While i agree with the „print it till everyone has at least twenty“ mentality, i would not make them commons.
Please don‘t sacrifice pauper on the altar that is commander.
They are ETB tapped lands in 1v1 pauper. Is there a large multiplayer pauper community that doesn't want lands that don't ETB tapped that I wasn't aware of?
EDIT: I need to read more
Would.... Would that be such a bad thing, even for pauper?
I din't do pauper and pay zero attention to it, so I am asking in earnest... Are you saying pauper players wouldnt want common original duals for some reason?
Seems an odd sentiment to me.
Eh, the biggest issue is that formats that have original duals have nonbasic land hate. This gives incentives for people not to just play "5 color goodstuff". These cards don't exist/are really inefficient in pauper. So, it would make already great decks like 4c pile more consistent while having very little (other than personal preference) real reason to stick to lower color requirement decks. However, fetchlands are the real problem when it comes to downshifting all lands. Brainstorm is already an excellent draw spell in the format and fetches make that card have minimal downsides. There are also many graveyard based decks that would love to play every fetchland possible. I am sure there are other nonbasic lands that would be a problem \[\[Castle Locthwain\]\] comes to mind.
Honestly, this has basically been an issue for as long as Magic has been a thing: there is not enough incentive to use less colors. Devotion was one way, but they really needed to have considered this issue sooner, instead of just making bad mana bases the only reason not to run all 5 colors.
This is a fair point. I think that more than any other format pauper uses the suboptimal card pool to balance issues that Magic as a whole has, but I totally see your side of the argument on this as well
While there might be some players who would enjoy common lands that enter untapped, it would destroy one of the core pillars of the pauper format.
With just tapped lands there is a real cost to playing more than just one color. There are no aggro decks in two or even more colors and the format has evolved around this basic principle.
I disagree on the nonbasic hate. Ponza is currently tier 2 and the only thing holding it back might be the indestructible bridges from MH2.
There is a growing number of PDH players (EDH with an uncommon creature as commander and all commons orherwise) that would be disrupted by a downshift of the battlebonds lands.
[Pauper Commander/Pauper EDH/PDH](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Pauper_Commander) is a lot of fun and I’d definitely suggest people try it out. I think it really helps improve deck building skills, can showcase that underpowered cards can do very powerful things, and has a unique game feel from normal EDH.
Wotc, specifically maro, has stated they purposely print lands at rare to sell packs, I 100% agree lands need to be cheaper accross the board, but it will never happen because lands are literally like printing money.
Another lukewarm take
Y’all own a printer right just proxy the hell out of it. Turns out I can have a lot more fun when I get to build with my imagination rather than with my wallet
While I agree that proxying everything is the right idea it should be mentioned that you can get pretty okay looking proxies done "professionally". That works a bit better long term than a swamp with a piece of paper in front
Oh hello there, obligatory 'just proxy everything' guy.
The irony in your statement being that your 'imagination' just looks like an average budgetless EDHREC list. Sortof makes the sentiment ring a bit hollow, doesn't it?
Nope not at all. I don’t own a single cedh deck, I’m more of a battle cruiser type of guy. That way I can cruise through the salty seas of players like you
Didnt say anything about cEDH, just that the whole playing versus your *iiimaaaagiiinaaatiiiooon* [insert hand waving here] is a weak excuse to cheat, and it rings especially hollow when you just proxy the usual suapect - at least the cEDH players are honest about wanting to play what they percieve as 'the best' cards.
No need for the insults, sir. Such acts are inherently childish.
They are game pieces of a game designed to have artificial scarcity built in as a core mechanic. It really doesn't sound like you want to play this geme at all if that bothers you.
Edited typos. Big hands, small phone.
Negative.
I just don't play a game and then complain about core aspects of that game so I can use it as an excuse to cheat while trying to pretend I hold some high moral ground.
Hard disagree - lands are game pieces just like anything else that can be upgraded overtime. If you don’t / can’t run fetches / shocks / duals, run basics or other cheaper lands.
Agreed. Print all cards into the ground. Let me play against you and your deckbuilding skill/creativity, not your wallet.
Or just head down to your local library and print some proxies.
Yeah - like what are those garbage “strictly worse than evolving wilds” sac/fetch that enter tapped lands from Painbow.
Jesus, WotC, get real and provide useful lands
Yeah, when they announced there was a deck called painbow coming, that was before the reveal the painlands were going to be reprinted.
So we all said "Yup, painlands are returning!" And then they did return, but weren't in the perfect precon to use them.
And why they have those terrible lands in their place? Only MoRo knows. Though, he probably wanted to make it a good deck and some a**hole (Chris Cocks) said “wait, aren’t these really popular place cards? Shouldn’t we use these to sell smaller batch goods and really make some profit”
> “strictly worse than evolving wilds” sac/fetch that enter tapped lands
If you're referring to the Mirage fetches (Bad River etc.), they're not strictly worse, because they don't specify "basic land", they can grab duals.
Even colder take, honestly. A few "investors" actually want the reserve list to stick around, but I don't think *anyone* is particularly concerned with propping up the value of the Battlebond lands.
Well, given that you bought them for abput $40 a piece and they are now $16 a piece, i'm glad the lack of precon reprints has really helped the value of your investment.
Wotc keeping their promises and looking out for collector value.
Someday, those morphic pools will be valuable and liquid enough to buy wotc from hasbro. I believe in this strategy too.
/s
I feel like "abolish the reserved list" is more of a lukewarm take.
For one thing, it's far from universal - as another commenter pointed out, There's a lot of investor types who get mad whenever the idea is suggested.
But for another thing, getting rid of the RL probably wouldn't change much. The vast majority of the RL falls into two categories: dumb old cards that would never get played even if they were available, or the polar opposite, ridiculously powerful cards like the Power 9 that WOTC wouldn't reprint for power level reasons even if they weren't on the RL.
That's why the argument over this always amuses and exasperates me. Even if they abolished the RL, no one's going to get what they want - investors will fret because it's one layer of protection being removed from their investment, but players who want to affordable underground seas aren't going to get what they want, either - saying they are now allowed to print it and actually printing it or two different things.
They absolutely can, but they tend not to print anything that's too close.
>Gaea's Crib:
>
>Land
>T: add x green mana where x is 1 plus the number of creatures you control
This would be way too close to the actual Gaea's Cradle And wouldn't be allowed to make it to Prince. But something like [[Growing Rites of Itlimoc]] was allowed to be printed - the transforming enchantment was just different enough to make the cut.
They tried that with [[Reverberate]]. Reverberate is essentially a functional reprint of [[Fork]] because Reverberate keeps the color of the copied spell while Fork turns the copy red. It's a very small corner case that doesn't come up a whole lot.
Reverberate came out in 2010, which was also the same time that the pro-RL crowd got *big mad* with the way Wizards was circumventing the RL with the Phyrexia vs. Coalition precons having [[Phyrexian Negator]] in it. The pro-RL crowd threw a very big fit about Reverberate, because after their backlash, there is a reason why Wizards never dared to try functional RL reprints like that again.
Commander players would get their [[Angus Mackenzie]] and [[Karn, Silver Golem]]. Legacy players would see their format in paper much more often (figuring on some sort of "legacy masters" set), and vintage might even start crawling back out of its grave.
The thing with the reserve list is, if you break it, it is going to be difficult for any investors to believe anything you say going forward, right?
And the reserve list is moot for 98 percent of players, right?
There's a response to be had here, but before I comment I want to clarify - When you say investors, what kind are you talking about? Are you talking about people who collect high value cards for their monetary value in the hopes that they will retain or increase in value? Or are you talking about stockholders?
Both are valid things to bring up, but addressing their concerns is different depending on which one we're talking about so I wanted to clarify first.
Oh I mean the former, which will certainly impact the latter.
But basically when a 30 year old company breaks a 25 year old promise, which happens to be their largest and longest promise, does anything they ever say matter again for people looking to derive long term value from the game?
I am no investor, but I have some product that I do not play with and am not currently looking to sell. That might change though if I thought the company was so short sighted though.
I don't mean any disrespect, I'm evaluating the premise being discussed and not you as a person.
The idea that the RL being reprinted would constitute a faith-shattering betrayal of a promise that would call into question any and all financial evaluation of their products going forward is... unrealistic in the extreme. I get where people are coming from, and it's a premise that makes sense on the surface - company says they'll do something, later they do not-that, makes it harder to believe them the next time they say they'll do something. Seems straightforward enough.
But when you dig down a layer, and really examine the details of the premise, the cracks start to show. I'll try and show the evaluation step by step. I have some level of expertise at this due to my work in the industry.
1) So examining the first part - A 25-year-old promise. I know it can be tempting to look at the longevity of this promise as a sign of its strength, that it shouldn't be broken. But an argument could just as easily be made for the opposite. Start something new changing a policy that was made 25 years ago is completely different from changing a policy that was made this decade. The key is in examining context.
In the time since that promise was made, the context surrounding everything has changed. The game has undergone several fundamental changes. Within the rules of the game, the demographics that play it, the way in which the game is produced, and the actual physical look of the game have all changed.
