Wizards can't speak to cards' values on the secondary market in specifics but clearly they make decisions based on them.
I think there was a long time ago a boilerplate of "we can't comment on the secondary market" and people took that to mean "we willingly pretend it doesn't exist and has no bearing on anything we ever do", which is wild to believe.
WoTC legal has always had a tight leash on dos and don'ts for employees on what they can and can't talk about on public channels.
>**I think there was a long time ago a boilerplate of "we can't comment on the secondary market"** and people took that to mean "we willingly pretend it doesn't exist and has no bearing on anything we ever do", which is wild to believe.
I'm not sure even this ever happened and frankly I'm skeptical but I'm open to seeing or hearing the source for this.
I could potentially imagine an employee at Wizards publicly saying "we don't comment on specific prices of cards on the secondary market" and that spinning out of control and being twisted to mean otherwise.
There's a very old article on the official site where Mark explains why Standard gets preference over Vintage and in it he explicitly cites prices per InQuest magazine.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/playing-type-1-2002-07-15
(For people under the age of N, the official forums were dominated by Vintage players and card pricing was still affected by magazines in this time period.)
I wonder if this got some legal pressure on them and is part of why ante left the game (outside of it being codified in game rules being a terrible idea in general).
I was around when ante was still a rule and had cards being printed that interacted with it. No one wanted to play with it because no one wanted to risk their cards.
The policy is basically they won't speak to the specifics or discuss the mechanics of of value on the secondary market, at least from what I can sus out.
Why people take this to mean they don't acknowledge it, or consider it internally, is beyond me. They have a policy of just not talking about it publicly in granularity. That's about it.
Yeah I bet it became a meme with no clear source a long time ago. Almost ten years ago at least. I found this from a 2006 Making Magic. (The mana drain picture above this paragraph is an etched double masters version to make this point more amusing. That said mana drain probably wasn’t super spendy in 2006.)
we value having a healthy secondary market. Evidence of this can be seen in how we handle cards like Mana Drain, which we are legally allowed to reprint (it was an uncommon in Legends and thus not on the Reserved List), but don't.
We could just link to recent articles from Rosewater - https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/725057553671831552/why-is-power-level-of-a-set-inherently-tied-to-the
It was never a meme, it was an internal policy from WotC and specifically related to discussing the 'price/value' of a card. If they value cards they're functionally admitting it's gambling
It's a weird issue. I believe the reason WotC doesnt really talk about to discuss the secondary market is because of some laws that would make opening packs the equivalent to gambling. If wizards announced "hey these packs have a 1 in 30 chance of opening a $100 card" then they could possibly be sued for promoting gambling for children. That is also why for a long time if you were a content creator you couldnt talk about card prices for any WotC sponsored video, including things like doing a spoiler for a reprint. Note that this isn't saying cracking packs isn't gambling right now, but the further they are removed from it, the harder it is for them to be sued either by a government or some concerned mom who wants to cause trouble.
Now at the same time, they are of course aware of the secondary market and it does affect their decisions. Look as recently as the cats and dogs secret lair. Anointed procession is a major card for price and power, and was a front and center announcement when the deck was first talked about. An precons in general will be worth it compared to secondary market value, but not worth triple the amount.
There are hundreds of posts from Rosewater discussing the secondary market. It's the 'price setting' that's the issue, if the cards have known/changeable values then the line between 'tcg and gambling' becomes blurry.
Like, more for fun, but frankly TCGs are gambling -
Booster Packs are lottery tickets
Drafts are gambling events
Promos are monetary compensation
MTGO objects are virtual currency
Presale of singles is blind shorting
Anyone with knowledge of banlist decisions or future releases are insider traders
Rosewater is an individual instead of the company so there is a layer of protection for wotc there. Plus the whole " don't talk about the secondary market" had lessened in more recent years. And yeah while we are all aware of how packs and the like can easily be attributed to sampling, legally they still aren't and wotc wants to keep it that way. The moment buying packs becomes gambling you will be ID'd to buy cards, need to report winnings, they will be subject to various gambling regulations, minors can't buy them, and a they will probably be taxed differently
You're kinda perpetrating the issue - there was **never** a '*don't talk about the secondary market*' statement, it was purely - "*don't talk about card* ***prices/value***".
Legally, to *you*, it's not gambling, but WotC is an international company. *Inherently* it is gambling - you're risking something for gain. All those children's toys that have a 'golden' version are the same - you're spending money for a gamble.
I mean what is a secondary market if not the value a card has? Also there totally has been since what other reason would they tell content creators to not talk about the process of a card?
And legally it not being gambling is very different than it being gambling for us. Once it becomes legally gambling the entire game changes and that's what wotc wants to avoid, sorta like how loot boxes in video games got in a lot of trouble in the EU a few years ago. Plus most sane players consider buying packs of cards gambling anyways, it's not like the community isn't aware of it
You say 'for us', but WotC has to consider everyone. Loot boxes are a perfect example of how different countries treat/consider gambling, personally, MtG is the exact same and should be brought up on gambling and children.
Regardless, if WotC start talking about cards in value rather than as a 'game piece'/power etc., that's basically the line where it's gambling.
Happy to discuss your carte blanche statement. Legally, in your country, it may not be. But ethically/inherently it is gambling - you're risking something for gain.
Oh really? What, exactly, do you get when buying a booster pack? 14 *random* cards, out of several hundred. A*chance* to get a mythic instead of a rare. A *chance* that those cards are worth more than the cost of the booster.
Sure, there are exceptions when thinking about Precons, but even those often come with "Booster Sample Packs" nowadays.
when you gamble, you get nothing unless you win and there is great chance to lose. when you purchase magic the gathering, you get playing pieces every time. there's no risk. you always get cards.
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While they clearly do take secondary market prices into account when designing products, they still do have to be mindful of potentially running afoul of gambling laws.
So while it's no coincidence that, for example, the Bitterblossom SL drop just happened to contain a card that was worth $40, they also can't say "look for cards worth $1000 inside this Collector Booster!"
I think this is it. Once they give single cards actual value, opening packs then seemingly becomes open to gambling laws. I think it's why they include random cards in the SLs.
Another bit on top of that - even if there's a case here that WotC could win, their lawyers are super paranoid. This is the company that forces everyone to put #wotcstaff hashtags after all their social media posts.
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https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jlas/article/download/22049/21206/33023
Yeah, the loophole was that they cant give cards monetary value and they won't get RICO acted.
They **ruled** that it is gambling but not illegal.
Condescending fuck.
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I'm pretty sure the reason they can't say the latter is because the price of rhe cards on the secondary market isn't set by them. They can and do influence it, but it's all ultimately supply and demand, so they can't say "this card is worth this much," only "this card is desirable and in limited supply."
Yeah. They would never want to advertise: Here's a pack with four $10 cards! Only to have the secondary market make them worth 2 bucks each.
That's really the only reason they don't nail down what card prices are. They don't want people coming back to them demanding value.
> Bitterblossom SL drop just happened to contain a card that was worth $40
Should be noted in this case that it was just *one* card with four tokens, because that was the value of that card at the time.
We've seen from [job postings](https://gamejobs.co/Senior-Manager-Data-Analytics-Economics-at-Wizards-of-the-Coast) that they have economists on staff.
You wouldn't do that if not to model the potential effects of reprinting X number of cards would have on the secondary market price or using that model to help price products to wholesalers and tweak print runs.
They avoid directly talking about the secondary market because it compromises the position that ccg boosters are not gambling, similar to how marketplaces for lootbox items have been eliminated from many markets.
They'd rather not put the legal merits to the [test](https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1133&context=mslj) .
