People who complain about MTGFinance piss me off. Ok, so Modern

>>52680739
making good decks unreasonably expensive isn't good for the long term health of the format(see legacy), how fucking dense do you have to be to not see that?

>>52680739
>This fucking dense
Making the game unplayable for 90% of your target demographic means you'll never see a dime because they've moved on to a cheaper game that isn't heavily biased towards most money/single deck meta.
>Muh standard is a mess so git gud or gtfo
A meta being fucked is inexcusable. WotC should not have banned the cards they did to begin with, and despite concerns about player confidence it's clear a "nothing changed" position only hurt them. A meta shouldn't be dominated unquestionably by two decks if the intent is to make a profit.
>Modern is dommed by $1000 decks
Budget burn, affinity, even Bant Spirits do fairly decent while never exceeding more than $400.
>MTGO is unplayable
I've seen evidence to the contrary.

Most standard players also play other formats as a fallback for when the format becomes stale. It's up to WotC and nobody else whether poor R&D and a lack of player-focused decision-making is going to be the direction they take. Amonkhet is proving to be somewhat decent, but a lack of answers and too many threats are more meaningful than masterpieces long-term.

>>52680739
z.
play commander and laugh at all the retard baby's in other formats

Epic post! Liked and subscribed to your blog.

>possibly even make you rich
even the top 0.01% only make a couple hundred off each set

mtg cards are hilariously bad investments

>>52680917
>tfw sell completed, full ABUR dual Legacy decks to top out my Commander decks and keep one or two low-power ones on the side
why did I even bother with format babbies

>>52681006
>Only make a couple hundred off each set
Lmao yeah tell that to my 500 boxes of Khans

>>52681071
Rudy, you wife wants to talk to you.

>>52681098
DESU his wife is a fucking apple pie faced plain disgusting tramp who's tits will be sagging below a snakes belly by the time she's 40 literally disgusting

>>52680739
Get in the oven

>>52681071
You are sure going to look smart when they reprint fetches again in six years

>>52681167
Took them 8 years to reprint zen fetches in a masters set, I think I'll be fine. But please do continue to tell me about how smart I am, really gets me hard when a nigga fluffing my hog

>>52681071
I would rather have 250 boxes of mm2017.

>>52680739
What kind of retarded solutions are those? Here is mine:

Just pay the fucking Chinamen $2 a card whenever you want something that is over $50. Trade for anything less than that. Don't put any of your fucking money into the secondary market/WotC unless it's at a FLGS you want to support.

>>52680917
>Play THE format for retarded babies so you can laugh at retarded babies
There is some logic to that. I love showing up to 1v1 EDH tournaments with 40Counterspells.dec and watching all the tears that it gets out of little Timmy.

>People who "invest" $20 into a card

>>52681139
L O W T E S T

>>52681006
Actual stocks iinvestors are consodered lucky if they get a 20% profit in a year. With magic cards you can get 200% percent profit or even far far more in much less time. Saying people only make hundreds is beyond retarded, it depends entirely on your investment, eveb if that were true and people only make hundreds there is a way to make more.
Also bonus points the magic market cna be outsmarted, the real stocks market can't.
If you really are good at magic you can make crazy money,the only problem is that it would take a lot of time spent at postal office shupping. (t. Not an investor, i just got butthurt about your retarded claims)

>>52680917
Commander is for autistic assholes though.

>>52680739
Actually I just buy fakes.

>>52682239
>Actually I'm just poor
Ftfy

>>52682239
>>52682600
Samefag. No one cares whether or not you play/buy fakes. It's all about the game.

>>52681965
that's because there is no entity to regulate that shit.

>>52680915
while i do agree with you on most points senpai
>bant spirits
>a deck that runs 3c mana base and 4 noble hierarchs as well as 2 EE sideboard
>lower than 400 bucks
800 is more like it

>>52681817
If they know it's going to be duel and they show up with some Timmy battlecruiser pile of shit, they deserve everything that's coming to them.

>>52680739
>C. Get into MTGFinance yourself. A few buyouts could go a long way, possibly even make you rich.

Dont fall for a meme

>>52681817
>40Counterspells.dec
Post dick or I'm just gonna assume you're bad or don't know how to play commander

>>52680739
The free market has already fixed it anon.
Join grorius capitarism chinaman revorution!
Demand rises and so does offer!

>>52680915
>$400 for a children's card game is "budget"
What the everloving fuck.

>>52682779
>Children's card game
It's a children's card game until you actually start playing competitively, kitchen table is almost free and it's great

>>52682779
>children's card game
I rarely actually see children playing. I've only ever played against one (not counting when I was a child myself) and only seen a handful.

>>52681965
That "20%" is hundreds of thousands of dollars. Thinking you're a big boy because you doubled your ((((investment)))) of $100 is pathetic.

>>52682920
Yeah it's kind of funny. I think Magic is kind of in its golden years right now, with the adults who played it as kids spending real money now. As compared to kids spending a couple dollars. However I wonder if MTG can compete with video games, shit I know I would have rather played video games most of the time when I was a kid, I mean I was playing Gradius and Mario and it was fun, but can't compare to games nowadays

You missed the 5th solution: buy counterfeit cards for cheap.

>>52682946
Wizards needs to stop fucking up with MTGO. Games like Hearthstone show kids get just as addicted to collecting cards as they always have.

>>52682774
Okay maybe not 40, it's pretty stock Vendillion Clique control but with even more counterspells instead of the Emrakul wincon package (why would I want to end the game that fast? I'll draw into tunnel vision eventually)

>>52680915
>400$
>Budget

So what youre saying is there are no budget decks.

>>52683312
I started building Affinity by buying a U/W Tempered Steel deck that costs ~$80 right now. It's not all that competitive but it can still get wins.

>>52683312
>>52680915
Yeah, since no 400 dollar """budget""" deck is more than a waste of your fucking time.
>standard
will rotate, nice job wasting 400 dollars since they'll devaluate ASAP
>legacy/vintage
Hahaha. Oh wow.
>Modern
Yes anon, your shitbrew 400 dollars """affinity""" and """burn""" are good. (hahaha oh wow), best you can get is "budget" dredge (haha oh wow).
>Pauper
I mean, might as well buy all the decks in the format to have someone to play with.

>>52683356
>I-it c-can still get wins!!
I can get wins with a pauper deck vs legacy tier 1-2s (back in the day vs pikula).

If you don't play pauper it's a waste of your money and time, same with your shitbrew, except if you play kitchen table where this discussion is fucking irrelevant since it's fucking casual you don't need to improve the deck outside of your own help or try to beat t1 decks anyways and the metagame is different (namely, there isn't one or it's the same since it's your buddies and you all own the same decks)

>>52683389
The point is that the deck is playable and gives you a path to a tier 1 deck that you can upgrade to over time.

>>52681098
You do realize Rudy's gay, right?

>>52683179
Emrakul is banned in Commander

>>52680739
All of your arguments are retarded.

A. Getting rich isn't that easy. It's alot of work; in fact, if you were trying to get rich, you probably wouldn't even have time for Magic.

B. That's assuming there's an LGS full of n00bs in your area. Most people don't have that luxury.

C. So treat Magic like a second job? Fuck that, hobbies are supposed to be fun leisure activities, not stressful work.

D. Actually, YOU probably should, because you're a toxic piece of shit.

>>52682943

Not the same guy and to be fair. The entry market to "stock trading" in MTG is far lower than the real market. Anyone can do it in MTG with hundreds of dollars, stock market you need thousands of dollars.

>>52683356

And now you have a shell for a deck that you can upgrade later into its more expensive competitive version.

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As a person who hasn't played mtg before, but knows card games in general a bit (pokemon as a kid, a little of hearthstone when I'm bored)

What's so fucked about the standard meta right now, won't it just be fixed the next time expansion x comes out and makes the old cards obsolete?

>>52686479
Thats the same argument people made with Beanie Babies in the 1990s.

>>52686560
Magic is MUCH more expensive than Pokémon or Hearthstone. People aren't as willing to build new Standard decks when it costs roughly half a grand each time.

>>52686595
Christ on a bike and I thought hearthsone was bad. Is it just endless pack opening in the hope of the [insert high rarity card] that the entire deck revolves around?

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>>52681817
yes yes very good

HOWEVER

>>52686645
No. If you buy individual cards, it's half a grand. If you open packs to try to build decks, it will cost well over a grand.

>>52686645
the difference is that the hearthstone cards you put money into have absolutely no value once they rotate out unless you have plans to play their eternal format whereas magic cards will generally always have some form of fungible value in comparison to hearthstone where the best you can get if you pull more copies of a card than you need is anywhere from an eighth to a quarter of the card's value

>>52686645
No, you just buy the bloody cardboard directly.

>spend $500 on a magic deck
>get tired of magic
>sell magic deck off for 90% of what I paid
>spend $500 on hearthstone cards
>get tired of hearthstone
>???

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>>52681817
>1v1 EDH

>>52686479
Pop quiz: can you name a speculative craze where a rare vintage piece sold for thousands of dollars, 3 newer pieces sold for over $100 for a long time, and buttloads of people went into a buying frenzy hoping to get rich off it?

