How Much Is Too Much For Double Masters? | Dies To Removal 46 | Magic The Gathering Podcast
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- Опубликовано: 1 июл 2022
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Usullay if RUclipsrs say they'll upload a video at a specific day, they'll always be late but Prof's team managed to get it out BEFORE that day
The trick is setting low expectations, and exceeding them with little effort.
@@HarmonicResonanceScale Sounds like academia to me.
In other words, we were deceived, tricked, and quite possibly bamboozled
Always better to under-promise and over provide than the opposite.
It's like the editing team heard that and said "challenge accepted!"
I started playing Magic around 2013. Back then, you'd have a 3-sets block and a core set every year, each of one being in $4 packs/$100 boxes. And that's pretty much all Magic was. You had some semi-premium products like Duel Decks, Fat Packs, Gift Boxes, and even fewer premium products like From the Vault and the newly released Commander decks.
As a student back then, I had limited money, but Magic was affordable. It was eating my whole "fun" budget because I was so into it and drafting every week, but I was able to somewhat keep up with Standard .
Nowadays though? I've lost count how many sets come out every year, a couple of which are priced between 2 and 4 times higher than regular boosters and game-warping. Premium products aren't just Secret Lairs and Collector Boosters, sets like 2X2 and MH2 start in that price range too. New set isn't even out yet and I'm supposed to hype up and save for the next one... when am I supposed to, you know, play the game? Enjoy the new plane, the new mechanics, draft to my heart's content, brew around the block's themes? That's the thing, I can't, there's not enough time nor money for that. If you want to build around a plane's theme (e.g. blood tokens), nearly all the relevant cards are in a single set instead of spread across a block, so you need to buy more of that set - and faster, because the next set is coming. Finally built a nice Modern deck? How about we introduce 15 new rare/mythic staples in a premium booster, that either invalidate your deck or are required to be relevant?
I may have a good job now, and could easily afford my 2013 habit multiple times over. But at the current rate? It's much more expensive for much less fun, it's basically burning money. Just because I technically have the money for it doesn't make Magic any more affordable.
We we know, get over it
Well said
Most of the time I get a new set booster display for about 90 to 110 €. Zendikar Rising was available for 95 € (set booster) and 190 € (collector booster). I think that those prices are still ok and very much in line with your prices considering that.
I looked it up and indeed the number of sets per year was raised quite a bit. 10 in 2013, 23 in 2021 (11 not counting alchemy, secret lair and so on).
I agree.Baldurs gate just came out.Made a 5 color dragon deck,no time to explore anything else,and now this? I just started with midnight hunt,but this trend is driving me away. It's always gonna sell.Ppl have money,they will buy.
The regular joe will stop playing,or not bother starting.Its hard enough now as is.New ppl that would love the game shy away because of the price. Only reason I can play is I get lucky on prerelease kits(normally I get at least 4).I always get dragons,and strong mythic rares,except with New Capenna,that set was jank!Bought a box,and 3 prerelease kits.Thr set had a dark humor flavor,lotta land fixes,otherwise garbage. Too much product,to fast,to expensive.Never got to build a deck from N Capenna.
About that blood tokens example, there too few good cards to even this become a thing
I think the argument for having multiple sets on a plane was great and the example of a second kamigwa set doing better than new capena is perfect I think
Capenna isn’t even a bad set, just unfortunately timed with the economy falling apart and clb and 2XM2 immediately after
Another set that would have benefited from it in both lore and technical fields is Ikoria. That plain could have used another set or two to buff up mutate and expand the story.
I think the reason they aren't is they believe that the variety is what is keeping a lot of people interested, which isn't entirely unreasonable, not everyone buys every set so some people are going to be really into New Kamigawa and they will buy a lot of that and different people will be really into New Capenna and they will buy a lot of that, so WotC is worried that when they stay in one place too long they are going to lose people that are not interested in that place so they have to be really sure that that is going to be worth it. I know people that were not into the New New Innistrad sets so for them there was over half a year where there was just nothing of interested from them just because they didn't care for that one place. During the New New Ravnica block people that were not into Ravnica just took a year off Magic. And if they go back to blocks and there are 2 blocks in a row that someone isn't into their break from Magic then becomes so long that there is a good chance you are just going to lose that player to another game.
Personally I agree that a second New Kamigawa set would have been great, but I would have no interest in a second New Capenna set.
I disagree. We had the counterexample of Innistrad two sets just right there. For what I have seen, both sets were underwhelming in comparison with both kamigawa and new capenna. I think that it goes into what is in the set, in terms of mechanics, designs, etc. Midnight hunt and Crimson vow mechanics and cards were meh in comparison with both capenna and kamigawa, even though the narrative on Innistrad had a bit more time to breathe and Capenna needed desperately another set for lore reasons.
@@mtguille7193 counter counter example war of the spark
I want MSRP back!!
Same.
@@TolarianCommunityCollege I’m new to collecting, not new to magic cause my dad had cards growing up.
What does Msrp mean/represent?
@@rudolphthompson400 Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price
@@violentswamy8147 Ty! Appreciate you!
I feel like they got rid of it so they could raise prices and blame LGS owners
The question you're going to have to answer is "How much is too much for a single card?"
Wrenn and Six from Modern Horizons is going for a $75-80 right now, and that's down from $100+ earlier this year. Double Masters pre-sales look to be $80-90, but will probably be about the same because why wouldn't they be? Enough cards like that in the set and it's good value to buy singles (or rip packs and sell them). Even at $17/pack. They're being careful with price and volume not to majorly disrupt the singles market. The pack price is a symptom, not the underlying cause. If anything, it's a lightning rod.
Us old-schoolers remember the dread when Mythics were announced, and then when we saw their willingness to put format all-stars there. Now no one wastes breath on it. The Meathook Massacre is just going to be a $50 card while relevant in Standard. After rotation, if it never finds more use it will decline and no one cards about reprints. If it finds more use it will go up and we'll cheer a $50 reprint as a bargain. Whatever set that happens in and what price-per-pack, that's just math.
