What are the chances of the Reserved List being done away with within the next, say, five years?
What would even happen if they did that? Would there even be a legal repercussion?
How would you want reprints to work? Would whole set re-releases be something you guys would be interested in?
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Never. Game stores and other vendors have Wizards by the balls since they're A) the ones who buy the most product from them and B) also the ones that sell reserved list cards. It's a very unfortunate set up that's extremely ingrained. You can't pull up these roots anymore I don't believe.
The chances are probably around 1%.
The legal repercussion would be opening themselves up to a civil suit based on promissory estoppel.
If they were to do away with the list, I'd expect to see those cards in masters sets or in some sort of gift box.
>Would there even be a legal repercussion?
from who? collectors?
they'd get laughed out of court.
>Implying most game stores could afford to stop ordering MtG products
Anyone thinking that the RL is staying because of legal reasons is delusional. Who is going to tango with fucking Hasbro?
It's staying because of secondary vendors and Wizard's reliance on them. So the chances of it going are still approaching zero.
It's a situation like with Microsoft and the Software Giants. They are dependant on each other and nobody wants to tick the other one off, because upsetting the status quo might have cataclysmic consequences.
I've never understood how a middle man could get a manufacturer of a product with demand cornered like this.
What companies are you referring to in the Microsoft and Software Giant analogy?
>I've never understood how a middle man could get a manufacturer of a product with demand cornered like this.
It's because Wizards has no sales channels or advertising on its own. All that interest is generated by big sites like Channel Fireball or SCG through their tournaments, videos and stuff. Not to mention the huge amounts of small lgses and their countless events. So, naturally, Wizards is depending on that.
Problem is that those vendors disvovered that selling overpriced singles is more lucrative than pushing product. That led to a cycle that made WotC even MORE dependant on them because vendors cracking packs for singles became a significant part of their sales.
Magic is dying in it's current state, so it really won't matter anyway. Five years from now MTG will still be going, but it'll be almost impossible to get into it at entry level. It'll be like 40k, where a smaller group of dedicated fans will spend more money for less substance in the hobby, so Wizard's profit margins will skyrocket, but less and less people will get into it casually.
Meanwhile other, cleaner, card games that don't stab you in the wallet will start to dominate the market. In particular there's FFG's Living Card Games Format, and other similar box set games.
Who knows... in a few years we might see Wizards and FFG repeat what happened with GW when they start creating an original line of magical combat card games using an original IP.
Then you don't know how legal system in murrika works.
Hasbro can choke you out by sheer force of stamina. Again, who is going to drag fuckibg H A S B R O to court and fight a 6 years plus legal battle? Even if you win you lose.
>What companies are you referring to in the Microsoft and Software Giant analogy?
Any, really. Window's dominance mostly depends on the fact that every software on the planet is created for it and you don't have to worry about compatability (mostly)
Software Developers on the other hand depend on the fact that there is a unifying factor in form of the OS. If the entire market was a balkanized Linux landscape, they wouldn't have the same reach without significant investments.
So they both exist in an uneasy state of codependance.
A straight up reprint, probably impossible.
Printing cards that basically replace the RL relevant ones? I think there is a non-zero chance for that.
If you are one of these big vendors, there is more money to be made selling the reprints that taking Hasbro to court to keep selling duals at $100 a pop.
So, yeah, the legal threat is a bad argument to explain why the RL still exists.
Tarmagoyf has only fallen about 30% since the reprint.
Clique fell about 50%.
That gives a rough guide to how much staples can fall with a reprint. They'd have to sell twice as many as they currently do to make it worthwhile.
You need to check your math
Future Sight Tarmogoyf was $114 when MMA was released. It is $130 today. It has had fluctuations in price, but it has not fallen in. You are looking at the price of the reprints, which is not the issue here. The issue is what would happen with the price of my ABUR duals if they were reprinted. And it seems that they would still at least retain their value.
They will never FUCKING EVER get rid of the reserved list, 100% guaranteed.
It would mean breaking a promise their company made in the past. Even if nobody cared about the promise, and it would make many people very happy, they would irreversibly lose their trustworthiness as a company by not keeping their word.
Companies break promises all the time. WotC is not in the business of keeping promises, they're in the business of selling games and making money. If the vast majority of money-spenders want the RL gone, Hasbro will do just that and spin it in a way so that they look like the nicest company ever.