I'm, of course, talking about the Beanie Baby craze of the 1990s. And that vintage piece I'm referring to is Peanut the Elephant, not Black Lotus. The newer pieces I'm referring to are Garcia, Maple, and Britannia. Not Tarmogoyf, Jace the Mind Sculptor, and Liliana of the Veil.

Sounds Familiar, eh?

>>52680739
>A few buyouts could go a long way, possibly even make you rich.
show me 10 people who became rich investing in mtg

>>52686885
Most people have been figuring the Magic financial bubble would pop like other collectibles. I'm surprised it hasn't yet, I wonder how much further it can go.

>>52686595
standard is 200 max each time
also don't play shitty formats
pauper and commander exist

>>52686749
>>52686752
>>52686755
Sounds pretty crazy. I'll just stick to looking at all the pretty pictures they cards have then, I think.

>>52686948
It will pop when the playerbase reaches a critical low, and Wizzards reprints needed cards to compensate. All speculators are the company's bitch in that at any moment they could be made irrelevant.

>>52686948

magic could pop at any moment, its pretty amazing that its held on for this long.

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>>52682943
>>52686479
>>52686564
>>52686885

You dumb pieces of shit. Plenty of people put a few hundred dollars into "the stock market" (you mean equities but whatevs) and make 200%+ back. Just put a few hundred $ into some low-cap biotech stock. It'll probably go bust, but if it succeeds you'll make many times your investment, and your overall odds are much better than "investing" in pogs or whatever.

Only that kind of activity isn't INVESTING. It's speculating, gambling. Fun of course, but grown-ups don't do that with real money or over real time horizons, because a) with large quantities you prefer safety, b) the market won't bear it: if you buy a ton of a single "pog" you won't be able to sell even if it goes up -- especially if it only went up as a result of you buying.

Old joke: some guy who thinks he's smart buys $10k of a penny stock. This pushes the price up. He sees that, thinks he's a genius, tells his broker to buy another $10k. And another. By this point there are only a few active sellers left and they figure something's going on and put their asking price sky high. Our genius investor (who I have to assume is one of the anons on this thread) figures he's made enough now, plus he's out of cash, so he tells his broker to sell.

His broker says, "to who?"

>>52680739
>He doesn't play MTG with high resolution cardstock proxies, or play in a price limited meta, or stick to limited/cube.
Well, there's the problem.

>People expecting casuals to pay the ridiculously high prices to play competitive magic.
Why in the fuck would we do that?

>>52680739

>le elitist capitalist

It's a fucking children's card game. It should be cheap and affordable.

>>52681817
1v1 edh has additional banlist. Keep in mind.

>>52682987
Or the 6th: grab 300dpi scans and print to scale on 110lb cardstock and cut out, possibly with a $50 paper guillotine.

All decks, $20.

Once you sleeves them it's all the same anyways.

Plus, if you're creative, you can make entire sweet looking themed decks with matching borderless graphic design and hand selected art.

(Captcha: select all hamsters - there's a rabbit, a chipmunk, and a squirrel, no hamsters)

>>52686564
>>52686885

Here's the flaw with your analogy and reasoning in relating it to Beanie Babies. Beanie babies don't exist to be played in tournaments where the demand for X cards for said tournaments increases demand. Beanie Babies exist as nothing but collectables that do nothing where as MTG cards exist not just as collectables but have tangent purpose for tournaments where said cards are required. Compound this with the factor of the reserve list and the card value of those cards on the reserve list will only go up as long as the game is in demand to play.

>>52688903
>Reserve list
You want a solution for the reserve list?
"Cards on the reserve list are not legal in any competitive format".
Fucking done. Problem solved.

As for the rest,
>1.
one answer is to shit out sets of tournament staples (especially the manabases) to drive down the card value to accessible amounts.

>2.
Or, another solution: break each format down into weight classes which are based on the average card price of the deck. Everyone has to build their decks in a web app which calculates the deck's weight class, and players I can be quickly shown the a decks weightclass stats through a simple smartphone or webapp. if a deck is breaking a meta, its price increases will end up pushing that deck up a weight class and it will end up facing more expensive decks, until it ends up where it belongs.

>3.
Or, conversely, ban the staple cards for any decks dominating a meta, forcing people to come up with new decks.

Of course, none of these things are actually going to happen, and 60 card competitive formats are going to continue to not be any fun, while also being overpriced.

So I'll just stick to playing non-tournament based limited, cube, and casual price limited/proxy formats, and things like deckbuilder toolkit leagues.

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Make money selling useless accessories

>>52686804
Sell HS account

>>52686804
Can you not resell hs cards online? I don't play hs.

>>52686560

>the next time expansion x comes out and makes the old cards obsolete?

New cards rarely make old cards "obsolete", unless you mean rotation, and that won't happen till September.

>>52686804

>spend $500 on a magic deck
>get tired of magic
>sell magic deck off for 150% of what I paid

FTFY

>>52680739
>Standard has devolved into a mess of absurd power creep.
Uh, what

>>52689837
You'll only see an upmark in Legacy and maybe Modern if your shit doesn't get banned, and there 500$ doesn't even buy you the mana base.

>>52689373
No, there is no trading and there is no ability to buy/sell individual cards. You can only pull cards from packs or "disenchant" cards to get pseudo-currency whose only use is to create other cards, and at terrible rates mind you.

>>52689837
This is also a possibility, my statement was for the most likely scenario of little to no loss in which case your greatest loss will be the % cost to you in shipping/reselling

>>52680739
Card price speculation only drives card prices up, thus making the problem even worse.

>>52690515
Gotcha. So like Steam "purchases".

Every purchase you need to ask yourself: "am I going to get my money's worth out of this, I'm not going to be able to recoup any of the costs if not"

>>52690635
>Card price speculation is bad, m'kay?

Yeah, it drives prices up, but it usually doesn't matter. Do you really care that nuch when shit like Seismic Assault and Rite of Passage spike? If you do, you should probably stop trying to build bad decks.

>>52689240

>Reserved List

...Or you could just use Chinese "proxies" like everyone else

>1
Already being done. You can currently get a whole set of every Fetch and Shock Land for under $500, thanks to Modern Masters 2017. And they will only continue to be reprinted more and more.

>2
Hmm...I actually like this one. Interesting idea.

>3
No. There's a time and place for that, and it's called Yu-Gi-Oh.

>>52689240

>"Cards on the reserve list are not legal in any competitive format".
>Fucking done. Problem solved.

That doesn't solve the problem, you've just made it worse. While I do think the reserve list should be abolished this is not the way to do it. Better way to do is to start abolishing the cards over a long set period of time like say 10 years and the more expensive sought after reserve list cards (e.g Moxen) should have the cards reprinted only as part of the prizes for winning a tournament.

>one answer is to shit out sets of tournament staples (especially the manabases) to drive down the card value to accessible amounts.

They're doing that now with the Masters sets. MM3 is in a good position now while EMA was a good thing it's also going to be slow to catch up.

>Or, another solution: break each format down into weight classes which are based on the average card price of the deck. Everyone has to build their decks in a web app which calculates the deck's weight class, and players I can be quickly shown the a decks weightclass stats through a simple smartphone or webapp. if a deck is breaking a meta, its price increases will end up pushing that deck up a weight class and it will end up facing more expensive decks, until it ends up where it belongs.

Way too confusing and unnecessary and a very bad idea. You are going to make not just deckbuilding needlessly complex for both new and existing players but you're forcing them to keep awareness of two different lists, a B&R list and a price list. Then you ask which price list you use? Stores and other places have variable prices on cards by up to sometimes $20 which can make or break a deck in your example.

>Or, conversely, ban the staple cards for any decks dominating a meta, forcing people to come up with new decks.

Cards should only be banned for power reasons not for secondary market pricing reasons. Online play makes expensive formats cheap.

>>52689240

>Reserved List
...So, turn Legacy into Super Modern?

>1
WoTC has already been doing that. It can't be done overnight, though.

>2
So...turn Magic into Smogon?

>3
So...turn Magic into Yugioh?

How do I unload a lot of cards for the most value?
Or even a few valuable cards that are worth a decent amount?

Required my old collection of thousands, first handful had original reanimate deads, lightning bolts and swords (4th and ice age).

Don't think using eBay to sell off playsets of swords is the way to go, but I also don't want to sell them bulk for 5$ for 1k.

Any pointers?

>>52696159
>Magic into Smogon
More or less, yeah.

Make Smogon for MTG.

>>52695190
>They have to track prices!
No they don't. They just have to look at their deck in the app and see if they've gone over budget.
>Which Prices!?
An average of the major European, North American, and Asian markets, based on the average price of the card for a 4 or 6 month timespan. The price that matters for deckbuilding would be the cheapest (legal to be played) physical price for a particular card, regardless of set.

>>52696839

>No they don't. They just have to look at their deck in the app and see if they've gone over budget.

