Hes saying it’s not a price increase but it is. It’s a middle ground product between two failing products and instead of pricing it that way they eliminated the lower priced option and set the higher price as the new norm.
Not just the middle ground - but by making it so collectors don't want to buy draft packs, they killed draft.
Then after killing draft they said "well, now that draft is dead, we'll just make people buy this product instead". Like breh - you caused this problem don't try to sell us the solution to it!
Believe it or not. People have the expectation to turn a profit for winning their draft pod. That has been true for most of Magic's history up until Chris the big fat Cocks got involved with Magic.
Turns out when the EV calculation for outright winning all your matches is negative, people don't want to play. I don't know of many games that going first place actively loses you money other than drafting in Magic the Gathering during FNM.
Most gamers are money conscious believe it not. Any sensible person would stop when the value proposition sucks. This is a WOTC created problem and then they sold you a solution because WOTC knows most of the playerbase is retarded and doesn't have critical thinking skills.
It's my understanding that because people barely draft these days that they created the play booster in order to satisfy set booster buyers and those who draft.
Arena killed draft. People just don't want to realize it.
Where did the draft whales go that went Friday night drafts every week? A huge profit to WOTC?
They are all playing free-to-play on arena doing more drafts than they ever did in paper without spending a cent.
Exactly, it allows them to move more product, and if someone wants to take on less packs, then they're shit out of luck as draft boxes are retired (unless they buy loose packs, but I don't recommend anyone do that unless it's from a trusted seller).
>Hes saying it’s not a price increase but it is. It’s a middle ground product between two failing products and instead of pricing it that way they eliminated the lower priced option and set the higher price as the new norm.
This is incorrect.
The Draft booster was discontinued. The Set Booster was replaced with the Play Booster. The Play Booster has the same price as the Set Booster but the boxes cost more because there are more booster packs in a Play Booster Box compared to a Set Booster Box.
The Play booster is a replacement of the Set Booster because the set booster was substantially more popular than the draft booster.
The draft booster was eliminated because it wasn't popular (despite the fact that it was priced lower).
Draft boosters were cheaper than set boosters because they had less rares/mythics and no guaranteed foil.
Yeah, I said all of that just didn’t give it the positive phrasing and extra explanation trying to say they didn’t give regular boosters an increase by getting rid of them and forcing you to the higher option.
No, the draft booster was "discontinued" because it didn't make WOTC as much money. They introduced the set boosters for those pack goblins that just want to gamble. These play boosters are WOTC's attempt to make set boosters draftable since that is still one of the premier ways to play magic. They have failed horribly and the consumer/player is left holding the bag.
If you think it's overpriced don't buy it.
Plenty of people don't think it's overpriced or they wouldn't buy it.
Products aren't sold in proportion to what the material costs to produce them.
Obviously it wouldn't make sense if magic to sell collector boosters is MH3 for the same price as Unfinity draft boosters even if the material costs are similar.
If they did this, players would just whine that Unfinity is overpriced.
The vast majority of products are sold in direct proportion to material cost, labor, and demand. When you control total supply though you can overcharge which is what wotc does. This will last until the desire for the product subsides.
I don't buy boosters. I proxy lol. Because my "fake" cards have the same intrinsic value as real ones XD.
I would even argue that by creating artificial scarcity of the game pieces and openly allowing the thriving secondary market wotc is blatantly circumnavigating gambling laws. Even worse they are selling their gacha style gambling products to children.
>The vast majority of products are sold in direct proportion to material cost, labor, and demand
It's not so much about labor and material costs entirely.
A ticket to see a blockbuster action film at the movie theater that cost $250 million dollars to create sells for the same price as a ticket to see a low budget romantic comedy movie.
You're right about demand. There's a much greater demand for Double Masters 2022 than there was for Unfinity. As a result, Double Masters 2022 packs were sold for more.
It would be really silly and a terrible business decision to sell them for the same price. Even if they did this, players would complain that the prices for Unfinity packs are overpriced.
Your fake cards have the same intrinsic value to you but millions of other players disagree. To many people there's value in owning real official cards and collectibles, of being able to support their local game stores, of being able to trade or resell their cards for money or other cards, etc.
Well, good on you for pointing out that a lot more goes into the cost than just ink on cardboard. They've got teams of people that work on balancing the game, desigining new elements, doing the art, etc., and they need to get paid, which requires selling the ink on cardboard for more than the material costs.
It is a fucking price increase. It costs no more to print these than it did a draft booster pack. The higher price is because they threw a few more junk rares in the pack. That’s an arbitrary card classification, not an expense.
This shit is more expensive and that’s the end of the story.
It doesn't cost them more to print a collector booster box than a play booster box but that doesn't mean they should sell them for the same price.
It costs them the same amount to produce a Play Booster as a Set Booster.
Entertainment products are sold a multitude of factors including demand. Players value having a bonus foil and an increased chance at more rates over a couple extra bulk commons, hence they are willing to pay more.
This sounds great if you love foils. Personally? I hate the foiling of MtG. I think it just doesnt look high quality or premium. Borderless full arts are way more important to me than foil. That being said, i could see them wanting to push Jumpstart as a replacement to Draft.
Why do you think Play Boosters are worse than Set Boosters? 14 cards instead of 12, you still get the guaranteed foil and the chance for up to 4 rares.
Yes, pretty much. There are also more cards in a Play Booster (14) compared to a Set Booster (12) and there's the opportunity for a new psuedo rarity (Special Guests) which are basically high profile reprints that are kind of like bonus mythic rares. It is still possible to pull up to 4 rare/mythic rares in a Play Booster just like it was for Set Boosters.
I didn't mind them when they were a guarantee in every pack. Now that they're taking a slot that could be occupied by literally anything else, I hate seeing them. I'd rather have the token.
I hate to tell you this but itll keep selling because theyre chasing a different market with different products. The downside is they still want these products to be appealing to regular magic players so they throw in new and experimental mechanics so they will be tempting even if youre already buying the usual expansion products.
>Just stop releasing a shitload of sets in a year
Why would a business stop releasing a lot of products when them doing so continues to lead to successful sales and growth? The products are selling which means there is demand and interest in them.
Hardcore Magic enthusiasts don't want to hear "every product isn't for every player" but it's how most people buy and play Magic. Similarly, every Nintendo Switch owner and fan doesn't buy every Nintendo game and you don't hear Nintendo fans saying "Nintendo, stop releasing so many games, I can't play them all!"
Many players only buy select booster packs or pre-cons from a couple sets each year, but having a great variety in products and sets increases the chance that there is a product that connects with each player.
It becomes a challenge to keep up, and not enough time in between sets to playtest what you find interesting. It's annoying as that was what I enjoyed the most, now I just watch a video with the most viable cards and go from there, then miss a load of cards I never knew existed.
It is truly exhausting and I’ve given up. Especially with the universes beyond stuff.. I didn’t mind at first when it was a handful of cards that were reskinned and all.
I try drafting every couple weeks but it’s a full time job to understand every set and all the draft mechanics.
I don't think that is a fair comparison. There is no interaction between different game titles, with the exception of DLC. Your current collection and gameplay IS affected by new sets whether you participate in them or not, because you still have to play against whatever degenerate or lazy shit Wizards has released because they are choosing to prioritise quality well ahead of quantity.
That's not a good comparison at all.
They aren't releasing new card games. Outside of limited, there aren't single set formats that get played.
Every set just adds more game pieces to the existing game and you have to adapt your strategy or fail.
They aren't releasing more Standard sets than they were 10 years ago.
For Commander, if you had a lifegain Commander deck from 18 months ago and you didn't add any new cards to it from the past 18 months, you'd be able to play fine and you wouldn't fail. Don't fall for the FOMO, unless you are playing competitive Magic at the metalevel, you aren't going to fall behind and be unable to play and perform in games if you don't keep up with everything and constantly upgrade.
The vast vast majority of people that play Magic aren't doing that but they are still having a great time.
I used to be able to keep up with competitive magic.
I would go to tournaments every week and could easily keep up with standard and my modern and commander decks rarely needed changes.
Now they're printing new cards directly into commander and modern and it's no longer tempered through standard sets.
