[Official] Bitching About Prices, Buyouts and Reprints Thread

Oh. Yes I understand it will work, my issue was not with that side of things. I may dig into the thread later and quote my posts on the subject.

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Originally Posted by dragonwisdom

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.

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Oh boy, you have no idea.

Do you know tabletop games? I have a collection at home which costed around 7k if you would buy them new. What are they worth? Not even 2k if I would try to sell them.

Is this wasted money? Hell nah. The amount of fun I have and had, the friends I made with that game and especially the STORIES I have made and participated makes the money aspect worthless for me.

I did not buy into Magic cause I want to make a profit. I bought into it, cause I wanted to make the same memories I did with tabletop games. And it really hurts to see players not able to play the game, just because of a stupid list, which will cause a dying of several formats sooner than later.

Greetings,
Kathal

PS: And yes, I have enough cards from the RL and yes, I would lose a lot of money, but I give a damn, cause I bought those cards to play.
PPS: And no, I do not have unlimited funds. I'm still a Student which works part time. However, playing games for over 15 years (tabletop games since 15 years, magic since Mirrodin 1, Legacy since RTR) results into this huge collection.
PPPS: Proxy argument is stupid, cause this would make the counterfeits really juicy.

You can still play legacy at a different price point. You just can't play every deck.

My deck of choice is dead guy which most of you know is black white junk. With all the reprints, it's quite an affordable deck and I top 8 local tournaments. I don't own a tabernacle, so I don't play lands. That deck belongs to someone else. I don't wish that person ill will. Ditto with Miracles. Still, I shake his/her hand before we play.

For newer players, they can play eldrazi. It's even a tier 1 deck. Only city of traitors is the barrier to entry. You might have to trade your binder to get them, but they will not go down because of the reserved list. All the other cards are non-reserved list and are cheap based on Legacy standards.

Even Blue/Red Delver is not that expensive. You can get bye with 2 volcanics.

All Merfolk's staples were reprinted in the last 3 years. Ditto for goblins (non-port). Piledriver went from 17 to 1.

I think people always want what they can't have. There are plenty of decks that people can play.
It's called "Legacy right" It's not called I just got in to the game and I "deserve" to play every deck in Legacy.

All the Mardu duels are cheap and you can choose not to netdeck and come up with something original.

The cooliest thing that I saw was during Zendikar block, a 13 year old wanted to play Legacy. He went up to the older players and said " please trade me underground seas."
He traded 4 Jace's and lots of fetches and ended up with 4 Seas. I saw him player at FNM legacy, the following month. That is how it is done folks.

Overtime, you collect the cards. The new players will collect Expeditions and Inventions to trade up to Legacy staples. That is why they call it Legacy. There are decks for newer players and their are decks for older players. Who says you have to have access
to all of them. This is a collectible card game. It is both collectible and a game. Who cares if you can't play miracles, there are many decks that people can choose from.

I will continue to play dead guy. I love the deck and I don't begrudge anyone who has a more expensive deck.

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Originally Posted by dragonwisdom

You can still play legacy at a different price point. You just can't play every deck...
The cooliest thing that I saw was during Zendikar block, a 13 year old wanted to play Legacy. He went up to the older players and said " please trade me underground seas."
He traded 4 Jace's and lots of fetches and ended up with 4 Seas. I saw him player at FNM legacy, the following month. That is how it is done folks...

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true, i see these people who complain of the price of modern/legacy but when i go through their trade binders, they easily have $1000 worth of stuff they're never gonna use.

I'd say i'm pretty patient/smart when it comes to building decks. but it doesn't change the fact that when I show up to play modern/legacy, nobody else shows up. maybe modern is slowing down because its standard season. Or kids are away at college. but if stuff doesn't go back to normal over christmas break i'm gonna be disheartened (i feel things are slow).

idk, maybe i just have this unrealistic expectation that fnm will fire every week with at least 10 people playing 10 different decks. i could have sworn treasure cruise era had pretty good attendance oddly. i dont care to travel to far away events.

i feel you should own at least 4 or 5 decks in a format to be competitive. you kinda do need "every deck." if people at local shops are playing shardless bug and mud, i wouldn't bother showing up with storm. you need to be able to switch decks. besides, if you're locked into playing the same deck every week, you're not really getting the "legacy experience."

