Modern Masters... what do you think?
Modern forum
Posted on June 3, 2013, 4:53 a.m. by jrbromberg
I have mixed feelings. I really hope this is just the beginning of reprints to support the modern format.
pookypuppy6 says... #3
The set couldn't just be a shopping list of all the best staples, they wanted the set to be playable as a whole so that there is more to the set than being bought up for all the singles. So while your booster may very well have a foil Traumatic Visions rather than the foil Death Cloud you wanted, to just include all the staples would have been extremely difficult to balance if they wanted it to be drafted.
Besides, it's very cool to see some of these cards being reprinted, especially the commons and uncommons for casual decks. Epochrasite at uncommon? Vivid lands for EDH players? And I laughed when I saw Erratic Mutation , I just bought it as a single for my own EDH deck and I had no idea Wizards (or anyone) even remembered that card existed
June 3, 2013 6:17 a.m.
There is a new set of 'casual' support later in the year by way of a new set of Commander Precons, Modern Masters printed at such a limited print run i would consider to be aimed at a similar market as Commander's Arsenal. The more well off set of Magic players, and collectors looking to make money. The average joe gamer probably can't afford modern as a format or the MM set the same way in which the average joe EDH gamer couldn't afford CMA. This is not quite as a rare but then again it is much more sought after because tournament players can use them as well as more casual players and those competitive players need the cards whereas for a large percentage of EDH gamers they didn't NEED the CMA they just wanted to 'Pimp' out their decks. Because of this I think MM is an even bigger let down to would be Modern players and current struggling Modern players alike. It might slightly reduce the price of some horribly overpriced cards but not enough for most people. I think it has let alot of people down that the collectors have been pandered to a little too much. Surely a larger print run would increase the amount of people wanting (and being able to bloody get some) and therefore offset any price reduction by the huge influx of new players enriching the environment? I don't play modern but I have been reading forums on it for a long time and my thoughts come from my feeling bad for those people who can't get into the format they choose cuz most cards cost $40 to buy EACH before they can compete (for the most part). I like the idea of MM, i would even play it myself if the Booster boxes hadn't been insanely overpriced by retailers or only given in low quantity to stores. England also gets poor support for Magic so that makes it even harder to get into. MM provided a small window of opportunity but above the window there is also a heavy weight ready to drop on your head as you peer in with hope then get your dreams dashed.
June 3, 2013 6:47 a.m.
pookypuppy6 says... #6
Blimey, good job on the rant.
A new set of Commander precons?!? Are you sure that's for this year? I would have thought they'd have announced something like that yonks ago. And when would they possibly be released during the year?
June 3, 2013 6:59 a.m.
I thought it had already been announced but not in a full on official release. When they released the CMA around Christmas they said they didn't have time to do a full commander precon release like they wanted to so it will be this year instead around the same time as the original. The Premium Deck Series has now been done away with completely and I believe they are giving more support to Commander through that medium. No official release date is available but they definitely aren't far off. CMA was just a stop gap to keep us quiet (Epic fail Wizards haha)
June 3, 2013 7:21 a.m.
I think that this is a great set and I love most to all the cards that are coming out in this set lets just say edh/commander is really the format that's really going to gain from this. Oh and a un set that is standard legal would be awesome.
June 3, 2013 8:40 a.m.
NobodyPicksBulbasaur says... #9
MM is a wonderful idea that has been ruined to hell by retailers and collectors who refuse to lose money on a card. It''s a set full of reprints to add supply to the Mondern card market, but instead of seeing it as a way to lower the price of cards and add players to the Modern format, retailers see it as a way to make a quick buck on a box of good cards, and have hiked up the price.
The net result is that all of the MM power cards are going to be just as overpriced as the old prints because people had to shell out so much money just to open them.
I haven't been a fan of the limited run prints for that reason. I get really excited for them, only to see their prices spike to 3x the MSRP. Not cool, guys. Not cool.
June 3, 2013 8:57 a.m.
A nice idea, that was poorly executed, short sighted and made current modern players do some really counter productive to protect their investments. In buying cases that will not see the light of day. Gave speculators a new horse to play with.