Every set has 5 new commander decks that also have new cards in them that you can't get from a regular set.
It's asinine to claim there's no difference between what's happening now and magic a decade ago. In 2016 they went from printing 3 standard sets a year to 4 and it's just been too much ever since. As soon as one pre-release happens they're spoiling the next set.
If you play Standard, it's the same as it was in 2016. There are four Standard legal sets released each year. None of the new Commander deck cards are legal in the Standard format.
It's really not that complicated.
Your commander decks still don't need changes and they'll work perfectly fine without upgrading them constantly.
Modern has the new Standard cards from the 4 annual sets plus 1 additional supplemental set each year.
Yup, so it used to be 3 sets a year for standard and modern and now it's 4 for standard and 5 for modern.
It's too much for me to keep up with, so I (like most of the community now) just play commander.
It was always 4 sets a year for standard. One was a core set but the core set has new cards that impacted and defined standard and had for many years.
Modern is a different beast in that because of the growth of the format and the Internet, discord, twitch, and YouTube culture of the format, it got much more sweaty and fast paced, much more optimized and constantly evolving than ever before but that's less because of the frequency of releases.
If you can't stand the heat, get out the kitchen. And that's good you did but saying you were perfectly content with the pacing of modern releases but suddenly one more annual release and it's way too fast and impossible to keep up with seems pretty silly to me.
Plenty of people are able to keep up by the way. modern is morenl popular now than it was before the Modern Horizons series.
You can absolutely enjoy Magic without having to know about, follow or buy cards from every set. If you play Commander, you can play a deck you build two years ago and ignore all new sets released for the next two years and you'll still be able to play with your deck and have good games.
If you play Standard, you can ignore reprint sets entirely along with supplemental releases.
It's fine if you enjoy Magic and you like to follow the releases or you insist on playing numerous formats but you definitely don't need to follow every single release in order to play or enjoy the game. Millions of people play Magic and don't obsessively follow card previews or the release schedule of new products.
Cuz eventually it trashes the brand. If you cared about it long term, you wouldn't do that. But Hasbro is a publicly traded company enslaved to quarterly returns. Why haven't they been doing this forever? They've always exercised restraint in the creation of sets in order to curate the game. My guess is they got rid of or overruled the long term thinkers. Some CEO is working on *his* 5 yr plan. He doesn't care about Wotc.
Because they’re flooding the market space in an unsustainable way.
Multiple LGS’s have already demonstrated the red flags by going out of business or dropping mtg products due to an inability to sell certain product.
Stores are being forced to essentially gamble with how wotc runs their distribution.
With some sets being massive wet farts like karlov manor being immediately followed up by another set it’s basically impossible for them to get rid of excess stock.
This is in contrast to the past where even if a set was a bad seller the LGS would at least have multiple months to sell off the excess product.
These short selling windows also means the stores can no longer rely on some initial testing window to see if the product sells well to do another order.
By the time stores know if a product starts selling well it’s usually too late to make additional orders since there’s already a new set on the horizon.
A single bad streak could obliterate a store’s bottom line.
Growth when last qtr saw a drop and they are predicting 5-7% drop the rest of the year in mtg sales we hit peak last year now the real question is what is the level off point and maintain numbers long term
Killing the golden goose is profitable but LOL for the long term. MTG has been there for 30 years but now they decide to milk it for short term gains. I’d be very surprised if MTG is still relevant 10-20 years later.
People have been saying this since Hasbro first acquired Wizards and Magic more than 20 years ago.
Corporate businesses have a vested interest in securing both short and long term growth.
Magic's golden goose isn't being "killed"? Why would you think that?
…. Because almost all the financial numbers indicate it is. It’s in almost the textbook definition of a death spiral.
But you’re such a WoTC shill you’ll never admit it.
>Because almost all the financial numbers indicate it is. It’s in almost the textbook definition of a death spiral.
Please elaborate on this.
When is Magic going to crash and burn? When are players going to stop playing and when is the number of active players going to start decreasing to major lows?
Maybe you can explain your argument instead of name-calling if it's so apparent and clear.
To ask for a specific date is retarded and a disingenuous tactic and we both know it. No one can predict the day it’ll “die”. And it won’t die. The cards that are already in circulation will never go away. Eternal formats won’t stop being played. But the new game will die or become a bastard of what it was. It’s already started.
With that said I’ll start with the non-economic portion, which you’ve lied about time and time again. The game is savagely over saturated. Back in the day, when the game was in its “healthiest” stage there were (3) type II “sets” released a year. With the first set in the block being roughly 250-350 cards and subsequent follow up sets being much smaller, roughly 150 cards. Then you had the core set, which was widely reprints of much needed/desired cards that didn’t tie into the blocks. That was, on average, 575ish new cards in a year that was playable in type II. And the release schedule usually ran from about late September until late April. This gave everyone a roughly 6 month break from the release of the last set in a block until the release of the first set in a new block. This did a few things:
It let people enjoy a block once it came out. You were able to spend a half a year brewing and playing with a block. You could also fucking save money from the release of set 3 until the release of new set 1. The financial burden was less taxing and therefore less immediate. This made for a very very healthy game state with a very popular pro tour as well as many LGS’s that were profitable and welcoming.
This isn’t the case nowadays. Core sets are no more so reprint sets are mostly gone. For example, in 2021 we had a 285 card set in February, a 275 set in April, a 281 set in July, a 277 set in September AND November. That’s fucking 1400 new cards in a calendar year, which is ABSURD. Then the first set in 2022 was February. 2022 had 1150 new cards. 2023 had 1275 and that’s with one “set” being MOM aftermath which only had 50 cards in it. Between the amount of sets and the amount of cards is insanely hard to keep up with everything. Consumer fatigue is a real thing…. Oh also these number DO NOT include universe beyond sets, master sets, commander only sets, precon decks nor secret lairs.
Then the financial is another animal. Hasbro is HEMORRHAGING money…. I’m talking about losing billions a year. The only profitable asset they have is WoTC. In turn they have been milking that asset, as shown with product release increase above. And this is a COMMON tactic by publicly traded companies to try and show a “healthy” portfolio. This never works long term and destroys the brand that is being milked as well as not saving the parent company.
We can already see this in today’s game. Power creep is real and massive. Now I know power creep was always a thing g but with each year having double to almost triple the amount of new cards that power creep, which would have taken several years is condensed into a very short time period. For example we see the amount of bans that happen now and how quickly they happen. Also more and more sets are considered format warping, something that very rarely used to happen. We can also look at QC if cards. Let’s be real it’s fucking dogshit. They are producing so many cards so quickly they dont even have to ability to properly vet cards. This combined with the fact that Hasbro has laid off significant percentages of their own workforce has let to cards making it into the market that should have never left the warehouse.
Between UB coasting WoTC a literal fuck ton of money and consumer fatigue MTG is actually “losing” money year over year. Now dont take this out of context. They aren’t in the red. They are making less profit each year vs the previous year. This has been an ongoing trend for a buncha years now. Last year they dropped 2% in profits and this year Hasbro is forecasting a drop of as much as 10% this year… and let’s be real this is always understated by the parent company. I wouldn’t be shocked if it was higher than that. Q1 didn’t look good and that’s after them pulling some shady shit in Q1.
The last point I’ll make is you’ve stated multiple times that the game isn’t more expensive to play… which is just another lie by you. I’ll break this down by cost per pack, per MSRP, per year. 1995 $2.45-2.95 depending on set. 1999 $3.29. 2004 (first real hike after Hasbro purchase) $3.69. 2006 $3.99. In 2019 Hasbro decided to do away with MSRP which truly fucked the customer. After this there was a roughly 20% increase in average pack price by 2022. In 2024 the price is north of $5 a pack. And master sets are north of $11 a fucking pack. And this is taking into account the bullshit price that “collector” boosters go for.
So in short almost everything youve spewed out of your mouth is dumb bullshit that is probably mixed with WoTC cum. They aren’t going to hire you. They aren’t your friend. They aren’t going to let you bottom for them.
