Modern Masters 2015
Modern forum
Posted on April 19, 2015, 3:50 p.m. by HolyFalcon
bla bla bla, something about how overpriced packs and stuff don't actually get people into modern, bla bla bla
But really, it's kinda stupid WotC makes MM to get people into modern, then prices it extremely high. Thoughts?
HolyFalcon says... #3
Exactly. Why can't a poor kid like me get into Modern without using budget Treasure Hunt decks like I am right now.
April 19, 2015 3:55 p.m.
TheBanlist says... #4
(Navi floats in) Hey, WotC, Listen! Change this stupid sh*t!
April 19, 2015 3:56 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #5
Mostly because WOTC learned the hard way not to burn people who have already heavily invested in their game. It's fine to make a format more accessible, but it isn't fine to spurn the thousands of loyal players who already have their high-value playsets and suddenly cut the value of their collections in half. That's why Modern Masters has a limited print run and higher MSRP. It's a step toward bolstering supply without crashing the market.
April 19, 2015 3:58 p.m.
At least they're printing more Goyfs. I don't know what you guys want, really... I'd prefer a more expensive stuff where they actually print staples than a cheap one that doesn't really help anybody.
April 19, 2015 3:59 p.m.
They could still print it at a lower price and keep the expensive cards at mythic. Thus the supply wouldn't ACTUALLY increase much.
April 19, 2015 3:59 p.m.
vishnarg last one was 2/3 the price and they printed goyf?
April 19, 2015 4 p.m.
HolyFalcon says... #9
ChiefBell Just make a new rarity: its yellow, and is called master rare.
April 19, 2015 4:02 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #10
Well, the last one was also the first one, and can be viewed quite honestly as an experiment in the format-specific reprint field. I think it's reasonable to expect WOTC to continue to experiment with the model and find a balance between price and impact that more favorably addresses the situation.
The other major effect that people don't really take into consideration is that, no matter the final cost of the singles, reprint sets do put a fair number of cards back into circulation. Think about what you had to do before MMA in order to find a Goyf: you basically had to either buy it from a store or a collector, find someone who has been playing since FUT, or convince a Legacy player to part with one. Actively reprinting Goyf in a new release makes them more accessible to a larger portion of the trade community, even if the price isn't really reduced after the secondary market settles.
April 19, 2015 4:04 p.m.
Epochalyptik - I don't really respect this 'half-way house' solution between the reserved list and no reserved list. Either they care about access to the format or they don't. I don't really respect this attitude of 'well yeah we DO want to increase access but not totally - just to some shitty T2 cards that no one plays anyway'. It's not very effective and helps people a little, but not a lot.
Do you sort of see what I'm saying?
April 19, 2015 4:04 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #12
@Magicrafter: How about no. That's what happened to Yu-Gi-Oh, and the rare system is a complete shitshow there. There was strong enough resistance to the concept of the mythic rare, and we really, really have no reason to go beyond four rarities for the product scheme this game has.
April 19, 2015 4:06 p.m.
Epochalyptik - price of goyf has risen, not fallen. MM1 had no effect. Go check price graphs.
April 19, 2015 4:06 p.m.
Epoch is completely right. Doesn't matter that prices went up, because supply went up. No matter what happens with the prices, putting more in circulation does in fact always help the players get into modern more.
April 19, 2015 4:09 p.m.
HolyFalcon says... #16
I did start playing after Mythics were introduced, but was there really a resistance to it?
April 19, 2015 4:09 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #17
I am well aware that the price has gone up. But WOTC has no direct control over the secondary market. Their ultimate goal, besides making money, is to make the game more accessible without divesting the players who are already loyal. Once you upset the invested players, you risk losing the customer base that makes all your non-Limited, non-Standard play possible.
Further, you can't really argue that MMA had no effect. It had an obvious effect, and there's more to impact than simply looking at price graphs, as I stated in my previous post. This is a time of experimentation for WOTC (every time is, really), and it's reasonable to expect that they'll keep tinkering with the formula in order to find something that appeases new or would-be players without causing undue harm to the existing structure.
April 19, 2015 4:10 p.m.
vishnarg - what for the few guys that happened to open one? Not really much though is it. If that's their idea of 'increasing access to the format' that's pathetic. A few hundred people? I mean - you're totally right they did do what the said they would but.... really?
April 19, 2015 4:11 p.m.
notamardybum says... #20
khans of tarkir was a great way to get into modern
April 19, 2015 4:12 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #21
@Magicrafter: Put yourself in the position of a newer player without tons of money. (I imagine it's not too far of a stretch, based on your post.)
