Why so few OG kamigawa reprints?

[RowanKeltizar]

I started ranting in the unreleased and new card discussion topic so I decided to start my own topic instead because I think this is a fairly important subject. My apologies if this has recently been discussed, but I just really need to vent!

I'm just really dissapointed with the secret lairs because that was the last place I was hoping to see some meaningful and valuable OG kamigawa reprints with the showcase borders. And this has been an annoying trend from wizards that makes absolutely zero sense to me.

Ok, sure we got Boseiju, Who Shelters All and Hall of the Bandit Lord. Those are both wins for sure. Kira, Great Glass-Spinner is fine too.

But where is Sensei's Divining Top, Nature's Will, Oboro, Palace in the Clouds, Shizo, Death's Storehouse, Forbidden Orchard, Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni, Umezawa's Jitte, Higure, the Still Wind , Toshiro Umezawa ?

What did we get instead? HIDEAWAY LANDS??!! Ok, I actually like the hideaway lands, but why? Amazing artwork on the secret lairs but they are so niche. Not to mention, they are a fairly complex mechanic and to print that in a japanese I think is a mistake. Iconic and simple cards make great alt-language or textless cards... but hideaway lands of all things?

There are several other fan favorites between $5-10 that would have been nice to see the new borders on like Azusa, Lost but Seeking .

I can only assume wotc has been pressured by the "evil investors" to really limit their reprints. That's the only real explanation I can come up with because printing any of the above cards would have only helped to sell their product. I feel it's a squandered opportunity to really hype up a new product and get buy in from the player base. From what I've seen the success or failure of a product has a lot do with the reprint value in that product.

I understand the reluctance to print expensive cards in the main standard set. Many of which wouldn't be healthy for standard. But there are several other places that would be more appropriate, those being:

Adjacent to the main set (non-standard legal) in the collectors boosters in the mythic slot
In the commander precons
Secret lairs and bonus cards from the secret lairs

All of these don't nuke the original price of the card but still provide a chance to pick them them at a more reasonable price. I think these type of reprints should always either have new art, or the showcase border related to that set.

The same thing could have been done with Double Feature. SO MANY old innistrad cards are $30+ Printing those cards with the black and white treatment would have made people go insane buying packs! Snapcaster Mage ? Mikaeus, the Unhallowed ? Exquisite Blood ? Avacyn, Angel of Hope ? The list goes on and on.


We've been needing an Enlightened Tutor reprint for a while now. Would it have killed wotc to include that instead of Idyllic Tutor which is now a $5 card? Enlightened searches for either an artifact OR an enchantment which would have been an awesome upgrade to some of these neon dynasty precons.

And speaking of precons.... what reason do I have to actually purchase these? From what I've seen, I'm going to be breaking even on the price at a whopping $45 no less. Compared to past precons, this is certainly not worth it unless I am specifically going to build that commander, and even then it's probably best to just pick up singles.


All of this, coupled with wotc's quality control issues, shipping delays, etc gives me absolutely no incentive to buy sealed product or the complete secret lair from their store. Singles singles singles. Best way to spend money on this game still by far, and I think that's a bit sad honestly. And there are few things that make me more upset than squandered opportunities.

[Dunharrow]

Secret Lair is a huge win for WOTC. They will stretch it out as much as possible.

Commander precons were pretty bad. I just bought 4 singles.

[RowanKeltizar]

After the initial ire wore off, I will say that i know this isn't a huge deal. 1st world problems right? We will see reprints eventually. The set itself is great and has lots of new power in it. But it's still a fact that wotc's reprint policy, whatever it may be, annoys the heck out of me.

At the end of the day I just mourn the missed opportunity for some sweet new treatments of old classics, and I hope they will do better with the next sets in this regard.

[Dunharrow]

I mean, before Modern Masters came out we got very few reprints. Core sets and the summer supplemental set were the only options.

I find it funny your post because some of the cards you complain about were reprinted at some point. The fact is that WOTC does not want to devaluate cards through Secret Lairs, and that many reprints just don't make sense in supplemental sets.

