Did Commander Masters Flop? | MTGGoldfish Podcast

The crew discusses the issues with Commander Masters, some new promos, anime Smothering Tithe and answers #MTGFishmail.
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#MTG #magicthegathering #MTGCMM #commandermasters
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[@luke1x]

Commander legends was like 5 or 6 dollars a pack and sold well and had jeweled lotus and a lot of other sweet cards. The price of this set is absurd

[@enricomassignani]

Wilds of Eldraine Enchanted Tales. Chance of pulling Tithe or Dpubling season crom a $4-6 dollar pack is low, but not 0. For the same ampunt of money, you get more packs, thus more chances of opening a good alt-art rare.

[@jamesmoore1476]

Yeah, commander legends knocked it out of the park, decent price, great value, new cards designed for commander and awesome reprints of some pretty cool commanders.

[@BigDrew49]

WotC SEVERELY underestimated what the price of Jeweled Lotus would land at. I think they thought it'd stick around $30

[@BlueGriffin20]

@@enricomassignani Right. Doubling season, land tax, and now Grave pact are all in those slots. Really a kick to the crouch to those who wanted those card and opened CM for them. You couldn’t even have suspect they’d drop them in a standard set right after it given the “high price for power cards” tale we’ve been given and drip feed of reprints.

[@voxkine9385]

Jeweled lotus was also $100 at that point. When I looked last a couple of weeks ago, it had crashed down to like $60. As the chase card, you’d need to pull 4+ jeweled lotus per set booster to really stand a chance at breaking even… 4+ of THE chase card…

[@ichliebebrot3773]

The higher and higher priced products have really moved Magic into an interesting tier for me when it comes to spending money. Why would I buy an $80 pre-con over something like Baldur’s Gate 3? Or Tears of the Kingdom? Or (Insert a game here)? I think the pricing of these pre-cons are making them compete with video games for my money, and I currently find it impossible to choose the precons. Hopefully, prices go down soon, or I’ll have to continue choosing other hobbies over Magic, it seems.

[@Sean.Thomas2]

people dont about spending $15 bucks every week because that much money didnt used to buy full priced games remember the KHD precons that were $15-20

[@actuallyKriminell]

Ironically, if MtG was cheaper I would spend more money on it. I would love to play competetive MtG like modern or legacy, but I'll never buy a deck for it if I'm limited to tier 1.5 budget troll lists. More time spend in the Lgs also means more revenue for them. As of now I only play privately with friends and don't go the Lgs at all. All in all it looks like WotC wants to nuke the Lgs. Maybe Amazon gives them better margins

[@SmashCentralOfficial]

I kinda have this exact sentiment. $75-100 is a triple A studio video game. After my honeymoon year with magic I am a lot more strict about what I buy.

[@jonf2009]

Same but on the opposite spectrum 75-80$ moves into half the price for my next hotrod part or eats into a longer term 1-2k exhaust/header system. MTG is in this weird area where it's not a cheap hobby to enjoy nor is it exclusive enough to be an expensive hobby. It's literally pricing itself out of one zone but not good enough to compete in the next zone.

[@johnh9962]

Definitely buy Baldur's Gate 3 or Tears of the Kingdom over any magic product. I say that as a person who started playing magic in 1997. Those videogames are excellent.

[@moxavenger]

By Rosewater's reasoning they could sell a Pauper Masters set for $20 a booster box.

[@andrueurbane7361]

It haven't bought booster boxes in 27 years. I would buy that product at that price.

[@ndragon47]

You know. The highly affordable ($100 36-pack booster box/$3 booster pack) all reprint draft experience with popular staples like Snuff out, dust to dust, utopia sprawl, lotus petal, relic of progenitus, shadow born apostle, rat colony, restless rats, three visits, and more! And as a special bonus you'll find a foil/full art/special treatment in ever pack! Cause where else are you going to reprint cards like that? Not commander masters. No sir.

[@andrewrockwell1282]

😂

[@catfishrob1]

Sure, they probably could, but it wouldn't be worth the effort. Not enough people play pauper, and that's a lot of work putting together a set (even if it is all reprints) for next to no profit.

[@SDaHyo]

If higher the price means higher the power level… why the $80 pre-cons were so underwhelming?

[@felipeguidolin1055]

Admiting that power is tied to price is just saying that the game is pay to win. Awful take from Rosewater

[@hopposai787]

You mean 150 right?

[@wedgearyxsaber]

They're probably aware of those whales who buy precons even if they don't play them often or care all too much

[@shorgoth]

@@hopposai787 180$ can here for the eldrazi deck...

[@totakekeslider3835]

Pokemon is even cheaper than what Crim said. You can buy one of Pokemon's pre-made products, the Mew VMAX League Battle Deck, for about $30, buy a few extra staples to round it out, and then you will literally have the deck that just won the world championship for about $65 or so. The second place deck is an estimated $50. It was a real shock to me coming over from Pokemon at just how much more expensive MTG is.

[@totakekeslider3835]

@@brackish2386 Congrats, you should try to become the world champion now.

[@Tvboy777]

Buying singles is just such a foreign concept to so many Pokémon tcg collectors, they end up flooding the singles market with all the boosters they crack chasing that one ultra super secret rare collector art version card for their collection, spending thousands of dollars on sealed product to pull a $100 card that has a $5 tournament legal version, and all the competitive Pokémon players profit from it.

[@BigHit9922]

Pokémon is incredibly cheap for a competitor TCG. I’m a magic player but I wish more people played Pokémon cause screw WOTC

[@jasonkorf7700]

I am in agreement with Crim with Commander Masters. Master sets use to be 8 - 10.99 per pack. Then Ultimate Masters raised the price. Double Masters and Double Masters 2 raised the price even more and now Commander Masters has raised the price even for Master sets. Players still need the reprints for many of the catds, but Wizards know that this is safe way for them to reprint certain cards and maintain their hefty price tag.