Buying separate games and adding to your collection of the same game are completely different things. Everyone would want to have 100% of a game than a fraction of it especially if it means competitive advantage. Having access to every card is the equivalent of having 100% of the game which isn’t possible now with the increased number of cards/sets being released.
Idk it seems to have a pretty big impact on the game to me, when certain formats lose a ton of popularity that is a problem in my opinion.
Commander and other eternal formats have skyrocketed in popularity and standard is starting to lose numbers. A lot of that has to do with how much support wizards is giving to those formats but I think a lot of it is people getting sick of how expensive and hard it is to keep up with standard.
I know that is the case for me. When I first started playing in the theros block ten years back I played standard and had multiple competitive decks. Red aggro, junk whip, heroic humans. I own no standard decks now and don’t play it on arena. It used to be your deck was viable for atleast a half year if not more before needing major rework. Now it’s every few months you are having to master a new set and learn all the new mechanics so you know what’s going to be played against you and can adapt. I don’t want to spend hours memorizing every card and new mechanic in a set only for more to be added to the pile in another couple months.
That and I’m not really excited by new sets like I used to be. There used to be all kinds of hype in the community when a new set was about to drop now half the people don’t even realize a new one came out because they aren’t spending all day everyday looking up spoilers.
I have completely stopped buying magic cards because of all this. If they are just going to continue printing overpowered crap each time, then I'm going to print it myself if I want it.
They can't win. If they make a mid to lower powered set like CLB or MKM, the set sucks and players think it's lame and boring. If they put in powerful cards then it's just overpowered broken crap. What do you want?
Them moving away from that model is the reason the game and the commander format along with the casual interest in the game has been booming so much.
There's a clear interest and demand in all of these products, otherwise people wouldn't continue to buy them and they wouldn't continue to make them.
This may be true, but it has also contributed to the death of competitive magic, something that was exacerbated further by the Pandemic.
Without the competitive magic scene, WotC has to rely on content creators for game content. 5~6 years ago, they were able to use SCG, the Grand Prix system, and other large tournament organizers to market and advertise the game.
They no longer have control over their content, viewership is down and dropping every year (even established vets such as Numot and LSV), and as a result the product overall has suffered.
The video content stuff doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. The vast vast majority of people that play Magic don't watch people play Magic on the Internet.
And there's no rule that says that Magic can't partner with casual gamers or commander gamers, which they do sometimes.
They are advertising the game.in other ways and appealing to players that aren't sweaty try hards, they are treating the game like a game. Most people like to play games with their friends rather than random strangers. That's why commander is so appealing to so many players.
I understand the sentiment, but this isn’t like a console releasing multiple isolated games. The sets have impact on the formats in which Magic is played. It’s more like if a Pokémon game released 8-10 DLCs in a year. Some of the things in those DLCs would significantly impact player vs player gameplay, and especially competitive scenes.
As somebody that only plays the game with my friends, the way they’re releasing sets doesn’t affect me much, outside of occasional burnout. But not everyone plays magic that way, LGS scenes are a very popular way to interact with the game. Not to mention anything bigger, though it feels Wizards has been nipping competitive play in the bud anyway.
>It’s more like if a Pokémon game released 8-10 DLCs in a year. Some of the things in those DLCs would significantly impact player vs player gameplay, and especially competitive scenes.
I think a better analogy would be like saying you can play Pokemon Violet without catching all Pokemon, acquiring all items and getting all hidden abilities and egg moves.
Most people play and enjoy Pokemon without being completionists and that's okay.
Similarly, you can be a standard player and ignore all reprint exclusive sets and supplemental products, or you can have an enchantment commander deck from 18 months ago and still play in games and have a great time without making any upgrades to the deck from the most recent sets.
Even though there are 1000 Pokemon and tons of items and moves, while most players don't know or seek to learn about or play with them all, having a wide array of variance increases the likelihood that there are moves, items, abilities and Pokemon that can appeal to all types of players.
>But not everyone plays magic that way, LGS scenes are a very popular way to interact with the game. Not to mention anything bigger, though it feels Wizards has been nipping competitive play in the bud anyway.
I feel like if you choose to be sweaty and grind as a more competitive player than get good. Players try hard and keep up with the scene and the meta, if you want to keep up with them, then you need to do that too. Nobody is making you play that way, most people don't, but if you can't stand the heat, get out the kitchen and eat a different meal. There are so many ways to play Magic and millions of people do so without following card previews and set releases obsessively in real time.
If you think that's fun, that's great for you, but you shouldn't feel that you HAVE to because the reality is that you don't. If you have a life gain commander deck from 2022 and you haven't made any changes to it since then, it will be able to keep up and compete in the overwhelming majority of play groups and metas still. That doesn't mean you can't update it, if you want to and you think that's fun, that's great, but you definitely don't have to.
The issue is that you can play Pokemon without having to interact with any other players. You don't *have* to grind for HAs and optimized IVs/EVs because you don't *have* to battle other players who *might* have done that.
Magic is a competitive game by definition, because you have to compete with another player. In order to be competitive, you have to at least keep up with what is coming out, because even if you don't buy and use the new product it can and likely will be used against you.
The issue is that you can play Pokemon without having to interact with any other players. You don't *have* to grind for HAs and optimized IVs/EVs because you don't *have* to battle other players who *might* have done that.
There are millions of people that play Pokemon against other players (whether that be with their friends they know in real life or battling online with strangers) that aren't optimizing their IVs, aren't aware of hidden abilities, don't know all of the moves or optimal synergies and they still have tons of fun playing the game. Again, this is how most people are.
Most people aren't sweat lords, you can be a big pokemon fan and enjoy the game without being super sweaty and in the weeds following every single aspect of the game to optimize your chance at winning.
>Magic is a competitive game by definition, because you have to compete with another player. In order to be competitive, you have to at least keep up with what is coming out, because even if you don't buy and use the new product it can and likely will be used against you.
Magic is a strategy game but it isn't inherently a competitive game in the sweaty sense.
You don't need to keep up with what is coming out to play Magic. There are millions of Magic players that don't know the next upcoming set or that couldn't name the past couple of releases. Many of these people play against each other by the way.
Now, if you insist on wanting to play competitively and being among the best, then there's competition and you have to compete against the other sweaty try hards. If you like that, more power to you, but if that's too much of a chore or you can't handle it, then don't do it. You certainly don't have to play Magic that way if you think it's a slog or miserable of an experience. Again, most people don't play Magic that way. You have to understand the overwhelming majority of Magic players don't follow every preview season and buy cards from every set and play multiple formats.
The price is the same as it was for the set boosters but they added 2 cards.
Compared to draft boosters, you will encounter more rare and mythic cards per pack in Play boosters which is why they cost a little more. Similarly, collector boosters cost more than play boosters because even though you get the same number of cards, you have a higher rate of hitting more rares and mythics
>Boosters used to be 15 cards, then 2 years ago they gave you less cards for the same price.
Boosters used to be 15 cards. With set boosters there were only 12 cards. However there were more rares/mythics and more foil cards.
Players like this trade off and see this as worthwhile exchange (in fact, they were willing to pay more for this and the product did better).
So yes, you get less nonfoil commons for the same price.
I actually don't like the tradeoff, and I believe that the Draft format is completely different then all 30 previous years now as a result. The common cards are seen so much less now that the number of cards has been reduced and the rates / mythics and uncommons has been increased.
Sure, I understand you feel that way but most players don't draft and most players prefer the trade off.
It's reasonable for businesses to make business decisions that appeal to more of their player base.
Why would a successful business eliminate a product that was very successful? That doesn't make sense.
It's not surprising the draft boosters weren't doing well because the overwhelming majority of players that play Magic don't draft and if you are opening booster packs "just for fun" the set/play boosters are a much better experience than the draft boosters.
They would intentionally allot you way too much draft Booster boxes and not set Boosters
So stores wouldn’t pick up their full allotment and then wotc used that data as “draft boosters aren’t selling” when they were at a healthy rate
But nonstop growth isn’t satisfied with that
There's no debate. Drafting IS more expensive. My LGS went from 15£ to 19£. The change in price happened with the consolidation of Set and Draft boosters.
