Making legacy more accessible without lowering overall card value
Economics forum
Posted on April 28, 2015, 12:29 p.m. by tyforthevenom
My idea is simple, Wizards does legacy and/vintage masters as a draft format, but.. It's only available at a professional level, to take part you must qualify for it first
It's probably a pipe dream but could this work? The problem with the reserve list is that reprints will lower the value and wizards could get sued for the lost value but making reprints only available to a select few (like judge foils are) the value of the reprints will be high and the originals will likely not fluctuate
Unforgivn_II says... #3
They definitely wouldn't get sued... Its a matter of keeping your customers happy, so they keep coming back. There is no way a lawsuit would stand in court
April 28, 2015 12:42 p.m.
How does it become more accessible if it's only available for people who qualify at pro level for it?
And the reserved list means they don't reprint cards, it doesn't mean 'we do reprint cards, but we take care that the value doesn't decrease too much'. That's what they do with Modern and Modern Masters, but not with Legacy/Vintage.
A few years ago they did make some foil/'premium' reprints of reserved list cards (like Masticore and Phyrexian Negator), but after a lot of negative feedback they decided to close this loophole as well. So no reprints of reserve list cards, not even a limited amount of them as 'premium' (foil) cards.
April 28, 2015 12:49 p.m.
fluffybunnypants says... #6
You realize that this would probably piss off every Legacy player in existence and be a huge financial detriment a bunch of higher end shops, right? They would lose a large portion of the secondary market.
April 28, 2015 12:49 p.m.
aeonstoremyliver says... #7
Good idea, but I highly doubt that WOTC will ever renege on the Reserved List. I'm not in agreement with the Reserve List, as it makes accessibility into Legacy difficult and Vintage near impossible except to those that can swing $10K for a deck. Although, if it were a limited release, much like MM1, reprints wouldn't have much effect on original printings' value. I'm curious to see what MM2 will do, from an economic perspective.
The closest we ever saw to something like this is the rumored 'treasure' in Zendikar packs during the release.
April 28, 2015 12:49 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #8
It's important to actually understand what the Reserved List is before you go making a suggestion about how to circumvent it.
As was said above, the Reserved List means that those specified cards cannot be reprinted. Ever. No exceptions. Vintage Masters was a MTGO-exclusive release that could not be redeemed for paper copies. A paper VMA cannot be printed. A paper LMA would not be able to include reserved cards.
April 28, 2015 12:53 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #9
Also, limiting access to professional players would do nothing; you'd just be distributing the cards to players who already have them, and they'd want to get value from them.
April 28, 2015 12:55 p.m.
They did something like this before, recently. The 2014 WC had a Vintage Masters draft. link to decklists from it
What they did was generate packs online and crack them, building the packs in paper using already printed cards from peoples collections, which they borrowed. [1]
So in theory it could be done again, but not by printing new cards for the system.
April 28, 2015 1:03 p.m.
tyforthevenom says... #11
The idea is that legacy is more accessible if you're willing to put in the effort, I understand what the reserve list is I also understand very well why it's there and I know that wotc understands it was in some part a mistake. Collectors mostly would be upset if the value is lowered so limiting it this way would not affect value. It's just an idea as I said its probably a pipe dream
April 28, 2015 1:09 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #12
You cannot claim to understand the Reserved List and also propose to repeal or circumvent it, either in part or in its entirety. Those are mutually exclusive actions.
April 28, 2015 1:12 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #14
fluffybunnypants: I would contend that reprints would not anger legacy players so much as it would people who are collectors or who want to STOP playing legacy. I know legacy players who have full sets of ABUR duals and staples such as forces (which is uncommon and not even reserved but that is a whole different matter) who want the good cards off the reserved list to be reprinted. The fact of the matter is that Legacy PLAYERS want people to play with. Collectors and people who are getting out of playing want value for their cards.
April 28, 2015 1:21 p.m.
julianjmoss says... #15
But the thing is that legacy is very accessible for the people that put into the effort so this idea just puts value into the hands of people that already have it. It does the opposite of what you want.
April 28, 2015 2:46 p.m.
The reserve list was created in a different world. Today, it hurts both the consumers and WotC. It's existence is a thorn in the side of the community as a whole.
April 28, 2015 2:55 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #17
That much has become apparent. But the Reserved List is permanent. It's unproductive to discuss ways to make it not so.