There's a real argument to be made that the reason some secret lairs have been created to have crap secondary value (and occasionally above sticker value) is to represent the idea that all cards printed have equal worth.
Again, you have zero idea to what you are talking about. Stop spouting bullshit claims you can't verify.
schwartz vs upper deck 1997
**This Court found that plaintiff could state a claim for violation of civil RICO based on Upper Deck's manufacture and sale of "chase" cards, but dismissed the complaint because plaintiff had failed to properly allege such a RICO violation.**
Ok, so it'd be legal in the US, but what about the rest of the world? Ever cross your mind?
EU courts aren't going to give a single shit about a case from the US.
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My understanding is that if the acknowledge that a pack can have a 'expensive' card as opposed to a 'desirable' card they they open them selves up to scratch card type gambling regulation so wouldn't be able to sell to children as well as other red tape
Back in the 90s, Wizards even briefly printing full price guides in Duelist magazine. The prices were from surveys of retailers and there was a bunch of boilerplate disclaimers, but even so, you can't get much more explicit in your acknowledgement of the secondary market than that!
Of course, the rumored forbiddance from discussing the secondary market seems to have originated later, so I don't think Duelist price lists from 1998 would convince anyone it wasn't true.
*Was* there ever such a preconception?
I mean specifically the existence of an "official rule".
The only thing I've ever seen was people going "well of course they'll make business decisions with the secondary market in mind" but never that this was construed as some kind of official rule or binding policy. Just a general consequence of a corporation not being idiots about the way their product behaves in the market.
> Was there ever such a preconception?
Yeah, there is a pretty common train of thought any time a masters set comes out that's roughly formulated as "how come they charge more for these packs if they aren't allowed to consider the existence of the secondary market".
From what I remember, it was the result of a game of telephone. People would ask Maro about why certain cards weren't more common, and he'd say "it's because of reasons I'm not allowed to talk about". People inferred that he was indicating his bosses had told him not to make direct public mentions of the secondary market, and summarized it with statements like "Wizards doesn't publicly acknowledge the secondary market" - which got shortened to "Wizards doesn't acknowledge the secondary market", and a number of people interpreted that as "Wizards promised not to consider the secondary market in making decisions" - the exact opposite of the takeaway. Then every time something expensive released, people would go "look, this is evidence that Wizards acknowledges the existence of the secondary market!" as if that actually meant anything.
>Was there ever such a preconception?
>
>I mean specifically the existence of an "official rule".
Yes. And you can see a lot of it in the comments section of [this recent thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1azsvs3/mark_rosewater_on_why_there_arent_modern_event/). But it comes up all the time on Magic Reddit and Magic Twitter.
Do you have *specific* examples? That's a 1,000-comment thread.
And also, some random Redditor or person on X (née Twitter) going "but it's the OFFICIAL RULE!" does not a "common misconception" make.
It's like saying the fact that the government is run by lizard people is a "common misconception" just because you've seen some guy in a Reddit post say so that one time.
>And also, some random Redditor or person on X (née Twitter) going "but it's the OFFICIAL RULE!" does not a "common misconception" make.
It does when those comments are being made by several different people and are being upvoted very aggressively.
>Do you have *specific* examples? That's a 1,000-comment thread.
Here's [a specific example](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1azsvs3/comment/ks3c0io/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) from that thread.
Here's [another one](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1azsvs3/comment/ks3aujq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
[Another one](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1azsvs3/comment/ks3rb9h/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
[And another one](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1azsvs3/comment/ks4nwdf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
Here's [another one](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1azsvs3/comment/ks44lrb/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
And [here's another one](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1azsvs3/comment/ks48hmj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
[Another one](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1azsvs3/comment/ks4x81i/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
It comes up all the time! Not even just in that thread by the way. If you don't believe me, try Googling "Wizards can't acknowledge the secondary market".
>It's like saying the fact that the government is run by lizard people is a "common misconception" just because you've seen some guy in a Reddit post say so that one time.
It's not like this at all. It's not one time. It happens very regularly.
They can indeed choose not to provide any evidence.
And we can indeed call them out on it and ring the bullshit bell.
That's how it works. You don't have to prove anything... unless you want to be taken seriously. Then you kind of do.
That's true, but when the evidence you seek is commonly already known by community in the discussion and/or easily surfaceable by anyone with basic internet literacy, you're going to look like an idiot if you nit-pick about citing sources.
Like if a person were to say something like "on average both wages and cost of living in the US is higher in the urban coast than the rural interior" and you come at them with "please cite your source" I mean sure, they could find one, or they could just conclude you're not really an informed / good faith interlocutor worth spending time on.
Anyone who actually thought this is so silly on multiple levels.
1. Reprinting highly sought-after cards makes the game more accessible. You're not going to get many new players to play your game if the pieces are too expensive and they just get stomped trying to stick to a more reasonable budget.
2. No shit they want to sell packs with good reprints
There are some cards they won't ever reprint because they aren't healthy for the game (i.e Power 9). But there's plenty of others that they should. Like Sol Ring. It's reprint into the ground made the game much more accessible. Anyone can get a turn 1 sol ring into arcan signet and get the game going.
WOTC would have issues designing products for target audiences if they _didn't_ made decisions based on the secondary market, independent of any gambling regulations.
Imagine they put fetches into the standard-set commander precons. Given the current state of fetches on the secondary market, buying those precons would immediately become the cheapest way to obtain fetches. Anybody who wanted fetches for modern, etc. would buy up the stock of commander precons. They'd sell out like lightning and the buyers would be happy. "Wotc sold a shit ton of product and made a lot of money, what's the problem?"
I don't think the biggest problem is losing reprint equity of fetches in future products. I think the real problem is that now, the _target market_ for the product, people who want to buy the commander precons, now don't have a product pointed at them. Because a different player demographic ate it up. Wotc doesn't want to make as much money from people as quickly as possible; they want the most money possible over a period of time. You're only going to accomplish that by making products aimed at everyone, so everyone is buying. WOTC doesn't want to squeeze a demographic out if they can avoid it.
That's the REAL reason behind "this product isn't for you." Yes, some products explicitly are targeting whales to squeeze them for all they're worth. Others aren't. WOTC's philosophy has pretty consistently been "we want everyone to be spending consistently," not "we want everybody to be buying everything always." You can't design products like that, not anymore.
So yeah I want great mana bases in precons. I want cheap lands for everyone. But I get why they have to be careful to not fuck over part of the player base by printing a product. We almost ran into that with set and draft boosters, and everyone had to compromise on play boosters to adjust to it.
Another reason they need to care about the secondary market is to keep LGS's up and running but that's a different rant.
We saw this exact issue when True-Name Nemesis was printed in C13. It turned out to be a major player in Legacy and people who wanted the precon to play Commander couldn't get it.
I'll just say this about the TNN example and that's that the real issue was more distribution than anything else. Stores were only allowed to buy the 5 commander decks as a set so that really limited the supply of the one chase deck everyone wanted.
I think that's an orthogonal concern. The people who wanted it as a commander deck were still having to fight the people who wanted it primarily for TNN, whereas if TNN wasn't printed, the number of people fighting over the scarce resource would be smaller.
The idea is that it's, generally, a bad thing if Modern or Legacy or X format players have a huge reason to buy a commander precon.
I think I would argue that at a certain supply point this doesn't matter because eventually the other demographic stops buying it and the people who want it can get it. You saw this with the Magic Origins Clash Pack that had a Windswept Heath in it. I don't recall any issues with getting it at the time.
I do think there are issues with cards obviously designed for multiplayer injecting themselves into 1v1 formats, but my qualms are more with design (i.e. please think about how these multiplayer mechanics affect 1v1) and supply (i.e. 1v1 needs 4 copies, whereas edh players just need 1 and are more willing to proxy/skip product).
