It's 20 percent more expensive than a set booster. It could be all "rares" the lowest cost pack determines the rarity and ev of play pieces by its in pack distribution, so there is no value added here for paper. Now for digital, it's the opposite,it's awesome if they keep prices the same.
Seth always has a very good take on Modern! The format has simply become the lowest it has ever been. I keep trying to figure out what WoTC's vision is doing all of this crazy stuff, and the only conclusion I can come to is that a rival card game paid all of the WoTC employees to sabotage Magic🤤
Regarding limited popularity at the LGS level - I think limited is one of the few non-EDH events LGSs regularly run. My LGS does something like modern every other week and draft each other week
very an EXTREMELY rural area. before i lived in the same city, the nearest lgs was 45 minutes away. they can never get enough people for draft, they only get college kids for edh and yugioh
The most popular format always has been and will always be "cards I own." People buy way more packs than they could ever reasonably draft, and chase versions of staples and powerhouses make cracking cases almost reasonable. The second most popular format is Commander, which as a singleton casual format, also creates a draw to open set boosters or collector boosters to find your favorite printing of a card. Draft is roughly as popular as any of the remaining formats for events, but most sales aren't driven directly by events, they're driven by people wanting to own a deck or play pickup games with a friend group, etc. Even if a player drafted once per week, that's a single draft box per standard set per player. People who crack boxes do that same thing pretty much every set. If the draft player plays supplemental & compilation sets, they open even fewer packs per set. Meanwhile a box cracking player will crack an entire box per set. Let alone people who buy singles, which indirectly opens lots of packs per set. WotC is releasing more and more sets, which increases how much they make from constructed formats and from collectors, while it makes draft players an ever more (opportunity) expensive group to keep providing for. They'll always only draft the same number of packs regardless of how many sets are released. That's why they dropped the just-for-Drafters version of booster packs. But people still play limited, and WotC sees it as an important aspect of keeping players as players, which is why WotC is even bothered to transition Set boosters into viable drafting pieces as Play boosters.
Finding a regularly firing draft is extremely rare. A lot of stores will SAY they run draft, but what they mean is if enough people show up, and then you show up as the only drafter, and they expect you to buy something because draft didn't fire. However, there is the occasional store that actually has a regular draft. I search for these high and low.
Limited is not as irrelevant as you all seem to think, every LGS across several countries I went to were firing off events at the very least once a week, very often with several tables at once
I stopped about a year ago after pandemic best decision ever I got back into video games and with Elden ring baldur gate armor core I would say it was money better spent
@@colecarmichael5724 Remember that stock analyst who said Hasbro was killing MtG value by chasing profits? The reserved list total value peaked around Jan 2022 at about $200,000 and is now about $110,000.
mostly yes unfortunately, but there has been time players have refused to pay. Aftermath, Commander master was not popular with the price and people stay away i know i did, magic 30 and will see what price the new boxs are they claimed at first they will price them at set box price with i hope but will see
Sir, cardstock and a printer are way cheaper than this nonsense. I've stopped attending competitive magic and just play casually now primarily. I have a couple pioneer, modern, and older format decks, but that won't need much more than singles here or there to keep up with. WotC can go suck a gun.
And the people legitimately talking about EV because they treat MtG as a stock portfolio I would rather not buy cards anyways. All the speculators do is gatekeep accessibility to the game.
At this point, I'm exclusively a limited and EDH player. While it sucks that limited is gonna be a bit more expensive, I like the idea of being able to crack some interesting reprints in the limited cardpool.
Limited is not as irrelevant as you all seem to think, every LGS across several countries I went to were firing off events at the very least once a week, very often with several tables at once
🎉them making one less item each release is a great thing for players and stores. Draft box and collector box and fat pack and two commander decks is all that is needed each set, I could hear the argument for four commander decks just so they have an environment where they are balanced against each other
Having multiple commander decks *in every set* is way too much IMO. I preferred it when they weren't anchored to a set, and we got only a few per year. If they want to print direct-to-commander in every set, make one deck and that's it. If all the cards you want to print won't fit in one deck, then make it a bundle. I'd actually prefer if they weren't advertised as decks at that point though, but rather as a toolkit. Now you're not shackled by color identity or needing a copy of Sol ring and all the crappiest dual lands in all three decks, you can just have the one in the toolkit. And you can put an izzit (ru) card in there even though the decks are mono-black and Naya (wrg) for the set. The toolkit-per-set model has the major advantage of encouraging people into the usual pattern of personalizing their deck straight away, on top of not being limited by color identity. It does have the major downside of not being technically ready-to-play, but precons often are only technically ready to play. Also, it is more difficult to have a toolkit be as thematically resonant as "Fae Dominion vs Virtue and Valor" for example, but I'd argue it is quite possible to just put that on the tin, X vs Y, or be otherwise creative. I can see the benefits of a set of decks that can be bought and play nicely against the other out of the box. I don't think we need a new round of them every single set.
Almost agree 100% with you just leave out the commander decks then it would be a great direction. Commander can have it's own set. When they keep squeezing them together it just clogs it up
39:20 my favorite thing about Magic and the different formats was seeing all the different synergies and deck builds that would rise in the meta. Thoughts go to Matt Nass and Sam Black but also to home brewers and teams that play test formats to estimate the full meta. Now I feel like every format is curated by sets like MH. The thing that really shines a light on this "curated formats" feeling is Historic Anthology of all things. Taking a format and putting specific cards in at specific times/timing.
This is about making more money, but it's not about the 1 less common per pack. It's about not losing printer time/capacity to make and distribute their least pofitable product, so those factories can be printing higher-margine products 24/7. Their gamble is that the minor rejiggering of Set into Play boosters won't damage the community in the long term. Either way, quarterly profits will climb when it happens for a bit.
Maybe I'm alone idk the consensus on the booster change but I love this one of my biggest issues with magic rn is how much there is to keep track of with boosters I just stopped opening sealed product bc i had o clue what cards were in which booster and reducing the confusion and enhancing the pack opening experience is awesome bc genuinely set boosters and draft boosters haven't been good in ages
This is one of the biggest upsides for sure. Magic has gotten super overwhelming and complicated lately with so many products and treatments, I think simplifying things is the biggest upside of this change.
It's unfair to say draft is less popular now when wizards has been sabotaging it. Back when there was one pack drafting made use of the rest of the pack you didn't want to crack. People were brought in because cracking packs with friends and playing Magic is just always going to be more fun than just cracking packs. When you split it up there's very little reason for someone who is a sometimes limited player to enter a draft if they just want the coolest cards because they're more likely to see the cool cards in set boosters. Worse, there are cards exclusive to set booster so why in the world would you buy a draft booster if you're looking to collect all the new rares? Fracturing your playerbase is always going to make them more exclusively do one kind of behavior.