We spent 2 years wanting a reprint of Dockside Extortionist. Now they have, but at Mythic, because the price justifies it. Maybe we need to stop telling them to do reprints and start telling ourselves that $60 cardboard is ridiculous and not worth buying.
Heh. I paused at the halfway mark and wrote this. And then right after that they go heavily into singles prices. :)
Certainly not as a game piece that youre going to ruin overtime, no
Meathook's price (like Henge and Tithe before it) is also because it's one of the best cards of its type printed so far and because of that everyone wants one for their EDH deck. The price isn't where it's at solely based on Standard playability...
Already did. Haven't bought product from WotC in years now. They lost my respect, and with that my business. Not that they care about players like me. I never had deep enough pockets to spend the kind of money they want now, even when I spent $1000/year on magic.
The thing with the addition of mythics is actually kind of backwards, I've come to appreciate it more than anything else.
Because what we call "mythic", which are cards printed at R1 rarity (appearing once on the rare sheet) have been in the game from the beginning. In fact, every "rare" printed before Alara was R1. What was actually added in Alara were R2 rarity cards, which are half as rare because they appear twice on the sheet. In Alara they added R2 as a new rarity, changed the old "rare" term to refer to it, and changed the name of R1 to "mythic". Complaining about "adding mythic" is kind of ignorant because if they hadn't, all "rares" would still be R1, and cards we currently call "rare" would be much more expensive. People for example kept complaining thinking for some reason they'd reprint fetch lands at mythic, but the only time they've ever been printed at R1 rarity was actually... Onslaught.
Obviously this doesn't track for things like Dockside, because it's a commander precon card, but it's true for any card that comes in draft boosters.
Blake has said at least once on the official MTG stream that they do have economists looking at the secondary market
I don't know how this hasn't led to them getting in hot water
since, what I've heard for years while playing this game is that "they don't acknowledge the secondary market"
Just got to find the link
Link please. Like i need that screenshot all over reddit.
@@Highstar7331 Looking at and officially acknowledging are different.
@@falconJB if what Blake Rasmussen, an official WotC employee (who runs PR iirc) said during an official, public Livestream isn't considered official than I don't fcking know what is
Vince is getting real good at sending prof's soul to the shadow realm; those last several minutes were great, and the ending was chef's kiss
As someone who works in printing I can confirm... rare ink is much more expensive :) It's oddly warmer too
The real question is: does the producer of the ink consider the secondary market price of magic cards? :DDDD
Is it made with sacrificed virgin's blood to justify such prices???😂
facts
Everyone quickly forgot 2XM the first time… THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED. Once wizards released another batch to Amazon the price went back to basically what it originally was for a while and then it was all gone.
Yes! Normalize proxies! And encourage people to make/add their own art. Players should be encouraged to reskin their deck to match whatever theme they like!
This! We all should make tutorials on how to do it for silly edits we would want to make, too
@@Aigis31love that thought
One other point on single block sets.
Newer mechanics are under-printed now as well. There just arnt simply enough cards in comparison to multi block sets to give enough flavour overall.
I essentially stopped buying and playing magic in 2019.
It had become clear to me that Wizards was going into ultra-aggressive product-launching tactics that were simply not worth engaging with (permanent hype train choo-choo).
I'm not from the US, and in my country Magic is a hobby that was already difficult to follow when there wasn't an absurd number of releases. With Secret Laris, Extra Sets, collector's editions, endless commander decks a year... and many of these crappy products (both physically and conceptually), I just decided to spend my time and money elsewhere.
Buy proxies from China and continue playing.
@@lewkiz He is not having fun, he shoud not be forced to go out of his way to find a different strategy to not feel overwhelmed by a game he should be enjoying. When stops being fun and starts being a chore, then it's over
I only buy singles and commander decks since 18. The commander decks I don't mind buying since I know I'm getting more than my money's worth and usually one of the decks comes with high value cards. For example I just got "Party Time" take out the gnome terrramancer and black market connections for my high powered Oloro deck, replace with new cards, and I got a low powered party deck now. I got 2 powerful new cards (worth like half the cost to buy) for my preexisting decks and have a new low powered deck to boot. I will say that adding a collector's booster sample to justify 10$ more dollars was a bit greasy, but the decks are so well built now it's still reasonable.
TL;DR
Singles, proxies, and commander decks are the only products to buy for MTG imo.
@@lewkiz
I really don't like to use proxy for several reasons.
Even disregarding the part of using something that is "illegal", much of the pleasure of playing Magic is the part of it being a TCC and you building your collection and decks over time. The moment you start using proxies as a solution, this aspect of the game goes away.
And the second point, while proxies can be nice to play with friends, it's a more complicated issue when it comes to people you don't know. There are players who have had a hard time building their decks, and while most of them won't be hostile and bully you for using a proxy, it's definitely not contributing to the experience (Also, there are stores and groups of players that simply don't allow proxies).
Then don’t “keep up” with it… just build some decks you idiot
"we've jacked up prices and made more profit selling to distributors, the new product is successful" enough will never be enough
I remember Richard Garfield had said that he didn't think a card should cost more than $20, and I'm gonna interpret that as mechanically unique. I'm fine with their being a hierarchy of costs and demand for Magic, you don't have to make it all direct from wotc print to order flat price. But this whole notion of reprint equity and an economist just kills enthusiasm to get cards when they're so prohibitively expensive. I don't even think pure reprint sets should be priced at a premium. I guess if you wanna put bling alts in the normal product but imagine a world where a masters set is just $150 a box. I don't know if MSRP would even do it. My store said that distributor price per box is 220 and if they sold it at the same margin as anything else it would be pushing 400. It's a race to the bottom. But it's all wotc and their absurd prices. Cost of ink indeed. Halcyon days when fetch lands were printed in a sub $100 standard set box. When it seems like a more reasonable ask to buy the HH Warhammer box than a new box of mtg, theres a problem.
