Assuming that $1500 average deck costs are unsustainable...

[Lemnear]

If you scour top 8's of local tournaments for relatively cheap decks- some from the Survival era- and then start talking about "street prices" unilaterally, it's impossible to have a conversation about the average cost of Legacy.

If Jaco finishes his data sheet and has actual numbers showing that people can and do reliably and currently pick up cards for significantly less than SCG prices, then that would be something. Until then it's pointless. I might as well talk about this sweet mono-green lands control deck I built that costs like $50. "Don't Mazes and Tabernacles and Explorations cost a lot more than that, even without the duals?" you'd say. But nah, I'd say, I found them in some dealer's bin for $2 each. But what does that tell us about the format's average cost? Nothing.

C'mon ... a tournament with 347 participants is "local" for you? These are some of the newest entries on morphling and I must admit I didn't check the dates. I showed examples with 40 to 50 participants too and I wouldn't call them "Local" either. It only proves that you don't NEED to dump 1k$ or more to win tournaments.

Every tournaments not held by SCG are only "Local" and not relevant for you; SCG's your dogma for pricing worldwide and you try to manipulate people with a narrow poll and false information (1.5k average cost etc.), so why continue arguing?

I nearly bet you doubt JACO's chart too

[Bardo]

Maybe they wouldn't get sued, but some of the people putting pressure on them to stick to it likely buy a lot of product from WotC and have some pull in that regard. Still doesn't really add up though, and I'd love for someone to blow the lid on WotC's secret reserved-list dealings.

I spent 30 or so minutes writing a theory on this and realized a serious flaw in my logic before posting. That sucked. Here's my revised theory (salvaging what I can from my earlier post):

In maintaining the Reserve List, Wizards gets to save face by keeping a promise made more than a decade ago in a reactionary / crisis-management mindset (after the shit hit the fan after the release of Chronicles), keeps happy a small part of their customers who are making them some money (the collectors -- who create some demand for new product), and avoids the PR shit-storm (from collectors and non-collectors alike) if they were to remove it; in exchange for the long-term viability of Eternal formats (which make them no money) and whatever money there is to be made from new product sales that contain reprints that are of interest to the Eternal crowd (an unknown amount to us)

Someone mentioned they're between a rock and a hard place on this one and I agree. The safest, most risk-adverse position is to keep the Reserve List as it is and throw the Eternal crowd under the bus.

[cosme]

While the reserved list is bad I can't think of it as the main problem (the only things there are duals and they could create good substitutes for that when fetchlands rotate out of T2).
The main problem is that WotC doesn't make money out of legacy the secondary market is the one that does, the best solution I can think of is wizards selling singles printed by demand, the price should be equal for every card (obviously or else nothing would change) and high enough that it wouldn't affect standard, extended nor the other sellers (at least not much). And yet this would create an price limit for the secondary market, making competitive players happy that they can play the game without having to worry about price speculation (it's a game for god's sake it's not wall street). Maybe this would just cut some hundreds on the price of the decks but it would make the prices stable and create a virtually endless supply of staples.

And they could print them with white borders in order to keep collectors happy.

And yes I realise that wizards isn't going to do this.

[Lemnear]

While the reserved list is bad I can't think of it as the main problem (the only things there are duals and they could create good substitutes for that when fetchlands rotate out of T2).
The main problem is that WotC doesn't make money out of legacy the secondary market is the one that does, the best solution I can think of is wizards selling singles printed by demand, the price should be equal for every card (obviously or else nothing would change) and high enough that it wouldn't affect standard, extended nor the other sellers (at least not much). And yet this would create an price limit for the secondary market, making competitive players happy that they can play the game without having to worry about price speculation (it's a game for god's sake it's not wall street). Maybe this would just cut some hundreds on the price of the decks but it would make the prices stable and create a virtually endless supply of staples.

And they could print them with white borders in order to keep collectors happy.

And yes I realise that wizards isn't going to do this.

I'm not sure if that stands true: If I look at all the Zoo variants, meervolk, countertop, Team America etc. lists most cards are from mirrodin and newer so I really don't think WotC isn't earning money with eternal. Sure Nacatl, Countertop, preordain and Co. are lower rarities most of the time but Mox Opal and TezzAoB are recent high rarity printing that see play in eternal. There is enough space for eternal printings and WotC is aware of that as Lodestone Golem is a card designed to push workshops in vintage.

[Final Fortune]

I spent 30 or so minutes writing a theory on this and realized a serious flaw in my logic before posting. That sucked. Here's my revised theory (salvaging what I can from my earlier post):

In maintaining the Reserve List, Wizards gets to save face by keeping a promise made more than a decade ago in a reactionary / crisis-management mindset (after the shit hit the fan after the release of Chronicles), keeps happy a small part of their customers who are making them some money (the collectors -- who create some demand for new product), and avoids the PR shit-storm (from collectors and non-collectors alike) if they were to remove it; in exchange for the long-term viability of Eternal formats (which make them no money) and whatever money there is to be made from new product sales that contain reprints that are of interest to the Eternal crowd (an unknown amount to us)

Someone mentioned they're between a rock and a hard place on this one and I agree. The safest, most risk-adverse position is to keep the Reserve List as it is and throw the Eternal crowd under the bus.

Can't they just re-print functional equivalents to the reserve list and "side step" the issue, I mean all we're really talking about on the reserved list is Dual Lands, just make Snow Covered Dual Lands in standard and at least the price issue for manabases drops significantly.