@@stevenpoche6988 the point is this new booster is worse for draft not because one day magic players stopped caring about draft but because wizards made it harder for draft to be popular and then went "see? We have to cater to our playerbase," when in reality they just wanted to hike prices and make packs less draftable in the first place.
They designed cards where opponents pick one, but realized it was too hard to balance as players will always pick the one that benefits them and not the other. This is that mechanic in retail.
That's what they said in the linked announcement. The split made inventories awkward at best. Some entire regions just didn't have any draft packs because their printing facilities couldn't supply both, apparently.
Also the one less card for pack will very rarely affect modern limited formats b/c the VAST majority of commons are at least marginally playable unlike 20 years ago, You will basically always be cutting 3-5+ playables from your deck with normal boosters even if you you are not sure on your 2nd color until pack 2
Yeah, the single less card doesn't really matter. If the sets are badly designed, it wouldn't save it. If the sets are well designed, it won't break it. I'm more worried about the wildcards & list randomness making signals more difficult to parse. If they're always distinguishable so you can tell the a wildcard is missing, it's okay, but if you can't always, that's gonna suck when you get passed a rare, a List card, and a staple uncommon and assume the staple color is open. From WotCs side, they say they went to 14 because 12 (what's in Set boosters) didn't work, so I trust them that 14 works just as well as 15 did, and it's not a cost thing. The way I see this, they're already saving such a gigantic pile of money not printing Draft boosters, printing 15 cards (play, incl ad/art) per booster instead of 14 (set) or 16 (draft) doesn't really matter.
I don’t understand this narrative of “nobody plays paper limited” because Monday draft and prereleases in my area always sell out UNLESS the format is crap or stale. I’ve seen every other format fail to fire on the same night draft sells out, and that is consistently true. Paper limited is the cheapest way to play (especially if you are least decent and can win a couple matches) and simultaneously grow your collection. My fear is that this continues to decrease the value of individual cards compared to the cost of the pack. More rares injected into the market means that only the most chase cards will be worth the cost of a pack, and that means it will be very difficult to break even. There will be even less reason to buy packs over singles, and that seems like it will have the same effect on packs sitting on shelves.
Honestly, most legacy people I know are pretty happy with the format, theres a bunch of diverse archtypes. The threats are pretty similar to modern but we have way, waaaaay better answers so its fine.
I have always bought draft. I get a similar number of rares, less foils (less curls) and a better spread of common and uncommon cards to fill my players. Set boosters left me chasing today common and uncommon cards
WotC have just noticed the damage set boosters have done to the play environment and consumer confidence so they’ve “innovated” their way back to a worse version of what boosters were 5 years ago
New play booster adds- 3 commons new play booster loses set exclusive slot 1 wildcard nonfoil slot 12.5% chance to receive a list card I get that the quality of the list slot will increase, but I still feel like we lost value on average from the set booster. This IS more expensive and I just can't understand it.
French people here. The experience on limited attendance is very different, maybe because of you guys living in the US. The LGS near my house has 2 tables of draft twice a week + 1 table of sealed and it's all booked 1 week in advance, the other LGS I sometime go to has 2 to 3 limited events a week. Listening to the podcast and reading the comments tells me a totally different story.
I liked the discussion about getting rid of your bulk cards. I never keep bulk cards around very long. When I do draft and sealed events I collect a lot of bulk. After I have collected 2000 or 3000 cards I sell them on ebay for $125 or $150 plus shipping. Someone is always eager to start a collection of cards to play with. This way I only keep the cards I want to play with. Sometimes I even selloff some of the cards I kept if I decided they don’t really work with my decks or I just don’t really like the card as much as I thought I would.
Let us be honest. They are decreasing the number of cards per pack and increasing the price. It doesn't cost them any more to produce a common as it does a rare.
Got given a 2014-2016 collection, mostly bulk. Separating out 4 of each to "collect" the sets (honestly I should just do 1 of each) and sending the rest to Magikids so I love the shout out for them. Don't let the shipping cost stop you from doing it! Edit: Pauper packs is an interesting idea for a limited format.
As an avid listener an fan of your podcast, I think it would be nice with regular, 1-2 per year, episodes with follow ups on your predictions. If someone says that they think mtg will eventually only be UB, put a flag on it 2-5 years from now. Modern will be handled with power creep? Follow up on it after MH3 etc. It would be interesting to see who actually got reliable predictions and who is just taking the spicy take to make the video engaging in the short term.
For years paper limited was my only FNM that fired. I made so many friends from limited and we started using our prize packs to run a separate draft a bar down the road from FNM once the LGS closed. Eventually it became so popular that our LGS started running a midnight draft so we got two drafts on friday. It was awesome.
Corporate greed is gonna kill much more than just magic the gathering, my friend. Still sucks if draft becomes worse because of this change, of course.
Draft has been dead at my local LGS post-pandemic. That said, they did actually manage to fill three pods for a Wilds of Eldraine draft recently, mainly because they put up the Lotus Petal foil etched promo's as an entry bonus.
What would you think about using the Arena formula for paper? Wotc direct sales of individuals priced at $1-2 per rare and $5 per mythic? Direct sale of packs?
Sigh when I want to draft I want to Draft, I don't want chase cards from the list to fuss with limited, as it turns out commons/uncommon are very important for limited and more rares doesn't always make a better draft, it would be better If they made draft boosters cheaper based on the number of rares in a pack that would make more sense b/c we all know that the value of a pack is basically 100% in the rare slot, like if a collectors booster has like 6~ rares then just make the 1 rare draft boosters 1/6 the price
Wizards, distributors, and LGSs can't move Draft boxes, and they make less from them than they do from Set boosters, and printing Draft boxes takes factory time away from printing Set boxes. They want to stop printing Draft boosters, so they did. They still want drafting to be possible, so they changed Set boosters to be viable to draft with, which is something I guess.
I dislike the “equal EV” argument. From a production standpoint, WotC used to sell packs of 15 playable cards that you could draft and sold them for $100 a box. Now, they reduced the card count by 1 and increased the price by 50%. That’s why this is being done. Do the players make out as well with the increased amount of rares? Maybe? Maybe not? Does WotC make out better by putting less cardboard in the pack and charging 50% more? Yes. Definitely.
