How frequent does WOTC spit out a new expansion????

[Carnac]

I thought WOTC only released a new expansion 3 times a year / every fourth month.

Worldwake was released on the 5th of february, and now Rise of the Eldrazi is already announced to be released on the 23th of April !?

Thats not even 3 months between the releases. Are WOTC in desperate need of money or are they just beeing extremely greedy?

If WOTC increases the frequency of which they release expansions, Im gonna stop playing magic, because then they have become too greedy for my budget.

Anyone got an answer why next expansion is released this quickly?

[CorwinB]

The cycle for expansions is still one full set per year (in this case Zendikar/WWK/RoE), but they moved forward ROE a bit, because what changed is that there will be a new basic set every year, released for the summer. So we get RoE at the end of April, and Magic 2011 in July, with "Lights" (first expansion of the next block) coming around October/November.

Sets are a bit smaller than in the past, but I really don't like that RoE is going to be another 249 cards set, with 15 Mythics. I agree with you, that's a bit greedy. Especially considering that, in spite of what Rosewater said, many Mythics are shaping to become tournament staples...

[DubDub]

I thought WOTC only released a new expansion 3 times a year / every fourth month.

Worldwake was released on the 5th of february, and now Rise of the Eldrazi is already announced to be released on the 23th of April !?

Thats not even 3 months between the releases. Are WOTC in desperate need of money or are they just beeing extremely greedy?

If WOTC increases the frequency of which they release expansions, Im gonna stop playing magic, because then they have become too greedy for my budget.

Anyone got an answer why next expansion is released this quickly?

With the announcement of M10 I believe they addressed this topic.  Currently WOTC will release one block with three expansions, and one core set per year, they should fall on the calendar like so:
~February     - Set 2 of Block A - 150 cards
~April           - Set 3 of Block A - 150 cards (Rise of the Eldrazi will be an exception, as it meant to be drafted alone it is roughly 250 cards)
~July?          - Standalone Core Set - 250 cards, higher proportion of reprints than expansions, though fewer than 10th Edition.
~September - Set 1 of Block B - 250 cards

Before this structure was implemented they already had four expansions per year, as with Lorwyn/Shadowmoor/Morningtide/Eventide, the major difference is that a core set will be released yearly, replacing another release.

You can see the history of Magic sets, and a few scheduled ones here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Magic:_The_Gathering_sets

[i_set_fire]

my best guess is because magic is really popular now so they can cash in.  also, worldwake is a small set so maybe they arent giving it much time before releasing eldrazi, a bigger set.

i, too, was annoyed by all the releases and now gave up on buying boxes of the new sets.  now i only buy one box of the new sets just because i like opening packs and seeing some new stuff and then attending prereleases for promo cards.  since i am mainly interested in vintage and cards that are great in vintage  are often unplayed  in standard (i.e. lodestone and thada) it is far cheaper just to pay 3$ for a playset of vintage playables than to buy lots of boxes.  then i can use that money that would be spent on boxes to buy vintage singles that maintain their value and wont be (potentially) worthless in a year when rotated out of standard. 

[jro]

They've been releasing 4 sets per year pretty consistently for the past few years.  Every other year there was a core set release, and the odd years were filled with Eventide, Coldnsap, and Unhinged (in reverse chronological order).

I can imagine there are business reasons for keeping the schedule they do, but I've long wished that they either change the release schedule or the Pro Tour schedule, so that Worlds would be played with full blocks.  Having 2 Full Blocks and 2 Core Sets seems a lot better environment in which to declare a World Champion than the current "1 block plus a big set" environment.  Since there are now 4 Pro Tours per year (3 plus Worlds), I think it would make sense to connect those schedules in some way.  Is it really so necessary that the World Champion be declared in December?