[Official] Bitching About Prices, Buyouts and Reprints Thread

[Gocho]

I will play Scars Duals if I want to go budget. Some decks only play 3-4 lands, so is cheaper and almost equal to play old Duals.

You can start with Scars Duals, and buy 1-2 old Duals and some Fetchs, this make easier to get a good manabase.

[Penguinizer]

I think hes talking about Vengevines and planeswalkers (the mythic rare creatures in general).

Besides, would you play with M11 or Scars of Mirrodin dual lands in this format?

I said "Non-mythic". Vengevine is a mythic. It's also only good in one or two Legacy decks. But I agree. The price of mythics has become insane. I blame speculators.

[majikal]

The price of mythics has become insane. I blame speculators.

Agreed. Also, Star City isn't helping matters by automatically pricing every new planeswalker that is spoiled at $50 right off the bat.

[Neuad]

I say Wizards should just fuck the reserved list.

I agree. I get 'protecting peoples investments' and whatever BS reason they give for not ever wanting to reprint say duals, and onslaught fetches. . . . but the amount of money they would make from something like From The Vault: Lands could be intense.

I wonder how long till Legacy starts going the way of Vintage because duals/fetches (mainly blue duals) are so uncommon and expensive that no average player can afford them, and no average player is going to want into jump into a format where the established players have such a huge advantage, such as what I've heard with vintage and power and why I wont start playing vintage.

Do you guys think they will print a big jace Dual Deck anytime in the relative future? We were talking about it yesterday and while he MIGHT drop a little when he rotates out of standard, we don't think he'll drop that much.

[keys]

Price is only a function of demand. There are a lot more duals and fetches in circulation than moxes or workshops, so Legacy will always be more accessible than Vintage.

[Atwa]

I wonder how long till Legacy starts going the way of Vintage because duals/fetches (mainly blue duals) are so uncommon and expensive that no average player can afford them, and no average player is going to want into jump into a format where the established players have such a huge advantage, such as what I've heard with vintage and power and why I wont start playing vintage.

I don't see this happening. As long as you can perfectly compete with (mono color) decks with price tags comparable to competive Standard, people shouldn't complain about an expensive format. I do agree some of the cornerstones of the format have skyrocketed the last year, but you can still buy Merfolk, Goblins, Belcher, Enchantress (sans Moat), and a lot of others out of scratch for the price of a standard deck. Keep in mind these decks do in fact place high at tournaments.

I also don't know who are complaining. How often do you see a guy in a store who wants to start legacy and desides he wants to buy a Zoo deck (Duals, fetch, Goyf)? That is a pretty expensive deck, but come on.... Most people start porting their old decks and start with something familiar to get a feeling of a format (and it's crowd). Buying the building blocks comes a bit later and we (almost) all started building their collections slowly. What's wrong with other people having to walk that road? I think no-one on this forum decided to play legacy and bought a full set of duals, fetch, FoW, LeD and Goyf.......

High prices suck, true thing! But I doubt it really hinders interest in the format and people who want to join in can always decide to play a deck which is as powerfull as a really expensive one, only cheaper.

[menace13]

I also don't know who are complaining. How often do you see a guy in a store who wants to start legacy and desides he wants to buy a Zoo deck (Duals, fetch, Goyf)? That is a pretty expensive deck, but come on.... Most people start porting their old decks and start with something familiar to get a feeling of a format (and it's crowd). Buying the building blocks comes a bit later and we (almost) all started building their collections slowly. What's wrong with other people having to walk that road? I think no-one on this forum decided to play legacy and bought a full set of duals, fetch, FoW, LeD and Goyf...

I went and purchased every deck I liked(Zoo,Merf,Countertop,Storm-over the years turned into just about every deck in Legacy and a few Vintage staples sans P9) when I got back into MtG-around 3 years ago- and If I wanted to do this today, I would have to pay at least another 2k+ more. The prices do keep some away from the format. There are a bunch of people that would just love to sling FoWs,crack Fetch for Tundra/Trop, but their budget is limited to DnT/Dredge/Elves/RDW etc. If it were I and I couldn't have paid for every deck I wanted to play, I wouldnt be playing.. Like, You can not make people like something when they want another thing.

[Atwa]

Like, You can not make people like something when they want another thing.

If it were up to me (being a socialist and all), all people could have the cards they like for free if it gets more people in the game. However, in reality people have to pay for things they like, and some things are more expensive then others.

I think the biggest problem is people think they have the right to play certain cards and the world should be forced to give people what they want. We all started this game from scratch and we all had to make some effort (time and/or money) to get where we are. I for one actually enjoy most of my more expensive cards since I know how hard I worked so I could affort and find them. I do realise cost can be a barrier, but I don't feel it's a problem as big as some people claim it to be.

