Is Paper Magic Becoming Too Expensive?

User avatar
Card Slinger J
Nope Not Today
Posts: 384
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Card Slinger J » 4 years ago

I feel as though the reason why Magic is so expensive is because there's too many formats that drive the Secondary Market value of specific chase cards. Take for example a card like Noble Hierarch that's popular in every format. The demand for it adds up for each format as the supply continues to dry up based on how much of it is in circulation. The Reserve List also plays a huge factor in this as well.

Another reason has to do with the cost of paper compared to digital. With less materials to print paper goods due to the environment the more demand there is to print which drives up costs due to lack of supply. With less people inclined to recycle more paper with the ongoing threat of climate change / global warming, the more it will continue to drive the cost of paper goods. That's unfortunate because I believe there's still a market for print media.
"Salvation is for those who are afraid of Hell. Spirituality is for those who have lived through it."

- Ralph Smart

User avatar
motleyslayer
Posts: 1127
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Contact:

Post by motleyslayer » 4 years ago

I feel that one of the problems with paper Magic costing so much is that there simply isn't enough supply of pre-RTR sets to meet the demand for them and they never really printed Masters sets to truly impact/reduce the prices of cards. This is probably because they while technically they are putting more copies into the market, people will randomly either see there's more of them out there and decide they want copies of a card because it just got reprinted. The reserved list is another problem in and of itself. I don't know enough about the legal ramifications of getting rid of it so I'm not gonna say anything about that.

In regards to online Magic (especially Arena), I had a buddy who sold out of paper Magic give me great reasoning to why he only plays Arena now. On Arena, a staple Mythic will always cost a Mythic wildcard and he won't have to spend $25+ on it just because it may be a staple at the time. On Arena, rares and mythics will always just be a wild card of that type regardless if they're an Oko or Teferi or something like acclaimed contender power levels. So this can make it so much cheaper to play on Arena.

Another problem with the non-rotating/eternal formats is that getting into them costs a fortune if you wanna have a netdeck. The older staples can be quite expensive since they're not in print and can be harder to find. With standard, the expensive part is rotation as you lose a part of your collection every fall. I've thought part of the solution would be bring back a format similar to extended where you don't have to worry about losing part of your collection to rotation every fall but you still don't need to worry about having to buy expensive old staples from the beginning of the format

user_938036
Posts: 338
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 21
Pronoun: he / him

Post by user_938036 » 4 years ago

This is a fairly complex question. What is "too expensive" what is "paper magic"? I don't think you can find anyone who will claim that paper vintage isn't too expensive but I can sit down with friends drop $30 and open a commander deck that will be about the same power level as the friends I just sat down with who also each opened a commander deck and we could reasonably meet up next week and the week after without having spent any more and still have fun. I doubt you'll find many people who say several weeks' worth of entertainment isn't worth $30. I could also draft once a week for $30 and many people would say that is fairly reasonable. Alternatively I could go buy a high tier standard deck for $300-$500(not counting tournament travel costs and entry fees) and play at some GPs or Opens. This is much more debatable if it is too expensive but since most people don't just go out and buy high tier standard decks they don't' see it that way.

Overall it's a complex question that I feel you can boil down to two simple answers. It is probably too expensive to start any constructed format. But it isn't too expensive to keep up with any constructed format.

User avatar
The Fluff
Le fou, c'est moi
Posts: 2398
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted
Location: Gradius Home World
Contact:

Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

this has always been the question. Paper magic has always been expensive.

although these days some prices are actually easing up a bit. Prices of khans fetchlands are down, and some enemy fetch are down as well - mesa and flats are at 20 dollar range right now. The only ones still at 50+ are tarn and misty. Noble Hierarch used to be a 50 dollar card as well. Now it's only at the 30+ range. Hangarback Walker was almost 20 dollars some months ago. Now it's back to the 8-9 dollar range.