[@japankore]

Can we talk about the Precons? They could have been normal price. Zero reason for the price tag other than greed.

[@dom19945]

Last year, they said, “If you don’t like it, don’t buy it.” Now, they’re saying they want everyone to buy every product.

[@Tvboy777]

They want everyone to *want* to buy every product. Do you see the difference?

[@dom19945]

@@Tvboy777 Even if that’s the case, the flip-flopping still stands.

[@bixlorious]

Literally talked to my gamestore last night about this. Its absurd what they did to lgs'. Wizards basically scalped them. This whole premiere shit is screwing everyone over and needs to stop.

[@raymondgreen9379]

The problem I have with Mark's question is the commander decks. The CMM decks are double+ the price of standard decks but sit at the same power level so they designed a high price product at standard level power.

[@Infernoman64]

Hasbro shot themselves in the foot going the easy route of licensing vs taking time to build up their story into a TV series/figures/plush/etc.

[@Sinistra359]

Yeah I agree with Richard, if you had 30 yrs to build a story and it's trash, just give me the red dead redemption etc set.

[@SilverAlex92]

Anime smothering tithe is amazing. The art depicts Wizards' CEOs (the blonde girl) mocking all of us as they keep charging us more and more money (the two mana) for playing the game (drawing cards). Joking aside almost all the arts make sense to me. The smothering tithe art is actually really good when you realize that the art isn't depicting the effect directly, but a person casting smothering tithe. Like the blond girl IS using the effects of the smothering tithe to bully the other girl for daring to draw cards in her presence. She's the archetypical rich anime girl who bullies everyone with their excessive money. It's a very inside joke, as Crim says you can HEAR the voice actress. She would sound something like "Ohohohoho~" But you kinda has to be very enfranchised with anime to get it. I love/hate it. Wouldnt use mostly because I hate smothering tithe, but if were to add it to like an cedh deck I would totally use this art, and do the rich evil anime girl laugh as soon as I cast it xD

[@Stroggoii]

It really is low quality anime, but after they couldn't bring any of Capcom's iconic artists for the Secret Lair, I don't expect any effort from them.

[@de245733]

Honestly same I am gonna be saying "tithe desu wa" every time somebody draws.

[@Rathkeaux]

I thought it was a girl getting ready for a wedding, implying that marriage is the ultimate smothering tithe. Could totally be mistaken though.

[@Whitehalo117]

Wizards - We promise we don't look at the secondary market when we release sets Also Wizards - We reprint cards and price product based on the secondary market

[@vinnythewebsurfer]

Remember when the worst Master sets was like…. Iconic masters and M25? Fun times.

[@Bluejayount1]

For $500, you could buy a full warhammer army and not need to spend more for a long time.

[@kaemonbonet4931]

But then when would you play Warhammer?

[@metalplaysgames]

but thats not magic

[@jeremymann6069]

Lol until the rules change a week after you build them and all the units you bought are worthless or simply don’t have rules. Gw is just like hasbro except they sell plastic

[@Bluejayount1]

@@jeremymann6069 but you still have a playable army

[@Lusk1993]

One Page Rules is a super fun alternative warhammer rules set!

[@jeremiahchamberlain4179]

The problem with commander masters was the price, if it was half the price it would have sold great, as far as the cards in it, it is one of the best sets ever.

[@MTGGoldfishPodcast]

But based on what Maro was saying if it was half the price it would also have half of the good cards, so would it still be one of the best sets ever?

[@jeremiahchamberlain4179]

@@MTGGoldfishPodcast thats over complicating it. If the set it is was half the price the set would have done great and there are other master sets as deep as this set was all the way to commons. The price they set is was just a greedy limit test. The set already has a ton of cards that are bulk from common to mythic. Adding more variables just makes the question confusing and far to speculative to be useful. This set as it exsists could of and should have been half the price, it would have destroyed the market value of these cards but it would have sold incredibly well. Taking the price out of the conversation this set was so good. So many cards that had never seen foil before, that i had wanted foils of for years. This set front to back was a commander players dream. The price was just unrealistic for set and draft especially. They tried to charge the price these boxes should have costs after 5 years or so in Rudy's basement.

[@ryuuji7986]

@@MTGGoldfishPodcast so how do they justify the "Premium" commander decks? It's just hog wash excuses, this has been the most expensive masters set, more expensive than the other ones by 100+ that's a 1/3rd increase from the other set and twice as much for the commander decks. if it was half the price but had half the good cards we would still be where we are now. It wouldn't sell as record sales but it would have done better as at least some people can afford to buy the set. 150$ compared to 300$ is way easier to justify for a box. I'm not saying it would see a lot more if they took out half the cards but it would sell better. the problem is wizards is trying to min max and they found out this was to high. You also have to remember commander players don't need real cards, after the magic 30 1k proxies, why should would we want to buy over priced sets? Commander is a casual format, wizards is trying to capitalize on it though as it is the most popular format. they do this with every format, how many decks in modern use MH2 cards because of their power level? Its just greed, and iirc you said they need to reprint but keep the reprint equity high . (in their minds) Sadly for them enough people will just move to proxy if this is how they are going to treat the commander group as we don't need their cards. We cant proxy money, but we can proxy overinflated cardboard.

[@feeroldent9462]

@@MTGGoldfishPodcast If I watch commander masters opening videos, they nearly never break even (unless they although sell all the bulk) - even from a value perspective I dont see this product being at the correct price for the value.

[@PerhapsOOTMM]

If this set were half the price it currently is, sales would be ridiculous. Wizards' greed hit a breaking point with 30th anniversary cards, and they need to understand the buyers fatigue going on in the community.

[@Kopekemaster]

I don't really buy Magic cards any more, but if I saw this for $100/box I'd snap one up! It's an awesome set in all regards aside from price.