I do agree that some of the decision making is odd, but I am also being realistic and understanding that there isn't going to be a secret lair with 5 hits. There will always be a balance of good cards and Thraximundars.
High value reprints are a commodity. They have a lot of them, but they also need to be strategic. If they flood the market with reprints that nobody is actually trying to get a hold of, the product they are trying to sell is not making good use of that reprint.
Look at Imperial Recruiter. They put it as a mythic rare in Double Masters, and it tanked the price. Nobody wanted the card... at least not in the numbers it was being opened at. You didn't even need to buy Double Masters to try to get the card, you could just pick up a single easily. Wasted reprint. Lost all its value and did not help sell boxes (since it was worthless).
They put it as a mythic in MH2 and it is a wasted spot.

Then compare to Tarmagoyf in Modern Masters. The price actually went up over the year following MM's release. It was a highly sought out card.
But then they kept on printing more goyfs and the price dropped significantly.


This is good for players, but not good for business. When marquee cards can no longer help sell sets and instead tank in price, WOTC has screwed up. That's why they are conservative with reprints.
They need to be better than the most recent commander precons though. If marquee cards are an attractor to sell products, then they failed to include anything that people were seeking.

Vehicle deck should have had Talisman of Progress or some other artifact that needs a reprint.
RG deck should have had Kalonian Hydra

[Hermes_]

IIRC, a possible issue with a Sensei's Divining Top and Enlightened Tutor is WotC wants to cut down on shuffling during matches.

[RxPhantom]

I think they've been doing better with reprints, but to some of the OP's specific concerns: Azusa was reprinted in Masters 25 and Core Set 2021. Ink-Eyes was in a Secret Lair. There was a Kamigawa SL a little while ago with Reki and four other old legends. The spirit dragons have been reprinted in two Masters sets.

I'll agree that things could always be better. Double Feature was one of the most unexciting, unnecessary products I've ever seen, especially since all it did was cobble together two sets that already deflated my interest in Innistrad. Innistrad! It used to be the best plane, and now it's been run into the ground. Anyway, my point was that Double Feature should've been Innistrad Remastered.

[Jemolk]

Well, I for one wholeheartedly agree. Few things annoy me quite so much as wasted potential, and modern Magic releases are absolutely rife with it. Neon Dynasty itself IMHO squanders most of Kamigawa's unique mechanical potential in favor of stuff that could have been done just as well anywhere else. The cards themselves are cool, for the most part, but so much potential is wasted by making the set revolve so heavily around artifacts and enchantments, particularly when those themes are not at all restricted to Kamigawa, and even make it feel less like Kamigawa as we knew it. You could do this anywhere, so why did you feel the need to do it here, of all places, where there was actually something unique that you couldn't put just anywhere?

It only gets worse when we see how much that bleeds over into supplementary sets. Sure, they didn't used to exist, but now that they do, squandering their potential is still extremely annoying to me. If you're going to change something, make it worthwhile by using the full potential of the change. And reprint equity as a concern? Alternate arts, frames, etc. as bling can easily make up for the drop in price of the normal versions as a driver for people to get excited about stuff. I happily spent a silly amount on a particularly pretty version of Avacyn, Angel of Hope|59689 despite already having a spare copy of the normal version recently. Why can we not extend this to more overpriced reprints?

[5colorsrainbow]

Well, I for one wholeheartedly agree. Few things annoy me quite so much as wasted potential, and modern Magic releases are absolutely rife with it. Neon Dynasty itself IMHO squanders most of Kamigawa's unique mechanical potential in favor of stuff that could have been done just as well anywhere else. The cards themselves are cool, for the most part, but so much potential is wasted by making the set revolve so heavily around artifacts and enchantments, particularly when those themes are not at all restricted to Kamigawa, and even make it feel less like Kamigawa as we knew it. You could do this anywhere, so why did you feel the need to do it here, of all places, where there was actually something unique that you couldn't put just anywhere?

Cause Kamigawa 1 was a failure and to have a return they noted it need a mechanical and flavor reboot. Maro even listed all the old mechanics of Kamigawa 1 in a design article and noted the only three things they felt worth salvaging was channel, ninja tribal (and they almost didn't have ninjutsu) and samurai tribal (with no bushido), though the sagas are meant to be a nod to the flip cards and they wanted to do Arcane but felt it added nothing to set. The focus is now modern vs tradition with modern using artifact and traditional using enchantments.

