The List...
Economics forum
Posted on Dec. 22, 2017, 4:49 a.m. by Quinnagin27
I understand how controversial this topic is and i know i am gonna get some heat for this from the .1% of magic players but is it time to stop the reserved list? Being a magic player for about 5 years I have enveloped myself in magics history from the black summer all they way to the dreaded times of the Mirrodin block. I have seen combos of turn one kill with Griselbrand and turn one wins with Tolrian Academy. But the key word is seen... i would love to build and own a deck like one of these above. (of course i play vintage and casual) but of course goryo,s vengeance is 45 dollars a card and you need 4 of them. Now of course i understand that goryos vengeance isn't on the list but that is just an example i could think of. My point of this is with master 25 coming out celebrating 25 years of magic i feel it is time to take a second look at this list. 99.99% of magic players know even just joining magic that they will never own let alone hold a black lotus or a time spiral or even the original duel lands. Id round it out that 95% of magic players wont invest the money to get these cards i would say about 5% of players will. my point is .1% of magic players will be "Upset" that these cards are reprinted but i believe with different art boarders and even like shape of boarders wont effect the price even in the slightest. First run blocks are always worth more then reprints unless i cant recall a card that does. (and im not including invocations and other special print runs) Of course this is just an opinion of one player and i wanted to see what other people say about this topic.
Im with you all the way Quinnagin27. I would love to play BUG control in legacy, but in the meantime I cant even afford to get a Scrubland for my edh deck.
Wizards has arleady shown that they dont care about the secondary market much. I think its only a matter of time.
Also, can we talk about Mox Diamond? On the reserved list; got a reprint anyways in ftv relics. Whats the deal with that?? Why cant we do that again with other reserved cards? In reality, they can, and I think they will. Theyll come out with a super limited print run set that has everything weve ever dreamed of. I hope..
December 22, 2017 10:25 a.m.
The rules where changed. Originally the Reserved List could be printed as premium product, ie FTV foil; however that is no longer the case. The change happen quite a few years ago now.
December 22, 2017 10:36 a.m.
Damn I didnt know that NecroPony, do you know what their reasoning was with that? I feel like even if reserved cards were only in speacial sets, that would still be so much better than just never reprinting any of those cards again.
December 22, 2017 10:42 a.m.
I have to say, you do not sound very convincing. "Id round it out that 95% of magic players wont invest the money to get these cards i would say about 5% of players will". Why anyone do anything to benefit 5% of their audience?
Regardless of that, here are some actual counterpoints:
The reserved list holds together Magic consumer confidence. There is now a thread on here about bitcoins - a few key investors bailed on it and now the whole market crashed by more than 50%. Won't something similar happen in MTG?
The reserved list is not a significant problem - death and taxes is a competive tier 1-1.5 deck in Legacy that contains 0 RL cards, yet it is still 1.5k to build from scratch. Yes, duals are a problem to source, but you can be competitive without them and it still costs a lot.
The reserved list is only valid when you are playing in a sanctioned tournament - outside of that, you aare free to proxy up and play with an all-proxy deck if you want.
The reserved list is not the problem - just a few cards on it.
And to the person mentioning Mox Diamond - after people called out wizards on it, despite card being foil and with different art, there was backlash that it is too close to violating the reserved list. Hence, there are no Masterpiece RL cards for that exact reason.
December 22, 2017 10:47 a.m.
You don't need reserved list cards to play this game there are more budget alternatives than ever before. You have to understand a lot of us have been playing 15+ years and what you learn over time is that buying an expensive card not on the list is a complete waste in the long run. A lot of us paid a lot of money to acquire these cards trusting that they would not be reprinted. I would suggest using high quality proxies if it bothers you, most players seem fine with them these days.
My advice: Don't try to speak for majority of players.
December 22, 2017 1 p.m. Edited.
Reserved list is a lame old dinosaur that needs Star of Extinction to happen NOW!.... This is coming from a lame old dinosaur.
