[Free Article] So Many Insane Plays -- Reviving Vintage

[DPCyric]

I agree with all 3 points however I feel there is a lot more that can and needs to be done to revive Vintage.

1. Expand the community: while this website is great for the established vintage player it is just a niche website. There needs to be an active push from the community to promote Vintage discussion on other MTG forums most notably the official forums and MTGSalvation.

2. Better tournament locations: The ICBM Xtreme Open this weekend is located just north of Chicago which is an extremely inconvenient place to travel to for all the Indiana/Ohio/Kentucky Vintage players. If however the person hosting the event found a place in South Bend to host it not only would it be a lot easier for players to attend but it wouldn't really impact the Chicago players because they could just as easily take the train into South Bend.

3. More tournaments: There needs to be cheaper local tournaments that can attract non-vintage players and there need to be more locations for people to play at. I am entertaining the idea of hosting tournaments in the general Fort Wayne Indiana area and I hope there will be people interested since I think it is a fairly accessible location for the Vintage community.

4. More free articles: This isn't a stab at you Steve, what you do is a great service to the community but we need more active voices to draw attention to the format. I have a few articles in mind but unfortunately the front page of my website went down and the owner of the site is too busy to fix it (and I doubt it will ever get fixed) I will be starting my own website up soon that while it won't be exclusively MTG focused I will write Vintage and Multiplayer articles for the front page.

Stuff Wizards needs to do to revive the format:

1. Clean up the Restricted list: I know lots of players who were seriously starting to get into Vintage before Merchant Scroll and friends got restricted and those changes ruined the fun of the format for them. I can count 11 cards on the Restricted list that I think could safely go but the problem is a lot of them are not safe to come off by themselves without another card or two coming off the list to balance it so I think WotC will always screw this up unless the communtiy comes together and makes a list we can all agree upon and heavily pressure WotC to implement it. Granted we would probably need to expand the community and hold regularly sanctioned tournaments (I am thinking smaller local sanctioned tournaments with cheaper entry fees and smaller prize payouts) for WotC to take us seriously but I feel this is something worth trying.

2. Reprint hard to get cards: I know people who would get into Vintage if Mana Drain was reprinted which is not on the reserve list *crosses fingers for it to be included in FTV: Exiled* and the cards on the Reserve list can be printed as DCI foils which would increase the amount of playable cards in the format. What I want to see is sanctioned Legacy events starting to give out foil dual lands as prizes and sanctioned Vintage events giving out foil power/bazaars/workshops as prizes. This would draw people to sanctioned events outside of the non-sanctioned events we currently run and I am sure TONS of new players will play to have a chance at those types of foils (I think it would be neat to have the foil Timetwister as a random prize as well).

3. Power level errata: I am sure some new decks would be created if Waylay, Abeyance, Transmute Artifact, Zodiac Dragon and friends worked like they are worded and new decks could attract new players because they could potentially find a deck that interests them. Plus it would help out White and lord knows White needs all the help it can get. Also the Wishes need to be fixed so that they retrieve cards from the exile zone and we REALLY need to push hard for this errata to happen.

4. Print a set that is Vintage/Legacy/Casual only: It is pretty certain that a third Un set is coming out, if they can print non-tournament legal stuff like that and expect to make some profit then a set that was focused on Eternal formats would probably do a lot better. Imagine a large expansion that takes the current color pie and additions to the game and focus it on high level play. I would like to see a Time Spiral style double rare sheet with the extra sheet of rares being all old dead planeswalkers (since this is focused on the older formats you wouldn't have to hold back their power level as much), the mythics being legends that were deemed to powerful to print like Yawgmoth and Gix, cards color shifted into their proper color like Dark Ritual and Sinkhole into Red and also trying to do different stuff with blue like printing a sorcery speed card draw spell we would actually be interested in playing and a good 3 cc counter. Also opposing color fetch lands would be awesome if they have no plans to ever print them in standard due to power level concerns.

Anyhow that is a lot of stuff and I plan on expanding on some of those ideas in articles one day...

[oneofchaos]

I don't know if you were aware of this, but there are lots of Mana Drain users who aren't American.  

There are Canadians, Germans, French, Dutch, etc. on these boards.  

Not to mention, there are tons of registered users who don't play Vintage anymore, players like KirdApe, Matt the Great, and JPmeyer.    

I don't know if you were aware of this, but there are lots of vintage players who aren't on the drain.

Tons of players do not have TMD handles.  This logic is comparable to "How many magic players exist in the world?".  Let us total up the number of unique DCI numbers.  That does not work because we have casual magic players that do not attend tournaments. 

[Smmenen]

The thing is, a lot of Moxes and other cards will get lost over time.

I disagree.    

Most highly collectible mediums, *characterized by most as such*, do not see a decline in their collectible stock over time.