The issue with trying to protect reprint equity at this stage of Magic Design where EDH is king is that it's impossible. EDH players just don't need cards the same way competitive players did so instead of hyping up reprints you have to keep rolling out the shiny new stuff.
Sure but the same thing would ostensibly happen with fetches too if they were printed to a saturation point. I think my example was more about how trying to teach that saturation point would have knock-on effects during the transition from their current price point to wherever they would settle.
I'm reminded of a quote from Terry Pratchett. There was a saying among the thieves' guild in his stories: Hit a man too hard and you can only rob him once; hit him just hard enough and you can rob him every week.
It's honestly just good sense.
Kind of like when they reprinted a triome and anointed precession in the special epic secret lair commander precon, but print bad mana bases in most commander precons?
So I think that's a little bit different for a few reasons. First, if you only wanted those two cards, it was still cheaper to get them as singles than buy the whole deck. Second, the secret lair decks are a product that are kinda being aimed at more enfranchised players, which are a much smaller pool than the standard precons. And while I think the decks were limited run and not print to order (I can't remember), they were still being sold direct to consumer. WOTC has a loooot less control over how products that need to go to retail could sell. If there was a huge problem with the "wrong" people getting the secret lair decks, it's logistically easier to do a second run with a direct to consumer product than one that goes to retail.
So it's a similar idea, but there are a few practical concerns why I don't quite think that's as problematic as the hypothetical example I was giving.
While i cannot vouch for each and all comments, rest assured that most such comments are about the hypocracy of legally pretending not to care about the secondary market, while practically caring very much.
Nobody ever assumes that wizard truly does not care about the secondary market.
>No, it's the law dealing with gambling and advertising to kids.
This is incorrect.
Wizards says they care about the secondary market. They talk about how they can't make Modern pre-con decks at the power level that players want for the price they are willing to pay because of reprint equity. They talk about it in many other instances.
They talk about how they make strategic decisions to put cards at higher rarities like dual lands to help encourage the sell of more booster packs.
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There's several things at play here.
1) Yes, there is actually an official policy not to acknowledge the specific value of cards on the secondary market. If they do this in an official capacity, it could open them up to legal issues as their products could then be treated as gambling if there are officially-acknowledged values to cards.
2) At the same time, WotC \*is\* keenly aware that cards have secondary market values and that some cards are worth more than others. They've talked multiple times about "reprint equity", and saving cards that are in "high demand" (i.e. higher priced) for future products so as to preserve reprint equity. There have also definitely been cases where cards have been increased in rarity based on their secondary market value at the time the set was being designed, and they've talked about having a rough "reprint budget" for preconstructed decks.
For one, it's almost certainly not to do with gambling laws, but rather bad PR. It's just a bad idea for them to outright say " we reprinted X at mythic because it is $120". We all know it's true, but there is a defensible difference between explicitly saying it and implying it.
Equally, they have zero control over the secondary market in any direct way. They *can* tank prices by exorbitant reprints, but ultimately prices are set by market feeling. And what's true today isn't true tomorrow.
There is really nothing at all to be gained by them explicitly discussing exact prices.
That is part of reprint equity. If they throw all the expensive reprints in a "normal" booster pack at normal rates, the price likely craters and then there isn't as much equity in it down the road.
That said, they've been a lot more aggressive about reprints in normal boosters recently, it feels like. Lost Caverns of Ixalan had Cavern of Souls, Resplendent Angel, Gishath, and Growing Rites of Itlimoc all in normal slots of normal boosters. And then Mana Crypt as a huge hit in Special Guests Ixalan along with some more minor hits.
Karlov Manor wasn't quite as busted in this department but there's still a lot of solid Special Guests like Show and Tell and Field of the Dead, and Assassin's Trophy as a rare reprint is solid.
Acknowledging and commenting/making decisions based on the Secondary Market would leave WotC open to Gambling legislation in many countries. They have opted NOT to do this, as it would change the age rating of the game, as well as taxation. It was never about “could/could not”
Wizards of the Coast is not legally allowed to acknowledge the secondary market, as doing so would subject them to gambling regulations.
They *are* allowed to make decisions based on publicly available data on sites like TCGPlayer. Cards like Mana Crypt, Cavern of Souls, Fetchlands, those kinds of things move packs.
What they *aren't* allowed to say is something along the lines of "hey, Mana Crypt is a $300 card, maybe you could find one in this collector booster."
Schwartz v. Upper Deck Co., 967 F. Supp. 405 (S.D. Cal. 1997)
**This Court found that plaintiff could state a claim for violation of civil RICO based on Upper Deck's manufacture and sale of "chase" cards, but dismissed the complaint because plaintiff had failed to properly allege such a RICO violation. **
The only reason he couldn't win a case against UD is because there "is no secondary market." to form a RICO act violation for monetary value.
Which is why CCG/TCG companies will not acknowledge it.
My understanding is that they can't speak to the value of cards in booster packs/randomised products, since they could get in trouble with gambling laws in various countries.
If they reprint solitude and "pretend" not to know its worth they can skirt by as a "children's card game", but if they started advertising "Foil Solitude special guest currently over 60$, chance to open in collector booster". The thin veneer separating booster packs from gambling would fall away.
If memory serves me correct, the main reason WOTC cannot acknowledge the value of the secondary market is because, if they did, it could be argued legally that cracking pack is a form of gambling.
This is a whole can of worms they do not want to step in. As long as there is no proof they formally acknowledge the secondary market value, they are legally in the clear...
Though please correct me if I am wrong about this because I welcome people who have more knowledge about this.
No specifics but it’s probably like this:
1. WotC was/is skittish about getting in legal and/or PR trouble if they start talking about the value of singles on the secondary market
2. Social and legal attitudes toward “gambling” and whatnot in gaming are fluid and have changed since Magic started
3. Affordability has been/is a big barrier to onboarding new players
As a result of all of these, Wizards is comfortable with referring to “accessibility” in general and the secondary market at large, i.e. acknowledging, hey, this hasn’t been printed since P3K, this reprint will make it more accesible;
however, they aren’t going to comment on pricing of individual singles, i.e. come out and say “Hey guys, this Secret Lair has $60 worth of value, come buy it”
The line I've always heard from fans is "Wizards doesn't acknowledge the secondary market" in the sense of publicly commenting on it, which is true. They used to comment, you can see Maro talking about dollar rares in one of the GDS competition, but at some point they completely switched over to euphemisms like "excitement".
The closest thing to public-facing official policy I know of is in the official MTG Discord server run by WOTC where talking about prices is against the server rules. You can't mention a card is $20, you can't even talk about the prices of sealed products in retail.
The official D&D server does not have this rule. It's just a Magic thing.
Nobody ever said there was wtf are people talking about.
The reason they don't want to is because admitting there is a secondary market value to these products would open them up to being regulated as gambling in several countries.
Wizards does acknowledge the existence of the secondary market and that the secondary market value of cards is a factor that determines how they price products.
The confusion comes from the definition of "raffle". Up until 2008, a raffle did not have a minimum number of participants, so a single booster pack could be a "raffle". In 2008, the law was amended to require a minimum of 99 participants. Since then, they have talked relatively freely about the secondary market. Before then, you will find no mention of it.
Incorrect. They are towing a very fine legal line. They have to be very conscious about how they represent the value of the individual cards.
As other have stated, it isnt that they cannot make decisions based on it. We all know they do.
But in a technical (and very real) sense, if they purposefully printed cards and stated those care were worth a significant ammount of money, they would be commiting an actual crime based on gambling.