Consumer confidence?? Pshah, Wizards should put more effort into survey... My guess is that 5% would be backed up by a survey. So a narrow cult-consumer base from 20 years ago is represented by a reserve idea? I didn't sign up for that, lets take some new opinion into account here. I get the feeling the new consumer base doesn't hold a high opinion for deals made long before they had a say, and that consumer confidence would be wholly unaffected. I'm sure HASBRO wouldn't mind a potential sales boost.
December 22, 2017 1:04 p.m.
DarkMagician says... #9
The Reserve List isn't going anywhere, suck it up and find a way to play around the cards you can't afford.
December 22, 2017 1:17 p.m.
Quinnagin27 says... #10
Razulghul I wasn't trying to speak on the behalf of people and im sorry if you took it that way. But if you look at this post 4 people Agreed with me wall 3 people did not. This isn't about trying to take money away from the people who were able to buy these products. I understand the protective ground you are taking on this investment but this is a game not not for collecting but playing. And i am not asking for a mass reprint of cards. Sol ring has been reprinted many time over and an alpha sol ring is still stands at 600.00 (priced at star city games). I'm asking for maybe MAYBE one or two every few master sets i'm not asking for a whole set devoted to the Reserved list but maybe have it like in this master set here is Time Walk or Mox Jet give the market time to accept the print then release another. I completely understand why people wish to protect it and i'm certainly not speaking for others about what they want but ive talked to many people about this from comic book shops in Columbus, Cleveland, In Kentucky and many more places and the results im getting here is what i got talking to others maybe my numbers where off up at the top but i feel that this method is out dated.
December 23, 2017 1:36 a.m.
Quinnagin27 says... #11
Razulghul And of course there are many new options to take the place of these cards. It doesn't change the fact that these cards are good enough to still out shine these cards. I have them but it still doesn't change the fact that these cards are good enough to out shine them.
December 23, 2017 1:44 a.m.
"I understand the protective ground you are taking on this investment but this is a game not not for collecting but playing."
It's clear from this you don't understand. This game is about both collecting and playing, it always has been. We buy, sell and trade these cards knowing that there is a monetary value attached to them. I'm assuming you check the web for prices before trading correct? If you are the only person trading purely based on the text printed on the card, kudos you are unique. If you knew that a new set coming out next week was reprinting a $50 card would you still buy it today? Because if I thought for a second they would reprint Scrubland I wouldn't have paid $70 for it. I did though and did so with the understanding that it was worth that money because it was not going to be $30 next week.
Listen, I know how expensive this game is. People who pay for these cards save for longer than you can imagine to obtain the cards, months and even years. I own like 4 or 5 cards worth between 50 and 100 dollars off the reserved list and I still think the list shouldn't go anywhere. I want the cards, sure, but I also think of the guys in my LGS working normal jobs that dropped 700+ dollars on a card because they love this game that much. My advice is again, proxy if you feel you have to have these cards but don't disrespect the people that put in all that sweat to get the cards you want to be easier to acquire.
December 23, 2017 2:21 a.m.
Additionally, no-one has a problem with the list, only a few cards on it (couldn't finish this point earlier); besides duals and power 9, there are few cards that are needed in more copies and are more than 100 dollars:
- Transmute Artifact - more tutors in commander.
- Wheel of Fortune - more wheels in commander. (really, more than 100?)
- City of Traitors - bought out after eldrazi realese, needed in legacy.
- Lion's Eye Diamond - key piece of any Eternal storm deck.
- Mox Diamond - not a bad mox, but few applications in Legacy. 150+ range:
- Gaea's Cradle - elves in Legacy and commander applications.
- Natural Selection - really? some commander stuff I guess.
300+ range (aka more expensive than blue duals):
- Eureka - bad Hypergenesis is still a thing in a single Legacy deck. Could be good for Commander.
- Copy Artifact - Commander stuff and fringe Vintage applications.
Holy sheet range:
- Mishra's Workshop - 1 vintage deck.