Spiderman #1 and Action Comics #1 are instances of items which are considered collectible today that people thought were worthless when printed, and so the vast majority of which were trashed after reading. The value of these books is not really a function of their deterioration over time per se, so much as it is their destruction over a particular period of time that has long expired. While there may have been *hundreds of thousands* of printings of Action Comics #1 (comic books in the 1940s used to sell in the millions, as opposed to tens of thousands as they do today), it wasn't until the late 1960s that people realized that comic books were collector's items, much too late in the day to save the bulk of those items from destruction.

While I am sure that some number of Moxen were similarly discarded, I would bet that the availability of Moxen to magic players and collectors has probably remained 99% constant since 1997, if not earlier. Remember, Magic was marketed from the outset as a collectible card game. As early as 1995ish, most people involved in Magic realized that Moxen and other power were quite valuable. I remember selling Moxen in the mid-1990s as they escalated from $50 to $80 or so.

Although comics deteriorate, given the fragile nature of newspaper print, I would assert that it is pretty much impossible for a Spiderman # 1 or Action Comics #1 to be destroyed today, just as we don't lose Da Vinci's anymore. Most copies of said books are kept where they are safe from pretty much everything but nuclear war or astroids. While I don't think that Moxen are safe in the same degree, they are a fairly stable commodity. People who hold them recognize their value.

There WAS a period of time where people were playing Moxen in five-color about 4-5 years back playing with power unsleeved, and that did cause some rapid deterioration among an existing card pool, but I consider that an aberration.

My point is that once a collectible like Moxen or a Mickey Mantle Baseball card or a reverse Jenny stamp or a Detective Comics #27 is understood as a collectible, it's supply does not really decline.

I predict that the supply of Action Comics #1s will remain +/- 5 for the next two hundred years (as some are destroyed and others are 'discovered'.

We have no idea of how many Moxes are actually still existent, or how many are available on the market (you can't count one that someone plans on keeping forever). Things get lost, as well; even if people care greatly for their cards, there's angry S.O.s and spouses, thieves, children, and accidents.

The same is true of Amazing Spider-Man # 1 and Picassos.  Sure, great collectibles can be destroyed, but it's very unlikely.

Regardless, there's still a hard cap on playing Vintage in a non-proxy environment. A circulation of under 15,000 is really low. Even if as many as 10K have survived the test of time,

That's why I think CE can be so beneficial.   It would result in a tremendous influx of power to the format.


Unfortunately, the reality is this: proxies have badly hurt the American Vintage scene, but it's too late to turn back.  My recommendation is that people allow at least 15 proxies but legalize CE cards on a broad basis.  

 

The vast majority of magic players are casual players.   Collectors, casual players, etc.  these players would like Moxen if not for the price.  If the price were lower, demand would be greater.   The price for these cards is a function of their demand curve.  A  decrease in price results in an increase in demand.  Simple economics.

I agree with your overall sentiment that we have enough supply, especially when you consider CE.  However, you are being selective with your economics.  It's not what you are saying is false, but it obscures the more significant relationship of demand to price.  An increase in demand drives price upward when you have a static supply.  Simple economics

You are confusing a shift along the demand curve with a shift in the demand curve itself.

If the price of Moxen lowers, the demand curve doesn't shift.  Rather, the equilibria point moves along the demand curve itself.  

As a side note, responding to Harlequin's earlier point:
Ben Carp was the one who came up with the 1000 American Vintage players quote, and I believe it.

Even if there were multiples of that number, there is still far more than enough power in existence for every Vintage player  That's not the problem.  The problem is the price.   CE would help in both respects.  

[2nd_lawl]

Perhaps the best solution is a mixed system: Some stores already do this as $1 dollar per proxy beyond 10.  If store owners collectively agreed to make it stricter (perhaps 5 "free" proxies and 2-3$ for each proxy beyond that up to 15) the amount of proxies used would rapidly decline, and proxies of pithing needle and noble hierarch would be gone once players realized that buying the card pays for itself over the course of 4 tournaments.  It still may never make financial sense to buy power, but in my view having a playset of drains (or bazarrs, or workshops) has the same or close to the same effect as having power does, in that it helps retain players.  I feel that giving a financial incentive for players to invest in the "mid-level"(price wise) vintage cards like FOW, Tolarian Academy, Duals, Fetches, will have a positive effect on player retention.

[Rome]

Well first of all Stephen was nice seeing you at xtreme and talking to you even tho i didnt get a chance to actualy play you.

