VINTAGE on Magic Online is announced!!!

[dangerlinto]

Also how bonerjammed are you gonna be if you open a Timetwister as your ultra-mega-mythic? Someone should lead an internet campaign to oust Twister in favor of Vault.

Everyone already has Vault though.  It's like $7 online. I'd rather see Timetwister

[boggyb]

Aha. Point stands, however: You will be bonerjammed to open a Timetwister.

[Thecheese]

Aha. Point stands, however: You will be bonerjammed to open a Timetwister.

It may be the least desirable but with the level of scarcity it surely will maintain good value.

How much do the power start at when released? 100$? 200$?

[Varal]

Timetwister is the only one available in Commander. This can probably help the price remains high.

[bactgudz]

Force of Will has been spoiled in VM as a RARE, not mythic.

[Hrishi]

That's fantastic news.

[KrauserKrauser]

FoW at rare is great.  That should smash the price down closer to 100 for a playset, instead of per card.

I'm still hoping for Wasteland at Uncommon, but would understand if they made it rare.

If they make LED a Mythic, someone needs a nutpunch.

[Tharizdun]

I wish they named the "special" rarity "Impossible" or "Stupid" rare instead.

I hope they don't reprint LED or anything from Mercadian in here as I enjoy drafting those sets (I'm in the minority probably).

I look forward to this but not big on the Madness cards they previewed for the set. That doesn't seem too Vintage to me.

[gkraigher]

um, you hope they reprint nothing from mercadian masques?

gush and brainstorm will be commons.  

Rishidan Port ($100), Misdirection ($60), Unmask all need reprints.

I love drafting the old sets too, but Vintage Masters is going to be a fiercely amazing draft.  

They have said Yaw Will is going to be in the set, so I fully expect the $100 lion's eye diamonds to be in there as well.  There is going to be a storm archetype in this draft format.  

Someone said earlier that they effectively threw the kitchen sink into this.  If City in a Bottle is getting reprinted (with only LoA, Bazaar, Erhnie, Desert Twister, and Serendib Efreet in the set), then they are throwing the f***ing kitchen sink at this set.  Everything not in modern that has showed up in a Vintage Deck is going to be in here.  


An interesting signal for the next 3-6 months will be if On-Color Fetch lands are in this set.  If they are not, THEN EXPECT THEM REPRINTED IN PAPER FORM SOON!

And I think Jace has to be included in here too.  Has to be.  

[Zherbus]

And I think Jace has to be included in here too.  Has to be.  

And now he is. Make another wish, QUICKLY!

[bactgudz]

This set is like every magic player's wet dream.  One thing's for sure, if you ever want to get into Vintage online, you'll never find a cheaper time to buy in than while this is in print.

[Smmenen]

Any informed predictions about where Power Nine will ultimately fall in terms of price? 

[Zherbus]

If they hit us with Wasteland, Port, and Misdirection, there will be a period of relative affordability for Legacy and Vintage. That will bring in more players, which means more events firing, and more momentum on at least Vintage innovation.

I might be getting ahead of myself, but the last time an availability boost was given to such an audience of the curious, the Vintage proxy scene took off. It took a format of Keeper and a sea of budget decks and turned it progressively into a much more dynamic format. It ushered in periods of broken and made it past them in shifts and adjustments. I'm very hopeful that it'll allow me to be as active as I once was. And even better, I am hoping it allow more dormant vintage minds than my own to be able to get active.

Stephen, any guess that I or anyone else could make would be total bullshit. This is entirely unprecedented in scope and rarity. Also, we don't know how long they will be available for, which ultimately will decide how far they fall before they plateau. My bullshit guess? 200 for a mox. 100 after about 10 days. Less than that as time trickles on.

[KrauserKrauser]

One benefit to the Power 9 is that you only ever need 1 of them.

Sure, you can play hoarder, but that restriction should help reduce the pricing pressure somewhat.  Maybe not initially, but eventually it should have an impact.

