I am sorry if my commentary doesn't seem sympathetic because I am. You're right it is frustrating. I hope it is clear that I dislike how WOTC policies work in general. I did not always feel that way but lately it seems like they keep making decisions that have a negative or at best neutral impact on my enjoyment of the game. That said, if I go around blasting them indiscriminately I chance losing the message in the noise.
That was what I was saying.
They have done some good things too and if we lose sight of that we may decide we have no choice but to quit. Which would be a shame. I am pretty sure Ive lost many hundreds of tix of value on my collection online mainly because of the way V4 has driven numerous players to other pursuits. And damned if that isn't a depressing thought! Makes me feel like the reward for my spending money on the game was a huge slap in the face.
But the players leaving is on them. Not on WOTC as much as they helped encourage the exodus. The crappy interface, the lack of certain important features (key even maybe) and the general inability of the community to chat easily are factors that WOTC contributed. But the game still works. The engine is relatively as bug free as ever, doing MOST things correctly.
A lot of players are still playing (evidence that the game still works if not to our ideal*). But a lot players panicked and left. And many of those who left sold off their collections because they view the game as part game/part investment. The numbers say "sell" if you think something is going to fail. (Thanks guys! :()
You can see that the mtgo economy has been spiraling downward for a few years but it has become much worse over the last 6 months as even Vintage cards nose dived.
So yeah I am sympathetic. But as I said, being entirely negative does not help and risks losing the message in the noise.
RE: Paper prices and pack prices irl I don't really understand why anyone would pay those kinds of prices except that there must be a lot of very rich mtg players feeding and clothing these store owners and what they get in return doesn't really matter. Because charity.
Insane indeed. I don't expect to open any MMAII in paper (well I don't play paper but draft would be my choice if I did.) Lets see, brand new PC when I need it? Or...door #2...
I think WOTCs hands are tied in the short term with that though. They will eventually punish those stores/suppliers by keeping the printing going until people like myself might choose to buy in on a draft because the prices dropped as demand shrunk.
But that could be a long long time from now. Don't hold your breath. As you say they could be completely oblivious to the problem. So I do recommend talking and posting about that. Narrow the focus of the complaint and let them know they are causing a big problem for their players. *shrugs* Maybe they will notice. Maybe not.
(*And by ideal I mean they stripped out much of the functionality that made v3 bearable after years of dealing with THAT subpar interface.)
When doing as reprint set like Modern Masters, Wizards needs to balance two conflicting goals - getting cards in the hands of players while not tanking the value of cards owned by existing players and dealers. That later is hugely important: Constructed Magic only works because players can buy singles, and players can only buy singles easily because dealers exist. That means they have to carefully control the number of cards reprinted.
With Modern Masters I, Wizards was conservative. They calculated, using the best info they had, what demand would likely be. They also calculated what impact the print run they planned would likely have on prices. They then deliberately underprinted a bit, since it is easier to correct and underprinting than an overprinting. In the actual fact, demand proved much higher than Wizards estimates, so the product retailed for a lot more than it would have if stores could get all they wanted.
With Modern masters II, Wizards has said that it will produce the product in greater volumes than MMI, but we don't have any details, yet. At this point, everyone is guessing. Preorders are the ultimate guess - and stores would be idiots not to set their preorder prices based on worst-case scenarios - scenarios where MM2015 is severely underprinted. If that is the case, then stores will have to charge a ton on the small amount of product they can get. Distributors will also likely charge prices well above MSRP, so if a store sells preorders for less than they can buy the product at, they either take a loss, or violate their promises. Both options are bad, so stores will set preorder prices quite high. If the actual print runs means lower prices, they can always reduce their sell prices later on.
BTW, the only reason to preorder a set like this is if you assume that the print run will be really small and prices really high. I doubt this will be a problem with MM2015, so I have not preordered anything.
Wizards has also shown that it is willing to produce a second print run if demand warrants it. It did this most recently with Commander 2014. They might do a second printing of MM2015, if warranted. Alternatively, they might do another MM set next year. Isn't reprinting Goyf in MM2015 an admission that they could have printed more copies in MMMI?