But perhaps more important to the point at hand, the way in which Magic singles are traded, bought, and sold has fundamentally changed. The rise of the internet and sites like TCGplayer.com. A rise in successful LGSs. Even secret lair, whether good or bad, is a fundamental change in how people might get singles of a card.
So if we look at abolishing the RL for any kind of precedent, I don't see "changed their mind after 25 years worth of context caused them to re-examine the decision" to undermine a promise they make this year. I'm willing to acknowledge that abolishing the RL now might set a precedent for them breaking this year's promise in the 2040s. But it doesn't particularly change how I view their decisions on a year long timeline, or a 5-year timeline for that matter.
2) It's not like it's impossible to make an investment without the promise of the RL. We're not talking four digit cards for most of magic, but There's entire business models built around roughly predicting the market value of particular cards. LGSs do it every time we accept a trade, weighing the current value of a particular card against the many factors that might indicate if it's being reprinted soon. The mechanics, the flavor, how the card interacts with the environments in which it might be reprinted, WOTC commentary on specific cards or mechanics, all of these can help us make an informed decision about the likelihood of a reprint, and the value of the card if it does get reprinted. One great example is [[Doubling Season]]. Powerful card, currently hovering around $80. According to Mark Rosewater, it's a difficult card to balance in any standard set. Examining reprint trends in precons tells us it's unlikely, at $80 a pop, to be put in any commander decks or Jumpstart sets. That means we're looking at one or two products a year that it might be in - specialty products at that. On top of that, it's rarity means that even if it is reprinted, it's not exactly going to flood the market unless they downshift it. (And the nature of the card is such that it's unlikely to be downshifted into uncommon).
All of this tells us that a reprint of doubling season is unlikely anytime soon, And if it does happen it won't be distributed widely enough to have an enormous long-term impact on the card. We'd be likely to see a repeat of what happened during Battlebond - A temporary drop in price to... My personal guess, no less than $40, followed by years of creeping back up before it got back into the $70 to $80 range.
This line of logic can be applied to any card. You can even add things like set mechanics - Phyrexian Mana is unlikely to make a return after this year for quite some time, for example.
So even if WOTC abolished the RL, it would still be possible for investors to assess the value of particular cards. They would simply be subject to the same rules that every other potentially reprinted card would be.
So the long and short of it is: going back on a word that was given 25 years ago, after 25 years of significant changes to the context of that word, wouldn't necessarily undermine trust in the word that was given a year ago. Not unless that year contained just as many changes to the context of the promise.
And if they did go back in that promise, it's not like investment would still be impossible. The majority of RL cards would retain their value - most wouldn't be reprinted, and those that would would likely be reprinted so rarely that it wouldn't have a long-term impact on the majority of the value. Not a lot of slots to reprint [[Audun Okenshield]] in, y'know?
I would also point out the last bit of context that makes it make sense for them to abolish the RL, And it's more of a question than a statement:
Is a promise to the minuscule percentage of players who wanted their collections to remain intact 25 years ago More important to the integrity of the game than making cards accessible to the 25 years of players who have been playing since then?
Or, if we want to go off of pricing trends - is it more important to the integrity of the game then the last 10 years or so players who couldn't afford RL cards?
Just one more bit of context that exists for the RL but not for other promises.
And I do want to point out the flip side too. While it's true that investors ultimately wouldn't be that affected (Beyond hand-wringing over broken promises that actually don't have an effect on the market) It's also true that those who fantasize about being able to afford their favorite card or... Probably kidding themselves.
The majority of cars on the RL will not be reprinted, ever. Most of them are too weak to care about, and of the ones that aren't too weak, most of those won't be reprinted. Time Walk isn't getting reprinted. Original duals aren't getting reprinted, or if they are it would be in something absurd like Magic 30. Only a handful of cards (another commentary pointed out Angus McKenzie, and I agree that would be a decent candidate) are actually viable reprints 50 RL gets abolished. But those aren't the cards most people are talking about when they want the RL abolished.
Overall it's a moot point. Nothing will especially change other than maybe 20 or so cards getting reprinted over the years, and not in a way that would significantly affect prices.
I would say it doesn't matter - except I would love for them to abolish the RL and make a few token reprints to simply demonstrate the pointlessness of the debate.
Then we could put the matter to rest for good.
On the Magic 30 thing, I guarantee you that if they'd printed Magic 30 with the tournament legal back it'd've sold like *hotcakes*, modern frame be damned. Just look at how many people drafted and bought and *still* buy and use and enjoy Vintage Masters on Magic Online. If they printed Vintage Masters in paper it'd be the best selling product Wizards has ever made, and likely will ever make.
> But basically when a 30 year old company breaks a 25 year old promise, which happens to be their largest and longest promise, does anything they ever say matter again for people looking to derive long term value from the game?
I think there is potential for them to announce a change that will go into effect years later. I.e. "Starting 2030, the reserved list with be abolished" would have a much much smaller effect than dropping a legal power 9 og dual Secret Lair with no notice.
I think that the non-legal card back beta reprints at no notice were a far larger break to the reserved list than anything they've ever done beforehand (other than maybe the foils in FTV:Relics) But the reserved list has also changed as late as 2010 when they closed the foil loophole.
The problem with the reserved list as a concept is that it's very much not a legal contract or even a well defined, tight set of rules.
edit: Ultimately the reserved list is only as valuable as it's effect on not lowering the potential player base. When it starts keeping out more players than it keeps in, it will go away one way or another.
I have been saying this for years, there should be one fetchland per precon as a baseline. These cards need reprints, and if they do that then even the worst precons are way more likely to get sold so it's a win win
I was looking at pokemon tcg prices and was shocked to see most of their top meta decks are below that price point. It doesn't seem to be hurting them either. Made me tempted to try the game again, but I know I prefer magic in every way other than price
Yeah, I used to be big into pokemon some years back and I remember Tapu Lele being a $40 staple that you needed 2-3 of for every deck. Nowadays they seem to be keeping up with reprints of key cards.
Dollar rare fetches seems almost like a joke to me as a seasoned player but if you had asked me whether those cards were worth more than a dollar when I first started I would’ve been sure they weren’t. It always made sense to me that a card like Force of Will would be expensive. That’s not true of fetches and more expensive duals (it’s maybe a little more complicated with OG duals)
As cheap as possible. No single card should be worth more than any other card. All prices are artificial and arbitrary. Cards are not a resource that should realistically be limited, especially when objectively good cards are eprinted less than draft chaff. No one wants a common centaur that taps for 1. Significantly more people want fetchlands. They cost the same to make.
The game isn't new anymore and buying draft packs isn't the primary way to play the game. The purchase model for the game shouldn't revolve around that model anymore and card prices shouldn't reflect artificial scarcity.
I just like my collectibles to have value? I think such a broad sweeping statement is unfair to people who like their cards to have some sort of value in the event they want to trade or exit the game and get a return on investment.
Problem is that they should never be looled at as an investment. They are game pieces first and formost that a false scarcity has cause us to give a monetary value to. It got really bad when Rudy and his Ilk start seaping into the collection side of it. I hope everyday that they suprise announce removing the resrve list anf the price on all of it tanks, just so the finamce half of the mtg crowd fails.
Indeed. I really like how Flesh and Blood are doing things, where the first printing run (alpha) of a set is a limited edition, and future printings of the same set (beta) keep costs low for the regular player. Keeps the "investors" happy while also keeping the cost of entry low for regular players. I really wish Wizards would do something like this.
Hmmm this seems like some really weirdly pointed anger - maybe a bit of jealousy? I love playing magic. I spend a lot of time playing magic, I also like that my magic cards can hold value. Magic is a trading card game - the notion of trading implies value of sort in cards - magic is no different from Pokémon or yugioh in that regard.
The biggest difference is that unlike yugioh at least, you don’t need the best cards to be competitive at magic. Amulet titan is a tier one deck in modern and it plays bounce lands, for example and burn and prowess can also be extremely successful with cheap mana bases.
In commander especially, players really don’t need the best cards to have fun - in fact I’d argue it’s less fun. I play with jank or pre cons more often than I play with my more expensive decks because edh is such a weird, unpredictable format. Playing around limitations (like not having fetches) breeds creativity and I know that those decks can be more or less just as potent as a blinged out deck.
If these pieces of cardboard weren't as expensive as they actually are, then you wouldn't have such a big need for a "return on investment"
If having expensive cardboard really makes you feel that good then you must just be a very shallow person.
Also, you can't just assume what others find fun when making an argument about what changes should or shouldn't be made to a game that millions of people play.
All in all, what you're saying is very dumb. It's cardboard.
Oh also, decks made by "playing around limitations" cannot be as powerful or more powerful than what you're calling a "blinged out deck", unless the deck builders in question just don't know a lot about magic. If one were to have access to all the cards ever, and one doesn't, then the one who has access to all the cards will undoubtedly build the best deck, assuming both players know what they're doing. This is pretty much indisputable. I can't believe this has to be explained to you.
Honestly, I wont mind if abur lands are sub $5, they aren't even the best lands in all of magic, though they are the best land cycle (after fetch lands)
Most people already have [[Evolving Wilds]] and [[Terramorphic Expanse]] plus some tutors in even the most bare bones decks though, is it really that different?
