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Sep 2, 2011 -- 5:29PM, Razorgore wrote:

Sep 2, 2011 -- 3:47PM, Ukot wrote:

Man, why are people so afraid to have their cards lose value?  I've been playing Magic since Ice Age and I could care less if WotC decided to print every card in Magic and give them all away for free for their 20th anniversary.  I buy the cards to play the game and not try to be a poor-mans stock trader.  I don't care if the cards I own are worth $0.10 or $1,000.00.  Is something only collectable if it's worth a downpayment on a car?

This is just ignorance. Hobby industries sustain themselves by attaching an investment value to their product. It's the same princible as re-selling used video games or classic art pieces becoming so valuable. It's human nature to retain sentimental value over the objects that represent a time investment, and that translates into monetary value to one degree or another. Believe me, if MtG cards were worthless, you would have a very hard time trying to play magic with anyone.

There is definitely a downside though. Because people know there is a monetary value to these pieces of cardboard, a portion of magic players tend to get irrational regarding objective gameplay, i.e. "I only play mono-black decks" syndrome. It's hardly relegated to mono-black players, but it's the most visible block of magic players that illustrate the issue. This type of thinking leads to those cesspool threads in most of the deck help forums that start out with some kid's collection of bad cards, and deteriorate into the OP starting a flame war over how awesome his original deck is, and how worthless the critiques are.

That was one hell of a digression. Anyways, reprints are necessary for the health of the game, but so is having an "investment factor" on the chase cards. Not just for psychiological reasons, either. I know plenty of magic players that do a lot less playing and a lot more trading, simply because they enjoy the act of commerce.

Investment value?  You mean like paying a fixed amount for a box of random cards and randomly trying to profit from them 1000% through speculation?

At some point WotC will reprint cards that they saying they won't (original duals).  QQ for those that invested 5 grand into them but their investment will not sustain a format with extremely limited resources and ever expending player base.  It's no different than the price of Jace 2.0 being driven to double digets and then him getting completely pulled from all but 1 format.  

If WotC wants Modern (and Legacy by extent) to suceed then they need to do some serious reprints.  $1000+ for a viable deck in either format is not a good way to sustain the playerbase.  I'm sorry if some people have built a business on speculation but it's their own doing.  Game shops can run just fine on MSRP business without needing to hope for a wave of Jaces to keep them sustained.

This is simply a clashing value of a competitive, accessible game and a collectable game, both of which Magic is, but sometime soon, WotC simply has to make a choice regarding which one is more important, and seeing as their hands were tied by lawsuit (or threats there-of) last time, it certainly seems like they are going to swing for accessibility. The problem Magic is running into is that it has become TOO popular to sustain absolute faith in the Beckett-style market. In America people who played YuGiOh in high school, are picking up Magic instead, many eastern CCGs are going under, many fad TCG/CCGs are following suit and Magic is preserved in such a way that it has ignred the decline of table-top gaming (arguably on the back of Dungeons and Dragons.) This is simply because Magic has always been cheaper and more accessible (as well as much better designed and developed) than other games, just like DnD, and if it comes down to the paying customers versus the collector's market, WotC is going to take the same side it always does (when given a choice)