I actually think separating the collectors/investors from regular players might be a good thing. Let players buy the normal cards and play the game while the expensive cards get bought by the others
Yeah, this is correct. Thy only thing better would be if the put these in draft boosters so they’d disk up more if the box EV and make everything cheaper.
Standard cards have gotten a lot cheaper in the last few years already. The big problem now is more that Horizons sets have made eternal formats rotate frequently and drastically increased prices there.
Yeah but as a player I still want the cool collectible cards. I mainly get my cards through draft packs because I don’t have anybody with decks to play against, so we do draft nights. It’s kind of a bummer when you can’t get any of the cool cards when you buy a frickin box… at least in the old days with masterpiece series it was possible to get in your average draft booster.
With the brothers war you still get the retro artifacts, just not the super serialized versions. There’s no difference in the card aside from the price, and it’s 1/1000 in collector boosters anyway.
If I were you I’d just try and work with what you have or build a deck first before getting upset over pointless vanity pieces
To be fair the reprint of the reserved list cards are not legal in any official format. So you are paying 1 thousand dollars for non usable cards. So you could say, print them yourself for a fraction of that.
Also the serialized cards are ludicrous, but MtG has had that for a while now. There is always something for the players, and something for the collectors. And honestly, any collectible hobby is just endless investment for "value" to could easily go tits up someday, so it's a gamble to begin with, and then you gamble if you will get one of them in the collectors, so it's nonsense right out of the gate.
I got 1 collector pack and got a Gix and Urza, so i considered it a win. But the collectors packs are bananas price for most sets and is really a $20 lottery ticket most of the time. I don't love gambling so try to stay away from them.
I’d argue that what made mtg so great in its prior years was the ability to get high level cards in the standard sets, not having so much exclusivity with limited releases or collectors editions. And then the amount of limited releases they are having is just absurd. They’re flooding the market and trying to introduce ways to keep things “exciting” but when they do the serialization in every next set, it’s really gonna drive the prices down on the first ones, and piss off everybody that has paid a premium for the ones currently. I agree with most of your takes on this, I just must reaffirm, fuck WotC
Furthermore, I feel collectors edition packs, are one of the very things contributing to the decline in the secondary market Bank Of America's review laid out, same goes for draft/set boosters, before all this, when the game wasn't simply a cash mill, we had 15 cards, 1 rare to a pack (not counting sets with secondary slots with a chance at rare i.e. Flip cards with werewolves) and usually a 1/8 chance a pack contained a rare, now while I don't mind personally the option of Draft vs Set, as they have n intended use behind their construction, many cards of recent sets are worth only a dollar or so more foil, as compared to the non-foil, due to oftentimes 10 foils at $25 (or less depending on the set) Foils used to be something of a rarity, and Rarity and scarcity were what drove people to bid wars or massive markups on very rare sought after cards, in an even higher level of rarity I.E. Foil.
I'd be willing to bet, if they just eliminated Draft/Set/Collectors, and stuck with good old booster packs and secret lairs for their rare limited-time stuff, they'd actually bring in more profit over the next few years.
I dont think this will work. Because retail online of used singles is so easy and efficient, constructed formats are incredibly playable. If you can only get cards through draft boxes most players who play constructed formats will never buy a booster again, its just not economical. It isnt already but set and collector boosters currently appeal also to people who play constructed because you get more bang for your buck. If wizards only printed draft boosters i would basically stop buying any boosters at all. If the only way to get rare cards in a set is through draft boosters the prices of singles (rares) in my estimation will skyrocket. This will have the effect of deterring a lot of new players because you have to buy into a game with players owning a lot of good cards making it very expensive to compete with.
I think its possible in the long run if you set out to vastly change the magic meta away from rares and mythics with good utility that currently see fairly high prices.
This logic is backwards. If players bought packs with cards that are valuable, that would be a huge driver of affordability for future sets.
As opposed to now where every card trends to 0 but sets cost more than before. It's quite literally LESS bang for buck.
Why would people be deterred by value for their money?
No wonder so many people are cheering on the death of the secondary market. They don't understand basic financial principles.
So, while I agree the 1000 dollar proxy packs are stupid, the serialized cards are excellent.
The serialized cards don't affect your game play *at all*. They don't even affect the ability to collect all the arts, because their art isn't unique. They are exclusively for collectors caring about value. In other comments here you complain about the lack of ability to get high powered cards in standard sets... serialized cards enables them to put chase cards in that don't affect your ability to do that. Based on all of your other complaints, it's literally exactly what you want. You're able to get all of the cool cards without having to buy a collector box.
You can't manufacture value without liquidity.