Taking this chance to pick up some cards that went down. They're all in my cart right now, actually. :)

Only problem is I can't order anything, because the post office is closed! Even if scg sends them, I cannot pick them up. :omg:
Image
AnimEVO 2020 - EFZ Tournament (english commentary) // Clearing 4 domain with Qiqi
want to play a uw control deck in modern, but don't have Jace or snapcaster? please come visit us at the Emeria thread

User avatar
Card Slinger J
Nope Not Today
Posts: 384
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Card Slinger J » 4 years ago

motleyslayer wrote:
4 years ago
I feel that one of the problems with paper Magic costing so much is that there simply isn't enough supply of pre-RTR sets to meet the demand for them and they never really printed Masters sets to truly impact/reduce the prices of cards. This is probably because they while technically they are putting more copies into the market, people will randomly either see there's more of them out there and decide they want copies of a card because it just got reprinted. The reserved list is another problem in and of itself. I don't know enough about the legal ramifications of getting rid of it so I'm not gonna say anything about that.
Probably because the supply was being bought out from people like Rudy from Alpha Investments and Sports N More where they would hoard these boxes just to hold onto them for a long period of time as it ended up creating an artificial demand for these sets that weren't really there. This was similar to when LGS owners would fake FNM events just to sell popular promos on the Secondary Market. The Reserve List was made so that Wizards of the Coast couldn't design new cards off of that list in a functionally identical form though they've been finding new loopholes to get around this in recent years.
motleyslayer wrote:
4 years ago
In regards to online Magic (especially Arena), I had a buddy who sold out of paper Magic give me great reasoning to why he only plays Arena now. On Arena, a staple Mythic will always cost a Mythic wildcard and he won't have to spend $25+ on it just because it may be a staple at the time. On Arena, rares and mythics will always just be a wild card of that type regardless if they're an Oko or Teferi or something like acclaimed contender power levels. So this can make it so much cheaper to play on Arena.
There's no Secondary Market for Arena like there is for MTGO and Paper Magic so of course it's going to be cheaper to get into unless it changes over to a pay-to-win loot crate. Aside from the fact that Arena doesn't offer anything for Casual players except for Brawl kind of makes it a moot point. If Wizards of the Coast actually hired the right people they can program and code every existing card in MTG so that nobody has to spend money on Paper EDH / Commander ever again. They're unable to do it at this time because Wizards of the Coast doesn't actually own the rights to the format, the EDH Rules Committee does.
motleyslayer wrote:
4 years ago
Another problem with the non-rotating/eternal formats is that getting into them costs a fortune if you wanna have a netdeck. The older staples can be quite expensive since they're not in print and can be harder to find. With standard, the expensive part is rotation as you lose a part of your collection every fall. I've thought part of the solution would be bring back a format similar to extended where you don't have to worry about losing part of your collection to rotation every fall but you still don't need to worry about having to buy expensive old staples from the beginning of the format
I can definitely see that being a problem for cEDH in particular where as Casual EDH / Commander isn't too far behind. I don't think it's healthy for players to be spending $300+ of disposable income on 100 card Singleton decks that they're only able to play twice a week (at least for me anyway). I think that If Standard went back to the old rotation system it had before then it'd be less expensive or at least fix the format in a way that they don't need to emergency ban almost every year. It was already bad enough with Yu-Gi-Oh! and I think that play design is too lazy to put in the effort to play test these cards before release.
The Fluff wrote:
4 years ago
this has always been the question. Paper magic has always been expensive.

although these days some prices are actually easing up a bit. Prices of khans fetchlands are down, and some enemy fetch are down as well - mesa and flats are at 20 dollar range right now. The only ones still at 50+ are tarn and misty. Noble Hierarch used to be a 50 dollar card as well. Now it's only at the 30+ range. Hangarback Walker was almost 20 dollars some months ago. Now it's back to the 8-9 dollar range.

Taking this chance to pick up some cards that went down. They're all in my cart right now, actually. :)

Only problem is I can't order anything, because the post office is closed! Even if scg sends them, I cannot pick them up. :omg:
Didn't think governments would be cracking down on the postal service due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Are they really THAT worried someone is going to get infected the moment they receive their cards in the mail? How do they expect people to pay their bills? Go online? What If they don't have internet access? I remember someone saying that any materials that are touched with COVID-19 usually wears off within 24 hours after the materials have been sent in the mail. I'm just getting fed up with all the mass hysteria and fearmongering surrounding this pandemic in the last few weeks. Then again I'm just as much to blame as well. >_>
Last edited by Card Slinger J 4 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
"Salvation is for those who are afraid of Hell. Spirituality is for those who have lived through it."

