I don't think it is OK. I think it is a terrible let down and cop out and a further signal that the players don't matter. Erik aside, as much as he matters to us personally, we're a small group of players. The community cup brought us ALL together (a much larger group) and gave us something fun to look forward to and at some points to be involved with and taking it away because it isn't efficient marketing is a bad tasting, toxic pill.
I believe the Community Cup is no longer a thing, and that is ok, and it's not.
I'd like to see WotC say that they are better off spending their marketing/event budget on stuff like the preprereleases, the streamer showdowns, because I honestly feel that they get more exposure from those events than they do from the community cup, plus they have to be much more cost effective and better at capturing the attention of the target audience than the cup is/was. I think that moving away from it is the best idea. It stopped being about MTGO and became a streamer fest anyways, and there are just better ways to do it.
It's not ok because hammy was a friend, and it honored him. He was such an incredible person and while I panic attacked my way out of my own participation just being a part of it was an honor.
Same. I bought in at double-triple the prices they are now. It hurts my brain to think how much loss my account has taken due to the MTGO economy collapse.
I don't think it's a punt by WotC. WotC's prime goal is to make Standard the "go-to" format. Keeps the shareholders happy after each annual report. Makes the executive team look good that they bring in all this extra $ each year, more bonuses for them etc. Making Vintage unappealing is a step towards achieving their goal.
In short, they care about the shareholders not losing money, not you losing money. Shareholders open champaigne bottles whilst the end-users see their Vintage collection value sink like stones. And who can blame them, they are a business.
I have a question regarding the annual Eric Friborg Hamtastic Vintage Community Cup event. Did WotC not sponsor it last year because we did not approach them, or because they refused? Anyone have any information on this? Did Blippy or someone else approach them last year? How about this year?
Have you both actually checked the price of your collection pre-Treasure Chests and now? I haven't really done it wholly because I didn't include commons and uncommons and I regret not doing it at the time...but I never expected that I would need the data for comparison later, I just wanted a rough idea of what was on my account and what I could sell (I know there are expensive cards like Wasteland, Force of Will, Daze and even cards like Slippery Bogle, Nettle Sentinel, Moxmonkey etc).
While the price of many cards indeed did crash (power nine, liliana of the veil, rishadan port, blood moon, wasteland etc) the whole collection (rares/mythics) doesn't cost that much less than I would have thought.
The day before the announcement which was when the prices already starting to go down it showed 4977USD (note that these same cards cost about 3.8k USD the first time I bothered to check this part of collection price), the day after it showed 3921USD and was on a decline for quite a while. It even reached 3k USD which felt pretty bad for me and I was starting to regret that I didn't sell my collection for 5k. When I checked again though the total prize of some of the rares and mythics that I checked the price of earlier was 4861USD. How about your collections? Maybe you'd find that your collection didn't drop that much in value actually. Or I'm just lucky to own cards that spiked? I don't think so.
Power Nine is getting cheaper and cheaper and while I don't really like that much it means that there might be more Vintage players in the future. Vintage is becoming less and less expensive to enter. From decks costing about 700-900tix we have decks in 500-700 range. The issue with the format is that we don't have Leagues yet and Power Nine Challenges were a joke prize-wise which meant people weren't too much enthusiastic about them. I won a second power that I sold immediately and that did not even cover my entry! (ignore the PP) while Legacy challenge at least provided players with a set of Duals and whatnot...In many cases I went 4-2 and didn't really win anything. :-/ and I could have been anywhere between top8 and 17-20th. But it's getting better I see 'new' players. Mostly it is grinders but well we also need those. Any player that joins Vintage events is a good one.
2-mans are bad ... since they changed it to 30/5 prize and not so many people play them. But we are all very enthusiast about EDH Leagues. Still it would be cool if we could play Vintage when we want. I entered 3 DEs this weekend 1 fired. EDH League with 150 people in it worked, then why Vintage couldn't work as well?
