Do you really think that if the major cards prices were in the 20s and 10s no one else would be interested? How narrow a view. The fact is SOME people don't enjoy the power range of classic/legacy but many do not want to put 50-100 out for one card because they are not in the habit of doing so. Even if they can afford it, it is an intimidating thing for some.
There are a number of important cards that hit the high level mark for playing serious Legacy and Classic. Which means you have to be willing to either invest serious money all at once(rent??) or slowly accrue what you need over time. Either way this is not for the casual player who wants to just enjoy the game without worrying about it hurting the pocket too much or getting in trouble with their wife over their online spending.
Also The price of FOW dropping to almost half (that didn't last more than an hour btw as it quickly crept up another 10%) did excite a portion of the player base who didn't have access to it at 100+ for whatever reason. Two days later there are still some buy ads listing below 50 (very unrealistically and or optimistically).
So the interest in them IS there. If the DEs don't expand because of the new influx of fows that may indicate what you are saying in regards to tourney level classic but I'd expect more queues to fire than before as a result of this.
As for stereotypes well people get whatever impression they get from the players of the format. Even if you disagree with their impression it is hard to argue against it since opinions may vary greatly based on experience. You can't really say "You are wrong!" to someone expressing opinions. You can only say "I disagree with your assessment."
Of course if they start spouting their opinions as facts that's another matter.
You may just have to live with the fact that some people have a bad impression of Classic. I hope the price fall of fow does bring in more players because I think it is a fine format if a bit degenerate at times. Increasing FOWs in the system should help a little bit since they stop all the "I Win Now" (turn 1-2) nonsense that people object to and see as the hallmark of the format.
I still don't see how FOW being in the 50-55 range is considered affordable by the same people that were complaining that FOW was 90-100. I always considered price discussions about Eternal formats to be a cop-out. Eternal is not for everyone, and to blame it entirely on price is the easy way to explain why one does not play them. I wish more people would just say that Eternal is not of interest to them, rather than pass around a stereotype of the format(s).
Jace went on the rise the second that P9 was announced. People have been speculating on Jace because of Vintage, not because of an un-ban in Modern (which if it ever happens, will be years from now).
I agree, except for Jace, I think people are picking him up speculating on him being unbanned in modern, which won't happen. I think his price climb started a bit before the FoW promo was announced, not sure though.
A thought on the discussion about how Jace, lands, etc. are all rising in price: this week we do have a bunch of legacy MOCS events. That's four prelims and the finals, all using Legacy. That means several hundred people want to play Legacy this week, people who don't generally play Legacy. Prices are spiking this week - they should drop next week.
Well not entirely. I mean it certainly isn't one card that is the barrier but the prices of the format in general. Force of Will's price STILL contributes a lot to that barrier even though other cards prices are rising to meet the slight decrease in price on FOWs. Classic and Legacy are expensive formats to play competitively in regardless of what deck you want to play unless you are content with the RDW special.
I don't think this is a bad thing but to say Force of Will provides no barrier to entry is as ludicrous as saying it is the only barrier to entry.
Though I think the better argument is that while expensive cards in classic create a barrier to entry so do expensive cards in other formats.
I mostly agree with this. There is a certain demand for Tier One decks in any format, and that tends to set the combined price for the most widely played staples of the format, so that when one goes down others go up because more people are willing to try to buy in. Polluted Deltas and Flooded Strands are way up right now from what they were a couple weeks ago (18 tix for Delta and 15 for Strand). This is what I'm predicting happens to Modern when the MM reprints come, the fetches will skyrocket and keep the price of a Tier One modern deck about where it is -- the cards will be plenty "accessible" to anybody who's played MTG for a few years, but won't necessarily be any more affordable.
That being said, the other cards you mentioned could just be enjoying a brief bump by people who needed them to play in the MOCS. And relative to the REAL decline in FoW price (the promo was settling around 50-55 tix when I checked Wednesday after the downtime, bots just aren't touching them yet so that isn't reflected in MTGOtraders price right now), the increase in other legacy cards has been much smaller. Force being affordable opens up a TON of deckbuilding space for those of us who had decent non-blue legacy collections and only needed FoW to start playing the entire format.
So WotC promo's out FoW and drops the price and the result is......everything else that goes in decks with FoW becomes more expensive (Jace, Sea, Wasteland, Show and Tell...). Congrats, Wizards...you accomplished nothing in making Classic/Legacy any less expensive. Thats how Supply and Demand work. This is why attempts to control the market price of things almost never pan out and why using price as a determinant for whats gets promo'd is such a bad idea.
I haven't said this in a while, so I figured that I would again:
Pete, you are the perfect person to write this article. I love the detail that you put in every week. I love the history that you bring to the game. I love your editorials. Thank you so much for writing these.