When this is implemented, Do you think prerelease events should change to pod formats? Meaning one pod for draft and another for sealed. Hopefully wizards has this plan fully fleshed out.
For Playboosters in limited, the thing is because of powercreep we have mythic level commons and uncommons anyway. So because the C/U slots are getting to be the same power level as rares, in a way this draft environment is just going to be all bombs haha. So it could balance itself out in a weird way.
One point for arena that doesn't seem to be being addressed with these new packs - Gold Packs were introduced with the explicit statement that they were to provide a balanced way for non-drafters to build their collection. They've already reduced the value of Gold Packs over the summer by replacing 1-2 cards in every pack with unwanted alchemy cards; bumping up the EV on drafts effectively continues this process of forcing players back into a format they don't enjoy and don't want to waste their time on, simply because it's the only way to build a collection at a rate that can compete with those who do want to draft.
As a primary Limited player who also does EDH, I hate this so much. wish they combined collectors and set instead. Also my LGS primary just does Limited with a weekly EDH league.... All constructive formats are dead with the rare pauper event
Keep in mind that You only get these kind of Packs in drafting on arena, for individuals like myself, you get the trash packs from the store. Seriously every move wizards makes just feels like it pushes people away. Advocating for a monthly budget plan for Arena that lets you play 100% of all cards in the game for a monthly fee. If WoW, FF14, etc can do it then Wizards can let us play card games and by cosmetics.
Some sort of subscription program for Arena would be awesome. Card rental programs have basically done this for Magic Online and it makes playing the same so much easier (and cheaper).
I wish they would make draft boosters with no mythics, no foils, no extra cards, and sell them cheaply, like $2 each, so draft would be more accessible and stores would still have to buy play boosters as prizes
I think the fear of 4 rares is overblown. We already had that situation in march of the machines (rare, multiverse legend, battle, foil) and it was fine.
Taking Commander precon cards out of Set boosters will dramatically increase the cost of those singles, which is a subtle push against Commander players to try and get them to high roll on Collector boosters.
I am actually the Arena player Seth is talking about the Limited player who picked up standard b/c I incidentally have the entire set of every draftable set going back to 2018 on arena with a high enough win rate to very rarely need to put money into it. Assuming they don't increase the draft price or the number of specifically rares or mythic rares in the set then this does drastically increase the pace at which you get the full set but interestingly this lowers the number of wild cards you get in the process of opening the whole set from prize packs thus stunting you if you want to branch out into historic or explorer, every set I end up with more rare/mythic wild cards from opening prize packs once it become a mathematical garentee that doing so gets the whole set so I can make an historic brawl deck if I want to. I am just worried that more rares will make formats worse drafts, If draft becomes unfun to me I will not play MTG anymore
Interesting, I didn't think about lowering the wildcard rate, that's a good point. Also, Wizards did specifically say that they aren't raising prices for drafts on Arena, so that is good at least.
@@MTGGoldfishPodcast I basically only play standard once I get the whole set from a combination of Drafting and Prize Packs; playing standard obviously cuts into the number of drafts I do so this change would have the knock on effect of me getting less wild cards.
This is just a straight price hike It doesnt matter that there is more potential value in the pack; Wizards is extracting 20% more money from you than before. MTG players rationalize a price increase to themselves by how much "value" there is and then proceed to stuff the card in the binder where it rots or can't liquidate the card because its only $1
They could erata evoke into something that says "exile card name from your hand, get the ability, then put the card in your graveyard". So it doesn't ETB, can't be brought back, etc.
I think you have to view this as it changed from the old system but a change from the original one pack system. Subscription services like Spotify will do this thing where to mask a price increase they will separate the base. They will give a discounted price to a certain group that would not use the service otherwise, like students, when in reality that's the base price. Then after some time they will to the new upcharged price (after you graduate) two are so accustomed you won't quit. Wizards made set boosters and everyone who wasn't a serious drafter or too broke to buy in flocked to the higher ev. Then they pointed at how draft boosters weren't doing well as an excuse to drop them and branded as an upgrade to set boosters. In reality over the course of about 5 years they replaced draft boosters with a more expensive alternative with less cards and a worse experience.
It's only one more chance at a rare/mythic. You already have your guaranteed one, then your foil can be one, then your bonus sheet can be one. Now you just add some card that's probably terrible outside of commander card. Is that really gonna mess things up?
In play boosters your chances of a rare or mythic are actually less than set boosters because one wild card slot that could be rare or mythic is not there but it's the same price as set boosters It's fewer rares or mythics, fewer cards overall at the same price per booster pack. That's less value and a bigger buy in for a box
I want to know if this will change prerelease packs. Those are the most enjoyable thing for me; aside from actual prerelease events which are the only thing I play in stores for years, they also offer a good overview of a whole set with enough to feel like you’ve been invoked while at a much more reasonable price than bundles. If it means still six boosters at the same price with a few more fancy cards then good. But if prerelease packs go up in price that spoils the whole point.
The thing about sealed is that you have to open rares in your colors. Idk how many times I'll have two absolute bombs but literally no support in the colors. So I end up splashing the white rares just because they're bombs in my golgari deck and never end up casting them because I don't have the right fixing. Or someone will just blow it up. Lol. As someone who plays a ton of sealed, I'm more excited that you have a chance to open rares in your colors.
This is a terrible for limited just to make it like a set booster and get rid of extra picks and putting in commander cards in is not worth it. And in regards to LGS ours get a 10-18 players consistently for draft events
Part of what I like about limited is I get to open and keep 3 packs of cards, and not feel guilty about "wasting" that money on cardboard, so I don't really like digital limited as much
Anecdotal but still. My very small LGS has had a floor of 10 people every Friday and our prereleases have had up to 30 the last few sets. Limited is really popular even if some people don’t think it is.
I was told a really good way to fix scam where you make evoke a state based action rather than an etb then it keeps you from being able to scam it back while allowing the creatures to still be playable and it keeps scam playable in legacy where they use reanimate rather than undying evil.
Drafting shouldn't cost more than $15 USD, with sealed capped out at $30. Costing more means we shouldn't do limited because we'll pull less value than we put in. If I can't draft Commander Masters for a fair rate, I'm literally throwing money away to play limited. Bad limited experience with no value = poor price point. If drafting becomes more expensive now that play packs cost more than set boosters, LGSs will have to charge $20 for a draft. We're being priced out of the cheapest method of enjoying the product. Imo keep the extra rares and list slots in collector packs, help keep the EV of collector packs higher while keeping draft (play boosters) cheaper. I'm not going to draft every week or every two weeks for $20 worth of garbage pools
As a limited player I feel this is in the right direction. It seemed the last cycle so many games ive been in were too grindy in the time limit and with the chance of more bombs it will make it more exciting and quicker. Now the list cards and the price worry me but honestly if someone opened a mana crypt it would be exciting whether it was me or the opponent it will sure make a good story to tell.
