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I've been on Magic Online since Time Spiral block and happily spent thousands of dollars in that time. I've relished the opportunity to draft old forgotten formats like Mirage and Urza's, innovate in unique formats like Classic, Vanguard and 100 card singleton, and of course draft and do sealed events for current format sets.

In the last couple years, however, change after change has been made that has steadily worsened the quality and diversity of my magic online experience. Changes to tournament structure and frequency ended the competitive viability of every format but standard, pauper and modern. Cube was introduced as a fun if negative EV experience, then had its prize support modified so that it is basically throwing money away. Repeated rollbacks to the EV of sealed events and the conversion across the board to large ticket pay-ins and pack payouts have made close to every event available on magic online very negative EV, either directly or through increasingly worthless packs. Now with the changes to redemption cost, collecting redemption sets is no longer financially viable for me either, given international shipping costs.

I'm a good enough player that when the opportunity exists, I'm usually infinite. I happily put in thousands of dollars not because I couldn't play as much competitive magic as I wanted while staying infinite, but because I loved the game and the baseline experience enough that I was willing and interested in putting in more to get more back. I spent money for constructed decks, or to get particular cards quickly, while enjoying the baseline level of draft and sealed play that I was able to maintain with my own play skills. Is the ongoing EV tightening going to result in more money for WotC in the long run? Hard to say, but I doubt it. I do know I was good for tens of thousands of dollars of lifetime Magic Online purchasing in the future if I was allowed to continue meeting day to day baseline success, and I'm good now for exactly zero.

Beyond my individual experience, what I find strange is that WotC appears to be acting as if they have an inelastic good in a market that supports rising prices, when there is every reason to believe the opposite is the case. Five years ago, the $60 10 hour console game was the flagship digital gaming experience, and Magic Online at the time looked pretty competitive with it. Today, $60 games are themselves an increasingly embattled market. Every recent major console launch has been a tepid failure in large measure because of the enormous growth in free to play and $1-$5 iOS/Android gaming competition. Is Magic somehow shielded from the rapid price drops occurring in the rest of gaming? Perhaps in paper, but online, I doubt it very much.

TL:DR - There is no reason why anyone should put up with higher and higher Magic Online (virtual) pricing when many analogous goods are falling sharply in relative pricing, and increasingly, I suspect we won't.

The sad thing is that Wotc doesn't care about you. If you stop paying and in the mean time two new players appear - they are happy with that.

Wotc is listening and considering our feedback on gameplay and experiance but when we talk about the buisiness side they will not budge for an inch! With the recent changes (I am talking about every single change beside the 5% discount on prereleases and maybe disabling watching tournaments in the last year) have been set purely to make Wotc/Hasbro more money at the expense of the community. We recived nothing in return. The beta which might justify their actions but it's not thier savior. Personaly I believe they will loose some of their playerbase once the beta is released (which will be higher than the number of new players coming in).

I also agree with OP and I already said in another thread I want to play Magic but I can't justify entering any events in the current market (this was before GTC release events started). But it feels even GTC boosters and singles are lower value than RTR was during the first week, so even release events aren't as attractive. Add to that fact I truly hate GTC limited (maybe my losing streak has something to do with that) and we're back to not playing. Very frustrating indeed.

One thing Wizards has done right the last couple of months and that's the change in phantom sealed. The outburst after the initial change made them revise the queues for the better and these are now pretty decent... given $4 boosters. However they need do something about pack prices, $3 boosters are collapsing the whole system imo. 

It does seem like there is a huge push to pay for an experience instead of paying to win cards/boosters.  I think this goes against the whole appeal to TCG's in general.  A game is more fun for me if there is a prize/money/etc on the line.  While casual magic is for sure fun it's hard to argue that people do not play differently with something on the line.  I get a rush even when I win a silly draft which may not be a big deal for most people but for me it's not that I'm super excited about having won a few boosters, I'm just pumped that I won a game where something was on the line and everyone was shooting for that spot.

I have a really bad feeling with the new redemption increase and phantom drafts, we are going to see a much bigger push for us to pay for the experience of playing magic.  Magic is a very expensive hobby and WoTC needs to realize that most players want to see a return on their money or at least have a chance to get a ROI(positive EV as we call it). 

Expecting us to pay money for phantom drafts and other experiences that are short lived with little chance to win something stinks.  While I personally did play in the cube drafts and had a blast I was not a fan of the cube tickets.