Oh, Serum Visions
Economics forum
Posted on June 4, 2015, 9:05 p.m. by fluffybunnypants
I for one always feel like I got punched square in the dick by WotC every time that I have to play this card in Modern. While its price tag underlies the importance of the card in the Modern format, as it's basically the only decent cantrip blue has available to it in Modern, is it really appropriate for a non-foil, non-Legacy staple that's a common to command a $10-$15 price tag, the highest among any non-foil common in play in any format.
Serendipitous_Hummingbird says... #3
the promo is a joke. unless they give them to everyone who walks into a store, it isn't going to do anything.
the only solution is to unban Preordain and laugh maniacally as Serum Visions plummets to pennies a piece.
June 4, 2015 9:22 p.m.
VampireArmy says... #4
Well maybe they'll finally realize that visions is as close as it gets to a playable cantrip that won't end up banned. If so then they should begin the reprints immediately:)
June 4, 2015 9:24 p.m.
FAMOUSWATERMELON says... #5
Yeah, I got to agree. It's not normal that the only very good cantrip in Modern wear a $15 price tag. Would it really be so format altering to unban Ponder or Preordain? Honest question, because I've never played those in a modern context.
June 4, 2015 9:30 p.m.
I've always felt blue could have lost Sea God's Revenge in Theros for Serum Visions as it was a fantastic limited pick but has 0 playability elsewhere. It must have been pretty obvious that the set would also contain very little money since Wizards intentionally kept Theros low on power. That might have been a decent introduction. Maybe with the rev decks being so strong in standard, the reprint was a bad idea, but still...
June 4, 2015 9:44 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #7
As long as Delver of Secrets Flip is in the format, Preordain and Ponder cannot be legal. However, printing literally any other card that lets you pay one blue mana to draw a card and look at another card seems great here. Even a Slight of Hand reprint seems fine, because that thing is a dollar at the low end.
June 4, 2015 11:25 p.m.
That's because your all assuming that Wizards is doing the promo with the assumption that it'll lower the card's price. It's amazing how little credit everyone gives to a company that's been around for over 20 years and continues to put out new product every year for the game they all enjoy. They know what they're printing and how many, I'm 100% positive they're not expecting the market to suddenly flood with Serum Visions. The problem everyone has is that it's not being reprinted when they want it to be reprinted. Wizards is years ahead in terms of their development and planning. That means if wizards immediately reacted and added Serum Visions to a set right now, we wouldn't see that set for 3-4 years. Yes they can and do make changes to sets right before they're released but it's not always as simple as just putting the card in the set and it can be much more complicated than everyone seems to think. Wizards is not stupid, they've already shown that they're more than willing to go out of their way to help try and keep prices reasonable (the introduction of modern masters). They can't reprint every staple in one giant set and flood the market with it, so just because your not getting it when you want it doesn't mean it'll never happen, try and be a little reasonable and show some patience.
June 4, 2015 11:26 p.m.
Serendipitous_Hummingbird says... #9
guys I was kidding. unbanning Preordain is a terrible idea. T2 insectile abberation is bad news for everyone.
Ponder isn't even on the table. Ponder is THE best 1 cmc blue sorcery. The only one that can hold a candle is gitaxian probe and that only counts because it has an effective cmc of 0.
I like serum visions. I think that the blind draw is incredibly important. Modern isn't ready for a spell that allows you to set up your next draw AND pick what card you want from the cantrip. It just isn't ready for that.
TL;DR DON'T UNBAN PREORDAIN
June 4, 2015 11:55 p.m.
theres going to easily be 10,000+ playsets, id guess closer to 15,000+ PLAYSETS of the promo, which should help the price
itll be funny when everything in modern gets reprinted and people are complaining gitaxian probe is a $7 commons now
June 5, 2015 1 a.m.
To sum up this thread: Unbanning Preordain and/or Ponder would be a terrible idea, and Serum Visions should've been an uncommon in Modern Masters 2, but Wizards was just a little too greedy to give it to us, so you'll have to wait for a reprint to relieve prices.
June 5, 2015 11:27 a.m.
Servo_Token says... #13
If you're talking about printing impulse in a modern legal set, they literally just printed Anticipate, which is probably more on par with how that ability should be in modern.
June 5, 2015 11:50 a.m.
I know, but aside from some mumbling about replacing Dig as a possible cantrip in combo decks, it hasn't really done much in the format. People quickly default to Visions on account of it being cheaper and also hitting 3 deep albeit with less selection going on.
Blue lacks notable draw in the format as well. Unbanning Ancestral Vision could be a possible solution. Still, something like a 
, Instant, Draw 3 cards could be what Wizards needs to print for control to exist in any meaningful fashion. The fact that the control decks of the format are G/B variants is pretty telling that blue kinda sucks at generating value. Right now, Cryptic Command, Jace, Architect of Thought, and things like Electrolyze are pretty much your only source of advantage.
June 5, 2015 12:02 p.m.
fluffybunnypants says... #15
I feel like Peer Through Depths and Anticipate Need to meet in the middle.
June 5, 2015 12:04 p.m.
FAMOUSWATERMELON says... #16
I sort of feel like Wizards is actually scared of printing a very good blue card. In other eternal formats, blue is king, through and through. Maybe Wizards is trying to prevent that from happening in Modern.