[Zherbus]

The problem, which is the huge portion of the question mark, is how long is 'eventually'. However long this stuff is flowing into the market will really dictate how long it'll fall. On a long enough timeline, the supply will meet the demand such as other restricted cards have. On a short enough timeline, very few people who desire the Power Nine will be able to complete their sets.

[Smmenen]

http://www.eternalcentral.com/vintage-masters-sneak-peek-vaulting-through-vintage/

Sick preview.

So, Time Vault is here.  The only questions left are:

LED, Misd, and, of course Gush

[Thecheese]

I almost spent $900 this past weekend on a death and taxes deck for mtgo. 90% of which was the ports and wastelands. I'm glad I waited. Wasteland and port should make it in.

I'm going to draft the heck out of this.

[dangerlinto]

Any informed predictions about where Power Nine will ultimately fall in terms of price?  

Ultimately, that will depend a lot on how long we can draft the set, like Zherb said.  Without that info, I don't think anyone can make an informed decision.

There is some math though that might help.  

A set of power comes out every 20 drafts (~480 packs).  Now, a set getting drafted 20 times in an hour is an extremely high frequency on MTGO - and with $7 packs, you'd think it would be harder, but the set as revealed already is so insane, the people will come.  So let's guess at 20 times/hour

So lets go with one set of power every hour, and since generally MTGO is prime-time in North America, lets say that get's 17.85 sets a day, or about 125 sets of power/week.  It would probably be higher in the first two weeks, but then the drafting rate will inevitably drop off, as the EV of cards drops too.

So again - if the set is available for a month only, then you'll get about 500 sets of power - which is not a lot - even though I'd doubt 500 people would be playing competitive vintage, a lot of that is going to end up in bots at inflated prices.  If it goes to two months, that draft rate will drop but you'll see much more.

So let's go with 500 sets of power.  How many people would pay X for that set?  That's pretty much what the price will be.  If you think there are 500 people willing to pay $1000 for a set of power online, then that will be the price.  If there were 1000 sets, the price will obviously drop because the next 500 people just won't pay that much.

Like Zherb said though, that's all guesses.  VMA is so awesome so far, it might do ridiculous things and pull the entirety of the online population away from everything else and fire off 50 times an hour.

No one really knows.  Watch the draft frequency once it starts, find out how long the set is draftable and then start making informed decisions.

[Pomaxx]

http://www.eternalcentral.com/vintage-masters-sneak-peek-vaulting-through-vintage/

Sick preview.

So, Time Vault is here.  The only questions left are:

LED, Misd, and, of course Gush

at this point, i am almost certain that those cards will be in.

the amount of rares and mythics they squeeze into the set is huge and it seems they just put in everything of relevance.

at this point i am curious on which rarity they will reprint Wasteland^^

[H]

Forgive my ignorance, but 7 dollar packs means drafts will be 21 dollars, right?  Or is there some sort of discount?

[Soly]

So, I have decided I am DEFINITELY going to buy into Vintage Masters; HARD.     I realize that if I get an account with every Vintage Playable on it, I can share it with guys like Tommy Kolowith;  for those that don't know, Tommy is highly regarded as the best vintage player of the modern era.    He stopped playing in 2010. 

[bactgudz]

Forgive my ignorance, but 7 dollar packs means drafts will be 21 dollars, right?  Or is there some sort of discount?

Packs won't cost that much on the secondary market due to event winnings, likely more like 4-6 tix while in print.  There will likely be an entry fee as well though, anywhere from +0 to +6 tix.

[Klep]

So I don't know how MTGO economics works.  Is it looking like this set is +EV to open?

[H]

Forgive my ignorance, but 7 dollar packs means drafts will be 21 dollars, right?  Or is there some sort of discount?

Packs won't cost that much on the secondary market due to event winnings, likely more like 4-6 tix while in print.  There will likely be an entry fee as well though, anywhere from +0 to +6 tix.

So a draft should be between 21 and 27 dollars then?  Or are you saying you can buy in with winnings/packs you just buy?  Sorry, I have never used MTGO before, so I am pretty clueless.

