[Free Article]Fuel to the Fire: My Thoughts on the P9 & the Reserve List

[Troy_Costisick]

Posted a follow-up: http://mtgvintage.blogspot.com/2010/03/feeling-lost-at-moment.html

[CHaPuZaS]

Hey Troy! Nice posts!

Anyway, as a blogger mate, I have to ask you for a switch on the black colour of the blog, for a more eye respectful colour. When you finish reading your posts and come back to other sites, it takes a little to recover. Just a counsel!

Bye!

[TheShop]

As median originally posted- there are more beta than alpha copies, yet beta holds higher value despite being a reprint.  Something other than "basic supply and demand" is driving the price.   It is obviously more complicated than price simply being a function of supply (which is what you really seem to have meant because you will not consent to any demand change large enough to be noteworthy).  It must be more complicated than your initial statement to have drawn this much relevant discussion over the years.

Alpha cards' corners are different from the corners of all other cards (well, those with rounded corners, so not including CE/IE).  The difference used to be the source of a stigmatization of Alpha.  It's perfectly reasonable for Alpha to be treated as an inferior good to Beta, which is what we see in the prices.

I agree with this and I also think it further reinfoced the point that quantity is not the sole, or even largest determinant of pricing here.

[Troy_Costisick]

Hey Troy! Nice posts!

Anyway, as a blogger mate, I have to ask you for a switch on the black colour of the blog, for a more eye respectful colour. When you finish reading your posts and come back to other sites, it takes a little to recover. Just a counsel!

Bye!

Thanks for the advice!  I looked at some of the other templates.  I don't like them as much.  I'll keep working with it though.

[arctic79]

@Troy

I read your blog and like your ideas and your approach.  I think Wotc could go one better with the GenCon idea and hand out new P9 to all registered players.  This would probably increase attendance and allow for some P9 to hit the market.
One sentence in the Wotc Reserved List Policy made me think, the part of not reprinting with identical functionality.  Could this mean reprints of the shock lands? (which all players should be pointing new recruits to for a starting point)  Maybe shock P9 could be in the works?

@Everyone bitching about prices.
I personally don't care if my undergrounds drop in value, I couldn't care less if my foil Tarmo dropped to $50.  What I care about is more players being able to get in the eternal formats without having to proxy a dual land.  IMO prices of the old stuff would not and will not drop drastically regardless of reprint policy just because of pimp factor and collectors, and I could careless what reprints looked like (white bordered ass art) as long as they are legal.

[DubDub]

@Troy
I read your blog and like your ideas and your approach.  I think Wotc could go one better with the GenCon idea and hand out new P9 to all registered players.  This would probably increase attendance and allow for some P9 to hit the market.
One sentence in the Wotc Reserved List Policy made me think, the part of not reprinting with identical functionality.  Could this mean reprints of the shock lands? (which all players should be pointing new recruits to for a starting point)  Maybe shock P9 could be in the works?

Umm, well they can't print new power under the Reserve List policy that they just restated....

The problem with creating shock-power is that it doesn't bridge the gap, because some players will have *just* the shock-power, while others would have shock-power AND the originals.  I would gladly play Shock-Sapphire, as a 4-of if it were not restricted.

[arctic79]

@Troy
I read your blog and like your ideas and your approach.  I think Wotc could go one better with the GenCon idea and hand out new P9 to all registered players.  This would probably increase attendance and allow for some P9 to hit the market.
One sentence in the Wotc Reserved List Policy made me think, the part of not reprinting with identical functionality.  Could this mean reprints of the shock lands? (which all players should be pointing new recruits to for a starting point)  Maybe shock P9 could be in the works?

Umm, well they can't print new power under the Reserve List policy that they just restated....

The problem with creating shock-power is that it doesn't bridge the gap, because some players will have *just* the shock-power, while others would have shock-power AND the originals.  I would gladly play Shock-Sapphire, as a 4-of if it were not restricted.