- Candelabra of Tawnos - 1 legacy deck.
- The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale - a couple of legacy decks.
- Bazaar of Baghdad - 1 vintage deck.
So, including power 9 and duals there are a total of 32 cards (and Eureka is quite suspect it should be on the list) I could identify that could have any applications. Most of them are limited to 1-2 decks in any format they are currently legal in.
The reserved list has 500+ cards. If more widely available, these cards would likely be banned or restricted even further.
Tl;DR Less than 30 out of 550 cards on the RL are actually prohibitively expensive, and of those most are playable now in any format in 1 or less copies.
December 23, 2017 2:56 a.m.
Quinnagin27 says... #14
Boza i completely agree with what you named i'm not asking them to reprint black lotus and and i probably wouldn't even ask them to reprint the power 9 (even though that would be nice) there are just some cards on this list that i think wouldn't be a big break to reprint Gaea's cradle is a prime example. i don't think reprinting the duel lands wont be either There are just some cards that i think should be moved around. I would never ask for them to reprint the entire list there are a few cards like the ones above i think would be a nice reprint.
December 23, 2017 3:34 a.m.
Quinnagin27 says... #15
Razulghul Once again i'm not trying to disrespect or speak for other people on this subject of course this is my opinion and we both know there is a divided on this topic. Of course i may of stated cards like the power 9 just as example above. i believe the power 9 should never be reprinted again. period. That is of course do to there power and like you said the protection of these investments. Like i stated above to Boza his list i saw many cards that i think should be reprinted. There are some cards though that i believe should be reprinted because I dont think the investment impact will be that drastic. Of course to buy my Serra's Sanctum I did have to save up. I understand the struggle of buying these cards. I understand the sweat to get these. Maybe not as much as people who buy Mox Diamond. I hope we can end this discussion on a friendly note knowing that we both have a passion for this amazing game.
December 23, 2017 3:57 a.m.
Wizards will be laughing all the way to the bank when they finally ditch that absurd "promise" and reprint reserve list cards. Maybe it wont be until the game is struggling to survive, but if you think it's not as option they talk about at board meetings you are lying to yourself. WotC doesnt want to hurt their own game, but its possible they will decide that its better for the game if they start older reprints eventually. Its their game, they can do if if they want, and they will do it if its good for their company. Apparently they aren't at that point currently...but its not some impossibility that can't ever occur. There's no legal contract they would be breaching, just a "loss of consumer confidence" would occur. One I'm confident the game would survive, and thrive afterwards as a result of the surge in popularity the reprints would generate. Personally I'm hopeful it will be sooner than later.
Just ask yourself, should WotC care more about secondary market collectors or actual players of their game? That question is the core of this debate because the reserved list keeps people from playing more Magic, while simultaneously creating a broken pseudo-stock market that wealthy individuals can literally ruin with buy outs. There really isn't a debate, just grumbling by the many people have already wasted thousands of dollars on old cards they may not even use, because they fear the cards will go down in value. Boo hoo money. I think most passionate players (who may have even invested in many older cards already like me) are still ready for cheaper reprints regardless of its financial impact because we JUST WANT TO PLAY MORE MAGIC!!
December 23, 2017 9:54 a.m. Edited.
StardustDragon11 says... #17
The true answer is: ban the cards on the restricted list. This solves the problem and allows wizards to maintain their integrity.
December 23, 2017 10:44 a.m.
In every format? That would probably piss off a ton of people, not to mention be a rather large headache in general.
December 23, 2017 10:57 a.m.
Agreed - lets get some Laissez Faire in MtG... Some people think WoTC - MTG is some rinky-dink operation and somehow they are SO, SO different. They are a subsidiary of Hasbro now; A large business who also has some say in company-wide direction. Not that I believe "The List" is very high priority for them, they do have to keep their heads on a swivel about pushing the "collectible" idea of their synthetic cardboard market too far though, it is the player base that is different from those other failed collectible markets. I don't know if people just assume because it is about 25 years old MtG is not subject to the failings of other cardboard collectables. From a corporate perspective a few 30-some-year-old white, male collectors (demographic I am part of) is less important than obtaining a diverse, fresh consumer base.
