[Official] Bitching About Prices, Buyouts and Reprints Thread

[DrJones]

Clearly they have no idea what they're doing - it's not like this is the most successful CCG of all time and has been going for 15+ years straight.

And how dare they want to earn money on their corporate product! They should be in this for the love of the game, not just to make a paycheck.

I'm tired of these arguing points - honestly man, Wizards is a company and they are in the business of making money. They do this by making a card game. They've been doing this for 15 years, and everything has been fine. The rules change actually made you have to think about things - instead of there being a single correct way to do things, there is now a decision tree where there wasn't one before.

They can perfectly have no idea of what they are doing and still have the most successful CCG of all time. All you need is a state-granted monopoly for 15 years called patent on CCGs and inept competitors.

[Ozymandias]

I was brainstorming, and I think that one way to "solve" the reserved list duals issue, without making nasty foils or other workarounds, would just be to get Wasteland and Force of Will into circulation. Both are uncommon, both are incredibly highly-played, and both are getting rather pricey. Solution? Reprint time!

Incidentally, if the metagame gets flooded with Wastes, then suddenly duals are less attractive. You could intheroy do the same thing with Sinkhole, which is also price and not on the list.

[herbig]

If card supply is that much of a problem the best solution would be for wizards to just institute a rule that allows proxies in legacy at the cost of $2/ proxy with all money going towards prize support. This won't destroy the prices of cards and it won't impact sales of new cards as most proxies will be oop cards. I doubt this is what wizards will do as their main interest is to make money and if they this something as simple as reprint tabernacle as a mythic rare in any upcoming set that would increase sales tremendously.

Actually now that I think of it I know how wizards can make money while doing this. They can make gold bordered proxies and only proxies printed by them are legal. This is perfect. Wizards makes money (thats the only way they'll do anything); everyone who already owns the cards doesn't have to worry about losing money; players who can't afford cards can now just proxy them for a fraction of the cost;prize support is increased. Total success.

oh Jersey.

[andrew77]

They can perfectly have no idea of what they are doing and still have the most successful CCG of all time. All you need is a state-granted monopoly for 15 years called patent on CCGs and inept competitors.

I've said it before and I'll say it again WoW ccg is just a better designed version of magic. Everything most people hate about magic is eliminated and the only reason that game isn't as successful is because it is made by UDE.

[DrJones]

I was brainstorming, and I think that one way to "solve" the reserved list duals issue, without making nasty foils or other workarounds, would just be to get Wasteland and Force of Will into circulation. Both are uncommon, both are incredibly highly-played, and both are getting rather pricey. Solution? Reprint time!

Incidentally, if the metagame gets flooded with Wastes, then suddenly duals are less attractive. You could intheroy do the same thing with Sinkhole, which is also price and not on the list.

That's a possible outcome, but not the only one. Let me show you what I think would be the most likely outcome from that action with the following example. Let's say there's a card that reads "search your opponent's library for a card called Tarmogoyf. If you find one, you win the game." would that stop people from playing Tarmogoyf? Answer: No, but it would be played in Tarmogoyf decks against the mirror.

[Ozymandias]

The thing is there's no such thing as a Tarmogoyf deck. There are only decks that run Tarmogoyf. Compare to "Ritual Decks," "Dredge decks" "City/Tomb decks," which are absolutely centralized around their namesakes.

Pedanticism aside, it's just a reserved-list-free way to open up new strategies.

[Bardo]

They can perfectly have no idea of what they are doing and still have the most successful CCG of all time. All you need is a state-granted monopoly for 15 years called patent on CCGs and inept competitors.

Somewhat off-topic, but their patent expired a year ago and it does not cover all "CCG," just some particulars about MtG. They have competitors to their product and they have not done well. Also, patents are not monopolies.

[Guevera59]

Entomb's are going for 40 now...

[MMogg]

Entomb's are going for 40 now...

I know I shouldn't be, but I can't help being surprised over and over by this trend. I can still remember the hottest T2 and Extended cards usually being about $20, and now that's laughable. I'd love to say something simple like there's more demand or more players vying for more cards, but it seems like whenever a new card/deck breaks out, all stores and all ebay buy-it-nows increase at least twofold. I don't think that's just more demand. I think it's just a natural trend that the expected value on hot cards is $20 and up as opposed to $20 at most. I just don't know why that shift exists.

Dark Depths is a good example of this. Yeah, I hear all the reasons about how it's from a set that wasn't opened much, etc. etc. But I still don't see why that card pretty much immediately jumped from $1 to $20. That, to me, wasn't just that $20 was the natural rising and peaking of demand, it was that $20 is the new starting point on hot cards.

[JACO]

I highly doubt wizards is smart enough to do anything correctly and for that reason prefer they do nothing.

DING DING DING. We have a winner.

Personally whatever they do wouldn't affect me as Alpha, Korean and Jap foil cards won't drop in value.

This really isn't true at all, depending on how they issue reprints of cards are the Reserved List. If they made M11 with real dual lands (Underground Sea, Tropical Island, Taiga, etc.) your Alpha and Beta cards would absolutely lose value. People would need them to complete sets, but the value would be half or less. There would be Japanese Foils that most people (with that habit) would migrate towards instead. Alpha/Beta value for key cards would plummet considerably.

