Is market manipulation/buyouts bad for Magic?

Shaymin EX getting cheaper needed to happen if they wanted Expanded to last, it's just that the Pokemon company went back on their word that Roaring Skies was done being printed.

Yes, the secondary market is a cancer on the game, but it's a significant revenue stream for WOTC. It's also unavoidable given the limited print runs and random chance card distributions in boosters.

MTG would be better if it was an LCG.

It almost goes without saying that this shit is bad for the game.

Perhaps the more germane question is "what, if anything, can WotC do to discourage or outright stop blatant market manipulations like this?"

Have you opened a pack of EMA recently? There had to have been a second print run with different materials, it's kind of obvious.

Not really, since the overwhelming majority of players are kitchen-table casuals, and the only competitive players who matter (pro tour regulars, and mtgo streamers like kenji) are unaffected by secondary market price changes. Wizards makes money off distributing sealed product, not resale.

>Is an active market of X bad for X?
Here we go again, butthurt poorfags mad about le evil capitalist manipulators xDDD

Yes, less cards go to people who want them, which in turn makes less people interested in the game/ current meta, which means less opponents, which means less cards go to people who want them (and it continues in a downward spiral)

Na not really, left leaning people just like to pretend it is a problem because they are left leaning and not don't like markets or capitalism.

No. It migth be in the short term though, and in the short term in can definitely seem like it is. People on average are really bad at market economics, however, and think that just because something is valued higher than they are willing to pay for it that it must be overpriced.

Buyouts can certainly cause cards to become overpriced, but as there is no liquidity the price will, sooner rather than later, fall back down to a level where people are comfortable buying. If the price stays it likely, if anything, means that the card was undervalued before.

Not anymore, if you're not going to GP Vegas you may as well buy from chinaman instead of WotC.
And Modern is in the chopping block too now that all premium events are Standard only.

There are actual statistics that show Magic is rapidly losing players, artard. Go back to Breitbart with that shit.

There's also statistics that show it's in it's 8th year of growth.

This is one issue. Another issue is that WoTC thinks they can print low-quality product and charge premium prices (See: Modern Masters 2015, Planechase Anthology), short-print product to the point where it doesn't end up in the hands of the players at all (Original Commander Decks, Original Modern Masters), or short-print a product to that point at first, then mass-releasing it 6 months later (Commander 2013, Eternal Masters)

In the collectibles market? Yes, it's growing due to the speculator bubble. In the gaming market? It's declining due to the increasingly ridiculous prices.

The fact of the matter is, that Magic, at its core, is a GAME, and the players are being left behind while speculators are constantly what they want. Is this good for Magic's short-term growth? Yes. Is it unhealthy in the long term? Also yes. See: Comic Books in the 1980s-1990s

*constantly *getting* what they want

>See: Comic Books in the 1980s-1990s
Very on point comparison there, what killed comics is that readers and casual collectors stopped and took a hard look at themselves and the bottom fell out of the market. It became too difficult to get hold of every edition of a comic, the stories slipped in quality and eventually the customers decided that actually no, it wasn't worth their time.

This WILL happen to magic, the only question is when.

Correlation does not imply causation. Go back to common sense 101 with that shit.

It's already happening around where I live. The one LGS nearby my work that was pulling in about 18-20 people for FNM during BfZ and Gatewatch is still on their first Booster box for Aether Revolt. Standard, Modern and Legacy are officially dead there and Commander is on life support.

I think only the biggest card store around is still hosting a moderately sized FNM anymore.

I can comfortably afford both Standard and Modern decks. Legacy I can also afford but I don't pay for it because the amount of use I'd get out of the cards isn't worth it in my eyes. Rather get models, vidya or upgrade my computer with that cash.

But my problem is that while I personally am not a poorfag a lot of guys at my LGS are... or were since they quit the game as it got more and more expensive to support. And as more and more players drop out the personal value of the cards to me drops as well. Before I wouldn't mind spending a couple hundred to build a few decks because I'd be using it at FNM with 20+ players, tournaments and just the casual game on the way home from work. Now I have to hope FNM or tournaments get fielded that week and the only people that are at the LGS during downtime are the Warhammer players.

It's gotten to the point where I can't in good faith recommend new players to the game.

If they already have cards and wanna break into EDH, that's one thing, but if they're just curious?

I'd rather steer them toward board games these days.