How would you feel if there were now a new hyper-exclusive rare that had a 1:32 chance of appearing in packs? What do you think that would do to the supply/demand economy this game follows? How would that affect the secondary market?
It's fine to propose solutions, but you should at least consider the ramifications of your proposals beyond just assuming that it will solve your problem somehow.
April 19, 2015 4:13 p.m.
Wizards can't just go massively releasing thousands of Goyfs into the market. Tarmogoyf is the flagship card of modern - in a format that Wizards wants to be creature based, they need people to be able to get Tarmogoyfs. That being said, they can't just shock the market by making him a promo or something - releasing him as a mythic in a limited run set is the best they can do, and they're doing it, so I don't see why anybody feels the need to complain. Isn't the fact that you could open a Tarmogoyf in any Modern Masters pack worth buying the set? Modern Masters is a good thing for modern, and increasing the supply of staples without printing thousands of junk commons per staple printed helps Wizards and us.
April 19, 2015 4:14 p.m.
I also agree with notamardybum, reprinting fetch lands was a key to helping people with modern. You can't imagine what it would be like if fetches were still $50.
April 19, 2015 4:15 p.m.
Everyone assumes that all existing, invested players would be annoyed. This isn't true. An argument that's based on assumed feelings of a small group of people is not a convincing one. An argument based on the economic gain of wizards (printing more packs, very cheaply) is far more persuasive. Once I have my goyfs I have my goyfs. I care zero at that point, and wizards shouldn't either. I'm not buying cards from them anymore. Catering to the guys who dont have them already is a SMART idea.
April 19, 2015 4:15 p.m.
vishnarg - No. On average it'll cost you over $4000 to obtain a playset of goyfs in MM2.
April 19, 2015 4:16 p.m.
HolyFalcon says... #26
Epochalyptik: Yeah, it wouldn't increase supply a lot at all AND even makes the set even less of a gateway to modern.
vishnarg: But it's the same thing with sets like Revised. There could be a Volcanic Island in that pack, or a junky junk rare.
April 19, 2015 4:16 p.m.
Epochalyptik - Actually what you said isn't even true. Look at the recent pod bannings. Great evidence that they are prepared to annoy highly invested players when they want to.
April 19, 2015 4:18 p.m.
HolyFalcon says... #28
vishnarg: Also, KTK fetches weren't legal in Modern until KTK, becuase Onslaught isn't modern legal. If you're talking about Legacy/Vintage, then yeah, but 50$ is nothing next to Duals.
April 19, 2015 4:18 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #29
Again, WOTC's hands are partially tied. And they're tied because they, in the past, made the exact blunder that's currently being encouraged here. The barrier to entry is a recognized phenomenon, and it's something that the community (for the most part) would like to overcome. However, we can't just carelessly approach the situation with the sole intent of rectifying the "problem." That's how you end up with new problems, which are often not worth it.
I've pointed in this out in innumerable Modern/MMA threads since the format was introduced: WOTC has taken an active role in reprinting staple cards to increase supply. RTR brought us a much greater supply of shocks. THS brought back Thoughtseize. KTK completed the fetch cycle and brought the ZEN fetches down from their winter 2014 peaks of $90 (yes, printings and introductions do have impact beyond the original formats). Scavenging Ooze, which was tested in Legacy by way of the Commander products, was printed in M14 and introduced to Modern. MMA is not the only way that WOTC has been working to lower the barrier to entry and maintain community interest in its fledgling format.
As for the Birthing Pod banning, there's an obvious difference between banning a card for the health of the format in a vacuum and reprinting a card for the accessibility of the format in practice. Bans are not based on how available the cards are. They're based on representation of the meta, which, at the upper levels, is a function of their power. Further, the Birthing Pod ban is not even remotely close to the same thing as slashing the value of invested players' collections. Birthing Pod may have lost value, but it wasn't an extraordinarily expensive card, and bans are not based on economic considerations. The rest of the deck was simply goodstuff that happened to benefit from being used alongside an engine like Birthing Pod.
April 19, 2015 4:23 p.m.
Except for the fact that the first Modern Masters did increase the interest in the Modern format. Modern exploded in popularity last year. All you have to do is go back and look at the statistics like GP attendance to see the huge uptick in Modern events, let alone say the community pressuring WotC to add a Modern Pro-Tour back to the 2015 rotation.
If you want to make the argument that a cheaper pack cost would bring more people in that's fine, but it's certainly not dumb for WotC to be doing what they are doing.
April 19, 2015 4:26 p.m.
The entire Pod deck became useless due to the way it's constructed and tumbled in value overnight.