So are preorder prices high? Yes. Is that a strong indication that MM2015 will be underprinted? No.
BTW, I disagree with you statement that anyone at Wizards thinks that "there's nothing wrong with Magic Online." If you read anything Worth, or anyone else at Wizards, has written or said in the last couple years, it is clear that everyone is unhappy with the state of the program, and that they all see all the same problems that users see. Having read every comment by Wizards staff I could find over the last many years, I find plenty of comments saying 1)MTGO is better now that it was 6 months or a year ago, 2)We are excited about new feature X, and 3) We are happy that we squashed this or that bug. I cannot find any comments saying MTGO is perfect or MTGO has not problems.
I figured if anyone would sympathize with my point of view it would be you. You've made similar comments before. Angry? No. Frustrated? Yes. Things could be so much better than they are. Based on things I've read online (forget the website, Glass Ceiling maybe?) employees at Wizards are afraid to point out potential problems because they are afraid they'll lose their jobs. Management doesn't want to hear about problems because they want to think everything is running smoothly. They also think there's nothing wrong with Magic Online. It's just a bunch of whiny babies complaining.
As for Modern Masters II, go on Amazon.com and check out how much they are charging for preorders. Some stores are charging more to preorder MMII than it costs to buy a box of MMI. Considering there is supposed to be a lot more of MMII than the first set, this seems insane.
I was checking one of the local stores yesterday to see what they will charge for a MMII draft and the guy tells me with a straight face, "Sixty bucks." Will he get people to pay that much? Who knows? Magic players are crazy. Maybe that's why we care as much as we do.
OK, OK so maybe you AREN'T angry. But you type like it... And your phrasing seems to indicate a sense of a doom that I took as "the sky is falling!" Because of the hyperbole perhaps. And that was what I was aiming at there. Less hyperbole and more talking about actual problems is what I was hoping for.
And this post was much more on point. I still don't entirely agree but it seems like a reasonable claim to make. Wizards employees do have that cocksure "don't question our abilities!" attitude that most often seems to be brought by the moron who leads his troops right into the big muddy. (I alluded to that in several articles concerning the beta because rather than be swayed by player suggestions and complaints they stuck to their guns with v4 in a strikingly rigid manner.)
I remember both sides of Chronicles too. Even though I wasn't hurt by it. I actually opened some nice chronicles cards. (City of Brass, etc.) But I remember some people getting very very upset as their pricy collections hit the toilet. They do that quite often in subtle ways now a days. (Anyone remember the old extended fiasco?)
And I hear you about the draft experience. It does not seem fair or well thought out to make it untenable to draft the set for a normal price range.
I feel like with Wizards they get to do very disappointing things because they make an awesome game. If the game wasn't awesome people wouldn't even care half as much when they screwed things up. And at the same time because it is an awesome game they probably feel justified in being cocksure and bullet proof with regard to outside opinions. And when they do screw up, they don't always know it right away.
But to look at it another way I suspect their main attitude about making bold changes is: "If we don't take big risks, we can't reap
big benefits." Which sometimes goes hand in hand with "We're immortal! What can kill us?" as famous last words go. But I don't think the modern masters II (or mma 2015 which sounds much worse imho) reprint follicy will be their ultimate undoing.
It might not do any good but definitely point out the gougers to WOTC to let them know they are being too stingy with the print runs. See what happens...Maybe if the horse speaks this time they'll listen? I doubt it but hey who knows?
I never said the sky is falling. I never said I was angry. You are assuming facts not in evidence.
I am simply calling attention to the fact that, once again, Wizards is taking what could have been a good experience and finding new and inventive ways to screw it up.
"We want to make this product more accessible" is not achieved with very limited print runs and price gouging. I have my modern deck (Twin) and I have two unopened boxes of the last Modern Masters set, so I'm not hurting.
I would love to be able to go to my LGS and draft the set without paying a fifty dollar entry fee, though. I'd also like to not have to hope the dominoes fall just exactly right so that I can be one of the fortunate few who get to draft. Hearing, "Sorry, but we don't have enough product for more than eight drafters" sucks.