Same here. I can't even find myself wanting to spend the bit of cash to update my Standard deck with some new stuff from Aether Revolt.

I've been humoring the idea of just selling off most of my stock except for the sets I have of EDH decks at varying power levels that I use for casual play with friends.

The only ways to play MTG that are fun these days are draft sims/cubes, and price limited edh (both on individual cards, and on the whole deck) with both banlists in effect. The price limits act a bit like point costs in wh40k.

Neither of which are what you find at an LGS.

Though you do get the occasional draft or sealed event with going to.

Is making a game/format less accessible and giving a massive money barrier from entry bad for a game?

Absolutely. It's a cancer to the game and should be fixed with mass reprints. It's cardboard, for gods sake, why is there such elitism and market manipulation over a game that should encourage new players to join in?

>Is market manipulation bad for ____________?

Yes. Are you stupid?

C16 situation is kind of funny because the fact that they're out of stock literally caused me to not make a couple hundred dollar order just yesterday from my LGS. As in "I was going to buy all this other shit and the deck with the Phyrexian waifu but now that they don't have it I don't want this other crap either".

It certainly can't be considered a good thing.

ITT: Veeky Forums proves it's not only bad at Magic, but also economy

It was a genius move by wizards imo
Not an investor/speculator but I do care about the value of my cards and despite wizards saying they don't care about the secondary market they surely do now how it works.
Most of the reprints in eternal only had high value because availability was low not because everyone wanted them so wizards released the set in two batches so the single prices wouldn't utterly crash while investors who'd jumped on the first wave and bought boxes for ~200$+ got burned when the second batch released.
I feel like it would be a good move to do the same with c16 since I just don't believe there was so little supply and either wizards themselves are holding back product or it's the distributers.

Btw I feel like Wizards inclusion of lottery cards is also a form of "manipulation" of the secondary market.
They add to the "gambler's premium" of opening boxes while trying to make buying boxes more attractive. With more boxes opened more cards are in circulation which keeps prices low since the supply is so high.
It's their reaction to people crying about standard being too expensive imo and when I last checked aether revolt rares like 2 of them were actually worth anything the rest was just penny stocks.

There's only 4 rares above $5. There's only 3 cards in the set above $10. Heart of Kiran is the most valuable at $22

My point exactly and Heart of Kiran will be worth mext to nothing once vehicles stop defining the standard meta.
I'm absolutely certain it was wizards plan to have most of the box ev in masterpieces so more people would/could play standard and for now it seems to work out.
I don't play sealed or standard though and if this pattern continues I'm not going to buy sealed product anymore because I don't feel like i get my money's worth if I don't pull a masterpiece since there's no value (or imo even cards that are playable outside of sealed(except for maybe one card like fatal push)) besides them.
I'd rather pay 500$ for New Phyrexia even if I don't pull anything good than 100$ for any set after Khans.

This.
With their new policy pushing forward standard they dun goodfd in my opinion. It's like saying: yeah we have a 20 year old game with tons of cards but they're totally irrelevant! If you want to play you should only consider our latest 3/4 expansions. And to be competitive you gotta buy mythics and expensive cards that once out of std won't have any value!
Besides, how many people into MtG regularly play standard? I know many who only care about modern or commander.. And wizard just said: fuck all of you l (huge player-base), we won't support your format!

I'm sure your mom is really proud to have a son like you.

Speculators/hoarders/manipulators should be hanged

They are solely responsible (although limpwristed methods by WotC certainly don't help) for ruining the game

Great idea, comrade.

I can't wait for your ideas on how to implement a formal ban on this behavior.

> There are actual statistics that show Magic is rapidly losing players

I'm genuinely interested in those statistics and what they're based on. From what I've gathered, Magic's growth is merely stagnating in the one digit range, but for them actually losing player is news to me, although it wouldn't suprise me.

They're dumbing down the game more and more while not playtesting jackshit, and then wonder why their ass-expensive shitstain of a format called Standard drives away players. All while shitting on enfranchised players who play Modern/Legacy/Vintage.

>Is market manipulation/buyouts bad for Magic?
Yes.

>There are actual statistics
Sauce?

>ITT: Veeky Forums proves it's not only bad at Magic, but also economy
Please, enlighten us.

You sound like you were hoarding them you cunt and now you're pissed they have dropped in price.