2ndly - Power and other such cards that are "over/highpriced" As Stephen said back in the mid 90s moxen were 50-80. Personaly I remeber opening packs of Alpha and beta seeing a mox or lotus and being like god damn it i wish you were a shivan or some other kinda beat stick. even trading moxen for cards like BoP. Do i think these cards need to be this expensive well that is a yes and no. Am I glad the lotus that i packed so many years ago double vaule over and over and over again from the pack? hell yeah I am and its nothing i EVER expected. I think these rare expensive sought after cards are important to the community and needed to keep players almost striving for something as a sense. How many of you that actualy own power dont want it to be BB? not many at all unless your like me and have 5 moxen that came from friends who have passed on and have a story behind them. Its more of is this good enough? for many it is but as you keep digging you keep saying i want to upgrade.

Anyway back to the main focus.
Proxy cards - Yes it is something that does need to be used in most situations simply because most people just cant play vintage without it. if its just because of the investment it takes or they just cant see themselves paying that kind of money for a card. I dont agree with having more than 13 proxy cards in a deck that leaves you 9 slots for power (8 in most cases who plays timetwister besides tps honestly?) and 4 of eather Drains , Bazaar or Workshops and if you dont run twister like most dont leaves you your timevault slot. I also think it should be 5 free proxy and then 1-5 per after to help driver players to try to get something to bring the count down.
On a side not I think you should be able to proxy $9 cards on power like I did =P (yes they were wrote on the perfect fits but seeing peoples face when I played a Null Rod written on a Mox Jet was PRICELESS who else does that but me come on lol)

The amount of moxen aviable I would Disagree with you have people who just quit and tossed them out back in early days people who lost cards or are packed away like many baseball cards that will come back into the stream in many years to come. Then you also just have the people who destoryed the cards via play and they can barly even be reconized.

I dont think Vintage is something for everyone I know plenty of people who just do not like the format and are un interested and those who argue there is no skill in it. Personaly I love this format and I still think it is the best one and always has been just because it is everything its kind of like the orginal MMA when there was no weight classes and the best fighters who could kick anyones ass won.

[Harlequin]

The point I'm trying to make is that -something- in your analysis is wrong.  There is either a variable not correct, or a varible you are missing.

Its like If I took the stats for Rabit Population Growth from the 70s in Austraila.  Those stats show an exponential growth of rabits.  Mathematically I could easily calculate that today, Australia is covered cost to cost and miles deep by rabits.    That however ignores the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, australia is actually NOT a giant block of rabits. 

You said it yourself: "The problem is the price."  The very notion that Power is "too expensive" confounds your calculation of around 200 of EACH moxen availible for the consumption of every 10 vintage players.  Much in the same way I could say "Hey I just got back from Australia and I bearly even saw one rabit" I think we can all say "Hey the last time I saw a group of vintage players they could bearly muster up 2 moxen to rub together."   If you won the lottery, and had money to spend, I think you would be hard pressed to actually put a playset of power into 1000 players hands.  It would probably take YEARS of searching and hunting to scrap it all together.   Figgure there's about 50 to 100 stores online each carring an average of 1-2 playsets a peice?  Even if you find 100 stores each with 2 full sets of power, That "low hanging fruit" only gets you 1 FIFTH of the way there.  You have to Match what you can immediately find online FIVE TIMES over just to hit 1000.

I also find It interesting that you call Moxen Collectables in the same way Comics or Stamps are collectable.  Take your Spiderman issue #1 example.  I'm sure somewhere I can find a reprint of that commic.  And I'm willing to bet that if Marvel made (if they arn't already) thousands of disernable reprints those reprints would have little effect on original issues.  Infact it -might- even INCREASE the price of the originals because some collecters who had no intrest in Spider Man previously now are interested BECAUSE they picked up the cheap reprint and liked it.

Three Major hurddles with Collectors Edition
1 - They are cut dramatically differently. 
2 - I'll bet they are fairly rare now adays, because of all the counterfeting done over the last 10-odd years.  In that lottery situation, how long do you think it would take to cobble together 440 SETS of CE power?
3 - It doesn't deal with the most difficult economic barrier: Price Expectation.


Price Expectation is powerful factor in pricing today.  There are countless studies and examples of Supply/Demand thoeries totally failing or predicting the opposite outcome of the results of a test.  There's a reason absolutly every commercial where you can "buy it now" on TV ends with "But wait, if you call now we'll double your order! and you get TWO things for the SAME price"  They set you up for one expected price, then essentially half that price right in front of your mindless eyes.  And guess what, it works. 

If magically the fort knox of original vintage power opened up, and the supply of actual honest-to-goodness real power DOUBLE. It would have LESS impact on the open market price of power than if they reprinted decernable reprints in the same exact quantity.  Its has nothing to do with supply or demand, it has to do with expectation.  We all expect to pay less for reprints than we do for the real thing. 

[Smmenen]

The point I'm trying to make is that -something- in your analysis is wrong.  There is either a variable not correct, or a varible you are missing.

Its like If I took the stats for Rabit Population Growth from the 70s in Austraila.  Those stats show an exponential growth of rabits.  Mathematically I could easily calculate that today, Australia is covered cost to cost and miles deep by rabits.    That however ignores the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, australia is actually NOT a giant block of rabits.  