1) death and taxes - wasteland and karakas got reprinted and sanctum prelate and recruiter of the guard are new toys and Thalia is a beating - teir1

2) Eldrazi - tier 1

3) Merfolk - tier 1.5

4) Goblins - tier 2
5) Black White - tier 1.5

6) Burn or Boros - tier 1.5

7) Delver variants can get away with 2 duals. - tier 1.5 with 2 duals

Savannah does not cost an arm and leg

Maverick perhaps - tier 1

Enchantress. - tier 3

Affinity - is cheap, I think.

I am sure that their are others. Isn't that an sufficient amount of decks? Some of the modern decks cost more than the decks above.

Bug, Rug, Miracles, Lands, Mudd - These decks are expensive but look at all those cheaper decks above. And as time goes on there will be other Legacy quality decks to add
to the list.

There was a time that Mudd was the bargain bin deck, but now it is not. That is Legacy. There are plenty of decks for all people. People don't participate in Legacy because they think it is too expensive.
Some decks are expensive and some are comparable or cheaper than a modern deck.

there is a subtle psychological need to feel "your" format is better or maybe you fear that the format you are good at, isn't good enough for other formats...
i approached a table of other MTG players and asked if anyone would want to play in the legacy $5 event for that night.
(knowing the responses i'd get): cost too much, don't have the cards, need too many duals, turn 1 kill-no way!, blah blah blah etc....

each time i was given a reason for why a specific player didn't/couldn't want to play legacy, i responded with, "I will make you any deck you want to play with".
i said this to each player and always offered to build any deck just to get them to play in one event.
i always got the same responses, "cost too much, don't have the cards, blah etc...." even after i offered to build them any deck!
i always countered with, "i will make you any deck". At the end of this i was nearly pleading with them just to get them to respond to my offer to build a deck!
And if anyone just happened to show up without asking me to make a deck, i will always have several legit legacy decks to loan out.

people at the shop wouldn't even respond to my offer. it was as if they selectively didn't hear me?

as weird as that sounds, no one took me up on the offer to play legacy, basically for free: any legacy deck in mtg at their disposal.
a random group of people was offered to play legacy with any cards they wanted to use, at no cost to them, and not a single person responded yes.

reserve list? reprints?
TL/DR: most people want to play in "their" format and this small sample size of mtg players didn't care if they had access to any legacy deck...

I think there are some misconceptions being spread in this thread and they should be addressed nothing forward withbthe idea to improve dialogue. I am not sure how many people on this thread were actually playing at the time of Chronicles. Yes cards dropped in price, they were shit like killer bees, elder dragons, and axelrod gunnarson. All cool cards but not really playable. The playable cards in the set did take an immediate hit(erhnam and city of brass) but largely rebounded without issue. Comparing a new reprint set designed to increase supplies of playable cards should never be compared to that set. Dual lands, fow, gaeas cradle, and ports are all very strong, very playable cards. The difference there is huge. Those earlier cards were only valuable due to the supply being low. They had no real playable value. The cards people need for legacy and modern are all very playable cards. They have demand regardless of price because they allow others to actually you know play the game, which is the main reason it exists, thus it being a collectible card GAME. There are some outliers that would drop significantly (portal stuff, probably tabernacle, and a few ransoms) but it would be foolish to assume a playable card would drop by more than 40% outside of those corner cases. Revised duals may be hit due to white boarder and all, but I doubt the new art would hold a candle to the classics which should help to maintain desirability.

The issue of collectible should also be addressed. Read any history of magic and you will see that Garfield designed collectability to mean more of a Pokémon, gotta catch em all mentality, as opposed to a value outside the game. He wanted people to have to collect and search out cards and that exploration was actually integral to the early design and release of the game. It wasn't so much that black lotus, moxen, and time walk were mistakes that the team did not know about, but rather they knew they were powerful and the allure and mystique of the cards in a play environment was desirable for the exploration of the game. They had every intention of cycling through cards as new sets came out. It was only after the game proved more desirable and played that they realized people would want to buy boxes of the cards instead of a few packs. Understanding this is critical to understanding the initial design of the game. The initial secondary market arose due to low supply and huge demand. Any and all cards had value. In those early days people bought packs and collected cards because they wanted they cards, not because they were monetarily valuable, but worth some amount of enjoyment. Much like people still buy packs today. You draft, play sealed, pack wars, or maybe just want to see the new mechanics. Players like standard, players like the shiny new planeswalker, players like the thrill of opening the pack and hoping for treasure instead of a pure lace. If they reprinted these old gems those things would all still exist. I find it hard to believe that value of cards drove people to buy increasing numbers of modern sets. ( It didn't. It was the expansion of the game with increasing player base, diversifying markets, and the general joy we all feel slinging cardboard)