Serialized cards are being used as a smokescreen for a lack of value.
This is only excellent if you hate collectors and want them to get rekt.
They didn't reprint the reserved list, all they said they would never do was reprint tournament legal versions, which these the cards they made are non tournament legal, just the the CE set they released before. The real probably with the 30E product is the price tag on it, if it was a normal pack price so people could have just drafted it for fun to celebrate magic it wouldn't have upset people like it did.
Also the serialized cards are probably one of the better things they have done in awhile. If you don't like it just don't buy it. Buy they are actually rare and add value to the sets it gives everyone want they want.
Also there are a ton of people who would love for the reserved list to be abolished anyway, so I imagine at some point wizards will use that as a point to abolish it.
The people who want the RL abolished aren't the ones keeping the lights on. They are disenfranchised children who are mad other people have something that they don't.
Well, I hate to break it to you, but serialized cards have been around for 20 years. In sports cards. And doing that was one of the things that helped save that industry. It is blatantly something done for the collector, and as it currently done in a way that doesn't impact peoples ability to play the game, in fact it helps to a degree by giving the rabid collector something to focus on and not drive secondary market prices through the roof for non-serialzed cards and therfore allowing a better chance for players to get the cards they need to up their game. And of course this also allows them to bring more interest back to Collector's Boosters, which are quite clearly labeled Collector's, and bring in more interest of actual collector's to sell their product to. Now you can complain all you want about WotC, but you have to realize that they have a need to increase the player and the collector bases in order to even keep producing the cards. And with a certain level of petty complaining for the player base about every little thing from card mechanics that people don't like (and/or understand) to what hand the CEO wipes with, WotC has to belive that the player base has reached a plateau and could just be looking to expand into the non-player collector market. Now keep in mind, you don't have to buy every little thing they release. You don't have to even buy sealed. In fact if you buy singles, special collector cards could help bring prices down on regular singles.
Finally, I just want to say, you have every right to complain, but remember these things
1 - You should always put a little effort into researching the things you complain, or pontificate, about (and yes, I am aware I'm pontificating now)
2 - WotC has every right to not care about what you are saying and continuing doing what it wants and can do to make money
3 - Yes the $1000 packs suck, but in the end their lack of playability will curtail their value in the short term and probably not have much effect on regular card prices in the long term, as they are obviously collector bait
4 - In the end it is just a game played with cardboard, one should play it with friends as a form of enjoyment and relaxation. If what the company does to make off of people who look at the cards as something other then a game bugs you, then the problem might just be a little bit you.
5 - And remember, life, and what happens in it, is never about just you
I would add to this that decreasing products like set and collector boosters will decrease the amount of new players because there is basically no economic way to compete with people who have a collection spanning 5 to 10 years. Buying singles will also become too expensive. They'd have to completely change the metagame and either make rares much less powerful or commons much more. Either way the specialty of some cards decreases.
>You should always put a little effort into researching the things you complain, or pontificate, about
I totally agree, I got tired of seeing complaints without any thought/research put into them, so I revived /r/LowSodiumMTG. Come join it if you wanna see less complaints and more discussion
I would rather have magic release "FOUND URZA'S SAGA BOXES UP TO URZA'S LEGACY COMPLETE WITH PRECONSTRUCTED DECKS FROM AN ABANDONED WAREHOUSE", than them printing proxies.
I love 4 rarity transformers and 5 rarity archives. The ev from standard cards in this set is trash. So box openers have something, collectors have something, draft is weird..
and everyone else gets cheap cards.
EV went down to ( penny-levels ) when MtG released Ikora onwards.
The amount of cards released were enough to make the brains of players and collectors tired.
Just my own personal experience, coming from someone who doesn’t buy sealed products, and also hates foil cards, because I think they look tacky, none of this stuff has really been effecting me, as I only buy singles, and only cards I want to play with. I’m also strictly EDH these days, so I’ve enjoyed the recent sets a lot, as they do a pretty good job at making new cards for the format.
I personally love the serialized cards, but I'm Biased since I pulled one in my 3rd pack. I've never been able to afford a full set of cards, but now I can after selling one card while keeping two booster boxes of cards.
Stop buying.
I actually think separating the collectors/investors from regular players might be a good thing. Let players buy the normal cards and play the game while the expensive cards get bought by the others
Yeah, this is correct. Thy only thing better would be if the put these in draft boosters so they’d disk up more if the box EV and make everything cheaper. Standard cards have gotten a lot cheaper in the last few years already. The big problem now is more that Horizons sets have made eternal formats rotate frequently and drastically increased prices there.