[@Thoughtmage100]

I think they're just too tone-deaf to understand the average MTG player.

[@felipeguidolin1055]

Wotc discovered that people wouldn't pay 1000 for 4 boosters, but they might be willing to pay 250 for 4 collector boosters

[@Jamie261090]

The anime art for smothering tithe does not show two happy people as implied in this episode. It shows one happy person wearing fancy clothes, jewels, a crown, etc... and someone in the foreground running away with their head in their hands and tears in their eyes, having presumably just paid a "smothering tithe".

[@ethanglaeser9239]

I think the answer is partially card/printing management, but more importantly Event Management. If top tier decks were cheaper, I could afford to play Standard, Modern, or Pioneer tournaments at my LGS. This allows me to not only buy cards, but also buy competition and a social environment. Additionally, your LGS makes money off of soda and Twinkies, which you buy more of when you are there more often. Furthermore, if instead of going on a vacation, I am going to a PTQ (or similar event), WotC is stealing my vacation money from Disneyland and Vegas right? They need to make events more affordable to participate in, and then people will spend more money in additional ways on the game. As it stands right now, why am I buying a box ever? I just buy 5 singles for my Commander deck. Don't sell me more cards, sell me events.

[@dom19945]

Competitive Magic isn’t the money maker for MTG. Consumers interested in competitive play is probably among the smallest demographic in the consumer base.

[@ethanglaeser9239]

@@dom19945 I don't expect that simply selling tournament cards is what makes WotC money, but I'm suggesting more of a broad thing. If your average player has more incentive to be in a game store with other players, and playing a variety of formats, they will naturally spend more of their time, energy, and money on the game. If you can interest players in experiences and products of a wider variety, you will sell more of those things. Additionally, getting players invested in more of a competitive scene builds more hype around the game and the community. Not everyone will go to the bigger events, but I think many players would play small simple events at their LGS if it was easy and accessible.

[@andrewgolubiewski3463]

Nice to see the video at a normal time! Although I'll miss MtG Tuesdays, listening to both the Goldfish podcast and the Goldfish Commander podcast back to back.

[@SladeWeston]

The main issue with reprint sets is that their value is nearly 100% based on their EV, since it is competing directly with existing singles. With CMM, WotC clearly miscalculated what that EV would. Keeping in mind that these sets are designed a year+ in advance and a lot of these singles have dropped significantly in that time. And then, rather than adjust the cost of boxes, they likely went with their planned price or didn't reduce it enough. This could have been for a lot of reasons, but likely someone had a KPI they had to hit and didn't want to tell their boss that their projected EV wouldn't support that price. The result was a product with a fairly low EV, full of cards that are readily available on the secondary market. The good news is that, at least this time, the community did exactly what it was suppose to do, and didn't buy the over-costed product. Next time they will know that, at least for reprint sets, they need to be smarter with their EV calculations and build in a bit more room for singles market fluctuations. Hopefully that means that add a bit more value to future sets, as padding, to avoid this happening again.

[@vulcanh254]

Collector variants were supposed to achieve the One Piece thing, that was the idea. To have regular versions that are cheap and then to have collector versions that are expensive. I think Throne of Eldraine formula was close to ideal and to some extent they succeeded in making standard more affordable overall. The problem imo is they added set boosters and they overprinted collector boxes. This devalued foils and variants. And if fancy foils and collector frames aren't worth 4-5x more than regular version obviously people will not see them as being that special or collectible. So overprinting collectors actually defeated the purpose of the One Piece idea. What they needed to do was make foils and collectible frames more special aka more rare and therefore more sought after. That would have fixed everything, collectors would be happy and players would be happy.

[@highfivefromryan]

Fact is nobody wants to buy a booster pack for $15-$20 that has over 80 Rares that are worth less than $2. Where WotC claimed this set was focused to be "drafted", but only has one half of the battlebond lands and none of the 2 color Partner Commanders. Outside of reprinting the Ikoria "free" spells, Demonic Tutor and Jeweled Lotus, how is this a "Masters" set? How many people were clamoring for Capture of Jingzhou or Horsemanship cards? The choice of reprints is absolutely terrible and does not warrant the price tag.

[@felipeguidolin1055]

Draft is just an excuse to put bad cards in and upshift desirable staples

[@highfivefromryan]

@@felipeguidolin1055 yeah, but it doesn't have to be. This is why I play Cube.

[@eegles]

Hasbro is looking for a max price and hasn't found it yet. Can probably charge significantly more for sealed product. Gambling addiction keeps people buying, and price increases offset people who switch some buying to singles.

[@biinju]

It's not about product fatigue its price point plain and simple. I've been waiting since Brothers' War for a good set to buy a box, and I thought Commander Masters was finally the set I was waiting for until I saw the prices. So they lost my business. And it's not that I spent on other sets, just not supporting wizards until I see prices drop.

[@DiogoVKersting]

That Anime art on smothering tithe doesn't match nether the title of the card, nor the effect. That in contrast with the original art, which is so iconic. I'm all for Anime art in Magic, but it's an L in my book.

[@TheMadManHimself]

Richard slipping in the card conduit plug combined with social awkwardness at 11:10 made me laugh so much

[@Eternalhachiiiiii]

MaRo's comment about targeting specific groups with different products is a fairly common business-answer. Example: you make cheetos, people like cheetos, but not everyone likes them, so how do you get more people to buy them? make hot cheetos. make lemon-lime cheetos. diversify your main product and so on. what you avoid doing is stepping on your own toes: you want to make a new cheeto that's like everything you've made but different, because you don't want Cheeto XYZ to be cutting into the profits of Regular Cheeto, because then you're just cannibalizing your own business for probably new production lines that may or may not cost more money. what hasbro is attempting here is to discern "is there room or an audience for a masters-priced commander set," because that's one thing they more or less didn't have until now. they already did commander legends, and Battle for Baldur's Gate- two Standard-priced sets- and now it's commander masters.