MTG cards have different prices across different vendors and different sites. So no your "just look at their app" argument doesn't work especially considering there could be multiple price checking apps. Also you cannot consult your phone during the middle of an MTG tournament. Otherwise this is going to cause a billion Judge calls to examine every deck to ensure its up to "price matching".

>An average of the major European, North American, and Asian markets, based on the average price of the card for a 4 or 6 month timespan. The price that matters for deckbuilding would be the cheapest (legal to be played) physical price for a particular card, regardless of set.

Except a card in one market could be worth more in another market. Maybe someone uses foil cards, now those cards are just unnecessarily expensive for the same function. Different editions of a card are also worth more or less depending on the version. Then you have to evaluate foreign versions of cards and the prices on those differ widely as well. You are introducing unnecessary unneeded complex logistics into the game based on secondary market trends that are not part of the game rules.

Who decided to jack up the prices on dual lands for modern anyway?

TFW Just wanna play some fun games with friends and local FNM but not enough of an ass to just print out fakes and sleeve them.

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just play Pauper.

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>>52697139
>Ultra pro sleeves

you sure are pauper

>>52686560

As a person that started in August, stick to edh and pauper.

Also, get local chronics to shoplift cards for you.

>>52689311
ifthat comes with those dice im gonna buy it

>>52696912
>Suggest an official change to a format with an official deckbuilding app that tells you the value of a card for purposes of deckbuilding.
>"There's a billion different webapps!"
>"Checking during a tournament".
In a tournament you would register your deck list, and that decklist would include it's "point value" from the official deckbuilder.

>"Individual printings have different values"
Yes. And as I already said, the one that would matter for how much it counts against your deck building budget would be an automatically calculated average of the cheapest printing available in all the major markets. You're clearly not actually reading what you responding to, or you wouldn't be pointing out "flaws" that were already explicitly explained and resolved.

>>52697166
>Pauper format
>Complains about sleeves.
It's just a format that has cheaper (on average) deck prices. It's poorly named, because it's not actually a dirt cheap format, it's just cheaper than the big 5.

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>>52697607
Using the cheapest sleeves for the cheapest format?

>>52697649
>UltraPro
>Cheapest Sleeves
UltraPro are the fine. They're not fancy but they get the job done. The cheapest Sleeves are the ones without any identifying brand, that are clear on both sides and fall apart when you try to put cards in them. People used to call them penny sleeves here in leafland because you got a pack of 100 for a buck.
And I've seen several LGS that don't carry any of the more premium sleeves than UltraPro, it could also just be a lack of options.

>>52697704
>Buy online then
I've had many ultrapro split versus dragonshields and no name online sleeves.

>>52683179
Good thing you didnt play that emerakul anon.....

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>>52686674
Whats it like to be weak and crutch on nonbasics anon?

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>>52686674

0 fucks given my man

>>52680739

E. Play other formats like EDH, Pauper, etc.

>>52680739
E. Only play kitchen table all-proxy.

>>52698409
Addendum: also Xmage, Forge, Untap.in, and Cockatrice

>>52697704
KMC shit the bed. Dragonshields haven't changed.

Most UltraPros are still garbage. But UltraPro Eclipses are better than all of them. Somehow they unfucked themselves but only with Eclipses, which obviously cost more.

>>52698459
Eclipse? Is that new because I have not seen it.

>>52680739
Greatest bait I've seen in a long time or the most retarded poster, either way good try.

>>52698439
May I suggest tabletop simulator?

You can either draft/sealed and or use sets from people that made "mods" or you can easily upload your own deck and it plays exactly as it would irl with cards that actually look pretty and not as shit as on cockatrice or even mtgo.

>>52697589

>In a tournament you would register your deck list, and that decklist would include it's "point value" from the official deckbuilder.

Yes and as the rules has it right nowyou write up your decklist. Furthermore have you even played in a GP or Regional PPTQ for that matter? There are thousands of players and thousands of decks and which would require for judges to go through and examine and double check the "point value" of each deck as the decks are submitted to ensure no errors and legitimacy. And then you would have to do this within a reasonable amount of time. Also you tout for an official deckbuilder? What market information would this official deckbuilder extrapolate data from? Who sets the prices and trends? Who guarantees which vendors/sources are allowed to have market value inputs for this data for cards?

>Yes. And as I already said, the one that would matter for how much it counts against your deck building budget would be an automatically calculated average of the cheapest printing available in all the major markets. You're clearly not actually reading what you responding to, or you wouldn't be pointing out "flaws" that were already explicitly explained and resolved.

You are very naive into thinking this is an easily addressed and measured issue. Pray tell how do you matter the calculated average of the cheapest printed card in all the major markets when each major market will categorize different cards on their condition, foil status and language version. A Russian or Korean version of a card may have more or less value than a Spanish or Italian version of said same card. A card in a Japanese market may be worth $2 and another foreign market could be worth $40. You clearly do not understand that you are trying to use secondary market factors into a point of contention when the tournaments of MTG do not measure secondary market value as whether your deck can be legal or not because those measures are OUTSIDE of the game rules.

>>52697589

Also I do not think you understand the tremendous burden of what you suggest would have logistically on every and each individual MTG tournament. What pray happens when you submit a deck but there's a buyout which raises the prices of said cards and then that increases the average thereby now making your deck "illegal" for purposes? How many people do you need to have on the spot for each tournament to assess and judge the value conditions of each card to determine if it's SP or NM or M? How much of that value would change the "points cost" of your deck thereby possibly rendering it an illegal deck? All the measures you propose would have a shitload of people being accidentally DQ'd because of factors outside their control that changed without their input.

>>52697166
>Emrakul in Bant Eldrazi

Git gud scrub

>>52682943
you do know you can buy more then a card at a time right?

>>52698535
Yeah, it's new. Check out the Prof's latest card sleeve video.

>>52687036
I suggest you to look into cheaper formats like pauper and edh

>>52680739
There's another solution: Wait for Wizards to print more cards or for the Chinese to flood the market with virtually perfect counterfeits.

>>52684692
Kek i think your right he is rather feminin.

>>52698961
>Who would manage an official deckbuilder.
WOTC. Because it's official.

>Checking decklists by hand
So don't check it by hand?
>They share their online deck id.
>That deck is looked at online, and everything is right there.

>Different print types and languages of card have different values!
Yes. That's fucking obvious. But the relevant question is "how cheaply could you build a copy of your deck for playability purposes (I would assume the cards are in good condition, not beat up trash) in each major market,from major vendors" and that's pretty easy to calculate. They just set their variables as desired, monitor the values with an automated tool, and calculate the point value formulaicly using the same automated tool. I'm a share developer. I'm not naive, it's a fairly simple process. If it's cheaper to grab the cards in a mashup of Japanese and German, then that's what it would assume you're doing for the purpose of pricing out your deck.
If WOTC instead decided to use an average of all printings, that would also be simple.
>You clearly don't understand that adding market factors into the rules isn't currently done because those measures are outside of the game rules!
I mean they *could* instead assign point value by values of how often a card sees tournament play, weighted by how well the player did in the tournament and what level the tournament is at (and again - assigning point values that give no fucks what printing you're using. That's more direct than using market value, but it requires collecting more data to make the calculations. I suppose you could pull the performance information from mtgo for any formats where the cards are all also available on mtgo. The trick is just having a large amount of data to use for valuing the card types and then having a computer process it all and calculating simple warhammer esque point values.

>>52704085

>WOTC. Because it's official.
They quite literally can't do that or they would have to reclassify their company from a toy company to one that's part of the banking and finance sector instead. You would end up classifying MTG as a gambling game and not a game of leisure when dictating price of secondary market singles.
>So don't check it by hand?
How else are you going to check it? You can't just sit there and put cards in a scanning machine. I don't think you've ever worked or played at an MTG GP in your life. Everything has to be checked by hand when it comes to deck checks.
>Yes. That's fucking obvious. But the relevant question is "how cheaply could you build a copy of your deck for playability purposes (I would assume the cards are in good condition, not beat up trash) in each major market,from major vendors" and that's pretty easy to calculate. They just set their variables as desired, monitor the values with an automated tool, and calculate the point value formulaicly using the same automated tool. I'm a share developer. I'm not naive, it's a fairly simple process. If it's cheaper to grab the cards in a mashup of Japanese and German, then that's what it would assume you're doing for the purpose of pricing out your deck. If WOTC instead decided to use an average of all printings, that would also be simple.

Again, if WOTC were to be measuring their products and pegging it to a secondary market value they would have to actually reclassify their company from a toy company. You ASSUME that the cards are in good condition but you can't assume that since every card will be of different grade and quality. The fact that if a card is slightly faded or the border cuts are even the teensiest bit misaligned affects their grade. The most important thing here is that Wizards do not and can not set the prices of singles in the secondary market. You assume this is something simply solved with software, it is not that simple of a solution.

>>52680915
Bant spirits is 800-1000 lad

t. Bant Spirits player

>>52698611
Player base size, also Untap.in has rules enforcement/automation. Like cockatrice is a multi-player version of the deck tester on Tapped Out. Untap is like MTGO but for free.