April 28, 2015 3:24 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #19
The reserved list is "Permanent". If it proves to be an apparent bad business decision, it will be abolished. However, it has stood that it is not a bad business decision in the sense that no one leaves the game because the reserved list exists.
April 28, 2015 3:36 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #20
Abolishing the RL is a breach of trust with the players. If Wizards is abolishing the RL, the game has already died and they're just trying anything to save it.
April 28, 2015 3:50 p.m.
slovakattack says... #21
The reserved list was created partly in an effort to escape the inevitable 'economic bubble' bursting, and taking Magic with it. I'm not morally opposed to Wiz abolishing the reserved list, but for all are sakes, if they do... they'd better have a plan to deal with the fallout.
April 28, 2015 4:06 p.m.
OtakulordAndrew says... #22
I wouldn't mind if they did a limited print run of some legacy cards in a style similar to modern masters/ modern masters 2015 with legacy with staples such as the revised dual lands seeing a reprint at mythic rarity although I don't think it likely that wizards would do something like that for fear of angering collectors and breaking the reserve list agreement. I as a legacy player would personally be happy if they did as it might get more people playing legacy as the effort of acquiring some of the cards for various decks can be a bit daunting.
April 28, 2015 4:29 p.m.
@gufymike: Thanks for those links! I was wondering how they did it when I was watching event coverage.
April 28, 2015 4:33 p.m.
FreddyFlash311 says... #24
That's what MTGO is for- they can do whatever they want without worrying about breaking promises. It's pretty awesome IMO
April 28, 2015 4:47 p.m.
wizards has already started reprinting lots of legacy staples to increase the numbers, stifle was a $40 card, is now under $10, councils judgement is a new legacy card, wasteland is getting another judge reprint, rishadan port judge foil, shardless agent getting a judge reprint, onslaught fetches reprinted, smaller things like MOM reprint, and MM2 reprinting goyf/bob/clique/emrakul, all help people have access to legacy cards, hell JTMS was printed in an FTV
also dont forget that eternal weekend had a deck in the top 8 with 3 shocks, granted thats pre-cruise ban delver, it happened, and other decks can afford to play a shock or 2 and be okay
April 29, 2015 10:24 p.m.
I didn't read everything, but one thing you need to realize is that for the Legacy/Vinage drafts that they do for professionals, they aren't reprinting the cards. People donate them from their private collections, they randomize them, and stick em in booster packs.
April 29, 2015 10:43 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #27
There is nothing wrong with saying the Reserved List was a huge mistake and never should have been put into place, because it's true. It's even truer to say that Chronicles was a huge mistake and never should have been printed at such high volumes, because the backlash it created inspired the Reserved List.
But it's also true that the Reserved List is here to stay. I do think there's an outside chance it will be reviewed again sometime in the future, but that would pretty much have to wait until after the current staff at the highest levels of WotC have all long since retired and died. Until then, it's not wrong to discuss workarounds and abolishment, but it is unproductive.
April 30, 2015 11:08 a.m.
I don't honestly see the issue with the Reserve list. Yes, legacy is expensive, but saying the reserve list is a "mistake" purely because the cards are expensive is a personal opinion, not a fact. A big part of the allure of playing legacy is that it's exclusive and that you get to be one of the few to play competitively with some of the best cards ever printed.
A lot of people argue that the prohibitive price of legacy is bad for MTG is general. Fact is, this isn't true at all. First of all, would anyone actually quit magic because Legacy and Vintage aren't inexpensive and they can't buy into them? Realistically? No, no they wouldn't. Secondly, WotC has stated that their biggest player base, by far, is casual players. Legacy and Vintage are the least casual formats by far, and it's not like WotC makes money off of the secondary market. So while they would make some money off of the booster packs and boxes, it would be no different than the money they already make off of new Standard blocks, EDH expansions and Modern Masters. In other words, definitely not enough upside for the amount of upset it would cause.
Truth is, Legacy and Vintage are expensive. Prohibitively expensive. Is this annoying to a lot of people? Yes. A lot of people would like to play it but cannot because they don't want to or can't pay for the cards. So yes, it's understandable that the Reserved List is an annoyance. However, there is no argument you can make that is good enough to get rid of it.
The reality is that WotC's biggest player base would not care one bit if the restricted list was removed, and it would hugely piss off their smallest yet most invested player base. There is such small upside and such huge downside to removing the Reserved List, that it's never going to happen.
