Short answer? They've decided that whatever they're doing instead is more profitable on whatever timescale they've deemed most important.Originally Posted by kombatkiwi
Yeah two things to bear in mind are
1) It is pretty clear that Wizards is not currently hurting for strategies to get people to buy Magic cards
2) It is pretty clear that they want to move primarily online and away from cardboard
3) It is also pretty clear that EDH, limited, and Standard are the money makers and they don't really care that much about eternal formats outside of Commander.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
To the extent Legacy has a function it's to be a prestige format and for that, a ludicrously high budget requirement is a feature and not a bug.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Having to drive 400+ kilometres to play with my power or having to drive about 100 kilometres to play Legacy with someone else than my close pals is a feature? Mkay, I haven't looked at it that way yet. At least I get to see some of my country
I mean yeah. It’s conspicuous consumption. That’s what prestige branding is about. It’s not supposed to be accessible.Having to drive 400+ kilometres to play with my power or having to drive about 100 kilometres to play Legacy with someone else than my close pals is a feature? Mkay, I haven't looked at it that way yet. At least I get to see some of my country
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Yeah some of this sounds close to "I bought a 750 bhp hypercar and the interstate speed limit is only 70mph, that's only 25% of my top speed! Are you telling me I have to drive all the way to a dedicated automotive facility to enjoy even half of my car's performance? Ridiculous!"Having to drive 400+ kilometres to play with my power or having to drive about 100 kilometres to play Legacy with someone else than my close pals is a feature? Mkay, I haven't looked at it that way yet. At least I get to see some of my country
Like I'm sorry your toy outperforms the Toyota Camry's and Ford F150's, but isn't that kind of the point?
Oh wow, there are speedlimits in other countries? I wouldn't even bother buying any car then.
I don't think that is what Magic is about. But maybe that is just me. I'd like to have everyone enjoy every single card there is. And I want to play against other peoples skill and knowledge rather than their wallets. Maybe I'm an idealist.
Nowhere close to profound, but certainly de profundis. This is so dumb I'm half-tempted to sig it.
The next time Wizzerds sells a Legacy-targeted product, uses Legacy as a selling point for anything at all, and/or demonstrates that they have anything resembling a hold on how the format develops or stagnates, this just might come close to demonstrating a grasp of a tiny sliver of reality.
Yeah. And unlike Reserved List cards, better cars than F-150s continue to be manufactured so that people can use them to do things F-150s can't, like "not get stolen because they don't have plastic door handles."
This shit is so low-effort it's almost negligent.
All Spells Primer under construction: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e...Tl7utWpLo0/pub
PM me if you want to contribute!
Great, let's hear them then.Probably because they don't want to... yet. There are loads of possible explanations.
You could make some argument for a kind of "they are waiting until the price climbs even higher before reprint" but then why do they print fetchlands in modern when they are only worth $50-100 and RL cards are already $500-1000+. It seems like having the extra revenue stream outweighs the potential future gains. Maybe there is some kind of model you could come up with that makes sense for them to delay further, but considering how Wotc/Hasbro have seemed comfortable with short-term cashgrab as a strategy (bonkers powerlevel in standard, secretlair every month including walking dead, etc) it seems like the burden of proof is on you to propose such a thing.
Well they can't reprint the abur ones "sooner or later" unless they do something about the RL, funny how that worksStill the question was, will they print better duals than shocks. And I think, yes they will. And I think it will be the ABUR ones sooner or later... I didn't even want to argue about RL stuff.
By making this comment you are participating in armchair lawyering. Please do any/all of the following:The reserved list is not a legal document. It's a company policy, nothing more. Let's not let our armchair lawyering go too far, here.
- State your legal qualifications / credentials to convince me that I should take your opinion that the RL is not a legal document seriously
- Write a letter to Hasbro legal department / offer your consulting services to convince them that the RL is not legally relevant
- Provide any other reasonable justification to explain why WotC / Hasbro maintains this "company policy" when it basically entails them throwing free money down the drain
Again I admit this explanation does make some sense but it's just not at all consistent with the actions of their company over the last 1-2 years (willingness to execute short-term cash-grabs that largely disappoint the playerbase).Because they're a publicly traded company and need to have constant growth forever or be gutted and sold for parts. So they have this emergency revenue stream that they can break open exactly once and now is not the time because of whatever their consultants say.