Also a factor in reprints, the fact they brought back so few things means making reprints harder as they had to basically have a full reboot of what they did last time mechanically so certain cards don't fit. I also know with ninjas anyways cause they don't have a many chances to add to the tribe they have decided on new cards vs reprints as commander and other formats are needing more ninjas creature to help get the right volume.

[Jemolk]

Cause Kamigawa 1 was a failure and to have a return they noted it need a mechanical and flavor reboot. Maro even listed all the old mechanics of Kamigawa 1 in a design article and noted the only three things they felt worth salvaging was channel, ninja tribal (and they almost didn't have ninjutsu) and samurai tribal (with no bushido), though the sagas are meant to be a nod to the flip cards and they wanted to do Arcane but felt it added nothing to set. The focus is now modern vs tradition with modern using artifact and traditional using enchantments.

See, this is something I find absolutely delusional. Kamigawa 1 was a commercial failure because it was extremely underpowered and also standard was really terrible because of the preceding block. 5 mana 2/2s were the problem of old Kamigawa. Bushido is actually good, they just overcosted it. Spirit/arcane synergies are not even close to unsalvageable, just, again, heavily overcosted previously. Same goes for Soulshift, frankly. Sweep is terrible, and splice onto arcane is horribly parasitic, but to call the rest not worth salvaging is absolutely ludicrous. People wouldn't have been asking for a return to Kamigawa if we thought that the only way they'd do it was by throwing out all the stuff that made it Kamigawa.

[5colorsrainbow]

Cause Kamigawa 1 was a failure and to have a return they noted it need a mechanical and flavor reboot. Maro even listed all the old mechanics of Kamigawa 1 in a design article and noted the only three things they felt worth salvaging was channel, ninja tribal (and they almost didn't have ninjutsu) and samurai tribal (with no bushido), though the sagas are meant to be a nod to the flip cards and they wanted to do Arcane but felt it added nothing to set. The focus is now modern vs tradition with modern using artifact and traditional using enchantments.

See, this is something I find absolutely delusional. Kamigawa 1 was a commercial failure because it was extremely underpowered and also standard was really terrible because of the preceding block. 5 mana 2/2s were the problem of old Kamigawa. Bushido is actually good, they just overcosted it. Spirit/arcane synergies are not even close to unsalvageable, just, again, heavily overcosted previously. Same goes for Soulshift, frankly. Sweep is terrible, and splice onto arcane is horribly parasitic, but to call the rest not worth salvaging is absolutely ludicrous. People wouldn't have been asking for a return to Kamigawa if we thought that the only way they'd do it was by throwing out all the stuff that made it Kamigawa.

Here is the full article but to sum up your questions;
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2022-01-31

1- Bushido has game play issues so they didn't wanna use it on a lot of cards for a full mechanic. Also most people wanted samurai the creature type than bushido itself.

2- The kami war was done and thus all the spirt stuff wasn't brought back since the conflict was no longer morals vs kami.

3- As said they tried to add in Arcane but ended up not adding anything to the set besides being there and splice has been something they tried to bring back before in the past and where never happy about.

4- The other mechanics are: Offering, Epic and "Wisdom" (caring about cards in hand), as well as the legendary theme (Maro doesn't talk on it but it was in the original set). Both Offering and Epic where not very popular and used in small amounts in the original and the "wisdom" mechanic didn't really tie much into the over-all theme of Japanese culture.

4.5- For legendary not sure, though Maro talked on not doing Historic as it felt really off flavor since artifacts are the future tech in this set and only caring about sagas vs all enchantments so I can see them not waning to go into a legendary theme when they don't have historic to help broad it up.

[RxPhantom]

Cause Kamigawa 1 was a failure and to have a return they noted it need a mechanical and flavor reboot. Maro even listed all the old mechanics of Kamigawa 1 in a design article and noted the only three things they felt worth salvaging was channel, ninja tribal (and they almost didn't have ninjutsu) and samurai tribal (with no bushido), though the sagas are meant to be a nod to the flip cards and they wanted to do Arcane but felt it added nothing to set. The focus is now modern vs tradition with modern using artifact and traditional using enchantments.