You said it yourself: "The problem is the price."  The very notion that Power is "too expensive" confounds your calculation of around 200 of EACH moxen availible for the consumption of every 10 vintage players.

This is the point I explained earlier.

  

Fewer than 1000 Vintage Players??  I think that might be my nomination for grossest understatement of the year.  First of all, there are 14,000 users registered to TMD.  Even if every single US vintage player was registered here, that would mean that for every registered user there are 13 other users who are repeats, spambots, or English speaking non-us vintage players.

I don't know if you were aware of this, but there are lots of Mana Drain users who aren't American.  

There are Canadians, Germans, French, Dutch, etc. on these boards.  

Not to mention, there are tons of registered users who don't play Vintage anymore, players like KirdApe, Matt the Great, and JPmeyer.    

My point was that there are far more than enough power for every AMERICAN Vintage player doesn't mean that those players can get power or can afford it. You are over reading my point and that's leading to some confusion on your part about why what you think I'm saying doesn't seem to jive with reality.  

I was responding to a very specific point: someone claimed that Vintage would necessarily die due to supply constraints.  
My point that there is far more than enough power for every AMERICAN Vintage player doesn't mean that power is suddenly cheap or available.  Consider other sources of demand:

* Non-American Vintage players (i.e. GLOBAL demand)
* Casual players who use power
* collectors who collect power
* PSA/Graded Power that is now out of circulation for tournament usage
* non-Vintage players who'd like to own power
* 5c players who want power
* cube players who want power
etc etc

When you add all of that up, power is spread pretty thin.  

That doesn't mean its *accessible*, but it doesn't mean that it *exists*.   That's a subtle distinction.  You jumped all over me without, I think, fully appreciation the nature of the point I was making.  

For some reason, you seem to be reading my point that there is far more than enough power for every American Vintage player to mean that every American Vintage player will be able to get power cheaply.   Of course I wasn't making that claim.  

The facts are these:

1) There is far more power _printed_ than there probably are even active tournament Vintage players on the planet

2) CE would increase the supply of power by potentially 44%.

Now, those facts don't, by themselves mean:

1) Every Vintage player should be able to acquire affordable power

Far from it.

I'm not claiming those things.   My point was simply that it's silly to think that Vintage must die at some point because of supply constraints.   Secondarily I do think that legalizing CE would help  simply for the fact that it can't actually hurt.   You are increasing the available supply of power.  

[Harlequin]

Well of course there's more power in -existance- than players of magic, I don't think anyone can argue against that.  But that "fact" is completely and utterly irrelevant to this debat.  Its like the fact that "there's more cheese in France than any single Frenchman could eat!"  As a reason to allow Collecto Edition power.  

Looking back at the post, you are responding to a question of -Supply- with stats about existance.  Why even bother?  Supply is not Existance.  And Existane v Demand isn't a useful analysis.  Was this an intentionally missleading stat?  I'm sorry for "jumping all over you" about the juxtaposition of these two clearly unrelated facts in the same post.

 

[Smmenen]

Well of course there's more power in -existance- than players of magic, I don't think anyone can argue against that.  But that "fact" is completely and utterly irrelevant to this debat.  Its like the fact that "there's more cheese in France than any single Frenchman could eat!"  As a reason to allow Collecto Edition power.  

Looking back at the post, you are responding to a question of -Supply- with stats about existance.  Why even bother?  Supply is not Existance.  And Existane v Demand isn't a useful analysis.  Was this an intentionally missleading stat?

 

It would be extremely helpful if you used the spell check function.  It can be difficult to understand your posts at times.   In your previous post, I you said "cost to cost,' and I didn't understand what you meant until I realized you were saying "coast to coast.'

As I said, my point was made for a very practical reason. 

Explosion wrote:

Getting back to the discussion, eventually Vintage will either wither and die as a format, or WotC will reprint the Power 9 in limited, but sufficient numbers. There's no way Vintage will be around for another 15 years without reprints. Imagine how long Baseball would last if "official" bats, balls, and gloves all stopped being produced. People would certainly resort to playing with tattered balls and worn gloves, but eventually even those would be in short supply as people removed them from circulation as "collectibles" and new players had no chance of ever getting their hands on one.

I was specifically responding to that.  My point that there is far more than enough power in existence for every American player also means that, in some degree, there is no reason to think that Vintage will die.    My second point, which was made later on in the thread is that the supply of Power has essentially stopped declining -- for the most part -- for the same reason that Picassos and other expensive collectibles such as stamps, comics, toys, etc does not really decline.    Specifically, I disagree that "there is no way that Vintage will in 15 years.' I see no reason to think that the state of Vintage will be significantly more dire with respect to power circulation 15 years from now than today.