As someone who played a ccg notorious for erratas (l5r), it's a nightmare to keep track of them (mrp - most recent print) for older format play like legacy. I'd rather explore a restricted list for modern at this point like vintage.
The biggest issue for draft is that, if you aren’t drafting in a pod, then you could end up with fewer chances for rares compared to the people that you get paired against on Arena or MTGO, wouldn’t you say? Even in a pod, I guess you could get hosed if you just keep missing out on extra rares.
I absolutley hate having 1 less card, if they wanted to print 1 less card they should take out the fucking ad for the product i already fucking bought, makes me irrationaly mad.😂😂
Overall I think I like the change, with the whole sealed thing and getting screwed by luck rares and mythic aren't always synergistic some of the best synergy I've seen in limited is in the commons and uncommons and it has always been a little bit of luck in what you open. Also makes it simpler and less stagnant for LGS. I thought they meant the price of the box would be around that of a set booster, I'm only expecting a small change though maybe $130 box also having only the one option I think will help balance it out. If you think about buying sealed it will now be 504 cards for between 130 and 150, with the old set booster it was about 360 cards for 120. Which is about 4 cents cheaper per card, and not many people crack booster packs.
For errata'ing the scam targets... would it be that different from how they changed companions repeatedly so that the cards are now nothing like what was printed? People complain about digital changes, but they've done this stuff to physical cards in this way before.
To be honest, I do commander league with friends anymore. Most, if not all, cards are commander cards, so it makes sense to just build limited commander decks.
Honestly, I’m excited about another price increase. I love seeing all the plebs being priced out complaining they can’t enjoy the best game ever created anymore while I’m sitting pretty cracking packs 😎
How hard would it be to avoid putting the truly silly cards like crypt in the list? We have had pretty powerful archive cards in limited without destroying limited.
I can't get my players to do draft at my gaming store, but I play so much draft on arena. It's just more financially sound to play limited on arena as opposed to in person
Why don’t they just put collector packs and play packs in the same box and have the collector packs as “prize support”? I don’t think having 2 different packs would matter, but if they packaged everything in one box with prize support packs being slotted in it too.
Lol, Finally been priced out of drafting. My low income ass was able to afford the $16 (cad) draft. Can't afford the $25 draft. Turns out "This Product isn't for you" now applies to the game in general for me.
Personally, I prefer sealed to draft, but in general, I only play limtied during prerelease and release weekends. But either way, I think it'll just come down to if they csn design the set around drafting the type of pack. Could be fun could be bad, but without experiencing it, it's probably too early to judge
Are singles going to go up? Most rares are worth 25 cents. Why would i ever open another pack? On another note, all these cheap singles are easy to buy for cube
I kiiiiind of like change, because what made me dislike set boosters was how they felt to draft (bad). It all depends on how "draftable" these actually are.
Every time a card is nerfed at all in Hearthstone you get a full dust refund if you disenchant the card. The fact they don't let you turned nerfed cards back into wild cards is ridiculous.
@@RadstacheAbideskill it, no... probably maybe. I'm just not looking forward to being forced to regularly pass valuable mythics/rares that my opponents will be able to beat me with.
"Rare bombs", "Power Creep" - whatever you want to call it - across all formats as well as monthly set releases are making this game too expensive. They are destroying this game.
i feel like unified modern would be sweet because it would maybe let some unique decks see play if you can't play beanstalk, omnath, and scam all at full power on the same team
Making packs contain maybe 6 cards: 3 common, 2 uncommon, 1 rare/mythic, and pricing them at $1 or $2 would probably see them sell a lot more. Whether thats worth the packaging, I dont know. I dont have those figures.
Ironically the single card prices will still drop bc the rate of rares per pack will be higher overall and you’ll still be spending more money overall for the packs. The gap of breaking even on your boxes will be getting wider.
If it's impossible to answer, "Is this more expensive," then WotC's price raising strategy has worked very well indeed.
It's 20 percent more expensive than a set booster. It could be all "rares" the lowest cost pack determines the rarity and ev of play pieces by its in pack distribution, so there is no value added here for paper.
Now for digital, it's the opposite,it's awesome if they keep prices the same.
Seth always has a very good take on Modern! The format has simply become the lowest it has ever been. I keep trying to figure out what WoTC's vision is doing all of this crazy stuff, and the only conclusion I can come to is that a rival card game paid all of the WoTC employees to sabotage Magic🤤
Daddy listens to the fishcast? The collab we didnt know we needed
Do we have to call Seth granddaddy now?
Somehow you keep making sweet Modern decks though ;)
We need Magic Rainbows on the podcast talking with Seth about brewing. Please Goldfish crew make it happen😍
Regarding limited popularity at the LGS level - I think limited is one of the few non-EDH events LGSs regularly run. My LGS does something like modern every other week and draft each other week
It my experience its really mixed, some areas its hard to find a draft, some areas you can get a draft 2 or 3 times a week.
very an EXTREMELY rural area. before i lived in the same city, the nearest lgs was 45 minutes away. they can never get enough people for draft, they only get college kids for edh and yugioh
The most popular format always has been and will always be "cards I own." People buy way more packs than they could ever reasonably draft, and chase versions of staples and powerhouses make cracking cases almost reasonable.
The second most popular format is Commander, which as a singleton casual format, also creates a draw to open set boosters or collector boosters to find your favorite printing of a card.
Draft is roughly as popular as any of the remaining formats for events, but most sales aren't driven directly by events, they're driven by people wanting to own a deck or play pickup games with a friend group, etc.
Even if a player drafted once per week, that's a single draft box per standard set per player. People who crack boxes do that same thing pretty much every set. If the draft player plays supplemental & compilation sets, they open even fewer packs per set. Meanwhile a box cracking player will crack an entire box per set. Let alone people who buy singles, which indirectly opens lots of packs per set.
WotC is releasing more and more sets, which increases how much they make from constructed formats and from collectors, while it makes draft players an ever more (opportunity) expensive group to keep providing for. They'll always only draft the same number of packs regardless of how many sets are released. That's why they dropped the just-for-Drafters version of booster packs.
