Introduction

Magic cards supply keeps decreasing as more accounts are no longer used (in real life, cards may also be lost, and destroyed, accidentally or by using them too much).

When that happens with very useful and rare cards, like the Power Nine in physical Magic, it may reach a point where simply there aren't enough copies, and in the long run the attendance to tournaments continually decreases. That makes tournaments less profitable, so less and smaller tournaments are organized. Also, as the format is less played, there's less interest for it. In the end, the format is no longer played. That's what has happened in real life with Vintage and what will happen with Legacy. To solve that problem, supply needs to be increased. That's good for two reasons: it makes cards available for more people, and they become cheaper, which makes them attractive for more people. Both things mean that the player base can keep growing.

But reprinting cards is very problematic, because it may devalue original cards. And that's very dangerous, because if people see that cards are often reprinted, they are less encouraged to use their money to get them. It's something similar to deflaction, some people prefer not to buy something now because they think that it'll be cheaper in the future. For example, I'd like to have 4 Force of Will to play Legacy online, but I'm worried about a massive reprint of that card, so I simply don't buy them and don't play Legacy.

Magic is an expensive hobby, if lots of people are willing to pay $4 for a booster, $100 for a Revised Underground Sea or for an online Force of Will, it's not only to play with them, but because they know that there's a secondary market where they will be able to get back a big part of their expenditure (or investment). Players also need to trust in Wizards, that has to promise not to reprint those cards in big enough amounts to devalue originals too much. That's why the Reserved List exists. But the Reserved List isn't a good solution, as a diminishing supply in the long run causes the death of Eternal formats, which also affects negatively to the price of those cards that can't be reprinted.

So, we need reprints, but at the same time we need to make players feel safe about their Magic cards purchases. How can we achieve both things (and some more)? Giving dividends to those players willing to expend money in Magic.

Magic Online Booster Dividends

Power Nine will come next year. That will make Vintage card prices increase. The most played card in Vintage is Force of Will, which is already a 100 tickets card. How high will the price get? Are there even enough playsets online to sustain a big enough player base to run regularly big Vintage events? It seems obvious that this card and some others will need to be reprinted. It could be done as Wizards has done in the past, just releasing it in a new sealed product, promo version or doing a promotion like the recent Masters Edition Flashback. But, how could the supply be increased enough to make Force of Will a 50 tickets card while not hurting those that already had Masters Edition copies and making people feel safe about buying expensive online cards?

For every Masters Edition I full set that you have, your account receives 30 new Masters Edition I boosters. For every Foil Masters Edition I full set, you receive 90 new boosters. At the same time, Magic Online runs again booster drafts and sealed deck tournaments where you need boosters to join (you can't just pay 14 tickets to join a draft, you need 3 boosters plus 2 tickets).

Many of those boosters would be opened at limited events. That means that some new boosters would be created (prizes), that would be used again to join more limited events, to create even more new boosters. In a 8-4 or swiss draft, 12 boosters are given as prizes, while 24 are opened during the draft. That means that every draft creates 50% more new boosters. Repeating this infinitely, it means that an equivalent amount of boosters are given in prizes as are used in the first draft. For example, 2048 boosters are given to different accounts and 4096 are opened in the end: 2048+1024+512+256+128+64+32+...=2048*2=4096

Some boosters would be just opened outside of a limited event, or used to join a 4-3-2-2 event, which creates less boosters (as 11 are given in prizes instead of 12), so the total supply of new boosters would be a bit less than double the amount of boosters given as dividends.

30 and 90 boosters are just random numbers, Wizards could choose the number that finds more proper to increase the supply as much as they think it's needed.

Obviously the same could be done with any other set where cards are getting too expensive.

What does Wizards achieve with this?

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  They reprint cards, which is something needed to keep Eternal formats alive, while not hurting people that already have those scarce cards, by giving the newly created copies directly to them.

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  They make people feel much more safe about buying Magic cards, as they know that new copies won't be created and given or sold to anyone, and they also know that Wizards will take care of the game, encouraging people to keep playing, by reprinting scarce cards to make them more abundant and affordable. This would actually benefit those that already have cards, as they would become more intrinsecally valuable (they can't just be played, but also give you dividends).

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  Bulk cards become more valuable, as they are need to have full sets to be able to get dividends. That makes boosters in general also more valuable and increases the demand for limited tournaments.

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  They encourage people to collect online, which is something more rare online than in real life.

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  Those that like to have 4 of everything so they can play anything, would still be able to play anything, and would also have some new extra boosters to sell or draft with them.

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  Wizards benefits by making everyone happy, keeping prices low while encouraging people to buy cards (and therefore boosters and tickets from their store).

How often should Wizards give dividends?

They could either announce to make it regularly, like giving X boosters per full set every Christmas and offering limited events during that time; or just do it whenever they find it more advisable. I think that they should give dividends of each cycle in different times of the year, so people aren't overwhelmed with too many boosters and don't have time to play limited with them.

What happens if some people just hoard sets?

Many of the sets would be held by players not willing to sell them at any price, and willing to open their dividends and sell their extra cards to more players. Hoarding sets is stupid because it isn't profitable for those that do it. The demand for Magic cards is quite elastic. If prices are absurdly high, and no Vintage tournaments run, people will simply play another format and hoarders will have lots of useless cards. People with big amounts of money invested in Eternal cards benefit from people actually playing Eternal, not by cornering the market and making the format unplayable. That's why even big stores like Star City Games have publicly asked for the abolition of the Reserved List.

What store owners would actually do is sell those booster dividends (automatically profiting from that), so players can join limited events with them, increasing the supply of cards and making them more affordable, and therefore keeping Eternal formats alive, which is great for the long run success of their businesses and to keep their card stocks valuable.