I want Triple™ Masters™ to be 3 Packs in a box for $400, Quadruple™ Masters™ to be 2 packs in a box for $500 and finally the Creme de la creme, the Magnum Opus, the Quintuple™ Masters™ for a single pack, 4 boxes deep of
packaging to make it seem bigger for the low low price of $600 a "box"
Etched mirror inversed extended full art laser infused -insert gimmick- no-curl foils please
@@Ozclusive they'll still be curled
@@travisclark9462 no, it will be a bowl
Dear Professor, I am having a fantastic time watching this just days before they release the 30th anniversary 4 packs for $1100 and having a good ol chuckle.... whilst trying not to cry
I've come to the realization that I don't need any more cards. Thanks, Double Masters. I built a Commander deck today from cards I already have. If I need a specific, I buy singles. I do enjoy cracking packs, but not at the prices Wizards has gouged us to. Keep making videos and preaching the truth. Wizards IS bullplop.
Indeed, i only crack packs at drafts... and it's more than enough to keep some "new blood" in my commanders. time to time i buy a precon, but that's all
double masters draft is gonna be 50$ bucks!I've every draft since midnight hunt.Calling it stops on this one though.
I just want to chime in here about the "Streets of New Capenna vs Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty" thing: The game store I work at sold out repeatedly of Kamigawa products, to the point that only stopped ordering more in May. Streets of New Capenna has sold about 3 Set Booster Boxes, and we still have a stack of prerelease kits nobody wants. Neon Dynasty would've unquestionably sold better if they'd made another set for it.
Streets of New Capenna was a ok set. Kamigawa Neon Dynasty was a great one. I came back to magic after 10 years to get Kamigawa Neon Dynasty.
@@HEYabbot Also, the original kamigawa was a great set that stuck in the head of all kids back then (was wildly different that traditionnal magic at the time). And even if the older players said it was "less powerful, confusing". I only remember this set (and a bit of mirrodin) from my youth.
I think the problem with New Capenna was the lack of fleshed out story and concept. They just crammed a bunch of 1920s tropes, printed some good commander cards, and crossed their fingers.
Kamigawa already had the lore, the previous block set printed, good nostalgia for players. This was just a new take on the setting and a glimpse into the future, similar to every new Dominaria set
38:00 to be honest Food Chain looks like a scrap art they didn't use for Hungering Hydra. It's literally the same hydra made by the same artist...
The one family you were missing was Brokers, but yeah, we weren't there long enough to really get to know the families
You can be an old man yelling at clouds and be right. I agree with Dr Richard Garfield when he said that no card should be more than $20.
Just gotta say... The Prof. in the normal chair (instead of in a "Streamer Cam") for these is kinda perfect.
It just...works
the one block sets feel like watching a trailer for a movie that you really really wish you could see, but then the movie never comes out
Or the pilot to a tv show that never gets greenlit.
@@Stinkoman87 Or a TV show with a really original and fun premice, that end after only 1 season (firefly anyone ?)
That Liliana in the 2X2 set should have been of the Veil, even the art would be good for that.
Big agree, so dumb that it wasn’t Veil.
Yup
Im gonna keep saying it.
Whats the point of making reprint sets if no one can buy the reprints?
I wouldn’t necessarily say “no one.” Masters sets are available for a great price. People just wait, wait and wait for all of the spoilers and whatnot to then make their decision. By that point, of course it’ll go up. If you preorder beforehand, then you have nothing to worry about. You can then cancel it if you feel like the spoilers do not justify the price. Masters is every what? Two years? It’s reprinting cards that are arguably needed in a controlled manner wherein which it won’t lower the prices too much of the top dollar cards. If you want a massive stock of Masters sets, that’ll drop every card off a cliff. At that point, then what does it matter? I think it does it’s job fine. If by any chance you can’t afford a box because you waited too long, then at least you can get the singles which have definitely gone down.
@@Invictus-Solaris gonna be honest. While I get the idea your trying to explain. Its not enough to warrant the limited printrun master sets get.
This would make 100% and I would agree if they actually printed enough of the master sets to meet demand. Also. I did look at the set before spoiler season fully started (even though it was a week after Baldur's Gate, its own issue.) And boxes were already the price they are now. 375+ for draft and 280ish for collectors.
@@victoryiamjay I get you. Magic should be more about playing it first. If it’s too expensive, then no one can really play it. Though I’m also personally in the camp of keeping Masters sets limited in quantity. So it’s tough to balance the desire of its availability while also maintaining a limit that does not push the singles to nothing. And when I said before spoilers, I mean a month before where just about everyone had them at about $250. That’s a great price imo. That’s when I bought all of my boxes. I will say this… LGSs should be held accountable as well for the price increase in the first place. Once the spoilers came in, they realized how much money was in the product. Then they started canceling preorders just to raise the prices. Now those who also waited have to deal with the mark up.
@@Invictus-Solaris
17 dollars for ONE PACK is too fucking expensive regardless of how you spin in. It's not even a collectors product. It's a product everyone wants if they're playing semi competitively
For 17$ you would expect to get some value no matter what. But there is so much bulk in the set that you most likely get only bad feeling. Just buy the missing singles.
I've gotten into proxies, Damn Wotc's Reprint Equity! The quality of proxies has gotten so good that many are indistinguishable from the real thing.
If the card has good quality, it's a proxy.
I want to play against someone skills, not their wallet.
Quality of proxies? You are missing the point of proxies me thinks..... Sleeves, a pen and the use of same paper weights are all u need.
To be honest, my proxies are better quality that Wotc. (mostly the foils)
@@Ozclusive I'd refuse to play with you then. I don't mind proxies, but if someone isn't even going to put some effort and care into their deck, its not someone I want to play.
I have to say, I was researching a cascade commander and came across the RG Cascade Pauper deck video you did long ago Prof. I built that deck and now I’ve been binge watching all the old Pauper deck videos. Keep fighting the battle Prof! More Pauper Deck videos!