The assertion that it is something they can "break open exactly once" is also obviously false, see fetchlands being reprinted in MM3 and then a few years later in MH2 and they're still a motivator for people to buy packs
lmao okOr they just have their own crazy Musk telling them about the future sand the future isn't dual lands or whatever.
They can just print them with the MTGO art or commission new art, it's not that hardOr there's a holdout from the original artists and they don't want to release them with only 8 of the original arts.
could be !Maybe they dislike you personally and aren't printing them because it makes you wrong and they giggle every time you post this.
By making this comment you are participating in armchair lawyering. Please do any/all of the following:When the RL discussion turns into a debate over legal ramifications I always laugh. The best theory a prospective plaintiff could come up with is promissory estoppel and even then, that is incredibly tenuous. It safe to say that potential legal blow-back cannot possibly be the reason for any of their RL policies.
The can always weasel their way around the RL - e.g. Maro: "today we're clarifying our long-held internal policy that the RL means we will not be printing those cards in a Standard legal set."
- State your legal qualifications / credentials to convince me that I should take your opinion that the RL is not a legal document seriously
- Write a letter to Hasbro legal department / offer your consulting services to convince them that the RL is not legally relevant
- Provide any other reasonable justification to explain why WotC / Hasbro maintains this "company policy" when it basically entails them throwing free money down the drain
Again I don't pretend to understand the relevant legal systems to actively make the argument that WotC/Hasbro getting sued over this is likely. But big megacorp Hasbro presumably does have decent lawyers and at this point there is no other reasonable explanation as for why they wouldn't get rid of the RL.
Again this is like a semi-reasonable idea on the surface but it's not at all consistent with their previous/recent actions or strategies:Short answer? They've decided that whatever they're doing instead is more profitable on whatever timescale they've deemed most important.
- Reprinting chase modern cards every now and then when the prices are high
- Reprinting chase cards as alternate premium versions in secretlairs
- Taking advantage of short term cashgrabs that alienate/disappoint various sections of the playerbase
1) "Yeah we are making enough money right now, I don't think we need any good ideas to make more, let's all go home for today" does this sound like expected behaviour of any company, let alone Hasbro with all their recent decisions pushing secret lairs every month and so many supplemental sets that we are basically in a year-long continuous spoiler season.1) It is pretty clear that Wizards is not currently hurting for strategies to get people to buy Magic cards
2) It is pretty clear that they want to move primarily online and away from cardboard
3) It is also pretty clear that EDH, limited, and Standard are the money makers and they don't really care that much about eternal formats outside of Commander.
2) Paper is a huge moneymaker for them, the idea that they want to also make money off arena doesn't mean they are throwing away what is still probably their main source of revenue
3) Do you think commander players are not interested in RL cards? Why do they sell secret lairs or modern horizons, which are (mostly) not playable in limited or standard?
Other people have already made good arguments for why this idea is dumbTo the extent Legacy has a function it's to be a prestige format and for that, a ludicrously high budget requirement is a feature and not a bug.
I mean
1) I was talking about Legacy and not Magic generally but also
2) That's not what Magic is about either. Magic is a product being sold under capitalism. The purpose of Magic as a game is to increase the profits of Hasbro shareholders. Anything else it does is secondary to that end- complementary, ideally, but still secondary.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
I mean you're accidentally making the point here. They're already doing quite a lot of things to get players to buy cards.
You seem to be laboring under the belief that if Wizards simply prints more things that Magic players want, then they'll make more money, but this just isn't true. There is a ceiling to how much money the existing player base will spend on Magic cards. There's some flexibility here in that obviously you can convince a player to pony up a bit of extra cash for some goodies they really want, but again, this is what the Secret Lairs and stuff are for- offering limited print and special promo versions of popular cards.