[@eegles]

This is a smart comment.

[@fartface8918]

​@@eeglesis it? They're not wrong but its pretty simplified and doesn't run to cleanly in practice just because of how complicated the world is

[@Eternalhachiiiiii]

MaRo's direct response to why 'power level' and 'price of a pack' is correlated when the production costs are similar is this: "It’s not about what it costs to print. The issue is this. Let’s say we have four products that sell for the exact same price. It’s important for us, and all our business partners, that players equally want to buy all four booster packs. If everyone wants to buy booster one and no one wants to buy boosters two through four, that causes all sorts of problems. Note that different players will be drawn to different products, but we need each product to have its fans. This means that we have to take into account numerous factors to make sure that boosters packs are equally desirable. One of the biggest factors is the overall average powerful level of the cards (relevant to the formats they are played in) in the booster. That’s the issue." sure I don't have all the details right but I don't need them to be, I believe people understand MaRo's answer a bit more because of it

[@ryuuji7986]

@@fartface8918 well the only problem is.... they sell 1-2 sets at a time. MaRo is trying to sound correct when he's not. they arent selling 4 booster packs of a standard set at the same time. If they were then his comment would be on the money, as if there was standard set 1-4 you'd have to pick what set you buy as they are out at the same time. Most people get paid weekly, biweekly, or monthly as long as you have a set out at least a month apart, it works fine, which is how they currently are doing things. Yes people have a mtg budget but it doesn't act in the way he's describing. A person who picks and chooses the sets they buy do so on value and taste, if there isn't value but its let say anime and anime is their taste , they will buy even if the value isn't there, it goes the same for value. If a set doesn't have the value nor the taste for said consumer, they will not buy. Wizards have to find the right balance for the set they want to make. Wizards doesn't have the problem of needing to sell 4 different packs equally unless you're talking about draft, set, collector. But those are already here and they already know how to make them sellable to each target audience. So to say they are fighting to sell different sets is just wrong. They arent competing against each other as much as he is trying to make it out to be, the draft, set, collector boosters are what is competing against each other. Sure I might buy set A over set B but its not the same since they arent out at the same time. To say they only want me to buy one set and not both sets is just crazy. They want me to buy both sets, sure they might say well you'll just buy two boxes of set A and none of B so A just sold so many more than B, that means the set it self sucked and didn't hit the value or taste of the community. even if they priced set B at a lower price, wouldn't change the fact that it wasn't a good set. Set A didn't fight for Set B's money as set B never had a chance in the first place due to it not hitting the marks stated earlier. MaRo's words only work for items out at the same time like Draft and Set boosters. Due to the limited time they actually sell their sets, set 1 has little impact on set 3 or set 4. So his argument falls apart right there as they arent competing as much as he wants you to think they are. Some people will choose one set because of cowboys while others will pick Kamigawa because ninjas. Not to mention standard sets are all the same price, across the board. Kamigawa was one of their best recent sets, sold for the same price as any set in the past 3 years that was a standard set. they had no problems with that set selling more than crimson vow. so if you say well they have to compare it to other master sets, the ones for 200? the reprints don't justify a 1/3rd mark up. It's just a bunch of PR garbage that is suppose to confuse people and sound business enough to "make sense" and have people go, "yea i guess that is valid" when its not at all, its just them being greedy and having a bad response to try and justify it.

[@fartface8918]

@@ryuuji7986 yeah I understand that profit-seeking in this way is cannibalistic and suicidal at best, it's just also by being so incredibly general and basic while being an interpretation of what someone else meant the comment isn't technically wrong even if the world doesn't work that way. that's why I'm saying it's not particularly smart or insightful

[@towemtg]

I'm here for The Asian Avenger himself!!! I actually like the combined thinking between Richard and Crim with the prices for future masters set. They should keep the same "power level" but keep the price at around $120-150 a box with collectors being $200 a box. WOTC would most likely make more money doing that because people would be more willing to purchase the boxes. What killed Commander Masters was the immediate reveal of how much the boxes were going to be when the only cards that were revealed were Jeweled Lotus, Ur Dragon, and Capture of Jingzhou. We were all thinking they would reveal more high value cards, which they did with The Great Henge and Doubling Season, but the rest just didn't support the company's decision with the value. And sure, the demand was high for the set, but pretty sure now those same people who wanted it and preordered it during the peek wouldn't think it was worth buying at that price.

[@zbaschtian]

Agreed that Hasbro's strategy should be to diversify their revenue streams through transmedia products. Given the amount of non-tcg projects they've cancelled in the past year alone, I don't think this will happen without a massive change in leadership.

[@Spirited_skiing]

I think lorcana is a marketing genius move for the reason Seth mentioned- it’s pretty wild for the average mtg/tcg player to play a kids set and sit down to play with kids… except that our average age is about to hit the age where they have kids who play tcgs. Why not get them into it with characters they already know and feel very kid friendly. If it works in the future they can pivot or add expansions with whatever more adolescent adult franchises are relevant as their age group grows up

[@anselvanheerden3074]

Invested player have all these staples. These products should be more accessible for the new player base who have entered the game recently. How do you attract and keep new players with a price of entry that is as high as this?

[@Tvboy777]

I think the higher price for higher power argument makes sense if you think of it as higher power = higher demand. It's a forgone conclusion that a more powerful set will have more customer demand, and it's basic economics that higher demand means you have to charge a higher price, otherwise you're just losing money as a business, plus it makes your other weaker Standard sets look worse if they are at the same price point. But I think they definitely went too far with Commander Masters and the market just wasn't able to bear the price point they tried to set for it. And unfortunately their little pricing experiment has created a ton of additional ill will with their customers that they probably didn't need.

[@Hinaguy749]

Eternal Masters, the reprint set for LEGACY AND VINTAGE, had an MSRP of $9.99. Power level does not equal price. Especially when 75% of the rares and mythics were duds.

