Should WotC be More Proactive with Reprinting Cards?
General forum
Posted on Sept. 18, 2025, 10:31 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
I believe that WotC should reprint cards more frequently, because some cards have become very expensive, and I do not believe that a player's ability to enjoy this game should be affected by their wealth, so I would like to discuss this subject with everyone else, here.
WotC usually reprints at least several cards in every set, recently, especially in Commander sets, but I still would like to see sets composed entirely of reprints, since those are the best method of making cards more affordable, although Mark Rosewater has stated that WotC currently does not have any additional masters sets planned for the immediate future, which I find to be very annoying, because the game currently has so many cards that WotC could release sets composed entirely of reprints for the next several years without being too repetitive.
What does everyone else say, about this? Do you believe that WotC should be more proactive with reprinting cards? I certainly am interested to hear your opinions, on this subject.
wallisface says... #3
Wotc can use highly-costed cards to help increase sales of future sets. It's in their best interests to keep the number of reprints low, and use them sparingly for their own financial advantage.
Any argument for more reprints needs to be from the perspective of how this profits Wotc directly. So far their trickling-of-cards has paid off well for them, and I see no reason for them to adjust their own business model away from this (of course every play would rather their hobby be cheaper, but that really isn't Wotcs concerns)
September 19, 2025 5:51 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #4
wallisface, why are you looking at this situation from WotC's perspective, and not the perspective of the player's?
September 29, 2025 9:14 p.m.
wallisface says... #5
DemonDragonJ because ultimately this is a business decision entirely up to Wotc, and not the players at all.
The business is the body that gets to decide all the business decisions, not the consumer.
This is a very weird question.
September 30, 2025 5 a.m.
I think if you disagree with wallisface's position, maybe you could explain why WotC is wrong to go about things the way it is? Here's my 2 cents for example:
IMHO the biggest argument against continuing with the limited reprints over Masters sets is that if the price of a card goes over a certain point WotC is leaving serious money on the table. If a card costs so much that most players wouldn't even think of playing it (I don't think the majority of players are obsessives who maintain top tier Standard decks, most people are more casual at this point) then it will ultimately depress the price. This phenomena happens all the time in the Reserved List, where everything is, by modern standards short printed, lots of cards could support a much larger total pool of value, if they could be reprinted (which would optimize the value for shareholders technically). The issue is the floor of spending $300 for a card means very few people are game and huge swathes of people who'd have bought it for say $20 just forego it, or even proxy it, this means the shareholders get much less than they could (which is seen as bad corporate behavior in theory). The weirdest part is that reprinting more stuff would actually be super typical for a big corporation trying to maximize profits in the short term (which is the norm in the US). FWIW I don't think a card needs to cost $300 to depress the price, I think even $40 can drive a great many casual players to look elsewhere. To an extent less powerful cards have much lower floors, if a card is niche and not exactly an all star where it's played, then who would want to pay $5 for it, even if it's good and an older harder to get card?
IMHO the 'they need to preserve print equity' argument doesn't add up entirely. At this point they're selling sets pretty reliably due to power creep; as long as this level of creep is normalized reprints will consistently become less valuable, and WotC is shooting itself in the foot at the same time.
All that said this is a bunch of faerie farts, and as conjecture I'm curious what others think!
September 30, 2025 11:53 a.m.
wallisface says... #7
DreadKhan the main reason for Wotc to reprint an expensive card is for its inclusion to directly help correlate to driving-up sales of a set.
The vast majority of players are casuals, and probably unlikely to shell loads of money into a set due to a particular chase-card - it’s imo more likely to be the “whales” that will chuck a load of money into a set to chase a sought-after card… and those players will pay ludacris money for cardboard, as we’ve already seen by what they’re paying for those high-end cards. It’s not in Wotcs interest to have those people pay less for these cards - it’s to their benefit to have them keep shovelling exorbitant prices towards the company. They can achieve this by either printing new power-crept cards, reprinting old expensive cards in short-supply, or printing cards in extremely rare/special art. In all these situations, its not to their benefit to make these cards overly accessible - these card slots are always directed towards catering to the “whales”, and never the average (casual) player
September 30, 2025 3:55 p.m.
Magic has always kind of walked the tight rope of physical equity (money generated) and consumer equity (future money generated), but recent years and decisions have really pushed everything right now. Equity in consumers is the player base, the people who want to stick with the game, play new sets with their friends, and long term planning would see this side as the backbone of the business. How wizards used to do this was to focus on standard, and to try to make it the best play experience possible. Reprints were just not as big of a contention when the majority of players were playing a rotating format, or playing kitchen table.
To me the problem is that they've tried to have their cake and eat it too with standard. If standard was fun to play and affordable, and if I could just go to FnM and have a great time, then I wouldn't have a problem with cards that are not in the format being expensive.
I guess I just think that wotc sprinkling reprints to players the way they do is a short term money grab that creates long term player disenfranchisement, and I think they really need to look at that as a direct cost. Magic is more popular than ever, but if they don't cater the game to the players, they're going to run out of Final Fantasys and Fallouts. Fans went nuts for them, to see fallout in magic, but will those same people care for magic fallout 2, now that they already have that?
Maybe it's just the way I see it, but it seems like wotc is not doing anything for their current player base, focusing completely on the new player base, and long term they should be considering that a tangible resource they are using up.
September 30, 2025 5:49 p.m.
TheoryCrafter says... #9
I would love to see a 100% reprint set, but only for all the cards affected by oracle changes. If, in the unlikelihood that were to ever happen, it's probably decades down the road due to potential balance issues. Even then it won't likely cover them all.
There are times I think WOTC could reprint cards instead of making non-colorshifted functional reprints. I get it, it's not always possible due to flavor (like Didn't Say Please for Eldraine and Thought Collapse for Ravnica), though sometimes different art and/or flavor text could make it work. However, functional reprints do have the added benefit of getting around the one of rule in singleton formats.
I'm surprised Foundations has received no mention here. Practically half the set was reprints. I was able to build a Control/Stompy deck around Consuming Aberration without having to spend a penny because of it. Don't know if it can compete with the meta, but I like to think I have enough tools to at least give them a challenge. Whether I can or not, I have a Standard deck that can get me through at least to 2029.
Foundations is the one that released a reprint of Doubling Season. Based on what I've observed, it hasn't made much, if any, of a dent in the price.
The way I see it WOTC is addressing affordability concerns, just not in the way players would prefer it.
I think the problem is players get so caught up in powerful cards and asking what they can do with it, they forget to ask themselves what they can use to minimize their effectiveness if they come across it. If you're spending so much on the name of achieving victory, then what's it gonna take to not care about winning as much and just build a competent deck to just have fun?
Thank you for reading me out. May you draw well!
berryjon says... #2
Wizards operates under the flawed economic theory that Scarcity creates Sales. Sadly, it's worked for them as chase cards have become a regular occurrence, culminating economically in the $US2.6 MILLION 1/1 Ring. Reprints in their framework, lower sales over time as people get what they want and then stop purchasing packs/crack packs for singles. This ignores Sayle's Law which argues that a product that is perceived as being available will be purchased, while a product that is seen as unavailable will not drive sales.
A relevant, but adjacent discussion from yours truely.
September 18, 2025 10:45 p.m.