Thanks! I actually have done one more update to the Kavu deck recently (I replaced Halberdier with Rancor), and it's been performing pretty well overall. It's certainly a fun deck, though I haven't had a chance to test the Storm match-up a whole lot yet. Once I figure out how to do it consistently with this deck, it should be a lot of fun to play!
I'm currently waiting for my next article to come up, as it has video content this time around now. It's a fun deck.
Yeah well that is somewhat true but also dilutes the power of the card. It is possible to just use him as a hit to the hand and hope to eventually find mana to cast stuff with.
As I understood it, there was no limitation on when or what you could play off the specter.
You could hit land and play them and not need to run outside mana fixing as your opponent would already be providing.
And just consider yourself up on cards, no?
The enormous creature you get immediately after the wipe is a very big reason as to why Phyrexian Rebirth was so amazing. It makes the card ALWAYS good, instead of usually good. Also I wouldn't say that "strong with a specific mythic" counts too much..
Eviction is great, maybe 4.0, but hardly the best card. I'd much rather have a card that simply wins me the game instead of usually puts me ahead, like Aurelia.
Mark for Death is a bit better than you're giving it credit for. Note the part that says "other creatures can't block this turn." This enables battalion to a disproportionate extent.
Merciless Eviction is the best card for Gatecrash sealed. I remember playing in the Mirrodin Beseiged prerelease. The top two players both ran Phyrexian Rebirth. You don't get a creature, but having Eviction will let you sit around and durdle, then destroy all their important creatures. Also, it's kinda strong if you should happen to have Gideon in play. :)
Awesome article! I like your take on Temporal Spring, even though I would see it being played in a Deep Dog aggro/control shell instead. With the new simic guild gate I find it reasonable to hit the mana necessary to drop it on turn three as intended.
I also enjoy your weekly take on the Kavu deck, which looks super fun! I have to put it together at some point and take it for a stroll in the casual room.
Keep the articles coming :-) I feel like we've been missing some decent Pauper brewing articles on Pure for a long time, since ScoopPhase virtually stopped writing.
Do you really think that if the major cards prices were in the 20s and 10s no one else would be interested? How narrow a view. The fact is SOME people don't enjoy the power range of classic/legacy but many do not want to put 50-100 out for one card because they are not in the habit of doing so. Even if they can afford it, it is an intimidating thing for some.
There are a number of important cards that hit the high level mark for playing serious Legacy and Classic. Which means you have to be willing to either invest serious money all at once(rent??) or slowly accrue what you need over time. Either way this is not for the casual player who wants to just enjoy the game without worrying about it hurting the pocket too much or getting in trouble with their wife over their online spending.
Also The price of FOW dropping to almost half (that didn't last more than an hour btw as it quickly crept up another 10%) did excite a portion of the player base who didn't have access to it at 100+ for whatever reason. Two days later there are still some buy ads listing below 50 (very unrealistically and or optimistically).
So the interest in them IS there. If the DEs don't expand because of the new influx of fows that may indicate what you are saying in regards to tourney level classic but I'd expect more queues to fire than before as a result of this.
As for stereotypes well people get whatever impression they get from the players of the format. Even if you disagree with their impression it is hard to argue against it since opinions may vary greatly based on experience. You can't really say "You are wrong!" to someone expressing opinions. You can only say "I disagree with your assessment."
Of course if they start spouting their opinions as facts that's another matter.
You may just have to live with the fact that some people have a bad impression of Classic. I hope the price fall of fow does bring in more players because I think it is a fine format if a bit degenerate at times. Increasing FOWs in the system should help a little bit since they stop all the "I Win Now" (turn 1-2) nonsense that people object to and see as the hallmark of the format.
I still don't see how FOW being in the 50-55 range is considered affordable by the same people that were complaining that FOW was 90-100. I always considered price discussions about Eternal formats to be a cop-out. Eternal is not for everyone, and to blame it entirely on price is the easy way to explain why one does not play them. I wish more people would just say that Eternal is not of interest to them, rather than pass around a stereotype of the format(s).
Jace went on the rise the second that P9 was announced. People have been speculating on Jace because of Vintage, not because of an un-ban in Modern (which if it ever happens, will be years from now).
I agree, except for Jace, I think people are picking him up speculating on him being unbanned in modern, which won't happen. I think his price climb started a bit before the FoW promo was announced, not sure though.
Not yet. Working on it. :)
A thought on the discussion about how Jace, lands, etc. are all rising in price: this week we do have a bunch of legacy MOCS events. That's four prelims and the finals, all using Legacy. That means several hundred people want to play Legacy this week, people who don't generally play Legacy. Prices are spiking this week - they should drop next week.
Is there a list of achievements for the 2013 season up anywhere?