And did a disservice to the magic community in allowing stores to jack the price to almost double the msrp. The worst part is wizards/ hazbro does not have the balls to stand up and do something about this by putting their foot down. And removing the licence retailers who are abusing their product. Now yes you can sight supply and demand but if you are doing that your understanding of economics is back in middle school what. You are seeing is manufactured sacristy falsely inflating demand and cost. And the creation of panic in the current invested market group
The whole thing is just bad for the community as a whole. Great for anyone looking to turn a profit
No offence intended to commander/ edh players but you were a fool if you picked up the commanders arsenal at 279 retail. And anyone picking up modern masters at 300 a box you should really take a step back and price out a deck you want.
I don't know what to say other than good luck, and remember to have fun.
June 3, 2013 9:25 a.m.
everyone seems to agree on this site and others that it was poorly executed along with CMA....It makes me wonder do Wizards even give a crap? They need to actually pay attention and learn from this kind of bad reaction to the implemention of good ideas and implement them better next time..... I hope they learn!
June 3, 2013 9:53 a.m.
I'm not very well versed in the Modern format, but I'm still going to participate in the MM draft that my LGS is having this Friday. Modern isn't really my kind of format (WAY to expensive), so I'm mostly doing it for EDH stuff and trade fodder. You could say I'm stealing a seat away from a real Modern player, but I paid for my spot about 2 weeks ago and the shop owner was still advertising spots this past Friday.
Besides Tarmogoyf , Cryptic Command , and Dark Confidant which cards should I keep an eye out for if I'm really just drafting for value? I know you're supposed to draft to win, but I suck at drafting so I might as well get some good stuff out of it.
June 3, 2013 9:55 a.m.
Vendilion Clique is $50 a pop, and of course you have AEther Vial , Arcbound Ravager , Blinkmoth Nexus , Bridge from Below , Doubling Season , Elspeth, Knight-Errant , Glen Elendra , Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker , Maelstrom Pulse , Kokusho, the Evening Star , Progenitus , Summoner's Pact , Sword of Fire and Ice , Sword of Light and Shadow , Tooth and Nail , Vedalken Shackles and Woodfall Primus . Basically ever rare and mythic, all the ones i listed are above $10, usually loads more! money reprint forced over the top of insanely expensive by collectors
June 3, 2013 10:20 a.m.
I would disagree that is it is just collectors. Players will pay those $$ amounts to have a chance at winning the GP or any other major tournament. It's the community as a whole that's at fault for the costs. The only way to get it to change is to devalue the card by not purchasing/trading for it or playing it. Which just won't happen.
June 3, 2013 10:54 a.m.
other cards to look out for,
rare
Thoughtseize , Cryptic Command , Blood Moon , Chalice of the Void , Pact of Negation ,
in the commons
Serum Visions , Sleight of Hand ,
uncommon
Remand , Kitchen Finks ,
Isochron Scepter - more if you want it it was reprinted in golgari vs izzet duel deck
June 3, 2013 10:55 a.m.
Honestly, I'm kind of upset about the cards that didn't make it into MM. I figured the whole point of this thing was to put more copies of heavily played cards into the market, and hopefully lowering the price a little. But the first is hard to do when you don't INCLUDE half the heavily played staples, and the second is hard to do when you do a limited printing and sell boxes at $300.
I'm just upset that Damnation ,Thoughtseize ,Remand ,Serum Visions , Sleight of Hand , Noble Hierarch , Crucible of Worlds , Sylvan Scrying , Urzatron, Bribery , Plow Under , Cranial Plating , Mutavault , didn't make it in. I guess that means that some of these are getting printed in a coming set, and if not, then MM2?
Though, don't get me wrong, I'm happy with some of the cards in this set. Just frustrated that i can't afford to buy a box is all.