[@enricomassignani]

Legacy and Vintage have RL cards that can't be reprinted no matter what.

[@notapplicable6985]

​@@enricomassignaniand?

[@kylegonewild]

​@@enricomassignaniAnd a lot of stuff they can lol.

[@enricomassignani]

@@notapplicable6985 barrier to entry would still be insane

[@dee-wreck]

Game stores should stop carrying Magic with the expectation of making a profit on it. Buy just enough to satisfy your regulars and whatnot. WotC needs to be punished for this amazon dumping bullshit.

[@W4llh4k]

the problem is other tcg's have more savvy less devote fans, and WOTC seem to know that as they are cattering more and more to whales

[@jasonhamburger912]

Hey Guys, I love all of your content and hope opening up this channel helps feed the fishes. Thanks for all your hard work!

[@MTGGoldfishPodcast]

Thanks!

[@Byzjim]

A whole podcast channel, pretty cool

[@MTGGoldfishPodcast]

Yeah! It will help us get the podcast up a lot faster which should be nice.

[@raccoonhatcity7627]

SETH NOOOOOOO.... I better not start seeing wall scrolls behind you.

[@Xalyn937]

I think part of it for pokemon and one piece is that they have an alternate ip that has huge collectable value for the flashy foils that people want. Whereas with magic it has been a game first and people don't care as much about the blinged out version and in fact a lot of people don't like all of the alternate arts and foils.

[@jefftaylor8077]

Funny story - Distributors were practically begging LGS’s in my area to buy more boxes of this set. The bottom line is WotC is greedy and the Magic community is speaking with their wallets. I feel bad for the LGS’s that are caught in the crossfire but I refuse to reward WotC for their blatant disregard for the concerns we voice. I know it’s wishful thinking, but I hope they learn from this.

[@scottcampbell9515]

If WotC reduced the price of product more new players can enter the game, and they can still hit their profit margins.

[@zellthatsme]

My theory on the poor sale is it's a bad product market fit. If you have the money to buy the set, you likely already own most of the set and you'll just pick up the singles you're missing when the prices drop, the people that really want these reprints are the people that couldn't afford them in the first place, and a set at this price is going to be out of reach for them.

[@shaylic3795]

I’ve always wanted a TCG where it’s a low barrier of entry and shiny upgrades to be had. Like a full play set of each card in a set is sold together for a reasonable price. Then packs have alt arts and chase collector type cards. Then all you need to play is the base product and people who want to bling out their deck can still do so as well.

[@Vertze]

Sounds like Weiss 😊

[@ShadowWalker-ng1it]

I'd say this set cost less to print because not having to design new cards has to reduce the amount of man hours required to get this on shelves EDIT: about lorecana they are absolutly doing a kingdom heart tie in at some point especially if the game starts to struggle within the general public.

[@NathanShepard]

One of the main reasons why Commander Legends (the original) was such a success is because it was 100 bucks a box (little more at release, ~120). In addition, it was the first commander format specific set, and now we are just getting new commander cards every standard sets.

[@regirayquaza]

This is probably the first time I've seen Captain Beefheart not in a music discussion, did not expect it to see it in the background, perhaps I don't watch the podcast enough, I usually find myself listening

[@danielkuttel7867]

So purely from the cards in the set, I find Commander Masters the hammer. I love the Fullart cards for the commons and uncommons. I think I have never reordered so many fullart from a set as here and often in foil, because at times the foil prices of the fullarts were really low. But now it pulls extremely and the Fullarts are all more expensive. I would have liked the set, but it was just too expensive for me.

[@ReyaadawnMTG]

"It's too Tinker Belly to me" - Seth Tinker Bell is literally one of the best cards in the game right now.....

[@garettallen4963]

Buy more fakes.😮 Take the value out of it entirely. And yes I mean fakes not proxies.

[@cread13]

The price of this set pushed me away completely. I went to my main lgs and they assumed i was gonna get a box like i notmaly do for each set (i normally buy at least 1 box). But i told them sry that i refuse to buy overpriced reprints and would just wait till single roll in and buy up all the cards i want then. Which did have me spening about 100$ when they did and i didnt even get all the cards i wanted.

[@alexkuzela9266]

I dknt often find myself agreeing with Crim, but he's totally right about the art for the anime smothering tithe. If youve seen any number of High School anime, you know exactly what thise characters sound like and whats going on; and it does actually fit really well.

[@ryuuji7986]

not to mention its a rich person taxing the less rich. oh you get a card? well if you don't pay extra i'm going to get something from it, mwahhahaha. it totally fits.

[@psychedelicsewell]

Arachnogenesis dropped to below $10 and I needed a copy, so I count this set as an absolute win in my book. Buy singles

[@codeofzero1]

I think the real question around commander master is why is magic the only game where reprint sets cost more then main sets and if you want to say because of value yu-gi-oh reprints set sometime has more value and cost less then main set

[@MentalCrusader]

Nice to see that the algorithm seems to work in your favour

[@andrewrockwell1282]

I do forget sometimes how much this hobby costs. Ooh, that box of Commander Masters looks nice. Oh wait i can buy a switch for that.

[@Dexwin09]

This is my take on collector boosters. As you mentioned, it cost nothing for WotC to print these cardboard with glitter. Hence the question, if you are selling an item called "Collectors" it should include only rare things you could barely find in a regular box or set box. Why would they dumb common cards in a box that is meant to help us collect the rare cards? It should be just uncommon, rares, and mythics. And at least 30% of it on their alternative art form. They need to justify a reason for use to buy a $200+ product, and paying a lot for it to flop and have a bunch of commons is not ideal. Singles for ever.