If you had read my post in context, you would not have jumped the gun.   You would have seen that I was responding to someone else's points.   This isn't a single debate.  People are making claims throughout.   

[Harlequin]

But you're counterpoint is that "Well the those bat would still exist, and there would be 200 bats in existence to every person who wanted to play baseball.  So your example is sustainable"

I actually agree with his example, in that the system is NOT sustainable.  Not because the official bats cease to exist, but because they get taken out of circulation.  Even you acknowledge that today some of the existing power is taken out of US circulation by these mechanisms: 
* Non-American Vintage players (i.e. GLOBAL demand)
* Casual players who use power
* collectors who collect power
* PSA/Graded Power that is now out of circulation for tournament usage
* non-Vintage players who'd like to own power
* 5c players who want power
* cube players who want power


His point is that he agrees, and that nothing is stopping MORE and MORE power each year to be taken out of circulation for the same reasons.  And that in 15 years an unacceptable % of all power will be out of circulation (not out of existence).
He is talking about supply of circulating widgets (official bats or power) being reduced every year, and you are talking about existence.  I’m not seeing the validity or relevance of your counter-point.

[Smmenen]

But you're counterpoint is that "Well the those bat would still exist, and there would be 200 bats in existence to every person who wanted to play baseball.  So your example is sustainable"

I actually agree with his example, in that the system is NOT sustainable.  Not because the official bats cease to exist, but because they get taken out of circulation.  Even you acknowledge that today some of the existing power is taken out of US circulation by these mechanisms: 
* Non-American Vintage players (i.e. GLOBAL demand)
* Casual players who use power
* collectors who collect power
* PSA/Graded Power that is now out of circulation for tournament usage
* non-Vintage players who'd like to own power
* 5c players who want power
* cube players who want power


His point is that he agrees, and that nothing is stopping MORE and MORE power each year to be taken out of circulation for the same reasons.  And that in 15 years an unacceptable % of all power will be out of circulation (not out of existence).
He is talking about supply of circulating widgets (official bats or power) being reduced every year, and you are talking about existence.  I’m not seeing the validity or relevance of your counter-point.

His example is pretty clearly about circulation declining because of the actual number of bats/gloves in existence declining due to wear/tear and deterioration.   

As I said, people don't throw out moxen anymore just like they don't throw out Action Comics #1 or Picassos or Vermeers.  Gloves and Bats in early baseball were expendable products.  As were Action Comics # 1.   No one thought of those as colletcibles at the time.   

Let's assume that 20% of power has been lost/destroyed since printing.  That is not an unreasonable assumption since Magic was marketed from the outset as a collectible card game, unlike, say,Action Comics # 1, 99% of which were trashed in WWII paper recyling and other progarms. 

 So, out of 22,500, there only remain 18,000.   I suspect that the rate of power destruction since 1997 has been tiny.   If there were 18,000 pieces of power in existence in 1997, then  I would expect there to be well over 17,000 in existence today and barely a dent in that overall number in 15 years.   

Therefore, I think the claim that Vintage will be dead in 15 years from lack of power is pretty silly.   

But, now you claim that the factors which I point to that make it harder for Vintage players, as opposed to other players, to get their hands on power are actually a decrease in circulation.

But that's not right.   Most of those factors are not cards being taken out of circulation, let alone existence.   As I said earlier in the thread:

I re-read this article, and the forums but I am still confused about one thing.  Most seem to agree that cashing out the mox or lotus prize is standard operating procedure for the winners.  If no one is interested in owning and playing with their power, then who is actually buying all these cards?

The TO's at some tournaments obviously buy back the power, which is really good for them, also, one player will buy out the other if they split.  Collectors definately pick up power, but they are most likely looking for very high quality cards, which is not usually given away at most tournaments.  If you check ebay, there are dozens of pieces of power being bought and sold every week.  Why are people buying these cards if they arent using them?

Simple:

Most non-American tournaments are non-proxy, and the largest and most successful European tournaments are zero-proxy. 

As the US has embraced ever growing proxy limits, our power cards have been going overseas in huge quantities.   
For a while, the US dollar was garbage compared to the Euro, combine that fact with the fact of decreased US demand for power made it even more attractive for Europeans to buy up our power.   Someone once speculated that Europeans may actually own more Mishra's Workshops than Americans, at this point.   

It's not that these cards are out of circulation.   A card being sold to a casual player or a European player doesn't take it out of circulation.   A card sold to a cube player doesn't take it out of circulation.   A card being graded doesn't even necessarily take it out of circulation.  You can always buy it and open it up and play with it. 

The use of Proxies in the US, combined with the devaluation of the dollar relative to the Euro in 2003-2007 led to massive quantities of power and other high-end cards going overseas.    That doesn't take it out of circulation, it simply prices out many US players.   Especially when the incentives for owning power in the US are so low since almost every major Vintage tournament allows proxies. 

