Does WotC Ever Purposely Withhold Reprints to Keep Cards Expensive?
General forum
Posted on Dec. 10, 2017, 9:55 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
Anyone who has played this game for any significant duration will know that it can be very expensive, which directly contradicts its main purpose of being fun and entertaining.
Typically, WotC will make an effort to ensure that this game remains affordable by reprinting expensive cards, but I cannot help but wonder if they occasionally deliberately do not reprint cards to keep them expensive, despite such a tactic being very unprofitable for them.
One of the best-known and most infamous examples of this idea is Damnation which because very expensive due to not being reprinted for so long, despite there being many excellent opportunities for it to be so (most notably From the Vault: Annihilation). Other examples are Rhystic Study and Privileged Position, both of which are far more expensive than they should be, in my mind. Also, WotC has never reprinted the "filter lands" from the Shadowmoor block in a normal set and reprinted the "shock lands" from Ravnica only once, despite those lands being some of the best in the game and always desired by fans, making them terribly expensive. Yet another example is that both Kalonian Hydra and Ghave, Guru of Spores were reprinted in Atraxa's deck in Commander 2016, but Archangel of Thune was not, despite the fact that she would have been perfect for that deck, not was she reprinted in From the Vault: Angels, where she also would have been perfect, but she was reprinted in Iconic Masters, however, so that is a rare instance of WotC actually reprinting an expensive card. They also did reprint both Doubling Season and Bitterblossom, but those cards are still far too expensive, so they definitely need further reprints, in my mind.
What does everyone else say about this? Do you believe that WotC ever deliberately withholds reprinting cards to keep them expensive?
They best watch themselves, the price bubble may burst someday soon. As it stands now it looks like the average price is out of control even on cards that they should not be pushing collector's value on. A token doubler (niche card) just comes out in Amonkhet and the value is already placed at $7-$9 average?... I'm not sure whats going on.
December 10, 2017 10:59 p.m.
Wizards benefits from cards being rare and having a high value and from cards being common enough that their secondhand price is low and thus so is the financial barrier to entry for their competitive formats.
The game is arguably the cheapest it's ever been. With Masters sets being released, Modern decks have fallen in price by 20% over the past two years. When Masters 25 releases it will be the third Masters set in twelve months.
They will not always reprint cards as fast as you want or reprint the cards you specifically want. But the game has gotten much cheaper over the years as they release more and more side sets and supplementary products. Things are not as dire or malicious as you think.
December 10, 2017 11:46 p.m.
I don't think it is malicious I also think I've seen it far cheaper than it is now. I just think they need to watch out for a synthetic price bubble getting ready to burst. But yes, I think they have straddled the collector vs access line well in the past... right now though buying singles seems to be better than the gamble of packs so if that trend continues there is some inherent danger to that trend
pskinn01 says... #2
They wait years in between shocks/fetches to be reprinted so that they dont lose all their value. Shocks/fetches wouldnt boost pack sales if they ended up printed too often as they would drop in value.
They are a business first, so they plan years in advance what reprint cards they think will sell packs, and still keep their value. And they sometimes remove cards from planned sets due to conflicts with standard or having a different place to reprint. LOTV was pulled from a set due to mono black in standard was so dominate. damnation was removed from FTV due to having a different place to reprint it (modern masters).
December 10, 2017 10:28 p.m.