>>52704085

To further continue on:

>I mean they *could* instead assign point value by values of how often a card sees tournament play, weighted by how well the player did in the tournament and what level the tournament is at (and again - assigning point values that give no fucks what printing you're using. That's more direct than using market value, but it requires collecting more data to make the calculations. I suppose you could pull the performance information from mtgo for any formats where the cards are all also available on mtgo. The trick is just having a large amount of data to use for valuing the card types and then having a computer process it all and calculating simple warhammer esque point values.

You want to assign point value by values of how often a card sees tournament play is going to be an inherently flawed system considering there will be hundreds and thousands of decks with basic lands that will artificially inflate that point value system. You think this is a problem that can be solved with a software solution when I am going to tell you that your idea is simply flawed from the start for so many reasons not the least being a logistical nightmare. Try working or playing at an MTG GP or large scale PTQ event and you will quickly realise that your methodology would be an absolute nightmare to measure at every level. Then the question becomes "Who oversees the assignment of point values of cards and what committee does this?" You're trying to apply government bureaucratic levels of complexity to a simple card game that the point values aren't part of the rules nor are they required to play the game.

>>52704313
MTGO has a Tix price, right? Just use that. Decks must cost no more than X Tix for this format.

>>52704466

MTGO tix price is different to paper price.

Gorrilla Shaman on MTGO is expensive where as the paper version is 20 cents. Other stuff like Daze is expensive on MTGO compared to paper. Both markets have a different supply and value availability. Duals are quite cheap and Vintage is an affordable format to play online, in paper that's another story. Consider other popular online only formats like Pauper that also drive up prices of other cards. Because of this you try using online pricing for physical tournaments, that's a big discrepancy and problem right there.

>>52704313
WOTC isnt financing or gambling with shit. Theyd simply be stratifying the decks based on point costs. Calculating point costs by scraping price data is easiest, but they could also get data to calculate point values from performance in tournaments, or from mtgo matches (but only if they made all cards available on mtgo, naturally).

>They have to check manually.
They might have to check the cards to see if they match the deck list manually. They would not have to calculate the point value of the deck list. But you're right. I have not been to or ever wanted to go to a GP.

>Assume the cards are in good condition.
The actual version of the cards used is irrelevant, that's my fucking point. You're being deliberately obtuse. It's not about finance. It's about finding a way to quantify how cards impact a meta, and automatically adjusting the meta accordingly. Grabbing card prices is just a fairly simple way to get data to work with to calculate point values. Measuring actual deck performances would be better, but more difficult to collect the data. But it doesn't matter which fucking goyf printing is in your deck, or if it has some scratches, the card plays the fucking same.

WOTC would not be manually setting the prices of anything in the secondary market. That has literally nothing to do with anything I said, and I can't help but think you're being deliberately retarded. Such decisions would impact the values of cards, as what gets included in what decks shifted around, but they impact cards that way every time they print a new set, or ban something.

>>52704617
It would sort itself out.

>>52704390
>Who would assign point values?
A computer. Based on available data. Automatically.

Hypothetically you could allow for manual adjustments if something is priced goofy. Otherwise not.

>Basic lands
Obviously would not be included as they're fucking basic lands. Not hard to manually set the point value of the 6 fucking cards that are literally everywhere.

>Collecting that data from tournaments would be a pain.
Unless all the decklists and performance are already entered into a computer, yeah. I agree. That was why I suggested using the (less direct) measure of a cards utility in a format, based on reading the market prices of the card.

>Point values aren't part of the rules nor are they a requirement to play the game.
>A suggested rules change for deckbuilding is not part of the current rules
No shit.

>>52705032
Agreed. It would sort itself out quickly.

Each weight classes would develop their own metas. If cards were dominating a lower weight meta, their point value would increase (either by price or by tracking performance in mtgo or whatever method is chosen to get the data) until it found equilibrium. It goes up in points, less people play it. Then it goes down in points. Then more people run it. Then eventually it's point value levels off as it hits it's real value.

It really is just a matter of software. It's not terribly complicated, just computationally intense. It would be a nightmare to do using people, but it's trivial to have a computer do these kinds of calculations.

>>52704960

>WOTC isnt financing or gambling with shit. Theyd simply be stratifying the decks based on point costs. Calculating point costs by scraping price data is easiest, but they could also get data to calculate point values from performance in tournaments, or from mtgo matches (but only if they made all cards available on mtgo, naturally).

If WOTC try to influence or set prices for their hypothetical app that is market manipulation and you would end up classifying MTG as a gambling game and not a toy game. They would have to also by law have to reclassify their company. This is part of the reason why they cannot ever sell singles directly to their customers.

>The actual version of the cards used is irrelevant, that's my fucking point. You're being deliberately obtuse. It's not about finance. It's about finding a way to quantify how cards impact a meta, and automatically adjusting the meta accordingly. Grabbing card prices is just a fairly simple way to get data to work with to calculate point values. Measuring actual deck performances would be better, but more difficult to collect the data. But it doesn't matter which fucking goyf printing is in your deck, or if it has some scratches, the card plays the fucking same.

Again you simply do not understand that you are trying to apply a software solution that does not work to a paper problem with unnecessary bureaucratic measures. How fucking complex do you have to make MTG when teaching someone how to play that when you play a deck you have to use X apps and visit Y sites and calculate Z values to make your deck. That is arguably beyond retarded. You say the actual versions of the card used is irrelevant but for someone who doesn't know how MTG markets work it is most relevant.

>>52705073

>A computer. Based on available data. Automatically.
>Hypothetically you could allow for manual adjustments if something is priced goofy. Otherwise not.

Again who's allowed to make the manual adjustments? Do you even understand the implications of giving an organisation complete control over controlling the secondary market value prices of stock that are worth thousands? Imagine giving a single company the ability to control the Iron Ore prices over the entire global market. Because that's what MTG finance is it's an isolated global market that has no government measures and safeguards. And you want to give some committee or individuals the ability to adjust prices on a whim.

>Obviously would not be included as they're fucking basic lands. Not hard to manually set the point value of the 6 fucking cards that are literally everywhere.

And then you realise that certain basic lands are priced much higher than others and find out the fundamental flaw in your argument. Why are certain cards exempt but others are valued? Some decks don't even run Basics so they cheat on this restriction anyway, who applies the "credit" concession to those decks that don't run basics?

>It really is just a matter of software. It's not terribly complicated, just computationally intense. It would be a nightmare to do using people, but it's trivial to have a computer do these kinds of calculations.

Your solution might work for a digital only game like Hearthstone but it would never ever simply work for MTG especially in regards to paper tournaments which the majority of the tournaments are. You are again very naive to simply think this is a situation that is solved that simply. You introduce far too many needless complex logistics into a game that should not be further complicated by unnecessary outside thegame rules restrictions.

>>52705073
>>52705032

>Unless all the decklists and performance are already entered into a computer, yeah. I agree. That was why I suggested using the (less direct) measure of a cards utility in a format, based on reading the market prices of the card

The decklists do get registered into a computer but you can't change them. To do so would be results and information tampering and puts the entire tournament into question.

>It would sort itself out.

It would most definitely not sort itself out. It still hasn't sorted itself out after 20 fucking years, what makes you think it would suddenly sort itself out now?

>>52705198
And during development, like with any software development, you spit out test results and make sure it's doing what you want it to do before it ever gets used in a live environment. If you've overlooked something, you'll see that during development.

>>52705237
>"Set prices"
Fortunately nobody has suggested they would do that but you.
Warhammer setting how many points an ork is worth is not market manipulation. How they calculate how many points an Ork is worth is irrelevant and needn't even be publicly disclosed.

>>52705237
>It would be too hard to make a deck!
Hey newbie. To design a deck, open up this app, and start adding the cards you want to use. See this gauge filling up as you add better cards? It determines your decks weight class. The heavier weight classes have decks made out of stronger cards, the lighter weight classes have decks built of weaker cards. 'like boxing?' yeah exactly, same idea. The little guys face off against the other little guys. If you go over the lines it puts you in the next weight bracket, again like in boxing. You want to build the best deck you can in the weight class you're playing. Generally the lower weight classes are cheaper to play since the higher weight classes are made out of better cards. You'll also note it shows you how much of the bar the cards will fill as you browse through them. Just drag and drop newbie.

Compared to balancing mana curves and card selection, this one addition is fucking trivial and easy shit.

It also opens up new metas and formats and allows for play at different price brackets. There would be a new meta, for instance where a $100 legacy deck would not be unusual.

>>52705529

>And during development, like with any software development, you spit out test results and make sure it's doing what you want it to do before it ever gets used in a live environment. If you've overlooked something, you'll see that during development.

And you've clearly never used any of WotC's software.

>Fortunately nobody has suggested they would do that but you.
Warhammer setting how many points an ork is worth is not market manipulation. How they calculate how many points an Ork is worth is irrelevant and needn't even be publicly disclosed.

