MTGO for Vintage Feedback

[Smmenen]

Suppose,  hypothetically, Wizards is interested in hearing what Vintage players think of the possibility of Vintage on Cube, and more importantly, what cards are inaccessible to difficult to find. 

What kind of feedback might we give them?   What cards are difficult to acquire?

What would be a reasonable price for a Vintage deck on MTGO?

[aahz]

I most likely won't be playing Vintage (or any format) on MTGO. However, I hope Wizards understands that having to buy/assemble a second collections of "cards" to play online can be a problem, particularly for us Eternal enthusiasts with large, expensive physical collections. IRL, I can play pretty much whatever I want in both Vintage and Legacy, so having to spend hundreds of dollars on virtual cards just to have a shadow of my IRL options while playing online keeps me away. I have no interest in draft (except Cubing over beer in person), Standard, or Modern (at least until they unban all the cards that are worth playing). If I can't play Vintage and Legacy out of the box with minimal investment, then I won't play online. I already own Power, Forces, Duals, etc., so buying into Eternal again just to play online is out of the question. However, I would consider paying a reasonable subscription-type fee to play MTGO as long as I could play Vintage online without a hassle or huge expense.

[Smmenen]

Also: are there any Vintage cards missing from MTGO?

[vaughnbros]

The fact of the matter is these are digital and I think a large number of people would find it difficult to spend anywhere close to what they did on their real life decks. 

I think if the price were close to that of 10 proxy real vintage decks it could have a decent market. 

Following current prices... Dredge is certainly dirt cheap, definitely under 100.  Any deck with force + a 3 color mana base is going to be over $500 though.  Seeing as decks running force of will consist of a large majority of vintage decks I'd think that the price of that card needs to come down.

[Klep]

If I could get into online Vintage for no more than $300 I would strongly consider it.  Any more expensive than that and I would have great difficulty justifying it to myself.

[AmbivalentDuck]

They've taken so long bringing Vintage support to MTGO that they're fighting against free alternatives like Cockatrice. Treating it as a video game purchase puts the ceiling somewhere around $120.

Remember that the vintage cards are nonredeemable. You're literally purchasing a digit in a database. It's not like the redeemable formats where the digital objects have something behind them giving them meaningful value.

[bactgudz]

Also: are there any Vintage cards missing from MTGO?

Besides the P9, only a few fringe playables are missing:
-Nature's Ruin
-Virtue's Ruin
-Cruel Bargain
-Cruel Tutor
-City in a Bottle (which I expect we'd never get unless they errata expansion symbols onto ME cards)

of these I'd say only Virtue's Ruin, possibly Cruel Bargain, are remotely relevant

As for price, there is a good article here comparing online price to offline 0 proxy, 10 proxy, and 15 proxy (and this was written before Force plunged to it's current price [which will be even lower after the MOCS is distributed]) :
http://puremtgo.com/articles/price-vintage
-I think keeping online Vintage cheaper than 15 proxy paper is a reasonable goal that seems attainable.

I'm sure the voices of those wanting vastly cheaper access will be louder, but the mtgo economy has demonstrated that a significant population of people hold value in digital objects...I don't think it's reasonable to expect a paradigm shift.

The only potential availability issue is really with Masques block cards.  Cards like Force and LED have always been expensive, but you could find a copy easily.  There have been times when it was very hard to find Tangle Wire or Port for sale.  Bringing back masques blocks helps (tangle wire dropped over 25% when it was back on in December, and now bots are full), but it is really a terrible format to draft.

[PDM]

Reasonable to me is maybe a hundred dollars for a deck. These cards aren't tangible, you are just renting them (licensing?), if something happens to mtgo then you are SOL. This of course completely glosses over the fact that most people enjoy the social aspects that online can never reproduce.

[Smmenen]

Just FYI: I am not asking of people will play.  I am asking what a reasonable entry fee to a top deck is. 

[Thecheese]

Just FYI: I am not asking of people will play.  I am asking what a reasonable entry fee to a top deck is. 

I think reasonable for a tier one deck is $200 to $300.

