see MM and Modern).

Greetings,
Kathal

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Originally Posted by bruizar

You can never please everybody, period.

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I am not going to try. My goal is not to please everyone, I don't delude myself with unattainable aims. My goal is for a healthy Legacy format and thus my suggestions are always going to align with my views on how to attain such a thing.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

I think your twisting peoples words here. Affordable and worthless are not the same. As an owner of 3 Tabernacle (And I use them. All 3 are in Stax) I want to see this card affordable not worthless.

I don't think there is any great crime in making Duals all cost less than 100 each. I don't think there is a crime in Tabernacle costing 1/4th of what it does now.

Having a look at Modern reprints, like Goyf, Wizards has shown a desire to increase card availability without totally tanking the value. I don't mind seeing that in Legacy. Your cardboard would have decreased value tomorrow than it has today, but more people would play. If you dislike that, your welcome to find another hobby, I suggest not treating that hobby as an investment and spending less money on it.

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I love you.

I started playing again a few months ago after a 6-7 year hiatus. I still have receipts of buying duals, fows, etc, for ~20-25€ a piece in 2006. Coming back and seeing duals start at 200€ scared me. If I hadn't bought a lot of these cards back then I simply wouldn't be able to play with them today because I wouldn't feel comfortable spending 5000+€ on pieces of cardboard for a game. And I am someone without any kind of money issue, which means a lot of people are actually kept out of playing with same cards.

Heck, since I restarted playing we have managed to get a few guys curious and interested in the game and we have been lending them decks to play with us. What do you think will happen next ? I am crushed in advance thinking of the moment they'll be ready and willing to buy into the game, only to realize that the typical price of the decks they've been playing with can be 1500+€. Sure, you can always build on a budget (although today we tend to consider 300€ a budget deck...), or just find other ways to go from there, but still, how shitty is the message here ? "Sorry, forget about playing the same deck / cards than me : these are cards even I would be reluctant to buy today. Too bad if you thought we could be on equal footing" ?

I don't fucking want this. I don't fucking want to be unable to find players because cards are now too expensive. I don't fucking care about having made a 900% return on my duals bought 10 years ago. I want all the players and friends I play with, everyone, to have reasonable access to these cards as well. And what the fuck do you even do with a 600€ Tabernacle ? Do you even get it out from its double sleeve inside its toploader ? Do you even play it with potential drinks around ? Duals have gone 10x in the last ten years. What's to prevent them from continuing upwards if there is no reprint ? What will we all do when duals reach 1000 € ? Do we still even dare to PLAY with our fragile 8000 € pieces of cardboard ? Do we even keep them at home ? How fucking retarded is it having to ask this question ? My most important cards are actually in my big ass professional safe at my working place. Yeah, that's awesome.

I started playing in 1995. That's more than 20 years ago. This game is fucking awesome. I fucking hate the Reserved List. I fucking hate it. It is the shame of this game and this is what's going to kill paper Legacy just like it has long killed paper Vintage. But hey, a fine Lotus in its BGS casing (which it'll never leave anymore) is still worth more than 15K !

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Originally Posted by ParkerLewis

And what the fuck do you even do with a 600€ Tabernacle ? Do you even get it out from its double sleeve inside its toploader ?

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Sell it, it's italian crap if it's a 600€ Tabernacle.

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Originally Posted by ParkerLewis

I started playing in 1995. Maybe even 1994, who the fuck knows.

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Old enough to know what Chronicles did to the game then.


Magic is NOT a card game, it is a COLLECTIBLE card game. If you don't like that part of the game, you just don't like Magic as a concept.

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Originally Posted by bruizar

Old enough to know what Chronicles did to the game then.

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At some point, your parents got you out of diapers. Then you know what happened ? You took a shit on the floor.

At this point your parents could have just put you back in diapers and kept you in it for the next 20 years, with the perfectly valid argument that you did try the no-diaper thing once and, well, you know what happened.

Now I'll be going out on a limb here and venture that's not what they did, and that you have now surprisingly met their expectations and become a clean boy (feel free to correct me otherwise).

Now, if they were smart enough to reason that maybe you shitting on the floor once did not mean you'd always do so for the rest of your life, maybe you can follow in their steps and understand the same thing they hopefully did.

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Originally Posted by bruizar

Magic is NOT a card game, it is a COLLECTIBLE card game. If you don't like that part of the game, you just don't like Magic as a concept.