"Further, the Birthing Pod ban is not even remotely close to the same thing as slashing the value of invested players' collections. " - Are you joking? That's exactly what it DID. Not just birthing pod fell, various pieces in the deck fell because they didn't have a home anywhere else. It wasnt a case of a single card losing a few dollars. It was a case of a number of cards becoming utterly unplayable and losing value.
I understand the methodology and reasoning were completely separate but the end effect was to do the same thing that would happen if they were to reprint goyf. It doesn't matter how a card or deck loses value. The end effect is the ssame.
April 19, 2015 4:29 p.m.
Slycne - Cheaper packs -> More people into the format -> bigger uptick in attendance.
Also judging by published economic figures from Steam sales selling more product at a lower price usually brings in more revenue that selling fewer units at a higher price.
April 19, 2015 4:31 p.m.
If there are 100 players of Modern worldwide and a staple is valued at $10 by the community, if a set like MM1 comes along and gets another 400 into the game, wouldn't the price probably go up to $50? So when it 'skyrockets' to $20 I think it's fine. Just play burn like me.
April 19, 2015 4:41 p.m.
Barry_McKawkinner says... #34
Im a new player still trying to fully get into the format.I think one of the best ways to get people like me into modern is to print new modern playable cards in standard sets.It would help create new archetypes and it wouldn't hurt players that are heavily invested.Im also excited for mm15 I will gladly pay 10 dallars a pack for a chance at a really good card.
April 19, 2015 4:41 p.m.
Wizard of the Damned says... #35
The wizard believes that they should reprint everything that is modern legal in standard over the course of 7 to 8 years because the game is growing faster than mm can keep up with. It is a struggle between the haves and have nots modern. Who cares if you piss off 1000 to 3000 players who own the physical cards, because you will bring in tens of thousands to the tournaments. This would also fix the shitty pay out they give at tournaments.
April 19, 2015 4:42 p.m.
Wic_Uber - When there are more copies of a card available it loses value because its easier to find.
Wizards ARE reprinting a lot of things which is why this whole divesting argument doesn't stand. As Epoch pointed out: we've seen thoughtseize, scavenging ooze, fetches, shocks. Many more. The ARE reprinting, and old players are losing money because of that. But this assumption that they're all pissed off because of it isn't really true.
April 19, 2015 4:44 p.m.
ChiefBell, if you'd prefer to not buy MMA2 that's perfectly fine with me. I, for one, am glad it exists and don't see the need to complain that Wizards is doing their best to stabilize supply and prices.
April 19, 2015 4:46 p.m.
Ah, the old 'if you don't like it don't buy it and stop complaining!' fallacy.
April 19, 2015 4:48 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #39
@ChiefBell: Can you provide some examples of cards that suddenly lost all value following the Pod ban? My understanding is that Pod played many one- or two-ofs that weren't particularly outstanding, but could constitute goodstuff in the presence of an advantage engine. I'm not aware of any other crashes in the wake of the decision.
And yes, it does matter how the value loss occurs. I already explained how bans and reprints follow different methodology and are done for different reasons. You ban something to preserve the health of the format, not to change the barrier to entry. You reprint something to create interest in a new product, change the balance of various formats, and lower the barrier to entry (assuming the reprint sufficiently bolsters supply). The impact on the community is radically different for each of these methods.
A ban's sole function is to improve the health of the format, typically by targeting overrepresented cards to increase format diversity. A reprint, on the other hand, must be chosen based on its potential impact in Limited and Constructed and in the secondary market. While WOTC does not prioritize management of the secondary market, they do consider the value of invested customers. That's simply a fact, and it's one that had to be learned the hard way.
The barrier to entry is not a function of price alone. It's a function of price, distribution, time, and several other factors. It's a noble, practical, and worthwhile goal to want to reduce the barrier to entry to a format, but that goal does not give you the license to use any means necessary. You still have to make informed and calculated decisions about how to achieve your goal so as to have the fewest and least impactful negative outcomes.
April 19, 2015 4:49 p.m.
I understand the need to keep the market price high...but I really think that WotC went about this the dead wrong way.
Drafts at $30 a seat makes this into an explicit lottery. You could win big, but chances are you will get burned big. It's just not worth it, and it's going to hurt their sales and burn some customers out.
What Wizards SHOULD DO is release a Modern intro deck with a playset of Modern staples in it and sell it at about the $200-$250 price point (depending on which staple you pick, obviously). If you're a beginner and all you want is a useable tier 2 or tier 3 deck, you've got it, and if not, you've got the playset of staples for a fair price.