[@austinturgoose]

Well, my obligatory collection of every art with a goose in it (per my last name) just got a lot more expensive now that I have to buy two doubling seasons. Also, when talking prices for mtg, I think it’s important to note that a big part of the problem is that Hasbro as a whole is floundering and putting a lot of pressure on our game to be their big provider. Not only does Wizards need to rework their model, Hasbro as a whole needs to rework theirs

[@oscher88]

Are you telling me Hasbro made mtg their golden *goose*?

[@MakeVarahHappen]

I sure do love when the three content creators who admit consistently to not knowing or caring about the lore talk about immersion when they have none.

[@BIGNEILCOUSINS]

The price was too high and the amount of bulk rares is too high. I cannot believe that they even consider a draft format as these prices. That is a BS excuse to add in bulk reprints . I am at the point where I only buy singles and the odd commander deck. Another issue is the pre con prices and the fact the eldrazi deck has so few eldrazi included. Its random colourless unbound. Many of my friends are walking away from the game and I wonder how many other people are doing the same . I personally am sick of the constant greed and excessive product releases.

[@jerryleganker4630]

Printers at office depot go brrrrrr ($8 for a whole deck excluding lands)

[@sayntfuu]

It's also low-key the worst economic situation in the last 40 years.

[@kylegonewild]

In the promo material for the precons they make a point to single out these *powerful* decks with sweet cards, justifying the 2x price tag from usual precons. Then you look inside, and there's no shocks, they still refuse to reprint cards *from precons past* in precons again (looking at you cyclonic rift and the free spells), and the new stuff isn't all that impressive. To Richard's point though, the LGS is really where this idea lives or dies for Wizards. Just one anecdote obviously but the LGS I go to for commander weekly bought heavily into LOTR and it flew off the shelves. By the time I got there a couple hours after open on a Saturday they were *completely* sold out of everything but individual packs (like 6 collector boosters and a box or two worth or set/draft boosters). I chatted with the owner about this set shortly after it was first getting spoiled who told me how much out of pocket it was to buy in and that he couldn't justify it. He would be fronting 3x what he fronts for something like a Neon Dynasty but barely be making $20 a box in profit. The LGS that has carried every set the past few years I've been here chose not to buy a single piece of this product. He's leaned much more into Flesh and Blood too. Having free starter decks to give out to new players, the relatively reasonable prices of their sealed product, the accessibility of game pieces, etc. It just seems to be firing on the kind of cylinders Wizards used to fire on. You'd have the oddball extremely priced staple (looking at you circa 2013 Gofy and 2011 JTMS for older cards and Liliana of the Veil for standard cards around that time) but for the most part the game remained reasonably accessible price-wise. I remember people making a stink about MM when it was first announced that it would be a few bucks more per pack but it wasn't so egregious as to drive people off and Modern was the new hotness on the block to soak up that discontent. Wizards could absolutely afford to spread their desire for unsustainable growth across products, but they'd much rather see if they can milk as much as inhumanly possible out of the current darling format of the game.

[@LazyPerfectionist]

Thanks for mentioning this in the Spotify. I wasn’t wondering why the upload still wasn’t up

[@SmokeADig]

My favorite part of the Smothering Tithe anime art is the girl crying... Redo Healer Secret Lair, lets go?

[@JacobBos1988]

For €500 i can buy multiple reserved list cards for my decks. I rather do that then spend money on stuff that crashes when the next reprint comes along.

[@aleczanderlane507]

How can they say that they don't wanna juice a "premier" priced set with obscene power when Oko, among other busted cards, was printed in a premier set?

[@gothic22d]

The real cost of their pricing is that some of us are spending less money on wizards prices. I'm spending the same amount on magic, but about half my budget is now spent on proxies instead of wizards product.

[@danw6485]

Would I buy a "lower powered" set for less? No. If I spend $400 and get $400 of random cards, or spend $100 and get $100 of random cards then the conclusion is still the same, not worth it. I'd rather spend $100 or $400 and get what I want instead. Boosters used to give more value than the cost but they don't anymore. $100 for $125 of random cards vs $100 for specific $100 of cards is a debatable purchase. This new pricing system is not.

[@aydjent]

Correction to something Crim said - pokemon boxes aren't in the same pricing tier as say yu gi oh / Digimon, pokemon booster boxes are usually 100-120

[@bieberhole69420]

I definitely spend a set amount on magic and more products means I pick and choose where I spend it. Sure sometimes I spend extra but it's on singles I don't pull from the boxes I really like. When I saw the announcement for next year I was honestly relieved that I don't really care about any set until bloomburrow.

[@Ktjnn]

The early Modern Masters sets were pretty high power/value, and were still much more affordable than this. Tarmogoyf, Karn, Doubling Season, Swords, the list goes on. Yes, there were complaints when they revealed the price, but people realized quickly it was worth it. Even with inflation, there is actually no reason to be priced out of a set so heavily.

[@andrewpayseur]

@20:00 Crim talked about getting lost in the sets. I think it's not a horrible thing to return to block sets, given how many sets release. The story through-line from plane to plane is exhausted. They don't need to have the ~~Avengers~~ Gatewatch and have everything so tied together. Just go to a plane, watch the rise and fall of a baddy, rinse and repeat. Without that structure, we wouldn't have had the Praetors, The Schism, Jeska and Kamahl, a Memorial to Akroma.... just doooo it.

[@hopposai787]

The reason singles have come down so much is because it was such a huge flop. All the stores stuck with that sealed product cracked all of them trying to minimize their loss. Now those stores are flooded with singles of medallions and everything else. With supply that high in the stores it cratered the price.