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Magic is NOT a collectible, Magic is a collectible card GAME. If you don't like that part of the collectible, you just don't like Magic as a concept.

"Old enough to know what Chronicles did to the game then."

Yeah it got new players in the game.

Magic the gathering is an investment compared to other games. It is one of the few games that cost so much money. Why on earth would you pay so much for a booster box if it
did not retain some value. It is both collectible and a game at the same time. In some formats like Vintage and Legacy there is a conflict between the collectible and gaming aspect. There are different formats that have
different price points. That is it. That is how Wizards designed it. They don't want everyone playing modern, so they keep it expensive. If they made it as cheap as standard, why would anyone play standard, which is their cash cow.

I hate to break it to some of you, but store owners who I talk to a lot, consider their inventories or "collections" as investments. Please think about that?
They don't make that much money selling booster boxes, since most of you order from online vendors and not your LGS. Their margins are thin, after paying
for rent, employees, product etc... A good percentage of their profits comes from their inventory.

Now some of you might say well maybe we should have a policy where no card should cost more than 20 dollars or all dual lands, tabernacle and the like should be half what they are worth. Are you willing to empty your back accounts through a "gofundme" page
to reimburse all those store owners? I mean this seriously. What do you do about those stores that sank thousands of dollars into their "investments" What would you do about them. One can infer from some of your comments that you don't mind them going bankrupt.

Now some of you will just want to hit prices with a 20 percent hit to the market price. 'This is reasonable and this is likely what will happen with Modern. However, if you get the wrong CEO in office (say rosewater dies) , you could pay 70 dollars for snappy only for it to get reprinted to 5 bucks.

I will say this again. Magic is a cheap game intrinsically. Some constructed formats are expensive. So what. There are many different formats that people can play on the cheap.
If Wotc wanted Legacy to survive they would just allow a limited number of proxies. They don't want it to survive. They view those cards as mistakes. Duel lands, LED, Cradle, etc are game designmistakes as far as they are concerned. Ditto for the Lotus and the moxes.

It is true there is no crime in making cards more affordable. But how Wotc does it will make a difference.

I tried to push for a trade-in program. For example, if you had a revised Tundra you could trade it in for 8 copies and then you as the collector or you the store owner would benefit. You could sell your cards and get more copies into the market.

It was a non-starter since people can't wrap their head around the idea. I still think a trade-in program is coming as fakes get better and better, but Wotc will have to be desperate to enact one. They already have redemptions from MTGO online, so it is doable, but it will be a massive change in policy, so they will wait until the very end. Just an idea or an opinion.

I want Legacy to survive like you do. It's sanctioned wizards proxies, a trade-in program or creating different cards that do the same thing. But alas they are all-in on modern.

I have explained my issues with the Trade in program before. I think my issues with it are valid, I have yet to see them addressed. I have also said before if that's the answer they land on, so be it.

As for stores, when you trade in stocks, you can be burned. At this point, that's what I think some people think of cards as and treat as such.

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Originally Posted by Kathal

Depends on where you live, but here in Austria you can play Legacy every week at least semi competitive, which is nice.

Greetings,
Kathal

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i'm jealous/mad, all the shops within an hour in my area switched over to proxies a couple years ago. i sold off my ant/dredge/charbelcher/oops all spells stuff shortly afterwards. i don't like proxies; i think people should respect the barrier to entry. buuuuuut i do have to admit that things have gotten out of hand recently, and attendance was struggling beforehand anyways. this idea that cards will just keep going up and up in price is magical christmas-land to me.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

I have explained my issues with the Trade in program before. I think my issues with it are valid, I have yet to see them addressed. I have also said before if that's the answer they land on, so be it.

As for stores, when you trade in stocks, you can be burned. At this point, that's what I think some people think of cards as and treat as such.

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there are plenty of revised duals in circulation. i dont see a problem

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Originally Posted by bruizar

there are plenty of revised duals in circulation. i dont see a problem

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I don't know what you mean by this. What are you directing your comment at sorry?

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

I don't know what you mean by this. What are you directing your comment at sorry?

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The price of cards is only partially made up by its scarcity. It's mostly just people deciding that they want €X for it and the rest of the market just following. Creating 8x the number of revised duals with trade ins floods the market since there are already approx 680.000 playsets of revised duals out there. If we cant even muster up legacy events with 20 people and say its because we can't obtain dual lands, knowing that there is more than enough for everyone to go around, this format is lost.