This is a seriously misleading post and set of numbers. For one, I have no idea where these prices are coming from. They strike me as over inflated in some cases and under valued in others. This throws off the entire exercise. Second, why are the Seas, Stifles, and Wastelands on the sell list? If you are playing Legacy as an investment format, then there is no reason at all to get rid of these cards. Way too many decks use them to include them on your sell list. I understand your selling of the other cards, as they are all but useless in most decks these days (Standstill excepted). Besides, Stifle actually goes in the sideboard of many of these decks. If we were to recalculate the price of these two card pools using more accepted values and some more magic-trading/investment logic, we would find that the "Buy" column is way, way in excess of the Sell column.Originally Posted by Jak.
What does this mean? It means that Legacy decks are harder to trade in and more expensive in the long run. Barring selling the serious staples like Sea, Wasteland, and Stifle, you will have to dish out a ton of cash to afford your transition.
1. Your phrasing for "keeping little inventory to compete in standard" is ambiguous. Do you mean that they keep "only a little" invetory so that they can compete in standard? Or do you mean that they keep "too little" inventory to even compete in standard? These interpretations are both quite different. Assuming that one of them is the correct way of reading your sentence, I will give two counterpoints. If the players do not keep enough inventory to even play standard, then they are not quite tournament players, and thus not entirely on Wizards' tournament-format radar. A new format might attract them, and it might not, just like Standard/Extended/Legacy/Vintage might attract them, but also might not.
If these are the players who only keep enough cards to play standard, then it is also a different demographic than we should primarily consider. These players will play standard for a few years, and then might step it up to Extended/NewFormat/Legacy, etc. The purpose of the Eternal formats are not to be wildly popular. There just needs to be one stable format with no unsustainable flaws so Magic players can involve themselves in it. Legacy and Vintage have failed, or are failing, in that regard.
2. School cafeteria players are casual through and through. Wizards would not make their new format as a magic net to capture all of the wayward, non-tournament players. If STANDARD isn't even attracting them, then this format probably won't either. As such, this would not be the format's purpose.
The Pithing Needle analogy is interesting, but totally wrong in regards to Legacy. Just check out some of the card prices/deck prices on the last bunch of pages. Can it apply to the new format? Maybe, but I doubt it. Current extended and new-format extended/legacy hybrid are different beasts. One rotates. The other is eternal. One has everchanging staples. The other does not. One has everchanging archetypes. The other does not. So long as there is a sense of permanency, players will come. Cyclical extended does not gather players because it keeps changing. Just when some players start to accustom themselves to one archetype, everything rotates. Woe to the poor player who enters Extended/Standard 75% of the way through a rotation. you will have just enough months remaining where you have to buy new cards and learn the decks, but just few enough months that you need to do it all again soon.
The new format would not have this problem, and thus is not comparable to extended.
This is a strong argument. There are a lot of "staples" from older Extended and Standard formats that lose power as the metagame marches on. Where will they find a home? Where will their pilots find a home? Chrome Mox, Jitte, Confidant, Fetchlands, etc. Those who own these cards need to either sell or find a new place to hang their hats once Extended rotates. They can't go to Vintage, because most of their cards are flat out irrelevant there. They can go to Legacy, but they will immediately hit the ever-rising price of Dual lands and be heavily discouraged.
A new format offers an alternate option. In this format, staples like Mox/Jitte/Confidant/Fetchlands would find a home without the artifically high price tag of complementary cards (read: Duals). If the market ever went out of control with shocklands, Wizards could easily reprint them in M11 or M12 without major destabilization to Standard. Some cards obviously should not be introduced into Standard, like FoW, but others could easily fill in a core set. This would keep older players happy, give newer players a place to step up their game to, and offer casual players a new format that can suit their cards and deck ideas. All without the Reserve List fueled prices.
