[Free Articles] Thoughts on Breaking the Reserve List & Solutions to the High Pr

[CorwinB]

Stephen,

The drop in price for a Lotus from A/B to Unlimited is
$1400 to $850
http://blacklotusproject.com/cards/Limited+Edition+Beta/Black+Lotus/
http://blacklotusproject.com/cards/Unlimited+Edition/Black+Lotus/

That's a drop under 50% for a staple card for which Unlimited is the cheapest available option.

The drop in price for a Birds of Paradise from A/B to Unlimited is $200 to $25. That's a 87,5% drop in value. The drop in value is larger than the increase in print size.

As said in several posts, your analysis on how owners of existing power/Duals should not be bothered by reprints focuses solely on Black Border Limited Edition cards. Considering how people love to have their decks fully black-bordered, having power reprinted as a BB Foil edition in a non-trivial amount (considering the small amount of existing Power, even a 10k run for FtV:Power would make a large influx of cards available overnight) would certainly crash the price for Unlimited Power. Same goes for the Revised Dual lands.

[Killane]

Stephen,

The drop in price for a Lotus from A/B to Unlimited is
$1400 to $850
http://blacklotusproject.com/cards/Limited+Edition+Beta/Black+Lotus/
http://blacklotusproject.com/cards/Unlimited+Edition/Black+Lotus/

That's a drop under 50% for a staple card for which Unlimited is the cheapest available option.

The drop in price for a Birds of Paradise from A/B to Unlimited is $200 to $25. That's a 87,5% drop in value. The drop in value is larger than the increase in print size.

As said in several posts, your analysis on how owners of existing power/Duals should not be bothered by reprints focuses solely on Black Border Limited Edition cards. Considering how people love to have their decks fully black-bordered, having power reprinted as a BB Foil edition in a non-trivial amount (considering the small amount of existing Power, even a 10k run for FtV:Power would make a large influx of cards available overnight) would certainly crash the price for Unlimited Power. Same goes for the Revised Dual lands.

so re-print them white boardered?

the premise here is to abolish the lsit entirely, so they woudl reprint however they wanted. New frame, whiteboardered with new art woudl certainly not be anywhere enar as elite as old frame, orginal art, white boardered. value ok.

yet antoehr point showign the reseve list and the need to "play around it" is actually harmful - seeing as playign around the list in this case woudl eb worse than abolishign it altogether

[Smmenen]

Being black bordered is a red herring here.    There are plenty of black bordered versions of cards that people don't care about.   M10 Shivan or 8th Birds, and those don't have the value of Beta versions.  The issue is print run, edition and collectibility.  

I also strongly disagree that reprints would "crash" the price of Unlimited Power.   Unliimited Power would lose value, I agree, but crash?  Hardly.   But the degree of depreciation would almost entirely depend on the particular circumstances of the reprint.

My point was to educate folks that it's not as simple as: reprints = my cards are worthless.  

Jaco's article is far from helpful, as it's mostly hyperbole.   And, it doesn't solve Legacy, since the problem for Legacy is dual lands.   Without dual land reprints, there is a real danger that legacy will not be a broad based format in less than a decade, and it's clear that people enjoy it.  

Wizards has a duty to the millions of players who will enjoy Magic in the future, not just the players who exist today.   They have a duty to shepard the company into the future.  

[DubDub]

Jason:

The facts in my article are simple:

1) Beta Underground Sea is worth as much or more than most Moxen, and 2/3s of Power Nine:  

http://blacklotusproject.com/cards/Limited+Edition+Beta/

Limited Edition Beta

$12391.89 / 683 volume
Most valuable cards
1    Black Lotus    1379.85 (0.00%)    6 volume
2    Ancestral Recall    860.00 (17.81%)    1
3    Mox Sapphire    791.00 (0.00%)    5
4    Underground Sea    583.00 (0.00%)    2
5    Mox Pearl    508.20 (0.00%)    4
6    Mox Emerald    493.90 (0.00%)    4
7    Mox Jet    490.95 (0.00%)    4
8    Mox Ruby    458.70 (0.00%)    7
9    Time Vault    455.00 (0.00%)    1
10    Volcanic Island    441.34 (0.00%)    5
11    Time Walk    405.01 (0.00%)    4
12    Tropical Island    316.17 (0.00%)    4
13    Timetwister    285.55 (0.00%)    7
14    Tundra    236.51 (9.83%)    5
15    Taiga    219.16 (0.00%)    4

Yet, there are 90% more Seas printed than Moxen.   The point is simple: the quantity of Seas is print has very little affect on the price of Beta/Alpha power nine.