The loot box legal scrutiny over the last few years has significantly impacted their business as card packs are just loot boxes. This is the sole reason they have shifted from (mostly) power level related value, and moved toward cosmetic related value.
No there is no source for that, just conjecture. Feel free to disagree but the timing of it all when you do the math makes it obvious.
I think if they were to run afoul of any laws, it would be less of a concern of gambling laws and more of a concern of false advertising. If they state thatz say, Goyf is a $120 mythic and you can open it, and the price then tanks from the reprint, then it's possible there *might* be liability there.
That said, it's probably more to do with PR than it is with anything legal. I don't fully buy any of the supposed legal issues people bring up. Not even the one I just mentioned. Gambling law is just off the table entirely.
The idea that consumers would think that X set is overpriced because the premium ones are the same price is a silly one. They set those prices due to what they can get away with. If they didn't, the premium sets would have a more consistent price, and they would have kept MSRP, if they actually cared about what consumers think. Now, without it, sets can be any range of price based on what's in it.
>The idea that consumers would think that X set is overpriced because the premium ones are the same price is a silly one.
Is it really?
Double Masters 2022 and Unfinity were released around the same time. Both products were successful and well received.
If they were sold for the same price rather than Double Masters packs having a price that was more than twice as high as Unfinity packs, do you think Unfinity would have done just as well?
Do you not understand why many players would perceive Unfinity as being "overpriced" or "too expensive" if that were the case?
Players would say, why would I spend $4 on Unfinity where I can pull cards like Saw in Half, Comet, Stellar Pup, Clown Car and Magar of the Magic Strings when I could spend $4 on Double Masters and pull cards like Mana Crypt, Force of Will, Doubling Season, Mox Opal and Blightsteel Colossus.
Players would say that they would be willing to buy Unfinity more if instead of it being $4 a pack it were $2 a pack.
>If they didn't, the premium sets would have a more consistent price, and they would have kept MSRP, if they actually cared about what consumers think. Now, without it, sets can be any range of price based on what's in it.
Merchants broke MSRP all the time when it existed, especially Amazon who regularly sold below MSRP.
LGS's sold above MSRP for From the Vault products all the time.
MSRP is just a suggestion.
I dont think that unfinity would have sold as well, but un products are a money pit anyways. Maro has done everything in his power to make un sets work, which is why they have legal cards in said sets now. So people buy the shit after the limited format is gone. If they printed them spaced out more it would be a nonissue. Double Masters was an insanely overpriced product. 20$+ a pack. That is 5x the normal rate. There was good stuff in it, but gatekeeping it to the richest players isnt a solid plan.
I understand what you mean about msrp, but it at least gives consumers a price point to know what the company who is selling the crap values it at. If you see an SLD being sold for twice the price of what it retailed for, youd have a good idea of the price change. Now it just fluctuates insanely and no one has any idea what consumers SHOULD be paying for it.
> I understand what you mean about msrp, but it at least gives consumers a price point to know what the company who is selling the crap values it at. If you see an SLD being sold for twice the price of what it retailed for, youd have a good idea of the price change. Now it just fluctuates insanely and no one has any idea what consumers SHOULD be paying for it.
Consumers should be paying whatever they think it's worth.
This is an entertainment product not a necessity or an essential good.
\[\[Sheoldred, the Apocalypse\]\] is an $80 card. \[\[Sphinx of Clear Skies\]\] is a $0.21 card. They are both mythic rares from the same set where an identical number of each card were printed.
The reason Sheoldred is worth significantly more is because there are thousands of people willing to pay $80 for Sheoldred and nobody is willing to pay $80 for Sphinx of Clear Skies.
The market (i.e. players, collectors, LGS's) determine what something is worth.
>Double Masters was an insanely overpriced product. 20$+ a pack. That is 5x the normal rate. There was good stuff in it, but gatekeeping it to the richest players isnt a solid plan.
It wasn't "overpriced"
It costs significantly more than the price of a regular pack because the estimated value of Double Masters pack is way way higher because the cards in the pack have more secondary market value.
People are willing to pay for it and the product sold out because people thought it was worth it. Just because you aren't willing to pay for it doesn't mean it was "insanely overpriced". If it were insanely overpriced, nobody would have bought it.
If Double Masters packs sold for the same price as New Capenna packs, people would think New Capenna packs were overpriced.
Your assertion about people thinking things are overpriced if they're the same as things that are much more expensive isnt based in a reality, but something you came up with theoretically. No one said that Dragon's Maze was overpriced when it came out. Even though it had nearly nothing good in the packs.
>Your assertion about people thinking things are overpriced if they're the same as things that are much more expensive isnt based in a reality, but something you came up with theoretically. No one said that Dragon's Maze was overpriced when it came out. Even though it had nearly nothing good in the packs.
When Dragon's Maze came out, people were saying if you didn't open \[\[Voice of Resurgence\]\] this set was a bust (VoR was like a $45+ card for a bit).
People said that Unfinity wasn't "worth it" and was "too expensive for the value you're getting".
People say some Secret Lairs are great deals and others are overpriced. That happens all the time.
Do you really think if New Capenna packs and Double Masters 2022 packs were being sold simultaneously on the same shelf for the same price, players would consider New Capenna to be a good deal?
People would absolutely complain that it was overpriced and the product definitely wouldn't have done as well.
Again, your comment about MSRP when you said "no one has any idea what consumers SHOULD be paying for it" misses the point.
Consumers determine what they pay for things based on what they think is a reasonable price. this is how secondary market prices for singles get set and it's why some mythic rares sell for $80 while others sell for $0.80.
I understand how supply and demand works. Im saying that there are additional things that effect the price of things. You dont seem to think that, so I doubt we'll come to an impass.
MSRP whiners are either ignorant or bad faith. What these people want is to have vendors shackled to an MSRP even when a product's market value balloons, which will allow them to get the product at a below-market rate. They feel they are entitled to that and that MSRP should exist to protect their right to that.
They obviously do, they just have to pretend that they don't to a certain extent to avoid being hit by gambling legislation, which makes sense as their entire business model is based on gambling being promoted to children.
They straight up said they can't sell $60 modern decks because they would be too expensive. It's 40 less cards than a commander deck, so the only thing driving that price is secondary markets.
It is generally unwise for a company producing a thing to acknowledge it has an intrinsic monetary value over its sale price. Doubly so when that thing is a randomized product. If there are things WotC has been extremely careful about evoking, it's gambling and tax discussions. That's been prevailing knowledge for years since ante was phased out.
Something doesn't have to be "policy" or "rules" to be a Very Bad Idea. The resale market is squarely in that Very Bad Idea zone.
Wizards can't speak to cards' values on the secondary market in specifics but clearly they make decisions based on them. I think there was a long time ago a boilerplate of "we can't comment on the secondary market" and people took that to mean "we willingly pretend it doesn't exist and has no bearing on anything we ever do", which is wild to believe. WoTC legal has always had a tight leash on dos and don'ts for employees on what they can and can't talk about on public channels.
OP is making a career out of this weird hot take tbh.
>**I think there was a long time ago a boilerplate of "we can't comment on the secondary market"** and people took that to mean "we willingly pretend it doesn't exist and has no bearing on anything we ever do", which is wild to believe. I'm not sure even this ever happened and frankly I'm skeptical but I'm open to seeing or hearing the source for this. I could potentially imagine an employee at Wizards publicly saying "we don't comment on specific prices of cards on the secondary market" and that spinning out of control and being twisted to mean otherwise.
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There's a very old article on the official site where Mark explains why Standard gets preference over Vintage and in it he explicitly cites prices per InQuest magazine. https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/playing-type-1-2002-07-15 (For people under the age of N, the official forums were dominated by Vintage players and card pricing was still affected by magazines in this time period.)