But people still play limited, and WotC sees it as an important aspect of keeping players as players, which is why WotC is even bothered to transition Set boosters into viable drafting pieces as Play boosters.
Finding a regularly firing draft is extremely rare. A lot of stores will SAY they run draft, but what they mean is if enough people show up, and then you show up as the only drafter, and they expect you to buy something because draft didn't fire.
However, there is the occasional store that actually has a regular draft. I search for these high and low.
Limited is not as irrelevant as you all seem to think, every LGS across several countries I went to were firing off events at the very least once a week, very often with several tables at once
It somehow still amazes me just how much crap Magic players will take without closing their wallets.
I stopped about a year ago after pandemic best decision ever I got back into video games and with Elden ring baldur gate armor core I would say it was money better spent
@@colecarmichael5724 Remember that stock analyst who said Hasbro was killing MtG value by chasing profits? The reserved list total value peaked around Jan 2022 at about $200,000 and is now about $110,000.
mostly yes unfortunately, but there has been time players have refused to pay. Aftermath, Commander master was not popular with the price and people stay away i know i did, magic 30 and will see what price the new boxs are they claimed at first they will price them at set box price with i hope but will see
pokemon and cardfight vanguard looks pretty appealing right now
Sir, cardstock and a printer are way cheaper than this nonsense. I've stopped attending competitive magic and just play casually now primarily. I have a couple pioneer, modern, and older format decks, but that won't need much more than singles here or there to keep up with.
WotC can go suck a gun.
21:00 Richard is right that the expected value EV language is addicts justifying addiction.
And the people legitimately talking about EV because they treat MtG as a stock portfolio I would rather not buy cards anyways. All the speculators do is gatekeep accessibility to the game.
At this point, I'm exclusively a limited and EDH player. While it sucks that limited is gonna be a bit more expensive, I like the idea of being able to crack some interesting reprints in the limited cardpool.
Limited is not as irrelevant as you all seem to think, every LGS across several countries I went to were firing off events at the very least once a week, very often with several tables at once
🎉them making one less item each release is a great thing for players and stores. Draft box and collector box and fat pack and two commander decks is all that is needed each set, I could hear the argument for four commander decks just so they have an environment where they are balanced against each other
Having multiple commander decks *in every set* is way too much IMO. I preferred it when they weren't anchored to a set, and we got only a few per year.
If they want to print direct-to-commander in every set, make one deck and that's it. If all the cards you want to print won't fit in one deck, then make it a bundle. I'd actually prefer if they weren't advertised as decks at that point though, but rather as a toolkit. Now you're not shackled by color identity or needing a copy of Sol ring and all the crappiest dual lands in all three decks, you can just have the one in the toolkit. And you can put an izzit (ru) card in there even though the decks are mono-black and Naya (wrg) for the set.
The toolkit-per-set model has the major advantage of encouraging people into the usual pattern of personalizing their deck straight away, on top of not being limited by color identity. It does have the major downside of not being technically ready-to-play, but precons often are only technically ready to play. Also, it is more difficult to have a toolkit be as thematically resonant as "Fae Dominion vs Virtue and Valor" for example, but I'd argue it is quite possible to just put that on the tin, X vs Y, or be otherwise creative.
I can see the benefits of a set of decks that can be bought and play nicely against the other out of the box. I don't think we need a new round of them every single set.
Almost agree 100% with you just leave out the commander decks then it would be a great direction. Commander can have it's own set. When they keep squeezing them together it just clogs it up
39:20 my favorite thing about Magic and the different formats was seeing all the different synergies and deck builds that would rise in the meta. Thoughts go to Matt Nass and Sam Black but also to home brewers and teams that play test formats to estimate the full meta.
Now I feel like every format is curated by sets like MH.
The thing that really shines a light on this "curated formats" feeling is Historic Anthology of all things.
Taking a format and putting specific cards in at specific times/timing.
This is about making more money, but it's not about the 1 less common per pack. It's about not losing printer time/capacity to make and distribute their least pofitable product, so those factories can be printing higher-margine products 24/7.
Their gamble is that the minor rejiggering of Set into Play boosters won't damage the community in the long term. Either way, quarterly profits will climb when it happens for a bit.
48:29 the lesson is you have to take away one card at a time slowly and charge more at the same time 😂😂
Maybe I'm alone idk the consensus on the booster change but I love this one of my biggest issues with magic rn is how much there is to keep track of with boosters I just stopped opening sealed product bc i had o clue what cards were in which booster and reducing the confusion and enhancing the pack opening experience is awesome bc genuinely set boosters and draft boosters haven't been good in ages
Wouldn’t have been an issue if WOTC never introduced Set or Collector boosters in the first place
This is one of the biggest upsides for sure. Magic has gotten super overwhelming and complicated lately with so many products and treatments, I think simplifying things is the biggest upside of this change.
I'm pretty sure the elementals have been the biggest and most long running mistake of modern horizons 2.
It's unfair to say draft is less popular now when wizards has been sabotaging it. Back when there was one pack drafting made use of the rest of the pack you didn't want to crack. People were brought in because cracking packs with friends and playing Magic is just always going to be more fun than just cracking packs. When you split it up there's very little reason for someone who is a sometimes limited player to enter a draft if they just want the coolest cards because they're more likely to see the cool cards in set boosters. Worse, there are cards exclusive to set booster so why in the world would you buy a draft booster if you're looking to collect all the new rares? Fracturing your playerbase is always going to make them more exclusively do one kind of behavior.
Well, that's why they're doing Play boosters. To unfracture it.
@@stevenpoche6988 the point is this new booster is worse for draft not because one day magic players stopped caring about draft but because wizards made it harder for draft to be popular and then went "see? We have to cater to our playerbase," when in reality they just wanted to hike prices and make packs less draftable in the first place.
They designed cards where opponents pick one, but realized it was too hard to balance as players will always pick the one that benefits them and not the other.
This is that mechanic in retail.
This might actually return draft irl. I feel that Stores stopped doing drafts when they had to buy 3 different versions of packs.
That's what they said in the linked announcement. The split made inventories awkward at best. Some entire regions just didn't have any draft packs because their printing facilities couldn't supply both, apparently.
Also the one less card for pack will very rarely affect modern limited formats b/c the VAST majority of commons are at least marginally playable unlike 20 years ago, You will basically always be cutting 3-5+ playables from your deck with normal boosters even if you you are not sure on your 2nd color until pack 2
Yeah, the single less card doesn't really matter. If the sets are badly designed, it wouldn't save it. If the sets are well designed, it won't break it. I'm more worried about the wildcards & list randomness making signals more difficult to parse. If they're always distinguishable so you can tell the a wildcard is missing, it's okay, but if you can't always, that's gonna suck when you get passed a rare, a List card, and a staple uncommon and assume the staple color is open.