[bactgudz]

Forgive my ignorance, but 7 dollar packs means drafts will be 21 dollars, right?  Or is there some sort of discount?

Packs won't cost that much on the secondary market due to event winnings, likely more like 4-6 tix while in print.  There will likely be an entry fee as well though, anywhere from +0 to +6 tix.

So a draft should be between 21 and 27 dollars then?  Or are you saying you can buy in with winnings/packs you just buy?  Sorry, I have never used MTGO before, so I am pretty clueless.

Your first draft will cost you 20-27 dollars.  You will keep what you open in the draft and you will win 0-8 packs that you can draft with again, sell to others for tix, or open.  For your second draft you will need 3 of those packs +0-6 tix...so you may have to buy some more, or you may sell one of your packs for the tix and not pay anything...and so on and so on.

So how much you pay on average per draft depends on your skill level.  Drafts take in 24 packs total from 8 players and pay out 11 or 12 packs in total prizes (you enter either an 8-4 or 4-3-2-2 queue or a swiss that pays 1 per win).

[dangerlinto]

Forgive my ignorance, but 7 dollar packs means drafts will be 21 dollars, right?  Or is there some sort of discount?

Packs won't cost that much on the secondary market due to event winnings, likely more like 4-6 tix while in print.  There will likely be an entry fee as well though, anywhere from +0 to +6 tix.

So a draft should be between 21 and 27 dollars then?  Or are you saying you can buy in with winnings/packs you just buy?  Sorry, I have never used MTGO before, so I am pretty clueless.

On MTGO, the drafts are generally double entry - either all tickets  (like say, 24 tickets) or product (in this case, 3 VMA packs) + tickets (probably 2 or 3).

Since you win VMA packs in the drafts, you can use those packs to go right back into a draft queue (provided you have 3).  

So yes, unlike your LGS, you can use pack winnings to draft again.  That's why drafting on MTGO is so awesome, and why the value of a pack while it's in the store and draftable is often quickly devalued below it's store value.  

Another good way to think about it is this:  Communally, the 8 people in a draft pod pay for 24 packs, but essentially get 35 or 36 packs (depending if you are in a 8-4 queue or a 4-3-2-2 queue) and those packs are of equal value.

[H]

Excellent, thank you guys for the info.  I felt like that was how it worked, but wasn't 100% sure.

[gkraigher]

You have little incentive to buy and open packs, you should pay the 2 Tix entry fee and continue drafting, as those 16 aggregate tickets between players equate into 11 or 12 packs which is a boon for the players.  

When Modern Masters came out, the attrition on the packs was actually pretty high.  Like 50%.  If you were lucky to pull a goyf you clearly won, but the high quality cards were really the only thing that kept the value of the packs.  They had mythic dragons (which has to be one of the worst ideas ever, and I hope they don't put dud mythics in this set as well.)

With Vintage Masters, you are going to have a lot less attrition per pack.  You can pull a dual land, a $100 port, $100 LED, Force of Will, Gaea's Cradle, Show and Tell, City of Traitors...I'd actually think it might be close to break even (depending on the value of power which will easily be over $100 right out of the gates.  They will go down in time, and their end value will depend on how limited the release is).  If the common and uncommon slots are filled with powerful cards like Ancient Tomb and Wastelands, as well as pauper all-stars, then it might be possible to make money opening packs.  And I expect if you have a time horizon of 2 years, you will certainly outpace the rate of inflation.  

The number of power, and the price of power, in my mind has to do with the value of the attrition per pack.  The closer it is to break even, the more packs will be opened, and the cheaper they will become.  The interesting piece to the equation is what the price of FOIL Power is worth.  

[Klep]

So far the commons appear to be full of Vintage unplayables.  I don't think I've seen a single Vintage-playable card other than Skullclamp (optimistically) spoiled at below rare.

[Bakalias]

Sadly for you Skullclamp is a mythic rare in Vintage Masters.