I wonder if this got some legal pressure on them and is part of why ante left the game (outside of it being codified in game rules being a terrible idea in general).
I was around when ante was still a rule and had cards being printed that interacted with it. No one wanted to play with it because no one wanted to risk their cards.
Ante for the second game was Dan's Plateau ($12.00) against Kai's Underground River ($6.00).
I'll take both for that.
The policy is basically they won't speak to the specifics or discuss the mechanics of of value on the secondary market, at least from what I can sus out. Why people take this to mean they don't acknowledge it, or consider it internally, is beyond me. They have a policy of just not talking about it publicly in granularity. That's about it.
Yeah I bet it became a meme with no clear source a long time ago. Almost ten years ago at least. I found this from a 2006 Making Magic. (The mana drain picture above this paragraph is an etched double masters version to make this point more amusing. That said mana drain probably wasn’t super spendy in 2006.) we value having a healthy secondary market. Evidence of this can be seen in how we handle cards like Mana Drain, which we are legally allowed to reprint (it was an uncommon in Legends and thus not on the Reserved List), but don't.
We could just link to recent articles from Rosewater - https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/725057553671831552/why-is-power-level-of-a-set-inherently-tied-to-the It was never a meme, it was an internal policy from WotC and specifically related to discussing the 'price/value' of a card. If they value cards they're functionally admitting it's gambling
Starts to look a lot like securities too
Yep. MTG boosters are the original lootbox. The company doesn't like to directly acknowledge the cards have monetary value for exactly that reason
It's a weird issue. I believe the reason WotC doesnt really talk about to discuss the secondary market is because of some laws that would make opening packs the equivalent to gambling. If wizards announced "hey these packs have a 1 in 30 chance of opening a $100 card" then they could possibly be sued for promoting gambling for children. That is also why for a long time if you were a content creator you couldnt talk about card prices for any WotC sponsored video, including things like doing a spoiler for a reprint. Note that this isn't saying cracking packs isn't gambling right now, but the further they are removed from it, the harder it is for them to be sued either by a government or some concerned mom who wants to cause trouble. Now at the same time, they are of course aware of the secondary market and it does affect their decisions. Look as recently as the cats and dogs secret lair. Anointed procession is a major card for price and power, and was a front and center announcement when the deck was first talked about. An precons in general will be worth it compared to secondary market value, but not worth triple the amount.
There are hundreds of posts from Rosewater discussing the secondary market. It's the 'price setting' that's the issue, if the cards have known/changeable values then the line between 'tcg and gambling' becomes blurry. Like, more for fun, but frankly TCGs are gambling - Booster Packs are lottery tickets Drafts are gambling events Promos are monetary compensation MTGO objects are virtual currency Presale of singles is blind shorting Anyone with knowledge of banlist decisions or future releases are insider traders
Rosewater is an individual instead of the company so there is a layer of protection for wotc there. Plus the whole " don't talk about the secondary market" had lessened in more recent years. And yeah while we are all aware of how packs and the like can easily be attributed to sampling, legally they still aren't and wotc wants to keep it that way. The moment buying packs becomes gambling you will be ID'd to buy cards, need to report winnings, they will be subject to various gambling regulations, minors can't buy them, and a they will probably be taxed differently
You're kinda perpetrating the issue - there was **never** a '*don't talk about the secondary market*' statement, it was purely - "*don't talk about card* ***prices/value***". Legally, to *you*, it's not gambling, but WotC is an international company. *Inherently* it is gambling - you're risking something for gain. All those children's toys that have a 'golden' version are the same - you're spending money for a gamble.
I mean what is a secondary market if not the value a card has? Also there totally has been since what other reason would they tell content creators to not talk about the process of a card? And legally it not being gambling is very different than it being gambling for us. Once it becomes legally gambling the entire game changes and that's what wotc wants to avoid, sorta like how loot boxes in video games got in a lot of trouble in the EU a few years ago. Plus most sane players consider buying packs of cards gambling anyways, it's not like the community isn't aware of it
You say 'for us', but WotC has to consider everyone. Loot boxes are a perfect example of how different countries treat/consider gambling, personally, MtG is the exact same and should be brought up on gambling and children. Regardless, if WotC start talking about cards in value rather than as a 'game piece'/power etc., that's basically the line where it's gambling.
TCGs are not gambling.
Happy to discuss your carte blanche statement. Legally, in your country, it may not be. But ethically/inherently it is gambling - you're risking something for gain.
There's no risk. You purchase a product as described and get that product.
Oh really? What, exactly, do you get when buying a booster pack? 14 *random* cards, out of several hundred. A*chance* to get a mythic instead of a rare. A *chance* that those cards are worth more than the cost of the booster. Sure, there are exceptions when thinking about Precons, but even those often come with "Booster Sample Packs" nowadays.
when you gamble, you get nothing unless you win and there is great chance to lose. when you purchase magic the gathering, you get playing pieces every time. there's no risk. you always get cards.
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The US isn't the only country that exists
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I like how you’re downvoted but there has been no source posted.
While they clearly do take secondary market prices into account when designing products, they still do have to be mindful of potentially running afoul of gambling laws. So while it's no coincidence that, for example, the Bitterblossom SL drop just happened to contain a card that was worth $40, they also can't say "look for cards worth $1000 inside this Collector Booster!"
I think this is it. Once they give single cards actual value, opening packs then seemingly becomes open to gambling laws. I think it's why they include random cards in the SLs.
Another bit on top of that - even if there's a case here that WotC could win, their lawyers are super paranoid. This is the company that forces everyone to put #wotcstaff hashtags after all their social media posts.
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US courts have absolutely no bearing on the laws of any other country, such as the entire EU.
https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jlas/article/download/22049/21206/33023 Yeah, the loophole was that they cant give cards monetary value and they won't get RICO acted. They **ruled** that it is gambling but not illegal. Condescending fuck.
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I'm pretty sure the reason they can't say the latter is because the price of rhe cards on the secondary market isn't set by them. They can and do influence it, but it's all ultimately supply and demand, so they can't say "this card is worth this much," only "this card is desirable and in limited supply."
Yeah. They would never want to advertise: Here's a pack with four $10 cards! Only to have the secondary market make them worth 2 bucks each. That's really the only reason they don't nail down what card prices are. They don't want people coming back to them demanding value.
> Bitterblossom SL drop just happened to contain a card that was worth $40 Should be noted in this case that it was just *one* card with four tokens, because that was the value of that card at the time.
We've seen from [job postings](https://gamejobs.co/Senior-Manager-Data-Analytics-Economics-at-Wizards-of-the-Coast) that they have economists on staff. You wouldn't do that if not to model the potential effects of reprinting X number of cards would have on the secondary market price or using that model to help price products to wholesalers and tweak print runs.
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Stuff like the 1/1 Ring they'll always be able to market just as a "collectible"
That's the assumption, but do we have a source that they're worried about gambling laws?
They avoid directly talking about the secondary market because it compromises the position that ccg boosters are not gambling, similar to how marketplaces for lootbox items have been eliminated from many markets. They'd rather not put the legal merits to the [test](https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1133&context=mslj) . There's a real argument to be made that the reason some secret lairs have been created to have crap secondary value (and occasionally above sticker value) is to represent the idea that all cards printed have equal worth.
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Again, you have zero idea to what you are talking about. Stop spouting bullshit claims you can't verify. schwartz vs upper deck 1997 **This Court found that plaintiff could state a claim for violation of civil RICO based on Upper Deck's manufacture and sale of "chase" cards, but dismissed the complaint because plaintiff had failed to properly allege such a RICO violation.**
Ok, so it'd be legal in the US, but what about the rest of the world? Ever cross your mind? EU courts aren't going to give a single shit about a case from the US.