The demand for Underground Seas is also much higher than the demand for Power.

Power is legal in the following formats:
Vintage.

Underground Seas are legal in the following formats:
Vintage, Legacy, Casual (especially EDH).

Not to mention that to get a true count of Power (and Underground Seas, to a far lesser extent) one has to include the number of proxies that actually get used in tournaments.

[Troy_Costisick]

Stephen,

The drop in price for a Lotus from A/B to Unlimited is
$1400 to $850
http://blacklotusproject.com/cards/Limited+Edition+Beta/Black+Lotus/
http://blacklotusproject.com/cards/Unlimited+Edition/Black+Lotus/

You're assuming what size of print-run, though?  5th edition?  Would you expect that if it had a print run of FTV: Exiled?  Don't point to Berserk, nobody wants that card.  We're talking about the most sought-after card in Magic's history.  You really think a FTV size print-run would cut it that much?

[BruiZar]

Very good article, I have only one question.

Why is it ok to reprint Force of Will and have its price drop from $40 to $5-$10, but not to reprint Duals, even as a judge or special reprint program and have thier price drop from $35-$50 to $20-$35 (obviously, a judge reward or special reprint would put less into circulation than just plopping them into M11, thus less of a price drop)

Force of Will and the other cards I've mentioned are NOT on the Reserved List, that's the difference.

I like the first part of your article, but your solutions suck and are as bad or worst than the 'solutions' provided by chronicles...Your solution involves ruining collections and the secondary market; while not SOLVING any real problems. My opinion is that eternal players are so stuck on the fact that they are in the most expensive format, that they think other formats use $50,- budget decks.People have money. Magic has grown up, its players have grown up, and t2 players are willing to shell out money for Baneslayers, Goyfs, Bitterblossoms, Mutavaults, Thoughtseizes, Jace and so on.

I understand the difference in mindset between Vintage players, Legacy players, and Standard players, and I agree that the market is self-regulating (until Wizards' erratas cards like Time Vault, which is an outside influence that also helps drive the price of a card).

Would you argue against the fact that my solution of reprinting staples (which are NOT on the Reserved List) would lower the barrier of entry to Eternal formats? Players and collectors were never given any sense that Tarmogoyf or Force of Will would never be reprinted. Not every card has to be cheap, but if enough commonly played cards are cheap this will prevent cost from being a major barrier of entry.

I agree that it lowers the barrier of entry, but the thing is, if you lower the barrier of entry for eternal formats, the real money cards such as tabernacle, shops, bazaars, drains, power and duals will skyrocket and there will be even more discussion on reprinting the old timers that we love so much.



Maybe, to better understand it, you should compare it to MMOs. Being a vintage player is being an end-game MMO player. You know every card in the cardpool, you know every trick in the book, and only the best, most legendary cards are good enough for your deck. To become a vintage player, or an endgame MMO player, you must grind and grind (Collect cards, and gather money). Every time newer MMO player sees an endgame MMO character, they are impressed by the sheer awesomeness of what is possible should you stick around in the game. It gives you a goal and a sense of accomplishment for each time you level up and thus come closer to that goal. The same is true for magic. Every time you acquire a new dual land, you know that you are a bit closer to becoming an eternal player. Your deck might still not be competitive enough due to lack of cards, but you can see the progression through your efforts.

Now, what does reprinting power mean?It means that the sense of accomplishment evaporates. It means that the shock value of simply looking at vintage cards disappears. All the 'magic in magic is gone because you give the rewards before the grind. It is equivalent to starting any MMO with unlimited gold and maxed levels. It is as if you are playing a shooter with godmode on. There is no fun, no reward, no magic to it. Is this really what is in the best interest of the longest running and most succesfull collectible trading card game? The game that proved the world it could still exist after the initial hype, then after 3 years, then after 6 years, 10 years and now 15 years? Is that how we should whore out the value of the intellectual property that is the power 9 and the other eternal staples? What's next? Giving away $100+ cards for each 2 boxes of honeypops you buy at the supermarket?