The price of force of will is the major sticking point

[Shock Wave]

Just a FYI: Force of Will is being "reprinted" this month as a promotional for the Season 1 MOCS. That has already driven the price down to about $90. I expect it will go down further.

I'm already invested in Magic Online for Vintage, but I would spend up to another $200 to get everything I need.

[bax]

I might be spending up to a maximum of $300. If the entry fee is more i keep on playing Pauper on line and Vintage in real as i do today with no additional expense ...

[0/2 Drop]

Just FYI: I am not asking of people will play.  I am asking what a reasonable entry fee to a top deck is.

Sorry, with this in mind, 200 for a U-deck and the half for a non-U deck is the limit.

[Zherbus]

Considering the frequency of being able to play and win prizes in a format that doesn't make me want to sand my scrotum off with a lawmower...

$600 is the calculated investment total, not including P9 of which I think $50/piece is fair. I've got a lot of it already and will have to re-buy the remainder. I will be playing and this will afford me multiple archetypes. I view this as an investment, truly, as each new set will barely be an expense to stay relevant. However, the pay off will be that I will always be able to play Vintage, despite life schedule or geographic location.

[thorme]

I'd say a reasonable Vintage deck price ceiling would be maybe 15x the prize value for winning a Vintage daily event online.

[bactgudz]

I'd say a reasonable Vintage deck price ceiling would be maybe 15x the prize value for winning a Vintage daily event online.

If the structure did not change from classi:
-At current bot buy prices, this number would be 542.85 tix
-At current bot sell prices, this number would be 559.35 tix
-At wotc store retail this number would be $660

Out of curiosity, for those quoting low numbers, is there any justification for why (or even feasible long term market mechanism by which) a top vintage deck online should/could cost less to outright buy than a top standard deck online (between 400-600)?

[PDM]

You cant trade the cards in for real ones.

[bax]

Out of curiosity, for those quoting low numbers, is there any justification for why (or even feasible long term market mechanism by which) a top vintage deck online should/could cost less to outright buy than a top standard deck online (between 400-600)?

Apologies, when i said it should be around $300 i really meant: the set of P9 + Library of Alexandria should be all together $300. Not an entire deck.

[bactgudz]

You cant trade the cards in for real ones.

You can't directly trade a standard deck online for real ones either...with all online cards you need to trade for a complete standard set, which means that mythics are the only online cards that could be said to map in any meaningful way to redemption value.  However, a Trostani and a Sphinx's Revelation online have a 10-fold difference in value, if straight redemption of cards were the only value proposition (or even the primary) to the market of mtgo cards, this would not be the case...since from a redemption perspective they represent the same scarcity of resource.  Having more online Sphinx's Revelations does not let you redeem any more paper Sphinx's Revelations than do online Trostani's let you redeem paper Sphinx's Revelations.

[PDM]

You don't have to trade them in for the online value to be based on the card value, someone has to have the ability to trade them in. Without that real:fake trade you end up some some reasonable prices like The Tabernacle at Pendrell Value for $2 online. That is a completely reasonable value for virtual farmville-style goods, and I will be willing to build a deck with paper expensive cards at such a price to play online when the alternative is to write The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale on a plains for $.05 and get the added value of socializing with my friends.

[bactgudz]

You don't have to trade them in for the online value to be based on the card value, someone has to have the ability to trade them in. Without that real:fake trade you end up some some reasonable prices like The Tabernacle at Pendrell Value for $2 online. That is a completely reasonable value for virtual farmville-style goods, and I will be willing to build a deck with paper expensive cards at such a price to play online when the alternative is to write The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale on a plains for $.05 and get the added value of socializing with my friends.

While I understand your personal value, the point is that this is not remotely close to the value structure shared by the mtgo market as a whole.  "Someone" does not have the ability to trade in online Sphinx's Revelations for paper Sphinx's Revelations (or any RTR paper card) at any higher rate than they can trade online Trostonis for paper Sphinx's Revelations (or any RTR paper card), yet the market values a $20 difference in price between online Trostoni and online Sphinx's Revelation due to their individual utility as "farmville fake" digital goods.

