The "Complain about Standard prices" thread

[Xcric]

Originally Posted by serjstrike1

Why do you insist upon putting words in my mouth? I did not say the desire for prices to return to a pre-lorwyn state is a handout. I said doing nothing but sitting back, complaining and waiting for someone else to do something is wanting a handout. I will say again: I just bought a RDW deck, exactly the same list as the one that won Pro Tour Japan for $94. I bought UW control for about $190. The reasons they were so cheap: I looked for damaged/discounted cards, spent a lot of time trading and raided my card pool that I share with my friends.

I agree standard prices are too high right now. But if you are unwilling to do anything yourself to get a deck to a price you can manage then I'm glad you don't play standard. Just complaining until someone else lowers the price for you is absolutely a hand out.

but in buying those cards and continuing to play in that format... you send the message that its alright for cards to hit the prices you yourself admitted they shouldn't be at.

complaining about price, in any capacity, isn't asking for a handout. its making it known that you can't, or don't want to, compete in the game you use to enjoy because of the pricing. if no one talks about it then how does anyone know that theres any amount of dissatisfaction at all? even more so if they act like you have and find ways to get the cards, even when they're damaged.

the only way to really effect any sort of change is to discontinue support, and make your opinion known.

[Ultimaga]

Originally Posted by Xcric

but in buying those cards and continuing to play in that format... you send the message that its alright for cards to hit the prices you yourself admitted they shouldn't be at.

complaining about price, in any capacity, isn't asking for a handout. its making it known that you can't, or don't want to, compete in the game you use to enjoy because of the pricing. if no one talks about it then how does anyone know that theres any amount of dissatisfaction at all? even more so if they act like you have and find ways to get the cards, even when they're damaged.

the only way to really effect any sort of change is to discontinue support, and make your opinion known.

So simply not caring giving a damn isn't an option?

Stop with the "you're with us or you're not" clause.

[holynorth]

I've been playing Magic since a little after Worldwake came out. I have never played in another standard environment. Because of this, I have no complaints with the price of Standard. I have a fully built UWr deck (playsets of each planeswalker including baneslayers) and a playset of each fetch. I also share cards with a friend which includes enough cards to fully build a naya deck and more. I have spent maybe 100-200 dollars to further my collection. (I have spent quite a bit more getting altered art, tournament fees, etc).

I am a college student with no job and no income besides working for family friends here and there.

I have absolutely no complaints with the prices. Everyone who is whining is spoiled by the past and either needs to grow-up and enjoy their hobby or find a new one.

[Kaiterra]

Originally Posted by Ultimaga

So simply not caring giving a damn isn't an option?

Stop with the "you're with us or you're not" clause.

Not caring about the price issue is the same as not being "with" the people complaining. I don't really understand what you're saying, or how you can claim to not care, yet enter this thread and argue the matter.

Originally Posted by Holynorth

I have a fully built UWr deck (playsets of each planeswalker including baneslayers) and a playset of each fetch. I also share cards with a friend which includes enough cards to fully build a naya deck and more. I have spent maybe 100-200 dollars to further my collection

I guess if everyone else pooled their cards or was a miracle worker that could spend that little (I'm curious how, since you don't really explain...) they wouldn't have any complaints either. But that's not realistic at all.

[xChaospherex]

To the people suggeesting we all just shut up and play RDW, I have this to say:

This is a terrible plan. RDW is a meta deck; the "dredge" of standard, if you will. It is the type of deck whose success is highly dependent on whether the meta allows it to succeed or not. The recent upswing in high finishes for RDW players is due almost entirely to two factors:

1. RDW players switching back to haste creatures after the majority of people accepted All-In-Red as the predominant build

2. Non-RDW players leaving their Dragon's Claws, Kor Firewalkers, and Baneslayers at home.

RDW is the most easily hated deck in the format. If a conscious effort is made to prepare for the matchup, its expected win percentage tanks. With the current state of the game allowing for an individual to afford only one or two competitive decks per season, it doesn't seem like RDW is the ideal investment (and it is an investment, as is the purchase of any competitive deck). I cannot say for sure whether this will apply equally to post-M11 RDW, as they filled some pretty key holes in their game (they now have actual SB options!), but I'm of the belief that the attention paid to RDW will only work against it, as if it becomes a true Tier One deck, it will be hated out of the metagame, leaving budget-conscious competitive players with only Jund and trash like Time Sieve. Then again, M11 does offer up some tantalizing options. I guess i'll have to wait and see.

[Rimeshade]

Originally Posted by holynorth

I am a college student with no job and no income besides working for family friends here and there.