For the love of god, don't whore out the game we love. There is no problem, don't try to fix what ain't broken.

[CorwinB]

Being black bordered is a red herring here.    There are plenty of black bordered versions of cards that people don't care about.   M10 Shivan or 8th Birds, and those don't have the value of Beta versions.  The issue is print run, edition and collectibility.

When discussing Power, you are free to substitute "A/B Limited edition" to "Black Bordered", of course : both mean the exact same subset of cards. People "pimping" their decks going all black-border is nothing new in the history of Magic, which is why, when considering non-power A/B/U Alpha and Beta are worth far more than Unlimited (more than the print size would imply).

I also strongly disagree that reprints would "crash" the price of Unlimited Power.   Unliimited Power would lose value, I agree, but crash?  Hardly.

We can agree to disagree on what "crash" means. For me, a 10k run FtV:Power with Black Borders would probably mean a 50% drop for Unlimited, which I think is worthy of being called "crash". But your article didn't have a single word about Unlimited Power or what price drop a FtV:Power would imply.

You're assuming what size of print-run, though?  5th edition?  Would you expect that if it had a print run of FTV: Exiled?  Don't point to Berserk, nobody wants that card.  We're talking about the most sought-after card in Magic's history.  You really think a FTV size print-run would cut it that much?

I'm not expecting anything. I was just pointing out that, by available data, a reprint would hurt White Bordered stuff (Unlimited Power/Revised Duals) far more than it would impact A/B items, which is something Stephen didn't mention in his article, but agreed to in this forum, although we disagree on the extent of the impact.

IIRC, there is around 30k legit Power in print (of which some amount has been lost/destroyed/sleeps in shoes boxes), around 20k of which are White Bordered Unlimited. So even a 10k run for FtV:Power (which would be a very limited run on which SCG and the like would make margins of several hundred percents) would mean a brutal, overnight, 33% increase in Power.

[BruiZar]

I will tell you this, just by the discussions going on here, and the fact that stephen is apparently in communication with wotc on this matter, I will ditch my unlimited power and upgrade to beta as soon as possible, just because it holds price better and is a safer bet. Also, I am prioritizing the completion of my set of duals over other staples.

[Shock Wave]

Wizards has a duty to the millions of players who will enjoy Magic in the future, not just the players who exist today. They have a duty to shepard the company into the future.

My position on this issue is that Wizards should reprint whatever Legacy and Vintage cards need to be reprinted, but not without compensating those who have invested in this game as collectors. How is this supposed to be accomplished? I am not sure, but to ignore the fact that Wizards would be breaking a promise they made to their customers is not the right thing to do. Promises sometimes cannot be kept, as is clearly the case here, but when a promise cannot be kept, it is up to whomever made the promise to at least attempt to make up for it. Isn't keeping your word what integrity is all about?

[smasher]

What bugs me about reprints is the fact that white border dual lands are going to take a huge hit. I own 7 alpha dual lands which I gathered slowly over the last couple years. Great. Now what about the 50+ white border dual lands I have? I'd figure a white border dual is going to take a 20-30 dollar price dip or more depending on the going rate when they get reprinted. 50 cards x 25 dollars is 1250. Personally I don't like this thought at all.

Is every player out there with a players set of dual lands ok losing 1000 dollars in value? I doubt even a small minority are fine with this idea.

How about this for a possible solution. If a revised or unlimited card gets reprinted then any person who owns whatever card got reprinted would be entitled to a free reprint for each white border copy they own of that card?

[BruiZar]

I wonder if Wizards can get sued by collectors of the game. Stephen, you're a lawyer right? I'm not sure if this is within your specialization, but hypothetically, under what sort of legislation could a case be made?

[dangerlinto]

Wizards has a duty to the millions of players who will enjoy Magic in the future, not just the players who exist today.   They have a duty to shepard the company into the future.

Absolutely

I find it particularly ironic, that it's possible that not abandoning the reserve list has an even more catastrophic effect on card values overall long term than doing so

[Smmenen]

Wizards has a duty to the millions of players who will enjoy Magic in the future, not just the players who exist today. They have a duty to shepard the company into the future.