This is why there should be stronger market survey for them, working on a narrow group's 20-year-old agreement, which your current consumer base had no input on, is just bad business.
It's interesting how with the rise of EDH play (specifically in connection to dual lands) this conversation pops back up more frequently... I think that is a good thing.
December 23, 2017 10:58 a.m.
They reprint these cards all the time, they just make small adjustments to make it still kosher. Godless Shrine is really just Scrubland narrowly skirting around the promise, fetches can arguably be even better and are so cheap now it's crazy people still complain. When I started we didn't have all the cards that functionally do the same thing. The argument for keeping the reserved list is stronger now than it was 15 or 10 years ago. It's funny people speculate WoTC will drop it when they need money because Magic has really never been so popular and has gone through some hard times already.
December 23, 2017 1:22 p.m.
I think regardless of the stance taken, WoTC should customer survey this, if views like mine are a small minority then "the people have spoken" and that is fine. If original intent of this whole deal was consumer based but that was 15 Years ago then just commit to a every 3-5 year survey to find out the desired direction of your consumer base and make the info public. IMO I still think it is bad form to make an arbitrary agreement with an old, limited consumer base, apply those results to the future generations, and not poll for future opinions.
December 23, 2017 6 p.m.
They have reprinted the most powerful lands ever on the back of easy to flip enchantments and no one is satisfied. I just don't understand.
December 23, 2017 6:45 p.m.
I'm not sure where the 0.1% figure comes from for the OP, but that's a really underestimated figure. As a player dating back to Unlimited, and someone who has previously owned every power 9 card and major value cards from the original expansion sets like Arabian Nights and Legends, I'd have to lean more toward Razulghul's opinion, despite the fact that I sold them all (or nearly all) back in 2000. A lot of the reserved list cards are essentially unicorns now - designed and printed well before the current structure of Magic even took shape.
Until the completion of the Urza's block printing, Magic was still just a game of spells, and color combinations didn't really exist. In order to play a Type 1 deck, which was usually built to win in the first few turns by completely selling out your entire hand, life total and available mana (or destroying your opponents), you HAD to own dual lands and moxes just to competitively play those varying spells. At that time, Juzam Djinn was the best creature spell in the game, which should tell you something about how Magic was played at the time.
WoTC created some cool stuff back then, but a lot of it lacked a vision to the future. Once better R&D and design teams were put in place to create complimentary color combinations and strategies beyond individual cards within each block, some of those early set cards either became so OP or so exploitable under specific builds that they no longer fit what the game of Magic had become. The game today is better for that, and WoTC undoubtedly understands that moving the game forward is more important than reliving the rarest of nostalgia. It's one of the reasons the game is more popular than ever today, despite the reserved list and insane values for those early set printings.
Like with life, Magic has always had and always will have an elitist sub-group, which often includes collections of those early sets of rare and valuable cards most people rarely see. As luck would have it, I found some I thought I'd sold in 2000 several years ago, and they were part of what brought me back to the game. I'm sure people are excited to see them when I play or open my binder for them to look through, but they don't make my EDH decks all that much better - they're simply a reflection of an early game that no longer exists. I consider most of them collectibles first, and I'd be willing to bet many other early players see it the same.
Today, a fetch land is every bit as good as a dual land (better in my opinion), and dual lands have been replaced with shock lands, which actually include a cost to balance the power they provide. Many of the power cards from early sets simply wouldn't exist if R&D and design had existed then as they do now. They helped put the game on the map, and they are great as collectibles and/or status symbols for the "spikes" of the Magic world, but as the game exists today, they were actually mistakes of an early idea that became the world's most popular card game. To reprint the majority of them would be to repeat those mistakes. If collectibility or secondary market value are among the excuses used to prevent their reprinting, then so be it - that's not the real reason though, and don't expect WoTC to listen to your complaints that it's unfair that you don't have the opportunity to own them now. Unless there is a clear and significant financial impact to WoTC in not doing so, they probably aren't going to revisit the idea of reprinting them either.