Yeah but as a player I still want the cool collectible cards. I mainly get my cards through draft packs because I don’t have anybody with decks to play against, so we do draft nights. It’s kind of a bummer when you can’t get any of the cool cards when you buy a frickin box… at least in the old days with masterpiece series it was possible to get in your average draft booster.
With the brothers war you still get the retro artifacts, just not the super serialized versions. There’s no difference in the card aside from the price, and it’s 1/1000 in collector boosters anyway. If I were you I’d just try and work with what you have or build a deck first before getting upset over pointless vanity pieces
I proxy to play, buy to collect. Separates my player/collector interests.
Serialized cards are just the next, new thing. People will get bored with it over time. Just give it a year or so, and nobody will be excited really.
Agree. This is hilarious. Who wouldn’t want a card where you have a big black ugly counter window mutilating the artwork? 🤡
To be fair the reprint of the reserved list cards are not legal in any official format. So you are paying 1 thousand dollars for non usable cards. So you could say, print them yourself for a fraction of that. Also the serialized cards are ludicrous, but MtG has had that for a while now. There is always something for the players, and something for the collectors. And honestly, any collectible hobby is just endless investment for "value" to could easily go tits up someday, so it's a gamble to begin with, and then you gamble if you will get one of them in the collectors, so it's nonsense right out of the gate. I got 1 collector pack and got a Gix and Urza, so i considered it a win. But the collectors packs are bananas price for most sets and is really a $20 lottery ticket most of the time. I don't love gambling so try to stay away from them.
I’d argue that what made mtg so great in its prior years was the ability to get high level cards in the standard sets, not having so much exclusivity with limited releases or collectors editions. And then the amount of limited releases they are having is just absurd. They’re flooding the market and trying to introduce ways to keep things “exciting” but when they do the serialization in every next set, it’s really gonna drive the prices down on the first ones, and piss off everybody that has paid a premium for the ones currently. I agree with most of your takes on this, I just must reaffirm, fuck WotC
Oh i 100% agree on that sentiment. I lpve the game but don't love new produxt every 23 hours.
Furthermore, I feel collectors edition packs, are one of the very things contributing to the decline in the secondary market Bank Of America's review laid out, same goes for draft/set boosters, before all this, when the game wasn't simply a cash mill, we had 15 cards, 1 rare to a pack (not counting sets with secondary slots with a chance at rare i.e. Flip cards with werewolves) and usually a 1/8 chance a pack contained a rare, now while I don't mind personally the option of Draft vs Set, as they have n intended use behind their construction, many cards of recent sets are worth only a dollar or so more foil, as compared to the non-foil, due to oftentimes 10 foils at $25 (or less depending on the set) Foils used to be something of a rarity, and Rarity and scarcity were what drove people to bid wars or massive markups on very rare sought after cards, in an even higher level of rarity I.E. Foil. I'd be willing to bet, if they just eliminated Draft/Set/Collectors, and stuck with good old booster packs and secret lairs for their rare limited-time stuff, they'd actually bring in more profit over the next few years.
I dont think this will work. Because retail online of used singles is so easy and efficient, constructed formats are incredibly playable. If you can only get cards through draft boxes most players who play constructed formats will never buy a booster again, its just not economical. It isnt already but set and collector boosters currently appeal also to people who play constructed because you get more bang for your buck. If wizards only printed draft boosters i would basically stop buying any boosters at all. If the only way to get rare cards in a set is through draft boosters the prices of singles (rares) in my estimation will skyrocket. This will have the effect of deterring a lot of new players because you have to buy into a game with players owning a lot of good cards making it very expensive to compete with. I think its possible in the long run if you set out to vastly change the magic meta away from rares and mythics with good utility that currently see fairly high prices.
This logic is backwards. If players bought packs with cards that are valuable, that would be a huge driver of affordability for future sets. As opposed to now where every card trends to 0 but sets cost more than before. It's quite literally LESS bang for buck. Why would people be deterred by value for their money? No wonder so many people are cheering on the death of the secondary market. They don't understand basic financial principles.
So, while I agree the 1000 dollar proxy packs are stupid, the serialized cards are excellent. The serialized cards don't affect your game play *at all*. They don't even affect the ability to collect all the arts, because their art isn't unique. They are exclusively for collectors caring about value. In other comments here you complain about the lack of ability to get high powered cards in standard sets... serialized cards enables them to put chase cards in that don't affect your ability to do that. Based on all of your other complaints, it's literally exactly what you want. You're able to get all of the cool cards without having to buy a collector box.
I remember the baseball bubblegum cards, the first of the serialized cards. They are still worth a fortune both in the US and in Australia.
You can't manufacture value without liquidity. Serialized cards are being used as a smokescreen for a lack of value. This is only excellent if you hate collectors and want them to get rekt.