June 3, 2013 1:21 p.m.
i did not realize the full list had been printed yet... guess i need to go check it out. my guess is a lot of those will see the FTV 20... which will be silly as it will likely hit the 100 to 150 mark so a play set you will be looking at 400+
from an economic stand point MM2 makes sense, if you look at the sales numbers from MM.. from a community stand point i think MM2 will kill part of the community right off. after the disappointment many people are going to experience from MM and its lack of availability, a second go around will really disenfranchise people, and from a collectors stand point MM2 would only get a more vicious response in the removing of boxes from the general public as investors and speculators horded even more boxes away.
the only way you could do MM2 and make it work is to totally change the distribution model, and i cannot see wizards/Hasbro giving enough of a cr@p about people to do it right. step one remove stores from the distribution of the set. step two global MM tournament a set of north American / south American / European / Asian tournaments, one through Latin America, one through south America, one across Canada, three across the US, three across Europe and three across Asia, 4 stops for each tournament tour. one month of modern across the planet, allow the local events to be the distribution hub like any grand prix, just limited to modern, for those two days
the other major issue would be the logistics of mobilizing upwards of 15 crews for a month long expedition in so many different regions. Not overly difficult mind you, but you would need to have a very flexible group of people who could deal with issues on the fly and a dedicated group of DCI judges in each area to be the back bone of your set up crews.
a month later you end up with a new pro tour stop, the masters of modern bringing the top 2 from each stop to a final global show down in a 3 day gala of modern magic, from a day of draft, a day of sealed, and finally a top 16 constructed show down,
June 3, 2013 2:04 p.m.
I'm not sure FTV:20 will have a lot of those, some maybe, but a few have the ability to make it back into standard... looking at you Thoughtseize and Damnation
June 3, 2013 2:13 p.m.
I don't think sales numbers for MM are terribly relevant. It's a limited print run. It's always been guaranteed to sell out.
What is relevant is that the limited print run isn't going to lower the price of any of the most expensive cards. The supply is simply not going to increase enough. Where there will be action is in the less expensive rares and in the uncommons. That's not really what anyone was hoping for, except of course the people who have their playsets of Goyfs and (rightly) don't want to lose value.
There was a comment above that said it was a good idea with poor execution. That's hitting the nail right on the head. If anything it's going to frustrate players, first because of the huge markups on boxes, and then because it won't really affect the availability of the cards that people want the most.
Wizards has done nothing right with Modern short of the concept, which is the only reason it's afloat. It's full of good ideas and poor execution. The pre-emptive banning of favorite cards, PT Philadelphia (the worst PT in history because they decided to make the first major tournament of a new, unknown format a PT), and the seemingly arbitrary banning of non-problem cards make people edgy. Now getting people's hopes up for affordable staples and then dashing their hopes is just not going to help.
They need to do something right with Modern. This isn't it.
June 4, 2013 2:54 a.m.
Wizards stated their goal with Modern Masters wasn't to decrease the price in cards, only increase their availability. Tarmogoyf is a great example of this. Sure, you may have $100 in decent trades for it, or hell, even $100 cash. But finding someone willing to part with them or having a local store sell them? Yeah, fat chance. The only way, it seems, to acquire a lot of the Modern staples is through Ebay and other online venues.
What I find frustrating is only giving game shops access to Modern Masters. Because they have an exclusive product, they know they don't have to compete with Walmart or Target who would sell the boosters for their MSRP. Right now, places are talking about charging $15 per pack. That's ridiculous. I'd rather just buy packs of Future Sight or Zendikar. Let's face it: $15 for Angel's Grace or Scion of Oona or Death Cloud or Skeletal Vampire or Countryside Crusher or Ryusei, the Falling Star or....any of the other $1 rares in the set is going to lead to some really disappointed players.
June 4, 2013 6:34 a.m.
That's called "marketing". All it takes is Economics 101 - or high school economics, really - to realize that increasing card availability necessarily drives down prices. If Wizards is saying they want one and not the other, that's because they're trying to make both the general consumer who wants more supply and the veteran player with playsets of Goyfs who wants less supply happy. They can't have it both ways.
It's pretty clear that the print run is going to be small enough that it's going to add very little (percentage-wise) to the pool for the Mythics. In other words, the people who already hold playsets will get what they want, and the other people will not. Except for those rare lucky people who pull a Goyf or Bob out of a pack, no one is going to find it any easier to get an MM Mythic than it is right now, and even those lucky people will still need three more for a playset.