-ktkenshinx-
Oops: meant that a lot of players only have cards to field one competitive deck at a time in standard, no less. And they accomplish that by trading at a loss to stores/dealers mostly, so they're not building a collection in any real sense, apart from limited-only cards stored in long boxes.1. Your phrasing for "keeping little inventory to compete in standard" is ambiguous. Do you mean that they keep "only a little" invetory so that they can compete in standard? Or do you mean that they keep "too little" inventory to even compete in standard
By cyclical, and I guess I was unclear there too, I meant that the in-season / out of season trade ins where everything less than $20 tends to be cashed in and rebought by evidently scads of players to cause the price fluctuations that occur; sure, people keep stuff like 'goyf forever, otoh. But it's seemingly evident that a lot of continuous extended players don't seem to keep their decks. I'm not sure if a new format would encourage people to hang onto stuff or if they'd just keep their shocklands/dark depths/entombs/goyfs and cash in the rest to play standard again.Cyclical extended does not gather players because it keeps changing.
I did like LSVs "finger goal posts" explanation of why another format would be great long term. But I'm not sure the fingers are far enough apart yet to really put enough distance between extended and the new format. I guess count me on the opposed to sixth ed. being included then. LSV allegedly doesn't even own 'goyfs ftr though; pros, gotta love'm. ;)
No it isn't.
MOTLFor one, I have no idea where these prices are coming from.
Well, the numbers aren't so you are wrong.They strike me as over inflated in some cases and under valued in others. This throws off the entire exercise.
You are totally misunderstanding what I am trying to show. I was replying to someone saying that anything could happen and your deck would be "obsolete", resulting in you losing money. I was showing that isn't the case since the individual cards retain their value. If you spend $1000 to buy a deck, if your deck becomes unplayable for any reason, you can essentially trade it in for a new one. Stop with your accusations and do a little research before you totally try and throw away my post because you are wrong.Second, why are the Seas, Stifles, and Wastelands on the sell list? If you are playing Legacy as an investment format, then there is no reason at all to get rid of these cards. Way too many decks use them to include them on your sell list. I understand your selling of the other cards, as they are all but useless in most decks these days (Standstill excepted). Besides, Stifle actually goes in the sideboard of many of these decks. If we were to recalculate the price of these two card pools using more accepted values and some more magic-trading/investment logic, we would find that the "Buy" column is way, way in excess of the Sell column.
No, it means you are wrong. Cards hold value and if you want to switch decks up, you can do it. I don't understand how trading in cards is hard.What does this mean? It means that Legacy decks are harder to trade in and more expensive in the long run. Barring selling the serious staples like Sea, Wasteland, and Stifle, you will have to dish out a ton of cash to afford your transition.
Dont be dumb.
It looks pretty spot on to me. Maybe $1-$2 higher or lower on some of the items. But its just an average.
Because the point of the "entire excercise" wasnt to retain legacy staples while upgrading a deck. It was to point out that it wouldnt be as expensive as claimed to convert an older deck into a newer deck.
Do you see how I made my point without an excessively huge and wordy post ? Sure, you want to be a writer, but dont embarrass yourself by typing a bunch of snotty filler and nonsense.
My main problem with the list of prices was less that they were over and under valued, and more that the Seas/Stifles/Wastelands were included on the list. I apologize if it came off otherwise.
Again, I apologize if my post came off as targeting the prices. I had just looked up Wasteland prices which were 5 dollars more expensive on blacklotusproject than the number you gave. My main problem was with the Sea/Stifle/Wasteland trade in. While you are capable of trading in these cards, I do not think that it is fair to say "trade them in." These are also Legacy staples and it would be foolish to trade them in. The cards that you WOULD trade in are obsolete cards (most of the ones mentioned in your post). Unfortunately, those obsolete ones barely amount to any money. If you did not sell the Seas and Wastelands, you would have hundreds more to spend on the deck.You are totally misunderstanding what I am trying to show. I was replying to someone saying that anything could happen and your deck would be "obsolete", resulting in you losing money. I was showing that isn't the case since the individual cards retain their value. If you spend $1000 to buy a deck, if your deck becomes unplayable for any reason, you can essentially trade it in for a new one. Stop with your accusations and do a little research before you totally try and throw away my post because you are wrong
I just am unwilling to believe that players would look at their old deck and say "Man, those Seas/Wastelands/Stifles need to go out with the old to bring in the new." People would keep these cards to preempt a later metagame evolution. As you admit yourself, the metagame changes. Getting rid of Seas/Wasteland/Stifle is a poor decision, because these cards are going to be there with the changed metagame.