Just saying as someone who has been playing since 2014, I sold my entire collection 2 years ago, and have exclusively used all proxies, and it is wonderful. Affordable, fun, and I can play whatever i want. I would highly recommend it to anyone. Especially if you don't plan on playing in tournaments, go for it. No reason not to, unless you just want to have the real cards just because.
Where do you get proxies from?
This should be every commander player to be honest. Print yourself those 50 dollar cards of you want. Damn print those duals and just play with that.
@@kumbertjoehl-lee8898 That's exactly what I do. Duals, fetches, Cradles, Crypts, anything I want. I have like three Timetwisters.
I am here to say that pauper is getting more and more attention in Czech Republic. One of our LGS has regular pauper event (once every 2 weeks). Most people playing pauper here are those who tried getting into modern, but the format is unheatlhy right now and so hostile to new players. The very same reason why I started playing pauper and I can't be happier. I am trying new strategies, brewing decks and I still have fairly good chance to win some games. And it is all very affordable, usually 50 bucks and you have whole deck. So prof. I am here with you!
Spoke to a player in Brazil who said that most of his playgroup plays pauper because they can't afford playing something else. He took a lot of pride in his deck and claimed it can still hold its own against far more expensive commander decks.
Honestly, I'd play a Tolarian 40/60-card-deck singleton format that consists of affordable cards exclusively but isn't limited by rarity. Like if there's a fun 5-cent Rare I'd love it if it could be played. There'd be a Limited list curated by a team supervised by Brian and would be updated every few months to add new cards, tweak the balance and shake up the meta.
Kind of a more limited Penny Dreadful Highlander, though I guess it’d be Nickel Dreadful at this point. Either way, I like the sound of that! Dunno if he’d have time to actually curate everything between everything else, but I suppose just starting with the price point and updating once a standard set is something, letting price work as a coarse-grain ban list.
@@atalhlla Something like that would be amazing! I'd imagine Brian would more or less just put the Tolarian seal on the project rather than him being actively involved past establishing the guiding principles of the format. For me, I'd hope the list would exclude overly toxic cards/mechanisms, minimize strictly better alternatives to cards, wildly uneven power levels between cards, promote diverse meta's with a lot of back and forth, and the singleton format would curtail the power of (overly consistent) aggro and otk decks. All easier said than done, but sometimes I dream.
On my neck of the woods we have commander budgets. At 100$ and 450$. Furthermore we are currently also limiting decks to 2 colors. This has made edh explode we can run 2 tournaments a week. Sometimes 3 (1 pod of 8 to 12 ppl).
@@IMatchoNation - You should look into the aforementioned Penny Dreadful format - it's defined by cards with a market value of 0.01TIX on MTGO (they tend to also be cheap in paper). The best part is that it's self-correcting, since the card pool is evaluated monthly iirc, any cards that get too popular for the format will likely go up in price because of the demand, which means they get automatically removed from the format. The format legality is maintained on scryfall, so you can use that to find out what is or isn't legal, and adopt that list for your singleton idea.
Adapt Brawl for budgets. Base it on tcg mid, all cards under $5. Think itd be fun. Call it Bronzed Brawl.
I encourage proxies. I own most of the cards I use, the overwhelming majority actually, but honestly I don't care. Get a color printed copy and slide it in front of a basic land. The FED Ex next to my house will print solid color copies 12 cards per sheet for less than a dollar a sheet. As stuff keeps getting more expensive I'm just going to lean heavier and heavier on proxies.
It’s so much more fun to just draw whatever card you want on top of a random land with a sharpie. Then it looks like a little kid made your card
@@reidyo5404 My only issue with that is it can cause problems with recognizing board state. Especially on permanents, and especially if you have a bunch in one deck. Same with black and white photocopies. But color copies? Go nuts. I dont care if your whole deck is proxied.
I've had the same shift in perspective on proxies, I used to only get the odd cool full art alters printed, like for my commander. Now I'm like; I could move my one Dockside between each of my decks with red, or I could just print proxies.
“They’re previewing Dominaria United on a livestream right now.”
*The fact that I wasn’t sure if this was a joke really says something…*
Was it a joke???
It was not 😅
Except for prereleases, I am now proxying all the cards I want. I've got a cube of real cards, but if I want to play Vintage or Modern I'll just hit Ctrl P like the Prof says. I agree with Vince's point about this.
Remodeling my new house and binging DtR. Love you guys.
Cheers!
I am convinced that if you averaged the speed at which the Prof and Vince speak you would have the perfect speaking speed.
I used to like how wizards use to give 3 sets on a single plane. I feel that way you get more synergies and cards that work with a theme but that's just me.
Indeed, and i use to really go deep on planes i liked. Mirrodin ? 1-2 box per set. Kamigawa, same. couldn't do that with the new kamigawa. Capena same...
So agree about the new sets discussion. The speed in which new planes are presented to us is insane! I also feel sorry for the world designers, because they do a great job and these beautiful places are so quickly forgotten 😢
My fiance and I both really miss the three block set structure. We only play at the kitchen table, so we build a lot of set themed decks that may or may not be optimized with other sets later. Having mechanics and keywords that basically vanish and don't even come back when a plane is revisted make building some themes frustrating. Not to mention just theming around the overall aesthic of a set becomes arduous when you basically build from whatever you open (neither of us want to buy singles). It's hard to build a themed/keyword deck when only a handful of cards are printed around a mechanic that very much plays into itself and you only have 7 of the 15 cards keyword cards that were printed and not even full playsets of them.
Yep, I've hopped on the proxy train just a couple of months ago. Unless the reprints in 2X2 cause singles to significantly drop to a reasonable price point, I can't see myself getting much of this set. I'll take my Eldrazis and proxy the rest.
Professor, would you be willing to do a video on the best marketplaces/distributors for proxies? I think it would be meaningful for you to bring more awareness to what options people have.