That's the thing. They know that breaking that particular promise will irreparably damage WotC's reputation, and destroy the future of Magic.
If you doubt that, you have no idea how much chaos abolishing the reserved list would create.
Dude, get your head out of your ass. This is a fucking card game. Only a mental patient is going to give two shits if some piece of cardboard gets reprinted.
If the reserve list was abolished and its cards were reprinted, 99.9% of the people who actually know what those are would be happy or not care at all. If you are in the 0.1%, get help.
>This is a fucking card game. Only a mental patient is going to give two shits if some piece of cardboard gets reprinted.
There are people who have literally millions of dollars in reserved list cards. That's way beyond a children's game.
Even I, the poorest of poorfags, base my decisions to buy reserved list cards on the fact they're never going to lose their value, and I would be disappointed if they broke the promise.
Wotc hates all formats outside of standard. The reserve list gives them an excuse to give as little story as possible for them
Having millions of dollars tied to pieces cardboard whose value is tied to how good they are in a game of fantasy mages battling each other is a pretty good indicator for some sort of mental disability.
That's the theory, at least. Most card prices are based on competitive value, and deck archetypes can greatly affect this. If the deck falls apart with a ban, who knows how the other valued cards in the deck will fare. We've seen this happen with Splinter Twin.
Reserved List cards matter in Vintage. In Legacy, duals and LED are the only real RL cards that matter, I think.
The metagame has virtually zero effect in the price of RL cards, except for which duals are more expensive. The ridiculous prices are based on artificial scarcity and morons buying out Moat for no reason. If you think you are the Warren Buffet of Geekdom by having "millions of dollars" invested in cardboard whose value WotC can destroy overnight, you deserve to live through Eternal Masters 2 the ReservedListGeddon.
>What are the chances of the Reserved List being done away with within the next, say, five years?
Very low. Much higher are the chances that one of the following scenarios happens:
1) Market for all reserved list cards crashes because literally nobody can afford the format anymore and demand vanishes.
2) Market for all reserved list cards crashes because Chinaman fakes become more common than real cards.
3) WotC rescues the formats by banning/restricting all the most expensive cards. Real duals are banned in Legacy and restricted in Vintage. Power 9 becomes outright banned even in Vintage.
One thing is sure: current state is not sustainable.
Imagine how different the game would be if you could buy singles directly from Wizards.
Just flat prices based on the price of the pack. 3 dollars for any rare, no matter what. 6 dollars for any mythic.5 cents for commons and 20 cents for uncommons.
All of a sudden every deck in the world would be affordable, WotC would have an incentive to not design filler cards (since those would not sell) and games would go back to kitchen tables where they belong.
Reserved list cards, particularly ones from the pre-4th edition era, have an extremely long "price memory" due to low supply. The Abyss is still a 300 dollar card even though the last time it was used in a competitive deck was over a decade ago, and even then it was a fringe card only used in certain Vintage control decks.
>People think the reserve list only hurts vintage and legacy.
Roc of Kher Ridges is on the reserve list how often do you think design has wanted to make a 3/3 flyer for 4 but cannot.
I'm still just a tiny bit mad about Thunder Spirit.
one can dream
I don't think this is going to stop though
People have been saying that for years, and I've yet to see a single LCG gain any traction.
Filler cards will always be there. There's a article about it. Now EDH is here to make use of those. Also many of those cards are there for limited.
The wotcees could care less about older cards and you'll never see them unreserved. Their only concern is that you keep playing Standard and buy plenty of boosters from each new garbage set they flush out.
>civil suit based on promissory estoppel
They actually can't. Promissory Estoppel cases require a written contract to be challenged, as per the Statute of Frauds.
Wizards has zero legal bars preventing them from tearing it up. They do, however, have all the financial bars preventing it.
I support this if its along with keeping blind packs.
The problem for set design is that this absolutely supports rarity = power level.
Make the direct singles prices something like
6 to 12 for a mythic
3 to 6 for a rare
1 to 2.50 for Uncommons
40c to 1 for Commons
It should be much more expensive than packs, just a release valve to keep prices from getting crazy.
Possibly starting at one price and moving to the other as the set gets older (idk which direction) . I'm a beaver so chop 25% off my prices.