What's tripping you up is how Power can be so expensive if there is so much power out there relative to the number of Vintage players?

The answer becomes clear if we look at the facts:

There were 500 million Revised cards printed.   There were 40 million Unlimited cards printed.    That's a 12.5 to 1 difference.   

I don't know what percentage of those millions are each rare or each uncommon.  But we know this:  Revised Sol Ring is wroth about $11.50.    It's an uncommon from a print run of 500 million cards! 

If Revised Sol Ring, an uncommon from a set of that size is worth nearly $12, how much would a rare of about the same demand be worth from a set 8% as large?   That pretty much explains why Moxen cost as much as they do. 

There might even be enough Sol Rings in existence for every single Magic player out there and more.  I mean, there could be as many as a million Sol Rings in existence.  But that doesn't mean they are cheap.   If there are a million Sol Rings in existence and they cost $12, how much would a card cost if there were only 18,000 of them with the same demand?   That explains Black Lotus.   

That doesn't mean that there aren't enough in circulation for Vintage players.  It just means that they are priced way beyond what most people would pay for them. 

[AmbivalentDuck]

Sufficient supply or not, the supply is at best fixed.

Let's say price is a monotically increasing function of demand and supply is fixed.  Let's also say that demand is a monotically decreasing function of price and both are differentiable.  Then, if they intersect in the domain of positive real demand and prices, they intersect exactly once.

Point is, given somewhat reasonable assumptions about the supply/demand characteristics, there's a fixed number of players that the supply will support and its almost certainly less than the amount of power available.  As power goes out of circulation, you'll actually have exponentially increasing prices and the supportable player base gets ever smaller.

Why would we want this?

@Steve: an investment in the game may keep people in your position playing vintage.  In my position ($20k/year stipend as an engineering grad student), reducing the proxy count at tournaments would drive me to another format.  Even when my salary suddenly explodes after graduation, I don't see owning a Black Lotus as in any way enriching my life and certainly given the high price...there are better purchases.

Compare buying a hot tub from Costco to buying a set of P9 from Starcity.  The hot tub is cheaper, can be used every night, and gets you laid.  The P9? Not so much.

[Smmenen]

Again, power isn't going out of circulation.  It might be priced out of some people's ability to purchase, though. 

I do not opposed the reprinting of power, but i don't see that as very realistic.   Instead, I am trying to show that the situation is not as dire as some suggest.    There does happen to be enough power in existence to support the existing player base and support modest levels of growth over time, especially if CE is legalized.   

[Harlequin]

What's tripping you up is how Power can be so expensive if there is so much power out there relative to the number of Vintage players?

What do you mean by "out there" ??
I can't believe that after a page of posts about how much differance there is between existance and circulation, you have the stones to to use such an ambigious term.

Talk about strawmaning an arguement. 

That doesn't mean that there aren't enough in circulation for Vintage players.  It just means that they are priced way beyond what most people would pay for them. 

You can't just say that and make it true, no more than I can say Australia is covered miles deep in rabits.  There isn't some communist ruler, or Kingpin Monopolist setting the price of power.  The price of power is a function of what the market for power will bear. 

The only fact that need be considered is that if it is too expensive means there isn't enough of it in circulation to meet the demand for it (price expectation theory aside). 

[Smmenen]

What's tripping you up is how Power can be so expensive if there is so much power out there relative to the number of Vintage players?

What do you mean by "out there" ??
I can't believe that after a page of posts about how much differance there is between existance and circulation, you have the stones to to use such an ambigious term.

Talk about strawmaning an arguement.  

 

I'm not sure if I'm not being clear, if this thread has a general lack of clarity and points are getting lost in context, or whether you just aren't understanding my posts.  


Let me try to break this down, carefully.

What do you mean by "out there" ??

In existence.

I can't believe that after a page of posts about how much differance there is between existance and circulation, you have the stones to to use such an ambigious term.

First, I didn't realize I was being ambiguous nor that this was a matter of contention.  

Secondly, there was one major post (yours) about the difference between 'existance' and 'circulation.'  The bulk of my response was showing that there is no such distinction.   All cards in existence are in circulation.   See:

It's not that these cards are out of circulation.   A card being sold to a casual player or a European player doesn't take it out of circulation.   A card sold to a cube player doesn't take it out of circulation.   A card being graded doesn't even necessarily take it out of circulation.  You can always buy it and open it up and play with it.

The use of Proxies in the US, combined with the devaluation of the dollar relative to the Euro in 2003-2007 led to massive quantities of power and other high-end cards going overseas.    That doesn't take it out of circulation, it simply prices out many US players.   Especially when the incentives for owning power in the US are so low since almost every major Vintage tournament allows proxies.

Talk about strawmaning an arguement.  

Here is how I should have put it:


What's tripping you up is: how Power can be so expensive if (according to my claim) there is so much power out there relative to (my claim about) the number of American Vintage players?