[@mightyone3737]

I remember how excited I was about Commander Legends, and how disappointed I was to see the chase cards were new 'must haves' in a format desperate for reprints. Now we have a much more expensive set that is still going to have deliberate bad cards thrown in, because WotC likes to argue that part of what makes gambling so fun is losing really big (I think they are projecting, I don't gamble explicitly because I hate losing and you almost always lose when you gamble). I know I won't be buying packs at this price, and think it's openly insulting, someone needs to explain that they are supposed to have diminishing returns if we spend more on product, such that if you're buying an expensive pack you expect decent odds of breaking even, nobody wants to pay $20 for a pack that might have filler cards. This is why I generally don't like Collector's Boosters of Standard sets, their are just too many shitty cards taking up slots, but these 'premium product' collector's boosters are obscenely overpriced. Lowering the price of cards isn't necessarily losing money because part of the way the company makes money is growing the game. The price of stuff is such that lots of formats are impossible to start out, including Commander in many metas (it feels like $500 isn't very much to spend on a Commander deck, and I'm not even talking about something that's supposed to be High Power). If the game is affordable to start (staples aren't exorbitant, such that you can fiddle around and have decks that still have 'the best cards', such as what Yugioh tried to do by making various key cards super common eventually), you'll have more people try out the game, if someone had told me how much these boosters would cost per pack I wouldn't have believed them. I think some people are collectors rather than people trying to game the financial system, such as it is. It's very hard to play the MtG market unless you have insider info specifically because people very much have insider info and abuse it publicly. Universe Beyond stuff is a mixed bag, yes there is cool stuff, but there is also The Walking Dead. I buy into some of them, but most I think I ignore because I just can do that. I think the only one I wish I would have grabbed is the D&D one, but that one was sneaky expensive iirc, it was the only drop while it was available, and I couldn't convince myself I needed two of each. Okay Richard, I see your 'all the anime art is generic' criticism and raise you 'what exactly the fuck was the OG Necropotence supposed to be??? Lots of Magic art is generic in part because it used to have tons of artists that didn't play the game. I will say I agree that this new Smothering Tithe (how many times are they going to reprint this sucker in a 12 month period??) DEFINITELY gives questionable vibes, and I'm a recovering anime fan, I think I'd still buy any drops that are featuring Rumiko animes/mangas. I looked up some Phyrexian Text drop cards, some of them have decent relative value, but I didn't see any that were quite the top. The Inkmoth Foil drop is worth a chunk, including being worth more than the tattoo version. I pulled my Flame Rifts for Stomp because Stomp can turn into a Bonecrusher in a pinch, the ability to Stomp a creature is surprisingly relevant. I don't love Eidolon or Goblin Guide, both are too likely to give away games vs running stuff like Vexing Devil or DRC.

[@morkroth]

I agree with Crims sentiment, except for smothering tide. There's nothing smothering or tidal about it. Sure, it shows wealth, but the characters should be smothering in it. They're more reveling than smothering.

[@fumpiggle]

I love the alt art for Smothering Tithe. You're making people mad by playing that card in the first place, so might as go all-in and further annoy some boomers by having it be a smug anime girl.

[@bacurana]

Commander being a social and casual format, people are usually fine with proxying. No one is going to spend these amounts if their group will be fine with a printed proxy

[@Merit_Liege]

49:04 I agree with Crim. The goose is the least doubling season doubling season.

[@dylanbersano9488]

I haven’t the whole video yet and idk if someone brings this point up but, I think part of the problem with pricing while including these amazing old cards is they still charge at prices like their amazing old cards. The moment you reprint them prices of cards are affected. Just watched your short on 5 cards that dropped from 100$ to 7$. Why would I pay premium prices for card prices that will most likely just drop.

[@gatorbait2148]

I grabbed a single set booster at target of commander masters and got a price check on it at the checkout line because I wasn't sure how much it was, and that 24$ price tag made me put that thing down so fast. I like set boosters usually because they're good for cracking just to see if you get something nice without dumping your entire wallet. Not the case with commander masters.

[@enricomassignani]

29:08 easy. When MH2 came out wizards was not 100% sure the cards would get to the prices they are now. They could not look at secondary market and say "this is worth $50". When you think about it, most expensive cards were first printed in stabdard-priced sets: Jeweled Lotus in CL1. Great henge in Throne of Eldraine. Luxury suite & co in Battlebond. Enemy fetches in Zendikar. The list goes on... Only reprint sets get these crazy pricing, bcs they can cherry pick cards that they know players are willing to pay lots of $$$.

[@benjohnstone4680]

That thing Seth said about monopoly is one of the smartest things I've heard about magic the gathering to date I've never considered the wider lense of how Hasbro makes money on different IPs but it makes so much sense that they're trying to use magic as an advertising directory, making it much much harder to create magic focussed world building because it's sucking brand cohesion away. I mean this kind of seems like an MCU bubble if that's the case that the lack of direction and push for wider audiences has to have a peak.

[@luisochoa576]

I'm not as big of a fan of hentai as Crim is, but I agree with him. This art fits Smothering Tithe perfectly. This girl archetype is the rich classy high class snob tsundere, she is the school president, president of the book club and number 1 ranked elite fencer. She is super popular, influencial and desired by all and she looks down on her male classmates. She is dating the #1 football player but inexplicably falls in love with the ugliest and most socially awkward student. She treats him like garbage at first but slowly opens up and warms up to him when he doesn't respect or care about her status. She invites him to her place to study one day and during dinner her mom tries to seduce him, which makes the girl become jealous. After they take turns punishing him they both eventually end up joining his harem. The art is also depicting the smothering of your wallet via the waifu tax. The two girls are laughing at the fact that you paid 4x the price of regular Smothering Tithe.

[@MarekBorecki]

For me all conversations about Mtg price leaves one important aspect: new players. Price of booster box is irrelevant because booster box is not playable (its hard to build one deck, imposible to build multiple). Precons cost about $80 a deck. For one person. You need 2 or 4 decks. For this money you can buy multiple standalone card games, boardgames, or even some LGG from FFG with expantions. How you introduce new player to the game with this king of "fun for money" value?

[@TheChibidono]

100% with Richard on the anime art discussion. I love anime and all the WAR anime planeswalkers are great and would play them all. But the smothering tithe is just not even a logical card for me. Sure, it depicts a "generic" secene from magic but does not have the extortionate vibe of the original.