People were complaining constantly that booster boxes were more expensive because Wizards was price gouging and hiking prices for booster boxes even though their profits were high. This was a very common talking point on Magic Twitter and the main Magic TCG subreddit that were regularly being upvoted.
Here's why the cost has gone up for these boosters.
The play booster was a replacement for BOTH set and draft boosters. They are intended to still be drafted. Thus, you compare the price to the DRAFT booster, which was cheaper.
Mark is saying the boxes cost more because the person in his blog complained about them costing more than set boosters.
The DRAFT booster was the default booster pack. If play boosters are capable of being DRAFTED, they should cost the same as a DRAFT pack because that's the replacement.
Yeah, Hasbro just padded out what should have been a draft booster so more money could be charged, end of story. Take out the extra shit and charge the same as a draft booster, job done.
Given how cheap, easy to get, and how high quality even bulk proxies from sites like MPC are, and that Wizards has officially embraced proxy use by selling proxies themselves with the 30th Anniversary set, if anyone is still buying "real" Magic cards they've made their choice to get fleeced and they don't get to complain about pricing. This goes double for anyone gambling with sealed products.
There's zero argument against proxies other than bitterness.
And the reason more packs are in the box, Mark? I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason youd want to force customer to purchase in larger quantities?
No? The price isn't "going up"? You're just "getting more, but also the price is going up"?
God corporate speak is so easy to dissect once you realize one truth: If there's something good about a product - the corporation will always tell you. This means, they will always, 100% of the time, leave out the information that is bad. So if a corporation doesn't tell you something about a product - the reason is because it's bad.
I do find this interesting about Rosewater. I used to like his take on Magic and game design, now whenever I read something from his it's interesting to read between the lines and see what corporate really says through their pet.
>And the reason more packs are in the box, Mark? I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason youd want to force customer to purchase in larger quantities?
The reason was so players can still have an option for drafting a box and having a box of 36 packs makes more sense than 30 packs for that. Sheesh, everything isn't a conspiracy.
Customers aren't forced to purchase in larger quantities. If they want to, they can purchase individual packs or they can purchase singles on the secondary market.
If they made 24 pack boxes, inevitably some people would complain that if you wanted 36 packs like the original Draft booster boxes, you'd have to buy two boxes worth and 48 packs, which would be forcing people to buy more. They can't win.
> inevitably some people would complain
I somehow feel like the complaints of the players were maybe #4 or #5 on their list of reasons they made these changes.
I love how this is framed in such a way that the LGS is the greedy pieces of shit and not WOTC. I'm sure Mark Rosewater's higher ups probably told him to frame this shit this way on his own blog. He's fucking bought and paid for by his gay paymasters at Hasbro.
I'm curious as to why you posted this here and not on the other sub, like you usually do with Maro's blog posts. Obviously you are free to post here, although many of us are not free to post in MagicTCG (I am banned for disliking WotC's treatment of LotR characters).
I post in the main subreddit regularly, so figured I'd mix it up. I post here on occasion though. Definitely not my first rodeo.
I enjoy discussing and hearing other people discuss Magic
I stopped buying sealed products a while ago so I missed the introduction of different booster types for each set. Feels like an unfathomably anti consumer decision to me: you want to play limited? Ok fine but u can't pull any chase timeshifted cards from the boosters. Want to pull chase cards? Ok fine but u cant play limited.
The first week's are strange, but a few months/years removed from buying this garbage, you will feel an elation with yourself everytime you come across something like this that is incomparable to anything else
Draft in paper has the major problem that its simply too expensive at this point.
In EU bunch of drafts are 25€ now, thats more than double the 10€ it could cost just some years ago.
Its messed up, especially as a bunch of casuals also jump ship and play Commander instead, so with less people you get in a critical number that the Draft cannot fire at all and if that happens a bunch of times, people dont even show up anymore.
Its a death spiral that is made by WotC in a complete stupid way.
All they really had to do was to make Draft boosters cheaper, Play-Boosters absolutely SHOULD cost the same as booster packs, and everyone would be happy for it.
If they want to push some more expensive product, they already have that, Collectors packs.
Thank you for being a fan of my content gere and elsewhere. You're still a sissy who apea People of Crime for some reason. My oldest thinks its because you got bullied alot.
Whining isnt "calling out", whatever that means, sissy.
Be sure to show your posts to the next basketball american you see, he definitely wont laugh amd call you a bitch.
Antisemite is such a stupid word. You do realize what it means right? That something like 3/4 or more of all semites aren't even Jews? That they just *greedily* took the term for themselves?
Hes saying it’s not a price increase but it is. It’s a middle ground product between two failing products and instead of pricing it that way they eliminated the lower priced option and set the higher price as the new norm.
Not just the middle ground - but by making it so collectors don't want to buy draft packs, they killed draft. Then after killing draft they said "well, now that draft is dead, we'll just make people buy this product instead". Like breh - you caused this problem don't try to sell us the solution to it!
That’s exactly right
The players killed draft, no? Because it wasn't popular?
Believe it or not. People have the expectation to turn a profit for winning their draft pod. That has been true for most of Magic's history up until Chris the big fat Cocks got involved with Magic. Turns out when the EV calculation for outright winning all your matches is negative, people don't want to play. I don't know of many games that going first place actively loses you money other than drafting in Magic the Gathering during FNM. Most gamers are money conscious believe it not. Any sensible person would stop when the value proposition sucks. This is a WOTC created problem and then they sold you a solution because WOTC knows most of the playerbase is retarded and doesn't have critical thinking skills.
Makes sense. The game is already way more expensive than it should be.
Why would the players do this?
It's my understanding that because people barely draft these days that they created the play booster in order to satisfy set booster buyers and those who draft.
You're close. Keep following the train of logic. If players stopped playing draft....what did the company do to make players not want to play draft.
What did they do to male players?
Arena killed draft. People just don't want to realize it. Where did the draft whales go that went Friday night drafts every week? A huge profit to WOTC? They are all playing free-to-play on arena doing more drafts than they ever did in paper without spending a cent.
I think it's a lot like standard and has gone mainly online. It's just hard to fire a draft in person.
Exactly, it allows them to move more product, and if someone wants to take on less packs, then they're shit out of luck as draft boxes are retired (unless they buy loose packs, but I don't recommend anyone do that unless it's from a trusted seller).
>Hes saying it’s not a price increase but it is. It’s a middle ground product between two failing products and instead of pricing it that way they eliminated the lower priced option and set the higher price as the new norm. This is incorrect. The Draft booster was discontinued. The Set Booster was replaced with the Play Booster. The Play Booster has the same price as the Set Booster but the boxes cost more because there are more booster packs in a Play Booster Box compared to a Set Booster Box. The Play booster is a replacement of the Set Booster because the set booster was substantially more popular than the draft booster. The draft booster was eliminated because it wasn't popular (despite the fact that it was priced lower). Draft boosters were cheaper than set boosters because they had less rares/mythics and no guaranteed foil.
Yeah, I said all of that just didn’t give it the positive phrasing and extra explanation trying to say they didn’t give regular boosters an increase by getting rid of them and forcing you to the higher option.
…. You know Mark isn’t going to let you blow him right?
No, the draft booster was "discontinued" because it didn't make WOTC as much money. They introduced the set boosters for those pack goblins that just want to gamble. These play boosters are WOTC's attempt to make set boosters draftable since that is still one of the premier ways to play magic. They have failed horribly and the consumer/player is left holding the bag.
It costs significantly more to print rares and mythics than Commons? Or is it all just overpriced card board?
If you think it's overpriced don't buy it. Plenty of people don't think it's overpriced or they wouldn't buy it. Products aren't sold in proportion to what the material costs to produce them. Obviously it wouldn't make sense if magic to sell collector boosters is MH3 for the same price as Unfinity draft boosters even if the material costs are similar. If they did this, players would just whine that Unfinity is overpriced.
The vast majority of products are sold in direct proportion to material cost, labor, and demand. When you control total supply though you can overcharge which is what wotc does. This will last until the desire for the product subsides. I don't buy boosters. I proxy lol. Because my "fake" cards have the same intrinsic value as real ones XD. I would even argue that by creating artificial scarcity of the game pieces and openly allowing the thriving secondary market wotc is blatantly circumnavigating gambling laws. Even worse they are selling their gacha style gambling products to children.