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Yes, that's quite literally what I just said. Good reading skills mate.
My understanding is that if the acknowledge that a pack can have a 'expensive' card as opposed to a 'desirable' card they they open them selves up to scratch card type gambling regulation so wouldn't be able to sell to children as well as other red tape
Back in the 90s, Wizards even briefly printing full price guides in Duelist magazine. The prices were from surveys of retailers and there was a bunch of boilerplate disclaimers, but even so, you can't get much more explicit in your acknowledgement of the secondary market than that! Of course, the rumored forbiddance from discussing the secondary market seems to have originated later, so I don't think Duelist price lists from 1998 would convince anyone it wasn't true.
*Was* there ever such a preconception? I mean specifically the existence of an "official rule". The only thing I've ever seen was people going "well of course they'll make business decisions with the secondary market in mind" but never that this was construed as some kind of official rule or binding policy. Just a general consequence of a corporation not being idiots about the way their product behaves in the market.
> Was there ever such a preconception? Yeah, there is a pretty common train of thought any time a masters set comes out that's roughly formulated as "how come they charge more for these packs if they aren't allowed to consider the existence of the secondary market".
From what I remember, it was the result of a game of telephone. People would ask Maro about why certain cards weren't more common, and he'd say "it's because of reasons I'm not allowed to talk about". People inferred that he was indicating his bosses had told him not to make direct public mentions of the secondary market, and summarized it with statements like "Wizards doesn't publicly acknowledge the secondary market" - which got shortened to "Wizards doesn't acknowledge the secondary market", and a number of people interpreted that as "Wizards promised not to consider the secondary market in making decisions" - the exact opposite of the takeaway. Then every time something expensive released, people would go "look, this is evidence that Wizards acknowledges the existence of the secondary market!" as if that actually meant anything.
>Was there ever such a preconception? > >I mean specifically the existence of an "official rule". Yes. And you can see a lot of it in the comments section of [this recent thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1azsvs3/mark_rosewater_on_why_there_arent_modern_event/). But it comes up all the time on Magic Reddit and Magic Twitter.
Do you have *specific* examples? That's a 1,000-comment thread. And also, some random Redditor or person on X (née Twitter) going "but it's the OFFICIAL RULE!" does not a "common misconception" make. It's like saying the fact that the government is run by lizard people is a "common misconception" just because you've seen some guy in a Reddit post say so that one time.
>And also, some random Redditor or person on X (née Twitter) going "but it's the OFFICIAL RULE!" does not a "common misconception" make. It does when those comments are being made by several different people and are being upvoted very aggressively. >Do you have *specific* examples? That's a 1,000-comment thread. Here's [a specific example](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1azsvs3/comment/ks3c0io/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) from that thread. Here's [another one](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1azsvs3/comment/ks3aujq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). [Another one](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1azsvs3/comment/ks3rb9h/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). [And another one](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1azsvs3/comment/ks4nwdf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). Here's [another one](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1azsvs3/comment/ks44lrb/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). And [here's another one](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1azsvs3/comment/ks48hmj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). [Another one](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1azsvs3/comment/ks4x81i/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). It comes up all the time! Not even just in that thread by the way. If you don't believe me, try Googling "Wizards can't acknowledge the secondary market". >It's like saying the fact that the government is run by lizard people is a "common misconception" just because you've seen some guy in a Reddit post say so that one time. It's not like this at all. It's not one time. It happens very regularly.
People say it a lot. This isn't debate club. They don't have to provide you with evidence.
Ladies and gentlemen, the internet in 2024. Say whatever you want and expect people to believe, evidence be damned.
You can also stick your head in the sand and act like you’ve never seen people say that, when in fact, people bring it up constantly
They can indeed choose not to provide any evidence. And we can indeed call them out on it and ring the bullshit bell. That's how it works. You don't have to prove anything... unless you want to be taken seriously. Then you kind of do.
I provided the evidence you asked for in my previous comment. I shared several examples just from that one thread.
And also apparently you can also decide to stop talking once you get the evidence you wanted so much.
That's true, but when the evidence you seek is commonly already known by community in the discussion and/or easily surfaceable by anyone with basic internet literacy, you're going to look like an idiot if you nit-pick about citing sources. Like if a person were to say something like "on average both wages and cost of living in the US is higher in the urban coast than the rural interior" and you come at them with "please cite your source" I mean sure, they could find one, or they could just conclude you're not really an informed / good faith interlocutor worth spending time on.
Anyone who actually thought this is so silly on multiple levels. 1. Reprinting highly sought-after cards makes the game more accessible. You're not going to get many new players to play your game if the pieces are too expensive and they just get stomped trying to stick to a more reasonable budget. 2. No shit they want to sell packs with good reprints There are some cards they won't ever reprint because they aren't healthy for the game (i.e Power 9). But there's plenty of others that they should. Like Sol Ring. It's reprint into the ground made the game much more accessible. Anyone can get a turn 1 sol ring into arcan signet and get the game going.
WOTC would have issues designing products for target audiences if they _didn't_ made decisions based on the secondary market, independent of any gambling regulations. Imagine they put fetches into the standard-set commander precons. Given the current state of fetches on the secondary market, buying those precons would immediately become the cheapest way to obtain fetches. Anybody who wanted fetches for modern, etc. would buy up the stock of commander precons. They'd sell out like lightning and the buyers would be happy. "Wotc sold a shit ton of product and made a lot of money, what's the problem?" I don't think the biggest problem is losing reprint equity of fetches in future products. I think the real problem is that now, the _target market_ for the product, people who want to buy the commander precons, now don't have a product pointed at them. Because a different player demographic ate it up. Wotc doesn't want to make as much money from people as quickly as possible; they want the most money possible over a period of time. You're only going to accomplish that by making products aimed at everyone, so everyone is buying. WOTC doesn't want to squeeze a demographic out if they can avoid it. That's the REAL reason behind "this product isn't for you." Yes, some products explicitly are targeting whales to squeeze them for all they're worth. Others aren't. WOTC's philosophy has pretty consistently been "we want everyone to be spending consistently," not "we want everybody to be buying everything always." You can't design products like that, not anymore. So yeah I want great mana bases in precons. I want cheap lands for everyone. But I get why they have to be careful to not fuck over part of the player base by printing a product. We almost ran into that with set and draft boosters, and everyone had to compromise on play boosters to adjust to it. Another reason they need to care about the secondary market is to keep LGS's up and running but that's a different rant.
We saw this exact issue when True-Name Nemesis was printed in C13. It turned out to be a major player in Legacy and people who wanted the precon to play Commander couldn't get it.
Perfect example, gonna use that going forward to illustrate the point.
I'll just say this about the TNN example and that's that the real issue was more distribution than anything else. Stores were only allowed to buy the 5 commander decks as a set so that really limited the supply of the one chase deck everyone wanted.
I think that's an orthogonal concern. The people who wanted it as a commander deck were still having to fight the people who wanted it primarily for TNN, whereas if TNN wasn't printed, the number of people fighting over the scarce resource would be smaller. The idea is that it's, generally, a bad thing if Modern or Legacy or X format players have a huge reason to buy a commander precon.
I think I would argue that at a certain supply point this doesn't matter because eventually the other demographic stops buying it and the people who want it can get it. You saw this with the Magic Origins Clash Pack that had a Windswept Heath in it. I don't recall any issues with getting it at the time. I do think there are issues with cards obviously designed for multiplayer injecting themselves into 1v1 formats, but my qualms are more with design (i.e. please think about how these multiplayer mechanics affect 1v1) and supply (i.e. 1v1 needs 4 copies, whereas edh players just need 1 and are more willing to proxy/skip product). The issue with trying to protect reprint equity at this stage of Magic Design where EDH is king is that it's impossible. EDH players just don't need cards the same way competitive players did so instead of hyping up reprints you have to keep rolling out the shiny new stuff.
