MTGNexus

Hi, I saw a topic on reddit on people saying they are reaching their limits on being able to buy format staples. Because the new cards like for example, W6, Urza, Opal, and sfm have become too high priced. Is there a format staple card that you want to get right now, but could not get anymore because it has become too expensive?

Now, to clarify.. not financially fatigued myself, as there is no expensive card that I want to buy right now.
Just created this thread so we have a few more things to talk about.

I play exclusivly one archetype (and managed to foil it out over the course of multiple years) so I don't need to buy new things too often and if I need to and don't have the money I can always sell of some foils (as was the case with the JTMS unban)

On the contrary, my tron lands have become much cheaper (though karn is still like $70 )

Currently can't afford a full tron deck but at least a lot of the cards in it aren't that expensive.
Stirrings is like $2.5, Expedition Map is like $5, Sylvan Scrying is 50 cents

I avoid deliberate staples, will never make anything competitive in a sanctioned format and feel suspicious of pushed or expensive cards in general. but even as an exclusive buyer of commons and junk rares i still feel drained of money cos so much STUFF is coming out, wish they had just kept Modern Horizons to themselves lol

Well, focusing almost exclusively on control for years it's been relatively ok in terms of spacing the times when I buy cards. I can always have a competitive control deck, and various other control decks. The problem is now that I want to branch out to control decks that include Green, and that has been particularly difficult for my wallet. W6 is insanely expensive and Mystic Rainforest is also particularly expensive and hard to trade for, as none wants to trade their fetches.

At the same time, even though I own most of the Urza deck, I simply refuse to buy Moxes because I expect them to be banned, and that's a bit of a bummer, as I really want to play the deck. Thankfully I have a large enough playgroup among 2 different stores that I can borrow cards when I need them.

They have too many product releases. I'm not drained because of modern or format staples. I'm drained because of the shear about of stuff they keep pushing at us to buy. With in a month they had three set releases, commander, brawl and Eldrain. I forgot about Eldrain super deluxe premium ultra $35 booster pack of stupidness, so 4. Then in December they are going to release another special product, some kind of masters set and the Christmas gift set. Then in addition to that every set gets supplemental products with their own unique cards you can't get unless you buy them. They massively over saturated the market.

The old rotations where slower and much more enjoyable. There were less products. You got to really enjoy a set. There were supplemental products back then and they were bad. EDH was actually more fun before Wizards made it an official format. Then it got filled with over powered junk. I've had product fatigue for a long time. Lately I only buy singles.

But if I wanted to I can buy any modern deck I want. So money for magic isn't an issue. They issue is if I part with my money will I enjoy the experience? Lately that's a no. I'm just being bombarded by too many new cards. I don't think they realize that more sets makes a product less special not more.

Absolutely. It's hard to justify paying those price for small pieces of cardboard
I mainly play Tron and have pretty much everything for colourless Eldrazi Tron and green Tron, I just look at the prices for Chalice, Karn Liberated and Ugin and then I think "I'm good without them" lol. Prices are %$#% up.
It would definitely help if I didn't have any other hobbies or intererests, I think a lot of people who play Magic kinda have it as their only big hobby, so they have lots of "hobby money" if you know what I mean so it's not really a big deal putting more money into it.

No, but I also stopped bothering trying to jump from deck to deck. I'm playing decks I like regardless of how well positioned they may be. If I tried chasing things, I would have been playing Dredge and Hogaak this past year, and currently playing Whirza. Just too much fear of decks eating bans to justify pumping out the money to keep up. The thought of dropping $500+ on a set of Mox Opals just makes me want to vomit. Playset of Urza being $160 on top of that doesn't feel any better.

A few cards here and there to upgrade the decks I have is pretty easy. Plus most of my Horizons staples were picked up fairly early and mostly reasonably priced (mostly Force of Negation in the low $20s) or opened a bunch in the two boxes I got.