My position on this issue is that Wizards should reprint whatever Legacy and Vintage cards need to be reprinted, but not without compensating those who have invested in this game as collectors. How is this supposed to be accomplished? I am not sure, but to ignore the fact that Wizards would be breaking a promise they made to their customers is not the right thing to do. Promises sometimes cannot be kept, as is clearly the case here, but when a promise cannot be kept, it is up to whomever made the promise to at least attempt to make up for it. Isn't keeping your word what integrity is all about?

It depends on how you frame their promise.   In my view, and how I would message it if I were Wizards, is that the real promise is that Wizards will do whatever they feel is in the best interest of the long-term health of the game.   The Reserved list was created at a time when it was felt that it was necessary to the game's survival and well-being.   

Abolishing the Reserved List, but doing so with a big helping of common sense practice, can be in service of the same goal: the long-term health of the game.   The real promise should be that Wizards will take action that support the game in the long run, which they have acknowledged is their goal. 

If they say that, I think that abolishing the reserved list can be viewed as consistent in that regard, and preserve their integrity. 

[Smmenen]

We can agree to disagree on what "crash" means. For me, a 10k run FtV:Power with Black Borders would probably mean a 50% drop for Unlimited, which I think is worthy of being called "crash". But your article didn't have a single word about Unlimited Power or what price drop a FtV:Power would imply.

I disagree on this particular example, although supporting my view here on factual grounds is very difficult.   My sense is that FTV Power would not actually change the value of unlimited power that much, if at all, for a number of reasons.  First, the print runs are so small on FTV sets and the actual value of FTV is so high, and would be so high for FTV Power, that FTV power would retain quite a bit of value, and it wouldn't be so cheap as to drive Unlimited Power down by that much.   

I think of Power were reprinted in a larger scale, like Chroncles 2, then you would see Unlmited Power drop more substantially.  But, and I'm speculating, if they did FTV Power, I would think that Unlimited Power would remain above $200 a pop, and FTV Power would probably be well above $100 a piece. 

[meadbert]

Breaking a promise is pretty serious and it is irrelevant what the the promise should have been.  At issue is what the promise was.  If printing new power is a win/win including for those with power, then let Wizards guarantee that.

Wizards can simply promise to buy all original power for its current market price at any time in the future.  That way if the printing of new power drops the price of power investors will get their money back and it is only Wizards that stands to lose.  If the price of power goes up then it is unlikely people will sell back much power at below market rates to Wizards and even if they did, Wizards could turn a profit off that.

[Smmenen]

Breaking a promise is pretty serious and it is irrelevant what the the promise should have been.  

That's not what I meant.   I didn't say that promise should have been X.  I said one way of interpreting/framing that promise is X.  

[meadbert]

Breaking a promise is pretty serious and it is irrelevant what the the promise should have been.  

That's not what I meant.   I didn't say that promise should have been X.  I said one way of interpreting/framing that promise is X.  

It explains why we reprint cards and lists which cards from past Magic sets will never be reprinted.

My interpretation is that power will "never be reprinted."

I do not see how one could reframe "never be reprinted" and then print those cards without losing their credibility.  If their justification is that it is a win/win then let them prove it.

[Smmenen]

Breaking a promise is pretty serious and it is irrelevant what the the promise should have been.  

That's not what I meant.   I didn't say that promise should have been X.  I said one way of interpreting/framing that promise is X.  

It explains why we reprint cards and lists which cards from past Magic sets will never be reprinted.

My interpretation is that power will "never be reprinted."

I do not see how one could reframe "never be reprinted" and then print those cards without losing their credibility.  If their justification is that it is a win/win then let them prove it.

Textualism is not only interpretive method.  

Consider:  Mark Rosewater told me the story of a time in college where you needed your ID to get into the dorm hall.   Mark became good friends with the security guard, and knew him quite well.  One time, Mark didn't have an ID to get into the hall, but the guard wouldn't let him in even though he knew Mark lived there.

Rules are written and devised with certain purposes in mind.   Sometimes, those rules actually contradict their original purposes, or particular applications contradict those purposes.  In story Mark told me, the purpose of the ID was to make sure that people who lived in the hall could get in.  But enforcing the letter of law made it sort of silly.

If you are a strict textualist, you probably won't interpret the rule differently.  But law is very rarely strictly textual, even if the text could be clearly intepreted.  [As an aside, it's a principle of hermeneutics that there can be no rule without application, See Gademer]

Rules are written with certain applications in mind, and purposes.  One could argue that the true purpose of the Reserved List was to serve the long-term health of the game, and that core promise not to reprint certain cards was a promise to do what is in the best interests of the game.   If those rules no longer make sense in light of that purpose, then they should be changed or abolished.   We do that all of the time in other contexts.    