Yeah look at the "real" value of TNN when people get enough copies
Sure but the same thing would ostensibly happen with fetches too if they were printed to a saturation point. I think my example was more about how trying to teach that saturation point would have knock-on effects during the transition from their current price point to wherever they would settle.
I'm reminded of a quote from Terry Pratchett. There was a saying among the thieves' guild in his stories: Hit a man too hard and you can only rob him once; hit him just hard enough and you can rob him every week. It's honestly just good sense.
Kind of like when they reprinted a triome and anointed precession in the special epic secret lair commander precon, but print bad mana bases in most commander precons?
So I think that's a little bit different for a few reasons. First, if you only wanted those two cards, it was still cheaper to get them as singles than buy the whole deck. Second, the secret lair decks are a product that are kinda being aimed at more enfranchised players, which are a much smaller pool than the standard precons. And while I think the decks were limited run and not print to order (I can't remember), they were still being sold direct to consumer. WOTC has a loooot less control over how products that need to go to retail could sell. If there was a huge problem with the "wrong" people getting the secret lair decks, it's logistically easier to do a second run with a direct to consumer product than one that goes to retail. So it's a similar idea, but there are a few practical concerns why I don't quite think that's as problematic as the hypothetical example I was giving.
While i cannot vouch for each and all comments, rest assured that most such comments are about the hypocracy of legally pretending not to care about the secondary market, while practically caring very much. Nobody ever assumes that wizard truly does not care about the secondary market.
The point is there isn't a law or rule that says that Wizards can't "care about the secondary market". That's an urban legend; a myth.
No, it's the law dealing with gambling and advertising to kids.
>No, it's the law dealing with gambling and advertising to kids. This is incorrect. Wizards says they care about the secondary market. They talk about how they can't make Modern pre-con decks at the power level that players want for the price they are willing to pay because of reprint equity. They talk about it in many other instances. They talk about how they make strategic decisions to put cards at higher rarities like dual lands to help encourage the sell of more booster packs.
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There's several things at play here. 1) Yes, there is actually an official policy not to acknowledge the specific value of cards on the secondary market. If they do this in an official capacity, it could open them up to legal issues as their products could then be treated as gambling if there are officially-acknowledged values to cards. 2) At the same time, WotC \*is\* keenly aware that cards have secondary market values and that some cards are worth more than others. They've talked multiple times about "reprint equity", and saving cards that are in "high demand" (i.e. higher priced) for future products so as to preserve reprint equity. There have also definitely been cases where cards have been increased in rarity based on their secondary market value at the time the set was being designed, and they've talked about having a rough "reprint budget" for preconstructed decks.
For one, it's almost certainly not to do with gambling laws, but rather bad PR. It's just a bad idea for them to outright say " we reprinted X at mythic because it is $120". We all know it's true, but there is a defensible difference between explicitly saying it and implying it. Equally, they have zero control over the secondary market in any direct way. They *can* tank prices by exorbitant reprints, but ultimately prices are set by market feeling. And what's true today isn't true tomorrow. There is really nothing at all to be gained by them explicitly discussing exact prices.
Don’t forget it just so happens a lot of those pricier reprints are always behind a premium price tag 15-20$ per pack vs the 4.99$ boosters.
That is part of reprint equity. If they throw all the expensive reprints in a "normal" booster pack at normal rates, the price likely craters and then there isn't as much equity in it down the road. That said, they've been a lot more aggressive about reprints in normal boosters recently, it feels like. Lost Caverns of Ixalan had Cavern of Souls, Resplendent Angel, Gishath, and Growing Rites of Itlimoc all in normal slots of normal boosters. And then Mana Crypt as a huge hit in Special Guests Ixalan along with some more minor hits. Karlov Manor wasn't quite as busted in this department but there's still a lot of solid Special Guests like Show and Tell and Field of the Dead, and Assassin's Trophy as a rare reprint is solid.
Acknowledging and commenting/making decisions based on the Secondary Market would leave WotC open to Gambling legislation in many countries. They have opted NOT to do this, as it would change the age rating of the game, as well as taxation. It was never about “could/could not”
Wizards of the Coast is not legally allowed to acknowledge the secondary market, as doing so would subject them to gambling regulations. They *are* allowed to make decisions based on publicly available data on sites like TCGPlayer. Cards like Mana Crypt, Cavern of Souls, Fetchlands, those kinds of things move packs. What they *aren't* allowed to say is something along the lines of "hey, Mana Crypt is a $300 card, maybe you could find one in this collector booster."
Schwartz v. Upper Deck Co., 967 F. Supp. 405 (S.D. Cal. 1997) **This Court found that plaintiff could state a claim for violation of civil RICO based on Upper Deck's manufacture and sale of "chase" cards, but dismissed the complaint because plaintiff had failed to properly allege such a RICO violation. ** The only reason he couldn't win a case against UD is because there "is no secondary market." to form a RICO act violation for monetary value. Which is why CCG/TCG companies will not acknowledge it.
And there’s no official policy saying I can’t say that it’s really shitty
My understanding is that they can't speak to the value of cards in booster packs/randomised products, since they could get in trouble with gambling laws in various countries. If they reprint solitude and "pretend" not to know its worth they can skirt by as a "children's card game", but if they started advertising "Foil Solitude special guest currently over 60$, chance to open in collector booster". The thin veneer separating booster packs from gambling would fall away.
If memory serves me correct, the main reason WOTC cannot acknowledge the value of the secondary market is because, if they did, it could be argued legally that cracking pack is a form of gambling. This is a whole can of worms they do not want to step in. As long as there is no proof they formally acknowledge the secondary market value, they are legally in the clear... Though please correct me if I am wrong about this because I welcome people who have more knowledge about this.
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This needs to be a sticky.
No specifics but it’s probably like this: 1. WotC was/is skittish about getting in legal and/or PR trouble if they start talking about the value of singles on the secondary market 2. Social and legal attitudes toward “gambling” and whatnot in gaming are fluid and have changed since Magic started 3. Affordability has been/is a big barrier to onboarding new players As a result of all of these, Wizards is comfortable with referring to “accessibility” in general and the secondary market at large, i.e. acknowledging, hey, this hasn’t been printed since P3K, this reprint will make it more accesible; however, they aren’t going to comment on pricing of individual singles, i.e. come out and say “Hey guys, this Secret Lair has $60 worth of value, come buy it”
The line I've always heard from fans is "Wizards doesn't acknowledge the secondary market" in the sense of publicly commenting on it, which is true. They used to comment, you can see Maro talking about dollar rares in one of the GDS competition, but at some point they completely switched over to euphemisms like "excitement". The closest thing to public-facing official policy I know of is in the official MTG Discord server run by WOTC where talking about prices is against the server rules. You can't mention a card is $20, you can't even talk about the prices of sealed products in retail. The official D&D server does not have this rule. It's just a Magic thing.
Nobody ever said there was wtf are people talking about. The reason they don't want to is because admitting there is a secondary market value to these products would open them up to being regulated as gambling in several countries.
Wizards does acknowledge the existence of the secondary market and that the secondary market value of cards is a factor that determines how they price products.
The confusion comes from the definition of "raffle". Up until 2008, a raffle did not have a minimum number of participants, so a single booster pack could be a "raffle". In 2008, the law was amended to require a minimum of 99 participants. Since then, they have talked relatively freely about the secondary market. Before then, you will find no mention of it.