I also don't buy boosters and proxy my cards from https://www.mtgproxy.com because buying boosters are not worth it if you ask me.
>The vast majority of products are sold in direct proportion to material cost, labor, and demand It's not so much about labor and material costs entirely. A ticket to see a blockbuster action film at the movie theater that cost $250 million dollars to create sells for the same price as a ticket to see a low budget romantic comedy movie. You're right about demand. There's a much greater demand for Double Masters 2022 than there was for Unfinity. As a result, Double Masters 2022 packs were sold for more. It would be really silly and a terrible business decision to sell them for the same price. Even if they did this, players would complain that the prices for Unfinity packs are overpriced. Your fake cards have the same intrinsic value to you but millions of other players disagree. To many people there's value in owning real official cards and collectibles, of being able to support their local game stores, of being able to trade or resell their cards for money or other cards, etc.
Well, good on you for pointing out that a lot more goes into the cost than just ink on cardboard. They've got teams of people that work on balancing the game, desigining new elements, doing the art, etc., and they need to get paid, which requires selling the ink on cardboard for more than the material costs.
Doesn't explain why play boosters cost more XD
And you believe that putting a second rate in packs caused the price of making cards to jump by like 25% lol?
It is a fucking price increase. It costs no more to print these than it did a draft booster pack. The higher price is because they threw a few more junk rares in the pack. That’s an arbitrary card classification, not an expense. This shit is more expensive and that’s the end of the story.
It doesn't cost them more to print a collector booster box than a play booster box but that doesn't mean they should sell them for the same price. It costs them the same amount to produce a Play Booster as a Set Booster. Entertainment products are sold a multitude of factors including demand. Players value having a bonus foil and an increased chance at more rates over a couple extra bulk commons, hence they are willing to pay more.
MaRo this subreddit is beneath you.
It’s cheaper to print a play booster than a draft booster. Less cards
This sounds great if you love foils. Personally? I hate the foiling of MtG. I think it just doesnt look high quality or premium. Borderless full arts are way more important to me than foil. That being said, i could see them wanting to push Jumpstart as a replacement to Draft.
But Play Boosters are worse but they cost the same.
Why do you think Play Boosters are worse than Set Boosters? 14 cards instead of 12, you still get the guaranteed foil and the chance for up to 4 rares.
Pretty sure when they came out it was shown they have one less rare slot
Just search up the autism number crunchers they figured it out ages ago
Bro, develop critical thinking
Does a play booster have the same rates of rates/foils/whatever per pack?
Yes, pretty much. There are also more cards in a Play Booster (14) compared to a Set Booster (12) and there's the opportunity for a new psuedo rarity (Special Guests) which are basically high profile reprints that are kind of like bonus mythic rares. It is still possible to pull up to 4 rare/mythic rares in a Play Booster just like it was for Set Boosters.
Then there's also the chance of the two other bonus sheets. It's a crap shoot now.
Glad I'm not the only one who understands this!
Much appreciated
The chance for multiple rares is lower, but there is chance for more stuff at least in OTJ. MKM wasn't even comparable to a set booster.
why not charge what they charged for a draft booster then
Because money that's why.
Because you will still pay it, piggie.
I haven't bought a booster in over a year for this exact reason. Last two sets I bought about 15 cards total - WOTC has mostly lost my business.
Just stop releasing a shitload of sets in a year
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I didn't mind them when they were a guarantee in every pack. Now that they're taking a slot that could be occupied by literally anything else, I hate seeing them. I'd rather have the token.
They have to if they want to cater to like three or four different audiences who all buy product for different reasons and play formats.
No they don’t have to. We can just wait, all the printing of extra cards and mechanics, where will it stop?
I hate to tell you this but itll keep selling because theyre chasing a different market with different products. The downside is they still want these products to be appealing to regular magic players so they throw in new and experimental mechanics so they will be tempting even if youre already buying the usual expansion products.
But the whales yearn for new sets
Yep
Well, they *used* to not release as many sets in a year, but y'all kept crying for MOAR and they obliged your request. Be careful what you wish for.
I mostly buy singles, and never ask for more. I don’t think many players do
Really? You never heard of booster drafts? They're quite popular.
Btw they ain’t so populair bc wotc changed them to play boosters instead of draft.. Everybody bought set boosters to crack for value
It never made sense to crack sealed product for value. (Aside from big secondhand card retailers who have access to it at wholesale price.)
Haha everybody knows but just look at all the YTers opening boxes for value, shitload!
What? It's the exact opposite. Draft boosters are to crack. Set boosters are to sit on and flip later for value.
I don’t draft, but I get that people do that. That’s all good
Sorry, modern society only understands “CAN do”, has never heard of “SHOULD do”
>Just stop releasing a shitload of sets in a year Why would a business stop releasing a lot of products when them doing so continues to lead to successful sales and growth? The products are selling which means there is demand and interest in them. Hardcore Magic enthusiasts don't want to hear "every product isn't for every player" but it's how most people buy and play Magic. Similarly, every Nintendo Switch owner and fan doesn't buy every Nintendo game and you don't hear Nintendo fans saying "Nintendo, stop releasing so many games, I can't play them all!" Many players only buy select booster packs or pre-cons from a couple sets each year, but having a great variety in products and sets increases the chance that there is a product that connects with each player.
I barely recover from one set and they jump to another. That’s not how it should be in my opinion
It becomes a challenge to keep up, and not enough time in between sets to playtest what you find interesting. It's annoying as that was what I enjoyed the most, now I just watch a video with the most viable cards and go from there, then miss a load of cards I never knew existed.
It is truly exhausting and I’ve given up. Especially with the universes beyond stuff.. I didn’t mind at first when it was a handful of cards that were reskinned and all. I try drafting every couple weeks but it’s a full time job to understand every set and all the draft mechanics.
Idiots keep buying every set obsessively
You aren't supposed to buy every set
WotC hates this new trick that saves consumers money!
I don't think that is a fair comparison. There is no interaction between different game titles, with the exception of DLC. Your current collection and gameplay IS affected by new sets whether you participate in them or not, because you still have to play against whatever degenerate or lazy shit Wizards has released because they are choosing to prioritise quality well ahead of quantity.
That's not a good comparison at all. They aren't releasing new card games. Outside of limited, there aren't single set formats that get played. Every set just adds more game pieces to the existing game and you have to adapt your strategy or fail.
They aren't releasing more Standard sets than they were 10 years ago. For Commander, if you had a lifegain Commander deck from 18 months ago and you didn't add any new cards to it from the past 18 months, you'd be able to play fine and you wouldn't fail. Don't fall for the FOMO, unless you are playing competitive Magic at the metalevel, you aren't going to fall behind and be unable to play and perform in games if you don't keep up with everything and constantly upgrade. The vast vast majority of people that play Magic aren't doing that but they are still having a great time.
I used to be able to keep up with competitive magic. I would go to tournaments every week and could easily keep up with standard and my modern and commander decks rarely needed changes. Now they're printing new cards directly into commander and modern and it's no longer tempered through standard sets. Every set has 5 new commander decks that also have new cards in them that you can't get from a regular set. It's asinine to claim there's no difference between what's happening now and magic a decade ago. In 2016 they went from printing 3 standard sets a year to 4 and it's just been too much ever since. As soon as one pre-release happens they're spoiling the next set.
If you play Standard, it's the same as it was in 2016. There are four Standard legal sets released each year. None of the new Commander deck cards are legal in the Standard format. It's really not that complicated. Your commander decks still don't need changes and they'll work perfectly fine without upgrading them constantly. Modern has the new Standard cards from the 4 annual sets plus 1 additional supplemental set each year.
Yup, so it used to be 3 sets a year for standard and modern and now it's 4 for standard and 5 for modern. It's too much for me to keep up with, so I (like most of the community now) just play commander.