- Ralph Smart

User avatar
The Fluff
Le fou, c'est moi
Posts: 2398
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted
Location: Gradius Home World
Contact:

Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

Already said this in another thread. Two of my orders have arrived, but cannot get them at the post office. These days, there are checkpoints on the entrance and exit of our village. Even if the post office is open, can't get out of the village, because only people with "Quarantine pass" are allowed to go out. My mom and other house companions would probably freak out, if they knew I went out and walked to the post office.

As for phone and internet bills, our internet provider already made an announcement, the bill payment is postponed by one month. That's why I could still post right now. Normally, my internet would have been cut off already due to late payment.

There are already scary rumors.. I know it's silly... that the virus might be somehow already airborne, so it's best to stay at home. Over here, I heard it is announced that the lockdown will be extended until april 28.
Image
AnimEVO 2020 - EFZ Tournament (english commentary) // Clearing 4 domain with Qiqi
want to play a uw control deck in modern, but don't have Jace or snapcaster? please come visit us at the Emeria thread

User avatar
Card Slinger J
Nope Not Today
Posts: 384
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Card Slinger J » 4 years ago

People who play Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games like Magic: the Gathering REALLY need a reality check and come to terms that this is a luxury gaming hobby designed to make them poor and homeless. Let me ask you another hypothetical question, what would you have done with the amount of money you've spent on Magic: the Gathering since you first started playing? Maybe you could've bought some new clothes, stock up on groceries, bought a new car, or be able to pay your bills and mortgages easier. Whatever the case may be it most likely would've been something that's more essential to your livelihood than expensive cardboard rectangles. You're literally spending thousands of dollars on a gaming experience you only get two days a week at most but is it worth it? That depends on who you ask. Now I don't regret all the good times I've had in this gaming hobby with my friends at my locals for nearly 18 years. Sure it'd be nice to pass the torch to the next generation but what good is it If they already see how taxing it is to peoples' financial situations and mental health? They're mostly playing Digital because it's more convenient to them without having to put in the effort so that future generations become lazier and lazier.

Maybe that's the way it's meant to be. We've already lost the generation gap war to convince them otherwise. There's absolutely no reason why gaming companies like Wizards of the Coast, Konami, and Pokémon Company International should still be manufacturing and managing Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games in the year 2020. This isn't the 90's anymore where there's still a need for a physical location to play these games. This is really reminiscent of how the North American Amusement Arcades died out in the early to mid 2000's when the hardware on home consoles were able to outperform them without needing to crunch so many quarters / tokens. It's this pay-to-win loot crate gaming model that's milking the crap out of us and it's not just predatory towards children 13 and under but gets people addicted to the point where the risk just isn't worth the reward. I'd like to say that there is a reward but it's small compared to how much you're willing to pay for it. Unfortunately there isn't a cheaper alternative that's just as successful because there's always that rush when it comes to opening booster packs that you don't get from other gaming genres.
Last edited by Card Slinger J 4 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
"Salvation is for those who are afraid of Hell. Spirituality is for those who have lived through it."

- Ralph Smart

User avatar
The Fluff
Le fou, c'est moi
Posts: 2398
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted
Location: Gradius Home World
Contact:

Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

People who play Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games like Magic: the Gathering REALLY need a reality check and come to terms that this is a luxury gaming hobby designed to make them poor and homeless. Let me ask you another hypothetical question, what would you have done with the amount of money you've spent on Magic: the Gathering since you first started playing? Maybe you could've bought some new clothes, stock up on groceries, bought a new car, or be able to pay your bills and mortgages easier. Whatever the case may be it most likely would've been something that's more essential to your livelihood than expensive cardboard rectangles. You're literally spending thousands of dollars on a gaming experience you only get two days a week at most but is it worth it?
hmm, not really a problem. Expenses are pretty close to break even. With only a few hundred dollars as real expenses. Reason is I cashed out on certain cards when they were at a fairly good price. Too many to mention all, but here are a few notable sales that helped me recover... Got a playset of all the enemy fetches (except for misty where I only have two) when they were 10 dollars each because I returned playing when zen was standard --- sold them all when they were monstrous in price, I remember for the tarns alone, the guy who bought them from me needed to make an overseas phone call just so his wife would allow him :grin: , Next I sold my opal set when each opal was almost a hundred dollars each, and ravager set for a decent price as well. At that same time period, also sold all 5 of my legacy duals for a profit. Then sold all 3 future sight horizon canopies as well. A playset of surgical extraction, thalias. Also a single azusa for 50 dollars, that was before she got reprinted. And the last huge sale was all my sfm's, and a sofai during the unban hype. There are several smaller sales that also helped. The expenses not neutralized by the sales were mostly shipping and post office fees that I had to pay, as I'm a loyal customer of SCG for more than five years -- their customer service is the best for me.