Unfortunately WotC can't even be bothered to print useable tier 3 decks even for Standard. There's exactly zero chance any such deck would actually be useful in anything outside casual play, which severely hurts the cumulative deck's value. One mistake leads to another.
April 19, 2015 5:03 p.m.
Epochalyptik - I don't play pod so I don't have many examples but Archangel of Thune dropped about $10 each, I know that much. Birthing Pod dropped around about $3-$5, obvs! Linvala, Keeper of Silence has also been seeing a steady decline - around $10ish so far. The wider point as well is that the cards they have are now unplayable and no one /really/ wants them. Which is pretty awkward.
I completely understand the differences between bans and reprints. You don't need to explain that, I'm not stupid. But if the argument is this: 'X card should not be reprinted because a price crash will cause invested players to leave the game,' then why should you not also apply this to 'X card should not be banned because a price crash will cause invested players to leave the game'. In both circumstances we're dealing with individuals who have already bought their cards - no differences there. It's just that in one situation we're assuming that the future of the format will be healthier (not always true, but a fair assumption). However is that enough to change the mindset of the guy that's just lost a few dollars? Probably not.
I would like someone to highlight what these 'negative outcomes' are so that they can be debated directly. The assumption that old players will divest is not a safe one. What other arguments are there?
April 19, 2015 5:08 p.m.
Both of the reprint and ban arguments are essentially based around the fact that some old players will stop buying product due to some perceived annoyance. Can you explain HOW and WHY you think veteran's behaviour will change in each.
April 19, 2015 5:10 p.m.
Also, Epochalyptik - you raised a really important point. Any deflation from increased supply would be temporary. Price and access is determined by temporal factors. As time goes on rare cards increase in value. We all see this every day. I don't mind them reprinting goyf, even though I have many of them because I know that most of the price effects will be transitory.
April 19, 2015 5:17 p.m.
In other news, Emrakul, Karn, AND Etched. Damn that's a lot of colorless. I'm suspecting Tron to be a thing in MM2.
April 19, 2015 5:19 p.m.
Barry_McKawkinner says... #45
I think printing new cards could help players like me with out the risk of angering old players might help
April 19, 2015 5:31 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #46
First, you cannot seriously be comparing a drop of about $5-10 across a few single-deck cards to a drop of $50 or $100 across all instances of a format-defining staple. I understand that the point is to highlight the decline in value that occurs as a result of either bans or reprints, but the magnitude of these two cases is so different that you can't make a legitimate claim without further qualifying your comparison. It seems like some of you want to argue that, because two similar outcomes have occurred, the processes by which they were realized cannot be dissimilar.
Part of playing the game is understanding your positioning within the meta and understanding that what you're buying into is tied to single points of failure (being run in only a single deck or in very low numbers).
Now, you may well ask (and you did) why this doesn't apply to reprints if it applies to bans.
First, the functions are different between reprints and bans. I'd wager that it makes sense to most of us that a tool explicitly and exclusively used to manage the format's health should not also be required to manage people's personal finances. The technical, statistical health of a format is not based on who can or can't afford what. It's based on what is and isn't good in the meta and the extent to which the good things are represented. By contrast, a reprint is chosen based on a variety of factors and is not limited to a single, specific function. The difference is akin to that between an antibiotic and an aspirin tablet: one is a precision tool used for a dedicated purpose and one is a general tool whose use is warranted by a number of factors and whose effect varies proportionally.
Players largely seem to understand that the purpose of a ban is to improve the format. It's a surgical action with a defined warrant and a reasonably predictable consequence. It's also understood that bans can happen to cards that are overrepresented and distort the format. You aren't entitled to expect that a format-breaking card will remain legal and is therefore a safe investment; you do that at your own risk.
On the other hand, WOTC has explicitly defined a portion of their reprint policy and predicated their design decisions according to an acknowledgement of the interests of invested players. The Reserved List began as a counterreaction to community outcry regarding Chronicles reprints, which crashed the value of certain cards in the interests of making those cards available to newer players. WOTC has remained explicit, despite much criticism, about their commitment to honor the RL and the promise it represents to its players. Collectors have come to expect a certain security regarding the likelihood or unlikelihood of reprints of certain cards as a function of their value. In this case (to contrast with the previous case), players have gained a certain right, by virtue of a guarantee, to expect reasonable and relatively predictable changes in value for a certain subset of cards.
Because the community perception (and the actual application and governance) of bans and reprints are different, it can't be assumed that the two are equal in severity or that they shouldn't be considered individually and within their own contexts.