I was there for Chronicles. Not everyone thought it was a bad thing. I guess if you were counting on funding your kids college education with Sol'kanar the Swamp King you might have been bummed out. Otherwise the set brought in a lot of new people. It hurt some card values but that's okay. Cards go up and cards go down. Remember Balduvian Horde? And last I checked Blood Moon seems to be holding its own very nicely.
Every time I think Wizards is on the right track the train goes off the rails.
I remember once that I emailed one of the guys at Wizards after reading his article and offered some polite suggestions. His response was to fire back with, "I guess we should let you make the cards, huh." Every Wizards employee I've ever had contact with has this attitude: "we know what we're doing, we're the experts, we'll fix it."
Didn't they say the same thing just before the Titanic went under?
These look like Block constructed decks haha. No but seriously, if someone was looking to play Block Constructed, these decks arent totally embarrassing. Block constructed is where cheap decks like these could probably get you in the cash.
A great example of how far you can stretch a budget if playing and brewing are your goals. I'm also excited about the price changes; now a lot of cards that looked like they could be fun to test cost next to nothing to take for a spin.
I'd also like to say how much I enjoyed your previous articles that increased the cost of a deck by five bucks each week. It was really fun to see the decks improve and careful use of a budget is something I stress a lot to folks as well. Any chance you'll give that article format a try again?
Things wouldn't be any different, the store that lowered prices would just sell out a lot faster.
When you are talking about products with a limited run like this, a store is only going to get a certain quantity of that product. It doesn't matter if they sell it at a lower price, since they will quickly sell out and no longer be in competition for sales with the stores that has a higher price.
This creates no pressure on the other stores to lower their prices.
They admit that they over-printed chronicles by far. Then, they under-printed MMA.
Can they find a good medium? How about a conservative run, followed up by another if the demand is there?
Does WOTC have any power to get stores to be a little nicer and gouge people less? I don't know if that's possible, or ethical, or a good business move on their part.
When I was young, there was a neighborhood pharmacy that sold all their Magic product at a higher price than MSRP. Once a game store opened up, and sold at MSRP, the pharmacy had to do the same to compete. If some stores these days did the same, instead of going for a money-grab, things would be different.
As disappointing as the pricing for MM2 is to someone trying to get their foot in the door of Modern, you have to realize that it is probably born of equal parts fear and greed. If you lived through the debacle of Chronicles, you'd know first hand how bad releasing a glut of chase cards is; that set almost single-handedly killed the game. Players were pissed that their collection values tanked. Stores threatened to stop carrying the game entirely. WotC created the infamous Reserved List as a knee-jerk reaction in an attempt to restore consumer confidence. It worked, but at a terrible cost to the long term sustainability of Eternal Magic. To this day they are afraid of large scale reprint sets and the repercussions of over producing expensive cards.
Fred. No one has made excuses for WOTC. Just not everyone agrees with you about the sky falling and others agree but think that it is pretty normal for WOTC's business, not extra nefarious or with evil intent.
In addition, taking such a negative tack gives you nowhere to go when you want to praise them for getting something right (which does happen) because you end up painting yourself into the anti-wizard corner. Instead deplore THIS action and make noise to get something done about it. That way you aren't written off as just another an angry fella and instead have a shot at being heard. Unless of course you really are just an angry fella and in that case nevermind...
The thing about this round of Modern Masters is that they have said on more than one occasion that they want to make the set more accessible to players than the last set. That's obviously not happening.
Not sure why I was surprised, though. Wizards is one #EPICFAIL after another, just witness the fine contraption known as Magic Online.
Don't make excuses for Wizards. They pay flunkies good money to do that. Don't put a flunky out of work!
Well said, I agree with your point it is not Wizards problem and they are probably also looking at the game in a business point of view rather than a players point of view. They did not know the impact a card would do when they first printed them anyway so the secondary market prize is definitely not in their minds.
Yeah, I doubt Wizards considers the Secondary Market price of MMA2015 a problem, or more, THEIR problem. Now, they had to take steps to print more product for the consumer to buy this time, but if Stores jack up the price and people actually pay it, well, that was the consumer's choice.