Don't care about online. If it's online games, I have other better games to play.
That depends on who you ask. Now I don't regret all the good times I've had in this gaming hobby with my friends at my locals for nearly 18 years. Sure it'd be nice to pass the torch to the next generation but what good is it If they already see how taxing it is to peoples' financial situations and mental health? They're mostly playing Digital because it's more convenient to them without having to put in the effort so that future generations become lazier and lazier.
wtf, mental health?!! not to be rude or anything, but not a factor for me. :grin:
Can stop if get bored. This isn't my only hobby. I chat on 4 other forums besides this one, three of them not related to mtg. :halo:

the reason I still play is because friends and family members play, and there is a small mtg community in my area. Play mostly modern, but friends are saying we should be building pauper decks as well to increase the fun. Oh, and my friends are mostly spikes - we have a strict "no takeback" rule even on practice play, but the atmosphere is friendly. We give cards on each other's birthday. :)
Image
AnimEVO 2020 - EFZ Tournament (english commentary) // Clearing 4 domain with Qiqi
want to play a uw control deck in modern, but don't have Jace or snapcaster? please come visit us at the Emeria thread

User avatar
RabidVacin
Posts: 1139
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by RabidVacin » 4 years ago

I've never been in financial trouble due to my MTG spending. I make a budget where I calculate my pay and subtract my bills, then put the majority of the remainder in savings and spend a small portion on MTG. I don't think it's very wise to use widely-sweeping stereotypes like saying that all MTG players are financially irresponsible.
That card is bad and you should feel bad for playing it.

User avatar
Card Slinger J
Nope Not Today
Posts: 384
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Card Slinger J » 4 years ago

RabidVacin wrote:
4 years ago
I've never been in financial trouble due to my MTG spending. I make a budget where I calculate my pay and subtract my bills, then put the majority of the remainder in savings and spend a small portion on MTG. I don't think it's very wise to use widely-sweeping stereotypes like saying that all MTG players are financially irresponsible.
Yeah I think there's a big misconception of the stereotypical MTG player needing to keep up with sealed products that Wizards of the Coast keeps milking them for on a constant basis as opposed to mainly purchasing singles where they're actually spending less for what they really need. Nobody is telling these players to keep buying Secret Lair drops, booster boxes, and other specialty products when they themselves are to blame for their own wallet fatigue.

MTG players just want an excuse to crack booster packs and Wizards of the Coast knows how to exploit them in a way that hurts these players financially. I rarely ever buy booster packs for a particular set unless I know I'm getting my money back based on the sets' Expected Value (EV). Battlebond, Modern Horizons, and Mystery Booster are all good sets where you're at least guaranteed to pull something worthwhile out of every pack.
"Salvation is for those who are afraid of Hell. Spirituality is for those who have lived through it."

- Ralph Smart

User avatar
The Fluff
Le fou, c'est moi
Posts: 2398
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted
Location: Gradius Home World
Contact:

Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

cracking packs is fun for some people. Used to do it too when our playgroup was just starting. That time, even our parents bought booster boxes for us. Things change, and these days we have jobs.. so now we use own money to buy. Do I buy an ikoria booster pack to crack, or do I order the damping spheres and other cards that my deck needs? Of course, I go for the damping spheres + other singles.. when money is limited, I buy what is needed first.

Only need one copy each of the jeskai and abzan tricycle lands from ikoria. So that's all the singles I would buy from the new set. Would not buy any booster, save money.
Image
AnimEVO 2020 - EFZ Tournament (english commentary) // Clearing 4 domain with Qiqi
want to play a uw control deck in modern, but don't have Jace or snapcaster? please come visit us at the Emeria thread

User avatar
motleyslayer
Posts: 1127
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Contact:

Post by motleyslayer » 4 years ago

I stopped buying boxes on a regular basis years ago, now I only really use prize wall tickets from Magic Fests to get boxes. I've seen some of the more casual players in the Saturday commander group buy boxes/other sealed product for the fun of it or because they weren't really looking for anything besides the experience of cracking a box

a lot of my expenses in MtG go towards entry fees, sleeves or other extra expenses like hotel rooms/gas in the case of out of town events. I guess it's the price of playing comp Magic