Luckily, I got my Stoneforges for $11 a piece more than 3 years ago, which is good, because she is disappointingly mediocre, and I would feel rull bad if I paid the price I have been selling my excess copies for.

I feel that part of my problem with wallet fatigue is that I needed to pick up a few of the canopy lands after they were released in Horizons and I'm still trying to get my set of sfm, even though I had a clue it would be unbanned soon

I'll admit I have a problem of not being able to stick to one particular deck but rather midrange as a whole which makes it hard

as a person whose collection is "modern"

Ive been blessed with getting many of the cards from packs, however not the playset needed for most decks. im looking at you tarmogoyf.

the grind for me is ill get a deck within 5 or 6 cards, but those cards are the 20+ ones. walking ballista for example.

modern horizons was beautiful, but I didn't get a playset of prismatic vista so my modern dreams are basically smashed. i do have very many sets of evolving wilds but you don't take a knife to a gun fight respectively

you have to wait for cards to cycle through their standard life before you see true prices, and that can be a year ore more. I want cards cheap & right now.

so I chose yes, and its only going to get worse, magic doesn't stop, no breaks, no catching up, and their reprint policy is a little to be desired.

what we need is the pros to stop reinventing the wheel and just play consistent specific decklists.

wrenn and six I hate you, I love you, I hate that you, I love you, why will you cost so much for your whole life

My spending on MtG has slowly trended downward as Modern has aged. I think that's a signal of an eternal format, to be honest. I only need a few things here and there to keep up.

I spent about $50 on ELD prereleases because I know the drafters will leave all their uncommons and commons at the tables within a month at my LGS. A few things I took a risk on and am already feeling some mild pinch for it (namely things I didn't preorder). I feel like I've been playing long enough to know better, but new sets always punk everyone in one way or another.

I'm a bit burnt out on watching spoilers non-stop, especially since I had a few bigger events in my personal life during ELD's, so I think it'll be nice to coast on nothing for awhile. I won't be making any big shifts, even if Whirza gets huge; just a signal to start boarding more Fracturing Gust and Ceremonious Rejection. I think artifact hate is easier to adapt to than yard hate, so I don't think we should panic over a major meta shift which in turn should make for some more relaxed spending.

I wouldn't say my wallet is fatigued so much as my tolerances for WOTC's marketing techniques are dropping rapidly.

Like most people, I have a rough budget of how much I spend on MTG "stuff"--everything from events, travel, sleeves, cards, etc.

When singles are cheaper, I buy more of them, and grab cards for a wider swath of the format. When they're more expensive, I narrow down the scope of decks for which I buy cards. There's nothing in modern that I *can't* buy if I want to play a certain deck, but the choices WOTC has made about price points for supplemental sets have caused me to buy less stuff lately. If Modern Horizons had been a $6 booster, or even a $7 booster so drafts could be $20, I would have probably drafted it twice a week for half a year, and bought up whatever rares/mythics I didn't end up with playsets of by drafting. At the price point it's at, I would still draft it, but you can't draft it without other players to draft WITH. It also drives up the price of singles in the sets, which leads to my spending less overall because I only buy the singles for the decks I play or expect I would want to play, instead of ending up with all of the playables.

When stuff like this happens, my spending consolidates into buying pimp foils and things, WOTC sees less of the money, and overall player engagement drops.

Wrenn and Six is the perfect example. If it were a standard-tier planeswalker ($20) I'd have a playset no questions. If it were $30 or maybe even $40 I'd probably get two or three. At $100, I have zero interest--I don't play any deck that currently jams the card, and I don't tend to play midrange decks, so the cost is way too high to just have a card around in case someone needs to borrow a few or I feel like brewing.