C16 works a little bit different. When stores order C16, they get boxes with equal numbers for every deck. If only 1-2 sell, they won't order more just to overstock on the less popular ones. Every deck but Atraxa and Breya in some cases is easy to find at secondary marketing below MSRP

What an outlandish statement.

It's more to do with a parade of decks/cards that have been pissing off players for several Standard iterations now.

Yes, the Jace Tax was a thing not too long ago, but player attendance and overall happiness wasn't being dictated by price, especially not when Kaladesh's EV might as well have been cratered thanks to the Masterpiece series. Instead it was the monotony of games; Bant Company would always flip the cards it needs, Marvel would always cheat out Emrakul, Vehicles always has turn 2 Copter, Flash would Copter and Reflector you while also gimping you with other cards... in Magic's history, whenever Standard becomes unfun for enough people, attendance drops. When attendance drops, WotC freaks out and takes action. When WotC's idea of action is their nuclear option of standard bannings, it's because feelbads are at peak.

At the same time that WotC is acquiring new blood, it's failing to retain players due to feelbads. A lot of their actions as of late have been attempts to revitalize Standard in the wake of feelbads, and they're doing a lot more than what they did post-Affinity or Cawblade; whether or not that means anything is not something I can answer, but it does indicate how much WotC is concerned about bleeding players.

It's the lesser of two evils, regular Magic players tend not to buy as much sealed product, so WotC relies on game shops (usually selling singles) to get them through the door.

Unfortunately, that leads to speculation and buyouts, which are bad for the players.

I don't think the monotony of decks/games has as much to do with it as the fact that there is a clear division between who has those decks and who doesn't.

I think an acceptable sort of bitching is one where you're bored because that would mean no other issues exist because you're tired of being fulfilled and have nothing else to complain about. But I think the bitching about boredom is an illusion, it's fake, an excuse concocted by Wizards or the pros in the community to ignore the problem in card accessibility. I think people would be less annoyed with the top decks if they actually had the opportunity to own/play those decks themselves. Having three or four dominant decks to play against others for three months until a new set mixes things up is more than enough entertainment supplemented by other formats or experimentation with the metagame.

The people exclaiming that Standard is boring is probably because they have all the cards or parroting the authorities/pros who do. And quite frankly, fuck them. The vast majority of players do not have all the cards. You can't be bored if you haven't played with the cards it just doesn't make any fucking sense.

Yeah, it would be great if people took out a color printer and just printed decks to test with but we look down on that for some reason.

Cards are accessible, the problem is feelbads in a time where feelbads can easily be communicated via social media.

As someone who does speculate himself yes they are. It has reached the point where every set rotation i am speculating on which pile of cards to buy up as they go down and as for which cards i think are underrated and will go up.

Also the whole "sculpting" of new sets and standard in general has made most newer sets and standard boring in general. Also the barrier to standard is more difficult as you used to be able to make competitive viable decks out of quality good commons and uncommons (e.g. See Jund from Alara/Zen standard block)

Sculpting?

Wizards ideally sculpts standard into what they want and think is a healthy and ideal format. But considering they miss the fact by printing poor removal spells and imbalance colours and try and push mechanics while printing nothing to keep them in check and the need to push sorcery speed removal.

Jokes on you, commie, I was wanting Shaymin to be reprinted in Keldo vs Fug. Them going back on their word is a bad thing.

Recent sets have been fine commander wise. Not meta defining but fine enough.

Also for real people need to stop assuming wizards doesn't know who plays their game if Standard wasn't the most profitable for them they wouldn't push it that hard.

The problem with that is you assume people want to play all those decks or even against them. I legit have a mostly foil eggs deck and I understand perfectly why it needed to go. There are some decks that are boring to play against or even to continue playing.
It would be like if you raped everyone in legacy tournament with Dredge, then came back again and people still didn't run grave hate, but then imagine that you don't want to change because winning is still enticing to you and you'd rather not play than have fun losing you'd do nothing but play dredge forever.

>The people exclaiming that Standard is boring is probably because they have all the cards or parroting the authorities/pros who do. And quite frankly, fuck them. The vast majority of players do not have all the cards. You can't be bored if you haven't played with the cards it just doesn't make any fucking sense.

No it's boring because of the lack of cards to keep particular cards or mechanics in check which has thereby put standard into midrange decks abound for a while. I don't mind midrange decks myself but when everyone is playing it then there's some annoyance there as board states just get super cluttered.