Sorry if this isn’t allowed. If so mods please delete this post.
I’m curious to hear E4’s thoughts on MTG’s issue with reprints of original cards?
I understand there is fear of losing value but I feel like at this point those cards are 30 years old that nothing beats the originals.
Pokémon has done many reprints of base set but the original 1999 versions still hold up strong. Same can be said with iconic comics being reprinted. An original AF15 still holds as a grail in the comic world.
The original abu & 4 horsemen sets will always be valuable. Which is exactly why Hasbro is pimping out the original art, but with a different back. I think most people wouldn’t care if they were released in a normal way, but the hefty price tag feels like twisting the knife. It just comes off as a desperate money grab.
Reprints matter when they eat into the demand of the original.
A good example of this is the dual lands. If WotC reprinted the dual lands into the ground, the Revised ones would go from several hundred dollars each to several dollars each. No joke; it would be that significant of a drop in value. That’s because, despite having been printed almost 30 years ago, they are the budget option. But Alpha duals wouldn’t be impacted in the slightest by such a reprint because someone choosing to spend $5k or $10k on an Alpha dual is already choosing to do that despite the fact that they could buy a Revised copy for literally 1/20th of the price.
The same thing holds true for later cards. A great example are the shocklands. A Dissension foil Hallowed Fountain (released in 2006) was worth around $80 when it was reprinted in Return to Ravnica (2012). The Return to Ravnica foil at that point was around $30. Since then, they’ve reprinted the shocklands a gazillion different times.
But since 2012, the Dissension foil went from $80 to $500.
And since 2012, the Return to Ravnica foil went from $30 to $27.
This is because subsequent reprints forked the market for the Return to Ravnica version, but didn’t for the Dissension version. The principle applies to lots of cards. Another great example is Revised Sol Ring vs Alpha Sol Ring. Revised Sol Ring is the same price now as it was in 2010, but Alpha Sol Ring is literally 50x the price now than it was in 2010. Both are comparably old, but one of them was the budget option and one wasn’t.
I have a small mtg collection (only cheap cards with cool artworks, I’m a total noob), but I will share my thoughts.
An healthy tcg doesn’t need a reserved list, or shenanigans that artificially keep demand high and people investing money in the game happy: when customers trust you (they don’t), they feel confident buying your products knowing that you won’t brutally power creep everything/reprint cards in the next few years, Also the growing fan base will provide money to the hobby. This is not happening,
Gatekeeping 10+yrs old card is honestly ridiculous since the original meaningful ones will always retain value. Wotc approach only creates problems that are now really tedious to resolve:
—the barrier to entry is high, and new players/collectors will act accordingly, with a really flourishing chinese market of scary good proxies.
—there are a lot people hoarding cards like the revised duals, thinking that they bought treasury bond or sp500 quotes. This is a loud minority that will be severely hurt by a reprint.
Imho reprints when done correctly are awesome, just change the border or put some anniversary stamp on it. If a child wants the og charizard the celebration one is affordable, if he wants BluEyesWhiteDragon he can have it under 5$, but if he wants the black lotus why the only option is the bootleg market?
You have to remember the context behind the RL, though. They put it in place only after the release of Chronicles (high print-run reprint set) in 1995 made collectors panic. WotC regretted it pretty soon after (Maro has said this much numerous times) but they haven’t reneged it (mainly for credibility reasons, if I had to guess). IMO, it’s not really fair to blame current WotC for a decision made 28 years ago when they were still a super new company. There are plenty of legitimate things to blame current WotC for, though lol.
You’re right, I’m not super educated on mtg history but I get that the RL was necessary back in the days to regain trust from customers and local game shops. But saying that you’ll never reprint a card (a vital piece of your game) is a very bold statement that generates a really complex situation to resolve now.
Perhaps they could have opted for some kind of expiration date, like “we’ll never reprint this card for the next 10 years”.
Or maybe, when wotc overcame their ’super new’ company status, becoming an established brand, and seeing how raising in value were their first sets, they could have slowly removed cards from RL.
This is only food for thought, just speculation, I’m just a broke young person that tried to get into mtg, but felt really confused about the overabundance of modern products, continuous release like secret lair, and a lot of people telling me to just buy expensive cards from the chinese makers lol
One thing that I wanted to note is that many of the important cards on the RL were effectively reprinted, albeit at a lesser power level. For example, “Time Walk” was a bit overpowered at a 2 mana cost, so many versions of this card were reprinted with higher mana costs or with added constraints in later sets.
Absolutely, but I’m not totally convinced by this approach. I’m sure this is an unpopular opinion but I’m going on communist mode: I think that card with this artistic and historical value should be reprinted with their original text and artwork. Creating the poors’ time walk seems such a cruelty to me lol
MtG needs the cards for players to play. I often hear “Needed reprints” and as a game that has vibrant legacy and modern formats, reprints are needed outside of kitchen table play. LoTR set has reprinted a few cards that may make the price drop significantly, or at least, provide a “budget” option for players who need them.
Yes.