Your collection value is dropping due to a whole host of factors though, it's not just one thing that wotc did in regards to treasure chests. Since chests were introduced, players have left the client, there is a lot of unease about what Magic Digital Next means, not only for the game but MTGO as well. Everyone's collection is dropping.
The power nine tanking is not just due to treasure chests. Power Nine challenges, a saturation of the cards and a player base that does not have the chance to play leagues (having to do Daily events still is not great for the vintage community I think, and the 1v1 leagues may be a test to support vintage in league form, but then the prize issue has to be dealt with there as well, because Vintage players will want top prizes for their investment), and a general malaise about the format has hurt the format online.
WotC punted the power nine. They punted Vintage.
According to Wikipedia though, the first c could mean collectible, or customizable, but according to WotC the first T means trading. Even wotcs old patents refer to it as a trading card game.
I really hope I'm not coming off as a jerk here, and I am empathetic towards collections losing value, because I've watched mine sink like a stone as well. It sucks and I am sorry.
Your doubts are unfounded. I collect. I have a huge collection of cards.
I like to brew all formats, including the weird ones and need access to more cards than your "standard" player.
I bought these P9 cards at top price and expected the "special rarity" value of these was something that wotc would preserve. That was their blurb at the time.
Since treasure chests were introduced I have watched the dollar value of my collection crash.
Wotc are partly funding their prize payouts by sacrificing the value of my collection. And I am not happy about it :(
It's not fraud, it's legal. It is also behaviour unlikely to encourage people to collect cards. What does the first C in CCG stand for again ?
My only gripe was the quality of the card material (very very poor compared to other old sets.) Oh and White Borders for Pete's sake!?? Yuckity Yuck yuck. But at least now White borders are hot and so :)
Not to be baited, but it is, IMO, not fraud in any sense of the word.
WoTC's Reprint policy means that any card MAY be reprinted (barring, of course, the reserved list in paper). The frequency change is just an extension of that.
At least they are wiser in the fact they are not doing another Chronicles (which, BTW, as a new player at the time, I loved).
And I doubt that anyone collects these days, it is more in line with "get ~ because I want to use it"; so those that acquired P9 at release prices likely got their "investment" back at the time. Similar in vein to buying standard "Hot Cards" during their time in standard.
Of course, you still aren't likely to open a piece of power--the size of the pool is 7854 cards, so a little over 1 per 150 curated slots/600 chests--even I didn't open that many :)
I suspect AJ actually meant 3 because that's where Puremtgo.com's record starts. If there is a link elsewhere it is beyond the scope of Google's limited framework.
Along that vein, it would be an interesting bit "this week in history"; looking back (and even including parts of old podcasts) on hot button topics and where that issue is now.
Everyone would: No-one can. Sadly Episode 1 was lost to teething troubles, making episode 2 the first episode. This is secondhand information, Sebastian Park could give you the full story.
Good old Stalking Tiger Avatar. It brings back memories of those days when the avatars on Magic Online used to be sitting at wooden tables, and that "pub atmosphere" was present in the lobby to join a match. You would see an Ernham Djinn and a Birds of Paradise sitting at tables waiting for someone to join. Those days were fun.
Does anyone have the link to Freed from the Real, Episode No.1? I'm curious, definitely would like to listen to the first one ever.
Recently the P9 got 6x as likely to show up in chests (frequency 1 to 6), so that's probably part of it. I wonder if the visibility of Vintage has something to do with it as well (VSL and/or Eternal Champs).
I don't think it is OK. I think it is a terrible let down and cop out and a further signal that the players don't matter. Erik aside, as much as he matters to us personally, we're a small group of players. The community cup brought us ALL together (a much larger group) and gave us something fun to look forward to and at some points to be involved with and taking it away because it isn't efficient marketing is a bad tasting, toxic pill.
I believe the Community Cup is no longer a thing, and that is ok, and it's not.