[PDM]

My interpretation of smmenen's original question is that it is one of personal value, though I see and appreciate the logic of the pack multiplier argument someone posted above.

[Methuselahn]

Feedback might include...

We want lots of tournaments.

Collectability is irrelevant.

A reasonable deck may cost 150 to 300 dollars.

[Zherbus]

You cant trade the cards in for real ones.

This is true. Though, I have to be honest of that constant criticism people make. If you draft 10 M13 drafts, you aren't trading those in either. Not until you buy enough in to be able to trade/play your way into having a complete set of M13. Then you can redeem it.

Though, during my high-activity times on MTGO, I knew very few people who collected whole sets to redeem. However, I did know (myself included) who sold out and made thousands in real cash when we quit. Liquidating a collection literally took minutes rather than a painful trip to a dealer or weeks upon weeks on eBay. Money in a paypal account worked pretty well for me for cards sitting there for years.

[FishyFellow]

I also had a very easy time turning a significant profit liquidating a friend's collection.  Much like my paper collection, I could sell my MTGO collection for much more than I paid for it.  The point being, you are paying for something tangible.  You can't hold it in your hand, but it has liquid value.  Additionally, I personally get as much utility paging through my digital binder as I do with my paper collection. 

I think it's unrealistic to expect to buy into Vintage for a few hundred dollars (though you can get a playable deck like dredge).  The market of buying and selling is more efficient than paper, reducing costs, but there's no getting around the fact that digital packs are still $4.00 and the secondary market is driven off divvying that $4.00 up amongst the cards in the set.  I know drafts and prizes reduce the average cost per pack, but you get the point.  One nice thing that will keep online eternal much cheaper than paper is the ability to re-release cards and sets for special events from time-to-time.  If prices of cards drift up too much over time, people will draft the heck out of a set when Wizards make the set available for a couple weeks.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Much like my paper collection, I could sell my MTGO collection for much more than I paid for it.

That's a questionable claim. Other than power and cards that have shot up due to Legacy, Magic doesn't "perform" very well. Consider purchasing a complete 4x set of non-foil, English, MTG. This is a fair approximation of an MTG index fund. Every year, standard and extended rotate, dumping tremendous value from some cards. On the other hand, in certain years, formats like Modern and Commander spring into being and send prices for certain cards through the roof.

I'd contend that the MTG "index" is actually falling against inflation if you correct it for the price leaps that accompanied the advent of Modern and Commander.

[FishyFellow]

It's simply a true statement for my case.  Standard is definitely not profitable to invest in online, because the cards tank when they rotate out.  Eternal formats haven't generally had this problem, but yes, there are no guarantees.  The main point I'm trying to make is that you don't literally have nothing for your investment, as I hear some people contend.

[Zherbus]

With MTGO it's easy and fast to move cards. If you're paying half-assed attention to your card values, it's quite typical to gain in collection value rather than lose it. I certainly have walked away with more money than I've put in.

[tito del monte]

This is a bit out there, but as part of the way people are pricing MTGO Vintage buy in seems to centre around the fact that the cards, unlike their Standard counterparts are not redeemable, I thought I'd ask... (I imagine Stephen's legal expertise plus knowledge of the reserve list decision would come in handy here)

Is there any way that Wizards could get around the reserve list by actually making digital power redeemable for a new piece of cardboard power? I imagine this would be somewhat similar to the way they were using the Judge Foils programme pre-loophole-closure, but I'm curious if the buying of digital commodities is an area fuzzy enough in law for them to exploit should they so wish.

Any thoughts anyone with a legal brain?

Obviously, if it were possible, I'd be happy to buy into MTGO!

[Zherbus]

Is there any way that Wizards could get around the reserve list by actually making digital power redeemable for a new piece of cardboard power? I imagine this would be somewhat similar to the way they were using the Judge Foils programme pre-loophole-closure, but I'm curious if the buying of digital commodities is an area fuzzy enough in law for them to exploit should they so wish.

That will never happen. Ever.

It's not a law thing. They could print power right now.