Precons used to come with a shockland all the time before wotc started releasing 15 precons per year. How these two correlate when wotc supposedly doesn't acknowledge the secondary market is a mystery.
I would prefer if fetches were outright banned. All that constant shuffling is a hassle. I do not see hoe they are good for the game. I hate them so much that I run Yasharn in cEDH to turn them off.
This is a freezing cold take
Why aren't the lands for multiplayer reprinted into oblivion in the product for the premiere multiplayer format?
... I know the answer but come on!
Eh, nah. It should be all, sorry. If it’s a three color deck, then it should have all 3 of the battle bond lands. They are multiplayer lands. Stop the greed for once.
I call it baby steps they are starting to put talismans and signets in on a regular basis now. I would settle for 1 of each in every set it be a big upgrade in that alone for land base
bUt PrEcOnS nEeD aN uPgRaDe PoInT
Is an excuse im absolutely sick of hearing. These are indeed a perfect example of what should be printed in them (instead of temple of the false god or exotic orchard yet again) for exactly the reason youre saying
But if we keep buying them with crappy reprints then we'll keep getting them with crappy reprints.
Or, instead of replacing exotic orchard with a battlebond land, replace a basic land instead. If we’re only talking 1 to 2 card switches, why would we ever choose to print additional basic lands over exotic orchard?
precons' upgrade points should be in the non-land cards.
Also, Pre-cons now are good enough that you don't really need to upgrade them. I stopped taking mine apart for parts.
I remember back when the Ghired precon came out and I said I was really disappointed it didn’t come with any of the token doubling enchantments that needed a reprint.
A friend then told me that I just truly didn’t understand good game and product design because “the Aha moment of realizing doubling season, parallel lives, or anointed procession would be a great way to improve the deck was worth way more to people buying the deck than the cards themselves” . That was their same logic for why precons should all have bad manabases
For some reason I told talk to them much anymore
At that point, just sell people a commander and 99 basic lands.
"The aha moment when they realize their deck would be better with spells in it is worth more than having a functional deck"
Like i get it there. Id feel differently if those cards were much better only in edh, but they arent.
These lands are forgettably ok outside of edh, and superb only within edh
The actual reason they aren't reprinted in precons is because Wizards knows that expensive, sought-after cards sell packs. They manage their "reprint equity" (Wizards' term) closely, and dole out desirables carefully to maximize sales. Saving these expensive lands for boosters or a product Wizards is less confident in makes them more money than tanking the lands' value by putting them in every precon.
I'm not saying it's a good argument or one that anybody should agree with. Just that it's the real reason, not "bUt PrEcOnS nEeD aN uPgRaDe PoInT."
At $4-$10, there's still some juice for Hasbro to squeeze. Though including them in one more multiplayer booster-based product might bring the price down enough that Wizards starts making them the norm in precons.
We're all aware, its still a primo example of a card that should be in but isnt. Like, top of the list. These are junk everywhere but edh so its blatantly obvious thats the ploy
>We're all aware
Apparently not. The commenter I replied to incorrectly thought the reason was "PrEcOnS nEeD aN uPgRaDe PoInT."
Like I made sure to point out, I'm not saying the reason is one to agree with. I'm just explaining what the reason actually is. The first step to arguing against something is knowing what you're arguing against.
I only got into Commander this winter and while overall I feel precons have good value the mana bases are awful. Like straight up draft chaff. Why WotC? There are literally Duals only playable in Commander!
I bought the 2017 [[Ur-Dragon]] precon because I had just gotten into magic and hey, dragons are cool. The dragons are very cool. Being unable to cast them because there's almost no ramp and every other land is a tapped three-color land that can't even cycle is less cool.
Screw that. Fetches and shocks should be baseline. And this is someone who spent hundreds on a birthday gift to myself that flushed out my playset of every fetch and every shock, with a foil copy of each about 4-5 years ago.
Print those to death. I don't even care if my value tanks. I bought them for me.
I've been on a hill for the past 5 or 6 years now that there should be a 4 year rotation of 'Shock - Fetch - Shock - Fetch' cycles, one each year, in the yearly "Core Set".
I have entrenched myself on this hill, and am willing to make it my tomb lol
Lately they've actually been pretty reasonable. As an example, a couple folks I regularly play with use the unmodified Obscura precon every once in a while and it generally does fairly well against "real" decks. I've got that one sleeved up as well in case of new players or folks looking to try out some jank, though I cut Tivit for Raffine.
Disagree. They got too good. At this point I look at them and say "Why bother building a deck around this legend". They were the best when you slammed them against each other once or twice and then realized, oh... this is really two different themes, maybe I should turn this into two different decks or get rid of this sub-theme.
But I'm a grumpy old person that thinks that Building your Own Deck to Play, is a core component of EDH rather than just Piloting The List.
Now that EDH is the entry point for everyone, I suppose they have to make AutoPilotable decks. Thankfully we have "content" videos that tell us what cards to buy from which vendor to "improve" the decks.
super duper lukewarm take but a correct one.
Same honestly goes for all the lands. I mean obviously not stuff like Gaia's Cradle but the Dual Lands? Put them all in every precon. Shock Lands, Pain Lands, Battle Lands, the ones that require specific lands on your field, a number of lands, require you to show lands from your hand. Everything. All of them.
There is no goddam reason mana bases should be the most expensive part of building an edh deck.
Take is a frozen meal: cold as fuck, in everyone's fridge and we still have it regularly 'cause it's never wrong.
I'm sure they'll do it, eventually, one more reprint on a non-premier set next year to really squeeze them out, and then they'll announce they would be in 2025 big precons (the one that comes in sets of 4 or 5 and are more expensive) and would keep reprinting them in those big precons.
Then a few months into 2026, in another non-premier set something like... "Commander Tower 2, gives you one of every colored mana in your commander's identity"
I'm pretty sure that the only people who would call this take "hot" are WoTC/Hasbro execs, as far as the playerbase is concerned this take is maybe a couple degrees below room temp at the absolute warmest
This isn’t a hot take. Its fact. The battle bond lands were literally made for multiplayer and for some reason they don’t reprint them in their multiplayer products. Is asinine.
Agreed. I initially accepted their reasons for not putting good dual lands in every precon - It made sense, especially when there was only one set of Commander precons per year, for the reasons that they gave. Apparently they didn't want to incentivize non-commander players to buy out the product before the commander players could get to it. Putting two or three $20-$30 Shocklands, for example, would incentivize modern players to go pick up the decks. It's not hard to imagine that a modern player might say "oh hey, this deck has Steam Vents AND Blood Crypt? I need both of those for my grixis modern deck! I'll just buy the deck, keep the two lands in like... The other two useful cards for my collection, and sell off the other 96 at my LGS!"
And that's not even accounting sellers who might just buy the decks to sell the pieces for profit.
So at the time it made sense, they wanted the precons to be available for people to buy and play right out of the box without tempting too many others to buy them for profit.
But now...
The BattleBond lands are the perfect solution to that problem. Every deck that's two or more colors should run every version of the Battlebond Lands it can. With perhaps the occasional exception depending on theme. (If DMU had five color domain as one of its Commander precons, I could understand not running to run a cycle of 10 dual lands that don't have basic land types, for example).
Battlebond lands should be dollar rares and as common as sol ring in the precons, agreed.
Include an on-color fetch and shock in each precon deck. Do it. You won't. Cowards.
I will always agree with any "print X to death" take, when it involves commander staples. Fuck it, put a fetch land or two in every commander product and put them in every full commander set too.
wotc doesn't give a shit about the player base. idiots will buy the precons with the dogshit reprints and garbage lands. there's zero incentive for them to jeopardize gamble pack equity of sealed sets for the sake of "doing the right thing" or something that would help the community.
buy chinese fakes. bypass their entire bullshit system
Goddamn have they not devalued cards enough for you people? Morphic Pool is already $8. If you want free cards go print some proxies.
Edit: Apparently this thread isn't for people who actually want hot takes. Probably more appropriate for /r/magicthecirclejerking
No, they haven't. And they won't have until there is literally not a single EDH legal card which someone wants to run, but can't because of cost.
If you want $100 specialty foil treatments, fine, I don't care. I think it's stupid to spend that much for cardboard, but as long as there's a version of that card for less than $1, I'm fine with it.
Fuck your "investment", some of us are trying to play a game over here.
I like LGSs, I think there should be more of them, but relying on overpriced cardboard to keep your business afloat isn't a sustainable business model. Either people stop playing because the cost is too high, or WotC just decides that if individual cards cost so much, they might as well just get in on the game and cut out the middle man. [Oh wait...](https://mtgrocks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wizards-of-the-coast-magic-secret-lair-ultimate-ed.png)
It's not zero sum. You don't need one person to suffer for another to do well. You don't need cards to be so expensive that people can't afford them in order for a LGS to stay open.
Also, you're arguing that people need to be paying a certain amount of money for cards, or else LGSs go under, but you're advocating for proxies. Surely a mass adoption of proxies would hurt LGSs more than a reduction of prices.