I'd like to see WotC say that they are better off spending their marketing/event budget on stuff like the preprereleases, the streamer showdowns, because I honestly feel that they get more exposure from those events than they do from the community cup, plus they have to be much more cost effective and better at capturing the attention of the target audience than the cup is/was. I think that moving away from it is the best idea. It stopped being about MTGO and became a streamer fest anyways, and there are just better ways to do it.
It's not ok because hammy was a friend, and it honored him. He was such an incredible person and while I panic attacked my way out of my own participation just being a part of it was an honor.
Same. I bought in at double-triple the prices they are now. It hurts my brain to think how much loss my account has taken due to the MTGO economy collapse.
I've poked them on Twitter, no response yet.
I don't think it's a punt by WotC. WotC's prime goal is to make Standard the "go-to" format. Keeps the shareholders happy after each annual report. Makes the executive team look good that they bring in all this extra $ each year, more bonuses for them etc. Making Vintage unappealing is a step towards achieving their goal.
In short, they care about the shareholders not losing money, not you losing money. Shareholders open champaigne bottles whilst the end-users see their Vintage collection value sink like stones. And who can blame them, they are a business.
I have a question regarding the annual Eric Friborg Hamtastic Vintage Community Cup event. Did WotC not sponsor it last year because we did not approach them, or because they refused? Anyone have any information on this? Did Blippy or someone else approach them last year? How about this year?
Have you both actually checked the price of your collection pre-Treasure Chests and now? I haven't really done it wholly because I didn't include commons and uncommons and I regret not doing it at the time...but I never expected that I would need the data for comparison later, I just wanted a rough idea of what was on my account and what I could sell (I know there are expensive cards like Wasteland, Force of Will, Daze and even cards like Slippery Bogle, Nettle Sentinel, Moxmonkey etc).
While the price of many cards indeed did crash (power nine, liliana of the veil, rishadan port, blood moon, wasteland etc) the whole collection (rares/mythics) doesn't cost that much less than I would have thought.
The day before the announcement which was when the prices already starting to go down it showed 4977USD (note that these same cards cost about 3.8k USD the first time I bothered to check this part of collection price), the day after it showed 3921USD and was on a decline for quite a while. It even reached 3k USD which felt pretty bad for me and I was starting to regret that I didn't sell my collection for 5k. When I checked again though the total prize of some of the rares and mythics that I checked the price of earlier was 4861USD. How about your collections? Maybe you'd find that your collection didn't drop that much in value actually. Or I'm just lucky to own cards that spiked? I don't think so.
Power Nine is getting cheaper and cheaper and while I don't really like that much it means that there might be more Vintage players in the future. Vintage is becoming less and less expensive to enter. From decks costing about 700-900tix we have decks in 500-700 range. The issue with the format is that we don't have Leagues yet and Power Nine Challenges were a joke prize-wise which meant people weren't too much enthusiastic about them. I won a second power that I sold immediately and that did not even cover my entry! (ignore the PP) while Legacy challenge at least provided players with a set of Duals and whatnot...In many cases I went 4-2 and didn't really win anything. :-/ and I could have been anywhere between top8 and 17-20th. But it's getting better I see 'new' players. Mostly it is grinders but well we also need those. Any player that joins Vintage events is a good one.
2-mans are bad ... since they changed it to 30/5 prize and not so many people play them. But we are all very enthusiast about EDH Leagues. Still it would be cool if we could play Vintage when we want. I entered 3 DEs this weekend 1 fired. EDH League with 150 people in it worked, then why Vintage couldn't work as well?
just my two cents...
take it easy.
I've opened a Sapphire and a Timetwister, but I also have an incredible amount of ten play points two garbage commons from standard chests as well :/
Your collection value is dropping due to a whole host of factors though, it's not just one thing that wotc did in regards to treasure chests. Since chests were introduced, players have left the client, there is a lot of unease about what Magic Digital Next means, not only for the game but MTGO as well. Everyone's collection is dropping.