JoeyB11223
Posts: 52
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by JoeyB11223 » 4 years ago

For me as someone who plays solely EDH at the moment and pretty casually, I would say not much has changed since I started in 2015. I used to play standard but stopped a couple of years back, I tend to still buy a box as honestly I like cracking packs and having a bit of a collection, even though logically unless you get lucky with an invocation or foil of the most in demand card, you're not going to profit. Singles prices just go up and down, when I look at the value of my decks, I would say on average cards probably have gone up slightly, but at the same time some big money cards have had re-prints, taking them down.

The main issue for me is ever rising entry point of reserved list cards, sounds silly in a way but I'm not keen on proxying. Now though even ones which functionally aren't amazing and are more casual level use have gone up hugely, in hindsight I wish I'd purchased many middle price ones as soon as I got into EDH. For instance Jihad was a $25-30 dollar card when I started playing, had a buyout around Dominaria, went down since but is still $125. Or say Phyrexian Dreadnought was $16 now $35, smaller sums but it's just a general trend. I feel for people who've used reserved list cards as an investment, but I do wish such cards could be re-printed. I mean could they not print them with new card, framing etc, like one of these secret lairs, if they can't print them in packs, I guess that still goes against whatever agreement they did.

User avatar
Card Slinger J
Nope Not Today
Posts: 384
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Card Slinger J » 4 years ago

I would've thought the MTG Secondary Market would've completely collapsed by now with less people showing up to their Local Game Stores (LGSs) due to social distancing and being stuck in quarantine. Main reason I can only think of as to why it hasn't happened yet is because people are still able to place orders online even though most places aren't shipping for awhile. You'd think that there would be a lot more people selling their MTG collections with the market going down as more supply comes into the Secondary Market. Instead a lot of people are still holding onto their MTG collections thinking that they'll be able to ride out the quarantine (by listening to Rudy) with the certainty that most LGSs are going to re-open their doors like nothing ever happened.

These cards are only worth how much people ask them for and If there aren't any people who are willing to buy then they're just ordinary pieces of cardboard. Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths is already such a huge mess design wise that there's literally no incentive to purchase booster boxes at your LGS when you're getting a much better deal out of the Commander 2020 Pre-Cons. So unless you have a webcam it's almost impossible to find a playgroup to play EDH / Commander with let alone Local Game Stores (LGSs) which are already going extinct alongside Comic Book Shops. They were barely struggling enough as it was after the 2008 Financial Crisis where they were on life support only making razor thin margins. How are they going to survive another recession?
Last edited by Card Slinger J 4 years ago, edited 4 times in total.
"Salvation is for those who are afraid of Hell. Spirituality is for those who have lived through it."

- Ralph Smart

User avatar
The Fluff
Le fou, c'est moi
Posts: 2398
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted
Location: Gradius Home World
Contact:

Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

playing is indeed hard. I have a webcam, but it's too much of a hassle setting it up to play mtg with someone.

for now, I'm simply fine tuning my decks. Waiting for the time I could play with friends again.
Image
AnimEVO 2020 - EFZ Tournament (english commentary) // Clearing 4 domain with Qiqi
want to play a uw control deck in modern, but don't have Jace or snapcaster? please come visit us at the Emeria thread

User avatar
Card Slinger J
Nope Not Today
Posts: 384
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Card Slinger J » 3 years ago

A lot of the recent price spikes I've been seeing with the MTG Secondary Market nowadays seems to be pressuring a lot of players to cash out and start selling their collections. I think players being priced out of just being able to play EDH / Commander in Paper Magic alone is extremely dangerous since most players have already left other MTG formats due to excessive power creep, inside trading, as well as the MTG Secondary Market being too predatory with no valuable reprints at a reasonable price point. It seems as though Double Masters given what we know so far about it has had little to no effect on the MTG Secondary Market. If you've been following Heroes and Legends MTG on YouTube recently you'll know what I mean.