I realize that it doesn't bridge the gap but it sure as hell closes it up a bit.  With the Reserved List as it is now, there will always be the Haves and Have Nots but the distance between them doesn't have to be so drastic.  A little parity when proxies are not permitted would be nice.

[TheWhiteDragon]

It would not be parity at all.  As Dub-dub said, if they made shock power then people with real power would have decks with shock power AND real power.   I assume shock power would get restricted immediately, so that would mean while the "have-not" guy could now run the shock P9, a "have" guy could run the shock P9 plus the real P9 which would make for some very consistent turn one kills and uber-retarded Vintage decks.  It may actually increase the gap as the "shock" player would have a worse version of TPS and the double-power player would have a kablamo-in-your-face-tendrils-for-30-turn-one-every-game deck.

[TheShop]

Chalice + rod stax variants would get far better.

[arctic79]

Hey all I am saying is Wotc has left a door open for them to do something like that.  It's not perfect but it's an idea, and I'ld bet dollars to donuts they would do something like that (see Time Spiral).

Of course if they banned power it would solve all our problems. we could just play Legacy.

[Delha]

It would not be parity at all.  As Dub-dub said, if they made shock power then people with real power would have decks with shock power AND real power.

That is easily answered by making the card text dictate that it couldn't be run w/ their P9 counterparts. I believe this was suggested on these forums in the past.

As a thought exercise, a friend long ago suggested the template for a new mox with a significant drawback, then we considered how big of a drawback it would take to make it balanced and still playable. Appropriate drawbacks could allow the card to be printed in the new sets without destroying Standard, while also creating a situation where it was a viable choice to run a singleton of the true mox or four copies of the new version.

Sapphire Fragment
0
Artifact
Nemesis -- Mox Sapphire (This card may not be included in any deck containing copies of a card named Mox Sapphire)
Consuming -- Lose 6 life (When Sapphire Fragment enters the battlefield, you lose 6 life for each card with Consuming you control.
T: Add U to your mana pool.

The exact cost (and the mechanic itself) is of course subject to tuning. At 6 life, you get two "moxen" and a fetch without dying (but just barely, and all of these thereafter become dead draws). How many would you run, if any? Even at 3 life, Necro/Bargain/Confidant become much worse draw engines, and Hurkyl's/Repeal becomes insane against you. Is the benefit of having access to a full playset worth it? At what life value? What if it were Consuming -- Exile the top 10 cards of your library?

Cards like this could shake up the meta without completely redefining the format (since at the end of the day, they are primarily substitutes for the older staples), and allow for the creation of new competitive decks that don't require $3k in jewelry to build. There's admittedly a lot of homework involved to avoid breaking everything, and I'd certainly recommend introducing these ideas gradually. That said, I strongly believe that such things are within reach.

[DubDub]

It would not be parity at all.  As Dub-dub said, if they made shock power then people with real power would have decks with shock power AND real power.

That is easily answered by making the card text dictate that it couldn't be run w/ their P9 counterparts. I believe this was suggested on these forums in the past.

As a thought exercise, a friend long ago suggested the template for a new mox with a significant drawback, then we considered how big of a drawback it would take to make it balanced and still playable. Appropriate drawbacks could allow the card to be printed in the new sets without destroying Standard, while also creating a situation where it was a viable choice to run a singleton of the true mox or four copies of the new version.

Sapphire Fragment
0
Artifact
Nemesis -- Mox Sapphire (This card may not be included in any deck containing copies of a card named Mox Sapphire)
Consuming -- Lose 6 life (When Sapphire Fragment enters the battlefield, you lose 6 life for each card with Consuming you control.
T: Add U to your mana pool.

The exact cost (and the mechanic itself) is of course subject to tuning. At 6 life, you get two "moxen" and a fetch without dying (but just barely, and all of these thereafter become dead draws). How many would you run, if any? Even at 3 life, Necro/Bargain/Confidant become much worse draw engines, and Hurkyl's/Repeal becomes insane against you. Is the benefit of having access to a full playset worth it? At what life value? What if it were Consuming -- Exile the top 10 cards of your library?