From WotCs side, they say they went to 14 because 12 (what's in Set boosters) didn't work, so I trust them that 14 works just as well as 15 did, and it's not a cost thing. The way I see this, they're already saving such a gigantic pile of money not printing Draft boosters, printing 15 cards (play, incl ad/art) per booster instead of 14 (set) or 16 (draft) doesn't really matter.
This will mean pre-release kits are going up. About 10$ every event. Instead of 40$ next year it will cost you 50$
Where are you doing pre release events geez, most I've seen are 30
Dollar sign before numerals. $40
Prerelease events have been 25 dollars who has been charging you 40 💀
I don’t understand this narrative of “nobody plays paper limited” because Monday draft and prereleases in my area always sell out UNLESS the format is crap or stale. I’ve seen every other format fail to fire on the same night draft sells out, and that is consistently true. Paper limited is the cheapest way to play (especially if you are least decent and can win a couple matches) and simultaneously grow your collection. My fear is that this continues to decrease the value of individual cards compared to the cost of the pack. More rares injected into the market means that only the most chase cards will be worth the cost of a pack, and that means it will be very difficult to break even. There will be even less reason to buy packs over singles, and that seems like it will have the same effect on packs sitting on shelves.
Honestly, most legacy people I know are pretty happy with the format, theres a bunch of diverse archtypes. The threats are pretty similar to modern but we have way, waaaaay better answers so its fine.
I have always bought draft. I get a similar number of rares, less foils (less curls) and a better spread of common and uncommon cards to fill my players. Set boosters left me chasing today common and uncommon cards
WotC have just noticed the damage set boosters have done to the play environment and consumer confidence so they’ve “innovated” their way back to a worse version of what boosters were 5 years ago
They said this was designed over two years, so it's more like they knew it was bad within 5 sets.
New play booster adds-
3 commons
new play booster loses
set exclusive slot
1 wildcard nonfoil slot
12.5% chance to receive a list card
I get that the quality of the list slot will increase, but I still feel like we lost value on average from the set booster. This IS more expensive and I just can't understand it.
French people here. The experience on limited attendance is very different, maybe because of you guys living in the US. The LGS near my house has 2 tables of draft twice a week + 1 table of sealed and it's all booked 1 week in advance, the other LGS I sometime go to has 2 to 3 limited events a week. Listening to the podcast and reading the comments tells me a totally different story.
If there's only 14 cards per pack, how is it better for draft? Now two less players get a card per rotation.
I liked the discussion about getting rid of your bulk cards. I never keep bulk cards around very long. When I do draft and sealed events I collect a lot of bulk. After I have collected 2000 or 3000 cards I sell them on ebay for $125 or $150 plus shipping. Someone is always eager to start a collection of cards to play with. This way I only keep the cards I want to play with.
Sometimes I even selloff some of the cards I kept if I decided they don’t really work with my decks or I just don’t really like the card as much as I thought I would.
Now the change to Arena's pack opening experience makes perfect sense. Those tricky dogs 😂
Let us be honest. They are decreasing the number of cards per pack and increasing the price. It doesn't cost them any more to produce a common as it does a rare.
That missing card could have been another non foil wild card to more closely resemble the potential value of a set booster
tinfoil hat theory: They won't ban the elementals because they will be reprinted in MH3
So happy that commander is mostly proxy friendly
Got given a 2014-2016 collection, mostly bulk. Separating out 4 of each to "collect" the sets (honestly I should just do 1 of each) and sending the rest to Magikids so I love the shout out for them. Don't let the shipping cost stop you from doing it!
Edit: Pauper packs is an interesting idea for a limited format.
As an avid listener an fan of your podcast, I think it would be nice with regular, 1-2 per year, episodes with follow ups on your predictions.
If someone says that they think mtg will eventually only be UB, put a flag on it 2-5 years from now. Modern will be handled with power creep? Follow up on it after MH3 etc. It would be interesting to see who actually got reliable predictions and who is just taking the spicy take to make the video engaging in the short term.
For years paper limited was my only FNM that fired. I made so many friends from limited and we started using our prize packs to run a separate draft a bar down the road from FNM once the LGS closed. Eventually it became so popular that our LGS started running a midnight draft so we got two drafts on friday. It was awesome.
Corporate greed is really gonna kill this game
Corporate greed is gonna kill much more than just magic the gathering, my friend. Still sucks if draft becomes worse because of this change, of course.
Draft has been dead at my local LGS post-pandemic. That said, they did actually manage to fill three pods for a Wilds of Eldraine draft recently, mainly because they put up the Lotus Petal foil etched promo's as an entry bonus.
Well, guess I'm likely quitting magic. Fucking with the draft booster was the one line.
What would you think about using the Arena formula for paper? Wotc direct sales of individuals priced at $1-2 per rare and $5 per mythic? Direct sale of packs?
Sigh when I want to draft I want to Draft, I don't want chase cards from the list to fuss with limited, as it turns out commons/uncommon are very important for limited and more rares doesn't always make a better draft, it would be better If they made draft boosters cheaper based on the number of rares in a pack that would make more sense b/c we all know that the value of a pack is basically 100% in the rare slot, like if a collectors booster has like 6~ rares then just make the 1 rare draft boosters 1/6 the price
Wizards, distributors, and LGSs can't move Draft boxes, and they make less from them than they do from Set boosters, and printing Draft boxes takes factory time away from printing Set boxes.
They want to stop printing Draft boosters, so they did. They still want drafting to be possible, so they changed Set boosters to be viable to draft with, which is something I guess.
It's all cardboard. It all has the same value.
We play draft every week at our LGS and we get 24 players for three draft pods regularly.
similarly my lgs pops of two pods regularly but the 5 other stores in a 20 mile radius may not pop off at all which is a drag
You can hear every inhale Seth makes and it’s wild lol
It's unfortunate because limited was the only low power format left
Pauper?
I dislike the “equal EV” argument. From a production standpoint, WotC used to sell packs of 15 playable cards that you could draft and sold them for $100 a box. Now, they reduced the card count by 1 and increased the price by 50%.
That’s why this is being done. Do the players make out as well with the increased amount of rares? Maybe? Maybe not? Does WotC make out better by putting less cardboard in the pack and charging 50% more? Yes. Definitely.
