Limited is, for the most part, defined by the common and uncommon cards in the set; for that the changed rarity is fine and appears to work as a good draft set. The let down was the expectation that, like the first set, we would get around 50% playable cards at rare. The price increase might be because that was the price many shops were selling at last time. In which case Wizards might as well take the extra cut themselves. For those of us who were able to get cards as lower prices last time an extra £35 // $50 a box, combined with less playable cards, is a big negative for the set.

My view is the set fails to live up to the name of MODERN masters. It does make a good draft set and three GP’s will put a lot of new cards into circulation and I expect there will be a price drop over the summer especially on cards like Coronet only used in one deck. I will play a few drafts because it looks fun not because I expect to get playable modern cards.

Firstly, I agree with the vast majority of your argument. MM15 falls short, but not by much. What annoys me is the hysteria surrounding the set, with everyone saying they are disappointed. It’s like the set is 90% good, but everyone is so focused on the other 10% that they are missing that 90% is fantastic. I cannot wait to get my hands on cheaper noble heirarchs, cryptics, leylines, The $20 you save per card on these are going to more than pay for the few misses in my view. Modern got cheaper overall.

The problem with everyone expecting “value” is that they forget the release of this set is based around 3 massive GP weekend, which will likely go down as the biggest weekend of tournament magic ever. The set has to be based to be playable limited – it just had to be. If it could do that, while nearly fulfilling the expectations for the modern format constructed, well that’s fine. The question i come back to is that if the balance was to be incorrect, would you rather it be for the benefit of limited or constructed playables?

The only thing I disagreed on was tarmogoyf being in the “ugly” section. Goyf is only a barrier to entry for a few decks, not the entire modern format. There are many varied tier 1 options you can play that do not involve tarmogoyf. Tarmogoyf alone provides a significant chunk of the EV for each box – about $40 per box, and is the golden goose for wizards. You cannot be unhappy that they arent going to kill their golden goose in the short term so that a few players that cannot afford them can play those particular decks. If you had to choose between wizards being able to sustainably print +EV modern sets and making money, or supporting new players, I am going to go for the earlier. Wizards sustainably making money is good for us all – tarmogoyf being $50-100 is only good for a few that cannot afford it at $200, but would buy in that range.

bias: I have my gofys – but i bought them knowing they would be reprinted and not caring if i got in at the peak. I am not trying to maintain the value of them – I truly do not care.

TL;DR – Gofy is the golden goose of modern for Wizards – you cannot expect them to just slaughter it. Heck, it is played in 10% of decks – if it was core to a whole colour (snapcaster for example) i would be singing a different tune.

One of the challenges Wizards encounters is the draft format. You can’t just have people going through draft and autopicking Goyf at rare. That brings in all sorts of weird external dynamics to a Limited environment, and I think that’s at odds with what Wizards wants to do with MM2015. Of course, this just means they could print it somewhere outside of MM2015 (promo, event deck, duel deck, etc.). But they don’t, which leads us to wonder why. I think Wizards has developed some reasons about why they don’t want to, but I also don’t think those reasons are good ones. There’s no need to flood the market with Goyfs. But there is some kind of controlled balance that can lower prices without tanking the Goyf economy and while lowering the Modern entry cost. Wizards either needs to be transparent about why they aren’t taking those approaches, or they need to figure out a way to make it work.

of course, that’s a valid argument, but if wizards wanted goyf being a 100 dolar card, why printing it at mythic? the goyf lottery is fine, but people who want goyfs (or any other specific modern card) just buy them instead of playing the lottery. I think goyf as force of will or wasteland. they are cards that can be reprinted on any suplemental product but for some “secret” reason, they choose to not do that (maybe pressure from companyes like scg or something)

Totally disagree. Wizards has no implicit or explicit obligation to keep Goyf’s price high, unlike with the Reserve List which is its own problem. Wizards also can’t make any profit off Goyf if they don’t reprint it, and the format as a whole makes less money if it’s a barrier to entry. I’m not suggesting Wizards print it at common and flood the market with Goyf. That’s obviously not very profitable in the longterm either. But getting the price down into the low $100s is a much more realistic and reasonable goal. Then they could just reprint it every two years to keep it around that price and ensure they keep selling product off the Goyf lottery.

The only reason to believe Wizards doesn’t want to print Goyf, in fact, is the concept of the “Goyf lottery” itself. Maybe it’s good for sales for Goyf to be $180+, because it encourages people to buy MM product and try to win big. But I also don’t think this is as profitable in the long run as making the card cheaper and decreasing Modern barriers to entry.

I’m curious to see how the pack pricing turns out too. If MM2015 starts to retail at 12.99 or 13.99, then it’s effectively a wash between the two MMs. But if MM2015 stays at $10 and MM2013 was retailing at 9-10, then the playability gap closes. We’ll have to wait and see!

That said, will the new set see a comparable markup? We’ll find out soon enough, I guess.

I know Wizards loves limited… but if you are printing a box for a constructed format… it might be best to focus on that first and foremost. At least there’s plenty of room to grow for MM2016/17?

At any rate thanks for the article!

The only price comparison between the two was in the pack MSRP. I didn’t actually do any pricing on the cards themselves. Like I mentioned earlier, there are plenty of financial EV articles out there and there are only so many times you can do that before you are just saying everything that’s already been said. The playable price calculation was based on MSRP and not on the actual price of the staples.

As your article said, lots of missed opportunities in the Limited format!

I also had an article posted along these lines of putting more actual modern cards in the boosters – if shameless self promotion is allowed here’s the link (http://www.mtgcanada.com/modern/modern-masters-2015-what-could-have-been/)

Yeah, seeing the playability analysis really is good for me as I am a player who’s new to modern (just got Esper mentor a month ago) and I want to build up a modern collection… I’ll stick with the box I preordered but I’m not sure if I’ll get any more than that.

Great catch. I fixed it and added an editor’s note. Glad the analysis was interesting! I got tired of just seeing a million Pack/Box EV articles and wanted to try to approach it from a different angle.