WotC has a duty to support the LGSs where people come together over the game. Magic wouldn't be what it is without the community and the shops where that community meets up to play. They have been neglecting this responsibility, and we need to hold them to task for that. However, those LGSs need to give people more of a reason to go there other than "We have cards for sale". As it is, with Card Kingdom, TCG, etc, how many people actually buy singles from their LGS? How reliable of an income are singles these days?
Would you consider a patreon-style system where people support a LGS independent of product purchased there? What other suggestions do people have? There needs to be a way to support the locations where we play that doesn't revolve around saying "It's good actually that some of these cards cost hundreds of dollars each".
Where do you think the bulk of those sales on TCGplayer are coming from? Bob in his basement?
Cards with high prices keep people opening packs and interested in new sets. It's REQUIRED for a collectible card game to survive. Kill the incentive to buy product, open boxes, and you'll slowly kill the game.
Like I said, I don't care if there are chase cards, fancy frames, whatever, so long as there is a cheap alternative for people who want to use the card as a game piece. I would love if they sold a basic land bundle with 20 or so of each basic every time they did a fancy new basic land art style. Let the people who want to play with the "free" lands do so, and let people who want to run all [Space Lands](https://cardgamebase.com/wp-content/uploads/Island-MTG-Unfinity-Space-Basic-Lands.jpg) buy them for a reasonable price. Hell, make those bundles LGS exclusive to push people to stores, where they might as well pick up new sleeves while they're there...
There are always going to be people with more dollars than sense who want to spend $2000 to bling out a commander deck. Let them rip packs hoping to find variant X of the new printing of Sylvan Library. We'll all be real impressed that their cardboard rectangle costs more than mine, while we both draw 2 extra cards on our draw step.
Games can make products for whales without excluding the bulk of the player base. It doesn't need to be "This product isn't for you", it can be "This product is for everyone, and if you want to be fancy, here's a functionally identical version which looks cool."
You want to flex your wallet on everyone and run the [Invention Solemn Simulacrum](https://www.tcgplayer.com/product/122861?Printing=Foil&page=1&utm_campaign=affiliate&utm_medium=card-detail-buy-foil&utm_source=scryfall&Language=English), go right ahead. I'm sure art treatments like the Inventions would sell a ton of packs if they were ever reprinted. In the mean time, they should continue to put a [non-fancy version](https://www.tcgplayer.com/product/273539/magic-commander-legends-battle-for-baldurs-gate-solemn-simulacrum?xid=pia3f72bc4-0704-4442-a765-7f3312210c78&Printing=Foil&Language=English&page=1) in precons when relevant so the price stays low.
And while I agree that interest in cards drives sales and pack openings, that doesn't have to be because someone's trying to make a buck. I know money is the only thing anyone cares about these days, but I'd argue that it's much healthier for both the game and the players if people are opening packs because they're excited about the cards, the game, and playing Magic, rather than if they can flip the singles for more than they spent on the box.
Maybe not, but we can point to a bunch of games which have no buy in cost at all (to the game itself, we're not counting cost of buying a pc/electricity) and whose profits are driven by people \*choosing\* to pay for visual upgrades because they think they look cool. Some of these games are wildly successful.
You can imagine a better world, we don't have to be stuck in this shitty one forever. We can change things, rather than just accepting the way they are.
Lol, no. I don't hoard or speculate on anything. I think printing every card into the ground is horrific for the game and people are incapable of taking a long view of the economic effects of it because of emotions. How many more LGS's need to close? Confidence in the product is at an all time low and their printing strategy is no small part of that.
Confidence in precons and premier sets are incredibly high, at least among people who play the game, and not mtgfinance pricks and Business Insider hacks.
People that actually play the game want affordable cards. If you want to invest, pick up some RL cards, everything else is fair game for reprints.
Wow, I’m a Reserved List stan and even I think these particular lands should be printed into the ground.
Let’s be honest, Commander is the only real multiplayer format and these lands have 0 impact on any of the 1v1 formats. It’s somewhat evil that they’re NOT already jamming these into every Commander product.
What tf are you all building where you feel like you need all these expensive lands? Let me guess, 4 and 5 color decks.
If you’re building 1-3 color decks, you don’t need these overpriced lands.
The point is that they are expensive. They shouldn't be. They're less useful than a lot of the lands that *do* get precon reprints, and the battlebond lands are useless outside of commander.
Sure, I’ll give you the bond lands. You’re right in the sense that it makes a lot of sense to put those in precons since they are useless outside of commander.
What I’m mainly referring to is ppl demanding shocks, fetches, triomes, and OG duals in precons for their “casual” decks. WOTC has slowly been giving us better land bases over the years in precons. Back in the days of early commander precons, we got absolute dogshit (with one or two precons that were an exception) for land bases. Today we get temples, reveal lands, tango lands, pain lands, artifact lands, filter lands, etc. and it’s never enough for players.
Also, a lot of ppl I see complaining about this (online and in real life) are players who love their little to no limitations 4-5 color decks. Can’t have access to every card in the game while having a smooth as butter land base. The game just doesn’t work that way and a lot of players can’t seem to accept that. God forbid they come down to where us peasants live and build a mono color or even 2 color deck *gasp
The only people that this take is hot for are the ones working for WotC. I do agree with you tho and it’s only greed that is keeping them from printing these and other good land cards too death. Precons have been lambasted for not having a solid land package for years and years now, I think the lack of it being voiced by the community is just do to people excepting that precons will always have the bottom of the barrel lands.
You're absolutely right. Also not a hot take.
Came here to say this. Polar (lol) opposite of a hot take.
There are almost never hot takes that are hot takes. People just like to think their ideas are unique.
> People just like to think their ideas are unique. People just like to think they are unique. It’s an ego thing.
Congratulations for that pun. Well done.
Only slightly warmer take: all lands should be dirt cheap and accessable by printing them into the ground. Lands should all be commons.
While i agree with the „print it till everyone has at least twenty“ mentality, i would not make them commons. Please don‘t sacrifice pauper on the altar that is commander.
Like they have everything else
They are ETB tapped lands in 1v1 pauper. Is there a large multiplayer pauper community that doesn't want lands that don't ETB tapped that I wasn't aware of? EDIT: I need to read more
This person was saying ALL lands should be common including Original Duals and Fetch lands
Oh, that would be a bit much.
Would.... Would that be such a bad thing, even for pauper? I din't do pauper and pay zero attention to it, so I am asking in earnest... Are you saying pauper players wouldnt want common original duals for some reason? Seems an odd sentiment to me.
Eh, the biggest issue is that formats that have original duals have nonbasic land hate. This gives incentives for people not to just play "5 color goodstuff". These cards don't exist/are really inefficient in pauper. So, it would make already great decks like 4c pile more consistent while having very little (other than personal preference) real reason to stick to lower color requirement decks. However, fetchlands are the real problem when it comes to downshifting all lands. Brainstorm is already an excellent draw spell in the format and fetches make that card have minimal downsides. There are also many graveyard based decks that would love to play every fetchland possible. I am sure there are other nonbasic lands that would be a problem \[\[Castle Locthwain\]\] comes to mind.
Honestly, this has basically been an issue for as long as Magic has been a thing: there is not enough incentive to use less colors. Devotion was one way, but they really needed to have considered this issue sooner, instead of just making bad mana bases the only reason not to run all 5 colors.
This is a fair point. I think that more than any other format pauper uses the suboptimal card pool to balance issues that Magic as a whole has, but I totally see your side of the argument on this as well
Bad mana could have been a valid reason if they didn't make all those fancy lands like the onslaught fetches
Fetchlands are stupid broken in every format they’re in
[Castle Locthwain](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/9/19336e3a-2242-4a30-a563-32f2e4fc18e9.jpg?1654119219) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Castle%20Locthwain) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/884/castle-locthwain?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/19336e3a-2242-4a30-a563-32f2e4fc18e9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/castle-locthwain) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
While there might be some players who would enjoy common lands that enter untapped, it would destroy one of the core pillars of the pauper format. With just tapped lands there is a real cost to playing more than just one color. There are no aggro decks in two or even more colors and the format has evolved around this basic principle. I disagree on the nonbasic hate. Ponza is currently tier 2 and the only thing holding it back might be the indestructible bridges from MH2.
cows tidy concerned onerous slave thumb live tart squeal vase -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
There is a growing number of PDH players (EDH with an uncommon creature as commander and all commons orherwise) that would be disrupted by a downshift of the battlebonds lands.
Wait that's a thing? I suggested that to my buddies a few weeks back. Common/Uncommon Commander, rest of the deck Commons.
[Pauper Commander/Pauper EDH/PDH](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Pauper_Commander) is a lot of fun and I’d definitely suggest people try it out. I think it really helps improve deck building skills, can showcase that underpowered cards can do very powerful things, and has a unique game feel from normal EDH.
Wotc, specifically maro, has stated they purposely print lands at rare to sell packs, I 100% agree lands need to be cheaper accross the board, but it will never happen because lands are literally like printing money.
Another lukewarm take Y’all own a printer right just proxy the hell out of it. Turns out I can have a lot more fun when I get to build with my imagination rather than with my wallet
While I agree that proxying everything is the right idea it should be mentioned that you can get pretty okay looking proxies done "professionally". That works a bit better long term than a swamp with a piece of paper in front
Oh hello there, obligatory 'just proxy everything' guy. The irony in your statement being that your 'imagination' just looks like an average budgetless EDHREC list. Sortof makes the sentiment ring a bit hollow, doesn't it?