Cards like this could shake up the meta without completely redefining the format (since at the end of the day, they are primarily substitutes for the older staples), and allow for the creation of new competitive decks that don't require $3k in jewelry to build. There's admittedly a lot of homework involved to avoid breaking everything, and I'd certainly recommend introducing these ideas gradually. That said, I strongly believe that such things are within reach.

One is far better off proxying Mox Sapphire than using a real copy of your Sapphire Fragment, even (especially) if the Fragment can be used in a sanctioned event.
The 'Nemesis' keyword as you have it is inelegant, how many cards are there that directly reference another card, and do so in a negative way?  City in a Bottle and Apocalypse Chime count, but beyond that?  It's not like Smother actually says: "Destroy target Tarmogoyf/Dark Confidant."  It's also a slippery slope to:

NuTarmogoyf  -  GG
Creature - Llurgoofy
Nemesis - FastWalk and/or GoodCall
[Tarmogoyf's P/T]

FastWalk  - UU
Sorcery
Nemesis - NuTarmogoyf and/or GoodCall
Take an extra turn after this one.

GoodCall - U
Instant
Nemesis - NuTarmogoyf and/or FastWalk
Target Player draws two cards.

I think directly referencing other cards in a non-beneficial way is one of the last design spaces they'll explore, right after beginning to use the word 'stack' in regular card text (there are I think six existing cards without Split Second that reference the 'stack' in their Oracle text, and only two that do so on their non-reminder card text).

P.S. I could have named three of the six before searching; some interesting cards.

[honestabe]

I'd still just run power and 4x goodcall


If for some reason, WoTC decides they don't want t1 and paper Legacy to die, they could do something like this:

Infested Lake
Land-Island
Add U or B to your mana pool

Petrified Forest
Land-Forest
Add G or B to your mana pool

This way, they're still not as good as real duals (they don't have 2 land types), but can be a solid replacement

Doubt they will though, ruins t2 and legacy, as well as the fact that they're not gonna do anything to help eternal

[o uncola o]

I like the proposition of Smmenen...

Allow anyone to use CE or IE.  That way you have expanded the amount of power available, duals available, etc.  You have increased the card pool.  But you did not shake confidence in the value of the cards (as much) because you have not sent a message that these types of cards are at risk of being reprinted and destroying an investment.

[Delha]

One is far better off proxying Mox Sapphire than using a real copy of your Sapphire Fragment, even (especially) if the Fragment can be used in a sanctioned event.
The 'Nemesis' keyword as you have it is inelegant, how many cards are there that directly reference another card, and do so in a negative way?  City in a Bottle and Apocalypse Chime count, but beyond that?  It's not like Smother actually says: "Destroy target Tarmogoyf/Dark Confidant."  It's also a slippery slope to:

You've entirely missed the point. As before, that card was just a jumping off point. The severity of the drawback should be adjusted until neither is objectively better. Any of us would run 4x Shock Sapphire over a singleton Mox Sapphire. It's too good. I'm saying to find the middle ground.

As for your Slippery Slope issue, I'll start by pointing out that there's a fallacy specifically named for your argument. Secondly, the whole point on Nemesis as a mechanic was to prevent people from running the the replacements concurrently with the real deal. Godcall is bad because it is literally Ancestrals 2-5. NuGoyf is pointless because the original Goyf inst't on the reserved list in the first place. If they want to print more, they just will.

This whole things is about ways to lower the entry barrier without violating the policy they have in place.

[CorwinB]

I'd still just run power and 4x goodcall


If for some reason, WoTC decides they don't want t1 and paper Legacy to die, they could do something like this:

Infested Lake
Land-Island
Add U or B to your mana pool

Petrified Forest
Land-Forest
Add G or B to your mana pool

This way, they're still not as good as real duals (they don't have 2 land types), but can be a solid replacement

Doubt they will though, ruins t2 and legacy, as well as the fact that they're not gonna do anything to help eternal

Those are pretty nice, and would constitute a solid alternative to existing duals, but they fail the basic threshold that R&D has set for new lands : lands have to have some sort of drawbacks when compared to basics (something like ETBT or generate colorless). Well, they also have set another rule which is that lands should always produce some kind of mana, and broke it first chance with the Eye of Ugin.