Nothing about their current marketing strategy suggests that breaking the reserve list is a good money making strategy for them at the moment, when what they're doing is already working. The only thing they really want to do besides pump as much as they can every quarter from the existing player base is expand that player base, but that's what Arena's for. Where the Reserve List isn't even applicable. Do you have some reason to think that printing duals is going to entice new players into the game?
Right but I mean. They're not throwing it away. They're doing quite well on that end, in fact.2) Paper is a huge moneymaker for them, the idea that they want to also make money off arena doesn't mean they are throwing away what is still probably their main source of revenue
Breaking the reserve list is not really a huge risk but it is still a change to their status quo business model and there's really not a compelling business reason for them to do it. Especially when it's better off as an ace to keep in their backpocket until such a time as they do need a significant sales bump, instead of the current time when they've been experiencing massive year-on-year growth for the past decade.
I mean they are but they're also casual players and like. EDH is the format where they have done the most to let you get by without duals. Like Command Tower and the Luxury Suite cycle are just straight up duals (or more) except that they can't be fetched, and honestly I think there's very strong gameplay reasons to discourage the fetch/dual interdependency as much as possible beyond just power level, and certainly beyond power level in terms of mana fixing.3) Do you think commander players are not interested in RL cards? Why do they sell secret lairs or modern horizons, which are (mostly) not playable in limited or standard?
No they haven't, they've just angrily insisted that it's dumb because they find the idea that market forces might produce an outcome they dislike and that they find anti-social in implication unpleasant to wrangle with.Other people have already made good arguments for why this idea is dumb
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
1) With Magic I meant Legacy or Vintage... every other format is Napalm-Aids. Makes you sick and burns in your....
2) I was talking from a players perspective not the companies or shareholders one.
I mean okay, but Magic is in reality owned by Hasbro, which has a fiduciary duty to its shareholders, so the conversation about what the game should look like without regard to profits is pretty tertiary, unless you're looking into either creating a new similar game (and hopefully avoiding being sued) or buying the existing one from Hasbro somehow.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Yes, you obviously can convince a player to pony up a bit of extra cash for some goodies they really wantYou seem to be laboring under the belief that if Wizards simply prints more things that Magic players want, then they'll make more money, but this just isn't true. There is a ceiling to how much money the existing player base will spend on Magic cards. There's some flexibility here in that obviously you can convince a player to pony up a bit of extra cash for some goodies they really want, but again, this is what the Secret Lairs and stuff are for- offering limited print and special promo versions of popular cards.
Yes this is what the secret lairs are for
If these goodies are currently selling for $500+ on the secondary market then it seems like Hasbro might want to get in on that, perhaps by the vehicle of secret lairs which they have already established for such a purpose. Perhaps offering limited print and special promo versions of popular cards on the reserved list could be a thing they are interested in doing, seeing as by the current market price of those cards they could successfully charge a lot more than current secret lairs. So I have no idea what point you're trying to make here
Maybe printing duals won't entice new players into the game. But why is that necessarily relevant. If it only got existing players to spend a lot (reminder: the secondary market prices of these cards are very high) to buy in to secret lair duals or secret lair power for either:Nothing about their current marketing strategy suggests that breaking the reserve list is a good money making strategy for them at the moment, when what they're doing is already working. The only thing they really want to do besides pump as much as they can every quarter from the existing player base is expand that player base, but that's what Arena's for. Where the Reserve List isn't even applicable. Do you have some reason to think that printing duals is going to entice new players into the game?
- Nostalgia value for collectors ("I get to own power? Cool")
- New collectibles for collectors
- People wanting to play sanctioned legacy/vintage
- People wanting to play non-proxy commander / cube
Wouldn't that be worth it for wotc just by itself? What is it about their current marketing strategy that says "Selling people alternate art foil Uro directly is a good business decision" while also simultaneously saying "selling people alternate art foil ancestral recall would be a bad business decision?" I don't think this has ever been adequately explained by people trying to make this argument.