You have a playset of every Planeswalker and several tier 1 decks with no income? Forgive me if I'm a little skeptical.
Perhaps its just the stupid pricing market in the UK making me import cards from America to keep things affordable and the American market really is incredibly cheaper...

Originally Posted by holynorth

I have absolutely no complaints with the prices. Everyone who is whining is spoiled by the past and either needs to grow-up and enjoy their hobby or find a new one.

I have no problem therefore no-one else should have a problem is a non-sequitur. Compare "I have no problem with the VAT increasing to 20% so therefore everyone else should have no problem, they should just jolly well earn more money dammit".

Your second "point" about whining is not only a mass generalisation but it is also inaccurate. Those of us "whining" are not spoiled by the past but we are having the present being spoiled for us by daft price hikes caused mainly due to tournament staples being mythic rares and partly due to mythic rares themselves (although I think the former is much more problematic).

You tell us to "grow-up" as if this statement has some sort of answer implicit in it or inferred by it but it doesn't. Telling someone to "grow-up" is a meaningless phrase in this context, how will growing up help a students budget? How will growing up help an older player trying to maintain other resources like petrol, rent and food as well as his or her hobby?
You seem to be identifying "grow-up" with "stop complaining" but why not simply say "stop complaining" instead of attempting to demean people with the insidious phrase "grow up"?

Now onto the more relevant section.
"...enjoy their hobby or find a new one."
Why? Why must those of us who can't afford a competitive standard deck have to simply quit? Why can't we attempt to salvage our hobby by voicing concern over the prices? What of those of us who have been playing and enjoying their hobby since Odyssey and were always at least able to afford a standard deck of some competitive ability, even a budget one simply be drive away from the hobby we still enjoy? It isn't the hobby that we don't enjoy anymore, its the increase in cost and the unfairness with which it appears to have occurred (in regard to tourny staples as mythics).

I already pointed out in an earlier post that I no longer find FNM as enjoyable as it once was due to the increase in cost and the seeming focus on wallet size over actual creativity or skill (note I am NOT saying someone with an expensive deck has no skill or less skill, simply that all things being equal the pricier deck will win).
I like competing in casual tournaments, I like seeing my rating move and evolve over time, I like spending time playing the game and socialising with other players and brewing up new deck ideas, I am and always have been a Johnny / Timmy with a sprinkling of a good-humoured Spike.

This is why myself and my friends' response to this situation in standard is to try and sanction our own casual tournament using legacy instead as this provides more options for decks and as I mentioned due to all of our budget constraints lets us pick and choose from many more and cheaper card options and as several of the best legacy cards are incredibly expensive no-one will turn up with an expensive deck to stomp over everyone else.
I am responding to the pricing problems in the only way I can think of that still allows for a semi-competitive tournament game every week and still allows for creativity to run rampant without being constrained too much by cost.

I understand that if my FNM meta contained more budget decks and less expensive decks (and no proxies..) I would be less vociferous about this issue as I would still be getting my weekly casual tournament. Our FNM haemorrhages new players as they show up maybe twice with some budget deck they've spent the week designing and testing only to be beaten into oblivion by expensive decks they cannot hope to obtain and I think this is a tragedy.

I also think that having to go and sanction your own tournaments just to get a casual tournament fix in every week is pretty ludicrous. It would be fine if you exclusively played Extended or Legacy which FNM don't play but all of my friends and I are standard players, we all started in standard and attempted to compete in it but we have to sanction our own tourny because of the pricing issues bleeding into FNM. The only reason we don't sanction a standard tourny of our own is because one of our friends has spent a great deal of money (which he cannot afford) on a standard deck and would crush all of our other decks bar mine (which is, oddly enough, a slight counter to his deck), Legacy gives us the card pool to sift out cheaper cards from and build decks using them.

When I started Magic, it was easier for new players to get involved and for what I spent on my vamps I could have had a damn good standard deck. This is not tinted by rose glazing either, this is simply how things were back then and I hope that if Wizards can sort the silly prices we see in todays standard they can be like that again. As I said, our FNM actively deters new players, we retained 2 out of about 10 youngsters of varying ages (14 - 20) because I got them into EDH which they play on FNM because they like the company at our store but simply can't break into standard so our actual FNM pool is stagnating and starting to lose existing players like zombies dropping from a grave titan.

