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What If Every Card Cost $1 Or Less?

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There was an interesting  discussion today on the main Magic subreddit that you may find interesting. The question posed by /u/mtgnew was "Would you still play Magic if every card would be $ max?" In the middle of a week where we've already seen people use the upcoming Tempest block MODO drafts and other events to resurrect the age-old gripe-fest about the Reserved List, I wasn't really prepared to see more misguided opinions about MTG Finance. Still, I slogged through it. There are some... interesting perspectives but there is a lot of the same whining, too. I was heartened that the farther I scrolled down, the more pragmatic and intelligent the opinions seemed, which just goes to show that redditors upvote what they wish were true and not what is. Still, for the most part, a lot of people seemed to recognize that the game being that affordable would kill it. If cards were so cheap, there would be no incentive for anyone to pull and mail singles to you. You would have to buy a lot of sealed product to ensure that you have enough copies of every card you wanted and you would be left with a LOT of leftover cards you didn't want. Either the pack price would price people out of the game, or Wizards would make boosters super cheap or sell cards as a full set, further reducing their incentive to keep making cards.

Do yourself a favor and read a few of the comments in the thread. It's interesting to see what people outside of finance think about the financial consequences of them getting their way and living in a fairy tale reality where cards are free and rain from the sky like Manna rocks from heaven. If nothing else, it will give you a nice chuckle.

So what do we think? Would the game survive if cards were $1 or less?

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Jason Alt

Jason Alt is a value trader and writer. He is Quiet Speculation's self-appointed web content archivist and co-captain of the interdepartmental dodgeball team. He enjoys craft microbrews and doing things ironically. You may have seen him at magic events; he wears black t-shirts and has a beard and a backpack so he's pretty easy to spot. You can hear him as co-host on the Brainstorm Brewery podcast or catch his articles on Gatheringmagic.com. He is also the Community Manager at BrainstormBrewery.com and writes the odd article there, too. Follow him on Twitter @JasonEAlt unless you don't like having your mind blown.

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17 thoughts on “What If Every Card Cost $1 Or Less?

  1. There are so many reasons that this would be terrible for the game. Not only would a company like Star City Games have no reason to exist thus eliminating the Open Series, but WotC would have no real incentive to run the Pro Tour either. The acquisition of new players is definitely a big focus for them, but there is just no way the PT could happen if it didn’t incentivize existing players to crack tons of packs.

  2. A lot of those comments didn’t address a question I have. If every card is $1 then what becomes the reason to play competitively? Prize packs would be worthless, if you had any large tournament it would have to be strictly based on player entries – cost of hosting the tournament, again just doesn’t seem worth it. What am I missing here?

      1. At the local level? Is a FNM going to put up cash prizes like that? Wouldn’t that maybe border on gambling? (Again genuinely curious on what this world would look like)

        Maybe at the larger events I could see kind of prize structure, but it’s still going to have to be based on the # of players joining or they’d take a loss, right?

        1. Yeah, there’d be adjustments. WotC right now NOPEs right the fuck out of anything that remotely resembles gambling, and that would have to change.

          That said, this $1 nonsense is obviously the worst idea anyone’s had in a long time. Just not for the reason of prizes.

    1. Yeah, last I checked I could buy a whole poker deck for a little more than a dollar. That game seems to thrive. I don’t understand why “what would be the incentive to play competitively?” is even a question if the game at it’s core is good enough.

      I’m not saying that’s an argument for cards should only cost X, but please don’t put value of a card next to reasons to play a game competitively. We don’t need $1000 decks for a game to thrive competitively.

  3. I see many of us make the assumption that shops can only survive because of the secondary market. I hope that’s not true.

    If SCG main income is secondary market of magic cards, than they have a very bad strategy. I can’t imagine you can be that big on a very risky market.

    I can believe that that share can give them a lot of profit, but I would never trust on that alone. The tournaments are also profit for them, sealed product, sleeves, binders,…

    in the EU, many game shops don’t focus too much on that secondary market because it’s not the best income. It demands a lot of time and there is not much profit for most of them (they need to pay taxes too, so there is not much profit left for them).

    Our local game shops has board games, card games, and computers where you can play computer games. The main profit is computer games and drinks/snacks.

    Shops like SCG should be prepared for that.
    I still think it’s better to reprint goyf untill it’s 5€. yeah, a shop will lose some money because they have a bunch of goyfs around they bought for 50€. But they can still buy plenty more for 2-3€ after reprint and sell them for 5€.
    Why is this better? because you attract a broader range of players.

    Now legacy is for the rich white snobby kids (no mean to offend someone, just trying to make a point).

  4. I believe the game would much more resemble what Mr. Garfield intended it to be in the beginning. There’d be no Quiet Speculation, no pro tour, and we’d still have ante cards. The game would truly revolve around the kitchen table

  5. Garfield made cards as rare so that there would be only one available in a play group. He thought people would only buy a few boosters and that’s it.

  6. Along these lines, what if WotC changed the deck rules to where only 2 or 3 copies of a card were allowed per deck? Would it level the playing field a bit, and make it not so much “pay to win”? Or would other cards that aren’t so relevant (cheaper) now, just pop up in price, leaving players with the same overall deck cost?

    1. In modern we would have to extend the round limit more than likely lol. I think the only thing that limiting the number of a single card you can have in a deck would be to possibly kill combo decks as we know them. Adding that much variance could really hurt.

    2. You may want to consider looking into formats that use the Highlander rules ;).

      It’s still very possible to ‘pay to win’ in those formats, though I believe it may start having a good effect when you make the range of cards to choose from smaller too. It would probably get more cards played, driving down prices on the expensive ones and raising prices on those that are now suddenly getting considered. Ont he whole I reckon it would perhaps bring down deck prices a bit, but probably not as much as you’d hope. The trade of would be that decks will become more similar as more will start sharing cards (as there are only so many to choose from).

    3. “Or would other cards that aren’t so relevant (cheaper) now, just pop up in price, leaving players with the same overall deck cost?”

      Bingo.

      It would also increase the swinginess/variance of games dramatically. Up to you whether that’s a good thing or bad, though.

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