MMA, RTR, THS, and KTK (among others) have all been progressive steps toward finding a balance between collector interests and card accessibility. WOTC has been careful to select appropriate reprints and appropriate quantities so as to ease the community into the changes. There are still explicit rules governing how WOTC can use the various tools available to affect the game. A similarity between part of the impacts of two of these tools is not grounds for unqualified comparison between those tools.
April 19, 2015 5:45 p.m.
Paragraph 1 - totally concede that point.
Paragraph 4 - granted.
Paragraph 6 (regarding RList) - completely disagree. We know the RL was a mistake. Wizards have literally said 'this is a mistake, we would not do it again'. We have no right to expect anything from an outdated principle when it's been made explicit it won't be done again.
Paragraph 8 - Agree. They've done fantastically well in the newer sets.
My point is thus - If wizards are economically inclined, and want to support access they will aggressively reprint staples. Those with playsets of every staple modern card are not interested in new wizards product - they are not the main revenue source (proof of this by wizards own admission regarding popularity and sales statistics of various sets). A player like me does not make wizards as much money as someone who does not have access to all the cards. An aggressive reprint policy will attract new players. This will do two things. It'll make money as people buy product that older plays wont buy - won't need. It'll bring new players into the game, or at least into the modern format. IF I were to stop playing then wizards would lose little because I have already invested in their product. As far as the company is concerned I've served my purpose by that point. This is also assuming that I DO divest - which isn't even guaranteed.
I argue that the economic gain of principles such as the reserve list do not best serve either the health of the format or the balance sheet of Hasbro. We know that new/casual players outnumber old players (wizards various tweets and other bits of information about product sales). We know that less well off individuals outnumber richer individuals (any countries demographic curves). Therefore agressive reprints at affordable prices should, based on any reasonable report, gain wizards more money than they'd lose.
I further argue that Wizards current policy of reprinting certain cards but drawing arbitrary lines with others does not benefit the health of the format. What makes Goyf so different from Thoughtseize? I point towards recent reprints for this. Finally I (weakly) point towards the banlist as another potential source for contention with veteran players.
I believe wizards are cowards that neither best serve their own economic interests, or the interests of the players that want to grow the format.
April 19, 2015 6:03 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #48
Regarding your response to my RL paragraph, I think you misunderstood my point. I don't mean to propose that WOTC is fostering a new RL or that they don't believe the existing RL is, in hindsight, a mistake. I mean to propose that WOTC's commitment to its promise is a gesture that they remain mindful of the role that investors play in the community. Reprints are obviously influenced by value considerations, else WOTC wouldn't demonstrate the discretion they have been for the past several sets.
Although it's certainly correct that invested players are not necessarily the game's main revenue source, the counterpoint should be made that being invested in older formats does not prohibit you from investing in boxes of new sets and driving sales of new products.
Now, game management should not be based solely on economics. If WOTC makes decisions that jeopardize their trustworthiness, then they'll soon find themselves operating on a revolving door model; as players gain more experience, they'll realize that the game basically pushes a continual stream of everything, so there's no point in becoming more invested. And the production model required to support that management model is equally unappealing: WOTC would need to continually break ground in order to rejuvenate sales; otherwise, players would have no reason to buy into newer product as long as everything they need for older, more static formats is widely available.
April 19, 2015 6:26 p.m.
I'm not really too share where the line is drawn with trustworthiness. When I invested I certainly didn't expect ANYTHING at all. I know the secondary market is somewhat artificial and really I have no right to static values at all given that they're not determined by wuzards they're determined by us. How, or what point, does a company draw the line and say 'it's worth supporting a price of X, but this price of Y needs to come down'. I see your point but counter that this is a player made distinction and not necessarily a business led one.
I'm not some mad man that thinks we should have access to all cards all the time, but I do think that regularly printing things like goyf at rare level so it dropped to say... $100 (pulled that figure out of the air) will do little to hurt me (representing an economically advantaged, older player) and a lot to support those less fortunate.
I believe there is a happy medium between this current policy of sticking to mythic rarity and limited print runs and printing at a common level so it just dives to nothing.
Perhaps we're arguing over a false binary because I also share a fear of a revolving door playerbase, but I still believe wizards could do a little more.
April 19, 2015 6:39 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #50
I'm still of the opinion that the current policy is (1) better than not reprinting anything and (2) still experimental. It's best to enact gradual change when people's finances are at stake, and, despite Goyf's post-MMA rise, I think the overall results are productive and warrant further experimentation.
ChiefBell says... #2
We've alread discussed this countless times but yes, yes it is.
Players don't get into modern due to high prices. Giving them a draft format with really high prices doesn't address the problem.
D'oh.
April 19, 2015 3:53 p.m.