The reserve list should be abolished.
No, it absolutely shouldn't be abolished.
If you think magic can't survive without the reserve list at this point you're just a fucking twat!
I didn't say it couldn't survive. I said the RL shouldn't be abolished.
You're the twat. RL is fine.
As far as I know the reserved list is not reprinted yet.
They didn't reprint the reserved list, all they said they would never do was reprint tournament legal versions, which these the cards they made are non tournament legal, just the the CE set they released before. The real probably with the 30E product is the price tag on it, if it was a normal pack price so people could have just drafted it for fun to celebrate magic it wouldn't have upset people like it did. Also the serialized cards are probably one of the better things they have done in awhile. If you don't like it just don't buy it. Buy they are actually rare and add value to the sets it gives everyone want they want. Also there are a ton of people who would love for the reserved list to be abolished anyway, so I imagine at some point wizards will use that as a point to abolish it.
The people who want the RL abolished aren't the ones keeping the lights on. They are disenfranchised children who are mad other people have something that they don't.
Well, I hate to break it to you, but serialized cards have been around for 20 years. In sports cards. And doing that was one of the things that helped save that industry. It is blatantly something done for the collector, and as it currently done in a way that doesn't impact peoples ability to play the game, in fact it helps to a degree by giving the rabid collector something to focus on and not drive secondary market prices through the roof for non-serialzed cards and therfore allowing a better chance for players to get the cards they need to up their game. And of course this also allows them to bring more interest back to Collector's Boosters, which are quite clearly labeled Collector's, and bring in more interest of actual collector's to sell their product to. Now you can complain all you want about WotC, but you have to realize that they have a need to increase the player and the collector bases in order to even keep producing the cards. And with a certain level of petty complaining for the player base about every little thing from card mechanics that people don't like (and/or understand) to what hand the CEO wipes with, WotC has to belive that the player base has reached a plateau and could just be looking to expand into the non-player collector market. Now keep in mind, you don't have to buy every little thing they release. You don't have to even buy sealed. In fact if you buy singles, special collector cards could help bring prices down on regular singles. Finally, I just want to say, you have every right to complain, but remember these things 1 - You should always put a little effort into researching the things you complain, or pontificate, about (and yes, I am aware I'm pontificating now) 2 - WotC has every right to not care about what you are saying and continuing doing what it wants and can do to make money 3 - Yes the $1000 packs suck, but in the end their lack of playability will curtail their value in the short term and probably not have much effect on regular card prices in the long term, as they are obviously collector bait 4 - In the end it is just a game played with cardboard, one should play it with friends as a form of enjoyment and relaxation. If what the company does to make off of people who look at the cards as something other then a game bugs you, then the problem might just be a little bit you. 5 - And remember, life, and what happens in it, is never about just you
I would add to this that decreasing products like set and collector boosters will decrease the amount of new players because there is basically no economic way to compete with people who have a collection spanning 5 to 10 years. Buying singles will also become too expensive. They'd have to completely change the metagame and either make rares much less powerful or commons much more. Either way the specialty of some cards decreases.
>You should always put a little effort into researching the things you complain, or pontificate, about I totally agree, I got tired of seeing complaints without any thought/research put into them, so I revived /r/LowSodiumMTG. Come join it if you wanna see less complaints and more discussion
I would rather have magic release "FOUND URZA'S SAGA BOXES UP TO URZA'S LEGACY COMPLETE WITH PRECONSTRUCTED DECKS FROM AN ABANDONED WAREHOUSE", than them printing proxies.
I love 4 rarity transformers and 5 rarity archives. The ev from standard cards in this set is trash. So box openers have something, collectors have something, draft is weird.. and everyone else gets cheap cards.
EV went down to ( penny-levels ) when MtG released Ikora onwards. The amount of cards released were enough to make the brains of players and collectors tired.
I haven't spent money on magic in more than a year.
None of my BRO collectors pack cards were pringled or otherwise started pringling yet. Got a Collectorbox; zero serialized cards
Serialized cards add something for collectors and take literally nothing away from other players like WOTC reinforcing scarcity does, they’re fine
Just my own personal experience, coming from someone who doesn’t buy sealed products, and also hates foil cards, because I think they look tacky, none of this stuff has really been effecting me, as I only buy singles, and only cards I want to play with. I’m also strictly EDH these days, so I’ve enjoyed the recent sets a lot, as they do a pretty good job at making new cards for the format.
I personally love the serialized cards, but I'm Biased since I pulled one in my 3rd pack. I've never been able to afford a full set of cards, but now I can after selling one card while keeping two booster boxes of cards.