Now, if they reprinted key Legacy or Vintage cards like Swords to Plowshares, Wasteland, Tarmogoyf, Entomb, Imperial Recruiter, Imperial Seal, Polluted Delta and Force of Will (cards which are NOT on the Reserved List, and which I think are fine in the current Standard and Extended environments), I think this would be more than enough to increase supply and combat what most people think are outrageous prices.

Along the lines of "outrageous prices," I've heard a number of people complain about the price of cards like Force of Will and Tarmogoyf in particular. For those of you have a problem with those prices, can I ask you a serious question? With the idea that Magic was designed and marketed as a COLLECTIBLE CARD GAME, what is wrong with the fact that the best counterspell ever printed is a $35-40 card, and the best creature ever printed is a $70 card? That is a drop in the bucket when compared to cards like Juzam Djinn (a relatively crappy creature by today's standards that no one plays competitively anymore) at $100-130, and things like The Abyss (unplayed) at $50.

[majikal]

Now, if they reprinted key Legacy or Vintage cards like Swords to Plowshares, Wasteland, Tarmogoyf, Entomb, Imperial Recruiter, Imperial Seal, Polluted Delta and Force of Will (cards which are NOT on the Reserved List, and which I think are fine in the current Standard and Extended environments), I think this would be more than enough to increase supply and combat what most people think are outrageous prices.

Along the lines of "outrageous prices," I've heard a number of people complain about the price of cards like Force of Will and Tarmogoyf in particular. For those of you have a problem with those prices, can I ask you a serious question? With the idea that Magic was designed and marketed as a COLLECTIBLE CARD GAME, what is wrong with the fact that the best counterspell ever printed is a $35-40 card, and the best creature ever printed is a $70 card? That is a drop in the bucket when compared to cards like Juzam Djinn (a relatively crappy creature by today's standards that no one plays competitively anymore) at $100-130, and things like The Abyss (unplayed) at $50.

Wait, so you support reprinting fringe-playable cards to drive down prices on cards that are only expensive due to their collectibility, but you support high prices for staple cards because this is a collectible card game? How do you manage to survive a single day in the real world with that kind of doublethink?

[Some Guy]

[Otter]

Is that real? (And if it is, source?)

[JACO]

Wait, so you support reprinting fringe-playable cards to drive down prices on cards that are only expensive due to their collectibility, but you support high prices for staple cards because this is a collectible card game? How do you manage to survive a single day in the real world with that kind of doublethink?

Where do I ever say I support reprinting fringe-playable cards to drive down prices on other cards? What I support is Wizards' reprinting Legacy staples that are NOT on the Reserved List that would dramtically drive down the entrance costs to get into Eternal formats (such as Swords to Plowshares, Wasteland, Tarmogoyf, Entomb, Imperial Recruiter, Imperial Seal, Polluted Delta and Force of Will). What have I said that does not make sense if you actually read my post?

[jazzykat]

Another option instead of reprinting anything, would be for TOs to start holding proxy non-sanctioned tournaments. That way everyone could play almost everything. Then card values would probably still stay the same and would only be needed for sanctioned events. This obviosly doesn't please everyone but it gives people an oportunity to enter at about the old cost and allows people to have the option on whether to obtain the cards or not.

[anonymos]

There is an issue with that also. It won't help get Wizards attention for the format like the biggest magic tournament in history does. With it being nonsanctioned, they don't see the numbers for interest and it ends up not helping get more support.

With more people coming out of their caves to play in events, the numbers grow. When the numbers grow, the support grows. When the support grows, the prize pool grows. When the prize pool grows, everybody wins (or at least those at the top win more).

[jazzykat]

@anonymos: I agree with you in principle. Although, if 2200 people came together to play magic anywhere I'm pretty sure Wizards would hear about it and be interested in it as well. If they weren't running the event they would probably also be interested in who was and why it was so successful.

Now with all that said, w/o GP prize money put up I'm not sure if you'd have that type of draw. However, given the massive number of Spanish players participating something like an SCG 5K with an additional graduated prize pool to take into account insane high attendance might have put up similar numbers.

Anyway, except for BU reanimator the usual suspects top-8ed. I'm sorta wondering when fringe cards are going to drop again given that you can obviously just play less expesive decks like zoo or ANT and just wreck face.

[xTrainx]

I doubt the fringe cards will drop. People have decided 'hey, these can be useful', and are hanging onto sets on the thought that 'someday I'll use these'.

[Surging Chaos]

I doubt the fringe cards will drop. People have decided 'hey, these can be useful', and are hanging onto sets on the thought that 'someday I'll use these'.

Not only that, but many of these fringe cards like Undiscovered Paradise and Scroll Rack have been out of print for well over a decade now, and as a result there is obviously no new supply.

[Otter]

I just got an email from Channel Fireball advertising a "Legacy and Vintage Blowout Sale" with. . .

$50 Force
$50 Diamond
$50 LED
$25 Wasteland

That's one hell of an enticing sale, how can I possibly resist?