It makes me sad, especially for a set like MMA2015, because I want Modern to become even more accessible than it is now, but as long as people throw money at vendors, that's how it's going to be.
As for prize pack distribution, yes, it would be nice if you could select which prize packs you would receive from a limited range of packs to help finish out draft sets. That does become a question of "Does the complication of implementing this in the code and making things easier for the player base outweight the money gained from doing nothing?"
I'm sure they don't see a problem at all in that scenario. Collectible card games after all need to be collectible. Even if that means the 2ndary market goes insane. This is why it seems they are clueless because their players are not collectors first but only by force.
Auras that are put into play without being cast skip the targetting phase. An aura (lets say Battle Mastery) that is manifested, then exiled with Silkwraps will turn face up in exile. If Silkwraps is then destroyed Battle Mastery MUST return to play if possible. This means if there is a single creature in play without protection from white, even your opponent's, it MUST be put on it. This gets around hexproof and shroud.
The interaction was last relevant in INN standard when sun titan could bring Dead Weight out of the graveyard and attach it to Invisible Stalker.
I was looking at the preorder prices for the next Modern Masters set. There's gonna be more of the product than last time and yet the boxes are getting preordered at around 370 bucks a box. The set hasn't even dropped yet and here we are getting gouged again.
You'd think Wizards would be able to figure out problems like that and "the pack problem" but they can't seem to get much of anything right. Problems (and some solutions) seem pretty obvious to even the most casual of observers, but no, Wizards can't figure it out. It's just too complicated for them.
Now that we're on two-set blocks, the pack price problem seems very easy to solve - whenever there are two sets in the current draft, have two two-man queues for standard, one that pays out each set. Presumably only one of them would fire, but that's totally fine. This should work as long as the following reasonable-seeming assumptions are true:
1) Two-man queues are the biggest piece of the problem - payouts for other events are at least somewhat close to balanced, but the two-man queues flood the market with whichever pack they pay out.
2) Standard two-man queues fire substantially more often than the other two-man queues - ideally at least a 3:1 ratio - so they can overwhelm the effects of the other queues paying out an unchanging pack.
I'd like to hope that this would require zero additional programming effort from Wizards, it doesn't involve adding a ton of queues - just a single new option - and it doesn't require any active market management from Wizards. Is there something I'm missing that would make this not work?
As someone who got into Magic right around the time Type 2 was born, I have little doubt that the PT and other premier level events were created, at least partially, to get people to play the format. I remember the prevailing attitude at the shop I used to frequent being "Why the hell would I want to play a format where I can't use all my cards?" 20ish years later, sentiments have changed and I would not be surprised if Standard were the most popular format even without PTs, GPs, or SCG Opens, but back then the reception was lukewarm at best.
I watched the finals of GP Miami. The viewing experience was excruciating. At one point, they were over an hour and 15 minutes into the match, still in game 2. Between both players they had over 50 permanents in play (Yes, I actually counted.) and more than 200 combined life after playing Draw, Manifest, Go for at least half an hour. I believe it was Patrick Sullivan who, on air, made the observation that the board state was "2 guys sorting their collections". Their match was like watching a steamroller play chicken with that thing NASA uses to move the space shuttles. You already knew who was going to win, but it took forever and was not exactly exciting to watch.
Tarmogoyf at Mythic is hardly surprising and another in a long series of disappointing blunders (IMO anyway) WotC has made in their (mis)management of Modern. If they want people to play the format, they need to make it Rare at some point. Getting slotted at Mythic in a $10 a pack reprint set is hardly going to satiate current demand let alone get new players interested. I find it absurd and off putting that a vanilla beatstick retails for more than I spent on several pieces of Power in my teens.
I am sorry if my commentary doesn't seem sympathetic because I am. You're right it is frustrating. I hope it is clear that I dislike how WOTC policies work in general. I did not always feel that way but lately it seems like they keep making decisions that have a negative or at best neutral impact on my enjoyment of the game. That said, if I go around blasting them indiscriminately I chance losing the message in the noise.