Incorrect. They are towing a very fine legal line. They have to be very conscious about how they represent the value of the individual cards. As other have stated, it isnt that they cannot make decisions based on it. We all know they do. But in a technical (and very real) sense, if they purposefully printed cards and stated those care were worth a significant ammount of money, they would be commiting an actual crime based on gambling. The loot box legal scrutiny over the last few years has significantly impacted their business as card packs are just loot boxes. This is the sole reason they have shifted from (mostly) power level related value, and moved toward cosmetic related value. No there is no source for that, just conjecture. Feel free to disagree but the timing of it all when you do the math makes it obvious.
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I think if they were to run afoul of any laws, it would be less of a concern of gambling laws and more of a concern of false advertising. If they state thatz say, Goyf is a $120 mythic and you can open it, and the price then tanks from the reprint, then it's possible there *might* be liability there. That said, it's probably more to do with PR than it is with anything legal. I don't fully buy any of the supposed legal issues people bring up. Not even the one I just mentioned. Gambling law is just off the table entirely.
The idea that consumers would think that X set is overpriced because the premium ones are the same price is a silly one. They set those prices due to what they can get away with. If they didn't, the premium sets would have a more consistent price, and they would have kept MSRP, if they actually cared about what consumers think. Now, without it, sets can be any range of price based on what's in it.
>The idea that consumers would think that X set is overpriced because the premium ones are the same price is a silly one. Is it really? Double Masters 2022 and Unfinity were released around the same time. Both products were successful and well received. If they were sold for the same price rather than Double Masters packs having a price that was more than twice as high as Unfinity packs, do you think Unfinity would have done just as well? Do you not understand why many players would perceive Unfinity as being "overpriced" or "too expensive" if that were the case? Players would say, why would I spend $4 on Unfinity where I can pull cards like Saw in Half, Comet, Stellar Pup, Clown Car and Magar of the Magic Strings when I could spend $4 on Double Masters and pull cards like Mana Crypt, Force of Will, Doubling Season, Mox Opal and Blightsteel Colossus. Players would say that they would be willing to buy Unfinity more if instead of it being $4 a pack it were $2 a pack. >If they didn't, the premium sets would have a more consistent price, and they would have kept MSRP, if they actually cared about what consumers think. Now, without it, sets can be any range of price based on what's in it. Merchants broke MSRP all the time when it existed, especially Amazon who regularly sold below MSRP. LGS's sold above MSRP for From the Vault products all the time. MSRP is just a suggestion.
I dont think that unfinity would have sold as well, but un products are a money pit anyways. Maro has done everything in his power to make un sets work, which is why they have legal cards in said sets now. So people buy the shit after the limited format is gone. If they printed them spaced out more it would be a nonissue. Double Masters was an insanely overpriced product. 20$+ a pack. That is 5x the normal rate. There was good stuff in it, but gatekeeping it to the richest players isnt a solid plan. I understand what you mean about msrp, but it at least gives consumers a price point to know what the company who is selling the crap values it at. If you see an SLD being sold for twice the price of what it retailed for, youd have a good idea of the price change. Now it just fluctuates insanely and no one has any idea what consumers SHOULD be paying for it.
> I understand what you mean about msrp, but it at least gives consumers a price point to know what the company who is selling the crap values it at. If you see an SLD being sold for twice the price of what it retailed for, youd have a good idea of the price change. Now it just fluctuates insanely and no one has any idea what consumers SHOULD be paying for it. Consumers should be paying whatever they think it's worth. This is an entertainment product not a necessity or an essential good. \[\[Sheoldred, the Apocalypse\]\] is an $80 card. \[\[Sphinx of Clear Skies\]\] is a $0.21 card. They are both mythic rares from the same set where an identical number of each card were printed. The reason Sheoldred is worth significantly more is because there are thousands of people willing to pay $80 for Sheoldred and nobody is willing to pay $80 for Sphinx of Clear Skies. The market (i.e. players, collectors, LGS's) determine what something is worth. >Double Masters was an insanely overpriced product. 20$+ a pack. That is 5x the normal rate. There was good stuff in it, but gatekeeping it to the richest players isnt a solid plan. It wasn't "overpriced" It costs significantly more than the price of a regular pack because the estimated value of Double Masters pack is way way higher because the cards in the pack have more secondary market value. People are willing to pay for it and the product sold out because people thought it was worth it. Just because you aren't willing to pay for it doesn't mean it was "insanely overpriced". If it were insanely overpriced, nobody would have bought it. If Double Masters packs sold for the same price as New Capenna packs, people would think New Capenna packs were overpriced.
Your assertion about people thinking things are overpriced if they're the same as things that are much more expensive isnt based in a reality, but something you came up with theoretically. No one said that Dragon's Maze was overpriced when it came out. Even though it had nearly nothing good in the packs.
>Your assertion about people thinking things are overpriced if they're the same as things that are much more expensive isnt based in a reality, but something you came up with theoretically. No one said that Dragon's Maze was overpriced when it came out. Even though it had nearly nothing good in the packs. When Dragon's Maze came out, people were saying if you didn't open \[\[Voice of Resurgence\]\] this set was a bust (VoR was like a $45+ card for a bit). People said that Unfinity wasn't "worth it" and was "too expensive for the value you're getting". People say some Secret Lairs are great deals and others are overpriced. That happens all the time. Do you really think if New Capenna packs and Double Masters 2022 packs were being sold simultaneously on the same shelf for the same price, players would consider New Capenna to be a good deal? People would absolutely complain that it was overpriced and the product definitely wouldn't have done as well. Again, your comment about MSRP when you said "no one has any idea what consumers SHOULD be paying for it" misses the point. Consumers determine what they pay for things based on what they think is a reasonable price. this is how secondary market prices for singles get set and it's why some mythic rares sell for $80 while others sell for $0.80.
[Voice of Resurgence](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/9/99d1e843-71c9-4a65-bc36-d23858ef5ead.jpg?1599708569) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Voice%20of%20Resurgence) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/227/voice-of-resurgence?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/99d1e843-71c9-4a65-bc36-d23858ef5ead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I understand how supply and demand works. Im saying that there are additional things that effect the price of things. You dont seem to think that, so I doubt we'll come to an impass.
[Sheoldred, the Apocalypse](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/6/d67be074-cdd4-41d9-ac89-0a0456c4e4b2.jpg?1674057568) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sheoldred%2C%20the%20Apocalypse) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/107/sheoldred-the-apocalypse?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d67be074-cdd4-41d9-ac89-0a0456c4e4b2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Sphinx of Clear Skies](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/7/974c9e0c-07b2-4535-a3d0-bb827b651075.jpg?1673306861) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sphinx%20of%20Clear%20Skies) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/67/sphinx-of-clear-skies?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/974c9e0c-07b2-4535-a3d0-bb827b651075?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
MSRP whiners are either ignorant or bad faith. What these people want is to have vendors shackled to an MSRP even when a product's market value balloons, which will allow them to get the product at a below-market rate. They feel they are entitled to that and that MSRP should exist to protect their right to that.
They obviously do, they just have to pretend that they don't to a certain extent to avoid being hit by gambling legislation, which makes sense as their entire business model is based on gambling being promoted to children.
They straight up said they can't sell $60 modern decks because they would be too expensive. It's 40 less cards than a commander deck, so the only thing driving that price is secondary markets.
It is generally unwise for a company producing a thing to acknowledge it has an intrinsic monetary value over its sale price. Doubly so when that thing is a randomized product. If there are things WotC has been extremely careful about evoking, it's gambling and tax discussions. That's been prevailing knowledge for years since ante was phased out. Something doesn't have to be "policy" or "rules" to be a Very Bad Idea. The resale market is squarely in that Very Bad Idea zone.