April 30, 2015 1:56 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #29
WOTC themselves had publicly stated that the RL was a mistake. That may still be an opinion, but it's also the official stance.
April 30, 2015 2:12 p.m.
tyforthevenom says... #30
Riddle me this, where do the eternal format players go when they can't afford legacy, commander is too casual and modern is boring to them? I know at least 15 people from my FNM who fit this category, if legacy was more open even without the original duals they wouldn't be contemplating taking a long haiatus from magic until modern improves
April 30, 2015 2:16 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #31
The Reserved list wasn't a mistake because it made Legacy staples pricey. That was just an unfortunate side effect. The Reserved List was a mistake because it was a short sighted, overly reactive solution to a problem that could just as easily have been solved by a simple "We are very sorry about Chronicles and promise to never do that again".
For those who don't know: Chronicles was a white bordered set printed up by WotC in 1995 to give players access to some of the cards from Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, and The Dark. Those first expansions had very small print runs and sold out extremely quickly and the cards were getting more expensive and harder to find. The most blatantly powerful tournament-level cards were excluded (Juzam Djinn, Mishra's Workshop, The Abyss, etc.), but many cards popular among casual players were included (the original Elder Dragons, the Urzatron lands, etc.).
The high print volume of Chronicles increased the supply of some of the reprinted cards by as much as a factor of 10. This crashed the secondary value of several singles and angered a very vocal group of collectors, who were concerned about WotC possibly doing something else in the future that could damage the market for other valuable cards (this is why Modern Masters has such small print runs). WotC responded with a new reprint policy and the establishment of the Reserved List.
The specific details of the policy, including how new cards were added to the List, changed several times over the years. The end product is a list that makes sense in several places but in others seems completely arbitrary. Who benefits from the fact that cards like Mightstone, River Merfolk, Storm Spirit, Thawing Glaciers, Sliver Queen, Volrath's Stronghold, Argothian Wurm, or any functional reprints can never be issued again, either in normal boosters or a special box set?
April 30, 2015 2:50 p.m.
I think I remember reading something Maro wrote about this, and he said that part of the contract regarding the Reserved List was that WotC is not allowed to talk about anything relating to why they implemented the Reserved list. Due to this, I think it's likely that they ended up upsetting some of their investors, and not just many of their player base. Of course, that's just speculation, but that's what I think. If that is the case, without WotC implementing the Reserved List, these investors might have stopped their funding and the game might have ended there.
Consider this. Let's say that WotC reprinted the Reserved list tomorrow. What would happen? Lets say that everything suddenly cost a third of what it currently does. Building Miracles or Stoneblade suddenly cost roughly $1000 instead of $3000. Would you be more inclined to build the deck? After all, it only cost you a third of what it would have today. But wait... what's stopping them from releasing yet ANOTHER reprint a year down the line. Now that $1000 deck you have is worth $500. How would you feel then?
I look at the Modern bans from a few months ago as an example of what happens when WotC fucks with a format. They banned Pod. No matter what your stance on that is, you have to admit that caused a huge uproar among fans, and a ton of people got burnt. People quit over that. And it's not like WotC ever promised to not do so. Reprinting the Reserved List... would be so much worse. And that's how I look at it.
April 30, 2015 4:17 p.m.
tyforthevenom if they are running real modern decks, they can probably sell their decks and run combo elves or burn in legacy. If they are running home brew modern decks, then EDH shouldn't be too casual for them.
April 30, 2015 4:23 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #34
I want to make it clear that I'm not advocating for the removal of the Reserved List, and none of my responses have said that. I've only said it's stupid and bad. The Reserved List was meant to fix a problem, but the implementation and evolution over the years were just terrible. The List was such a terrible fix, in fact, that getting rid of it will cause even more problems, which I am not interested in seeing.
April 30, 2015 4:30 p.m.
Rhadamanthus Ah, yea. I mean... hindsight is 20/20. They couldn't possibly have known at the time that people would want to play with the original cards so much. They needed to keep their current customers happy and feeling safe in the value of their cards, and this was the surest way of doing so. After all, it was first put into effect only four years after the games initial release.
Servo_Token says... #2
Pretty sure that wizards can't get sued for lost value. The reason that they stick to the reserve list is because it was a promise that they made to collectors a hundred years ago, and if they break that promise, they feel like they lose an entire market, which is essentially the opposite of what a business wants to do.
April 28, 2015 12:41 p.m.