Printing promo versions or reprint sets of high-demand cards is exactly their current business model though. The "WotC only wants people to play standard" claim doesn't work because otherwise they wouldn't be printing Secret Lairs or Modern Horizons at allBreaking the reserve list is not really a huge risk but it is still a change to their status quo business model and there's really not a compelling business reason for them to do it.
I can't directly refute this particular idea but the entire concept of "we have this really good and reliable idea for making money but we will save it until we really need it" doesn't seem congruent with my understanding of Hasbro or business in general.Especially when it's better off as an ace to keep in their backpocket until such a time as they do need a significant sales bump, instead of the current time when they've been experiencing massive year-on-year growth for the past decade.
- Casual players or not, they still buy a lot of cards, which is all that matters from WotC povI mean they are but they're also casual players and like. EDH is the format where they have done the most to let you get by without duals. Like Command Tower and the Luxury Suite cycle are just straight up duals (or more) except that they can't be fetched, and honestly I think there's very strong gameplay reasons to discourage the fetch/dual interdependency as much as possible beyond just power level, and certainly beyond power level in terms of mana fixing.
- Just like in legacy if you don't have duals you can still possibly win games with Watery Grave or Darkslick Shores or the UB Pathway or whatever other substitute dual lands but the optimal version of your deck still includes the real duals and people obviously care about that enough (otherwise the secondary market prices wouldn't be so high). It doesn't matter how many of things like the battlebond lands get printed or if R&D doesn't want fetchlands to be good. The only thing that is relevant to this discussion is that dual lands exist and they are legal (and good, and better than the alternatives) in formats that people play
Your argument is something like "Ludicrously high cost of legacy is a feature not a bug, because capitalism", which only makes sense if the high cost / exclusivity serves to make money for WotC. It doesn't, because the reserved list exists and therefore they can't actually profit from sales of the expensive thing. If the only argument against the RL was just "boo hoo I can't afford this" then sure you can tell people to just suck it up, but instead:No they haven't, they've just angrily insisted that it's dumb because they find the idea that market forces might produce an outcome they dislike and that they find anti-social in implication unpleasant to wrangle with.
1. WotC opens new profit channel / revenue stream / whatever the appropriate jargon is
2. Game becomes more affordable for the people who play it
It's a win-win. The only people that lose out are the people who have huge amounts of money tied up in RL collections which brings us back to the "the only reason they are not doing it is the threat of litigation" problem
It absolutely helps Wizards sell Magic cards that when outside media writes the game they often latch onto and gush about the exorbitant price of certain RL Magic cards, even when they are not making any money directly anymore from sales of Beta Black Lotuses etc.. Like, do you think Louis Vuitton is following Econ 101 supply/demand curves when they price an airplane shaped purse at $40k? Do you think $10k a bottle is just what Dom Perignon costs to make?
I need to fucking sleep and don’t have time to go into more detail right now but this is what conspicuous consumption is. The whole point is to be expensive. Again, exclusion of the poors is a feature, not a bug. Rich people go to clubs that charge you a thousand bucks a head just to get in because they charge you a thousand bucks a head to get in. That means they don’t have to bump elbows with poor people.
Legacy has no use to Wizards as a main driver of sales for new packs because Standard and limited already do that. They don’t need any help figuring out how to bilk EDH players, they’re doing just fine on that end and there’s no reason to believe that duals are a breaking point there. Making Legacy more accessible would just muddy the distinctions and serve no function that they care about on a financial level. What purpose does Legacy, and Vintage for that matter, serve to Wizards? The only meaningful answer is that having these prestige formats elevates the brand overall and provides a sense of mystique and age to the game. It creates an allure for assholes like the pharmabro guy to flex about picking up Power.