Well, it's barely legal. i wouldn't play that game if i was a content creator.
“I love the set but I don’t love the price” sums up how everyone I know feels about this. I know it’s a (true) meme that hurr durr corporations don’t care, but it really does hurt with gas prices skyrocketing, jobs not paying enough I will never buy a pack from this set. It’s even dubious that I would buy singles because of the scarcity barely impacting the price. I’ll just keep proxying.
"Just proxy, commander players don't care"..... counterpoint: my LGS just banned all proxies in store.
The store hosts a "Commander League", and several players reported the store to WOTC for allowing proxies in games. WOTC threatened the store with retaliation if they did not cease.
Prof and Kenobi, have you ever heard of this? I'm new to MTG this year, so idk if this is common.
I thought commander was an unofficial format?
Hasbro makes multiple releases tailored specifically for it every year. It's very much an official format.
LOL Bullflop, it is unofficial. Hasbro ''owns'' Brawl not EDH/Commander. You can tailor as much as you want it doesn't make you official. Find a better LGS, if your not playing competitive/tournament than you can play whatever you want just remember rule#0 :P
The issue comes from the league. If it's an event type format thar keeps track of winning and losing, and most especially if there is some type of entry fee and prize support, then yeah players have every right to report the use of proxies as it creates an unfair play experience for those using real cards. That is especially true if the store is WPN.
@@Xoulrath_ not if the store allows proxies ? It's not a sanctioned league.
"Do I just stare into the camera in disgust" seems like a pretty fair reaction to a lot of what Wizards has been doing lately.
To pricey for me. I'm sure this set will sell like crazy! But I'm out and so are some of my friends.
I agree.
It sells like crazy because they dump it to amazon and distributors and get their money that way. none of the 4 lgs in my area are buying 1 box of this set to draft because the players have either left or are not interested to pay 80€ for a non price support draft.
edit: stores have started to drop the price to 290€ a draft box so there might be a draft if we get enough people.
For those priced out, don't worry... Wizards got you covered with Baldur's Gate lol
I have purchased nice proxies for EDH for the first time in 15 years of playing because I would rather spend 20 cents on cards that are way too expensive. I started thinking I would only do this with cards I already own, but then thought what is the point of that? I no longer see value in spending more than 5 bucks for a card because there are just too many new cards to keep up with.
1000% agree. Friend tried to tell me that it isn't good for LGS or secondary market from buying proxies, when I wouldn't buy the cards anyway if proxies didn't exist. Buying proxies from [redacted] just saves so much time and money.
I'd rather buy a bunch of proxies for a commander deck than cards that are essentially no different that costs a months rent, for even a relatively budget deck.
@@ZacheryEllisonsPuffedOutNips Make playing cards, using the mpc-fill program
What also bothers me about double masters 2022 is no box topper for whatever reason
Because why give us more when they can give us less and still charge more?
They probably couldn't figure out how to send boxes with toppers through Amazon without absolutely destroying them on the way (see previous happenings with box toppers).
Last double masters had two box toppers
Re: economists at WotC, LinkedIn lists only four WOTC employees claiming a PhD, none of which are economists.
EDIT: even if there are no full time economists, it is entirely possible WOTC does economic analysis using external consultants on a project by project basis.
EDIT 2: after some additional thought, this job would be declscribed as analytics or business intelligence, probably not economics. And there are plenty of analysts at WOTC, including a analytics dept director who has an economics background, if not a PhD
I would agree this would be outsourced to consulting
Also you don’t need a PhD in econ to track the secondary market and calculate ev for possible future boosters
WotC has several jobs listings for "Sr Design Economist" which requries a graduate degree.
@@zealousdemon I want that job!
I'm a data scientist working in finance; I'd bet WoTC has a few of us building models on the scondary market
I've been playing since Revised. The last box I bought was War of the Spark. This MM set is great for ppl trying to get hold of older staples at a (semi-)reasonable price, but, as I own single copies of cards being rereleased & we have no problems w/ proxies, I see myself buying nothing from this set.
I'd love to see and hear your thoughts Prof on the rarity shifts of cards, how that's gone lately and how what those shifts symbolise in Lore too
Great video Brian and Vince! I wanted to let you know that my local game store is running Double Masters 2022 drafts for $30(USD), so that more people can draft. To lower the price, the prizes will be from the current standard set and not Double Masters packs. I appreciate them doing this and tell you this as an example of some local game stores focusing more on ability to play and draft rather than making money. Keep up the good work and I look forward to the next video!
I've only been playing Magic since AFR and it would be really nice to be able to play some of these other formats. I'm stuck playing casual commander games unless I decide to get a bank loan to be able to afford to play something else. Pauper sounds fun, and cheap, but nobody plays it.
get a playgroup that accepts proxys and go with that :)
If you mainly play commander just proxy, I’ve never met anyone who would care
I'm stoked that my local LGS has a pretty lively pauper group!
Enjoy the journey. That’s the collectible aspect of a TCG. The hunt for your wanted items. It’s boring to simply buy all cards at once and it’s over in 30 seconds online ordering.
@@sloth9669 better spending a few cents per card than hundreds of dollars
Honestly, I don't care about the prices of VIP boosters. Make them 100$ heck 200$ a booster! They're VIP like the name implies. THAT product is not for me. But the normal boosters though are not VIP and Wizards needs to stop saying the product is not for us because it contains GAME PIECES that we need and are staples everywhere.