See, this is something I find absolutely delusional. Kamigawa 1 was a commercial failure because it was extremely underpowered and also standard was really terrible because of the preceding block. 5 mana 2/2s were the problem of old Kamigawa. Bushido is actually good, they just overcosted it. Spirit/arcane synergies are not even close to unsalvageable, just, again, heavily overcosted previously. Same goes for Soulshift, frankly. Sweep is terrible, and splice onto arcane is horribly parasitic, but to call the rest not worth salvaging is absolutely ludicrous. People wouldn't have been asking for a return to Kamigawa if we thought that the only way they'd do it was by throwing out all the stuff that made it Kamigawa.

Kamigawa also sold poorly because it was bad. It played badly and it was weak. On top of that, a lot of the flavor didn't resonate with the audience. Bringing back mechanics that people hated on a plane that people were lukewarm on (to be charitable) isn't a recipe for a best seller. I think they did a great job, personally.

[Jemolk]

Cause Kamigawa 1 was a failure and to have a return they noted it need a mechanical and flavor reboot. Maro even listed all the old mechanics of Kamigawa 1 in a design article and noted the only three things they felt worth salvaging was channel, ninja tribal (and they almost didn't have ninjutsu) and samurai tribal (with no bushido), though the sagas are meant to be a nod to the flip cards and they wanted to do Arcane but felt it added nothing to set. The focus is now modern vs tradition with modern using artifact and traditional using enchantments.

See, this is something I find absolutely delusional. Kamigawa 1 was a commercial failure because it was extremely underpowered and also standard was really terrible because of the preceding block. 5 mana 2/2s were the problem of old Kamigawa. Bushido is actually good, they just overcosted it. Spirit/arcane synergies are not even close to unsalvageable, just, again, heavily overcosted previously. Same goes for Soulshift, frankly. Sweep is terrible, and splice onto arcane is horribly parasitic, but to call the rest not worth salvaging is absolutely ludicrous. People wouldn't have been asking for a return to Kamigawa if we thought that the only way they'd do it was by throwing out all the stuff that made it Kamigawa.

Here is the full article but to sum up your questions;
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2022-01-31

1- Bushido has game play issues so they didn't wanna use it on a lot of cards for a full mechanic. Also most people wanted samurai the creature type than bushido itself.

2- The kami war was done and thus all the spirt stuff wasn't brought back since the conflict was no longer morals vs kami.

3- As said they tried to add in Arcane but ended up not adding anything to the set besides being there and splice has been something they tried to bring back before in the past and where never happy about.

4- The other mechanics are: Offering, Epic and "Wisdom" (caring about cards in hand), as well as the legendary theme (Maro doesn't talk on it but it was in the original set). Both Offering and Epic where not very popular and used in small amounts in the original and the "wisdom" mechanic didn't really tie much into the over-all theme of Japanese culture.

4.5- For legendary not sure, though Maro talked on not doing Historic as it felt really off flavor since artifacts are the future tech in this set and only caring about sagas vs all enchantments so I can see them not waning to go into a legendary theme when they don't have historic to help broad it up.

1 - Bushido? Gameplay issues? Even the article seems to disagree with this. It says it's simple and plays well. They just didn't want to put it on a bunch of stuff. No real explanation why, though. Would play really nicely into the "tradition" side of "modern versus tradition" from a flavor standpoint, based simply on the name, too.

2 - Spiritcraft also plays well into the tradition side of the conflict.

3 - Splice is a bad idea, yes, but arcane being relevant to spiritcraft means bringing it back could work.

4 - No argument there. Forgot about those, honestly. Offering and Epic are both pretty easy to forget, given how few cards they're on and how bad they generally are. As for "wisdom" and legendary themes, those can go nearly anywhere well enough, so I'm not particularly put out by the fact that they were ignored.