Breaking the Reserve List honestly probably wouldn’t affect this too much, depending on how it was handled exactly, but what’s the incentive? Wizards doesn’t make money promoting Legacy, not really. You can say it’s win/win but it’s only a win for people that want Legacy to be more accessible. This is like arguing that Louis Vuitton could make more money selling that fucking purse for $120. Maybe in the short term yeah, because there’s enough demand for the brand, but you’re cannibalizing what created the allure in the first place. If they just start making and selling accessories at a normal rate and normal price then it becomes just another brand that has to compete in the market of functional, maybe marginally upscale fashion, throwing away the market niche that was pretty fucking difficult to build in the first place.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Like Wizards might break the reserved list at some point, because lol is the idea of legal repercussions for that a joke, but if they do so they will be extremely careful to make it clear that accessibility is not going to be greatly improved. They don’t want cheap duals, get that idea out of your head forever.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
I don't think MTG cards are a Veblen good, no.It absolutely helps Wizards sell Magic cards that when outside media writes the game they often latch onto and gush about the exorbitant price of certain RL Magic cards, even when they are not making any money directly anymore from sales of Beta Black Lotuses etc.. Like, do you think Louis Vuitton is following Econ 101 supply/demand curves when they price an airplane shaped purse at $40k? Do you think $10k a bottle is just what Dom Perignon costs to make?
This analogy also falls apart because Louis Vuitton doesn't have a policy in place that prevents them from producing expensive designer bags in 2021
A better analogy would be like:
- We (LV) have this extremely popular classic vintage bag which sells for 1000s on secondary market.
- If we made official replica copies of it (even if they weren't intended to be 100% indistinguishable but e.g. they still had some small copyright 2021 marking on it somewhere or some slight variation in the design) they would be a popular item and people would buy them at a pretty high price, we would make a lot of money off it.
- But we won't do that, instead we will just produce some generic bags which have more boring designs and cost the same amount for us to make but people don't want to pay as much money for them.
Wouldn't that be really dumb?
I'm not suggesting that WotC should sell Black Lotus reprints direct from their amazon storefront for 99c each (even though I would personally appreciate that it obviously wouldn't be a good business decision)
The idea that a childrens card game is offering this kind of luxury experience is just insane. You go to a legacy GP and it's still the same class of sweaty neckbeards at a standard or limited one. I have seen some people offer the idea that "legacy is better because I don't have to play with children" but I think a) people that really care about that are a tiny minority b) there aren't many small children playing other formats anyway c) Grow up lol it's says age 13+ on the packsI need to fucking sleep and don’t have time to go into more detail right now but this is what conspicuous consumption is. The whole point is to be expensive. Again, exclusion of the poors is a feature, not a bug. Rich people go to clubs that charge you a thousand bucks a head just to get in because they charge you a thousand bucks a head to get in. That means they don’t have to bump elbows with poor people.
What happened to 'maximise profits, fiduciary duty to shareholders'Legacy has no use to Wizards as a main driver of sales for new packs because Standard and limited already do that. They don’t need any help figuring out how to bilk EDH players, they’re doing just fine on that end and there’s no reason to believe that duals are a breaking point there.
Martin Shkreli isn't buying Modern Horizons / Strixhaven boxes (well I think he's still in jail but you get what I mean). If the existence of the reserved list only serves a secondary market of investors/speculators then why do we care about it? It's not helping WotC directly, it's not helping grow the game in terms of playerbase/tournaments. Even if you want to make the argument that a headline of "alpha lotus sells for 100k" actually motivates people's interest to play the game then you can still have that in a world where the RL doesn't exist anyway.Making Legacy more accessible would just muddy the distinctions and serve no function that they care about on a financial level. What purpose does Legacy, and Vintage for that matter, serve to Wizards? The only meaningful answer is that having these prestige formats elevates the brand overall and provides a sense of mystique and age to the game. It creates an allure for assholes like the pharmabro guy to flex about picking up Power.
Again the analogy falls apart because:Breaking the Reserve List honestly probably wouldn’t affect this too much, depending on how it was handled exactly, but what’s the incentive? Wizards doesn’t make money promoting Legacy, not really. You can say it’s win/win but it’s only a win for people that want Legacy to be more accessible. This is like arguing that Louis Vuitton could make more money selling that fucking purse for $120. Maybe in the short term yeah, because there’s enough demand for the brand, but you’re cannibalizing what created the allure in the first place. If they just start making and selling accessories at a normal rate and normal price then it becomes just another brand that has to compete in the market of functional, maybe marginally upscale fashion, throwing away the market niche that was pretty fucking difficult to build in the first place.
