Why Does WotC No Longer Print All-Foil Sets?
General forum
Posted on June 29, 2019, 12:52 a.m. by DemonDragonJ
In the past, WotC was producing two all-foil series of sets, Premium Decks and From the Vault, but WotC has now discontinued both of those series; it is true that Signature Spellbook is a spiritual successor to From the Vault, but only one card in each of those sets is a foil, so I now am wondering: does WotC no longer like printing all-foil sets? If so, why? Were they too expensive? What does everyone else say about this?
Nerdytimesorwhatever says... #3
To add onto that, FtV was extremely hard on small shops to sell. One of my local LGSs has FtV annihilation still.
June 29, 2019 10:42 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #4
Demarge, I can understand the point about those sets making foil card less valuable, but, as for the first point, if WotC has sufficient money to print as many cards as they do each year, why can they not research and develop a better foiling process, one that shall not bend?
June 30, 2019 12:38 a.m.
DemonDragonJ to make foils casual friendly they not only would have to make cards not from a pringles factory, but also make foils that don't easily get scratched up which is impossible (find a random new player, give them a wotc planeswalker deck and then a month later see how messed up the planeswalker looks), they also have the limitations of keeping foil cards at a near exact thickness as non foil cards. If you look at old card stock it looks really nice if it wasn't played pre sleeves, but the paper stock starts to fall apart when exposed to any sort of unideal conditions for any length of time.
June 30, 2019 1:58 a.m.
Nerdytimesorwhatever says... #6
It would be wonderful if they could figure out a way to make foil cards cost efficiently. The issue is that they have to be the exact same weight and depth as normal cardboard and tissue paper cards. They have to shuffle and feel the same. Otherwise they wouldn't be tournament legal.
I wonder if they could do it with graphene?
Demarge says... #2
foil cards exacerbate the whole card curling issue and typically foiling decks is stuff those with the money to do so do while many people will play with whatever they could get the cheapest that is still playable in a sleeve. wotc still prints foil premium stuff, just at the price point where they end up in the hands of people who will treat it right.
Another issue of stuff being all foil is it devalues foils and the foil stock of those things is usually slightly worse than foils from sets.
June 29, 2019 3:05 a.m.