The conclusion for me is that they didn't want to bring back some of the mechanics. They could have, though, had they wanted to. Easily, at that. And I think it's fair to criticize that choice, because it was a choice. I was hoping for Kamigawa done right, and instead what we got was a couple names, a bit of the art style, some creature types, and yet another artifact set mashed into yet another enchantment set taking up a ridiculous portion of the space in actual cards. Again -- wasted potential. The only significant synergy between new and old Kamigawa is with ninjas, though there's an extremely minor amount with samurai, and everything else is gone. Not done better, just removed. I'm not even sure it maintains enough continuity to be realistically called a return to Kamigawa; the question of identity rears its head here, and I don't think there's enough left of the original to say it's the same thing.

Kamigawa also sold poorly because it was bad. It played badly and it was weak. On top of that, a lot of the flavor didn't resonate with the audience. Bringing back mechanics that people hated on a plane that people were lukewarm on (to be charitable) isn't a recipe for a best seller. I think they did a great job, personally.

I can agree with it being weak, but I will say, the flavor definitely resonated extremely well with significant parts of the audience, and the rest could be fixed just by doing a better job balancing the cards. I'm not sure what you mean by "it played badly," but the only thing that has ever been at all offputting to me about the cards is how overcosted they are. I mean, so long as we're not talking about Sweep or Epic, and those only showed up on a single 5-card cycle each. And correctly balancing the cards so that it's fun to play can very easily be a recipe for a best seller.

[Yatsufusa]

Cause Kamigawa 1 was a failure and to have a return they noted it need a mechanical and flavor reboot. Maro even listed all the old mechanics of Kamigawa 1 in a design article and noted the only three things they felt worth salvaging was channel, ninja tribal (and they almost didn't have ninjutsu) and samurai tribal (with no bushido), though the sagas are meant to be a nod to the flip cards and they wanted to do Arcane but felt it added nothing to set. The focus is now modern vs tradition with modern using artifact and traditional using enchantments.

See, this is something I find absolutely delusional. Kamigawa 1 was a commercial failure because it was extremely underpowered and also standard was really terrible because of the preceding block. 5 mana 2/2s were the problem of old Kamigawa. Bushido is actually good, they just overcosted it. Spirit/arcane synergies are not even close to unsalvageable, just, again, heavily overcosted previously. Same goes for Soulshift, frankly. Sweep is terrible, and splice onto arcane is horribly parasitic, but to call the rest not worth salvaging is absolutely ludicrous. People wouldn't have been asking for a return to Kamigawa if we thought that the only way they'd do it was by throwing out all the stuff that made it Kamigawa.

Kamigawa also sold poorly because it was bad. It played badly and it was weak. On top of that, a lot of the flavor didn't resonate with the audience. Bringing back mechanics that people hated on a plane that people were lukewarm on (to be charitable) isn't a recipe for a best seller. I think they did a great job, personally.

It was a vocal minority that really liked old Kamigawa, to be honest. MaRo spent over a decade slowly indoctrinating into minds that old Kamigawa was unreturnable, but they could potentially tweak it to make a return possible (that's why Neon Dynasty hit so many bulleyes, because MaRo built the expectations to meet up with reality literally piece by piece over a decade).

Sure, Kamigawa was overcosted mana-wise, but Bushido was bluntly put, inverted Flanking and wasn't really exciting mechanically (although I do also feel Tribal-Exalted was a bit lacking as its replacement). Splice has potential, but it's the sort of thing I feel they will return in another plane instead because it was associated with Arcane on Kamigawa. Arcane and Soulshift are tribal and one of the major shifts of Kamigawa was the Kami War was over, so the tribal aspects of the planes were stripped (at least species-wise, they did leave it for classes like Ninjas). Placement-wise, Neon Dynasty is after two Innistrad sets, a plane known for tribal identity already. They loosely changed the "Kami War" to an artifact vs enchantments (technology vs nature) theme (easier to incorporate with the greater game, something OG Kamigawa didn't do well) but also verified it wasn't as distinct as the Kami War on sides (there are Kami adapted to tech).