If rules are devised with particular applications in mind, and new unforseen applications arise that produce absurd, unintended, or undesireable results, we don't say: oh well, we are stuck with the rule!  We change it.   And when a rule produces results that are the exact opposite of its purpose, we often abolish it.   

[meadbert]

One could argue that the true purpose of the Reserved List was to serve the long-term health of the game, and that core promise not to reprint certain cards was a promise to do what is in the best interests of the game.

One could argue that the sky is orange, but that does not mean it is.  I would not argue that the reserve list was meant to serve the long-term health of the game and wizards, which has posted the purposes of the reserved list for the past 8 years on its website does not claim that either.  The motivation that wizards cites is to defend card value and previous commitments.  Nowhere does it mention best interests of the game regarding the reserve list.  In fact the reserve list seems to have been explicity added as an exception to printing cards according to the best interests of the game.

Why We Reprint Cards

The Magic trading card game has tremendous appeal as both a game and a collectible. For us, however, the Magic game is first and foremost a supreme game of strategy and skill. We choose to reprint cards because we believe (a) the cards we reprint make for enjoyable game play, and (b) all Magic players deserve an opportunity to play with these cards. Any card that isn't on the reserved list may be reprinted.

Reserved Cards

The complete list of reserved cards appears at the end of this document. Reserved cards will never be printed again in a functionally identical form.
...
In consideration of past commitments, however, no cards will be removed from this list.

Because Wizards own reserve policy states clearly and unambiguously that it will not print cards on the reserve list, doing so will destroy their credibility.

Personally, I actually value the health of type 1 more than I value my power and I would prefer to see the value of my power drop to mearly $1 if it meant Type 1 were as popular as poker, but what I prefer or what you prefer are irrelevant.  What matters is their own stated policy for the past eight years.  Fairlure to follow their own policy will harm their credibilty.

If they reprint cards and the reprinted cards rise in value, then they could defend that on your grounds.  Basically they can say they determined their rule was counterproductive and recinded it.  The trouble is their rule was designed for customers rather than for them, so it is those customers that should have the right to make that decision.  If they reprint cards and prices fall, then they are in a very bad position.

If they do choose to reprint cards, I would strongly advise a policy of buying back original versions of the reprinted cards for their market value at the time the reprinting was planned.  Otherwise Wizards risks those cards dropping in value, and their customers may view Wizards as lying theives.

[DubDub]

The inclusion of Masticore in FTV:Relics just shows that the Reserve policy, by this latest interpretation, does not prevent reprints.  They don't have to make any changes to print FTV:Power tomorrow.  So the Reserve policy is basically only preventing them from printing less valuable (non-Foil, potentially white-bordered) new power?

[Smmenen]

One could argue that the true purpose of the Reserved List was to serve the long-term health of the game, and that core promise not to reprint certain cards was a promise to do what is in the best interests of the game.

One could argue that the sky is orange, but that does not mean it is.

The sky is clearly not orange, regardless of your method of interpretation, whether you look at the intent, context, application, or text or any other method of interpretation.   

I would not argue that the reserve list was meant to serve the long-term health of the game and wizards, which has posted the purposes of the reserved list for the past 8 years on its website does not claim that either.  The motivation that wizards cites is to defend card value and previous commitments. 

Again, you are being very much a textualist.  Those are, by and large, textual arguments.  I There are other methods of interpretation that help us understand.

And, I think this quote shows quite clearly one of the flaws in textualism.   You miss certain meanings.   If you just look at text, you miss context, which gives text meaning.

Consider the stated motivation.  Why is that a motivation?  Because Wizards wanted to preserve Magic, which it felt was threatened by the backlash.  Wizards doesn't say lots of things, but we understand reasons anyway.   History clearly shows that Wizards created the Reserved List to preserve the game against fears at that time.   You can't dispute that through some ridiculously narrow parsing of their policy.

Nowhere does it mention best interests of the game regarding the reserve list. 

LOL.   Yes, every time Wizards does anything they should say: oh, and in case it wasn't clear, we're doing this because we think its best for the game.  Just so you know.   