That was what I was saying.
They have done some good things too and if we lose sight of that we may decide we have no choice but to quit. Which would be a shame. I am pretty sure Ive lost many hundreds of tix of value on my collection online mainly because of the way V4 has driven numerous players to other pursuits. And damned if that isn't a depressing thought! Makes me feel like the reward for my spending money on the game was a huge slap in the face.
But the players leaving is on them. Not on WOTC as much as they helped encourage the exodus. The crappy interface, the lack of certain important features (key even maybe) and the general inability of the community to chat easily are factors that WOTC contributed. But the game still works. The engine is relatively as bug free as ever, doing MOST things correctly.
A lot of players are still playing (evidence that the game still works if not to our ideal*). But a lot players panicked and left. And many of those who left sold off their collections because they view the game as part game/part investment. The numbers say "sell" if you think something is going to fail. (Thanks guys! :()
You can see that the mtgo economy has been spiraling downward for a few years but it has become much worse over the last 6 months as even Vintage cards nose dived.
So yeah I am sympathetic. But as I said, being entirely negative does not help and risks losing the message in the noise.
RE: Paper prices and pack prices irl I don't really understand why anyone would pay those kinds of prices except that there must be a lot of very rich mtg players feeding and clothing these store owners and what they get in return doesn't really matter. Because charity.
Insane indeed. I don't expect to open any MMAII in paper (well I don't play paper but draft would be my choice if I did.) Lets see, brand new PC when I need it? Or...door #2...
I think WOTCs hands are tied in the short term with that though. They will eventually punish those stores/suppliers by keeping the printing going until people like myself might choose to buy in on a draft because the prices dropped as demand shrunk.
But that could be a long long time from now. Don't hold your breath. As you say they could be completely oblivious to the problem. So I do recommend talking and posting about that. Narrow the focus of the complaint and let them know they are causing a big problem for their players. *shrugs* Maybe they will notice. Maybe not.
(*And by ideal I mean they stripped out much of the functionality that made v3 bearable after years of dealing with THAT subpar interface.)
When doing as reprint set like Modern Masters, Wizards needs to balance two conflicting goals - getting cards in the hands of players while not tanking the value of cards owned by existing players and dealers. That later is hugely important: Constructed Magic only works because players can buy singles, and players can only buy singles easily because dealers exist. That means they have to carefully control the number of cards reprinted.
With Modern Masters I, Wizards was conservative. They calculated, using the best info they had, what demand would likely be. They also calculated what impact the print run they planned would likely have on prices. They then deliberately underprinted a bit, since it is easier to correct and underprinting than an overprinting. In the actual fact, demand proved much higher than Wizards estimates, so the product retailed for a lot more than it would have if stores could get all they wanted.
With Modern masters II, Wizards has said that it will produce the product in greater volumes than MMI, but we don't have any details, yet. At this point, everyone is guessing. Preorders are the ultimate guess - and stores would be idiots not to set their preorder prices based on worst-case scenarios - scenarios where MM2015 is severely underprinted. If that is the case, then stores will have to charge a ton on the small amount of product they can get. Distributors will also likely charge prices well above MSRP, so if a store sells preorders for less than they can buy the product at, they either take a loss, or violate their promises. Both options are bad, so stores will set preorder prices quite high. If the actual print runs means lower prices, they can always reduce their sell prices later on.
BTW, the only reason to preorder a set like this is if you assume that the print run will be really small and prices really high. I doubt this will be a problem with MM2015, so I have not preordered anything.
Wizards has also shown that it is willing to produce a second print run if demand warrants it. It did this most recently with Commander 2014. They might do a second printing of MM2015, if warranted. Alternatively, they might do another MM set next year. Isn't reprinting Goyf in MM2015 an admission that they could have printed more copies in MMMI?
So are preorder prices high? Yes. Is that a strong indication that MM2015 will be underprinted? No.