Ninjutsu was the no-brainer mechanic to return, mechanically. Channel surprised me initially mostly because it was so weak back then I forgot about it, but Neon Dynasty shows obviously it had so much space for power. The List, as redundant as it might be for some folks technically reprinted some OG cards. They certainly blasted the marketing into the air (not sure out of fear or the competitive Japan market) and I daresay it's successful. I wasn't expecting Kamigawa Remastered, I was expecting Kamigawa 2077 (although I felt like I sort of got Kamigawa "Time Spiral'ed" mechanically).

At least loads better than Zendikar, they had to spend BFZ and OGW getting rid of the Eldrazi (unsatisfyingly for me as well) and then didn't recapture the magic in ZNR. Innistrad fared only slightly better than Zendikar (Emrakul had a much better storyline than the other two titans and the cosmic horror swap was sort of refreshing) and then the return to traditional horror felt sort of meh. Ravnica could be argued to be the same all 3 times we were there, but you can feel the excitement drop every time we returned. Kamigawa skipped the "middle return" (I'm convinced that's what Shattered States is roughly designed for) so they could justify the big changes and because we're all so prepared for those changes already, the real danger is whether the new stuff missed mechanically again, which luckily it didn't, although as I said because they "Time Spiral'ed" so many mechanics (vehicles, enchantment creatures, ability tokens, Sagas and DFCs as one) it might have been some sort of stabilizer for players, although I'm not sure how newer players took it (since Time Spiral actually confused many newer players back then).

[Wallycaine]

1 - Bushido? Gameplay issues? Even the article seems to disagree with this. It says it's simple and plays well. They just didn't want to put it on a bunch of stuff. No real explanation why, though. Would play really nicely into the "tradition" side of "modern versus tradition" from a flavor standpoint, based simply on the name, too.

Maro has gone more in depth elsewhere, but the short version is that tons of Bushido in an environment causes slow gameplay stalls where the right move is not to attack. To give an extremely brief example: A 2/2 with Bushido 2 is on your side. Your opponent has a regular 3/3 on theirs. If you attack with your creature, they won't block, because it would be a 4/4 in combat. But you'll only actually deal 2 damage, and take 3 on the crackback, so you'd lose that race. Therefore, you don't want to attack. And as long as you don't attack, the opponent can't attack either. Put lots of Bushido in a limited environment, and you've got a recipe for tons of board stalls because *nobody* can attack profitably.

[Jemolk]

Maro has gone more in depth elsewhere, but the short version is that tons of Bushido in an environment causes slow gameplay stalls where the right move is not to attack. To give an extremely brief example: A 2/2 with Bushido 2 is on your side. Your opponent has a regular 3/3 on theirs. If you attack with your creature, they won't block, because it would be a 4/4 in combat. But you'll only actually deal 2 damage, and take 3 on the crackback, so you'd lose that race. Therefore, you don't want to attack. And as long as you don't attack, the opponent can't attack either. Put lots of Bushido in a limited environment, and you've got a recipe for tons of board stalls because *nobody* can attack profitably.

I see. That makes sense. Though I'm sure there are ways around it, too.

[RowanKeltizar]

Anyone know what cards are on "the list" for Neon Dynasty?

EDIT: Think I just found it. https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2022-02-03

So according to this, a lot of the cards I was complaining about got an inclusion here. Not sure how much that will affect prices and I still think that new art with new borders would have been better. Certainly better than nothing though!

I wasn't execting Kamigawa remastered, but I think including some lottery cards would have gotten me more excited about the set.

I have a longer reply I've been piecing together but haven't had a lot of spare time this week to post.

[RowanKeltizar]

I find it funny your post because some of the cards you complain about were reprinted at some point. The fact is that WOTC does not want to devaluate cards through Secret Lairs, and that many reprints just don't make sense in supplemental sets.

I do agree that some of the decision making is odd, but I am also being realistic and understanding that there isn't going to be a secret lair with 5 hits. There will always be a balance of good cards and Thraximundars.

I did notice the phyrexian praetors nuked the price of most of them, just because so many people bought them and the bundle price was so appealing. No, I don't expect wizards to put 5 hits in a single secret lair like this very often if ever again.

The biggest question in my mind though is what exactly their policy is regarding "reprint equity" vs selling more volume of product. No doubt, sales on the praetor secret lair was really high but will we see that kind of secret lair again given the value in it?