And yes, those would break standard in half.

I think the best they could do would be to add basic types to the M10 dual lands (that ETBT unless you have a basic of the existing type). Even that may already be too powerful. But the main problem with dual alternatives is that if good enough ones are produced, people running the original duals now can run 4 extra copies.

[BruiZar]

Sapphire Fragment
 
Artifact
Nemesis -- Mox Sapphire (When you play this card, your opponent may search your hand and library for a card named Mox Sapphire and exile it; if he/she does, he/she may exile another card)

 : Add   to your mana pool.

Option 1:
This way it is still good in conjunction with Mox Sapphire. If you play a Mox Sapphire first, you essentially remove the draw back. If you open with Sapphire Fragment, and you don't have a Mox Sapphire in your deck, it is essentially just as good as a Mox Sapphire (although you do reveal information about your deck and hand). if you open a hand with Sapphire Fragment and you play a list with Mox Sapphire in it, you open yourself to having a recall or time vault removed as well as dramatically increasing your vulnerability to chalice of the void. (Opponent will remove your mox sapphire + combo piece from the game for example). It will probably help control a lot due to first turn mana drain.

Sapphire Seed
 
Artifact
Mutate -- (When you play this card, your opponent may search your hand and library for an artifact card with converted mana cost 0 and exile it. Sapphire Seed loses its abilities and becomes a copy of the exiled card.
 : Add   to your mana pool.

Option 2:
Sapphire Seed is very interesting. It makes chalice of the void really bad because you can make your opponent run into his own chalice, give him an off color mox, give him an explosives for 0 or a tormod's crypt instead of a mana source.

[DubDub]

One is far better off proxying Mox Sapphire than using a real copy of your Sapphire Fragment, even (especially) if the Fragment can be used in a sanctioned event.
The 'Nemesis' keyword as you have it is inelegant, how many cards are there that directly reference another card, and do so in a negative way?  City in a Bottle and Apocalypse Chime count, but beyond that?  It's not like Smother actually says: "Destroy target Tarmogoyf/Dark Confidant."  It's also a slippery slope to:

You've entirely missed the point.
[snip]
This whole things is about ways to lower the entry barrier without violating the policy they have in place.

Vintage participation by a person (and generalizing, by people) is about the competition between two things:
-How much enjoyment the person will get out of Vintage.  (Both from physically playing, and enjoyment derived from peripherals to a Vintage tournament, like seeing friends.)
-How much it will cost them to play Vintage.  (In time, money and effort.)

If the first is worth more to the person than the second, then they will participate.  Otherwise, they will not.

To increase participation one needs to increase the first holding the second constant, or decrease the second holding the first constant.

The recent Reserve List restatement, and the non-changes to the Restricted List indicate that Wizards is not interested in doing either of these for us.  It's in their best interests to keep high-revenue non-Eternal players from becoming low-revenue Eternal players.

Before I again address (it may have been a mistake to even do so the first time) your suggestions on how Wizards could lower the barrier to entry by printing cards that could substitute for Power, what argument can you make that that is even on their table?  What incentive do they have to encourage participation in the Eternal formats?

That said, I think it's much more constructive for us to discuss what we, as a 'community' (if the term applies), can do than to discuss completely irrelevant 'create a cards'.

[Motion2Dismiss]

Here's another idea: make Collector's Edition tournament legal.  Since they're already out there, Wizards could essentially release a manageable amount of Power and duals into circulation without actually printing anything.  The CE cards are already valuable and rare.  Obviously, they'd have to be played in opaque-backed sleeves, but so does Alpha.  And there's precedent for making a non-tournament set legal in Portal.  And the cards themselves are freaking beautiful....