Again, not everything is explicit.   

[Suicideking]

Breaking a promise is pretty serious and it is irrelevant what the the promise should have been.  At issue is what the promise was.  If printing new power is a win/win including for those with power, then let Wizards guarantee that.

Wizards can simply promise to buy all original power for its current market price at any time in the future.  That way if the printing of new power drops the price of power investors will get their money back and it is only Wizards that stands to lose.  If the price of power goes up then it is unlikely people will sell back much power at below market rates to Wizards and even if they did, Wizards could turn a profit off that.

Wizards is not the same company that put the promise into effect.  This would be like saying Ford has to do business based on everything Henry Ford said. 

[nataz]

Look, there are a lot of good ideas being thrown about in these threads, but quotes like these drive me up the wall.

We can agree to disagree on what "crash" means. For me, a 10k run FtV:Power with Black Borders would probably mean a 50% drop for Unlimited, which I think is worthy of being called "crash". But your article didn't have a single word about Unlimited Power or what price drop a FtV:Power would imply.

Seriously? You are just making up numbers. Its supply AND demand, you can’t separate the two. In period ( 1 ) after the re-print, yes supply will change and therefore so will price, but in some period (n) demand will also shift. I think we can all agree that the value of a card is at least somewhat made up of how playable it is (other personal preference factors such as print run etc. make up the rest). In other words a beta death lace < a beta lotus because a black lotus is needed to play type I. If you lower the price because of re-prints, it stands to reasons that type I will draw more players .: increasing demand. There will be a new equilibrium, but unless you can prove that the influx of new players and their effects on the demand curve > the influx of more supply you can’t prove a price drop. In fact, there could be a price increase – who knows.

If you are going to disagree, fine, but at least do it intelligently. 

[CorwinB]

Seriously? You are just making up numbers.

Because people saying that existing Power/Duals won't drop in value or could even rise if reprinted are not making things up, of course ?

Its supply AND demand, you can’t separate the two. In period ( 1 ) after the re-print, yes supply will change and therefore so will price, but in some period (n) demand will also shift. I think we can all agree that the value of a card is at least somewhat made up of how playable it is (other personal preference factors such as print run etc. make up the rest). In other words a beta death lace < a beta lotus because a black lotus is needed to play type I. If you lower the price because of re-prints, it stands to reasons that type I will draw more players .: increasing demand. There will be a new equilibrium, but unless you can prove that the influx of new players and their effects on the demand curve > the influx of more supply you can’t prove a price drop. In fact, there could be a price increase – who knows.

Actually the burden of proof should be on the ones clamoring for a change. What Stephen's data shows, right now, is that A/B Power (and duals) would probably still command a high price if reprinted, based on the high premium for "iconic" cards in AB editions. I don't disagree with that. All available data for the same iconic cards points to a very sharp drop in value between AB and U, larger than the difference in print size.

Let's take a couple examples (data from Stephen's source) :
- Black Lotus (Vintage staple, only available in ABU) gains around 60% of its value going from U to B.
- Underground Sea (Vintage and Legacy staple, available in ABU and R) gains around 100% of its value going from R to U ($50 to $100), with a jump of 500% (!!!) going from U to B
- Taiga goes from $32 to $39 from R to U, with a sharp rise to $220 from U to B (again, nearly 500%)
- Birds of Paradise (iconic card, exists in many editions, staple in certain formats) gains around 350% going from M10 to U ($4 to $18), with a jump of 400% going from U to B ($18 to $100)
- Shivan Dragon (iconic card, virtually unplayed) costs next to nothing in M10, with a 900% jump from U to B

That extremely sharp drop between AB and U for items available otherwise (be it Revised for dual lands or newer sets for "iconic" cards) leads me to believe there is a significant risk to the value of Unlimited power and Revised dual lands if newer versions are released in not-insignificant amounts. And although it would help existing cards retain their value, I don't see WotC reprinting those cards white-bordered.

If a good-size increase in Power supply (say a 10k run FtV:Power) leads to WotC suddenly supporting a full-size, no-proxy, sanctioned Tournament scene, and  no extra Power is reprinted past this run, then you could certainly be right, and the increase of interest in a supported, sanctioned format would drive price up for Power, both old and new. But how long would happen before the exact same argument would happen, and people without Power start begging WotC to print more ? After all, that would be for the long-term health of the game, right ? So here comes a larger print FtV:Power 2.