I think Dunharrow touches on some good logic here:

High value reprints are a commodity. They have a lot of them, but they also need to be strategic. If they flood the market with reprints that nobody is actually trying to get a hold of, the product they are trying to sell is not making good use of that reprint.
Look at Imperial Recruiter. They put it as a mythic rare in Double Masters, and it tanked the price. Nobody wanted the card... at least not in the numbers it was being opened at. You didn't even need to buy Double Masters to try to get the card, you could just pick up a single easily. Wasted reprint. Lost all its value and did not help sell boxes (since it was worthless).
They put it as a mythic in MH2 and it is a wasted spot.

Reprinting things into the ground feels bad too. These two reprints especially nuked the price of the cards in a way that felt a bit painful. I don't think that's the correct way to handle reprints either. However, don't forget that the original portal three kingodms copy of recruiter is still going for $170+

I liked the Strixhaven model of reprints to some degree, however I think the density was still too high. Probably my favorite model was the lottery cards in amonket and kaladesh and the zendikar expeditions. Seeing iconic cards with new frames was exciting and gave me a reason to purchase packs. Having those high value chase cards I think was a good thing for those sets in the long term. Yes, there were problems with this model too, but I think a happy medium is possible.

Also a factor in reprints, the fact they brought back so few things means making reprints harder as they had to basically have a full reboot of what they did last time mechanically so certain cards don't fit. I also know with ninjas anyways cause they don't have a many chances to add to the tribe they have decided on new cards vs reprints as commander and other formats are needing more ninjas creature to help get the right volume.

I don't think anyone was expecting "Kamigawa remastered" given the original sets mechanical shortcomings. OG Kamigawa was a cult classic because of the flavor and story as well as the few actually good cards that remain staples today.

As I've said, the OG Kamigawa cards I listed in my first post could have been printed tangental to the main set in a way that didn't dilute their value TOO MUCH nor interfered with the mechanics and the flavor of the main set. I guess "The List" is a good spot, but then we miss out on having old cards with new art and new borders which is the main thing I wanted to see. I think collectors packs is probably the best place for that type of a reprint since there is a decent but limited supply. Printing the mystical archive cards in set boosters I think was TOO MUCH saturation and became confusing for drafts when those cards couldn't be used.

Cards like Nature's Will would have fit in flavor wise anyway. Nature's will has ONLY ONE printing, and this would have been a ideal place for it to see a second.

I kind of like what they did with the different neon frame colors with Hidetsugu, Devouring Chaos and the same thing could have been done with these other hypothetic reprints.

[Dragoon]

I surely would have loved a Secret Lair containing all 5 OG dragon spirits (Kokusho, the Evening Star and co.) with a special frame treatment and new artwork. I don't think it would have presented too much value compared to other SLs.

[BeneTleilax]

Reprinting things into the ground feels bad too.

Nah, if it made EDH more affordable, I love it if every rare I had got Butcher of Malakir'd.

[RowanKeltizar]

Reprinting things into the ground feels bad too.

Nah, if it made EDH more affordable, I love it if every rare I had got Butcher of Malakir'd.

I mean.... sure. I miss the old days when cards were cheap. It's not a great feeling when every EDH staple is a $40+ card. I'd like to build new decks but can rarely afford to build something that's up to par in power level with my current meta. Just the landbase alone feels daunting.

That said, for someone that has say $7k value in cards, much of which was purchased fairly recently, do you really think it's a great idea for that collection to tank down to a few hundred? If wizards abolished the reserve list and reprinted everything into the ground, where would we be?

I do agree with @Dunharrow in terms of "reprint equity" theory. Wizards needs to sell sealed product. The only way people buy is if there is sufficient chance for value. It's in their best interest to keep secondary market prices high. If reprint value is high they can justify selling their sealed product for more. Kind of lame but there you go.

I surely would have loved a Secret Lair containing all 5 OG dragon spirits (Kokusho, the Evening Star and co.) with a special frame treatment and new artwork. I don't think it would have presented too much value compared to other SLs.

Yes, that actually would have been awesome.