When this is implemented, Do you think prerelease events should change to pod formats? Meaning one pod for draft and another for sealed.
Hopefully wizards has this plan fully fleshed out.
Team unified Modern is awesome to watch and a blast to play. I went to a team unified event with some friends and it's my absolute favorite format.
For Playboosters in limited, the thing is because of powercreep we have mythic level commons and uncommons anyway. So because the C/U slots are getting to be the same power level as rares, in a way this draft environment is just going to be all bombs haha. So it could balance itself out in a weird way.
The lgs I normally go to went from alternating pauper and draft on friday to pauper every friday due to low turnout for draft
But there are many lgs's in my area, one runs draft every Friday and one runs pioneer every Friday
One point for arena that doesn't seem to be being addressed with these new packs - Gold Packs were introduced with the explicit statement that they were to provide a balanced way for non-drafters to build their collection. They've already reduced the value of Gold Packs over the summer by replacing 1-2 cards in every pack with unwanted alchemy cards; bumping up the EV on drafts effectively continues this process of forcing players back into a format they don't enjoy and don't want to waste their time on, simply because it's the only way to build a collection at a rate that can compete with those who do want to draft.
“Limited is really popping off but no body plays it” lol please explain..
As a primary Limited player who also does EDH, I hate this so much. wish they combined collectors and set instead. Also my LGS primary just does Limited with a weekly EDH league.... All constructive formats are dead with the rare pauper event
viva le pauvres
Keep in mind that You only get these kind of Packs in drafting on arena, for individuals like myself, you get the trash packs from the store. Seriously every move wizards makes just feels like it pushes people away.
Advocating for a monthly budget plan for Arena that lets you play 100% of all cards in the game for a monthly fee. If WoW, FF14, etc can do it then Wizards can let us play card games and by cosmetics.
Some sort of subscription program for Arena would be awesome. Card rental programs have basically done this for Magic Online and it makes playing the same so much easier (and cheaper).
I wish they would make draft boosters with no mythics, no foils, no extra cards, and sell them cheaply, like $2 each, so draft would be more accessible and stores would still have to buy play boosters as prizes
I think the fear of 4 rares is overblown. We already had that situation in march of the machines (rare, multiverse legend, battle, foil) and it was fine.
So at my lgs it's $19.00 to draft on FNM. Will these new play booster effect the draft price?
Draft players: “We actually love low powered formats! Bombs bad, jank good!”
*Ixalan draft appears*
Draft players: “HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS”
Typal draft is cringe
What are you talking about ixalan was a 16 land format where you can't block
@ltmaid tribal draft is based though.
@@cooljoe500 and also redpilled.
How much will Play booster boxes be when they do the Amazon Dump???
This is legit the first time I've heard of troll and toad. I learned in '08 and have been 'heavily involved' since '14.
My store just stared a full Draft league weekly for a month or 2. We draft 2 other days a week.
Taking Commander precon cards out of Set boosters will dramatically increase the cost of those singles, which is a subtle push against Commander players to try and get them to high roll on Collector boosters.
I am actually the Arena player Seth is talking about the Limited player who picked up standard b/c I incidentally have the entire set of every draftable set going back to 2018 on arena with a high enough win rate to very rarely need to put money into it. Assuming they don't increase the draft price or the number of specifically rares or mythic rares in the set then this does drastically increase the pace at which you get the full set but interestingly this lowers the number of wild cards you get in the process of opening the whole set from prize packs thus stunting you if you want to branch out into historic or explorer, every set I end up with more rare/mythic wild cards from opening prize packs once it become a mathematical garentee that doing so gets the whole set so I can make an historic brawl deck if I want to. I am just worried that more rares will make formats worse drafts, If draft becomes unfun to me I will not play MTG anymore
Interesting, I didn't think about lowering the wildcard rate, that's a good point. Also, Wizards did specifically say that they aren't raising prices for drafts on Arena, so that is good at least.
@@MTGGoldfishPodcast I basically only play standard once I get the whole set from a combination of Drafting and Prize Packs; playing standard obviously cuts into the number of drafts I do so this change would have the knock on effect of me getting less wild cards.
This is just a straight price hike
It doesnt matter that there is more potential value in the pack; Wizards is extracting 20% more money from you than before.
MTG players rationalize a price increase to themselves by how much "value" there is and then proceed to stuff the card in the binder where it rots or can't liquidate the card because its only $1
They could erata evoke into something that says "exile card name from your hand, get the ability, then put the card in your graveyard". So it doesn't ETB, can't be brought back, etc.
I think you have to view this as it changed from the old system but a change from the original one pack system. Subscription services like Spotify will do this thing where to mask a price increase they will separate the base. They will give a discounted price to a certain group that would not use the service otherwise, like students, when in reality that's the base price. Then after some time they will to the new upcharged price (after you graduate) two are so accustomed you won't quit. Wizards made set boosters and everyone who wasn't a serious drafter or too broke to buy in flocked to the higher ev. Then they pointed at how draft boosters weren't doing well as an excuse to drop them and branded as an upgrade to set boosters. In reality over the course of about 5 years they replaced draft boosters with a more expensive alternative with less cards and a worse experience.
Yes, this was all by design.
It's only one more chance at a rare/mythic. You already have your guaranteed one, then your foil can be one, then your bonus sheet can be one. Now you just add some card that's probably terrible outside of commander card. Is that really gonna mess things up?
In play boosters your chances of a rare or mythic are actually less than set boosters because one wild card slot that could be rare or mythic is not there but it's the same price as set boosters
It's fewer rares or mythics, fewer cards overall at the same price per booster pack. That's less value and a bigger buy in for a box
I want to know if this will change prerelease packs. Those are the most enjoyable thing for me; aside from actual prerelease events which are the only thing I play in stores for years, they also offer a good overview of a whole set with enough to feel like you’ve been invoked while at a much more reasonable price than bundles. If it means still six boosters at the same price with a few more fancy cards then good. But if prerelease packs go up in price that spoils the whole point.
The thing about sealed is that you have to open rares in your colors. Idk how many times I'll have two absolute bombs but literally no support in the colors. So I end up splashing the white rares just because they're bombs in my golgari deck and never end up casting them because I don't have the right fixing. Or someone will just blow it up. Lol. As someone who plays a ton of sealed, I'm more excited that you have a chance to open rares in your colors.