1) The idea that people treat legacy/vintage as this kind of aspirational luxury experience seems dubious, even for enfranchised standard/limited/modern players. For the majority of outsiders I would argue the reaction is simply "that game costs how much to play? nope"
2) More importantly, the reserved list situation is not "we have produced this luxury item, how much should we decide to sell it for", as is the case for the modern fashion offerings, it's instead "we have made the decision that we cannot produce this luxury item". Even if the high prices do influence people to think "wow that is cool and I want it", as it could for a bag or a watch, there is no official channel for them to buy it from so it makes no money for the company anyway. You have to make the argument that the high prices somehow generate an allure for the overall game, such that a $1000 underground sea makes people want to play standard, which seems like nonsense to me
Edit:
I am okay with WotC printing them at a rate that maximises their profitability. I'm not insisting that individual cards have to have a price cap of $10 or $50 or $100. Yes, wotc maximising profit will involve them "throttling" the supply of cards in some manner, just like how they only print the ZEN fetchlands in more-expensive reprint sets and not in precons/guildkits/FNM promo packs etc. But wotc makes money from this approach and it also helps make the game more affordable so I'm okay with that even though I would prefer if I could buy any card for $1 or whateverLike Wizards might break the reserved list at some point, because lol is the idea of legal repercussions for that a joke, but if they do so they will be extremely careful to make it clear that accessibility is not going to be greatly improved. They don’t want cheap duals, get that idea out of your head forever.
This and your comment before are exactly on point. Sooner or later they will reprint the real deal and scam us 150+ per shiny walking dead edition ABUR dual. I've never said they'd reprint these cards in a way that they would be priced like shocks. I'm just really sure they'll reprint them sometime. I mean there have to be physical copies outside of hardcases with fancy grading stickers on it, to actually have said prestigious format in a playable state to keep that aforementionerd appeal, or am I missing something?
I mean, would rich people still pay a high amount of money to look at a club that theoretically has enough space to not bump into poor people?
Would anyone here mind if Wizards printed the following cards into a legacy and commander only set such as Commander Legends 2?
Selesnya Garden
Forest Plains
When ~ etb, it enters tapped unless you either have each opponent gains a life or reveal a card at random from your hand to everyone
Boros Garden
Mountain Plains
When ~ etb, it enters tapped unless you either have each opponent gains a life or reveal a card at random from your hand to everyone
Golgari Garden
Swamp Forest
When ~ etb, it enters tapped unless you either have each opponent gains a life or reveal a card at random from your hand to everyone
Izzet Garden
Island Mountain
When ~ etb, it enters tapped unless you either have each opponent gains a life or reveal a card at random from your hand to everyone
Dimir Garden
Swamp Island
When ~ etb, it enters tapped unless you either have each opponent gains a life or reveal a card at random from your hand to everyone
And a cycle of these same lands for the other 5 guilds as well.
With duals that close to the originals in power level, I wouldn't even bother taking my duals out of their binder. Why play with $1000 cards and risk getting them damaged or stolen when $2 alternatives exist that are 99.9% as good.
Does anyone think doing so would violate the reserve list in any way? If not, then why aren't we asking Wizards to do just that?
Last edited by Clark Kant; 06-21-2021 at 09:00 AM.
Would anyone here "mind?" unlikely
Probably notDoes anyone think doing so would violate the reserve list in any way?
Because (as people have already explained to you, multiple times) it wouldn't solve anythingIf not, then why aren't we asking Wizards to do just that?
The real dual lands are still strictly better so anyone who wants to compete in legacy would still want to have the real dual lands
Maybe there are a few people who go "oh I can play a budget version of miracles with these" but is that number of people going to be a notable fraction of the group who currently refuse to consider playing with Hallowed Fountain / Prairie Stream etc? No
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