June 5, 2015 12:17 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #20
abenz419 it's not that people are unwilling to give Wizards credit, but it is the fact that Wizards of the Coast has a long track record of being out of touch with players. This is especially prevalent in Modern. Wizards does not reprint things in Standard for the benefit of Modern. They do not even consider printing Modern playable cards. They print solely for Standard and Limited, that cards make it into Modern is purely luck.
June 5, 2015 3:07 p.m.
Serendipitous_Hummingbird says... #21
So the real question is what was the video originally about. I want to find out what the actual text was.
June 5, 2015 4:28 p.m.
@CanadianShinobi It's funny that you can say that it's not that people are unwilling to give credit, and then you literally refuse to do so in the same paragraph. Just a couple of things off the top of my head.... in the last couple of years we've seen a reprint of the shock lands, the onslaught fetch lands, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, and Thoughtseize. Trust me none of those were reprinted for the sole benefit of standard and limited. Not to mention there's been two Modern Masters sets literally filled with nothing but modern reprints. Plus, how can you say wizards has a long history of being out of touch with modern players when the modern format itself doesn't even have a long histroy. It was officially made a format on August 12, 2011, literally less than 4 years ago. And like I said, in that short time they've already made several reprints that they were able to fit into standard sets and literally created a new supplemental set designed around the modern format.
Again, it's amazing how little credit people are willing to give the company that literally designs the game they play. Simply because they're impatient and think everything should done when and how they want.
June 5, 2015 4:32 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #24
This may help to clarify things abenz419. I can assure you I didn't just conjure my position to annoy you.
And I agree that Wizards has done things to make Modern more accessible, but on the same token they could be doing much more. Hell, they could be doing even slightly more. I made my post with the intention of explaining why people lack faith in Wizards sometimes, you seem to have confused my explanation with me actively demonizing them.
June 5, 2015 5:17 p.m.
Okay, obviously I wasn't singling you out when I made my first post, so I'm sorry if I seemed a little on the offensive there. But the point I was making is that everyone wants to say Wizards is literally doing nothing, but in fact that's not true. Even you assume wizards could be doing more. I mean sure the obvious answer is to just flood the market with every staple and then everyone will have access to every card and the game will be based purely on deck building skill and piloting, but it's really not that simple. You assume wizards could be doing more than what they are, but you really have no idea what kind of work has already gone into these sets and what kind of work it takes to suddenly add in a card because it's in demand. Remember, modern officially is less than 4 years old and Wizards is 3-4 years ahead in their planning and designing. That means when modern became a format, sets like Theros were already in development. Anything that's been demanded by the modern community since it's inception would have to be something they specially added to a set that had already been designed. Instead of people huffing and puffing because they didn't get exactly what they want, they should take a look at reality and be excited that in this short time Wizards has been able to do anything at all.
June 5, 2015 6:29 p.m.
Also that article talks about how they can't playtest every new card for the modern format because of the larger card pool and the infinitely larger amount of deck possibilities. Essentially that is what the ban list is for, to protect against unforeseen problems. It doesn't mean they don't design cards with the modern format in mind, it's simply saying that testing the infinite possibilities would be far to tedious and an impossible task. This is also the same reason why they don't playtest cards for legacy and vintage.
June 5, 2015 6:38 p.m.
Serendipitous_Hummingbird says... #27
They should however at least ask a set of questions:
Does this card get better the longer the game of Magic: The Gathering is? If yes, how far out of a player's way must that player go to reach a point where the card is unreasonably powerful? For example, what is an appropriate max p/t for a 
beater? How easily can that max be exceeded? Or, what is the appropriate cost to draw 3 cards? How easy is it for this card to get under that cost?
Just a reminder that in modern, graveyards have 4+ cards in them each by turn 3.
If these questions don't raise any red flags on a card, let it see print.
June 5, 2015 6:49 p.m.
They do.... that's why they almost never have to insta-ban cards, because, even though they don't specifically test for modern they way they do standard/limited they still know when the power level of a card starts to reach modern potential during their development. This lets them keep an eye on it throughout their testing that they do accomplish in case any changes that get made to the card push it over the top. In which case they'll continue to work on the design of the card so they can get it as close to what they want without the need to instantly ban it in multiple formats. Sometimes things do sneak through their testing or end up being more powerful than they anticipated, like Jace and the recent banning of cruise and dig, but the fact that they don't have to instantly ban several cards every new set is testament to the fact they do put actual thought into what they're doing.
They have said before that there is a limited number of them, so while they do test extensively, they can't think of everything or test every single interaction between every card in that format. So sometimes they expect things to see lots of play because it was really strong in testing for them, but for one reason or another the meta went a different direction and a deck they expected to be one of the best ends up seeing little play and vise versa. Sometimes the magic community comes up with things that they didn't come up with in their testing or things that were weak in their "test meta" end up being really powerful in the actual meta. But, for the most part the testing that they do is rigorous enough that we don't end up with anything completely busted and format warping.
Unforgivn_II says... #2
Well, apparently they think the money shot promo in July will help. I highly doubt it though
June 4, 2015 9:12 p.m.