Now don't get me wrong, I would love cards to be cheaper and I am very opposed to the reserve list. But your statement seems like you're saying you can't enjoy your SNES or Playstation 2, because you'd like to have a XBOX360, which I really doubt. Like magic, you need to put some more effort if you want to play with something more powerfull.

[Neuad]

I just hate hearing stories about how even 5-6 years ago USea's cost 20 bucks a pop. If I want to play any control deck sans Mono Blue control, or mono blue merfolk I have to shell out 60-100per dual for whatever combo I need, if it be Usea's, Trops, Volcanics.

I was just agreeing with the person that said f the reserve list. I get why a few cards are on it. . .some cards just never should have seen a first printing let alone a re-printing. . . . but I think wizards would see a lot more interest in legacy if they tried to make the older staple cards a little more affordable. Not that they ever will, and I'll end up paying 200 for my playset of Tundra's. . .I'm just ranting.

[menace13]

If it were up to me (being a socialist and all), all people could have the cards they like for free if it gets more people in the game. However, in reality people have to pay for things they like, and some things are more expensive then others.

I think the biggest problem is people think they have the right to play certain cards and the world should be forced to give people what they want. We all started this game from scratch and we all had to make some effort (time and/or money) to get where we are. I for one actually enjoy most of my more expensive cards since I know how hard I worked so I could affort and find them. I do realise cost can be a barrier, but I don't feel it's a problem as big as some people claim it to be.

Now don't get me wrong, I would love cards to be cheaper and I am very opposed to the reserve list. But your statement seems like you're saying you can't enjoy your SNES or Playstation 2, because you'd like to have a XBOX360, which I really doubt. Like magic, you need to put some more effort if you want to play with something more powerfull.

I agree with most of what you said, except the part about the 360.. I could not, personally, enjoy playing P2/SNES when i know there is a P3. Like for instance, I can not watch a tv if it is not HD.

I just wish the cards to play Legacy werent so high priced as it still is a barrier to anyone who wants to play Countertop/Landstill/any dual loving deck, but can not afford to shell out 1,300 dollars on it.
Magic is expensive.
Of course they can go play other decks, although it just doesnt feel right if there isnt a fetch,dual,Fow,LED. etc.. Now if you happen to enjoy playing other decks then you're fine.

[Neuad]

I just wish the cards to play Legacy werent so high priced as it still is a barrier to anyone who wants to play Countertop/Landstill/any dual loving deck, but can not afford to shell out 1,300 dollars on it.

That. Don't get me wrong, goblins is alright. I don't mind it and I know it has the potentional to run over ANY deck in the format. But after the GP when my 2 friends stopped playing their UWx landstill build in favor of more 'fun' decks I was able to borrow the entire deck and the amount of answers it has is so much nicer then goblins.

But shelling out the money for 7 duals including 5 blues, 4 blue fetches, all the blue staples, a moat. . .I just cant justify spending over 150 bucks on Moat. . .hell I can barely justify spending 50 on a dual

[(nameless one)]

Its funny because I remember watching a clip about Richard Garfield. Even the dude who created the game does not agree on the cost of the game.

On the other hand, I think SCG should get the blame on the high costs of cards. Reanimator isn't the same consistent deck as it was pre-banning and I haven't seen Entomb's price dip. Same thing with Grim Monolith. That card hasn't even proven its worth in the format yet its topping $30.

[kiblast]

sure is difficult to put together enough staples to play UWx, countertop, Zoo , Tes, but winning tournament is an alternative to buy cards. Tournaments are held everyday and everywhere, and just to make an example ,in the last Ovino (biggest italian legacy tournament) a new deck, Swiss Zoo (basically a burn/boros deck with a very little W splash only for 4x Steppe lynx) won tons of duals by running a 250$ deck. It doesnt even run the full set of plateaus....
So my point is that if youre very good at the game, just sleeve up a burn, a dredge, or a tribal. Go at a tournament and earn your moats, duals and so on.

[Philipp2293]

While this sounds like a fine plan, I have to say that not all people have the opportunity to build up a collection that way. For example here in Vienna, the weekly events are free, with one price booster given to the winner (which once earned me a Jace TMS nonetheless), and only the monthly events are with prices, but due to low attendance the price for the first place is usually maximum 1 dual.

[danyul]

Yeah, the win-tourneys-to-get-goodies plan isn't exactly a reassuring alternative. Some people don't have tourneys with great prize support in their area and most of us aren't savants who can just walk into a field of Tier 1 decks and X-0 into some hot prizes with Tier 2-3 jank. Myself included.

I sold off all my cards a year or so ago (I had a playset of almost every chase card in the format) and have been trying to win my way back into the game over the last few months but it's no longer worth the time and effort. I'll just wait and buy my way back in once I'm rich and famous.