I don't have an objection to veterans who already have the cards getting what they want. Wizards doesn't want to create the impression that it's risky to get into the Modern format because they might reprint the cards at any time in large quantities and drive prices down (they do that enough already by creating anxiety with their arbitrary banned list choices). At the same time, they can't impart that confidence on those players and still avoid disappointing the newer players who really want to be competitive but can't get the cards to be.
I think the best thing that Wizards could have done to avoid this quandary would have been to avoid printing MM. Once they decided to print it, it's inevitable that some large group of players is going to be very unhappy.
June 4, 2013 11:55 a.m.
My personal goal is to build one modern deck and one legacy deck for play in those tournaments/games, and experiment in standard and play casual edh/commander (with one edh deck built for tournaments). As a new player without most of the cards, getting one goyf/bob will save me a few dollars, the cards I pull that don't fit into the decks I'm already using/working on/towards will/can go towards trades.. MM on a whole is going to make getting the cards I want for my modern/legacy decks (melira pod/esper deathblade) a bit easier/cheaper. In this regard, it makes me a bit happy. But on the downside, that's a tons more commons I'm going to have in the house (buying a box of mm and random boosters). If I was a collector, getting all the cards in MM would probably be better if I bought the singles. As a drafter, I'm still a bit annoyed with the tons of commons I'll end up with.
June 4, 2013 12:05 p.m.
what do i think....
well my morning was full of joy and disappointment UPS guy shows up with a three packages as i am walking out of the house, so i go back into the house to see what is inside them one is a pair of books and a dvd, the next is some EL wire and inside the last box is one box of modern masters, i am shocked the retailer shipped it already,
the packaging is interesting, same size as a regular booster box, but the top is on an angle down, the box is a interesting shades of blue, with its primary art is the new City of Brass , inside the packs are cradled in an insert that mimics the down angle of the box cut, 3 packs across and 8 deep, with the pack art being the new art for Vedalken Shackles - i believe, not sure, Sword of Fire and Ice and Dark Confidant , packs are gold,
the insert card has, the new dark confidant which looks like marilyn Manson, is wearing Michel jacksons rejected left overs - as the art on it, and the how to draft for dummies instructions on the back of it.
going to crack into it to night when i get home. and see what treasures are hidden within.
June 6, 2013 10:09 a.m.
Box 1 pulls - for those trying to map boxes
left column
Kataki, War's Wage foil
Centre column
Right column
Other note worthy cards 2x Path to Exile , 3x Kitchen Finks , 2x Spell Snare , 5x Lava Spike this card is going to get hosed for value along with most of the uncommons 1x Lightning Helix , 3x Electrolyze
June 7, 2013 11:05 a.m.
Box 2 and 3 arrived this morning and I have the day off so.
Left column
Kokusho, the Evening Star foil
Centre column
Right column
June 7, 2013 11:34 a.m.
I will look at box three once I deal with this pile o cards
June 7, 2013 11:35 a.m.
Per box, would you say you came out ahead or behind in value compared to the cost of the box itself?
June 7, 2013 11:39 a.m.
so far i would say it has been ahead, but really what is going to change that is how bad of a hit some of the uncommons take, you have to remember that i got 6 boxes at the msrp, and all three of these are from those. which does help...
until i get a chance to load up the entire card list and run it against the new prices of cards it is still a little bit of crap shoot. if it was not for the random rare and mythic foils and the uncommon foils of 2x Kitchen Finks and 3x Spell Snare i would venture to guess against the 250 retail we are seeing they are barely breaking even.
my over all collection has taken quite the hit, a lot of the older uncommon and commons that have been reprinted have lost upto half their value, where other cards have gone up but not enough to cover the loss... but this is the initial reaction... and the long term effects remain to be seen, my guess is once everything stabilizes staple rares will go up about 10-20% from where they started and the uncommons and commons take a 40-60% loss, the cheap rares are going to be well bargain bin fodder.
give it 6 months and the pro tour and we will see, i think we will see a recovery of some of the cards after the pro tour but anything that takes a significant loss currently is going to get hosed for about a year to two.
finally got some information out of one of the big lgs around there, they ordered a lot, the comment was we are not worried about selling out, it would be almost impossible to buy us out, we have 3 skids back there that we have not even touched.