BTW, I disagree with you statement that anyone at Wizards thinks that "there's nothing wrong with Magic Online." If you read anything Worth, or anyone else at Wizards, has written or said in the last couple years, it is clear that everyone is unhappy with the state of the program, and that they all see all the same problems that users see. Having read every comment by Wizards staff I could find over the last many years, I find plenty of comments saying 1)MTGO is better now that it was 6 months or a year ago, 2)We are excited about new feature X, and 3) We are happy that we squashed this or that bug. I cannot find any comments saying MTGO is perfect or MTGO has not problems.
I figured if anyone would sympathize with my point of view it would be you. You've made similar comments before. Angry? No. Frustrated? Yes. Things could be so much better than they are. Based on things I've read online (forget the website, Glass Ceiling maybe?) employees at Wizards are afraid to point out potential problems because they are afraid they'll lose their jobs. Management doesn't want to hear about problems because they want to think everything is running smoothly. They also think there's nothing wrong with Magic Online. It's just a bunch of whiny babies complaining.
As for Modern Masters II, go on Amazon.com and check out how much they are charging for preorders. Some stores are charging more to preorder MMII than it costs to buy a box of MMI. Considering there is supposed to be a lot more of MMII than the first set, this seems insane.
I was checking one of the local stores yesterday to see what they will charge for a MMII draft and the guy tells me with a straight face, "Sixty bucks." Will he get people to pay that much? Who knows? Magic players are crazy. Maybe that's why we care as much as we do.
OK, OK so maybe you AREN'T angry. But you type like it... And your phrasing seems to indicate a sense of a doom that I took as "the sky is falling!" Because of the hyperbole perhaps. And that was what I was aiming at there. Less hyperbole and more talking about actual problems is what I was hoping for.
And this post was much more on point. I still don't entirely agree but it seems like a reasonable claim to make. Wizards employees do have that cocksure "don't question our abilities!" attitude that most often seems to be brought by the moron who leads his troops right into the big muddy. (I alluded to that in several articles concerning the beta because rather than be swayed by player suggestions and complaints they stuck to their guns with v4 in a strikingly rigid manner.)
I remember both sides of Chronicles too. Even though I wasn't hurt by it. I actually opened some nice chronicles cards. (City of Brass, etc.) But I remember some people getting very very upset as their pricy collections hit the toilet. They do that quite often in subtle ways now a days. (Anyone remember the old extended fiasco?)
And I hear you about the draft experience. It does not seem fair or well thought out to make it untenable to draft the set for a normal price range.
I feel like with Wizards they get to do very disappointing things because they make an awesome game. If the game wasn't awesome people wouldn't even care half as much when they screwed things up. And at the same time because it is an awesome game they probably feel justified in being cocksure and bullet proof with regard to outside opinions. And when they do screw up, they don't always know it right away.
But to look at it another way I suspect their main attitude about making bold changes is: "If we don't take big risks, we can't reap
big benefits." Which sometimes goes hand in hand with "We're immortal! What can kill us?" as famous last words go. But I don't think the modern masters II (or mma 2015 which sounds much worse imho) reprint follicy will be their ultimate undoing.
It might not do any good but definitely point out the gougers to WOTC to let them know they are being too stingy with the print runs. See what happens...Maybe if the horse speaks this time they'll listen? I doubt it but hey who knows?
I never said the sky is falling. I never said I was angry. You are assuming facts not in evidence.
I am simply calling attention to the fact that, once again, Wizards is taking what could have been a good experience and finding new and inventive ways to screw it up.
"We want to make this product more accessible" is not achieved with very limited print runs and price gouging. I have my modern deck (Twin) and I have two unopened boxes of the last Modern Masters set, so I'm not hurting.
I would love to be able to go to my LGS and draft the set without paying a fifty dollar entry fee, though. I'd also like to not have to hope the dominoes fall just exactly right so that I can be one of the fortunate few who get to draft. Hearing, "Sorry, but we don't have enough product for more than eight drafters" sucks.
I was there for Chronicles. Not everyone thought it was a bad thing. I guess if you were counting on funding your kids college education with Sol'kanar the Swamp King you might have been bummed out. Otherwise the set brought in a lot of new people. It hurt some card values but that's okay. Cards go up and cards go down. Remember Balduvian Horde? And last I checked Blood Moon seems to be holding its own very nicely.