Warhammer is a completely different matter because the points of squads and models are IN THE RULES of the books used for said armies. There are no such systems in official MTG formats and the points of models and squads in Warhammer have no bearing or relation to their real world financial prices. You however are arguing touse software to assign a point value system to MTG cards based on which cards are worth what in a secondary market pricing system. Now THAT part can be manipulated because it's not set in stone.

>>52705426
>Decklists are registered into a computer already.
>Presumably the tournament results are also tracked, beyond just the top 8.
Then it's fucking trivial to get the data from tournaments. Plug into the database. Copy the decklists and their performance data. Use that data to set your card point values.

>What makes you think it would sort itself out?
The fact that it *has* weight classes to begin with. As point values shift, the metas would also shift. As opposed to now, as meta dominating cards and a few meta dominating decks just drive the price of actually playing the format up.

Considering current prices in the assignment of points also has the benefit of being able to say "weight class two typically involves decks you can build for roughly $200". "Weight class 0 tends to be $30-75".

Newbies would play in a lower weight class and could work their way up as they get better at deckbuilding and playing.

Or, if they find they like the meta at Legacy, weight class 3, then maybe they just keep building and playing for that meta.

>>52705529

>>Hey newbie. To design a deck, open up this app, and start adding the cards you want to use. See this gauge filling up as you add better cards? It determines your decks weight class. The heavier weight classes have decks made out of stronger cards, the lighter weight classes have decks built of weaker cards. 'like boxing?' yeah exactly, same idea. The little guys face off against the other little guys. If you go over the lines it puts you in the next weight bracket, again like in boxing. You want to build the best deck you can in the weight class you're playing. Generally the lower weight classes are cheaper to play since the higher weight classes are made out of better cards. You'll also note it shows you how much of the bar the cards will fill as you browse through them. Just drag and drop newbie.

Your analogy is so fucking garbage I don't know where to begin. You want to force players to use digital devices to construct decks in a PAPER card game where no such devices are needed. This is like making people who go to the casino to play Roulette to use their phones and apps to play at their tables to see where the ball would go when the ball is right there in front of them. Your "solution" would fall apart when it comes to Sealed/Draft because your methodology would be reevaluating what cards can and can't be allowed in that same format. "Oh this card is too strong for limited too bad you can't put anything else in your deck now." Great solution. Also weight classes in Boxing and other combat sports are done for the safety of the atheletes to ensure equalness.Nobody is going to get a concussion in MTG. If you want everyone to play with equal decks then give them exactly the same cards each time.

>Compared to balancing mana curves and card selection, this one addition is fucking trivial and easy shit.
What? Are you fucking high? Balancing mana curves and card selection is easy enough that you don't need a fucking app to do it.

>>52705529

>It also opens up new metas and formats and allows for play at different price brackets. There would be a new meta, for instance where a $100 legacy deck would not be unusual.

LOL. Until all the cards in that deck get bought up and thereby that deck gets priced out of the tournament or put into a different tier where it can't fucking compete. Great fucking solution.

>>52705653
Warhammer has point values in the rules.
Yes. And the entire suggestion is the suggestion of adding point values to the rules for MTG. What aren't you understanding?

>People could cheese it to manipulate point value setting if you use market prices.
That would be very difficult to do if you're basing it on a wide variety of market prices, worldwide. They'd need to manipulate the price of all versions of a card, in all regions. That's not so easy. I suppose star city games and the other major card vendors could collude to manipulate point values - I don't know why they would want to, but they could do it. But as you spelled out, everything is already digitally recorded for tournaments, so you could pretty easily use tournament data.

>WOTC tends to make shit software.
This is true. I don't know why. I often marvel at how bad their software is, and think: this idiotic thing they did in this program could be done much better with just a couple hours work for one guy with half a brain and some software development education. And it's not like software people are that hard to find around Seattle.

>>52705712

>Then it's fucking trivial to get the data from tournaments. Plug into the database. Copy the decklists and their performance data. Use that data to set your card point values.

Here's the funny thing about that. Did you know that different regions in MTG have different metagames? One deck might be popular in one area while completely non-existent in another. That alone would have wildly fluctuating point values. And then you compare an online metagame where some cards may not exist which renders certain decktypes non-existent.

>The fact that it *has* weight classes to begin with. As point values shift, the metas would also shift. As opposed to now, as meta dominating cards and a few meta dominating decks just drive the price of actually playing the format up.

Here's the thing. "Weight" classes in MTG or tiers in MTG aren't based on the prices of cards which you somehow think it is. There are decks that were juggernaught powerhouses in the past that are still somewhat expensive that aren't as strong nowadays. Everything is based on the strength of the individual card in the game but you can't determine that strength until the card pool is evaluated. There are plenty of strong and good MTG cards that simply can't be played in some formats.

>Considering current prices in the assignment of points also has the benefit of being able to say "weight class two typically involves decks you can build for roughly $200". "Weight class 0 tends to be $30-75".
>Or, if they find they like the meta at Legacy, weight class 3, then maybe they just keep building and playing for that meta.

And you can very easily manipulate deck prices this way putting certain cards out of a "weight class" By either flooding the market or buying up available stock.

You need to understand that you cannot accurately tie financial data to the strength of an MTG deck or data. Legacy Burn is dirt cheap but still wins, what fucking "weight class" would that deck be in?

>>52705769
>Thinks point values for constructed would apply in limited.
Why in the fuck would you think that?

>Thinks people build their constructed decks at the table right before playing.

Balancing mana curves involves a bunch of math to do well. Point values in an app involve: "don't overload this gauge when picking cards. You'll know if you did because it will be visually obvious on the screen"

>>52705803
>All the cards are bought up and it gets priced into a meta where it can't compete.
Yeah. So you swap a few cards to keep it in the meta you're playing. Clearly your deck was dominating the meta or people wouldn't have bought up the cards - IE, the point costs were too low.

IE it works itself out, as we said above.

>>52705878

>Warhammer has point values in the rules.
>Yes. And the entire suggestion is the suggestion of adding point values to the rules for MTG. What aren't you understanding?

What part of the fact that real world money selling prices of models and miniatures in Warhammer have no bearing to the price point of point assignments in game for armies? You're trying to do the same thing but using the secondary market value as an influence for the pricing point of individual cards.

>That would be very difficult to do if you're basing it on a wide variety of market prices, worldwide. They'd need to manipulate the price of all versions of a card, in all regions. That's not so easy. I suppose star city games and the other major card vendors could collude to manipulate point values - I don't know why they would want to, but they could do it. But as you spelled out, everything is already digitally recorded for tournaments, so you could pretty easily use tournament data.

No actually it's not that difficult to do. There are MTG traders out there that have a large group of 20+ people that will buy out certain numbers of cards when they think something is good or they can look to turn a profit. Interesting fact that you bring up Star City games because during Modern Masters 2 releases they had all their vendors out during the time buying up all the copies of Tarmogoyf from everyone thereby ensuring the card stayed a high price. Only recently has the price of Goyf's dipped after four printings while Future Sight copies remain high due to alternate art. The jacking up prices of City of Traitors, Moats and Lion's Eye Diamonds were not actually done by massive organisations either.

>>52705878

>>This is true. I don't know why. I often marvel at how bad their software is, and think: this idiotic thing they did in this program could be done much better with just a couple hours work for one guy with half a brain and some software development education. And it's not like software people are that hard to find around Seattle.

Because Leaping Lizards made the MODO software for WOTC and then after the contract was up they wanted a cut of all online digital sales. That's why WOTC does it all in-house.

>>52705962
>Regional metagames.
This can be designed around just fine.

>Cards that are absent in online play.
Yeah, this would mean you'd have to treat online play as separate formats. If legacy deck Staples are missing in mtgo, then even if you have a format in mtgo called "legacy" it's not the same format.

>Old decks that suck now still have high prices.
That's an argument for using match data instead.

Frankly I would rather use match data - it would be more stable, but thought it would be hard to find. But if match data is already recorded into a database, then getting match data is easy for WOTC.

>>52705962
>Burn is cheap and wins matches. What about that?
Another solid reason to use match data to calculate the point values. I would call that "burn is effective but for a lot of people it's not fun, so less people want to play it". But it does function as noise to reduce the accuracy of the correlation between market value and card quality.

>>52706143
They should probably get a handful of decent software developers on staff then. Or draw up better contracts when they outsource.

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>>52706009

>Why in the fuck would you think that?
Because some cards are strong in constructed but others in limited. Your unnecessary arbitration of assigning point values to cards based on financial data would end up affecting these formats.

>Balancing mana curves involves a bunch of math to do well. Point values in an app involve: "don't overload this gauge when picking cards. You'll know if you did because it will be visually obvious on the screen"

The math is not even that complex. All you have to do is make sure you get to cast something every turn. Even for the really complex stuff it's not like people who are Mathematicians who play MTG have already done this for you and put the information out there. Oh look:

https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/frank-analysis-finding-the-optimal-mana-curve-via-computer-simulation/
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/frank-analysis-how-many-colored-mana-sources-do-you-need-to-consistently-cast-your-spells/

You'll find note that even Karsten says that the computer simulation analysis is flawed because not everything will be casted on curve.