June 7, 2013 12:04 p.m.
PasorofMuppets says... #32
Caved and bought a box at 200 (ouch), pulled about $310 worth of cards including Dark Confidant , Progenitus , Sword of Fire and Ice , Vedalken Shackles , Foil City of Brass , Engineered Explosives , and Bridge from Below .
Value! lol
June 8, 2013 12:05 a.m.
Bought 3 packs for $30 before the draft tonight, pulled Tarmogoyf , Cryptic Command , and Kitchen Finks .
Pulled crap at the actual draft, but I was able to build as fairly effective Giant tribal deck that took me 2-2 and placing 16th. There were a lot of 2-2s.
June 8, 2013 12:46 a.m.
Did I play you tonight meecht? lol?
I too did a draft tonight for $30. First pack was Woodfall Primus , second pack I drafted Ryusei, the Falling Star (really wanted Spell Snare but it wasn't in my colors), third pack had Elspeth, Knight-Errant . I also scored two Manamorphose , two Street Wraith , foil Search for Tomorrow , Bridge from Below (got passed to me), Eternal Witness , and a foil Glacial Ray .
I'd recommend not paying more than $11 per booster. A lot of people today got junk rares and/or no decent uncommons/commons. Drafting was fun because it allowed you to go for money cards or at least get cards you wanted from the set.
June 8, 2013 4:52 a.m.
Maybe. Are you in Richmond, KY?
It was kind of funny because I jokingly said I was going to do Giant tribal before we opened the packs, and I actually did it.
June 8, 2013 8:05 a.m.
@meecht: Awe, no. I'm in Oregon. That's still funny, though. I played against someone who had almost the exact same night (bought boosters, got money cards in those, ended up playing Giant/Goblin tribal in the draft hahaa).
June 8, 2013 1:45 p.m.
from my experience most of the boxes were good. Even the crappier one (my friends) had a cryptic command and foil cryptic command, he got 3 of the dragons as his main mythics (red, white blue and opened another blue one later when we bought just packs).
In one box and 7 packs I got:
- 1 Vendilion Clique
- 2x City of Brass
- both swords
- Pact of Negation
- Elspeth, Knight-Errant
- Blood Moon
- Summoner's Pact
- Tooth and Nail
- Doubling Season
- Angel's Grace (foil)
- Gifts Ungiven
- Death Cloud
- 2x Demigod of Revenge (one foil)
- 2x Engineered Explosives
- Chalice of the Void
- Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
- 2x Glen Elendra Archmage
- Progenitus
- Reveillark
TheSummoner's Pact
I trade for, gave up a Wrath of God
(4th ed) an uncommon from mm (forgot) I also got a couple Kitchen Finks
, foil Lightning Helix
and a few more things, I ended up trading the foil and a couple things to work on my melira pod deck I'm building, including an Eternal Witness
.
Going to go draft in a couple hours where we are going to Rochester the rares, based o results, keep commons and uncommons.
zig13 says... #2
I highly doubt it. AFAIK Modern Masters is the "Casual" release for the year where in the past it has been Commander, Planechase, Archenemy and Commander's Arsenal. I'm personally hoping for a "un-" set next year ;)
I also have mixed feelings. It seems they have put a lot of effort into making it feel like a set in-of-itself and also making it draftable. As a result there are some terrible (e.g. Traumatic Visions ) and substandard (e.g. Drag Down and Imperiosaur - a strictly worse Deadbridge Goliath ) cards in there that have never been "modern staples".
One one hand it's going to be hella lot of fun to draft/sealed this set but on the other hand those relative few who get the chance will only be able to do it once.
Some cards probably were not included as they didn't want to much around with rarity so much but there are plenty of Modern cards I have bought singles of just because they are good, interesting cards which are absent. Equally though they have included a fair few that I made sure to get playsets of like Sporesower Thallid and Search for Tomorrow .
June 3, 2013 5:46 a.m.