The portion where you discussed why we should spend more time fleshing out a plane is easily one of the top 3 problems I have had with Magic in the last few years. Personally, I believe that the more time we spend on a plane, the cooler the story and characters are. As a result, the cards are more flavorful and impactful, which makes the set more powerful and desirable, which increases sales and rewards both Hasbro with money and the playerbase with fun, playable cards. I don't understand how people keep rewarding this business model where WotC dumps all of their effort into marketing for something that even during spoiler season, we have absolutely no idea what is truly in this set, buy it in bulk, talk about how good it is, and then the cards fall out of favor or the spotlight anyway. OG Zendikar block through Theros block was an era of raw power, flavor and story telling that I haven't gotten to enjoy in this game for so long now, that I genuinely think it's not just me getting older, but the game getting worse from the angle of these variables that has caused the game to feel somewhat stagnant. You can't possibly squeeze everything that makes a good portion of magic cards into a 250 card set. We NEED 3 set blocks again.
Thx Professor and to your co-host Vince. I enjoyed the entire show. Can your production team apply a volume equalizer, I found a huge difference between both the audio output of each host making one voice louder than the other. Thanks! Can you guys find out more info behind the market value of magic cards? The kind that readily explains the forces behind the value of cards other than a global pandemic every 100 years. Thanks again!!
I can’t even afford to draft this set in paper, and it looks great to draft! I’m all about Jund and the archetype is literally called Boomer Jund - it’s very depressing that it’s so pricy. I’m only going to buy singles and even then only a tiny amount of them.
Yeah, it is so expensive you might as well just build a cube.
Ok, so you can’t. It’s a card game, not a constitutional right. I’ll be able to draft it
@@187btokes to flex on poor ppl and then sell his self help books and 100$ get rich quick guides. Which are free already online and in libraries. You just need to put effort to read and apply them.
I agree entirely, I don't want to spend so much money for this set
I loved those lands from the original double masters collectors boosters, picked up a heap on the secondary market.
Not-so-pleasant Kenobi with the jedi mind tricks at the end. *chefs kiss*
Prof: A colllector booster for standard cards is still more expensive than the most expensive masters set.
WotC: He is right! Next masters set must be $29.99!
I wish magic did reprints like Yu-Gi-Oh. Give us a tin every once in a while with the hottest cards of the year so that players can actually use the cards they make.
Get that logic outta here. Can't make sense!
@@PhiladelphiaCoIlins I forgot logic has no use in magic reprints.
WOTC: sounds great. Secret lair tin full of reprints, it’s 10000 dollars
@@Spirited_skiing secret lairs are a better deal than this set imo
Yugioh reprints are so frigging easy to get. It's insane.
What I do for expensive cards I use in multiple decks, is using à multiple card binder. I put a good quality print paper version (printed from work)in a sleeve on top of a land, for example of smothering tide, jeskai will, deflecting swat.. in the X decks I use the card in. I put the original one in a binder. Then when I go play to places or even events when I draw my printed card if people notice the version is print and start calling me cheap, I just pull out the original one and exchanged the paper version with the original one from the multiple card binder. At the end of the game I just sleeve them back out and in.
I started playing MtG 1993 and still remember a friend of mine quitting MtG when Legends came out with the comment "This is just to much product".... If he had only known what the future holds.
Mythic rarity was a mistake in the first place and continues to make most popular formats inaccessible.
There is no reason for reprints sets to be that expensive (there is much lower development cost than with new cards).
We should get Masters sets with no limited environment, no one can afford to draft those anw. They should be set boosters full of needed reprints, mostly rares in each pack.
You remind me of a guy I talked to about 15 years ago who said he quit because dark ritual was no longer type 2 legal
@@CrosswaIk You remind me of someone who apologizes for corporations.
But I'm excited to draft this set
My store is doing $40 draft, everyone gets a participation 2x2 pack at the end but with no proze support. And I love their structure
They are losing money or breaking even it sounds like. I work at a store and I can’t see how doing what you said is possible. That’s great they are doing that tho. Def give them a high five or buy something just to show support. :)
@@KLang509 always do! They do the same structure for any release event usually
dood, gratz on gettin this up ahead of schedule! =D
When 8 of your friends are selling their collections, 4 out of which are quitting the game, you know this is a great set.
They are quitting because of the price of boosters in a reprint set?
lol🤣
@@fritterbaker I'm guessing they are quitting because this set just devalued an insane amount of cards people spent good money on years ago. To have so many big name cards lose value in your collection simultaneously is a real kick to the you know what.
@@fritterbaker They could be quitting because they just can't gain access to a format they want to play because the cards are not being made more accessible in any meaningful degree.
@@sirmegallot3276 its the risk and no kick in the balls. Honestly deserved when someone used MTG as an investment.
Here we goooooooo!! More than ever, I'm targeting singles. I'm sure the packs are going to be fun to open. I could pick up some here and there, but the risk is too high for me.
Very good strategy. Especially the draft boosters. Since most of the high value comes from special treatment cards located mostly in collector boosters, it is difficult to get at least the value of the box (Especially since price has inflated).
Yep ditto with all these new sets I'm sticking to singles to save money and focus on only cards I like from new sets
The lack of set boosters definitely drives collectors of different variants towards the collector boxes, which I'm sure have a much lower cost/unit for WOTC.
Great vid, Prof! Thank you, your team and PK for your hard work!
Cheers for somewhere far away in Latam where we can't afford to buy 2X2 😂😂💸💸
Battle for Zendikar was one of the best selling sets in Wotc’s entire history because of expeditions and MaRo couldn’t stop bowing his head and talking about how they messed up that entire 4 part block sequence of Zendikar/Innistrad. Somehow sales didn’t matter back then because no amount of it hides the flaws that people hated the sets.
Could you elaborate? This is news to me. You're saying MaRo was upset about the set despite how good the sales were because of what now? I'm confused but I can tell you're introducing a useful data point.
@@AustinOrecchio Maro was upset about the designs of both sets of the return to Zendikar, along with how closely that the Innistrad sets followed them, leaving no room for "mystery" or buildup. And yet, they (the Zendikar sets) were ridiculously selling out due to both the Masterpieces as well as the full art lands that made a return after a long hiatus. So the design of the actual sets had no bearing on how well they sold.
@@LordJaroh aaah! Useful data point, indeed. thank you.