[@OverlordSato]

On the power level to cost argument, did we just forget about Dominaria Remastered? The set with tutors, force of will, sylvan library and many other powerful cards? Where booster boxes are just about the same price as a regular booster? This is such a bs response that they have to pay more for power.

[@Nathanael_Forlorn]

I have been following magic for over a decade, but from the sidelines, because I just Could not afford it. It is prohibitingly expensive. I want to join and I am fine with spending some money on it! But 600+ for a single deck? How could I possibly. I'm in the middle of building 2 separate budget commander decks, but if it turns out, that they are either too expensive or I need to cut all the fun cards, then I won't spend anything again. Or look at proxy services. Maybe they are cheaper?

[@sunstrid3r44]

I think the best way to pay less to play magic is having people to play with tha plays at the same powerlevel, but not everyone have that

[@Nathanael_Forlorn]

@@sunstrid3r44 yeah, i am trying to cultivate a game group, in which we can agree on a budget / power level. But it definitely is not easy to not end up with super mis-matched decks, even if everyone tries their best!

[@sunstrid3r44]

@@Nathanael_Forlorn yes, it is really hard! If i may, my advice is dont try too much to build the perfect enviroment, it is okay to have a little missmatch here and there and if everyone is open to dialogue and on a similar vibe the enviroment will build itself!

[@danw.1250]

"I don't even know what that means anymore, because they're all commander cards anyway..." -- Richard Truer words have never been spoken.

[@catfishrob1]

The secondary market absolutely does matter for wizards. When they see a high value card, they'll reprint it to increase accessibility. But in so doing, they are going to lower the price of that card. If they are going to lower the value of their own game among players, they might as well squeeze the money out of it while they can. In other words, they've got only so many arrows in the quiver, and if they're going to use one up, they should make it count from a business perspective. And I don't think there's really anything wrong with that. A lot of work goes into designing and testing new mechanics, new cards and artwork, balancing sets for standard, draft, and whatever other formats the cards could be used in, all that takes a lot of work. So if they are going to purposefully devalue their cards, it needs to be worth it for them. Nobody should hold it against them for trying to make money so they can keep this game going. But it's important they don't get too greedy, or the whole plan will fail. It's like Richard said. If the price is too high, then players will send them a signal by not buying it. Even if the LGSs are getting screwed here, WOTC knows that is not sustainable because they depend on the LGSs for their business. So hopefully they'll find the sweet spot where they get to make a good amount of money, the LGS can take their cut, and the players are satisfied with the price for the value they are getting.

[@pierredupont1096]

"What we've determined is that Crim will buy anything with Anime art." YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH DAD YOU SAID IT. (Also when I hear "One Piece" I hear bathing suits, or chicken dinners. I'm weird I guess.)

[@theartofgoblintrash]

I know this isn't the most popular opinion, but i don't think a single card should be more than 20 bucks (minus alt arts, foils, special treatments, etc.). I'm fine with a premium product if the base product is affordable at least then I can still afford to play the game.

[@MsThatstuff]

It’s clear wizards cares about secondary market and they print to it to charge more

[@pletes100]

They could fix this with the products they already have. Print regular versions in draft booster with no alt art or foil treatments at all and sell it for 150$/box. Cut out set boosters entirely because they don't belong in a reprint set. Reserve alt art fancy versions for collector's boosters only and sell them for 250$. Then you have cheap versions for people to play with and ultra expensive versions for people to collect and show off.

[@BlueGriffin20]

A commanders master set at standard price and standard power is just a commanders core set. It would be nice to get a From the Vault: Commanders product with around 15 commander staples. Sure you’ll need one or two higher value cards to pad out the cost given a lot of cards hover in single digits, but it still could be a good product. RIGHT?!? I feel the same way about the anime smothering tithe. The others anime have some sort of tie in, but that card, nothing…

[@CokaShimoda]

@27 min I'm so glad Seth finally got into reprint equity. I've been waiting for that for 27 mins lol

[@christina.morris]

I spent the money I would have spent on a Commander Masters box on a FTV: Angels at GenCon and then the Secret Lair Angels deck, lol. Less randomness, fancy art treatments I love, and cards I'm sure I'm going to play. I buy a box of each Standard set, and three times the cost for just one box of the Masters set just didn't feel worth it. If it had been $200 a box, I'd probably have gotten one still, but I just didn't need enough of the stuff in the set to make almost $400 worth it. It seems a lot better to me to not cram *so* much value into a given reprint set, so that they can charge less, you know?

[@ebonezra8073]

51:01 this is actually a great example of Wizards' approval for proxies. The art isn't indicative of the original, so it might as well be soft core waifu hentai instead of Edgar Markov.

[@moreparmesan5261]

Because of the increasing price of magic, I can no longer get my friends into the game from pokemon, etc. The reaction is always the same. "It cost too much." It's not even about the complexity of the game anymore. It's the dang price and it sucks because I've been able to branch into pokemon by only selling a few mtg cards. It's crazy to think about. For instance, I sold maybe 10 mtg cards and built 9 standard pokemon decks. NINE!!!!

[@Xalyn937]

The smothering tithe makes sense in context. It is based on the "oujosama/villainess" trope where the high ranking noble flex their wealth over a commoner/ lesser nobles.

[@natashiastubblefield2130]

Here’s the thing though. Buying a $20 pack doesn’t even guarantee $5 worth of value in cards. That $20 pack could have literally no value or “power-level” buying packs is almost gambling. Spend $20 you could get no value or you could get a jeweled lotus. Also I’m so tired of feeling like I can’t be excited for a set to come out because as it released there’s already previews for the next set. It’s getting exhausting. Now I try to just pay attention to the best cards coming out in a set and spend money on some singles and pay no more attention to the rest of the set