30th Anniversary packs
I do have to qualify, @handschoen, the 30th Anni. packs are not reprints. They cannot be used in standard play. No one will buy them to have for their kitchen table games. Few would buy them just to have them, at that price. They are actually proxies, and everyone knows how collectors and investors feel about proxies.
Or maybe, when wotc overcame their ’super new’ company status, becoming an established brand, and seeing how raising in value were their first sets, they could have slowly removed cards from RL.
They’ve removed plenty of cards off of the reserved list. Not in a while, but they’ve changed it many, many times over the years. And they stopped adding cards to it in 1999.
But what would be the point of mass-reprinting Time Walk? It’s literally banned everywhere except for Vintage (where it’s restricted to 1 per deck). And there are like 5 paper Vintage players in the whole world haha.
Even at 5 mana, it’s still a very reasonable card. Time Warp/Temporal Manipulation see plenty of EDH play. Which is a testament to just how ridiculously undercosted the original was.
I personally think redesigned versions of overpowered cards is a cool thing. For instance, Lotus Petal – a take on a card I’m sure everyone is familiar with:
Sure, it only adds 1/3rd as much mana as the original. But it’s a much better design and still a fantastic card, believe it or not (to illustrate this: it’s $25 despite literally being a common from a pretty high print-run set). It’s a staple in competitive EDH. Again, a testament to just how poorly designed Black Lotus was.
Maybe I wasn’t super clear, what I mean is ‘slowly removing them until the number of cards in RL is zero’. I know the list has been modified in the years, but a lot of cards are still there. But again, this is the perspective of a naive young collector not heavily invested in the tcg, and just for the sake of argument.
Things were complicated back in the days, and we don’t know what the effects could have been,
I get, mtg is primarily a played tcg, but the collectibility of the card remains. Is really this absurd wanting to complete a set, appreciate a famous iconic artwork, or collect a card that you always dreamed of without paying thousands?
Lotus petal is cool, but won’t stop people desire to have both it and black lotus, they’re just different cards for a collector,
For example, If you own CD promo Charizard, will you be satisfied knowing that is functionally identical to the base set one? Or you want both?
Happy to hear that. I think here I’m a bit in the minority though, but there is nothing wrong, I’m happy to hear different opinions from people way more knowledgeable than me.
I get, mtg is primarily a played tcg, but the collectibility of the card remains. Is really this absurd wanting to complete a set, appreciate a famous iconic artwork, or collect a card that you always dreamed of without paying thousands?
You can buy a Collector’s Edition Time Walk for like $500 – I have to imagine that’s a reasonable alternative? Same art, same card frame, and released only a few months after Beta.
Happy to hear that. I think here I’m a bit in the minority though, but there is nothing wrong, I’m happy to hear different opinions from people way more knowledgeable than me.
To be clear: I’m not a fan of the RL either. My issue with it is that it limits the ability of people to afford some of the best formats in the game (namely Legacy). It doesn’t have any real impact on collecting, though. There’s a reason why many unplayable RL cards can be literally purchased for like 10 cents. Expensive RL cards are expensive because of players + speculators, not collectors. Very few people collect cards just because they’re on the RL.
I’ve been in the MTG world for over 20 years at this point. Joined with 7th edition in 2001 and have seen it change throughout the years.
As @zorloth alluded to, MTG is a player-focused TCG. Almost nobody collects modern MTG cards, with the exception of unique variants (e.g., serialized cards, promos).
Most of the money in MTG is in collecting Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, and other old school sets (e.g., Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, The Dark) that have RL cards. The majority of those (wealthy) collectors are older at this point because they were teens/young adults in the 1990s or they were adults with children who were interested in MTG.
The reason why I bring this up is because the collectibility of MTG is really not there in the same way that it is for Pokemon. Sure, there are some unique Silver Age sets where the “shooting star foil” fetches a massive premium, or some mid 2010s sets with unique cards (e.g., masterpiece series), and these will draw in niche collectors, but most people who “collect” MTG tend to stick with those original printings and are heavily invested ($$$).
This atmosphere creates a massive divide between the (often) younger players and older collectors, as their priorities, amount of money invested, and perspective on the game are completely different.
TL;DR: This was a long rant to say that MTG will always be a player-focused game, and that the collectibility of MTG is exclusive to high-end vintage cards and niche releases.
I agree with all of this, but I’d also add that probably the most widespread form of MTG collecting is in the form of “pimping out” decks. It’s the reason why the original printings of foils almost always sell for more than reprints. It’s not because the original versions are aesthetically superior, but is instead because people prefer to use the original version because it’s the original – which is basically kind of a collector mindset, IMO. Not everyone considers this to be a form of collecting, but I’d argue that it is.
Traditional collecting (i.e., building sets) is not nearly as widespread in MTG as it is in Pokemon, but less conventional forms of collecting (like the example I gave here) are still quite popular.
Flashy decks are synonymous with play. People are willing to put in hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars to add that flashy touch to their commander decks. Some of my favorite foils from childhood and adolescence are rough because we used them so often in Standard and Legacy decks. RIP