I started enjoying the game a lot more when I started printing cards instead of spending 3 days worth of grocery money on shitty precons. If you disagree, grow some class-solidarity and normalize proxying.
It's not even about class-solidarity, it's about realizing when the money you're spending is being wasted on low quality product and refusing to give them money for it
@@ImortalZeus13 that's also a fair argument. I speak to class-solidarity because usually the argument that people make against proxies is "I've spent a lot of money on cards, therefore I expect everyone else at the table to respect MY investment and do the same".
I genuinely did the same thought exercise you did with remembering the five crime families of New Capenna and was genuinely stumped on the Bant one. I could only remember Endless Detour, Ledger Shredder, and Falco Sparas.
Ledger Shredder is actually Obscura ;)
@@armoredbear9668 LMAO, just proves prof's point really.
For draft boosters, this set passes the line of “too much”, at least for our play group at the local game store. We have a consistent draft every single Wednesday night, we have 10-16 each week. We have been talking each and every week how excited we are for double masters 2, debating pick orders, hyping what archetypes we are excited to draft, equating it to “cube masters”. The local game store told us early on they’d be holding back three boxes (50% of all they are getting) to let us draft it at least once if not twice. This week they told us they’d have to charge $55 for the draft… the group asked me to bring my cube (which by the way, we’ve been playing instead of the catastrophe of commander legends) because everyone agreed “fuck that, not worth it.
I'm on a very strict "one copy then proxy" policy (the occasional precon notwithstanding). I'm hardly buying anything from this set. Maybe Force of Negation if the price drops low enough. I have copies of nearly every other card I could want to play, so the only things I know I want are Elenda and Unearth in full art and an etched Yahenni, because I am slowly blinging out my pet Extus deck with alternate arts.
I'm kind in the same situation. Beeing a commander player, I don't mind paying a lot for one card (even if there are limits), but I don't want to have to pay for multiple copies of expensive cards. I try to not use the same cards in my decks, but when you need a better mana base... it's kind of unavoidable to some extend when you have more than two colors.
I currently don't own proxies, but I want to make an old border artifact deck (with old borders even on newer cards), so I'll be proxying a good amount of cards in the process to own a bit more dual lands and triomes.
@ yeah, kind of depends on your play group too. If you need to bump up to 7 from 4-5, alot of that comes from staples and mana base.
@@joshholmes1372 I play a lot of basics and kind of avoid staples, beeing because of price or fun factor. But yeah, a solid mana base for a five colored deck is very pricey if you want it to work well. I have two four colored decks with solid mana bases (fetches and trilands) but my five colored ones are kind of nearly basics only with a few slow fetches thrown in there. I do think basics might be underplayed, but even so, we don't have nearly enough basics support for fixing in the land slot (fabled passage is probably the best, with prismatic vista, but prismatic vista is essentially a fetchland and as such is very expensive). Dual lands should really be more affordable. The innistrad slow lands are already becoming quite expensive despite beeing printed very recently.
@ I run basics over bad duals. But you need some level of fixing in 5 colors. Fetches, good duals, triomes help supplement. Obviously command tower and exotic orchard are easy to come by, but forbidden orchard, city of brass and mana confluence are not.
I’m curious- what’s your logic for a person needing to own a single copy?
"Let them complain. As long as the addictive ink is working, we can do anything we want.”
I'm never gonna forget what that one dude said, "This product is not for you." I wonder if that guy is still there?
Best ending to a dies to removal ever! I love you Brian and Vince! Never stop doing what you do
As soon as they announced Double Masters 2 everyone knew Dockside was going to be in that set.
Doesn’t matter that it’s a commander card, Double Masters 2 is where the card was being printed.
It's funny that Vince mentioned not releasing the same day as Call of Duty as an example because that's EXACTLY what happened to Titanfall 2. EA released right in the middle of Battlefield and COD because they thought "well usually they get 2 games around this time period, they'll get our two games and skip on COD." While TTF2 wasn't a straight failure or anything, it would be a while for it to truly get eyes on it due to this horrific release date.
Same with Horizon Zero Dawn releasing a week before Before the of the Wild and again with Horizon Forbidden West releasing a week before Elden Ring.
WotC has a number of positions on LinkedIn for “Data Analyst (tabletop)” and “business strategy” etc. You don’t need a PHD in Economics to be able to tell how to maximize sales on card board that you control the supply of and realistically can also manipulate the demand of with rares and print runs.
The glee on the Prof's face at 14:45 is giving me life today
While I agree that sets are getting too expensive, and reprints aren't being done right, the idea that people aren't going to buy Secret Lairs without a staple card in it is ridiculous. Among the first Secret Lairs, the Cat one with the worst reprint value was the highest sold. They have multiple Secret Lairs with nothing other than basic lands.
People buy Secret Lairs without chase staples, they buy them for the art and exclusivity of them.
I buy it for the reprints, and any time I discuss the Secret Lair I state openly it should be about fancy reprints. Why is there no Medallion one as people need the reprint and it would be nice for new artwork.
This. The only secret lair I was ever interested in (before they announced a blood bowl one) was the Bob Ross land set.
The 4 pack collectors box is just ludicrous... I know it's for "whales" and of course people are gonna buy it. Doesn't mean it's right to charge that much for it. Just because a business CAN do something doesn't mean they should...
Unfortunately we're at the part of capitalism where businesses don't just want lots of money, they want, as James Stephanie Stirling says: all of the money.
why not?
@@cooljoe500 because I believe companies have a responsibility to not just make money for their shareholders but to also make ethical decisions that benefit their consumers.
@@brandondraheim3149 They did exactly what you are describing. See: Draft Boosters. If you think the price of collectors boosters are ludicrous, you're not the intended customer. They made another product for you. Are car companies unethical because they make sports cars as well as economy cars?
@@tableturns9619 Hey uhhhh jackass, people aren't buying cars every other month that are also being made more and more expensive while also hiding their MSRP. Your analogy sucks, whales suck, you suck, shut up.