As fun as it is for me to include some of those old options that I own in my EDH decks, the 1 in 100 odds of getting to the card is much tougher to exploit, even with tutors, and the EDH format in general is typically more social and casual than the standard, modern and legacy formats. As Razulghul also pointed out, many of the card effects have been reprinted at a more palatable cost - both monetarily and based on power level within the game. No one's realistically asking for Chevrolet to re-release the 1963 Stingray Coupe, no matter how bad they want one. If you're one of the rare collectors to own one, good for you - chances are it's in a climate-controlled box somewhere, though. Meanwhile, the 2017 version is still a hell of a ride, and you don't have to worry about a little bit of brake dust in your wheel wells causing damage and sucking the value out of your collectible. The same is true for Magic and the reserved list...and there are a lot of high-quality proxies out there for minimal cost if you really want it in your deck.
December 24, 2017 7:23 p.m.
Your opinion is valid, I still think modern re-survey would be the most effective means to put any debate to bed, especially if that opinion is in the majority. It is the best way to connect with the consumer base and see if there is just a noisy minority or people speaking out in self-interest vs. a genuine large-scale interest.
December 25, 2017 10:19 a.m.
I don't see how debating the topic has any relevance, as if the question were posed to current players, the answer would be extremely predictable. What would be the point of re-surveying current players on whether or not to reprint reserved list cards so they could finally have a legitimate opportunity to own them without paying a fortune? Is there any scenario in which the vast majority in that survey wouldn't say, "yes please do!" If you're questioning whether or not your opinion would be the majority, rest assured it would be, without question.
That said, just because a majority wants something doesn't mean it's the right course of action, or even prudent. I'd imagine this would be something similar to surveying employees if they'd like a raise or more vacation days annually...the vast majority are going to resoundingly say yes. Whether it's economically feasible or functionally supportable is an entirely different question, and in real life, the consumer almost never gets to dictate the business's course of action. From a business standpoint, it would simply be a mistake.
"Because I want it" is never a compelling argument, even when the basis of the argument is valid. I think the best analogy I could use would be Smeagol/Gollum wanting the One Ring - of course he wants it, everyone does, but the best course of action for the greater good is to cast it into Mount Doom and let the past go. Magic is better off with those early printed cards in rare supply, with the focus on a well-planned/designed and mass-produced product that continues to grow and evolve, which appeals to a far greater range of players. Even without consideration for the collectibility factor, which is a serious consideration, reprinting the majority of the reserved list cards would ultimately do damage to the brand, even if there was a short-term benefit to be had.
I could be wrong, but I don't ever see WoTC changing course on that line of thinking. Maybe they will tweak the list in the future, but I'm not going to hold my breath. For cards printed only in Alpha, Beta and Unlimited, there are a maximum of roughly 26,000 of each of those rares in existence for all of the combined sets. Reprinting anything from those sets that wasn't already reprinted in a later set would ultimately damage the collectibility market for those cards significantly, and as collectibility has been a consideration from the start of the game (which is why Unlimited was printed as white bordered), it's hard to imagine WoTC changing course on that very early decision.
For cards like dual lands, wheel of fortune, etc. that were reprinted in Revised, there are greater than 10 times more copies of them just from English and foreign language Revised printings alone, so the reality is they're not nearly as "rare" as one would think. Most of those are reserved now due to their power level - as the cost, or lack thereof, is not balanced with the benefit provided. In those cases, reprinting those reserved cards would be a decision to reintroduce overpowered options in the current environment, which detracts from the game as currently designed.