Again, I am sorry for being overly accusative regarding prices. Most of them are accurate. I just fixated on the Wasteland discrepancy.
I understand the exercise without your clarification. I disagreed, and still disagree, with its premise. Upgrading a deck acknowledges that the metagame has changed and evolved. Presumably, it has evolved for the better, with better cards replacing worse cards. If so, then all of those worse cards are rendered obsolete by the new ones.
No one is going to argue that Underground Sea, Wasteland, and Stifle are obsolete cards. These cards are going to always be relevant in Legacy. They will also always be potentially relevant in the CounterTop/Threshold/Control variants. So why would you sell the Seas/Stifles/Wasteland given that you acknowledge that decks can change? What if you had to buy them later when the metagame evolved again? Well, you would probably be buying them for way more than you sold them for, and taking a large financial hit.
This is unwise. Once you eliminate the Seas/Wastelands/Stifles from the "sell" list (which any reasonable Legacy player would do), you are left buying hundreds of dollars of cards. You CAN sell the cards, but that opens you up to a later metagame shift that forces you to rebuy all of your old stuff. The bottom line is, you probably wouldn't sell them. So the exercise does not have a reasonable premise.
As to your repeated insults, I see no reason for them. Given your last moderator run in, I cannot imagine why you would continue.
-ktkenshinx-
I disagree. Because of Legacy (and to some extent, Extended), your Elspeths, Noble Hierarchs, and Maelstrom Pulses won't plummet down to $2-3 (or even less in some cases). It guarantees that those cards that rotate out of Standard still retain a lot of their value, provided they are playable in the older formats. Contrast that with the likes of Jester's Cap, Grinning Totem, Call of the Herd, and Hammer of Bogardan which truly plummeted in value from those lofty peaks because they were not viable in Legacy, hence only playable in "Casual".
Well... MOTL averages out Ebay prices so these are on the low end.
I am not telling anyone to sell their cards. Do you understand the example I am trying to give? If someone way back in 2006 was playing that deck, then for four years took a hiatus from the game, and finally is trying to get back in with a deck that can compete, he can. I am saying that if you are desperate enough to get a new deck with little to no cash, it can be done by selling parts of your older deck. The cards retain value. This is what the person I was responding to was missing by saying that if one little thing happened, and your deck became obsolete, you lost money, which is untrue.Essentially the same stuff from the previous post
I don't like using EBay prices for comparison. While selling on EBay is significantly faster than buying on EBay, in either case, you're looking at additional time and effort to do so, and it's very difficult to quantify the value of time. Because we come from different economic backgrounds, it's difficult to say that an hour of time is worth $X or this amount of effort is worth $Y. If you're a college kid on a scholarship and you're working a part time job at minimum wage, depending on the weight of your class load, the value of your time could be very low. If you're working 60 hours a week at $20/hr. then the value of your time is very high. Given that there is no good way to quantify the value of time and that talking about having a fully optimized and tweaked deck is really mostly for high level events like GP's and SCG Opens - where the stakes are significantly higher than your every other Saturday at the local shop tournies - I don't think it's unreasonable to use card shop prices, since that's what people will likely be paying for up to the week/day tech.
Cough* bullshit *cough
You are playing a fantasy card game and you are trying to say that if you waste your time you are losing money.
Anyway, ebay puts you on a much more even playing field when it comes to buying and selling. Brick and mortar stores will give you around half the value for your cards and sell you them for full price.
Jak, I work 70-75 hours in an average week and then I've got further commitments on top of that. I play a little bit of Magic on MWS in the mornings sometimes before I go to work or occasionally on my days off. If I were to decide to buy back in to paper magic, I would consider my time very valuable. Selling stuff on EBay is a royal pain in the ass. I used to buy and sell cards for additional cash and realized after a month or so that it simply wasn't worth the amount of time that I was putting in.