[CorwinB]

We can agree to disagree on what "crash" means. For me, a 10k run FtV:Power with Black Borders would probably mean a 50% drop for Unlimited, which I think is worthy of being called "crash". But your article didn't have a single word about Unlimited Power or what price drop a FtV:Power would imply.

I disagree on this particular example, although supporting my view here on factual grounds is very difficult.   My sense is that FTV Power would not actually change the value of unlimited power that much, if at all, for a number of reasons.  First, the print runs are so small on FTV sets and the actual value of FTV is so high, and would be so high for FTV Power, that FTV power would retain quite a bit of value, and it wouldn't be so cheap as to drive Unlimited Power down by that much.   

I think of Power were reprinted in a larger scale, like Chroncles 2, then you would see Unlmited Power drop more substantially.  But, and I'm speculating, if they did FTV Power, I would think that Unlimited Power would remain above $200 a pop, and FTV Power would probably be well above $100 a piece. 

Your estimation of Unlimited power at $200 each is not that far away from mine, actually. If we remove Twister and Lotus (the two extremes), the average cost of the 7 remaining pieces of Power is $340. So going from $340 to $200 is a 40% drop. Applying the same 40% drop to Lotus would bring it to $500. I'm perfectly ok to substitute my ballpark estimate of 50% by your estimate of 40%.

I think FtV:Power pieces could be even more expensive than $100, as the price of the CE Power shows us (a non tournament-legal CE Ancestrall is already $100).

[Cyberpunker]

I think FtV:Power pieces could be even more expensive than $100, as the price of the CE Power shows us (a non tournament-legal CE Ancestrall is already $100).

I've heard many rumours as to why also...

[xouman]

The problem is not that there are only 30k existent Lotus, but that only a small fraction are really available to potential buyers.

How many different Black Lotus have seen play in tournaments in 2009? I'd bet far less than 10000 (probably under 5000). The vast number of Lotus have been "lost", or are kept by shops and dealers, slowly increasing their value by speculation.

The trick is to make more ABU cards available, maybe finding forgotten cards or printing new ones (easier, but not preferable).

[P]

The issue regarding proxies and reprints depends basically on the fundamentals of the game as you see it, do your want the game to be competitive for everyone or to be deserved monetarily. Would you play chess if you could "buy in" the pieces, and knowing if your opponent can buy better pieces than you. Would you play chess knowing that you can only afford five queens knowing that the optimal play is to buy in fourteen, would you play chess with your fifteen queen knowing that half the field is playing with nine rooks.

The whole point of proxies was to democratize Vintage and make it so the game skill and deckbuilding was made more important than the content of your wallet. Isn't reprints just a step up from that twice a year? I mean, theres about as much chances to get a sanctioned vintage tournament in your area right now than actually getting contacted by a legit Nigerian princess that wants to give you millions just for your bank account number. Reprints would literally mean nothing unless its accompanied by an increase in sanctioned tournament for Vintage, which obviously would be awesome, but is in no way supportable right now on a regular basis with the current state of original cards ownership; if more cards in the market means more sanctioned and Wizards supported events I can't see how anyone could lose from it, at least lose more than from a decaying playerbase. The current system seems to work in Europe and I can't argue results, but out of the 50+ players at each tourneys around here, less than a dozen own full power, and I honestly doubt with the current state of the game that anyone in their right mind would toss off thirty bucks "just to play" knowing that theres no chance in hell that they could win against a full powered tezz. Power makes way too much of a swing than it did ten years ago.

You can theorize all week about semantics of what percentage of your magic the gathering portfolio would drop if reprints would occur after considering the secondary market or whatever other random possible variable you can find, but it all comes down to, do you want the competition to remain healthy, or are you worried about your investment, and on the other hand, would your investment be still safe if your tournament size went from sixty plus players to twentyish since nobody but cutters and people with low aspiration like to play fish and goblin. For every player that can't afford playing non proxy vintage means worse prize support, less prize support means less incentive to travel to events, or even to put on pants at nine am instead of cracking open a bottle of JD and watch 90210 dvds in your underwear. The whole vintage scene right now revolves around not having to own half a car worth of cardboard, as soon as you put up the four thousand dollars entry fee it will all turn to shit like when they introduced the cloning machine in Family Matters.