Good poll. I voted yes mainly because of the price of old staples such as Bob, Lilly, lands and the "new" strong staples like T3feri and SFM package are prohibitive to what decks I play in paper. Online cost has been somewhat predictable and manageable. I would like to see:

-More staples reprints in MH2. I want that set freaking filled with the expensive uncommons too. If you cant use MH2 then PLEASE reprint them somewhere.
-We need fetch lands reprinted on a regular basis. I know we are returning to Zendikar next year, so maybe this will happen.

robertleva wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Good poll. I voted yes mainly because of the price of old staples such as Bob, Lilly, lands and the "new" strong staples like T3feri and SFM package are prohibitive to what decks I play in paper. Online cost has been somewhat predictable and manageable. I would like to see:

I wouldn't call Stoneforge "strong" or a "staple" whatsoever. She and the Swords are expensive due to unban hype. Nothing more, nothing less.

when I first started this poll, the votes were almost equal. Now after a short while, the votes for - yes - are triple the - no -.

cfusionpm wrote: ↑

4 years ago

robertleva wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Good poll. I voted yes mainly because of the price of old staples such as Bob, Lilly, lands and the "new" strong staples like T3feri and SFM package are prohibitive to what decks I play in paper. Online cost has been somewhat predictable and manageable. I would like to see:

I wouldn't call Stoneforge "strong" or a "staple" whatsoever. She and the Swords are expensive due to unban hype. Nothing more, nothing less.

Meh this is not the thread to debate WHY things cost what the cost, else we could just merge it with the b&r thread. Fact is SFM package costs a lot right now, and its fun enough to play that everyone wants it for their collection. Does that make it a staple? To me yes, its the very definition of one. Call it whatever you like though, this stuff is expensive (relatively speaking ofc )

I mean, it's expensive for the same reason Bitterblossom is. I would definitely have wallet fatigue if trying to pick up anything shortly after an unban.

But there's a reason why I got Stoneforges, Jaces, and Swords years ago for dirt cheap; unbans cause price spikes and I didn't want the feelbad wallet fatigue associated with trying them out. Sucks for anyone trying to buy in now though, and I totally understand the frustration (especially given her mediocrity).

Lol you just can't resist can you? Did SFM hurt you as a child?! It's time to forgive and let others have some fun eh?

robertleva wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Lol you just can't resist can you? Did SFM hurt you as a child?! It's time to forgive and let others have some fun eh?

I played her as much as I could in as many shells as I could, in dozens and dozens of matches for weeks on end. At no point was I ever impressed with what she does. I've already sold off all my auxiliary copies of her and Swords. I'm just debating if I want to sell the rest of them too, before people realize she's not at all worth those prices. I will happily take money from people wanting to experience wallet fatigue chasing the unban hype.

Sell em to me if you want out of SFM. PM me.

I'm holding on to them for now. No real financial need to move them at the moment. All extra copies are already gone.

I started playing modern again this year after a 6 year hiatus. Buying into the format was expensive but that's the hobby and I budgeted for it. I picked Mardu Pyromancer as my primary deck because I liked the play style and it seemed like a deck with development potential (which appeals to me more than a solved archetype).

The wallet fatigue set in after the Looting ban. I suddenly found myself with a deck which cannot compete with the top tier. I can morph into grixis DS or Jund but I still need to buy Scalding Tarns and Snapcasters or Verdant Catacombs, Lilianas, and Tarmogoyfs.

Give it 6 months and I won't mind spending more to make another deck but the cost of staples like fetchlands starts to get old every time you want to change decks. Meanwhile my wife's Eldrazi Tron and Whirza decks remain top tier and our games very lopsided.

To play Grixis Shadow you don't need the full set of Tarns, btw. You can run:

4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn

Just saying. The first two lands are the most important in GDS.

BloodyRabbit wrote: ↑

4 years ago

To play Grixis Shadow you don't need the full set of Tarns, btw. You can run:

4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn

Just saying. The first two lands are the most important in GDS.

Hmm... interesting. How important is Snapcaster Mage?

Very much. I saw in the end most people ran only 3, but I always preferred to use all 4.

About the wallet fatigue, I already own most of Modern's staples for practically every deck, so no fatigue for me. So if I need to build something new I probably need to get only 2-3 new cards per deck, or the newest Modern card from the latest Standard set.