The power nine tanking is not just due to treasure chests. Power Nine challenges, a saturation of the cards and a player base that does not have the chance to play leagues (having to do Daily events still is not great for the vintage community I think, and the 1v1 leagues may be a test to support vintage in league form, but then the prize issue has to be dealt with there as well, because Vintage players will want top prizes for their investment), and a general malaise about the format has hurt the format online.
WotC punted the power nine. They punted Vintage.
According to Wikipedia though, the first c could mean collectible, or customizable, but according to WotC the first T means trading. Even wotcs old patents refer to it as a trading card game.
I really hope I'm not coming off as a jerk here, and I am empathetic towards collections losing value, because I've watched mine sink like a stone as well. It sucks and I am sorry.
"And I doubt that anyone collects these days"
Your doubts are unfounded. I collect. I have a huge collection of cards.
I like to brew all formats, including the weird ones and need access to more cards than your "standard" player.
I bought these P9 cards at top price and expected the "special rarity" value of these was something that wotc would preserve. That was their blurb at the time.
Since treasure chests were introduced I have watched the dollar value of my collection crash.
Wotc are partly funding their prize payouts by sacrificing the value of my collection. And I am not happy about it :(
It's not fraud, it's legal. It is also behaviour unlikely to encourage people to collect cards. What does the first C in CCG stand for again ?
My only gripe was the quality of the card material (very very poor compared to other old sets.) Oh and White Borders for Pete's sake!?? Yuckity Yuck yuck. But at least now White borders are hot and so :)
Chronicles was great! I loved that set so much.
Not to be baited, but it is, IMO, not fraud in any sense of the word.
WoTC's Reprint policy means that any card MAY be reprinted (barring, of course, the reserved list in paper). The frequency change is just an extension of that.
At least they are wiser in the fact they are not doing another Chronicles (which, BTW, as a new player at the time, I loved).
And I doubt that anyone collects these days, it is more in line with "get ~ because I want to use it"; so those that acquired P9 at release prices likely got their "investment" back at the time. Similar in vein to buying standard "Hot Cards" during their time in standard.
Of course, you still aren't likely to open a piece of power--the size of the pool is 7854 cards, so a little over 1 per 150 curated slots/600 chests--even I didn't open that many :)
Interesting idea! We'll consider it, especially when there's less current news to talk about.
Thanks Josh.
Sweet! :D Thanks Josh!
http://puremtgo.com/articles/puremtgo-podcast-2-give-us-better-name
That is Episode 2. It was before it became Freed from the Real :D
P9 rising frequency from 1 to 6 is another way that wotc is doing fraud to those who collected P9 earlier under different circumstances.
I suspect AJ actually meant 3 because that's where Puremtgo.com's record starts. If there is a link elsewhere it is beyond the scope of Google's limited framework.
Along that vein, it would be an interesting bit "this week in history"; looking back (and even including parts of old podcasts) on hot button topics and where that issue is now.
Even with the increase in frequency, I have yet to crack a P9 from a chest :(
But with the prices falling, I can soon afford them outright. :)
Kindly noted.
In this case, I will be happy with Episode 2. Anyone happen to know the link to Episode 2?
Everyone would: No-one can. Sadly Episode 1 was lost to teething troubles, making episode 2 the first episode. This is secondhand information, Sebastian Park could give you the full story.
Good old Stalking Tiger Avatar. It brings back memories of those days when the avatars on Magic Online used to be sitting at wooden tables, and that "pub atmosphere" was present in the lobby to join a match. You would see an Ernham Djinn and a Birds of Paradise sitting at tables waiting for someone to join. Those days were fun.
Does anyone have the link to Freed from the Real, Episode No.1? I'm curious, definitely would like to listen to the first one ever.
Recently the P9 got 6x as likely to show up in chests (frequency 1 to 6), so that's probably part of it. I wonder if the visibility of Vintage has something to do with it as well (VSL and/or Eternal Champs).