Excluding the original rares from limited core sets (Alpha, Beta, Unlimited) and initial expansions (Arabian Nights, Antiquities and Legends), I actually wouldn't mind seeing other cards reprinted, but I still think it would be a mistake for WoTC to do it. We can definitely agree that if they did engage the current customer base, it would be a large majority asking for them to do so, but I'm not expecting to ever see that survey, either.
December 25, 2017 3:46 p.m.
With the original intent of the deal being largely based on customer loyalty and majority customer opinion I think it is pertinent to stick to that original intent and get an updated view of that... Surveying employees for vacay hours does not seem all that comparable to me; It would be more so if that was not a national guideline topic and there was some select group of shareholders and employees that were surveyed 15 years before, then no one elses' opinion was taken into consideration after that choice was made even if several of those stakeholders were canned and didn't even hold stake in the same company anymore. I honestly like the compromise of just banning some and allowing others in formats, again I also don't think this is high on the priority list for them as a company. I don't like the idea of a decision being made in the interests of the consumer without a contingent for a possible future change in what the customer interests may be.
December 25, 2017 9:48 p.m.
Gleeock do you really think WoTC doesnt know the reserved list is unpopular? Using your suggestion they would basicly be asking consumers to choose between paying a lot or a little for product they want. I really don't think WoTC will learn much they don't already know. It would be the same if they asked what their consumers want in every mastery set. Every card worth 20+ dollars? No suprise there either. I think instead of trying to bring back past cards you are better off suggesting future prints that fit more in today's magic. Ancestral Vision and Visions of Beyond will never be Ancestral Recall but they are a glimpse of utilizing past cards in a more modern setting.
December 25, 2017 10:26 p.m.
Feels like a semi-political ideological impasse to me.
Do you believe in laissez faire & some sort of consumer self-regulation? I believe this happens all the time with newer "format breaking cards", via REASONABLE price limitations of such cards determined by the market you can't say Gaddock Teeg isn't somewhat format breaking, yet he is limited to a reasonable price via regular market demand to a reasonable level outside of just every casual player using him. I believe the regular market has been just fine for regulation of "Heavies" in most formats.
Or you believe that a governing body needs to make those choices for consumers and synthetically drive the market?
December 25, 2017 10:43 p.m.
Razulghul That feels like the point to me, I wouldn't know what WoTC thinks about the reserved list's popularity. It is all relativistic but I'm not really thinking "a lot" vs. "a little", so much as; "market reasonable lot" vs. "a fortune" -- (I don't think prices on competitive cards TANK w/o the reserve list I think they stay high but reasonable regardless). Again, you can't really say what WoTC does or does not know without public survey-style results. People tend to talk about overproliferation of new releases... I'm not a big fan of tons of "2nd best" redundancies, that just leads to people just perceiving inadequacies and abstaining from buying those releases in general.
December 25, 2017 11:14 p.m.
Just FYI, the official reserved list policy of every WotC employee is to never talk about it. So, there will never be a dicussion or poll orignating from them on this subject. Here are some more points I have not mentioned:
Abolishing the reseerved list will not really bring more players to Legacy or Vintage. Decks without RL cards are still quite expensive (Death and Taxes is 1.5k) and the prices of non-RL cards powerful in Legacy will jump, so there will be not much noticeable difference.
I have to reiterate - nothing is stoppng you from playing with proxies of all those cards in EDH or non-snactioned Legacy games. And it is dirt cheap too.
I have to agree with whoever said that what a majority wants is not always what it needs - the people who are in favor of abolishment do not understand the repercussions. Especially that part about vacation days and pay raises - if everyone gets a pay raise, its as if noone got a pay raise.
Rzepkanut says... #2
The reserve list is a real bummer to everyone who actually enjoys playing magic. I even have some revised dual lands personally, but I would trade in their value in a heartbeat for enough additional reprints to make older formats accessible. Its the worst thing about magic by a lot if you ask me. Creating such extreme artificial scarcity with limited print runs doesn't improve this game at all for me. It can still be collectible and affordable simultaneously if they do it right.
December 22, 2017 6:49 a.m. Edited.