Every time I think Wizards is on the right track the train goes off the rails.
I remember once that I emailed one of the guys at Wizards after reading his article and offered some polite suggestions. His response was to fire back with, "I guess we should let you make the cards, huh." Every Wizards employee I've ever had contact with has this attitude: "we know what we're doing, we're the experts, we'll fix it."
Didn't they say the same thing just before the Titanic went under?
These look like Block constructed decks haha. No but seriously, if someone was looking to play Block Constructed, these decks arent totally embarrassing. Block constructed is where cheap decks like these could probably get you in the cash.
A great example of how far you can stretch a budget if playing and brewing are your goals. I'm also excited about the price changes; now a lot of cards that looked like they could be fun to test cost next to nothing to take for a spin.
I'd also like to say how much I enjoyed your previous articles that increased the cost of a deck by five bucks each week. It was really fun to see the decks improve and careful use of a budget is something I stress a lot to folks as well. Any chance you'll give that article format a try again?
Lucky I don't play paper and have goyfs, bobs, and two lilianas online. So, I'm modern-ready (if I ever want to again, that is).
Unless...the print run ISN'T limited as expected.
Things wouldn't be any different, the store that lowered prices would just sell out a lot faster.
When you are talking about products with a limited run like this, a store is only going to get a certain quantity of that product. It doesn't matter if they sell it at a lower price, since they will quickly sell out and no longer be in competition for sales with the stores that has a higher price.
This creates no pressure on the other stores to lower their prices.
They admit that they over-printed chronicles by far. Then, they under-printed MMA.
Can they find a good medium? How about a conservative run, followed up by another if the demand is there?
Does WOTC have any power to get stores to be a little nicer and gouge people less? I don't know if that's possible, or ethical, or a good business move on their part.
When I was young, there was a neighborhood pharmacy that sold all their Magic product at a higher price than MSRP. Once a game store opened up, and sold at MSRP, the pharmacy had to do the same to compete. If some stores these days did the same, instead of going for a money-grab, things would be different.
As disappointing as the pricing for MM2 is to someone trying to get their foot in the door of Modern, you have to realize that it is probably born of equal parts fear and greed. If you lived through the debacle of Chronicles, you'd know first hand how bad releasing a glut of chase cards is; that set almost single-handedly killed the game. Players were pissed that their collection values tanked. Stores threatened to stop carrying the game entirely. WotC created the infamous Reserved List as a knee-jerk reaction in an attempt to restore consumer confidence. It worked, but at a terrible cost to the long term sustainability of Eternal Magic. To this day they are afraid of large scale reprint sets and the repercussions of over producing expensive cards.
Fred. No one has made excuses for WOTC. Just not everyone agrees with you about the sky falling and others agree but think that it is pretty normal for WOTC's business, not extra nefarious or with evil intent.
In addition, taking such a negative tack gives you nowhere to go when you want to praise them for getting something right (which does happen) because you end up painting yourself into the anti-wizard corner. Instead deplore THIS action and make noise to get something done about it. That way you aren't written off as just another an angry fella and instead have a shot at being heard. Unless of course you really are just an angry fella and in that case nevermind...
The thing about this round of Modern Masters is that they have said on more than one occasion that they want to make the set more accessible to players than the last set. That's obviously not happening.
Not sure why I was surprised, though. Wizards is one #EPICFAIL after another, just witness the fine contraption known as Magic Online.
Don't make excuses for Wizards. They pay flunkies good money to do that. Don't put a flunky out of work!
Well said, I agree with your point it is not Wizards problem and they are probably also looking at the game in a business point of view rather than a players point of view. They did not know the impact a card would do when they first printed them anyway so the secondary market prize is definitely not in their minds.
Yeah, I doubt Wizards considers the Secondary Market price of MMA2015 a problem, or more, THEIR problem. Now, they had to take steps to print more product for the consumer to buy this time, but if Stores jack up the price and people actually pay it, well, that was the consumer's choice.