I mean, I have no idea why Power Creep applies to everything but Lands in Magic, it's kind of stupid the only "equivalent or better" than Duals that have ever been printed is Fetches.

[Malchar]

Can't they just re-print functional equivalents to the reserve list and "side step" the issue, I mean all we're really talking about on the reserved list is Dual Lands, just make Snow Covered Dual Lands in standard and at least the price issue for manabases drops significantly.

I mean, I have no idea why Power Creep applies to everything but Lands in Magic, it's kind of stupid the only "equivalent or better" than Duals that have ever been printed is Fetches.

Well, they could just get rid of the reserve list if they wanted to. The point is that Wizards doesn't want to reprint duals in any form.

[kiblast]

I mean, I have no idea why Power Creep applies to everything but Lands in Magic, it's kind of stupid the only "equivalent or better" than Duals that have ever been printed is Fetches.

I can't understand how you would apply power creep to lands. A better Sea? And what should it do better than the old one? A built in artificial intelligence which ensures maximum randomization ?

If you haven't noticed, incessant power creeping of creatures, istants and every non land card only makes your fetchlands and duals increasingly better. Notice how powerful has become Wooded Foothills into Taiga for Zoo since the printing of Wild Nacatl and Tarmogoyf. Notice how Tropical Island has become one of the most important duals in the format due to the presence of Tarmogoyf / Trygon Predator and Goyf based baseruption/ control. You don't need a better dual land, because that dual itself is becoming stronger due to the power creep of other cards in general.

[Final Fortune]

I can't understand how you would apply power creep to lands. A better Sea? And what should it do better than the old one? A built in artificial intelligence which ensures maximum randomization ?

If you haven't noticed, incessant power creeping of creatures, istants and every non land card only makes your fetchlands and duals increasingly better. Notice how powerful has become Wooded Foothills into Taiga for Zoo since the printing of Wild Nacatl and Tarmogoyf. Notice how Tropical Island has become one of the most important duals in the format due to the presence of Tarmogoyf / Trygon Predator and Goyf based baseruption/ control. You don't need a better dual land, because that dual itself is becoming stronger due to the power creep of other cards in general.

Power Creep in terms of design, if they don't want to reprint dual lands, then they have to print lands that differentiate themselves from dual lands instead of being worse versions of dual lands i.e. multi color man lands that come into play untapped or more functional City of Brass clones. Design for lands is just stuck repeating shitty version of older cards with very few excpetions, if they don't want to ever print anything better than dual lands and City of Brass then they need to push the evelope in other directions.

[Lemnear]

CIP Untapped multicolor manlands? Aren't you asking for a bit much? Btw. this thread teached me, that people would complain that these aren't fetchable ;)

[Final Fortune]

It's just an example, I'm certain there's a point between color fixing and utility that'd make people consider alternatives to dual lands, like 3 color pain lands etc.

[Lemnear]

Ah, sorry I got ya wrong. You suggest alternatives aside from being fetchable that are good enough to dismiss the basic landtypes that makes them fetchable.

[kiblast]

The lands you are asking could be:

-a) better than Duals or City of Brass / Gemstone Mine (and therefore not possible).

-b) worse than Duals or City of Brass / Gemstone Mine ( and therefore subpar and useless in most cases).

Any card design which doesn't fit in the first category, necessarily fits in the second,as in MTG there are two choices possible: the subpar and the optimal one. Alternatives to duals can be either sub par ( in which case they're not worth discussing, like Shocklands or Painlands: you can play them, but you know that it's not the optimal choice) or better ( in which case they're very unlikely-close to impossible- to be printed.)

[dragonwisdom]

dual land -

1) Add white or blue

counts as a plains or island

can't have any other non-basic island or plains in the deck other than the name of this dual

Is it worse than a dual yes, but it's a close second.

Look legacy will survive even with the reserve list. Why, Wizards will just keep printing good cards. Eventually, Newbies will play 10 or so years and have all the cards. New Archetypes will emerge. just a thought but mono-black and mono-white decks are getting a huge boost with New Phyrexia.

[Justin]

[QUOTE=kiblast;538458]I can't understand how you would apply power creep to lands. A better Sea? And what should it do better than the old one?QUOTE]

Better Underground Sea

Land-Island Swamp

Better Underground Sea has shroud

[kiblast]

I can't understand how you would apply power creep to lands. A better Sea? And what should it do better than the old one?

Better Underground Sea

Land-Island Swamp

Better Underground Sea has shroud

Built-in AI for best randomized self shuffling seems better.

[sdematt]

When Better Underground Sea comes into play, put 4 copies of itself into play as well.

Done and done.

-Matt

[cosme]

Great idea as if the original dual weren't good enough lol.

And snow duals are an dangerous idea, you realise people could play 8 duals if those existed right? (although that would probably just apply to 2 colour decks...)

same nice idea would be to create duals with a drawback only relevant in T2, something like infect lands with basic types (sown lands would fit to if they printed a LOT of sownwalk), or something that would be very terrible with the current set, but also print good duals for T2 without the basic types (like the ones from m11 or scars)

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Fixed.

Better Underground Sea
Land - Island Swamp
(Tap: Add U or B to your mana pool.)
You may pitch this card to Force of Will.

[Lemnear]

A dual that is destroyed if it's controller also controls any one enemy basic?

[Bardo]

This thread has taken a turn for the stupid.