I played magic back in high-school and it was a lot of fun! I enjoyed deck building, etc. Coming from a family that was into trading cards and sports cards-even the boxes were priced in a way that for like the holidays or special occasions, I could get packs or even a booster box without destroying the bank. Fast forward to today, looking at some deck prices and even box prices-whew what a difference it is. I get that different products scratch different itches but it is really confusing. Not to mention if one were to walk into a LGS or even a retail store (walmart/target, etc) you are still getting some sticker shock. Not knowing what a commander deck is-seeing it selling msrp for like $50 when a decade ago most card game precons sold for maybe $15-20-that's crazy town.
Great video Prof! I live in Buenos Aires and Pauper is the hottest competitive format, lot of events everywhere every week. Of course MTG is pretty expensive here.
I feel like the thing that needs to be talked about more with this set is how many garbage rares are in this set.
We have constantly been squealing and beaming about all the quality reprints of cards that definitely needed the reprint, that I feel like the conversation of how much chaff rares have been shoved into this is being overlooked. With 120 rares and 40 mythics, it's silly to think that you have good odds of actually getting something you want, or even value. I don't think people see that when they see this box price, they see all the amazing couple dozen, and feel like it's almost like we are being tricked into thinking that the extra rare slot is going to actually make a difference.
The extra rare slot is exclusively for the bulk rare cards.
Yep, its purely a lotto ticket, there is a good chance you will get a box that is worth under $100 but just maybe you will pull a winner or two out of it.
It's never going to stop. Look at Sports cards. They have "single" packs that sell for like $3,000.00 dollars. They do lots of limited print stuff in those sets, but as long as Magic follows a similar line for collectors, it will never stop. It will only stop if there isn't anything in the set to attract a collector's interest.
Sports cards are collectibles only. That makes a huge different. Magic is a game meant to be played as well as collecting. Not saying you’re wrong or anything but the difference between the two is very big.
@@KLang509 There's a difference between understanding why something is the way it is and thinking it should be different. OP was trying to explain what is, not what should be.
@@KLang509 more simply put, Magic as a collectible is more profitable than it is as a game.
That doesn't mean they have to be mutually exclusive, but going forward, the collectible aspect is going to keep being focused on heavily.
As a former LGS owner I can safely say you are off the mark about blocks. People may say they want 3 set blocks, but lack of sales were crushing the further into the block they went. The current model may not be best for a portion of the player base, but sales clearly indicated that block burnout was a thing.
How long were you a store owner? How many blocks came out when you owned the store? Your saying that players don't want blocks is useless without hard data. It is literally the definition of anecdotal. In your experience, in your store, for whatever time period this took place in, you noticed block burnout. That doesn't mean that it is true, nor does it mean that WotC is being entirely honest with regards to the sales.
I take all your content serious and I applaud you for keeping up with the pace of magic. I have enough money to collect these sets but I don't have time and in turn I get burned out. The only reason I would want to buy double masters is because of the rarity. TY for your time and content. It means a lot to me!
Brian should come with a glossary. Taking the Mick is going deep into the UK idiom pool.
Man, I am distracted by the video. VINCE should come with a British to American translation.
I’m getting 3 draft pack bundle for 30.29 from Amazon, so I think the draft packs were supposed to be around $10.
Where on Amazon did you find that, when I checked it was over $15 a pack and nearly $400 a box.
@@falconJB I got it and locked in the price when it was first listed. They charge you when it ships.
I think the issue with three set blocks was individual card quality stuffers and you have to much bulk, but that could just be bad design like dragons maze. I think two set blocks are a good compromise.
I think 2-set model is probably the sweet spot? 3-set occasionally dragged on a bit, but moving to two sets would help with fatigue and ALSO - Ravnica Allegiance into Guilds of Ravnica into War of the Spark was one of the most easy to follow bits of recent standard - so maybe it really wasn't broken.
Dear WoTC; I got into Magic from Yu-Gi-Oh a few years ago. I enjoyed the powerful effects, diverse formats, and rich story. The game was fun because you could pick basically any idea and you could find the cards you needed to build a deck around it. As time has gone on, it seems like you've actively tried to make the game as player-unfriendly as possible - the average quality of commons and uncommons has dropped, the barriers to entry have risen, the prices have gone up, and the story has become increasingly rushed and inconsistent. The last MTG product I bought was the New Capenna prerelease, because I thought it would be fun to play with friends. I was disappointed in the experience, which is a shame because I was so excited to see something so genuinely new in the game. I don't think that the experience was worth the price of a Steam bundle. There are still plenty of Yu-Gi-Oh players out there, though, and I can get almost any Yu-Gi-Oh deck I want for around $20. If nothing changes, I might go back to Yu-Gi-Oh.
Here in Canada, facetofacegames has a draft booster box currently at 499.99$ (CAD). So...i'm priced out. Good Game.
That’s absolutely absurd. The prices in the US and UK are already nuts, but like... holy fuck. How do they make ANY sales?
@@jamestrevelyan1268 Well F2F tends to be the most expensive place especially when 401games is 439 CAD (332 USD). Which is still a lot but that is price after all spoilers. Before spoilers they were ~320 CAD (250 USD).
But honestly Wizards should reintroduce the MMRSP so that people are much more aware of how badly LSG are tipping the scale based on EV of Wizards product. Take a look at any of the sealed constructed decks which magically each have different prices that coincidently cost how much the individual cards cost.
For Sensei's Diving Top, I'd say at least to me specifically, that I want that full art one. Having started playing during Champions of Kamigawa, it's a nice capstone on my "first era" of magic to own the card. It's literally the only card I'm going to go out of my way to get.
Also, the newer Kamigawa might is much more recognizable for a large portion of the player base, so that works out in that regard.
I also need that top.
I love the intro/outrp music so much!
I think they wouldn't want to reprint modern horizon 2 cards so fast because then modern horizons 3 won't have maximum FOMO