This is a terrible for limited just to make it like a set booster and get rid of extra picks and putting in commander cards in is not worth it. And in regards to LGS ours get a 10-18 players consistently for draft events
Part of what I like about limited is I get to open and keep 3 packs of cards, and not feel guilty about "wasting" that money on cardboard, so I don't really like digital limited as much
Anecdotal but still. My very small LGS has had a floor of 10 people every Friday and our prereleases have had up to 30 the last few sets. Limited is really popular even if some people don’t think it is.
Even if this doesnt kill draft it will kill sealed
Nah. 6 of the last 9 standard sets already had the chance to open three rares and they didn't kill sealed.
I was told a really good way to fix scam where you make evoke a state based action rather than an etb then it keeps you from being able to scam it back while allowing the creatures to still be playable and it keeps scam playable in legacy where they use reanimate rather than undying evil.
Drafting shouldn't cost more than $15 USD, with sealed capped out at $30. Costing more means we shouldn't do limited because we'll pull less value than we put in. If I can't draft Commander Masters for a fair rate, I'm literally throwing money away to play limited. Bad limited experience with no value = poor price point.
If drafting becomes more expensive now that play packs cost more than set boosters, LGSs will have to charge $20 for a draft. We're being priced out of the cheapest method of enjoying the product. Imo keep the extra rares and list slots in collector packs, help keep the EV of collector packs higher while keeping draft (play boosters) cheaper. I'm not going to draft every week or every two weeks for $20 worth of garbage pools
As a limited player I feel this is in the right direction. It seemed the last cycle so many games ive been in were too grindy in the time limit and with the chance of more bombs it will make it more exciting and quicker. Now the list cards and the price worry me but honestly if someone opened a mana crypt it would be exciting whether it was me or the opponent it will sure make a good story to tell.
12+ turn limited games are what I live for
As someone who played a ccg notorious for erratas (l5r), it's a nightmare to keep track of them (mrp - most recent print) for older format play like legacy. I'd rather explore a restricted list for modern at this point like vintage.
I drafted set boosters before and had a lot of fun. I have an open mind
The biggest issue for draft is that, if you aren’t drafting in a pod, then you could end up with fewer chances for rares compared to the people that you get paired against on Arena or MTGO, wouldn’t you say? Even in a pod, I guess you could get hosed if you just keep missing out on extra rares.
I absolutley hate having 1 less card, if they wanted to print 1 less card they should take out the fucking ad for the product i already fucking bought, makes me irrationaly mad.😂😂
Overall I think I like the change, with the whole sealed thing and getting screwed by luck rares and mythic aren't always synergistic some of the best synergy I've seen in limited is in the commons and uncommons and it has always been a little bit of luck in what you open. Also makes it simpler and less stagnant for LGS. I thought they meant the price of the box would be around that of a set booster, I'm only expecting a small change though maybe $130 box also having only the one option I think will help balance it out. If you think about buying sealed it will now be 504 cards for between 130 and 150, with the old set booster it was about 360 cards for 120. Which is about 4 cents cheaper per card, and not many people crack booster packs.
For errata'ing the scam targets... would it be that different from how they changed companions repeatedly so that the cards are now nothing like what was printed? People complain about digital changes, but they've done this stuff to physical cards in this way before.
To be honest, I do commander league with friends anymore. Most, if not all, cards are commander cards, so it makes sense to just build limited commander decks.
Honestly, I’m excited about another price increase. I love seeing all the plebs being priced out complaining they can’t enjoy the best game ever created anymore while I’m sitting pretty cracking packs 😎
How hard would it be to avoid putting the truly silly cards like crypt in the list? We have had pretty powerful archive cards in limited without destroying limited.
I can't get my players to do draft at my gaming store, but I play so much draft on arena. It's just more financially sound to play limited on arena as opposed to in person
Why don’t they just put collector packs and play packs in the same box and have the collector packs as “prize support”? I don’t think having 2 different packs would matter, but if they packaged everything in one box with prize support packs being slotted in it too.
Lol, Finally been priced out of drafting. My low income ass was able to afford the $16 (cad) draft. Can't afford the $25 draft. Turns out "This Product isn't for you" now applies to the game in general for me.
I only buy draft boxes and only for draft play. I don't know how this will impact limited, but I honestly don't buy much mtg anymore.
drafting is by far the best way to play
Personally, I prefer sealed to draft, but in general, I only play limtied during prerelease and release weekends. But either way, I think it'll just come down to if they csn design the set around drafting the type of pack. Could be fun could be bad, but without experiencing it, it's probably too early to judge
Are singles going to go up? Most rares are worth 25 cents. Why would i ever open another pack? On another note, all these cheap singles are easy to buy for cube
I kiiiiind of like change, because what made me dislike set boosters was how they felt to draft (bad). It all depends on how "draftable" these actually are.
Every time a card is nerfed at all in Hearthstone you get a full dust refund if you disenchant the card. The fact they don't let you turned nerfed cards back into wild cards is ridiculous.
They just want your money. They don't give a fuck about you or your experience once they have that.
Seth I have a modified list for a Neo Form deck that would be really fun to play in pioneer.
RIP draft. The only format Wizards had been getting right the past few years.
Painfully true
this will not kill draft. the sky is not falling, like always.
@@RadstacheAbideskill it, no... probably maybe. I'm just not looking forward to being forced to regularly pass valuable mythics/rares that my opponents will be able to beat me with.
@@masterthnag105 i mean, then pick, dont pass. this isnt the first time multiple rares have appeared in a draftable magic booster
We talk as though Hasbro's greed has ever actually made mtg players quit. We'll play through everything
They could have made set boosters draftable to begin with, and slowly evolved it
"Rare bombs", "Power Creep" - whatever you want to call it - across all formats as well as monthly set releases are making this game too expensive. They are destroying this game.
Aftermath should've been promo packs (3 cards per pack, given as prizes).
why do they keep saying 150 for box i mostly pay 120 for set box they said they would price them at set booster box.
I think it's because current set boxes have 30 packs but play booster boxes will have 36. Per pack price is the same, but more packs.
i feel like unified modern would be sweet because it would maybe let some unique decks see play if you can't play beanstalk, omnath, and scam all at full power on the same team
Making packs contain maybe 6 cards: 3 common, 2 uncommon, 1 rare/mythic, and pricing them at $1 or $2 would probably see them sell a lot more. Whether thats worth the packaging, I dont know. I dont have those figures.
Ironically the single card prices will still drop bc the rate of rares per pack will be higher overall and you’ll still be spending more money overall for the packs. The gap of breaking even on your boxes will be getting wider.
It begs the question- exactly how many people pay attention to the ad card? Just put a token in every pack! Or give another card in the slot.