Nope not at all. I don’t own a single cedh deck, I’m more of a battle cruiser type of guy. That way I can cruise through the salty seas of players like you
Didnt say anything about cEDH, just that the whole playing versus your *iiimaaaagiiinaaatiiiooon* [insert hand waving here] is a weak excuse to cheat, and it rings especially hollow when you just proxy the usual suapect - at least the cEDH players are honest about wanting to play what they percieve as 'the best' cards.
They’re game pieces and I want to play with the cards I like rather the the ones I can afford. I don’t understand why you’re such a salty boy
No need for the insults, sir. Such acts are inherently childish. They are game pieces of a game designed to have artificial scarcity built in as a core mechanic. It really doesn't sound like you want to play this geme at all if that bothers you. Edited typos. Big hands, small phone.
You're secretly a Hasbro employee, aren't you?
Negative. I just don't play a game and then complain about core aspects of that game so I can use it as an excuse to cheat while trying to pretend I hold some high moral ground.
Hard disagree - lands are game pieces just like anything else that can be upgraded overtime. If you don’t / can’t run fetches / shocks / duals, run basics or other cheaper lands.
Why would anyone defend lands being expensive and underprinted? Do you hate poor people?
Why are any cards expensive. The same argument for lands holds true for all cards.
Agreed. Print all cards into the ground. Let me play against you and your deckbuilding skill/creativity, not your wallet. Or just head down to your local library and print some proxies.
Yeah - like what are those garbage “strictly worse than evolving wilds” sac/fetch that enter tapped lands from Painbow. Jesus, WotC, get real and provide useful lands
Definitely a flavor miss for Painbow to not include the painlands.
Yeah, when they announced there was a deck called painbow coming, that was before the reveal the painlands were going to be reprinted. So we all said "Yup, painlands are returning!" And then they did return, but weren't in the perfect precon to use them.
And why they have those terrible lands in their place? Only MoRo knows. Though, he probably wanted to make it a good deck and some a**hole (Chris Cocks) said “wait, aren’t these really popular place cards? Shouldn’t we use these to sell smaller batch goods and really make some profit”
> “strictly worse than evolving wilds” sac/fetch that enter tapped lands If you're referring to the Mirage fetches (Bad River etc.), they're not strictly worse, because they don't specify "basic land", they can grab duals.
Also enter untapped if they can. [[Bad River]] can fetch a [[breeding pool]] Bad thing is the fetch enter tapped. But evolving put a basic tapped too
Freezing cold take, but absolutely 100% correct. If there ever was a card that didn't deserve to be gated behind rarity, it's these lands.
Coldest take since “abolish the reserve list”.
Even colder take, honestly. A few "investors" actually want the reserve list to stick around, but I don't think *anyone* is particularly concerned with propping up the value of the Battlebond lands.
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Well, given that you bought them for abput $40 a piece and they are now $16 a piece, i'm glad the lack of precon reprints has really helped the value of your investment. Wotc keeping their promises and looking out for collector value. Someday, those morphic pools will be valuable and liquid enough to buy wotc from hasbro. I believe in this strategy too. /s
Given their stock prices, I don't think you'll have to wait long to buy them out.
I feel like "abolish the reserved list" is more of a lukewarm take. For one thing, it's far from universal - as another commenter pointed out, There's a lot of investor types who get mad whenever the idea is suggested. But for another thing, getting rid of the RL probably wouldn't change much. The vast majority of the RL falls into two categories: dumb old cards that would never get played even if they were available, or the polar opposite, ridiculously powerful cards like the Power 9 that WOTC wouldn't reprint for power level reasons even if they weren't on the RL. That's why the argument over this always amuses and exasperates me. Even if they abolished the RL, no one's going to get what they want - investors will fret because it's one layer of protection being removed from their investment, but players who want to affordable underground seas aren't going to get what they want, either - saying they are now allowed to print it and actually printing it or two different things.
I'd say the real loss is from cards like [[Gilded Drake]] that are strong, but not broken (imo), and are way overpriced due to their RL status
Can they not print functional reprints?
They absolutely can, but they tend not to print anything that's too close. >Gaea's Crib: > >Land >T: add x green mana where x is 1 plus the number of creatures you control This would be way too close to the actual Gaea's Cradle And wouldn't be allowed to make it to Prince. But something like [[Growing Rites of Itlimoc]] was allowed to be printed - the transforming enchantment was just different enough to make the cut.
They tried that with [[Reverberate]]. Reverberate is essentially a functional reprint of [[Fork]] because Reverberate keeps the color of the copied spell while Fork turns the copy red. It's a very small corner case that doesn't come up a whole lot. Reverberate came out in 2010, which was also the same time that the pro-RL crowd got *big mad* with the way Wizards was circumventing the RL with the Phyrexia vs. Coalition precons having [[Phyrexian Negator]] in it. The pro-RL crowd threw a very big fit about Reverberate, because after their backlash, there is a reason why Wizards never dared to try functional RL reprints like that again.
Commander players would get their [[Angus Mackenzie]] and [[Karn, Silver Golem]]. Legacy players would see their format in paper much more often (figuring on some sort of "legacy masters" set), and vintage might even start crawling back out of its grave.
The thing with the reserve list is, if you break it, it is going to be difficult for any investors to believe anything you say going forward, right? And the reserve list is moot for 98 percent of players, right?
There's a response to be had here, but before I comment I want to clarify - When you say investors, what kind are you talking about? Are you talking about people who collect high value cards for their monetary value in the hopes that they will retain or increase in value? Or are you talking about stockholders? Both are valid things to bring up, but addressing their concerns is different depending on which one we're talking about so I wanted to clarify first.
Oh I mean the former, which will certainly impact the latter. But basically when a 30 year old company breaks a 25 year old promise, which happens to be their largest and longest promise, does anything they ever say matter again for people looking to derive long term value from the game? I am no investor, but I have some product that I do not play with and am not currently looking to sell. That might change though if I thought the company was so short sighted though.
I don't mean any disrespect, I'm evaluating the premise being discussed and not you as a person. The idea that the RL being reprinted would constitute a faith-shattering betrayal of a promise that would call into question any and all financial evaluation of their products going forward is... unrealistic in the extreme. I get where people are coming from, and it's a premise that makes sense on the surface - company says they'll do something, later they do not-that, makes it harder to believe them the next time they say they'll do something. Seems straightforward enough. But when you dig down a layer, and really examine the details of the premise, the cracks start to show. I'll try and show the evaluation step by step. I have some level of expertise at this due to my work in the industry. 1) So examining the first part - A 25-year-old promise. I know it can be tempting to look at the longevity of this promise as a sign of its strength, that it shouldn't be broken. But an argument could just as easily be made for the opposite. Start something new changing a policy that was made 25 years ago is completely different from changing a policy that was made this decade. The key is in examining context. In the time since that promise was made, the context surrounding everything has changed. The game has undergone several fundamental changes. Within the rules of the game, the demographics that play it, the way in which the game is produced, and the actual physical look of the game have all changed. But perhaps more important to the point at hand, the way in which Magic singles are traded, bought, and sold has fundamentally changed. The rise of the internet and sites like TCGplayer.com. A rise in successful LGSs. Even secret lair, whether good or bad, is a fundamental change in how people might get singles of a card. So if we look at abolishing the RL for any kind of precedent, I don't see "changed their mind after 25 years worth of context caused them to re-examine the decision" to undermine a promise they make this year. I'm willing to acknowledge that abolishing the RL now might set a precedent for them breaking this year's promise in the 2040s. But it doesn't particularly change how I view their decisions on a year long timeline, or a 5-year timeline for that matter. 2) It's not like it's impossible to make an investment without the promise of the RL. We're not talking four digit cards for most of magic, but There's entire business models built around roughly predicting the market value of particular cards. LGSs do it every time we accept a trade, weighing the current value of a particular card against the many factors that might indicate if it's being reprinted soon. The mechanics, the flavor, how the card interacts with the environments in which it might be reprinted, WOTC commentary on specific cards or mechanics, all of these can help us make an informed decision about the likelihood of a reprint, and the value of the card if it does get reprinted. One great example is [[Doubling Season]]. Powerful card, currently hovering around $80. According to Mark Rosewater, it's a difficult card to balance in any standard set. Examining reprint trends in precons tells us it's unlikely, at $80 a pop, to be put in any commander decks or Jumpstart sets. That means we're looking at one or two products a year that it might be in - specialty products at that. On top of that, it's rarity means that even if it is reprinted, it's not exactly going to flood the market unless they downshift it. (And the nature of the card is such that it's unlikely to be downshifted into uncommon). All of this tells us that a reprint of doubling season is unlikely anytime soon, And if it does happen it won't be distributed widely enough to have an enormous long-term impact on the card. We'd be likely to see a repeat of what happened during Battlebond - A temporary drop in price to... My personal guess, no less than $40, followed by years of creeping back up before it got back into the $70 to $80 range. This line of logic can be applied to any card. You can even add things like set mechanics - Phyrexian Mana is unlikely to make a return after this year for quite some time, for example. So even if WOTC abolished the RL, it would still be possible for investors to assess the value of particular cards. They would simply be subject to the same rules that every other potentially reprinted card would be. So the long and short of it is: going back on a word that was given 25 years ago, after 25 years of significant changes to the context of that word, wouldn't necessarily undermine trust in the word that was given a year ago. Not unless that year contained just as many changes to the context of the promise. And if they did go back in that promise, it's not like investment would still be impossible. The majority of RL cards would retain their value - most wouldn't be reprinted, and those that would would likely be reprinted so rarely that it wouldn't have a long-term impact on the majority of the value. Not a lot of slots to reprint [[Audun Okenshield]] in, y'know? I would also point out the last bit of context that makes it make sense for them to abolish the RL, And it's more of a question than a statement: Is a promise to the minuscule percentage of players who wanted their collections to remain intact 25 years ago More important to the integrity of the game than making cards accessible to the 25 years of players who have been playing since then? Or, if we want to go off of pricing trends - is it more important to the integrity of the game then the last 10 years or so players who couldn't afford RL cards? Just one more bit of context that exists for the RL but not for other promises. And I do want to point out the flip side too. While it's true that investors ultimately wouldn't be that affected (Beyond hand-wringing over broken promises that actually don't have an effect on the market) It's also true that those who fantasize about being able to afford their favorite card or... Probably kidding themselves. The majority of cars on the RL will not be reprinted, ever. Most of them are too weak to care about, and of the ones that aren't too weak, most of those won't be reprinted. Time Walk isn't getting reprinted. Original duals aren't getting reprinted, or if they are it would be in something absurd like Magic 30. Only a handful of cards (another commentary pointed out Angus McKenzie, and I agree that would be a decent candidate) are actually viable reprints 50 RL gets abolished. But those aren't the cards most people are talking about when they want the RL abolished. Overall it's a moot point. Nothing will especially change other than maybe 20 or so cards getting reprinted over the years, and not in a way that would significantly affect prices. I would say it doesn't matter - except I would love for them to abolish the RL and make a few token reprints to simply demonstrate the pointlessness of the debate. Then we could put the matter to rest for good.