>Yeah. So you swap a few cards to keep it in the meta you're playing. Clearly your deck was dominating the meta or people wouldn't have bought up the cards - IE, the point costs were too low.

No you clearly didn't understand what I was saying. If I play Deck A and someone has Deck B in the same "weight class" as you propose and my deck has a bad matchup to said deck, I could simply organise a buyout of said Deck B cards and then dominate my current "weight class" due to the fact that Deck B is no longer keeping Deck A in check and thereby dominate that lower area. Now suddenly in the new "weight class" for Deck B it gets absolutely demolished in the new bracket. Deck as a result dies of being unable to survive in the new bracket but due to how MTG market finances work the price memory of cards in Deck B stay high for ages. Now suddenly an entire deck is priced out.

>>52706293

>This can be designed around just fine.

No really it can't because MTG is a global game with players travelling to play in foreign countries all the time and usually playing with foreign cards which would affect your proposed point value system.

>Yeah, this would mean you'd have to treat online play as separate formats. If legacy deck Staples are missing in mtgo, then even if you have a format in mtgo called "legacy" it's not the same format.

It's still the same format but with a slightly different release schedule for the card availability. Legacy isn't called "not Legacy" just because in online they haven't worked out the bugs of a particular card interaction yet. That would kill an entire division of players using MTGO for testing in both paper and online formats with the same deck.

>That's an argument for using match data instead.
>Frankly I would rather use match data - it would be more stable, but thought it would be hard to find. But if match data is already recorded into a database, then getting match data is easy for WOTC.

MTG Goldfish once used something similar in Modern evaluating all the decks winrates against every other deck on MTGO analysing about 30k+ games. WOTC wasn't happy and issued C&D. Saffron also noted that the winrate of a given deck will wildly fluctuate given the local meta.

>Another solid reason to use match data to calculate the point values. I would call that "burn is effective but for a lot of people it's not fun, so less people want to play it". But it does function as noise to reduce the accuracy of the correlation between market value and card quality.

But again you can suddenly price burn out of a given "weight class" by buying up cards and reducing supply quite hard and forcing a reassignment of point values in your system. The flaw with your system is that it's still far too easy to manipulate and you can't tie MTG financial values of cards to the strength of a card's playability.

>>52706538
You've made some compelling points as to why using prices as the basis for point value calculation isn't ideal. There are definitely some flaws with it being able to be manipulated and something's will be underpriced simply because theyre less fun to play.

But I remain unconvinced that point values and weight classes themselves are a bad idea, and I'm still not seeing an issue with using match data to calculate points - especially if WOTC is the one setting the points.

As for WOTC getting upset about people publishing match data statistics, well, it needn't be published. The exact method for calculating the point values doesn't need to be public.

>>52707477

As I said before if MTG was purely digital only like Hearthstone then you probably could attempt to figure out a way but there's way too much variance in MTG.

If you want to see an unofficial format which does assign point values to MTG cards without regard to their financial card costs you can look at some casual non-sanctioned formats like Canadian Highlander, German Highlander and Australian Highlander formats. Bear in mind these are casual play formats that are not used for official sanctioned WOTC tournament play and the point system rating and these are community driven lists where the value of whether the card is good or not in the format is unlikely to ever affect the secondary market.

>>52708118
Interesting.

I hadn't read much about highlander, and didn't know there were several varieties.

>all these people saying "just make a price cap"
You're all dumb. All that's going to happen is that quality cheap decks will get prohibitively expensive, and then there will be cascading buyouts on anything half decent throughout eternity. It'd be exactly like standard with a faster more arbitrary rotation.

Or you could use a free emulator. I use Xmage.

>>52680739

Don't give a flying fuck if you are trolling or not OP.

Just /Agreed.

>>52709518
I prefer forge, personally. But yeah, that works.

>>52699038
You're really effing dense.

>what happens when you submit a deck but there's a buyout which raises the prices of said cards
Nobody gives a shit because tournament-evaluation-prices were 'frozen' a week before the tournament.

> assess and judge the value conditions of each card to determine if it's SP or NM or M
who the fuck cares, from tournament perspective all cards with the same name cost the same (minimum M price averaged etc etc)

The real flaw with that guy's proposal is that running the tournament 'on paper' becomes prohibitively manpower-expensive because decklist checks require table lookups and summation.

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What else has spiked recently?

Living End, Street Wraith, Manamorphose, at least. I know I'm missing a few.

>>52711974

>Nobody gives a shit because tournament-evaluation-prices were 'frozen' a week before the tournament.

There are tournaments that are several days apart. What would be "frozen" a week ahead of one tournament may have drastically altered in another one because of that "one week" clause doesn't kick into effect for a few days later and prices may have shifted. Furthermore I don't think you understand that if Wizards were to adjust and freeze prices of MTG cards directly that is violating certain laws and would classify MTG as a gambling game.

>who the fuck cares, from tournament perspective all cards with the same name cost the same (minimum M price averaged etc etc)

Because the market cares mate, it's irrelevant whether you or I care or not. The value of the cards change significantly on condition whether you like it or not and as for specific versions and whatnot. You also don't understand that it violates certain laws for WOTC to directly set and control a price for cards in secondary markets. You can't let a single private company dictate and set prices for a monopoly market(secondary market of singles).

The MTG card finance market is a prime example of what would happen if the real life stock and commodities trading sector had zero government intervention and safeguards to protect abuse. If you were to try and Pump and Dump schemes with shares in real life you'd be in jail if caught or face a hefty fine, in MTG not only is this something that you won't face legal repercussion for but you could actively do this because some sets card supplies are limited and the market tends to have "price memory" for said cards thereby ensuring that those cards very rarely if ever end up falling back to original price.

>>52712802
You still dont get it. Nobody is freezing actual market prices. What's freezing are not actual market prices but what will be used at a given tournament for eval. Yes, that means that your deck may be valid for GP Moscow in < $100 category while its total value is actually $115 on the GP date because the market moved on but the judges are checking your list against week-old prices.

Same stuff with bling and foreign versions and the like. Yes, your deck is actually worth $10^9 because all cards are ultra-mint esperanto undersized misprint foils but it still competes in <$100 bracket because the point of the system is that Joe could a week ago buy the same decklist for $99 -- in mint english non-foils.

Now I'm not a MTGFinance guy, but I'm willing to bet that cheapest Mint cards will nearly always be English printing non-foils because every other market opens less product at the jacked up prices. But: even if your $15-in-local-shop rare is tournament-valued at $10 because it is priced low in Korea, you still don't care -- your deck is not invalid.

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>>52680739
Why would you bother investing in MTG when there is just objectively better avenues to invest in?

Investorfags are truly the worse

>>52713425

>You still dont get it. Nobody is freezing actual market prices. What's freezing are not actual market prices but what will be used at a given tournament for eval. Yes, that means that your deck may be valid for GP Moscow in < $100 category while its total value is actually $115 on the GP date because the market moved on but the judges are checking your list against week-old prices.

I don't think you get it either. You cannot tie secondary market values as to the strength of an MTG card because cards jump for various reasons, furthermore everyone is one day ahead in the US this means that there is a huge 24 hour gap to drastically alter card prices for a tournament one day ahead and throw everything into contention. That fundamental act alone opens up collusion. Furthermore WOTC is just simply not allowed to do this for tournament measures either as a result because there are rules against this in the real world because I keep saying this and you don't get it but MTG would have to be reclassified as gambling.

>Same stuff with bling and foreign versions and the like. Yes, your deck is actually worth $10^9 because all cards are ultra-mint esperanto undersized misprint foils but it still competes in <$100 bracket because the point of the system is that Joe could a week ago buy the same decklist for $99 -- in mint english non-foils.

And who or what would decide these rulings and regulations? Who would put this and manage information and tables to write up as part of the official WOTC tournament regulations? Have you ever read a book about certain aspects of law? There's a whole slew of convoluted lines and text regarding various laws and you would be putting almost the exact same amount of convolution into a card game for factors outside the game(secondary card prices.)

>>52713425

>Now I'm not a MTGFinance guy, but I'm willing to bet that cheapest Mint cards will nearly always be English printing non-foils because every other market opens less product at the jacked up prices.

Yeah I can tell you aren't an MTGFinance guy because you don't know shit about MTG markets. The cheapest Mint cards are not always English non-foils. In fact sometimes they're Italian cards, sometimes they're Spanish cards.

>iBut: even if your $15-in-local-shop rare is tournament-valued at $10 because it is priced low in Korea, you still don't care -- your deck is not invald.

That would not be up to you to decide if it's invalid or not. That would be up to tournament organisers and to do that would pull direct control over WOTC on stipulating tournament guidelines for sanctioned events.

>>52713471
Because it's easy. Everyone has a Paypal or they get paid in credit or they simply perform trades for value. No taxes.