I honestly don't think reprints would ever bring down the price of current reserved cards in a significant manner, opening to the format to more players would only mean more demand for the product, if anything, the slow death of the format will lower the value more than a reprint simply due to having more events to use them in. Don't even bring up the recently reprinted unplayable cards that dropped in price, before berserk was reprinted in how many decks did you see getting played? how about shivan dragon or psionic blast? Where were you when they took Savannah Lion to brown town and printed his soldat counterpart and loam lion? You honestly can't even compare printing playable often necessary cards to a collector item. Print a bunch of duals with the new "ugly like a pug with downs" frame and white borders and people will still rather have revised duals over them anyway, same would be with non foil white bordered pidgeon poop grey moxes. You would just replace the "need" for "want" the same way that foils and foreigns are worth twice to more than regular English cards, the same way that you can walk outside with two boxes of tissues instead of shoes, it works, but when at all possible, you'd rather have something that doesn't make you look like you just ate out of a trashcan.

This discussion is actually pretty moot for anyone playing Vintage in north america, theres honestly not enough sanctioned events to make the jump from proxies to real cards even worth it, and we've adapted around it anyway. How many sanctioned tournament would make the four-kay investment worth it in the end? That's a lot of money for an unsupported hobby. Legacy might just have to adapt also, there is a cap on how much people are willing to blow on meaningless pieces of cardboard, sure right now it's all fresh and new, but you only bring your dates to expensive dinner onces or twice before it's back to mac and cheese and a recliner blowjob. I cannot see this economic growth lasting much more longer once the hype dies down and people realize that they just blew half a rent on a single goyf, Legacy was a great format when nobody played it and the cards were all in the twenty dollars range, it was the poor-man vintage, the only people defending its health now are those who invested in it in its early ages. I mean, right now it's pretty well supported from Wizards, but as soon as theres enough disgruntled players who would rather not blow a proverbial year worth of grocery on a playset of futuresight bears and eight duals like it happened in 2001 for vintage and power, proverbial shit will hit the proverbial fan and as attendance starts to drop from sanctioned events for player friendly alternatives, so will official support and well have another player controlled format.

Before all this doomsday scenario happens, now would be the time for Wizards to pick its side, history is bound to repeat itself, Legacy is no different than Vintage was nine years ago.

Edit: jesus loving christ wall of text, sounds like I need to quit sugar.

[CorwinB]

The issue regarding proxies and reprints depends basically on the fundamentals of the game as you see it, do your want the game to be competitive for everyone or to be deserved monetarily. Would you play chess if you could "buy in" the pieces, and knowing if your opponent can buy better pieces than you. Would you play chess knowing that you can only afford five queens knowing that the optimal play is to buy in fourteen, would you play chess with your fifteen queen knowing that half the field is playing with nine rooks.

May I direct you to this article. It examines the cost of current high-end Standard decks (no cards on the RL, everything still in print and legal in every format). LSV's "Boss Naya" and Patrick Chapin's "UW Control" decks are both over $600. Man, that's totally unfair to the poor players who can't afford a playset of Baneslayer Angels or Jace the Mindsculptor. WotC should totally put Jace, the Mind Blower and the Walletslayer in a $20 Duel Decks so that Little Bob gets to play with them at next week's FNM. Otherwise, the game is all about money and not fair anymore. The funniest part is that, unlike Legacy, most of the "staples" in those decks won't be tournament-playable in under 2 years. They will be replaced by new ultra-expensive staples, thus furthering the discrepancy between the wealthy bad players who only rely on their wallet, and the poor, but super-gifted people who would shine if only cards were a bit less expensive.

There are formats, including competitive ones, for the people who don't want or can't afford to invest in high-end cards. There are also decent "budget" options (budget being a relative term) in most formats.

[mistervader]

There's a huge difference between $600 and $4000. I think that at some point, a line has to be drawn on what are reasonable costs for a format, and while I don't know where that line should be drawn, I do feel we're fast approaching it already.

To me, the biggest value-killer for any card game is not when supply is too free-flowing. It's when the game is dead. As tournament organizer for WWE RAW Deal when it was still popular, I know this all too well first-hand. Is Magic dying ala Raw Deal? Probably not. But are certain formats dying? Your mileage may vary.