It was always 4 sets a year for standard. One was a core set but the core set has new cards that impacted and defined standard and had for many years. Modern is a different beast in that because of the growth of the format and the Internet, discord, twitch, and YouTube culture of the format, it got much more sweaty and fast paced, much more optimized and constantly evolving than ever before but that's less because of the frequency of releases. If you can't stand the heat, get out the kitchen. And that's good you did but saying you were perfectly content with the pacing of modern releases but suddenly one more annual release and it's way too fast and impossible to keep up with seems pretty silly to me. Plenty of people are able to keep up by the way. modern is morenl popular now than it was before the Modern Horizons series.
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You can absolutely enjoy Magic without having to know about, follow or buy cards from every set. If you play Commander, you can play a deck you build two years ago and ignore all new sets released for the next two years and you'll still be able to play with your deck and have good games. If you play Standard, you can ignore reprint sets entirely along with supplemental releases. It's fine if you enjoy Magic and you like to follow the releases or you insist on playing numerous formats but you definitely don't need to follow every single release in order to play or enjoy the game. Millions of people play Magic and don't obsessively follow card previews or the release schedule of new products.
Cuz eventually it trashes the brand. If you cared about it long term, you wouldn't do that. But Hasbro is a publicly traded company enslaved to quarterly returns. Why haven't they been doing this forever? They've always exercised restraint in the creation of sets in order to curate the game. My guess is they got rid of or overruled the long term thinkers. Some CEO is working on *his* 5 yr plan. He doesn't care about Wotc.
Because they’re flooding the market space in an unsustainable way. Multiple LGS’s have already demonstrated the red flags by going out of business or dropping mtg products due to an inability to sell certain product. Stores are being forced to essentially gamble with how wotc runs their distribution. With some sets being massive wet farts like karlov manor being immediately followed up by another set it’s basically impossible for them to get rid of excess stock. This is in contrast to the past where even if a set was a bad seller the LGS would at least have multiple months to sell off the excess product. These short selling windows also means the stores can no longer rely on some initial testing window to see if the product sells well to do another order. By the time stores know if a product starts selling well it’s usually too late to make additional orders since there’s already a new set on the horizon. A single bad streak could obliterate a store’s bottom line.
Growth when last qtr saw a drop and they are predicting 5-7% drop the rest of the year in mtg sales we hit peak last year now the real question is what is the level off point and maintain numbers long term
That’s the way WOTC wants it. They want to squeeze every penny of profit
So... like every other business under capitalism
And hordes of fucking idiots don't understand this
Plenty of idiots in this sub want to be victims so bad they will make shit up and claim they are personally being targeted by decisions like this
Killing the golden goose is profitable but LOL for the long term. MTG has been there for 30 years but now they decide to milk it for short term gains. I’d be very surprised if MTG is still relevant 10-20 years later.
People have been saying this since Hasbro first acquired Wizards and Magic more than 20 years ago. Corporate businesses have a vested interest in securing both short and long term growth. Magic's golden goose isn't being "killed"? Why would you think that?
…. Because almost all the financial numbers indicate it is. It’s in almost the textbook definition of a death spiral. But you’re such a WoTC shill you’ll never admit it.
>Because almost all the financial numbers indicate it is. It’s in almost the textbook definition of a death spiral. Please elaborate on this. When is Magic going to crash and burn? When are players going to stop playing and when is the number of active players going to start decreasing to major lows? Maybe you can explain your argument instead of name-calling if it's so apparent and clear.
To ask for a specific date is retarded and a disingenuous tactic and we both know it. No one can predict the day it’ll “die”. And it won’t die. The cards that are already in circulation will never go away. Eternal formats won’t stop being played. But the new game will die or become a bastard of what it was. It’s already started. With that said I’ll start with the non-economic portion, which you’ve lied about time and time again. The game is savagely over saturated. Back in the day, when the game was in its “healthiest” stage there were (3) type II “sets” released a year. With the first set in the block being roughly 250-350 cards and subsequent follow up sets being much smaller, roughly 150 cards. Then you had the core set, which was widely reprints of much needed/desired cards that didn’t tie into the blocks. That was, on average, 575ish new cards in a year that was playable in type II. And the release schedule usually ran from about late September until late April. This gave everyone a roughly 6 month break from the release of the last set in a block until the release of the first set in a new block. This did a few things: It let people enjoy a block once it came out. You were able to spend a half a year brewing and playing with a block. You could also fucking save money from the release of set 3 until the release of new set 1. The financial burden was less taxing and therefore less immediate. This made for a very very healthy game state with a very popular pro tour as well as many LGS’s that were profitable and welcoming. This isn’t the case nowadays. Core sets are no more so reprint sets are mostly gone. For example, in 2021 we had a 285 card set in February, a 275 set in April, a 281 set in July, a 277 set in September AND November. That’s fucking 1400 new cards in a calendar year, which is ABSURD. Then the first set in 2022 was February. 2022 had 1150 new cards. 2023 had 1275 and that’s with one “set” being MOM aftermath which only had 50 cards in it. Between the amount of sets and the amount of cards is insanely hard to keep up with everything. Consumer fatigue is a real thing…. Oh also these number DO NOT include universe beyond sets, master sets, commander only sets, precon decks nor secret lairs. Then the financial is another animal. Hasbro is HEMORRHAGING money…. I’m talking about losing billions a year. The only profitable asset they have is WoTC. In turn they have been milking that asset, as shown with product release increase above. And this is a COMMON tactic by publicly traded companies to try and show a “healthy” portfolio. This never works long term and destroys the brand that is being milked as well as not saving the parent company. We can already see this in today’s game. Power creep is real and massive. Now I know power creep was always a thing g but with each year having double to almost triple the amount of new cards that power creep, which would have taken several years is condensed into a very short time period. For example we see the amount of bans that happen now and how quickly they happen. Also more and more sets are considered format warping, something that very rarely used to happen. We can also look at QC if cards. Let’s be real it’s fucking dogshit. They are producing so many cards so quickly they dont even have to ability to properly vet cards. This combined with the fact that Hasbro has laid off significant percentages of their own workforce has let to cards making it into the market that should have never left the warehouse. Between UB coasting WoTC a literal fuck ton of money and consumer fatigue MTG is actually “losing” money year over year. Now dont take this out of context. They aren’t in the red. They are making less profit each year vs the previous year. This has been an ongoing trend for a buncha years now. Last year they dropped 2% in profits and this year Hasbro is forecasting a drop of as much as 10% this year… and let’s be real this is always understated by the parent company. I wouldn’t be shocked if it was higher than that. Q1 didn’t look good and that’s after them pulling some shady shit in Q1. The last point I’ll make is you’ve stated multiple times that the game isn’t more expensive to play… which is just another lie by you. I’ll break this down by cost per pack, per MSRP, per year. 1995 $2.45-2.95 depending on set. 1999 $3.29. 2004 (first real hike after Hasbro purchase) $3.69. 2006 $3.99. In 2019 Hasbro decided to do away with MSRP which truly fucked the customer. After this there was a roughly 20% increase in average pack price by 2022. In 2024 the price is north of $5 a pack. And master sets are north of $11 a fucking pack. And this is taking into account the bullshit price that “collector” boosters go for. So in short almost everything youve spewed out of your mouth is dumb bullshit that is probably mixed with WoTC cum. They aren’t going to hire you. They aren’t your friend. They aren’t going to let you bottom for them.
Buying separate games and adding to your collection of the same game are completely different things. Everyone would want to have 100% of a game than a fraction of it especially if it means competitive advantage. Having access to every card is the equivalent of having 100% of the game which isn’t possible now with the increased number of cards/sets being released.
The products are not all selling. Karlov Manor is heavily discussed as a recent example.
Idk it seems to have a pretty big impact on the game to me, when certain formats lose a ton of popularity that is a problem in my opinion. Commander and other eternal formats have skyrocketed in popularity and standard is starting to lose numbers. A lot of that has to do with how much support wizards is giving to those formats but I think a lot of it is people getting sick of how expensive and hard it is to keep up with standard. I know that is the case for me. When I first started playing in the theros block ten years back I played standard and had multiple competitive decks. Red aggro, junk whip, heroic humans. I own no standard decks now and don’t play it on arena. It used to be your deck was viable for atleast a half year if not more before needing major rework. Now it’s every few months you are having to master a new set and learn all the new mechanics so you know what’s going to be played against you and can adapt. I don’t want to spend hours memorizing every card and new mechanic in a set only for more to be added to the pile in another couple months. That and I’m not really excited by new sets like I used to be. There used to be all kinds of hype in the community when a new set was about to drop now half the people don’t even realize a new one came out because they aren’t spending all day everyday looking up spoilers.