Also the issue of stores losing money is ridiculous to say the least. What is the average buy price for most cards? 50-70% of what they sell for. Most people trade in for other cards or product. These two facts actually drive down significantly the prices that stores actually pay for cards. Within this model, stores could absorb a 40-50% drop in prices and at likely still break even. A better way to think about it would be that it would be the opposite of tickle down or supply side economics. One could easily argue that dropping prices of cards may actually lead to increased revenue for stores. Demand most likely goes up for older formats as prices drop causing more buy in. Lower card prices increase the buying power of the players. Much like giving a tax return to people living below the poverty line, that money will immediately enter the magic card economy. So player base would likely increase along with a presumed greater cash flow back into the economy.

Maybe I'm just old anymore but I have a hard time believing that most of us who have been playing for an extended time want anything other than to be able to just play out cards. While many of us didn't have to pay 250 for a blue dual we would all immediately lose some amount of money, as I know my play group would take a hit. The thing is that it's a hobby, a game we enjoy. If anyone other than a dealer would be in a bad financial situation if all their cards were gone in a fire, then you should sell now. I can not begin to explain how that is such a bad financial situation for you to be in and for your own financial security and that of your loved ones, magic may not be the best game for you.

Sorry this was typed on an iPhone

Seth



Sent from iPhone

I hate borrowing decks.

Any deck north of $500 is getting to be too much in my opinion. Death and taxes still needs Rishadan port. Eldrazi stompy needs all those sol lands. its pretty much the same thing as modern eldrazi tron, i'd rather just build that. goblins and affinity are not playable due to this thing called terminus.

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Originally Posted by ed06288

I hate borrowing decks.

Any deck north of $500 is getting to be too much in my opinion. Death and taxes still needs Rishadan port. Eldrazi stompy needs all those sol lands. its pretty much the same thing as modern eldrazi tron, i'd rather just build that. goblins and affinity are not playable due to this thing called terminus.

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You have no idea what you're talking about. Goblins has a favorable match up against miracles.

What is the average buy price for most cards? 50-70% of what they sell for. Most people trade in for other cards or product. These two facts actually drive down significantly the prices that stores actually pay for cards. Within this model, stores could absorb a 40-50% drop in prices and at likely still break even.

Hypothetical situation - card worth $100 dollars, buylist at $70 dollars.
reprint and card drops 50% to $50 dollars.
Ebay, tcgplayer, paypal, credit card fees 15% of purchase price.
shipping, tracking, insurance another $3.00

$50 - $10 in seller fees listed above = 40 dollars. This equals a loss of $30 dollars, almost a 50% drop in their investment.

This seller did not break even. Not even close. In fact, it was a disaster for them. These sellers don't need to break even or take a loss. They need to make a large profit.


Let's say a store had an investment of $20,000 in reserved list cards and staples. They are now financially sunk. A seller could take a loss on one or two cards. This is why Wotc is so slow with reprints of expensive cards.

This is exactly what happened in Chronicles. It was a mass reprint of expensive cards. There was no Ebay or tcgplayer back then, but they still had costs to sell. I am sorry that you can't see that. I talked to many owners and players. They were absolutely furious. They did not lose 50 bucks. They lost thousands. Some of them did not make it and that is why the reserve list was created. They had employees to pay, electricity bills and rent. It is very difficult to run a store. Margins are thin. They make money off selling singles and high margin items like soda's and candy bars. Not every one is Starcity or Channel Fireball. They view their inventory as an "investment".


Rishidan port will be reprinted. We all know it is coming. Good Modern decks are 500.00 or more actually. Booster boxes are like 90-100. Legacy and Modern are expensive since this is a collectible card game. Wotc is actively trying to make standard cheap, with the value being held in expeditions and inventions. I hope that the strategy works out for MTG's future.

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Originally Posted by sroncor1

While many of us didn't have to pay 250 for a blue dual we would all immediately lose some amount of money, as I know my play group would take a hit.

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But you have less to lose than others. If you bought something at $20, and it goes up to $220, you've only profited $200 if you sell the card. Your investment is only $20. However, for people like me, I spent $250. Right now the card is worth $250. So if I sell out, I break even. But if the cards tank in price, I'm in the negative if I try to sell. I'll likely never sell anyway, but it's the peace of mind to know that with the RL in place I can get $250± back that contributed to my buying-in of Legacy. And I know many new (i.e. bought in within the last 5ish years) Legacy players bought in with the same mentality. You stand to lose $20 (or however much you paid). We stand to lose $250.