I only see this continuing to get worse the less player attendance there is at LGSs for Organized Play events due to the ongoing pandemic and social distancing guidelines. I'd be very surprised If I started to see the markets stabilize more so we could be looking at non-Reserve List cards reaching the same price point as Reserve List cards which of course is a major boon for MTG Finance. Standard cards nowadays don't sell that well compared to a lot of older cards that are mostly just EDH / Commander staples in Modern and Legacy. Nobody seems to really care about Pioneer anymore so it's already a dead format much like with Brawl and Tiny Leaders.
"Salvation is for those who are afraid of Hell. Spirituality is for those who have lived through it."

- Ralph Smart

User avatar
The Fluff
Le fou, c'est moi
Posts: 2398
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted
Location: Gradius Home World
Contact:

Post by The Fluff » 3 years ago

as of now, not really affected much. I already have decks built, buying singles to upgrade every now and then isn't too hard on the wallet.
Image
AnimEVO 2020 - EFZ Tournament (english commentary) // Clearing 4 domain with Qiqi
want to play a uw control deck in modern, but don't have Jace or snapcaster? please come visit us at the Emeria thread

User avatar
motleyslayer
Posts: 1127
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Contact:

Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

The Fluff wrote:
3 years ago
as of now, not really affected much. I already have decks built, buying singles to upgrade every now and then isn't too hard on the wallet.
that's a big thing with me. Since I don't play standard in paper as much, only on arena so I don't pay much attention to standard prices. I often fail to pay much attention to prices in other formats as I already have enough of a collection.

Buying a few cards here and there isn't as bad for me but sometimes I'm glad I bought into a lot of stuff about 5-6 years ago.

I know a commander player that plays commander because he only needs to have 1 copy of cards for his decks, which makes the game a lot cheaper

User avatar
The Fluff
Le fou, c'est moi
Posts: 2398
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted
Location: Gradius Home World
Contact:

Post by The Fluff » 3 years ago

I know a commander player that plays commander because he only needs to have 1 copy of cards for his decks, which makes the game a lot cheaper
same here. A friend whom I playtest modern with also plays EDH. His EDH deck has expensive cards like Liliana of the Veil and Dark Confidant, but since only one of each card is needed.. told me it's not really hard for him to complete the deck.
Image
AnimEVO 2020 - EFZ Tournament (english commentary) // Clearing 4 domain with Qiqi
want to play a uw control deck in modern, but don't have Jace or snapcaster? please come visit us at the Emeria thread

User avatar
motleyslayer
Posts: 1127
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Contact:

Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

The Fluff wrote:
3 years ago
I know a commander player that plays commander because he only needs to have 1 copy of cards for his decks, which makes the game a lot cheaper
same here. A friend whom I playtest modern with also plays EDH. His EDH deck has expensive cards like Liliana of the Veil and Dark Confidant, but since only one of each card is needed.. told me it's not really hard for him to complete the deck.
the nice part of commander is that you don't always need to spend a lot of money on it, depending on your play group. As some groups are much more casual than others.

A lot of people in my area got more into modern because it's almost always had the benefit of being able to buy into a deck then be able to play that for a while, only needing to buy a few parts here and they as they come. But now modern seems to change so fast with the release of a new set

User avatar
Card Slinger J
Nope Not Today
Posts: 384
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Card Slinger J » 3 years ago

It's one thing to say that you don't need to spend a ton of money If you already have the cards on hand as opposed to having to start all over again where you're required to spend more money than you have to. Just because you only need 1 copy of each card for your EDH / Commander deck to function doesn't necessarily mean that the cost doesn't add up If you're looking for consistency. Yes proxies are available If your playgroup allows it although depending on what staples you're running you probably would still need to spend $80+ a "playset(s)" of functionally identical cards and with the format being 30% more expensive compared to how it was before the pandemic I imagine it's only going to get worse as time goes on.

The reasons as to why EDH / Commander has gotten more expensive lately is due to Commander hype from Wizards of the Coast with their recent products as well as a growing percentage of players either having access to playgroups without the need to go to an LGS just to play or has access to a $400 webcam to live stream their games on. You also have to factor in less demand for Competitive Paper Magic due to the ongoing pandemic with more demand for Casual Paper Magic with EDH / Commander for those who don't want to play Competitive Magic on Arena and MTGO. As for me I'm part of the demographic who has to attend an LGS just to play EDH / Commander since I don't own a webcam let alone have the equipment setup to live stream.
"Salvation is for those who are afraid of Hell. Spirituality is for those who have lived through it."

- Ralph Smart

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic

Return to “General Discussion”