I don't ask for handouts. I don't ask for free cards. I ask for an FNM standard that a budget deck, a proper budget deck of the pre-mythic cost range, can play in. I ask for a standard that allows for creativity that's affordable, where multiple different decks exist and not just ones that contain the same core with different extraneous cards. I ask for a standard that a relatively cheap deck can still got to nationals or tournaments and do reasonably in, it doesn't have to win (it won't obviously) or even make top 20%, but I would like to be able to make at least the top 50% or something like that, isn't that fair? The more expensive decks still win (capitalism isn't just for xmas...) but at least someone who drops £80 on a deck can do reasonably well, if only because the other decks they face in the bottom 50% are also cheaper yet viable decks.

[Sinitive]

+1, except, your placement in tournaments should be about your skill in selecting and playing your deck, you can't be garenteed to end in top 40% just because you made a budget deck :P But I get your point.

Well in the end, I will completely stop buying original cards from Wizards if I cannot use these cards for competetive play. As soon as enough ressourceful players start organizing tournaments and ranking lists with proxies, maybe Wizards will wake up.

[Bacur]

Originally Posted by Sinitive

+1, except, your placement in tournaments should be about your skill in selecting and playing your deck, you can't be garenteed to end in top 40% just because you made a budget deck :P But I get your point.

Well in the end, I will completely stop buying original cards from Wizards if I cannot use these cards for competetive play. As soon as enough ressourceful players start organizing tournaments and ranking lists with proxies, maybe Wizards will wake up.

This...

So called "casual" formats skyrocketed in popularity in my area. Many of the newcomers prefers them to the Standart\Legasy 'cos they are A LOT cheaper but people still get a lotta fun.

[Rimeshade]

Originally Posted by Sinitive

+1, except, your placement in tournaments should be about your skill in selecting and playing your deck, you can't be garenteed to end in top 40% just because you made a budget deck :P But I get your point.

Yes I should have clarified, I do NOT think that simply building / buying a budget deck should guarantee a certain placing in a tournament (I don't think how much you spend should be a factor AT ALL but that's just idealistic claptrap), your deck should be a good one, well built and designed and you should have the playing skill as well.

Just clarifying that.

[Lionheart17]

People that are posting that it's too bad the prices are higher and to stop living in the past should realize that when Magic the game first came out, and for the first 5 years of the game, that everyone and I mean everyone played it. I have been playing since the beginning and only now am seeing all my friends giving up on it. When Magic came out while I was at school, you were a nerd if you didn't play Magic, lol.

[Xatar3]

What do you guys think of M11 vs some of the other recent sets you've mentioned?

[arvinsim]

$200 is cheap? No wonder we never get new players in our area. Ever.

[Kaiterra]

Rimeshade, you are very eloquent and I greatly appreciate your comments in this thread. "...starting to lose existing players like zombies dropping from a grave titan"

And the focus on FNM is really key here. I don't think anyone is complaining that they can't hit the Top 8 of a PTQ without dropping phat stax of cash. But the return on investment for players whose focus is on FNM is pathetic. It certainly isn't fair to these players and particularly new players as well. I think this is why my LGS mainly runs drafts for FNM.

I am hopeful that Wizards will learn from this experience, however, because I'd speculate that if this model of designing sets was really causing people to open more packs, the prices for these cards would NOT be as astronomical as it is.

[Sinitive]

Originally Posted by Kaiterra

Rimeshade, you are very eloquent and I greatly appreciate your comments in this thread. "...starting to lose existing players like zombies dropping from a grave titan"

And the focus on FNM is really key here. I don't think anyone is complaining that they can't hit the Top 8 of a PTQ without dropping phat stax of cash. But the return on investment for players whose focus is on FNM is pathetic. It certainly isn't fair to these players and particularly new players as well. I think this is why my LGS mainly runs drafts for FNM.

I am hopeful that Wizards will learn from this experience, however, because I'd speculate that if this model of designing sets was really causing people to open more packs, the prices for these cards would NOT be as astronomical as it is.

Sounds right.

Some people earliere in this thread have suggested its because the rarity hit at the same time as tournament attendance increased alot, which sounds plausible to me as a reason for the lack of cards while theres still being more opened packs. The problem is the only real way to change that is to either remove a rarity or put the tournament staples needed in lower rarities. Keep stuff like mythics to stuff you only need 1 or 2'ofs in some decks, not 4 ofs in most decks and in all decks running that specific color.

What do you think?

[Lionheart17]

Have you played MOL lately? Even in the casual rooms you go up against $1000.00 decks. I can understand when you are in the PTQ or any other Major tournaments, but when you find decks like these at your local FNM and everyplace you go on MOL that's just wrong. If I were a pro I would spend on my decks too, hence the word pro, but if you listen to alot of the pros, they say that they borrowed the cards to compete. What does that tell you?