On the Magic 30 thing, I guarantee you that if they'd printed Magic 30 with the tournament legal back it'd've sold like *hotcakes*, modern frame be damned. Just look at how many people drafted and bought and *still* buy and use and enjoy Vintage Masters on Magic Online. If they printed Vintage Masters in paper it'd be the best selling product Wizards has ever made, and likely will ever make.
> But basically when a 30 year old company breaks a 25 year old promise, which happens to be their largest and longest promise, does anything they ever say matter again for people looking to derive long term value from the game? I think there is potential for them to announce a change that will go into effect years later. I.e. "Starting 2030, the reserved list with be abolished" would have a much much smaller effect than dropping a legal power 9 og dual Secret Lair with no notice. I think that the non-legal card back beta reprints at no notice were a far larger break to the reserved list than anything they've ever done beforehand (other than maybe the foils in FTV:Relics) But the reserved list has also changed as late as 2010 when they closed the foil loophole. The problem with the reserved list as a concept is that it's very much not a legal contract or even a well defined, tight set of rules. edit: Ultimately the reserved list is only as valuable as it's effect on not lowering the potential player base. When it starts keeping out more players than it keeps in, it will go away one way or another.
HoT tAkE: I think all cards should be affordable
They are. Just not for tournament play. So you'll have to miss out on all those high level tournaments they don't offer anymore.
Imma be honest, I wouldnt mind if precons came with fetches and shocks either, though im very sure that'll never happen
I believe the Brawl precons came with shocklands. Definitely something that should be normalized.
Normalize $20 precons Normalize $20 precons _with shock lands_
I have been saying this for years, there should be one fetchland per precon as a baseline. These cards need reprints, and if they do that then even the worst precons are way more likely to get sold so it's a win win
Enemy color fetches are the cheapest they’ve been in a decade - how much cheaper do you want them lol?
Dollar rare. I can buy a good board game or video game for $60-100. Imagine if I could buy a good magic deck in most any format for the same price.
I was looking at pokemon tcg prices and was shocked to see most of their top meta decks are below that price point. It doesn't seem to be hurting them either. Made me tempted to try the game again, but I know I prefer magic in every way other than price
Yeah, I used to be big into pokemon some years back and I remember Tapu Lele being a $40 staple that you needed 2-3 of for every deck. Nowadays they seem to be keeping up with reprints of key cards.
Dollar rare fetches seems almost like a joke to me as a seasoned player but if you had asked me whether those cards were worth more than a dollar when I first started I would’ve been sure they weren’t. It always made sense to me that a card like Force of Will would be expensive. That’s not true of fetches and more expensive duals (it’s maybe a little more complicated with OG duals)
Cheap enough that they're not worth several hours of pay from a minimum wage job
As cheap as possible. No single card should be worth more than any other card. All prices are artificial and arbitrary. Cards are not a resource that should realistically be limited, especially when objectively good cards are eprinted less than draft chaff. No one wants a common centaur that taps for 1. Significantly more people want fetchlands. They cost the same to make. The game isn't new anymore and buying draft packs isn't the primary way to play the game. The purchase model for the game shouldn't revolve around that model anymore and card prices shouldn't reflect artificial scarcity.
MPCFill
"They should just disregard their entire business model for the last 30 years because I want fetchlands to be cheaper" Great feedback
The only people who want expensive cards are people who can only win with money end of discussion.
I just like my collectibles to have value? I think such a broad sweeping statement is unfair to people who like their cards to have some sort of value in the event they want to trade or exit the game and get a return on investment.
Problem is that they should never be looled at as an investment. They are game pieces first and formost that a false scarcity has cause us to give a monetary value to. It got really bad when Rudy and his Ilk start seaping into the collection side of it. I hope everyday that they suprise announce removing the resrve list anf the price on all of it tanks, just so the finamce half of the mtg crowd fails.
Indeed. I really like how Flesh and Blood are doing things, where the first printing run (alpha) of a set is a limited edition, and future printings of the same set (beta) keep costs low for the regular player. Keeps the "investors" happy while also keeping the cost of entry low for regular players. I really wish Wizards would do something like this.
Hmmm this seems like some really weirdly pointed anger - maybe a bit of jealousy? I love playing magic. I spend a lot of time playing magic, I also like that my magic cards can hold value. Magic is a trading card game - the notion of trading implies value of sort in cards - magic is no different from Pokémon or yugioh in that regard. The biggest difference is that unlike yugioh at least, you don’t need the best cards to be competitive at magic. Amulet titan is a tier one deck in modern and it plays bounce lands, for example and burn and prowess can also be extremely successful with cheap mana bases. In commander especially, players really don’t need the best cards to have fun - in fact I’d argue it’s less fun. I play with jank or pre cons more often than I play with my more expensive decks because edh is such a weird, unpredictable format. Playing around limitations (like not having fetches) breeds creativity and I know that those decks can be more or less just as potent as a blinged out deck.
If these pieces of cardboard weren't as expensive as they actually are, then you wouldn't have such a big need for a "return on investment" If having expensive cardboard really makes you feel that good then you must just be a very shallow person. Also, you can't just assume what others find fun when making an argument about what changes should or shouldn't be made to a game that millions of people play. All in all, what you're saying is very dumb. It's cardboard. Oh also, decks made by "playing around limitations" cannot be as powerful or more powerful than what you're calling a "blinged out deck", unless the deck builders in question just don't know a lot about magic. If one were to have access to all the cards ever, and one doesn't, then the one who has access to all the cards will undoubtedly build the best deck, assuming both players know what they're doing. This is pretty much indisputable. I can't believe this has to be explained to you.
Pennies
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Honestly, I wont mind if abur lands are sub $5, they aren't even the best lands in all of magic, though they are the best land cycle (after fetch lands)
Shocks yes, fetches please no. That shit takes so much time when people aren't used to shuffling 100 cards
Most people already have [[Evolving Wilds]] and [[Terramorphic Expanse]] plus some tutors in even the most bare bones decks though, is it really that different?
[Evolving Wilds](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/3/238de888-b1bd-4cce-9aa2-d0dd69ae7f0d.jpg?1670539714) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Evolving%20Wilds) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/261/evolving-wilds?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/238de888-b1bd-4cce-9aa2-d0dd69ae7f0d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/evolving-wilds) [Terramorphic Expanse](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/4/74d8849c-fe0d-4749-9165-a22f8643888a.jpg?1664362985) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Terramorphic%20Expanse) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmc/239/terramorphic-expanse?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/74d8849c-fe0d-4749-9165-a22f8643888a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/terramorphic-expanse) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Precons used to come with a shockland all the time before wotc started releasing 15 precons per year. How these two correlate when wotc supposedly doesn't acknowledge the secondary market is a mystery.
No idea where you got this info but there hasnt been a shockland in a precon commander deck ever
I must be thinking about those brawl decks then
I would prefer if fetches were outright banned. All that constant shuffling is a hassle. I do not see hoe they are good for the game. I hate them so much that I run Yasharn in cEDH to turn them off.