Is it just me or has this thread totally derailed? The conversation of whether or not legacy is affordable has come to an empasse. I suggest we get back to the original question: Does Magic need another format?
Asside from price, I say no. It definately does not! It will take away from Legacy as well as Extended. I think the enviroment is healthy enough as it is with two constructed and two eternal formats. To add another would make it a convaluted mess!
Short answer? They get rid of Extended and Legacy, and just have Vintage, "Overextended", and Standard. That's how they avoid a mess.
"Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted." - John Lennon
Hopefully that will be Legacy, Overextended and Standard
Quit playing Legacy but could still play Goblins (Rgw, Rg, Rw, Rb)
ジェームス・ブラウン
I'm staring in the mirror looking at my biggest rival.
I don't see how this would be cheaper, Tarmo would still be the best creature, and still be just as if not more expensive than it is now. Well it would be cheaper but not by a significant amount to justify making a new format out of it.
Needs more goyfs.
Dropping Legacy or Vintage as a format... what kind of suggestion is that?! Thats implying they have a problem. Personally I see no problem. They could use more participants, but thats not a reason to drop them. I mean everyone knows that 2200 people in one tournament is a sign that a format is very unhealthy and no one is interested.
As far as cost as an argument... thats silly. I've played MtG for 16 years. I've invested approx. $9000 on my collection over that period of time, which is currently valued at $15000 btw. Thats around $560 a year. We are talking around 2 boxes a quarter (if you consider the historical rise in cost of booster boxes, $140 a qtr would average 2 boxes approximately). I know people who play standard who spend more than that every quarter and I have a collection that allows me to play virtually any vintage deck I want. Hell if you subtract the money I invested trading and buying p9, Mishra's Workshops, Bazaar's, etc etc... I've spent a lot less than that to play Legacy!
I agree that neither of those formats should be dropped.
I think the new format fills a need, though. Yes, Legacy doesn't really cost more than Standard... but not everyone who plays Standard spends the money to get four Baneslayers, and what money they do spend is spent gradually over time - and hence not noticed. It may not be rational, but people see the price of an Underground Sea, and ask why they should spend that much just to play a card game.
So the new format provides an accessible, popular Eternal format, and so the Extended players are happy their cards don't fall into limbo when they rotate out... so Extended thrives, and Standard players are happy, because their cards now have a more comfortable home to rotate to.
Standard is where Wizards makes its money: Legacy is supported because it indirectly helps Standard, and so if it can't do that job as well as it used to, a new format can pick up the slack. I hope that doesn't meant that Wizards dumps either Vintage or Legacy, and I don't think it needs to mean that.
It won't. The format itself might be a bit cheaper than legacy because Ravnica duals never be as expensive as old duals. But would make make other formats more expensive. A lose - lose - lose situation.
Quit playing Legacy but could still play Goblins (Rgw, Rg, Rw, Rb)
ジェームス・ブラウン
I'm staring in the mirror looking at my biggest rival.
All this talk of Force of Will and such still being expensive... A lot of Legacy staples arent on the reserve list.
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
No! says the man in Washington, It belongs to the poor.
No! says the man in the Vatican, It belongs to God.
No! says the man in Moscow, It belongs to everyone.
I rejected those answers; instead I chose something different.
I chose Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality!
With the sweat of your brow Rapture can become your city as well.
What if they just ban all the original Dual lands in legacy? Isn't that really where most of if not all the really expense comes from? And once they're banned then decks would theoretically stop splashing as much, reducing the amounts of money rares they run per capita? I mean it won't be legacy as we know it, but losing ten cards would be better than half our card pool, and truthfully the new format would really just be legacy - duals anyway, and this way we keep force of will.
I can't afford anything that I can't find in the 10c common bin. Let's ban all the rares and uncommons too, except for the ones I got in my Stronghold preconstructed deck, I like those.
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