Modern Masters

[Orzhovan Council]

This reprint set comes out in May/June, basically it's described as Chronicles for Modern players (which I'm sure everyone remembers where Chronicles led to for legacy...) Wizards are confident in that they are doing it right this time and the print run is much smaller than Chronicles was. Boosters are going to be 7 dollars and not standard legal, 24 boosters per box, every pack includes a Foil. I can see these boxes/packs skyrocketing not long after release to double the msrp, everyone who plays modern will be wanting to play the Tarmagoyf lottery.

[Baron Sengir]

So it has everything valuable from Modern in it or do we not know the cards in it yet? But yeah this set will go bananas if that is the case; reserve it while you can...

[Orzhovan Council]

It can have anything in it from Mirrodin until M10. Tarmagoyf has been confirmed to be in the set, though it is basically to release cards that are staples in modern but they don't want in standard again, so i'd expect stuff like Arcbound Ravager, Sensei's Divining Top etc, the power level of the "set" will be much higher than a normal set. I'm interested in drafting it.. but i doubt that happens heh.

[Baron Sengir]

Yeah Tarmagoyf in the set alone will push it through the roof. That card is up to $100 or more now.

[Orzhovan Council]

Was at a card shop tonight, and the ones they had for sale was locked with the Power/duals/Library of Alexandria etc. Crazy that a modern card is that high.

[Orzhovan Council]

Read that some people are pre-ordering these for over 200 dollars already... keep in mind, there is only 24 packs in a box.. insane.

[Baron Sengir]

Yuck that's crazy.

[Maraxus of Keld]

I hope the reprinted Tarmagoyf looks like a real Magic card instead of that messed up garbage it looked like before.

[Baron Sengir]

Yeah that card design is really bad. I'm really thinking about buying a couple of these boxes, assuming I'm able to, and just sticking them in the closet. Wizards is saying that though the set will have a lot of valuable cards, such as Tarmagoyf, they are only printing a "conservative" amount and they are saying each card will only be more available by a fraction.

[Maraxus of Keld]

I hate when companies deliberately try to make their products into collector's items. It's like Beanie Babies all over again, where they would deliberately make small production runs of certain characters and then retire them to inflate the market value.

Cards are meant to be played with, so they should print as many of these as the market will support.

[Orzhovan Council]

I agree, it's suppose to be a "collectible" card GAME. The health of the game should be a much higher priority than the "investment" of a few people that things these cards are stocks.

[Baron Sengir]

I agree, but to play devil's advocate, it is a very thin line to tread and Magic is in a category all its own so Wizards/Hasbro has nothing to look at for comparison or as a model. Look at what happened to Fallen Empires and Homelands. They wanted to satisfy the market and printed so much of those sets that the cards are virtually worthless. Of course it doesn't help that most of those cards weren't very good and never saw/see tournament play. Had cards from Fallen Empires or Homelands been as good as cards from say, Urza's Saga, I wonder what their going price would be today.

I know for a fact after reading some articles on the history of vintage that back in the day Wizards really did try their best to satisfy the market and they never intended for what happened with the original sets as far as rarity and value goes; however, I am not as sure when it comes to Wizards today. I know they recognize the mistake of making promises on not reprinting certain cards, but they still do want their new stuff to retain some value.

As far as this Modern Masters set goes they are trying the whole Chronicles thing again, but they wanted to avoid ruining the value of cards like they did with some of the cards they reprinted in Chronicles.

Oh and John you now ONLY have 1000 more posts than me... Good lord you posted a lot back in the day.

[Orzhovan Council]

They say they want to make modern accessible to all players, though they sure act like their number one priority is to make the primarily collectors/those that can spend a ton on cards. Modern decks are quickly rising in prices, hell even standard decks are crazy at the moment. (My only Standard deck at the moment has a mana base worth about $250-$300, I can only imagine what a mana base for a modern deck is) and the main problem with Modern Masters is that it is going to end up in the hands of the people that only see it as an investment. Buy the boxes (as many as they can) and then sit on it, driving the prices of them upwards instead of getting more of these cards into circulation. A local card shop has been asking around and wanting to buy up ever bit of Modern Masters for the area.

In my opinion they need to do something to get ALL of the product into circulation. Perhaps have it only available through limited play or something.

[Baron Sengir]

Mar 27, 2013 22:19:33 GMT -6 Orzhovan Council said:

They say they want to make modern accessible to all players, though they sure act like their number one priority is to make the primarily collectors/those that can spend a ton on cards. Modern decks are quickly rising in prices, hell even standard decks are crazy at the moment. (My only Standard deck at the moment has a mana base worth about $250-$300, I can only imagine what a mana base for a modern deck is) and the main problem with Modern Masters is that it is going to end up in the hands of the people that only see it as an investment. Buy the boxes (as many as they can) and then sit on it, driving the prices of them upwards instead of getting more of these cards into circulation. A local card shop has been asking around and wanting to buy up ever bit of Modern Masters for the area.

In my opinion they need to do something to get ALL of the product into circulation. Perhaps have it only available through limited play or something.

Yeah I think you are exactly right. I didn't know Standard and Modern were that expensive. I know how much Legacy and Vintage are but that is different. Standard and Modern definitely should not be that high.

[Maraxus of Keld]

Making all of Modern accessible to new players is not a compatible goal with releasing an extremely limited run of cards that flies up in cost due to collectors before it's even released. It's as simple as that. Either you throw a bone to new players by making these cards widely available, thus diminishing their value to collectors, or you release a limited run, which collectors will snap up, and therefore make inaccessible to the majority of new players who see this limited set that the shop is selling for vastly inflated prices, and say "Nah, I'll just buy some boosters of the new set instead."

As for Ken's post earlier about Fallen Empires and Homelands, both of those sets were severely lacking in playable cards, even by the standards of the time. Also remember that there were no true rares in those sets, and that boosters were only 8 cards instead of 15. Yes, they printed too much, but a lot of that has to do with overcompensating for the extremely limited print runs of sets like Arabian Nights, and the rest has to do with low demand because of the lack of good cards.

Wizards has now been doing this for 20 years. Fallen Empires/Homelands came out in 1994. They have 19 more years of experience at this than they did when those sets came out. In addition, they have seen what limited runs go for in stores because of all the previous From the Vault collections. There's no way this isn't deliberate. They have to know that releasing a small print run is going to make people buy them up and resell for vastly inflated prices. My only question is, how does this benefit Wizards of the Coast in any way?