In other words, the fact that power is so expensive was creating some confusion in your mind that one or both of my premises couldn't be true.  

My point is that they both are true, and power is still expensive.  That's why I went through all of that math about Sol Ring and the Revised print run.  

That doesn't mean that there aren't enough in circulation for Vintage players.  It just means that they are priced way beyond what most people would pay for them.  

You can't just say that and make it true, no more than I can say Australia is covered miles deep in rabits.  There isn't some communist ruler, or Kingpin Monopolist setting the price of power.  The price of power is a function of what the market for power will bear.  

Of course price is a function of what the market will bear.  But that isn't some abstract idea.   What that means is that the price of power is an intersection of the demand and supply curves.    

The supply curve shows what people who own power would sell their power.   Some people would sell their power for less and some for more.   It might take a ton of money to get a collector to sell theirs.   It might take much less to get a casual player or a Vintage player to sell theirs.  

The demand curve shows the amount of aggregate demand for power at each price point.  As power becomes more expensive, fewer people are willing to pay the price.   As power is less expensive, more people are willing to pay the price and the amount of people demanding power at that level is greater (hence, we would move down and right along the curve).  

Where these two curves intersect is the market price for power.  

The only fact that need be considered is that if it is too expensive means there isn't enough of it in circulation to meet the demand for it (price expectation theory aside).  

The price of power being high doesn't mean that there isn't enough in circulation to meet demand.  In fact, from an economics perspective, I've not even sure that such a statement makes sense.    

Demand is not constant.  It is a curve.   There is no such thing as X demand for power.  The demand for a particular quantity of moxen will depend upon the price.  As the price decreases, more people would be willing to buy power, and vice versa.  

I didn't say that power is too expensive.  What I said was that "It just means that they are priced way beyond what most people would pay for them."    That's one reason that Vintage is not as popular as Standard.   Most Standard players won't play Vintage.  

Of course, if the quantity of power were to increase, then there would be a shift in the entire supply curve simply because more people would be willing to sell more power for less.   That doesn't mean that the demand curve would shift.  Rather, there would be a shift along the demand curve since more people would be buying up power from the people who are now willing to sell until we reach the intersection of both curves again.  

[Explosion]

I didn't say that power is too expensive.  What I said was that "It just means that they are priced way beyond what most people would pay for them."    That's one reason that Vintage is not as popular as Standard.   Most Standard players won't play Vintage.  

This is the crux of the problem. Ben Bleiweiss is a professional Magic dealer. He has a much greater interest in seeing high prices for old cards than the health of the Vintage scene as a whole. On the other hand, we, as Vintage players, should care more about seeing infusions of new blood into the scene. Many more Standard players would play Vintage if they didn't feel immediately priced out.

Yes, they can just proxy a deck. No, that's not the same.

I can even hand someone one of my decks to a Standard player, and unless I have very nice proxies (not just the word "BAZAAR" sharpied onto a Plains), they won't know the cards. If Vintage cards were cheaper and more plentiful, we could get more people trying it out. We could maintain more than one deck at a time to lend to friends.

Expanding Vintage and keeping the prices of old cards high are two crossed purposes, and it's quite unfortunate that those who are best poised to serve as ambassadors of the Vintage format stand to lose the most because they'd see their collections lose thousands of dollars.

[Harlequin]

The price of power being high doesn't mean that there isn't enough in circulation to meet demand.  In fact, from an economics perspective, I've not even sure that such a statement makes sense. 

Right that's sort of the point I was trying to make.  The price is what it is.   Quantity of Supply, and Quantity demanded are not measurable in absence of price.  So long as system has reached equilibrium there, is no such thing as "too" anything.  However we still hear about prices being “too this” or “too that.”  How is that possible? 
It’s because the perception of “Cheap” or “Expensive” is ethereally related to Supply, Demand, and Price.  If people, like you, me, and anyone else say the price is "too high" then that is our perception of the price.  That sentiment is what it is as well.  When the consumers feel something is "too expensive" they are commenting on the current supply of something, and their own personal price point.  This is where Utility theory starts creeping in, as in what is Power "Worth."  You touch on this concept every time you point out the incentive to keep power in the presence of proxies.  It’s not really that the Quantity Demanded in a classic sense is somehow lower, it’s that people feel its value to them is less than the $X00 dollars it could give them.
To put it another way, If things are "too expensive" in the eyes of consumers, the system could easily and quickly absorb an increase in supply.

Economics is a funny bird.  Showing that there are enough physical cards to put into the hands of the people who demands it does nothing to solve the issue of sustainability; anymore than showing there is enough food in the world to feed everyone solve the problem of worldwide hunger. 