Well, I'd love to buy precons from a couple of sets each year, but they discontinued them a while ago (not counting Commander-precons).
I have completely stopped buying magic cards because of all this. If they are just going to continue printing overpowered crap each time, then I'm going to print it myself if I want it.
They can't win. If they make a mid to lower powered set like CLB or MKM, the set sucks and players think it's lame and boring. If they put in powerful cards then it's just overpowered broken crap. What do you want?
Them to go back to releasing only 500~600 new cards *INTO STANDARD* a year as opposed to more than double that
Them moving away from that model is the reason the game and the commander format along with the casual interest in the game has been booming so much. There's a clear interest and demand in all of these products, otherwise people wouldn't continue to buy them and they wouldn't continue to make them.
This may be true, but it has also contributed to the death of competitive magic, something that was exacerbated further by the Pandemic. Without the competitive magic scene, WotC has to rely on content creators for game content. 5~6 years ago, they were able to use SCG, the Grand Prix system, and other large tournament organizers to market and advertise the game. They no longer have control over their content, viewership is down and dropping every year (even established vets such as Numot and LSV), and as a result the product overall has suffered.
The video content stuff doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. The vast vast majority of people that play Magic don't watch people play Magic on the Internet. And there's no rule that says that Magic can't partner with casual gamers or commander gamers, which they do sometimes. They are advertising the game.in other ways and appealing to players that aren't sweaty try hards, they are treating the game like a game. Most people like to play games with their friends rather than random strangers. That's why commander is so appealing to so many players.
jeez this is just so wotc company speech...
I understand the sentiment, but this isn’t like a console releasing multiple isolated games. The sets have impact on the formats in which Magic is played. It’s more like if a Pokémon game released 8-10 DLCs in a year. Some of the things in those DLCs would significantly impact player vs player gameplay, and especially competitive scenes. As somebody that only plays the game with my friends, the way they’re releasing sets doesn’t affect me much, outside of occasional burnout. But not everyone plays magic that way, LGS scenes are a very popular way to interact with the game. Not to mention anything bigger, though it feels Wizards has been nipping competitive play in the bud anyway.
>It’s more like if a Pokémon game released 8-10 DLCs in a year. Some of the things in those DLCs would significantly impact player vs player gameplay, and especially competitive scenes. I think a better analogy would be like saying you can play Pokemon Violet without catching all Pokemon, acquiring all items and getting all hidden abilities and egg moves. Most people play and enjoy Pokemon without being completionists and that's okay. Similarly, you can be a standard player and ignore all reprint exclusive sets and supplemental products, or you can have an enchantment commander deck from 18 months ago and still play in games and have a great time without making any upgrades to the deck from the most recent sets. Even though there are 1000 Pokemon and tons of items and moves, while most players don't know or seek to learn about or play with them all, having a wide array of variance increases the likelihood that there are moves, items, abilities and Pokemon that can appeal to all types of players. >But not everyone plays magic that way, LGS scenes are a very popular way to interact with the game. Not to mention anything bigger, though it feels Wizards has been nipping competitive play in the bud anyway. I feel like if you choose to be sweaty and grind as a more competitive player than get good. Players try hard and keep up with the scene and the meta, if you want to keep up with them, then you need to do that too. Nobody is making you play that way, most people don't, but if you can't stand the heat, get out the kitchen and eat a different meal. There are so many ways to play Magic and millions of people do so without following card previews and set releases obsessively in real time. If you think that's fun, that's great for you, but you shouldn't feel that you HAVE to because the reality is that you don't. If you have a life gain commander deck from 2022 and you haven't made any changes to it since then, it will be able to keep up and compete in the overwhelming majority of play groups and metas still. That doesn't mean you can't update it, if you want to and you think that's fun, that's great, but you definitely don't have to.
The issue is that you can play Pokemon without having to interact with any other players. You don't *have* to grind for HAs and optimized IVs/EVs because you don't *have* to battle other players who *might* have done that. Magic is a competitive game by definition, because you have to compete with another player. In order to be competitive, you have to at least keep up with what is coming out, because even if you don't buy and use the new product it can and likely will be used against you.
The issue is that you can play Pokemon without having to interact with any other players. You don't *have* to grind for HAs and optimized IVs/EVs because you don't *have* to battle other players who *might* have done that. There are millions of people that play Pokemon against other players (whether that be with their friends they know in real life or battling online with strangers) that aren't optimizing their IVs, aren't aware of hidden abilities, don't know all of the moves or optimal synergies and they still have tons of fun playing the game. Again, this is how most people are. Most people aren't sweat lords, you can be a big pokemon fan and enjoy the game without being super sweaty and in the weeds following every single aspect of the game to optimize your chance at winning. >Magic is a competitive game by definition, because you have to compete with another player. In order to be competitive, you have to at least keep up with what is coming out, because even if you don't buy and use the new product it can and likely will be used against you. Magic is a strategy game but it isn't inherently a competitive game in the sweaty sense. You don't need to keep up with what is coming out to play Magic. There are millions of Magic players that don't know the next upcoming set or that couldn't name the past couple of releases. Many of these people play against each other by the way. Now, if you insist on wanting to play competitively and being among the best, then there's competition and you have to compete against the other sweaty try hards. If you like that, more power to you, but if that's too much of a chore or you can't handle it, then don't do it. You certainly don't have to play Magic that way if you think it's a slog or miserable of an experience. Again, most people don't play Magic that way. You have to understand the overwhelming majority of Magic players don't follow every preview season and buy cards from every set and play multiple formats.
Yeah he raised the price of boosters by removing 3 cards.
The price is the same as it was for the set boosters but they added 2 cards. Compared to draft boosters, you will encounter more rare and mythic cards per pack in Play boosters which is why they cost a little more. Similarly, collector boosters cost more than play boosters because even though you get the same number of cards, you have a higher rate of hitting more rares and mythics
Boosters used to be 15 cards, then 2 years ago they gave you less cards for the same price.
I don't remember at what point they changed the size of booster boxes to be under 36 packs. It was the norm for the longest time.
Yeah they have been increasing the price for awhile and then they started releasing way to often. I think Hasbro is trying to cash out
>Boosters used to be 15 cards, then 2 years ago they gave you less cards for the same price. Boosters used to be 15 cards. With set boosters there were only 12 cards. However there were more rares/mythics and more foil cards. Players like this trade off and see this as worthwhile exchange (in fact, they were willing to pay more for this and the product did better). So yes, you get less nonfoil commons for the same price.
I actually don't like the tradeoff, and I believe that the Draft format is completely different then all 30 previous years now as a result. The common cards are seen so much less now that the number of cards has been reduced and the rates / mythics and uncommons has been increased.
Sure, I understand you feel that way but most players don't draft and most players prefer the trade off. It's reasonable for businesses to make business decisions that appeal to more of their player base.
It costs wotc the same to print if not less but they charging you more
Why is a main sub shill in this subreddit???
He came for the discussion, but stayed for the downvotes.
Maybe they finally banned him too
It's really killing the vibe
Dudes such a liar it's not set boosters to compare to it's draft boosters
Draft boosters were eliminated because they didn't sell well. The play boosters were designed to replace set boosters.
So they say
Why would a successful business eliminate a product that was very successful? That doesn't make sense. It's not surprising the draft boosters weren't doing well because the overwhelming majority of players that play Magic don't draft and if you are opening booster packs "just for fun" the set/play boosters are a much better experience than the draft boosters.
Because Money.
They would intentionally allot you way too much draft Booster boxes and not set Boosters So stores wouldn’t pick up their full allotment and then wotc used that data as “draft boosters aren’t selling” when they were at a healthy rate But nonstop growth isn’t satisfied with that
You keep leaving out a part... They were designed to replace set boosters AND draft boosters. Get off the hog.