It's the simple creatures that hurt the most about the reserve list.
poor guy
>Filler cards will always be there. There's a article about it.
I've read it. It's all horseshit.
The real reasons filler cards exist are two: design errors, and cynically forcing people to buy more packs. And of these two reasons, number two is by far the most common.
>What are the chances of the Reserved List being done away with within the next, say, five years?
If they want their game to continue? Zero. But in all honesty it really depends on how greedy hasbro wants to take it.
>its another... what would happen if the secondary market literally crashes... thread
This has been done with -every- FFG game. The meta is bleak and is even more of a money sink than standard at the moment.
This, they aren't concerned about being sued, they're not even concerned about breaking a promise.
They want to (and can and will) instead print new cards and make the players buy the hell out of them for each year's standard deck.
Hasbro has sued children. They genuinely enjoy destroying people in court.
They don't fear grognard lawsuits, the RL stays because stockholders want it to.
This. Anybody seriously think fucking HASBRO is afraid of anyone? except Disney
Except vendors make far far more money on standard and modern than they ever do on RL cards. What do you think is easier, selling one Cradle for a £50 profit, or ten Hearts of Kiran for £5 profit each?
SCG at least have come out and said they want the RL dead.
It's THE card game, actually.
It's not tied to how good they are
You've quite obviously either been playing for less than 5 years or an imbecile.
It's not an insult, everyone goes through attitude phases when it comes to magic.
Unless you're an imbecile, of course.
>they would irreversibly lose their trustworthiness as a company by not keeping their word
You've never heard of videogames, have you?
It wouldn't mean shit because the only people who care about the reserved list are legacy and vintage players/collectors, who are a miniscule portion of Magic's playerbase. And most of them would be glad to see it gone if it meant more people started playing the format they enjoy.
Also, who the fuck trusts Wizards in the first place? They're a company, not your spouse. They don't give a fuck about anything but making money, same as all of them. I expect the Reserved List will be gone in under 10 years as those cards dwindle down to practically nothing in supply.
They are losing trustworthiness by choosin collectors and 'investors' over actual players. That is such a piss poor excuse
Wizards makes most of their money when people are cracking packs, and the number one driver of that activity is limited formats. Why would they create a system where someone who wants a specific card can get away with buying only one unit, when their current system has them most likely buying multiple units for that purpose?
Not only that, but opening a pack is a feel good moment. Followed swiftly by getting all jank. Its the gamblers high.
Most videogame players don't have millions of dollars in in-game goods they can potentially sell for real money. Videogames are different in this regard. Also, many people are boycotting and/or pirating games from a certain developer nowadays because of their shady practices, and it's the new players who keep buying those games regardless because they don't know anything about it.
Magic lives and dies on its established playerbase because it's difficult to get into it when compared to buying a videogame.
As I said above, even average players and collectors care about the reverved list when buying reserved list cards. They are also relying on the promise
>Also, who the fuck trusts Wizards in the first place? They're a company, not your spouse. They don't give a fuck about anything but making money
If you studied intro to economics, you'd quickly find out that company's trust is not a negligible factor when it comes to "making money". In fact, it's absolutely key and requires company's effort not to lose it.
It's about keeping the promise they made, regardless of its content.
It's also not an excuse. WotC has stated multiple times that the existence of the reserved list is unfortunate and not beneficial for them. They make no money off of reserved list cards, and their tournament attendance for Legacy and Vintage is low because people can't afford it.
"Draft chaff" doesn't need to exist. You can "weaken" limited play without printing literal jank to do it. That article was utter garbage.
What "average players" are buying any cards on the reserve list? They're all legacy cards, most of which are worthless and no one wants in the first place. The ones that ARE valuable are in the hundreds of dollars and well out of reach of the 'average' player, who maybe plays kitchen table casual or the occasional FNM.
The reserve list is literally meaningless to anyone not interested in legacy or competitive EDH.
That's the heart of why the Reserve List won't go away. Eliminating the Reserve List might boost sales temporarily for the sets where they get reprinted, but long-term it'd pull people into Legacy, which doesn't make Wizards money and potentially keeps customers from going for Standard instead, which is by far their most profitable format.
Same logic as why they're dropping Modern from the big events; it doesn't sell as many packs as Standard.
