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Apr 12, 2012 -- 8:29PM, signofzeta wrote:

my FLGS has fat packs from Scars of Mirrodin as low as $35.  Trust me, I know some FLGS who has owners who jack up the price just because that product is out of print.

Well the SoM ones MSRP for around $35 if IIRC, because they only had 8 boosters. I think MBS is the first one to have had 9.

Apr 14, 2012 -- 7:59AM, phaseshifter wrote:

Old fat packs contents were.

-Novel
-Two boxes
-Spindown life counter (die)
-Player guide with TONS of information, as opposed to an intro and card list.
-Plastic dividers
-Land pack.

When they removed most of that, they kept the price the same.

The only thing you get out of current fat packs that you couldn't get elswhere now is the player guide. Which if you have a smartphone you don't really care about. 

The only reason I can see for anyone to buy one is if they REALLY like that small box for some reason. 

I think Box #2 would be more worth it than Booster #7, 8, and 9.

Have you bought the old school fat packs that were incased in shrinkwrap, and when you look at it to the side, it sort of looks like a triangle?  Yeah, I have the one from Fifth Dawn, and one of each from Kamigawa block.  The old school fat packs actually comes with a foil land, and a foil common.  When they did the 9th edition fat pack, I bought it, and it was well worth the price hike.  The one from MBS isn't worth it, although I was dumb enough to continuously buy them.  I think that there should be a limit to how much fat packs should increase in price by.  I think when they increased it from $35 to $40, it went beyond what the acceptable price range is.  I'd rather have it stay at 8 boosters, or even have the fat packs designed in the 9th edition to Morningtide way, because that was a reason to buy fat pack.

I hear arguments like, yeah, you get a higher chance to pull whatever card you want, but it still doesn't change the fact that you could buy 9 boosters, or get the single, or the fact that you paid $40 just to pull that one single card.

The same thing goes for Intro packs.  They are including a second booster in the M13 intro packs, and I think that will be standard, and they are increasing the price to $14.99, from $12.99.  I think that is sort of stupid, and the whole "more content for higher price" idea is stupid.  You can make a $100 fat pack with 36 boosters inside, and not a lot of people will buy it.  For the intro pack price increase, I hear stuff like, the booster is $4, and you get 2, so you subtract $8 from the $15, and you have a deck that costs $7, well roughly.  You can't just go and pay a fiver and a two to the store clerk and say, I want to buy an intro pack, but just the deck portion only.  It is all or nothing, and I hate the idea of paying all or nothing, not to mention that after the price increase, Magic will have the most expensive starter product of all TCGs that still currently exist.

Cryptozoic prices their WoW starter decks at $10.99
Pokemon Company prices their Pokemon theme deck at $11.99, and their 2 player starter kit at $12.99
Konami prices their starter deck at $9.99

The idea of intro packs should be to jump in and play.  That is what it should be.  The one booster is already enough to show newbies how to customize decks, and that they don't need 2.  An intro pack isn't a miniature deck builder's toolkit.  The Deck building product should be the deck builder's toolkit, not the intro pack.

I think the product lineup should be different.

Fat packs should contain 6 boosters and not 9, and should cost $25 to $30.

Intro packs should stay the way that they were from M11 to AVR, that is a deck and a booster.  They are meant to for players to explore themes in the particular set only, and are for people who just want to jump in for cheap, and are for people who already knows the basic rules, but are not FNM competitive.  They are for newbies, but for newbies who just want to play right away, and have no motivation to build a deck.

The Event deck is like an intro pack, but FNM competitive.  Not for newbies.

The booster pack and box should stay the same as it is.

A new product, well not new, is called the draft pack.  Well we did have a tournament pack, but the idea of a draft pack is basically 3 boosters, and each booster being individually wrapped, unlike tournament packs which is 45 cards and 30 lands, Draft pack is 3 15 card boosters and 30 lands.  The way they are packaged is similar to the way intro packs are packaged.  If you look at how an intro pack is packaged, there is a plastic tray, with 2 indentations, one for the deck itself, and one for the booster.  Make the deck indentation shallower, for the 30 lands, and the booster indentation deeper for the 3 boosters.  That is how this new product should be like.  This product will cost as much or close to an intro pack, and will accompany every set, and of course the boosters inside are however drafting is for that set.  A DKA draft has one DKA and 2 ISDs?  So the DKA draft pack will contain 1 DKA and 2 ISDs.

The starter box, formerly known as deck builder's toolkit, is to accompany every core set, so it is an annual product, but branded with blah blah core set 20xx.  Now the difference is, there are 5 20 card decks that are actual decks, and not a mish mash of cards.  The idea here is to combine the 2 decks to make a 2 color deck, and use the step by step guide to play.  Then after that is done, they can start building decks without having to buy a separate product.  Either modify the existing deck or build one from scratch, and using the "types of decks" guide that deck builder's toolkits have.