Whereas in regular investing in tangible assets like property or buildings you need to file paperwork, maintain things, buy insurance, collect rent, maintain personal relationships, so on and so forth. If you buy stocks you have to research and watch market shit, which is WAY fucking harder than paying attention to Magic, you have to submit capital gains or estimated gains on your taxes, you often have to get approved to buy shit if you do it through your bank because they want to "protect" i.e. restrict you from getting fucked, so on and so forth. Magic is click click and the shit is delivered right to your door.

Obviously Magic doesn't return shit compared to real work, but it sure feels better because it's a whole lot easier. You might as well ask people why the fuck they spend time in a casino, buying lottery tickets when they can use all that time and money to accomplish something that is both useful AND probably make them happier like cooking a meal or hanging with friends or fucking someone's brains out. But guess what, it's just easier to burn your money and they value the feeling of these useless small victories than big ones.

>>52680739
???

My modern decks both cost less than 300$.

I'm not about to imply that either of them are top-tier meta decks. UR prowess and GW tokens(MM17 complete jank edition).
.

>>52713549
>24 hour gap to drastically alter card prices
You forgot that OP's idea included N-month smoothing. They may also remove 1-day outlier spikes just for the fun of it. The goal of the system is not 100% precise capture of the market value, this is not stock trading.

> but MTG would have to be reclassified as gambling.
IANAL but I doubt it. By the OP's system the only things that happen is that MTG sets up deck brackets and abstract card 'values' according to a company's metric reflecting real-world card prices. Nothing else changes here, no games of chance take place, every player is still on the same playing field. Why the heck anyone would be interested.

> who or what would decide these rulings and regulations.
WOTC publishes this list of card 'values' every week. If you want to run a LGS tourney you pick a date (last monday) and tell people that decklists should be valid for current brackets on last monday evals. GPs obviously get a dedicated WOTC stuff that publish their own list. OP imagined that apps take care of the math afterward.

>>52713471

Because reserve list MTG cards can hold their value and in some cases are better investments than things that people invest in as financial assets like works of art. And I guarantee you that I can find a buyer for a mint condition Moat pulled from a random Legends booster or a sealed starter deck box from Unlimited than I would for one looking for a Rembrandt painting.

I absolutely loathe playing the MTG Finance market but it's a necessary evil for me to stay in ahead of the market when acquiring cards at the right time to ensure I don't get jewed out of some cards when a relevant tournament is coming up and to not overpay when acquiring singles.

>>52713605
>That would be up to tournament organisers and to do that would pull direct control over WOTC on stipulating tournament guidelines for sanctioned events.
Why it would be up to them if OP's proposed rule was that cards are valued at 'cheapest price'. So if your rare is trading for $10 in Korea and $15 locally -- well, the price is $10.
Sure, OP did not go into 'how to monitor average price for a given card in a region' but I imagine it can be done. If you think it can't be done, I won't be able to dispute because I don't know jack about regional prices or whatever -- but the point here is that your other arguments against the system havent worked so far.

>>52713690
>works of art
Please don't tell me you actually think that's a real investment. The Pawn Stars and antique dealers and people who trawl flea markets are just as fucking useless as Magic investing. It doesn't matter if a stupid statue or painting sells for more or is more difficult to move, they're both specialty products that don't follow any fucking rules as to their value.

You have to admit to yourself that the effort put into moving Magic cards is an inefficient way to accomplish your goal. That's fine, do whatever you want, but don't fucking compare it favorably to art collecting when they're the same damn thing.

>>52713683

>You forgot that OP's idea included N-month smoothing. They may also remove 1-day outlier spikes just for the fun of it. The goal of the system is not 100% precise capture of the market value, this is not stock trading.

None of those make any difference as WOTC is legally not allowed to have any direct influence on the secondary market values. You all say "this is an easy fix just adjust here and there and take these values etc." And i'm telling you that not only is this all not feasible from a logistics and game measurement view but there are various legal repercussions for doing so.

>IANAL but I doubt it. By the OP's system the only things that happen is that MTG sets up deck brackets and abstract card 'values' according to a company's metric reflecting real-world card prices. Nothing else changes here, no games of chance take place, every player is still on the same playing field. Why the heck anyone would be interested.

Alright let me explain something for you. Pinball machines at one point were classified as gambling because you could win free games and then redeem it for money before they were recognized as games of amusement only. The early pinball machines didn't have flippers and as such were mostly random chance which is a common factor with gambling machines. Now lets take MTG booster packs, there are randomly assorted cards in them of varying prices. Maybe you get lucky and pull a card that's worth $50 or a masterpiece that's $150. That in its effect is actually the criteria of a Lottery system which is a form of gambling. However WOTC do not set the prices of what individual cards are worth to someone who wants that card so they remain legally exempt from any responsibility. As soon as they even try and remotely control and dictate prices of which cards can be used for tournament entry based on a points system assigned to the financial data of an MTG secondary market you open yourself up to investigation and inquiry.

>>52713683

>WOTC publishes this list of card 'values' every week. If you want to run a LGS tourney you pick a date (last monday) and tell people that decklists should be valid for current brackets on last monday evals. GPs obviously get a dedicated WOTC stuff that publish their own list. OP imagined that apps take care of the math afterward.

And now you're forcing everyone to bring in digital apps for a paper game where the game itself does not need a digital app? That's extra logistics and complexity unneeded for a game for factors that have no bearings on the rule, furthermore apps and phones are not allowed to be used in a tournament regardless. Furthermore by having WOTC continually update and publish a "points list" continually is almost like having a Banned and Restricted announcement every single week. You say it's not a stock market but you do this and it will become one as people look to influence the market value of cards and metagames through the power of purchasing power alone and not of format metagame analysis, deckbuilding and playing skill. You can't just say "an app will take care of it" when there are fundamental flaws in that argument already based on the fact that the system could be gamed easily that way.

>>52713816

>Please don't tell me you actually think that's a real investment.

With certain renaissance artists it actually is a legitimate investment. Those original works of art only goes up in value and don't depreciate. I personally wouldn't invest in art because I don't know the art market, I do know the MTG market though.

>You have to admit to yourself that the effort put into moving Magic cards is an inefficient way to accomplish your goal. That's fine, do whatever you want, but don't fucking compare it favorably to art collecting when they're the same damn thing.

I don't pay tax on moving MTG cards and sealed product, it's not counted as assets for my taxation purposes and there are no forms to sign for transfer of ownership and brokerage fees. They also won't seize my MTG cards to pay for any debts, it's also impossible for my personal collection of MTG cards to be financially frozen rendering me unable to liquidate them for funds. So yeah, MTG cards are a better investment than works of art. Now the big downside of this is that the MTG market is extremely volatile outside of the reserve list for the most part, there is most definitely high risk in it. Furthermore more people can afford MTG cards and I know where the demand is. I can show up to any GP in the world and i'll find a buyer for anything.

>>52713989
>you're forcing everyone to bring in digital apps for a paper game
I always said that the weakest element of OPs system as I see it is that it requires everyone to go paperless.

> furthermore apps and phones are not allowed to be used in a tournament regardless
nobody needs to use an app or phone AT the tournament, you use them to prepare/verify decklists.

> it will become one as people look to influence the market value of cards and metagames through the power of purchasing power alone.
I think you overvalue the payoff / influence through buying power. What will you do, sell low to bring a powerful rare down into <$100 format or buyout the market to jack the prices to exclude a powerful rare from >$100 format?
Keep in mind that you had to influence all markets for all printings for N months straight -- and your best result is that you have 10% more chance to win a GP because you playtested a particularly changed meta more. Not impossible but highly unlikely that it's profitable.

>>52713905

>WOTC is legally not allowed to have any direct influence on the secondary market values.
WOTC already bans/unbans cards. Assigning points to cards is just a lesser version of that as it does not even forbid you from playing a card in a specific bracket.

The question of legality may be an interesting on. What if the market price is never acknowledged as one of the factors officially and the real strategy behind 'values' is never fully explained. So it's not a "<$100 bracket" but "<100 points bracket" but most of the time if a card was officially valued at 10 points you could've bought it for 10 bucks. Kinda like what pachinko did when the payment was not Yen but the abstract 'coloured marbles'.

Keep in mind that under that system WOTC still officially does not buy, sell or sets a price for any card and does not influence secondary market beyond what it already does now with bans/unbans.

>>52713775

>Why it would be up to them if OP's proposed rule was that cards are valued at 'cheapest price'.

Because as I've said in a way way earlier post some markets price cards differently because of format interest. Japan has almost zero level interest in EDH staples and as such various commons, uncommons and rares are put in a "junk" folder for quick sale. Another regional market puts those cards at a higher price.

>So if your rare is trading for $10 in Korea and $15 locally -- well, the price is $10

Or you could just let everyone play with the same cards regardless of a financial point appellate system and ignore any complexities. Furthermore if a card is $10 in Korea and $15 locally you can be damned sure that someone is going to want the local price if we're not in Korea and if your tournament pegs deckprices at the Korean price that is a drastic influence on what decks would come about. There's absolutely zero consistency here and none of this proposed "solutions" fixes the issues with MTG financing or cost to entry for tournament play.