It makes me sad, especially for a set like MMA2015, because I want Modern to become even more accessible than it is now, but as long as people throw money at vendors, that's how it's going to be.
As for prize pack distribution, yes, it would be nice if you could select which prize packs you would receive from a limited range of packs to help finish out draft sets. That does become a question of "Does the complication of implementing this in the code and making things easier for the player base outweight the money gained from doing nothing?"
I'm sure they don't see a problem at all in that scenario. Collectible card games after all need to be collectible. Even if that means the 2ndary market goes insane. This is why it seems they are clueless because their players are not collectors first but only by force.
At this point I don't think they're clueless, I just think they don't care to fix these problems.
Sorry Pete, was having a denser than dense moment there.
Auras that are put into play without being cast skip the targetting phase. An aura (lets say Battle Mastery) that is manifested, then exiled with Silkwraps will turn face up in exile. If Silkwraps is then destroyed Battle Mastery MUST return to play if possible. This means if there is a single creature in play without protection from white, even your opponent's, it MUST be put on it. This gets around hexproof and shroud.
The interaction was last relevant in INN standard when sun titan could bring Dead Weight out of the graveyard and attach it to Invisible Stalker.
Kanji was asking about the case where a manifested aura is exiled with Silk Wrap (which is subsequently destroyed)
His response was about Pete's statement that auras would return, then die
That Skred deck looks like a pile. It reminds me of those piles of leftover cards you find on tables after a limited event.
I was looking at the preorder prices for the next Modern Masters set. There's gonna be more of the product than last time and yet the boxes are getting preordered at around 370 bucks a box. The set hasn't even dropped yet and here we are getting gouged again.
You'd think Wizards would be able to figure out problems like that and "the pack problem" but they can't seem to get much of anything right. Problems (and some solutions) seem pretty obvious to even the most casual of observers, but no, Wizards can't figure it out. It's just too complicated for them.
Now that we're on two-set blocks, the pack price problem seems very easy to solve - whenever there are two sets in the current draft, have two two-man queues for standard, one that pays out each set. Presumably only one of them would fire, but that's totally fine. This should work as long as the following reasonable-seeming assumptions are true:
1) Two-man queues are the biggest piece of the problem - payouts for other events are at least somewhat close to balanced, but the two-man queues flood the market with whichever pack they pay out.
2) Standard two-man queues fire substantially more often than the other two-man queues - ideally at least a 3:1 ratio - so they can overwhelm the effects of the other queues paying out an unchanging pack.
I'd like to hope that this would require zero additional programming effort from Wizards, it doesn't involve adding a ton of queues - just a single new option - and it doesn't require any active market management from Wizards. Is there something I'm missing that would make this not work?
As someone who got into Magic right around the time Type 2 was born, I have little doubt that the PT and other premier level events were created, at least partially, to get people to play the format. I remember the prevailing attitude at the shop I used to frequent being "Why the hell would I want to play a format where I can't use all my cards?" 20ish years later, sentiments have changed and I would not be surprised if Standard were the most popular format even without PTs, GPs, or SCG Opens, but back then the reception was lukewarm at best.
I watched the finals of GP Miami. The viewing experience was excruciating. At one point, they were over an hour and 15 minutes into the match, still in game 2. Between both players they had over 50 permanents in play (Yes, I actually counted.) and more than 200 combined life after playing Draw, Manifest, Go for at least half an hour. I believe it was Patrick Sullivan who, on air, made the observation that the board state was "2 guys sorting their collections". Their match was like watching a steamroller play chicken with that thing NASA uses to move the space shuttles. You already knew who was going to win, but it took forever and was not exactly exciting to watch.
Tarmogoyf at Mythic is hardly surprising and another in a long series of disappointing blunders (IMO anyway) WotC has made in their (mis)management of Modern. If they want people to play the format, they need to make it Rare at some point. Getting slotted at Mythic in a $10 a pack reprint set is hardly going to satiate current demand let alone get new players interested. I find it absurd and off putting that a vanilla beatstick retails for more than I spent on several pieces of Power in my teens.