I just bought a few reserved list cards for my casual EDH deck, and I would have been more hesitant about the purchase if I didn't have confidence about their long-term value.
>confidence about their long-term value
>casual
These two things don't go together. It might be a deck for casual play, but you're not a casual player.
>you're not a casual player
Shit, maybe you're right. I should abandon my kitchen table and my playgroup, throw away my janky EDH deck, buy into Modern and just go grind GPTs.
Thanks, random user on the internet, for telling me what kind of a player I am.
LCGs will never compete with MtG, the only competition they have at this point is oddly enough from Blizzard. Sure, the virtual vs physical argument can and will be made, but the fact is Hearthstone has WotC shitting themselves over the future of their cash cow. The two are coexisting now in sort of a standstill, but it's fairly apparent that Blizzard will eventually escalate and they'll win the "TCG" war of attrition.
>the number one driver of that activity is limited formats
you answered your own question there mate
>I just bought a few reserved list cards for my casual EDH deck, and I would have been more hesitant about the purchase if I didn't have confidence about their long-term value.
>cares about the game
>cares about the "value"
pick one
I can't believe you're actually trying to say that budget players don't care about the game because they can't afford high-value cards.
You'd also be a lot less hesitant to buy them if they weren't expensive in the first place.
The most expensive cards in my deck are not on the reserved list anyway.
>I just bought a few reserved list cards for my casual EDH deck, and I would have been more hesitant about the purchase if I didn't have confidence about their long-term value.
Only reason you care about the long term value at all is because you're buying a hundred dollar piece of cardboard. If the price was sane, you wouldn't give a shit if it goes up or down. The fact that you care at all is an example of how the list hurts the game.
You mean high price cards. Value is effectiveness divided by price. A two dollar Swords to Plowshares is better value than a 200 dollar Moat.
>Most videogame players don't have millions of dollars in in-game goods they can potentially sell for real money.
Millions of dollars? Only the biggest STORES have that much in Magic cards. No individual person has that, small stores don't have that, mediums stores don't have that. Only places like Star of David Games and Card Jewdom have "millions of dollars" in cards.
An average Magic player's whole collection is like a thousand bucks, if optimally sold. So is the median. The people who own any real duals or Power 9 or any of that shit at all are a TINY minority.
If I just wanted bootleg cards for completionist's sake, how much would entire sets of the some of the older sets set me back?
>throw away my janky EDH deck
You should do this regardless
Getting rid of the Reserve List would not crash the secondary market. As cards got reprinted their prices would drop but that would just encourage more people to actually spend money on cards that they see now as affordable. Cheaper cards sold in greater quantities would balance things out.
Collectors would still have their foils, their promos, their misprints, old editions, etc. The Alpha and Beta versions of cards would still be worth plenty just because of the fact that they're the Alpha and Beta versions: doesn't matter if Taiga or Volcanic Island or whatever exists in Amonkhet.
It would make some speculators rage when their thousands if not millions of dollars in pieces of cardboard evaporates but honestly? Fuck. Them.
Hey armchair lawyer, or 1L, an actual lawyer here to say you're retarded (or doomed in your contracts exam).
Plaintiffs in any lawsuit based on it would need to prove actual harm. That is, they would need to prove the value of their collections fell. As seen with Modern Masters, Wizards can print cards and increase value. If Wizards did so, there would be no basis for suit.
The reserved list hurts everyone.
Everyone here is still forgetting the fact that they will never take back the reserved list under any circumstances, making this discussion a big kvetch circlejerk.
Yes, my friend.
Your mighty trash in a box will defeat the giants like MtG, YGO and Pokemon - I have no doubt.
MtG will die very soon, yes! YGO will die very soon, yes! Pokemon is just a fad, yes!
If I wouldn't have heard this shit almost day to fucking day for legitimately over a decade - I might worry.
Yes, MtG sure is dying in it's current form, been dying in whatever form for all of it's 2 and a half decades! Especially Eternal formats! Please ignore the higher and higher tournament attendances every year (Including Eternal)!!!
>Investing is a mental disability
And that is why you're poor.
Welcome, newfriend! To both Economy 101 and Magic 101, I'd say - Enjoy your stay! But in all honesty, we hope you leave soon.