>Sure, OP did not go into 'how to monitor average price for a given card in a region' but I imagine it can be done. If you think it can't be done, I won't be able to dispute because I don't know jack about regional prices or whatever -- but the point here is that your other arguments against the system havent worked so far.

I've explained it numerous times that it goes far beyond a simple "just get the numbers and put them into a machine and let it sort itself out" situation. There are real world rules and regulations(and sometimes lack thereof) that this would have tremendous impact on not just for WOTC but also on players that is all outside the factors of the rules within the games and structure of the tournaments let alone the logistics. You admit you don't know jack about regional prices in an MTG finance thread and are attempting to solve the finance problem with MTG. That's a fundamental flaw.

>>52714188

>I always said that the weakest element of OPs system as I see it is that it requires everyone to go paperless.

Then stop bringing the app issue up of OP's system.

>nobody needs to use an app or phone AT the tournament, you use them to prepare/verify decklists.

A phone gets lost or stolen as a result of this at the tournament. Now your deck is all lost and has to be recalculated again. As a result this delays the tournament by 15 minutes. Furthermore to prepare and verify decklists entirely through an app based system would be a logistical nightmare in a tournament. I have mentioned this is completely unfeasible several times already as someone who has been on both ends of a GP tournament. This is NOT a solution.

>>52714188

>>I think you overvalue the payoff / influence through buying power. What will you do, sell low to bring a powerful rare down into <$100 format or buyout the market to jack the prices to exclude a powerful rare from >$100 format?
Keep in mind that you had to influence all markets for all printings for N months straight -- and your best result is that you have 10% more chance to win a GP because you playtested a particularly changed meta more.

And I think you underestimate the payoff and influence through buying power one could accomplish in MTG to alter card prices enough to influence a metagame trend if pegged to a financial system for a card point system. One does not need to buy out every single card but just enough to cause a fluctuation long enough to render a deck in your point based system ineligible for a certain "bracket" of play. You say to ignore the market spikes and trends? What if there's multiple market spikes and trends just before tournament, how do you know which ones were as the result of artificial inflation and the others were because of demand for X card for playing in said tournament? That warrants an investigation into these cases, that costs time and manpower.

>Not impossible but highly unlikely that it's profitable.

The point matter is irrelevant if it's profitable or not, there a rich loaded fucks that buy and sell shit to do stuff without making a profit all the time for a loophole or taxation or some other reason to gain an advantage. The point is that you can INFLUENCE a system through the power of purchasing alone outside of skill in a simple card game for amusement. That in itself is a huge problem.

tfw I just went 4-0 today with a homebrew deck I made for less than 40$ against all tier 1 and tier 2 decks

>>52714188

>WOTC already bans/unbans cards. Assigning points to cards is just a lesser version of that as it does not even forbid you from playing a card in a specific bracket.

Yeah and have you ever seen what happens to card prices when they do that? Also when WOTC bans and unbans cards they don't do it for financial reasons of the secondary market, they do it purely for metgame reasons within the game itself. It has nothing to do with secondary market finance reasons.

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>>52711974
>effing

>>52714188

>The question of legality may be an interesting on. What if the market price is never acknowledged as one of the factors officially and the real strategy behind 'values' is never fully explained. So it's not a "<$100 bracket" but "<100 points bracket" but most of the time if a card was officially valued at 10 points you could've bought it for 10 bucks. Kinda like what pachinko did when the payment was not Yen but the abstract 'coloured marbles'. Keep in mind that under that system WOTC still officially does not buy, sell or sets a price for any card and does not influence secondary market beyond what it already does now with bans/unbans.

WOTC have officially stated that they do not care about the secondary market. Unofficially they most definitely do care about the secondary market but are not allowed to have any control over it in any way. Hence the printings of Eternal and Modern Masters sets. They don't do this to try and crash the MTG finance market on those cards, they're just trying to put more supply into the market and lower the price of entry. Now isn't this market manipulation you ask? Well it is indirectly but no different as to if I was to suddenly put a huge flux of coffee beans I just harvested onto the commodities market, i'm still not directly setting the prices of coffee beans on my own because I have no control over it legally or directly but I have influenced it some way and all I wanted to do was sell my harvest.
With masters sets it's not controlling and setting the prices of cards but it most definitely is having some effect on it, it's just putting the products out there and seeing how much the public wants to buy them and then it will see what happens to card prices after. The other point your factor is that who is the one that appellates and assigns point values to cards based on financial market data. Computational analysis for this would still be flawed because cards aren't always financially expensive for power level issues.

True AnCap here, I don't see the MtG poblem, based chinaman showing the kike statist how the free market works and they're getting cucked, genocided and BTFO by the day.

Remember kids, if there is a demand bigger than offer and some supplies that demand only the kike statists are upset, monopoly cucks BTFO

>>52716067

And that is the result of Wizards being lazy and slow on reprints and sticking too hard to the reserve list. In all honesty if it wasn't for the counterfeits reaching higher demand and reaching almost identical printing levels I don't think we would have had fetches in Modern Masters 3 nor prints like Damnation and Snapcaster. Counterfeits are right now forcing WOTC's hand to reprint high demand non-reserve list cards at the moment.

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>>52680739

>>52716966
>slow and lazy

No, it's because WoTC has given up on the gaming market and moved fully into the collectibles market. The strengthening of the Reserved List hinted at this, and the original Modern Masters solidified this.

>>52681782
>just pay the fucking Chinamen $2 a card

Am poorfag. Where can I buy cards for $2 from yellow men?

>>52682895
It's still a children's card game. It's just being played by adults for money.

>>52717959
Which is exactly why Pokémon is making a comeback. Pokémon has been known to prey on speculator crazes, just as it completely killed Beanie Babies in the late 90s. It's now doing the same to Magic.

>>52718240
A bunch of Magic players at my LGS are so frustrated with standard they're now playing Pokemon instead, the format is on life support now.

>>52718796
What are they so upset about?

>>52718796
Exactly.

It's pretty clear that, starting with Origins, WoTC has been purposely lowering the quality of new sets (i.e; making Planeswalkers the be-all end-all of Standard). Why? To please "investors" who are hoarding older cards, because if Standard isn't as fun, the desire for older cards goes up, allowing them to skyrocket in price. What WoTC didn't take into account as that fueling the MTGFinance speculator bubble would actually hurt Magic significantly in the long run.

>>52719700
https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgfinance/comments/1yv8rm/why_the_magic_market_isnt_a_bubble/

This thread would have been very different if it had bden written 2 years later.

>>52719178
I don't actually play Magic anymore, I'm just waiting for the """investors""" to crash and burn so I can affordably get back in. I'm sure that bitter standard players will drop by soon to give details though.

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>complains about costs
>plays standard or modern

>>52718127
something something /r/bootlegmtg

how good are chinaman snapcasters and lilis? might order some just to mess around with esper lists.

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>>52720300
>00
HOW LONG IS A CHINAMAN ?

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>>52720300
>>52718127

>>52720300
chinamen almost always get the color and/or gloss wrong. The latter doesn't matter in a sleeve, but the former does.

buy popular fakes like snappy lili and goyf are bad ideas

it's more useful to buy things like cryptic command, vendelion clique, etc. that are high-value, but not nearly as common
cards that timmy and his grandmum haven't fingerfucked and can't tell they're fakes

>>52721903
I'm going to the chinese for revised duals and LEDs.
I'd be wary buying newer cards in general from them but I've heard some batches have great looking Zen fetches, and who is ever going to ask to read what your Scalding Tarn does anyways?

>>52680739
1. I don't like people using my hobby as a stock market.
2. Half the reason why prices are fucked is because of you people.

>>52709972
Does forge have multiplayer now?

>>52722294
Yeah. It's had multiplayer for about a year now, iirc.

>>52711974
Point prices (regardless of calculated) would reasonably only update a couple times a year, except perhaps whatever the newest set is, it might fluctuate weekly the first while. but yes, if a tournament was right after an update it would likely use points from before the update.

>>52714331
>Phone gets lost
Irrelevant. Any such decklist would be stored online, not on your damn phone your phone would simply be one of a few convenient ways to that deck list. You give them the 8 digit (for example) decklists as part of registration. They then print that deck list, along with it's point cost, when you register, (or they could use it paperless).

The judges could pull up your deck list on their phone if they chose to. At no point would you have to have your phone with you at the tournament.

>>52680739
thats why the format I use is legacy+pauper+tribal rules combined with the additional rule "if it ever was a common in any set it's always considered a common" so your deck will always stay the same until a card is actually just banned and that happens when a new card makes an absurd combo

1/3rd the deck is creature of one type fucks up a lot of the 400 dollar combos and card advantages until there's no point and nobody will fight your elf deck three times in a row

10 dollars a deck, sometimes including sleeves if you know where to buy them
>i wont share where, you guys will fucking hoard buy the shit like you always do when I share links you fucking assholes

otherwise just contact your local chinese card seller, ask him your order and it comes out to about 4 cents a card and never go near a hobby shop with these cards... make them obviously printed or something...