[Killane]

Here's another idea: make Collector's Edition tournament legal.  Since they're already out there, Wizards could essentially release a manageable amount of Power and duals into circulation without actually printing anything.  The CE cards are already valuable and rare.  Obviously, they'd have to be played in opaque-backed sleeves, but so does Alpha.  And there's precedent for making a non-tournament set legal in Portal.  And the cards themselves are freaking beautiful....

The Meandeck Open has allowed this for some time, and Menendian has spoken in favor of it. We allow CE at our local store to count as non-proxy. Never had an issue with it whatsoever. Just don't run white sleaves

[Delha]

Before I again address (it may have been a mistake to even do so the first time) your suggestions on how Wizards could lower the barrier to entry by printing cards that could substitute for Power, what argument can you make that that is even on their table?  What incentive do they have to encourage participation in the Eternal formats?

That said, I think it's much more constructive for us to discuss what we, as a 'community' (if the term applies), can do than to discuss completely irrelevant 'create a cards'.

I would agree that if you wanted to change gears to talk about the bigger picture, then it was a mistake to pick on the details of my suggestion. I was following the flow of that discussion, and when you first responded to me, it sounded like you were too.

I'd also agree that it's more constructive to plan our actions as a community, since that covers measures we actually have the ability to execute. That said, WOTC is the big dog here. We can run around using band-aid solutions in an attempt to hold the format together, but they are the ones with the power to enact true solutions.

The argument I'd make on behalf of the Eternal formats is that we are the inevitable resting place for players who cling to their favored cards/sets/blocks/etc... Of course Wizards would like for Standard/Limited players to stay that way forever, but some invariably either slide or branch towards older formats.

So long as we are here, there is a place for them. Without the Eternal formats there is only a black hole at the end of the conveyer belt, and for many people, a high barrier to entry is no different. The more people hit this wall, the greater the emphasis on how much of a money sink the game truly is. For the savy, this may just mean more attention to buying/selling at opportune times. Many others will only see the endless road of dollars evaporating with each rotation.

I'd hazard that a good fraction of people who exit the Eternal formats drop the game entirely. I'm selling my power soon, and I likely will. I enjoyed drafting (which obviously translates into profit for Wizards). So long as I was still playing, it had at least some minor relevance to me. That'll be changing shortly.

[o uncola o]

Here's another idea: make Collector's Edition tournament legal.  Since they're already out there, Wizards could essentially release a manageable amount of Power and duals into circulation without actually printing anything.  The CE cards are already valuable and rare.  Obviously, they'd have to be played in opaque-backed sleeves, but so does Alpha.  And there's precedent for making a non-tournament set legal in Portal.  And the cards themselves are freaking beautiful....

The Meandeck Open has allowed this for some time, and Menendian has spoken in favor of it. We allow CE at our local store to count as non-proxy. Never had an issue with it whatsoever. Just don't run white sleaves

Since the majority of Vintage tournaments are not sanctioned anyway, so long as there was a general consensus that CE and IE do not count toward proxy limit, doesn't that make them "tournament legal" for all intents and purposes anyway? 

Just throwing it out there.  Wish the DCI would just hop on board and make them legal. 

[honestabe]

Here's another idea: make Collector's Edition tournament legal.  Since they're already out there, Wizards could essentially release a manageable amount of Power and duals into circulation without actually printing anything.  The CE cards are already valuable and rare.  Obviously, they'd have to be played in opaque-backed sleeves, but so does Alpha.  And there's precedent for making a non-tournament set legal in Portal.  And the cards themselves are freaking beautiful....

The Meandeck Open has allowed this for some time, and Menendian has spoken in favor of it. We allow CE at our local store to count as non-proxy. Never had an issue with it whatsoever. Just don't run white sleaves

Since the majority of Vintage tournaments are not sanctioned anyway, so long as there was a general consensus that CE and IE do not count toward proxy limit, doesn't that make them "tournament legal" for all intents and purposes anyway? 

Just throwing it out there.  Wish the DCI would just hop on board and make them legal. 

Because it's in thier best interest for Paper legacy to die, and vintage to die all together