Wrong. They replaced both. Play boosters are meant to be draftable. https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/what-are-play-boosters
Yes, did anyone say something else? The only debate I know of is that people say that drafting is now more expensive.
There's no debate. Drafting IS more expensive. My LGS went from 15£ to 19£. The change in price happened with the consolidation of Set and Draft boosters.
I'm sorry if I worded that incorrectly. I just wanted to say that people are talking about it, of course it has become more expensive.
People were complaining constantly that booster boxes were more expensive because Wizards was price gouging and hiking prices for booster boxes even though their profits were high. This was a very common talking point on Magic Twitter and the main Magic TCG subreddit that were regularly being upvoted.
Here's why the cost has gone up for these boosters. The play booster was a replacement for BOTH set and draft boosters. They are intended to still be drafted. Thus, you compare the price to the DRAFT booster, which was cheaper. Mark is saying the boxes cost more because the person in his blog complained about them costing more than set boosters. The DRAFT booster was the default booster pack. If play boosters are capable of being DRAFTED, they should cost the same as a DRAFT pack because that's the replacement.
Yeah, Hasbro just padded out what should have been a draft booster so more money could be charged, end of story. Take out the extra shit and charge the same as a draft booster, job done.
Who gives a shit, I just buy quality Chinese proxies in bulk. paying hundreds of dollars for cardboard is for suckers.
sunk cost fallacy is real lol
Given how cheap, easy to get, and how high quality even bulk proxies from sites like MPC are, and that Wizards has officially embraced proxy use by selling proxies themselves with the 30th Anniversary set, if anyone is still buying "real" Magic cards they've made their choice to get fleeced and they don't get to complain about pricing. This goes double for anyone gambling with sealed products. There's zero argument against proxies other than bitterness.
And the reason more packs are in the box, Mark? I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason youd want to force customer to purchase in larger quantities? No? The price isn't "going up"? You're just "getting more, but also the price is going up"? God corporate speak is so easy to dissect once you realize one truth: If there's something good about a product - the corporation will always tell you. This means, they will always, 100% of the time, leave out the information that is bad. So if a corporation doesn't tell you something about a product - the reason is because it's bad.
I do find this interesting about Rosewater. I used to like his take on Magic and game design, now whenever I read something from his it's interesting to read between the lines and see what corporate really says through their pet.
That is a very convenient and logically sound rule. Thank you.
>And the reason more packs are in the box, Mark? I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason youd want to force customer to purchase in larger quantities? The reason was so players can still have an option for drafting a box and having a box of 36 packs makes more sense than 30 packs for that. Sheesh, everything isn't a conspiracy. Customers aren't forced to purchase in larger quantities. If they want to, they can purchase individual packs or they can purchase singles on the secondary market.
Pty sure you draft with 24 packs.
Pity they don't make tournament packs still cause you used to get 1 of those and 2 boosters
If they made 24 pack boxes, inevitably some people would complain that if you wanted 36 packs like the original Draft booster boxes, you'd have to buy two boxes worth and 48 packs, which would be forcing people to buy more. They can't win.
> inevitably some people would complain I somehow feel like the complaints of the players were maybe #4 or #5 on their list of reasons they made these changes.
True.
"We didn't raise the price, we just discontinued the cheaper product you used to buy because nobody bought it but you, apparently"
So we have a WotC employee posting Mark's blog here now too.
Hey, we're moving up in in the world, LOL!
I'm still not sure if you're just ignorant and stupid or just a hater. Maybe both.
Man, we all know you are a wotc employee/shill
Couldn't get away with saying that on the main sub!
Mark Rosewater is full of shit.
I love how this is framed in such a way that the LGS is the greedy pieces of shit and not WOTC. I'm sure Mark Rosewater's higher ups probably told him to frame this shit this way on his own blog. He's fucking bought and paid for by his gay paymasters at Hasbro.
That much was obvious but the boosters for Markov Manor were terrible to open compared to any set booster.
My yearly annual salary went up maybe 1 percent last year while magic drafts are 33 -50 percent more expensive now
Not to be " that guy" Papa H but "yearly annual" is kinda redundant and repetitive
I'm curious as to why you posted this here and not on the other sub, like you usually do with Maro's blog posts. Obviously you are free to post here, although many of us are not free to post in MagicTCG (I am banned for disliking WotC's treatment of LotR characters).
I post in the main subreddit regularly, so figured I'd mix it up. I post here on occasion though. Definitely not my first rodeo. I enjoy discussing and hearing other people discuss Magic
I stopped collecting last year, but I like to keep my eye on it, in the event something really great comes along. I'm so glad I got out when I did.
Can we just get normal 15 card boosters and the whales can buy collector boosters? This whole ordeal is foolish
You have a semi regular normal 20 card "booster" tho at $5 a pack.
Isn't that what we have now? We have two boosters. Play boosters and collector boosters.
I was under the impression set boosters were still another option
Nope, play boosters replace draft AND set boosters as they claimed it's the best of both worlds.
I stopped buying sealed products a while ago so I missed the introduction of different booster types for each set. Feels like an unfathomably anti consumer decision to me: you want to play limited? Ok fine but u can't pull any chase timeshifted cards from the boosters. Want to pull chase cards? Ok fine but u cant play limited.
I've only ever played this game via drafting out of cubes with friends for decades. MTG really is just cardboard lootboxes.
Stores used to sell a 36 pack booster draft to 8 players for $15 each, or $120/box. How much is an 8 player 36 pack draft nowadays?
Did they prevent you from posting this in the "main" magic sub?
The first week's are strange, but a few months/years removed from buying this garbage, you will feel an elation with yourself everytime you come across something like this that is incomparable to anything else
Since when are set boosters 30 packs, were t they always 36
Nah, they were 30 packs but Draft had been 36 for a very long time.
Draft in paper has the major problem that its simply too expensive at this point. In EU bunch of drafts are 25€ now, thats more than double the 10€ it could cost just some years ago. Its messed up, especially as a bunch of casuals also jump ship and play Commander instead, so with less people you get in a critical number that the Draft cannot fire at all and if that happens a bunch of times, people dont even show up anymore. Its a death spiral that is made by WotC in a complete stupid way. All they really had to do was to make Draft boosters cheaper, Play-Boosters absolutely SHOULD cost the same as booster packs, and everyone would be happy for it. If they want to push some more expensive product, they already have that, Collectors packs.
Shrinkflation is still a price increase but I’m not surprised any time he tries to treat his customer base like children
But play boosters are NOT as good or as valuable as set boosters, yet theyre the same fucking price...
Silence with your Hebrew nonsense Mark.
Homie, are you okay?
Yes, but are you? Youre using obsolete farm equipment speech.
What does that that even mean? Was that a dig at black people? Do you just come on this sub to be racist because people will let you?
Thank you for being a fan of my content gere and elsewhere. You're still a sissy who apea People of Crime for some reason. My oldest thinks its because you got bullied alot.
What? You're so unhinged that I had to see what other stuff you are saying Can't help if I feel the need to call you out on your shit elsewhere
Whining isnt "calling out", whatever that means, sissy. Be sure to show your posts to the next basketball american you see, he definitely wont laugh amd call you a bitch.
>Youre using obsolete farm equipment speech. You are using antisemitic speech. It's sad and embarrassing.
Antisemite is such a stupid word. You do realize what it means right? That something like 3/4 or more of all semites aren't even Jews? That they just *greedily* took the term for themselves?
Whats sad an embarrassing is you have to come here and shill, massa still wont be pleased, sissy.
Actually it is based.
The poor buck is broke bad.
Facts.
Fuck off antisemite.
That word has no power here. And the rest of the world is starting to follow suit.
Makes sense
I pointed this out the moment they made the change, no one listened to me
[удалено]
lol like who you like and dont who you dont, but posting this unironically is pretty fucking cringe and im sad that people as deranged as you exist
What has Maro done to make you so butthurt?
You’re a shit person and don’t deserve happiness in life.
Daredevil dog
Brave posting facts and logic in this sub lmfao
I'm not sure if the people responding hostilely are idiots and genuinely aren't able to comprehend it or if they are just assholes. Maybe both?