[Penguinizer]

I've been trying to get on that plan, but I've only managed that once. I ended up trading it away for highlander stuff.

One thing that I always recommend is borrowing cards. I could probably get anything from Ad Nauseam Storm to vintage Noble Fish if I asked for cards from people who aren't going to the tournament.

[Shinwei]

Agreed. Also, Star City isn't helping matters by automatically pricing every new planeswalker that is spoiled at $50 right off the bat.

I find it difficult to blame Starcitygames after reading this from one of their premium articles:

Now, I don't pretend to be an economist. I hate it when people try to sound smarter than they are. But these concepts are very basic. I hear people say stuff like, “Venser is not worth $50 dollars!”... And this statement doesn't make much sense when people are buying them for $50. The fact that someone would buy it for $50 is what makes it worth $50. If I had a Venser, I could theoretically sell it for $50 — so how can someone say that it's not worth $50?

I posted this question on Twitter: “Do you think Venser is worth $30?” I immediately received a handful of negative responses. The player side of me was still struggling with the urge to pre-order them; $30 felt right to me and even if I ended up not needing them, I could just trade or sell them.

After drawing out a debate (and invoking the collective lament of the Magic universe about the pricing of mythic rares), I went back to check on my Vensers: the price had gone up to $34.99. I taunted my Twitter followers with a follow-up question: “Do you think Venser is worth $35?”

This is where supply and demand enters the scene. Typically, online retailers will post the spoiler cards for pre-order in waves. For example: forty Vensers were listed on SCG for $29.99, and within an hour all forty were sold out. This shows that there is a demand for the card. It also shows that the card may be underpriced — so the retailer will list another forty for pre-sale, but with the adjusted price of $34.99. Without missing a beat, the market responded by purchasing the next forty copies.

This “raise-and-sell” process continues until the card stops selling. When a card stops selling, it means one of two things: Either the immediate demand is met, or the price is too high.

Maybe it's just that we the players have too much money now? That doesn't really seem to make sense given the economy at the moment, but I can think of no other way to explain...

[danyul]

Or it could mean that some smallish number of us have crazy disposable incomes and are driving up prices for everybody else...or something. Just because some rich dude is willing to shell out cash for a chase mythic doesn't mean it's worth 80 bucks to me. The shops only have so many copies to sell and they don't care if Richy Rich buys it with his allowance or if I buy it with blood money. So you can't really blame the shops for pricing them at whatever some people are willing to pay and you can't really blame the rich guys for buying stuff you wish you had. However, understanding the economics behind all these prices doesn't make me feel any better about being a broke bastard. And sharing our communal feelings of broke bastardism is what this thread is really about.

[cdr]

There are more players, period. A lot more players - every month there are more people playing Magic than there have been in the history of the game. This is going to drive up demand for cards, and it's going to increase in absolute numbers the number of people that have large enough budgets to spend whatever it takes to acquire the cards they want.

Planeswalkers are deliberately rare - the whole point of creating them was to sell more packs - and it's working better than probably even Wizards could have expected.

[dahcmai]

Though no one likes how it's set up. It has the possibility to implode on itself.

I see more and more players quitting the game due to cost and going about other activities. It may be gaining players, but not in my area and we used to have 100+ person turnouts. We're down to the point where tournaments got canceled due to entirely too few showing up to play.

I really think that it's gaining players only due to exposure to the other countries where it wasn't available before and with that many people you're sure to gain some. China, Japan, Russia, and most of the Asian countries didn't have Magic for a long time, that's only a fairly recent phenomenon. Sure, we gained them, but how many did we lose in the rest of the original crowd? How many of this new crowd will be disenchanted eventually with the way things have turned?

I keep seeing people drop out since they 1. Can't keep up with the cost to stay competitive. Especially since most Legacy players here play Standard also. or 2. Can't trade for the cards they need since the supply is depreciated considerably by the fact that mythics are harder to open.

I honestly think I'd rather have 7-10 chase rares that are fairly expensive than 3 or 4 that are horrendously expensive. Makes for a lot easier trading if anything.


The funniest thing is speculators are actually causing a snowballish problem now. They will buy a lot of a card hoping the value will go up. This of course is done by quite a lot of people. When said card sells out, the price goes up validating the reasoning behind the buying out of the card in the first place. This in turn causes others to try doing the same thing every new set that comes out since cards like Jace, Baneslayer, and even Rafiq of the Many were drove up since it was obvious they were good cards and people kept looking to cash in. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened with these new ones.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that trying to get these mythic cards out of packs is ridiculously hard to do especially if you are wanting a playset. You practically have to buy a set no matter what or pay more than what a playset is worth in packs to do it. See how many boxes it takes to get 4 Vensers. You then can see why his price is so high even though he sucks.


I think I'll just end this book with "I hate mythic rarity". : ( Sad face...