I miss the innocent times of paying $10 on Seas and playing unsleeved 1.5 decks on the ground at my high school.

Now it's all "but mah investment!!!!11!!!1"

Wanna invest go buy some stocks and let people play the game.

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

But you have less to lose than others. If you bought something at $20, and it goes up to $220, you've only profited $200 if you sell the card. Your investment is only $20. However, for people like me, I spent $250. Right now the card is worth $250. So if I sell out, I break even. But if the cards tank in price, I'm in the negative if I try to sell. I'll likely never sell anyway, but it's the peace of mind to know that with the RL in place I can get $250± back that contributed to my buying-in of Legacy. And I know many new (i.e. bought in within the last 5ish years) Legacy players bought in with the same mentality. You stand to lose $20 (or however much you paid). We stand to lose $250.

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Some people spend their money on Candy Crush, some spend it on Beer, some spend it on holidays or movie tickets, each one offering amusement and entertainment. Welcome to the world of being an adult and making choices for yourself. You picked Magic for you amusement, I approve, its a great game. You also have no more a right for your money to be worth something tomorrow as a player of Candy Crush. You just have the hope that is might be. Well, hope is not an case for an argument. Right now your hoping Wizards does not change their policy and reprint shit, but thats all your doing. Hoping. You can bitch to the cows come home, then all your doing is hoping and bitching. But you achieve nothing. But hey, you do you.

Here are some foolproof instructions on how to handle the Reserve list:

1. Lick finger
2. Hold finger into the air
3. Location wind direction
4. Turn to face the wind
5. Undo fly
6. Urinate

I do suggest a shower after, but hey, you do you.

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Originally Posted by Mr.C

Wanna invest go buy some stocks and let people play the game.

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What if I told you that people who own RL cards can play the game and be concerned about the money the put into it? That the two are not mutually exclusive?

https://media.giphy.com/media/EldfH1VJdbrwY/giphy.gif

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Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual

But you have less to lose than others. If you bought something at $20, and it goes up to $220, you've only profited $200 if you sell the card. Your investment is only $20. However, for people like me, I spent $250. Right now the card is worth $250. So if I sell out, I break even. But if the cards tank in price, I'm in the negative if I try to sell. I'll likely never sell anyway, but it's the peace of mind to know that with the RL in place I can get $250± back that contributed to my buying-in of Legacy. And I know many new (i.e. bought in within the last 5ish years) Legacy players bought in with the same mentality. You stand to lose $20 (or however much you paid). We stand to lose $250.

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Even if the way to increase the player base of my favourite formats imply that my cards will lose some value, I support it, because it will probably mean that I'll be able to enjoy playing these cards in much bigger tournaments and during more time.
You can't always expect to win in everything (and yes, I have many RL cards, including a beta p9 that I've been acquiring during the last 2 years).

Maybe people just don't like legacy anymore? The format has been solved for years now

Its outright ridiculous that some argue from an investment perspective as if investing into into a game which can reprint your "currency" at any time, is a smart business.

Go to the stock market if you wanna play that kind of investment game

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

Here are some foolproof instructions on how to handle the Reserve list:

1. Lick finger
2. Hold finger into the air
3. Location wind direction
4. Turn to face the wind
5. Undo fly
6. Urinate

I do suggest a shower after, but hey, you do you.

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I like that. I have a question though. How does that help to get the cards to play MTG?

I personally do not understand why anybody playing MTG argues against reprints. Unless they already have all the cards they ever hoped to have.

And one more thing. How is it possible that that Tarmogoyf crap is not on RL, was reprinted twice, is facing another potential reprint soon, and still maintains $150 ?

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Its outright ridiculous that some argue from an investment perspective as if investing into into a game which can reprint your "currency" at any time, is a smart business.

Go to the stock market if you wanna play that kind of investment game

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Finally something I can agree with you on, this!

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Originally Posted by Whitefaces

Finally something I can agree with you on, this!

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Let me remind you:
The Reserved List was created in the wake of the protests of Magic card collectors when a lot of their cards had been devalued with the release of Fourth Edition and Chronicles.

This game is not an investment in the sense of stocks or financial derivatives, I agree on this point. However WotC is fully aware of history and they are not going to devalue your 200 euro Liliana play-set by mass reprinting it to the ground. That would make a lot of players mad and not willing to put more money into the game. When you buy on the secondary market, you are also giving money indirectly to WotC :wink:.