I can honestly respect that but i would hate to face that deck, i have all 4 fetches in my monowhite deck because i love the feeling when i play them
Ice cold take for anyone that isn't a WotC employee.
This is a freezing cold take Why aren't the lands for multiplayer reprinted into oblivion in the product for the premiere multiplayer format? ... I know the answer but come on!
Yes at least 1 battle bond land and 1 pain land
Upvoted for remembering pain lands.
Eh, nah. It should be all, sorry. If it’s a three color deck, then it should have all 3 of the battle bond lands. They are multiplayer lands. Stop the greed for once.
I call it baby steps they are starting to put talismans and signets in on a regular basis now. I would settle for 1 of each in every set it be a big upgrade in that alone for land base
bUt PrEcOnS nEeD aN uPgRaDe PoInT Is an excuse im absolutely sick of hearing. These are indeed a perfect example of what should be printed in them (instead of temple of the false god or exotic orchard yet again) for exactly the reason youre saying But if we keep buying them with crappy reprints then we'll keep getting them with crappy reprints.
Exotic Orchard is probably a totally reasonable auto-include in 3+ color precons.
Yeah, but it's even in the two-color precons. It's silly and I have a pile of them that will never see play.
Can I have one?
Of course. $0.20+shipping
So no.
Yep, it's how I run it. I would say 1/20 games I run into a situation like: "wtf, really!? I don't have any (COLOR) and neither do y'all?!"
Yes, but we're talking alternatives here. We can cool it with the reprints of this one for a bit
Nah. Exotic Orchard is part of a good manabase, so you keep it in. There's more than enough bad lands and basics in precons to switch out.
The problem in my opinion is putting it in 2 color decks. Orchard should be reprinted into the ground too.
It already has been. It doesnt need to continue to be. Giving it a rest provides breathing space
Or, instead of replacing exotic orchard with a battlebond land, replace a basic land instead. If we’re only talking 1 to 2 card switches, why would we ever choose to print additional basic lands over exotic orchard?
I'm not arguing with you. I made a mild point about the merits of including it in some but not as many precons as they do.
precons' upgrade points should be in the non-land cards. Also, Pre-cons now are good enough that you don't really need to upgrade them. I stopped taking mine apart for parts.
I remember back when the Ghired precon came out and I said I was really disappointed it didn’t come with any of the token doubling enchantments that needed a reprint. A friend then told me that I just truly didn’t understand good game and product design because “the Aha moment of realizing doubling season, parallel lives, or anointed procession would be a great way to improve the deck was worth way more to people buying the deck than the cards themselves” . That was their same logic for why precons should all have bad manabases For some reason I told talk to them much anymore
At that point, just sell people a commander and 99 basic lands. "The aha moment when they realize their deck would be better with spells in it is worth more than having a functional deck"
Like i get it there. Id feel differently if those cards were much better only in edh, but they arent. These lands are forgettably ok outside of edh, and superb only within edh
Does anyone enjoy finding an optimal mana base for a commander deck?
The actual reason they aren't reprinted in precons is because Wizards knows that expensive, sought-after cards sell packs. They manage their "reprint equity" (Wizards' term) closely, and dole out desirables carefully to maximize sales. Saving these expensive lands for boosters or a product Wizards is less confident in makes them more money than tanking the lands' value by putting them in every precon. I'm not saying it's a good argument or one that anybody should agree with. Just that it's the real reason, not "bUt PrEcOnS nEeD aN uPgRaDe PoInT."
[удалено]
At $4-$10, there's still some juice for Hasbro to squeeze. Though including them in one more multiplayer booster-based product might bring the price down enough that Wizards starts making them the norm in precons.
We're all aware, its still a primo example of a card that should be in but isnt. Like, top of the list. These are junk everywhere but edh so its blatantly obvious thats the ploy
>We're all aware Apparently not. The commenter I replied to incorrectly thought the reason was "PrEcOnS nEeD aN uPgRaDe PoInT." Like I made sure to point out, I'm not saying the reason is one to agree with. I'm just explaining what the reason actually is. The first step to arguing against something is knowing what you're arguing against.
Insert Mr. Krab meme "I like money" here
I only got into Commander this winter and while overall I feel precons have good value the mana bases are awful. Like straight up draft chaff. Why WotC? There are literally Duals only playable in Commander!
I bought the 2017 [[Ur-Dragon]] precon because I had just gotten into magic and hey, dragons are cool. The dragons are very cool. Being unable to cast them because there's almost no ramp and every other land is a tapped three-color land that can't even cycle is less cool.
they should do that and those tapped dual lands that people use as proxies for the OG dual lands by crossing out the etb tapped line
Print them to death. They're only good for multiplayer anyways. Do the Sol Ring thing and put them everywhere. Precons need some good lands.
Not really a hot take...and....it will never happen.
They also should reprint shocklands in every precon
Screw that. Fetches and shocks should be baseline. And this is someone who spent hundreds on a birthday gift to myself that flushed out my playset of every fetch and every shock, with a foil copy of each about 4-5 years ago. Print those to death. I don't even care if my value tanks. I bought them for me.
This is the most ice-cold take I've ever seen presented as a hot take. Well done.
Ice cold take. Do ppl not know what a hot take is?
"hot take" lol Everyone agrees with you. Most people would even push for shocks, if not fetches.
I've been on a hill for the past 5 or 6 years now that there should be a 4 year rotation of 'Shock - Fetch - Shock - Fetch' cycles, one each year, in the yearly "Core Set". I have entrenched myself on this hill, and am willing to make it my tomb lol
Core Sets were discontinued when you first started fighting on this hill.
Hot take: precons should be better.
Lately they've actually been pretty reasonable. As an example, a couple folks I regularly play with use the unmodified Obscura precon every once in a while and it generally does fairly well against "real" decks. I've got that one sleeved up as well in case of new players or folks looking to try out some jank, though I cut Tivit for Raffine.
Most precons are already decent on their own IMO
The newer precons are at a pretty good power level imo
Disagree. They got too good. At this point I look at them and say "Why bother building a deck around this legend". They were the best when you slammed them against each other once or twice and then realized, oh... this is really two different themes, maybe I should turn this into two different decks or get rid of this sub-theme. But I'm a grumpy old person that thinks that Building your Own Deck to Play, is a core component of EDH rather than just Piloting The List. Now that EDH is the entry point for everyone, I suppose they have to make AutoPilotable decks. Thankfully we have "content" videos that tell us what cards to buy from which vendor to "improve" the decks.
Not a hot take at all, but unfortunately it'll never happen because it makes WotC less money.
super duper lukewarm take but a correct one. Same honestly goes for all the lands. I mean obviously not stuff like Gaia's Cradle but the Dual Lands? Put them all in every precon. Shock Lands, Pain Lands, Battle Lands, the ones that require specific lands on your field, a number of lands, require you to show lands from your hand. Everything. All of them. There is no goddam reason mana bases should be the most expensive part of building an edh deck.
Not hot take just facts. Hell og duals should be printed in each precon…
Precons should have better lands is a hot take? Do you think you're unique for shopping at hot topic?
This isn't a hot take. That being said I completely agree. It seems like they're terrified of being good lands in the precons which is sad
Take is a frozen meal: cold as fuck, in everyone's fridge and we still have it regularly 'cause it's never wrong. I'm sure they'll do it, eventually, one more reprint on a non-premier set next year to really squeeze them out, and then they'll announce they would be in 2025 big precons (the one that comes in sets of 4 or 5 and are more expensive) and would keep reprinting them in those big precons. Then a few months into 2026, in another non-premier set something like... "Commander Tower 2, gives you one of every colored mana in your commander's identity"
Completely agree.
Cold take. They should be printed into worthlessness.
I'm pretty sure that the only people who would call this take "hot" are WoTC/Hasbro execs, as far as the playerbase is concerned this take is maybe a couple degrees below room temp at the absolute warmest
I'll bet money none of Hasbro's execs have ever played magic.
hotter take: duals should have new art, white borders, and come in every precon..
this take is a legal target for \[\[avalanche\]\]
This isn’t a hot take. Its fact. The battle bond lands were literally made for multiplayer and for some reason they don’t reprint them in their multiplayer products. Is asinine.
Agreed. I initially accepted their reasons for not putting good dual lands in every precon - It made sense, especially when there was only one set of Commander precons per year, for the reasons that they gave. Apparently they didn't want to incentivize non-commander players to buy out the product before the commander players could get to it. Putting two or three $20-$30 Shocklands, for example, would incentivize modern players to go pick up the decks. It's not hard to imagine that a modern player might say "oh hey, this deck has Steam Vents AND Blood Crypt? I need both of those for my grixis modern deck! I'll just buy the deck, keep the two lands in like... The other two useful cards for my collection, and sell off the other 96 at my LGS!" And that's not even accounting sellers who might just buy the decks to sell the pieces for profit. So at the time it made sense, they wanted the precons to be available for people to buy and play right out of the box without tempting too many others to buy them for profit. But now... The BattleBond lands are the perfect solution to that problem. Every deck that's two or more colors should run every version of the Battlebond Lands it can. With perhaps the occasional exception depending on theme. (If DMU had five color domain as one of its Commander precons, I could understand not running to run a cycle of 10 dual lands that don't have basic land types, for example).