Well not entirely. I mean it certainly isn't one card that is the barrier but the prices of the format in general. Force of Will's price STILL contributes a lot to that barrier even though other cards prices are rising to meet the slight decrease in price on FOWs. Classic and Legacy are expensive formats to play competitively in regardless of what deck you want to play unless you are content with the RDW special.
I don't think this is a bad thing but to say Force of Will provides no barrier to entry is as ludicrous as saying it is the only barrier to entry.
Though I think the better argument is that while expensive cards in classic create a barrier to entry so do expensive cards in other formats.
any predictions how many new fows could have been given?
I mostly agree with this. There is a certain demand for Tier One decks in any format, and that tends to set the combined price for the most widely played staples of the format, so that when one goes down others go up because more people are willing to try to buy in. Polluted Deltas and Flooded Strands are way up right now from what they were a couple weeks ago (18 tix for Delta and 15 for Strand). This is what I'm predicting happens to Modern when the MM reprints come, the fetches will skyrocket and keep the price of a Tier One modern deck about where it is -- the cards will be plenty "accessible" to anybody who's played MTG for a few years, but won't necessarily be any more affordable.
That being said, the other cards you mentioned could just be enjoying a brief bump by people who needed them to play in the MOCS. And relative to the REAL decline in FoW price (the promo was settling around 50-55 tix when I checked Wednesday after the downtime, bots just aren't touching them yet so that isn't reflected in MTGOtraders price right now), the increase in other legacy cards has been much smaller. Force being affordable opens up a TON of deckbuilding space for those of us who had decent non-blue legacy collections and only needed FoW to start playing the entire format.
Which is why the argument that Force of Will's price was a barrier for Classic entry was always ludicrous.
I will hitch my wagon to this comment as well.
I always look forward to this article.
So WotC promo's out FoW and drops the price and the result is......everything else that goes in decks with FoW becomes more expensive (Jace, Sea, Wasteland, Show and Tell...). Congrats, Wizards...you accomplished nothing in making Classic/Legacy any less expensive. Thats how Supply and Demand work. This is why attempts to control the market price of things almost never pan out and why using price as a determinant for whats gets promo'd is such a bad idea.
:)
thanks - you made my day!
I haven't said this in a while, so I figured that I would again:
Pete, you are the perfect person to write this article. I love the detail that you put in every week. I love the history that you bring to the game. I love your editorials. Thank you so much for writing these.
Thanks! I actually have done one more update to the Kavu deck recently (I replaced Halberdier with Rancor), and it's been performing pretty well overall. It's certainly a fun deck, though I haven't had a chance to test the Storm match-up a whole lot yet. Once I figure out how to do it consistently with this deck, it should be a lot of fun to play!
I'm currently waiting for my next article to come up, as it has video content this time around now. It's a fun deck.
Yeah well that is somewhat true but also dilutes the power of the card. It is possible to just use him as a hit to the hand and hope to eventually find mana to cast stuff with.
As I understood it, there was no limitation on when or what you could play off the specter.
You could hit land and play them and not need to run outside mana fixing as your opponent would already be providing.
And just consider yourself up on cards, no?
I suppose if you get Assemble the Legion and Eviction, you're in good shape then. :)
The enormous creature you get immediately after the wipe is a very big reason as to why Phyrexian Rebirth was so amazing. It makes the card ALWAYS good, instead of usually good. Also I wouldn't say that "strong with a specific mythic" counts too much..
Eviction is great, maybe 4.0, but hardly the best card. I'd much rather have a card that simply wins me the game instead of usually puts me ahead, like Aurelia.
Mark for Death is a bit better than you're giving it credit for. Note the part that says "other creatures can't block this turn." This enables battalion to a disproportionate extent.
Merciless Eviction is the best card for Gatecrash sealed. I remember playing in the Mirrodin Beseiged prerelease. The top two players both ran Phyrexian Rebirth. You don't get a creature, but having Eviction will let you sit around and durdle, then destroy all their important creatures. Also, it's kinda strong if you should happen to have Gideon in play. :)
Awesome article! I like your take on Temporal Spring, even though I would see it being played in a Deep Dog aggro/control shell instead. With the new simic guild gate I find it reasonable to hit the mana necessary to drop it on turn three as intended.
I also enjoy your weekly take on the Kavu deck, which looks super fun! I have to put it together at some point and take it for a stroll in the casual room.
Keep the articles coming :-) I feel like we've been missing some decent Pauper brewing articles on Pure for a long time, since ScoopPhase virtually stopped writing.
I'm going with Orzhov because white/black has ALL the creature removal. Although...I don't wanna draw an Alms Beast. :P
I must have made the "big time" if one of my articles got hit by a spam bot! Woo hoo! Just noticed today, tho.