There's an extremely small chance if WotC actually would be taking interesting in removing it, which would besides all what has been discussed here would also create an image that WotC is desperate for sales/money for reprinting reserved list. The other way is a company buying out MtG as a whole and just throwing the reserved list away. Even lower chance.
But yes, the discussion is stupid as has been rammed to the ground for years and years now - almost always started by new players who want to get into Eternal formats but do not yet want or can invest in them, joined by more such people and a few bored old players trying to explain shit, yet getting nowhere as everyone is a "know-it-all".
While it has recovered, Magic has teetered at the edge of death a few times in the past. All it takes is the game to get to a point where the players to look at it and say "Yeah, this isn't worth it." and drop out.
Giants can bleed and giants can die. Look at Comic Books in the 80s and 90s and hell: look at what has happened to Sears. Looking at what it was like during the 90s or just the last fucking century could we have expected Sears to become the hot piece of garbage it is now?
I want to see the fucking core sets come back.
/thread
Zero.
(OP)
Zero, there's some sketchy agreements with the secondary market that will never come to light.
Legal repercussions from store owners (even the ones not in the agreement).
Announcing the change, let alone acting on it, would tank the value of much of their stock.
>Sure, the virtual vs physical argument can and will be made
The trouble with that argument is that long term virtual is the future for CCG and MTG has been shitting the bed with its software versions opening them up to be disrupted.
literally who plays the Pokemon TCG?
>Printing cards that basically replace the RL relevant ones?
They can't replace them, because people would want to run both.
>I think there is a non-zero chance for that.
There's also a zero chance of that.
Part of the reserved list is, "don't make similar cards."
c also, , ,
It's cyclical and leads to printing some powercreep to get people back into the format.
Also depends on the power level and intrigue in sets. Sort of like post-Urza, post-Mirrodin, (post-RTR?) leave players feeling bored and bland but eventually interest is rekindled.
Standard re-enforced this dip in participation by having a new herd of young players who can get swept up into buying that season's meme deck, losing interest and feeling burned, until they are drawn back in a few years later.
People come back to Magic every few years when they make new friends who still have their cards, and everyone gets together to play kitchen table or go to drafts. Sort of why everyone I know got into EDH, since no matter when you played in the past, you could use your cards to create a deck with your playstyle.
Kids and really big Pokemon fans I'm guessing. I doubt they're printing a consent stream of new martial for a game no one's buying.
Stay dumb.
Harmless Offering functions very differently from Donate you little shit, it's not just a colour shift.
At my FLGS, many of the same people who play MTG. It's MTG light (both in the sense of cost as well as complexity) so why not?
>Harmless Offering functions very differently from Donate
The only difference is player vs. opponent. As long as it's a two player game, it's identical except for color.
>As long as it's a two player game, it's identical except for color.
Still wrong kiddo, try reading the rulings next time. Also you cannot donate your opponent's stolen shit to yourself perma with this card.
My bad, you're correct.
>The only difference is player vs. opponent. As long as it's a two player game, it's identical except for color.
Is a meaningful difference if the other player has targeting redirection effects. All of a sudden you could wind up donating to yourself.
>Did it once, was smug as fuck afterward.
>What are the chances of the Reserved List being done away with within the next, say, five years?
Never
>What are the chances of reprinting things from the Reserve list, marking them as "Master Pieces" or "Expeditions" coming up with some BS reason why it doesn't count as breaking the list. Thus preserving the list while making new prints at the same time.
Pretty good.
They should 100% abolish the reserve list but take things off it gradually over a 20 year period rather than all at once. Let things that are rare like power 9 and rare stuff not be reprinted in sets but rather printed as prizes for GP top 4 finishes.
Color shifts are not against the reserved list.
hipstersofthecoast.com
>20 year period
Every non-rotating format other than whatever the fifth iteration of Frontier will be, if not the entire game itself, will die long before so what's the point?
Didn't they once state that people want some sort of rarity in this game? While I would fully support the idea of buying cards directly from wizards so that this game becomes affordable again, I'm not sure how other people would react to it. I mean if they would offer a service like this they may as well get rid of packs.
They should reprint more, and reprint cards in packs that don't cost 9.99$ a pack and are at mythic, just look at force of will. The fucking reprint is more expensive than the old version, what the hell wizards.
I want them to get rid of the gatewatch to be honest.
It's better than nothing.
This
hasbro is almost untouchable.