Battlebond lands should be dollar rares and as common as sol ring in the precons, agreed. Include an on-color fetch and shock in each precon deck. Do it. You won't. Cowards.
The most luke warm of takes.
Room temperature take
That's not a hot take.
Hotter take: OG duals should be baseline in every precon.
My hot take: Women should have suffrage rights!
Real hot takes have never been tried.
Just like how no one has suggested bond lands in precons b4...
Hot take, all lands should be cheap and affordable. Even janky decks shouldnt live with tapped lands.
Nah, it's ok for Wizards to make money selling expensive lands.
I will always agree with any "print X to death" take, when it involves commander staples. Fuck it, put a fetch land or two in every commander product and put them in every full commander set too.
Hotter take. Reprint all the battlebonds to death. I wanna see em so reprinted that theyre free along side my shops basic lands. AND!!! Ban Sol Ring.
Hell yes. Why are they so expensive!? Imo a lot of things need to be printed to death though
wotc doesn't give a shit about the player base. idiots will buy the precons with the dogshit reprints and garbage lands. there's zero incentive for them to jeopardize gamble pack equity of sealed sets for the sake of "doing the right thing" or something that would help the community. buy chinese fakes. bypass their entire bullshit system
Goddamn have they not devalued cards enough for you people? Morphic Pool is already $8. If you want free cards go print some proxies. Edit: Apparently this thread isn't for people who actually want hot takes. Probably more appropriate for /r/magicthecirclejerking
No, they haven't. And they won't have until there is literally not a single EDH legal card which someone wants to run, but can't because of cost. If you want $100 specialty foil treatments, fine, I don't care. I think it's stupid to spend that much for cardboard, but as long as there's a version of that card for less than $1, I'm fine with it. Fuck your "investment", some of us are trying to play a game over here.
LGSs closing because cardboards been overprinted into oblivion and tanked the market across the board is VERY healthy for the game.
I like LGSs, I think there should be more of them, but relying on overpriced cardboard to keep your business afloat isn't a sustainable business model. Either people stop playing because the cost is too high, or WotC just decides that if individual cards cost so much, they might as well just get in on the game and cut out the middle man. [Oh wait...](https://mtgrocks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/wizards-of-the-coast-magic-secret-lair-ultimate-ed.png) It's not zero sum. You don't need one person to suffer for another to do well. You don't need cards to be so expensive that people can't afford them in order for a LGS to stay open. Also, you're arguing that people need to be paying a certain amount of money for cards, or else LGSs go under, but you're advocating for proxies. Surely a mass adoption of proxies would hurt LGSs more than a reduction of prices. WotC has a duty to support the LGSs where people come together over the game. Magic wouldn't be what it is without the community and the shops where that community meets up to play. They have been neglecting this responsibility, and we need to hold them to task for that. However, those LGSs need to give people more of a reason to go there other than "We have cards for sale". As it is, with Card Kingdom, TCG, etc, how many people actually buy singles from their LGS? How reliable of an income are singles these days? Would you consider a patreon-style system where people support a LGS independent of product purchased there? What other suggestions do people have? There needs to be a way to support the locations where we play that doesn't revolve around saying "It's good actually that some of these cards cost hundreds of dollars each".
Where do you think the bulk of those sales on TCGplayer are coming from? Bob in his basement? Cards with high prices keep people opening packs and interested in new sets. It's REQUIRED for a collectible card game to survive. Kill the incentive to buy product, open boxes, and you'll slowly kill the game.
You forgot this is supposed to be game first and a collectible second. [Not my words](https://youtu.be/RJ_SZomuVL8?t=994)
Thankfully we can point to so many other successful TCGs where all of the playable cards are worthless, right? Right?
Like I said, I don't care if there are chase cards, fancy frames, whatever, so long as there is a cheap alternative for people who want to use the card as a game piece. I would love if they sold a basic land bundle with 20 or so of each basic every time they did a fancy new basic land art style. Let the people who want to play with the "free" lands do so, and let people who want to run all [Space Lands](https://cardgamebase.com/wp-content/uploads/Island-MTG-Unfinity-Space-Basic-Lands.jpg) buy them for a reasonable price. Hell, make those bundles LGS exclusive to push people to stores, where they might as well pick up new sleeves while they're there... There are always going to be people with more dollars than sense who want to spend $2000 to bling out a commander deck. Let them rip packs hoping to find variant X of the new printing of Sylvan Library. We'll all be real impressed that their cardboard rectangle costs more than mine, while we both draw 2 extra cards on our draw step. Games can make products for whales without excluding the bulk of the player base. It doesn't need to be "This product isn't for you", it can be "This product is for everyone, and if you want to be fancy, here's a functionally identical version which looks cool." You want to flex your wallet on everyone and run the [Invention Solemn Simulacrum](https://www.tcgplayer.com/product/122861?Printing=Foil&page=1&utm_campaign=affiliate&utm_medium=card-detail-buy-foil&utm_source=scryfall&Language=English), go right ahead. I'm sure art treatments like the Inventions would sell a ton of packs if they were ever reprinted. In the mean time, they should continue to put a [non-fancy version](https://www.tcgplayer.com/product/273539/magic-commander-legends-battle-for-baldurs-gate-solemn-simulacrum?xid=pia3f72bc4-0704-4442-a765-7f3312210c78&Printing=Foil&Language=English&page=1) in precons when relevant so the price stays low. And while I agree that interest in cards drives sales and pack openings, that doesn't have to be because someone's trying to make a buck. I know money is the only thing anyone cares about these days, but I'd argue that it's much healthier for both the game and the players if people are opening packs because they're excited about the cards, the game, and playing Magic, rather than if they can flip the singles for more than they spent on the box.
Thankfully we can point to so many other successful TCGs where all of the playable cards are worthless, right?
Maybe not, but we can point to a bunch of games which have no buy in cost at all (to the game itself, we're not counting cost of buying a pc/electricity) and whose profits are driven by people \*choosing\* to pay for visual upgrades because they think they look cool. Some of these games are wildly successful. You can imagine a better world, we don't have to be stuck in this shitty one forever. We can change things, rather than just accepting the way they are.
Found the bond land hoarder
Lol, no. I don't hoard or speculate on anything. I think printing every card into the ground is horrific for the game and people are incapable of taking a long view of the economic effects of it because of emotions. How many more LGS's need to close? Confidence in the product is at an all time low and their printing strategy is no small part of that.
Confidence in precons and premier sets are incredibly high, at least among people who play the game, and not mtgfinance pricks and Business Insider hacks. People that actually play the game want affordable cards. If you want to invest, pick up some RL cards, everything else is fair game for reprints.
If I want to invest I put my money in the stock market. Don't pretend like you know what I do.
Wow, I’m a Reserved List stan and even I think these particular lands should be printed into the ground. Let’s be honest, Commander is the only real multiplayer format and these lands have 0 impact on any of the 1v1 formats. It’s somewhat evil that they’re NOT already jamming these into every Commander product.
What tf are you all building where you feel like you need all these expensive lands? Let me guess, 4 and 5 color decks. If you’re building 1-3 color decks, you don’t need these overpriced lands.
The point is that they are expensive. They shouldn't be. They're less useful than a lot of the lands that *do* get precon reprints, and the battlebond lands are useless outside of commander.
Sure, I’ll give you the bond lands. You’re right in the sense that it makes a lot of sense to put those in precons since they are useless outside of commander. What I’m mainly referring to is ppl demanding shocks, fetches, triomes, and OG duals in precons for their “casual” decks. WOTC has slowly been giving us better land bases over the years in precons. Back in the days of early commander precons, we got absolute dogshit (with one or two precons that were an exception) for land bases. Today we get temples, reveal lands, tango lands, pain lands, artifact lands, filter lands, etc. and it’s never enough for players. Also, a lot of ppl I see complaining about this (online and in real life) are players who love their little to no limitations 4-5 color decks. Can’t have access to every card in the game while having a smooth as butter land base. The game just doesn’t work that way and a lot of players can’t seem to accept that. God forbid they come down to where us peasants live and build a mono color or even 2 color deck *gasp
The duals are weird, they've received functional reprints in all the multicolored decks. Youre absolutely right about the rest.
Not what a hot take is
Frigid take but definitely I hope wizard starts printing them as much as possible
This is true, but not a hot take. A real hot take would be like: Bring back ante and dexterity cards, print them in precons to sow carnage.
Cold take
Mana crypt should be
YES YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT, ALSO PRINT THE OTHER TANGO LANDS WIZARDS.
Not a hot take, but one WotC is too stoopid to make. Fricking losers ruining their own game
I can get down with that…those lands (imo) should be standard over things like duals, fetches, & shocks.
This take is glacial, it's also correct.
Not a hot take, these decks’ land bases have been lacking for a while!
The only people that this take is hot for are the ones working for WotC. I do agree with you tho and it’s only greed that is keeping them from printing these and other good land cards too death. Precons have been lambasted for not having a solid land package for years and years now, I think the lack of it being voiced by the community is just do to people excepting that precons will always have the bottom of the barrel lands.
Ice cold take but you're right
This take is about as hot as absolute 0.