[Smmenen]

Expanding Vintage and keeping the prices of old cards high are two crossed purposes, and it's quite unfortunate that those who are best poised to serve as ambassadors of the Vintage format stand to lose the most because they'd see their collections lose thousands of dollars.

Lose thousands of dollars... if what?  If power was reprinted?  Is that what this is about?  

Since you are implying that I oppose <insert whatever it is I oppose> on the grounds that I would lose thousands, let me be clear:   I am not opposed to power reprints.   I just don't think that's realistic, even remotely so.  

I am trying to operate within the realm of the possible.    Hence, I suggest allowing CE as an alternative.   It would increase the supply of power by 44% (potentially, if not more).   There are probably far more CE power cards out there than American Vintage players.  

I didn't say that power is too expensive.  What I said was that "It just means that they are priced way beyond what most people would pay for them."    That's one reason that Vintage is not as popular as Standard.   Most Standard players won't play Vintage.  

This is the crux of the problem. Ben Bleiweiss is a professional Magic dealer. He has a much greater interest in seeing high prices for old cards than the health of the Vintage scene as a whole. On the other hand, we, as Vintage players, should care more about seeing infusions of new blood into the scene. Many more Standard players would play Vintage if they didn't feel immediately priced out.

While I certainly think that having new players in the format is far more important than maintaining high prices, I think that seeing new players in the format is much less important than other goals, such as finding ways to retain existing players better.   That's one of the key points I am making here.

It should cost much less to retain existing Vintage tournament players (and will gain more) than trying to get new players.   The emphasis should be on retention, not expansion.    A much higher retention rate with a much lower new player rate is much preferred to a higher new player rate and a lower retention rate simply because it is much harder to get new players than it is to retain existing ones.  I explain all of this earlier in the thread, although the particulars are a bit complicated, and hence why I will not repeat what I said there again.  

In that way, proxies have actually hurt the number most important factor contributing to sustainability: retention, for all the reasons I lay out in the article.

The price of power being high doesn't mean that there isn't enough in circulation to meet demand.  In fact, from an economics perspective, I've not even sure that such a statement makes sense. 

Right that's sort of the point I was trying to make. 

I'm  not trying to nitpick, but if that's the point you were trying to make, you had a funny way of going about it, arguing with me at every turn when I've been saying the same thing all along.

Economics is a funny bird.  Showing that there are enough physical cards to put into the hands of the people who demands it does nothing to solve the issue of sustainability; anymore than showing there is enough food in the world to feed everyone solve the problem of worldwide hunger. 

Of course the facts don't solve the problem of high power prices of endemic hunger.   But what it can do is help people get a better sense of the scope of the problem.   Explosion's point that unless power is reprinted Vintage will clearly die in 15 years can be better evaluated with the facts.   That was precisely my point when you started jumping on me.  I wasn't saying that these facts should lead to lower power prices, just that things weren't as bad as people were making out.   

[Sean Ryan]

What about when increased demand drives price upward, rather than lower prices driving demand?  That is what happened with the SCG power 9 tourneys and the development of stagnant format into what we have today. 

The supply is constant, as demand increased with the growth of the format and a tournamnet circuit we saw prices rise.  This is also observable with the recent increase in the price of Dual lands in tandem with legacys growth. 

The lower prices of yesterday reflected a low demand for a nonexistent format.  It wasn't until demand was externally stimulated that we saw a jump in price.  A constant supply with a large increase in demand drove prices upward to a point where many are now priced out.     

In the face of increased demand and higher prices the only answer seems to be increasing supply.  Whether that be through legalizing CE or WOTC reprinting duals in something resembling the "from the vault" series.

While the increased supply of CE and their lower price would certainly create more affordable options, would the price really be what drives the demand, or it is the presence or absence of an incentive to own any power CE or not ie; a thriving tournament circuit.

Perhaps this observation is just too basic for those with more economics than I but it seems important.

Sean   

[Smmenen]

What about when increased demand drives price upward, rather than lower prices driving demand?  That is what happened with the SCG power 9 tourneys and the development of stagnant format into what we have today. 

That's a shift in the demand curve, not a shift along the demand curve.  It also results in higher prices.    Lower prices because of exogenous factors or because of an increase in supply do not result in a shift in the demand curve.  Rather, they cause a shift along the demand curve. 

While the increased supply of CE and their lower price would certainly create more affordable options, would the price really be what drives the demand, or it is the presence or absence of an incentive to own any power CE or not ie; a thriving tournament circuit.

It's not that price 'drives demand,' so much as there are different levels of demands at different prices.   At each price, there are a different number of people who would buy the item.  The demand curve represents this.   

[Sean Ryan]

Thanks for the econ lesson.

Maybe supply side economics isn't voodoo after all...

Have any of the TOs hosting larger venues sanctioned CE yet?  I think I recall Ben being adamantly against it, but what about Ray and the Waterbury events?  We've been doing it successfully in the northwest for years.     

Sean