Surviving the Death of Wizards - Magic without new cards

[FireFox31]

What will happen to the game of Magic and to Magic card values if Wizards stops printing new cards?

During 2011, I've spent a notable amount of money amassing a well-rounded Magic card collection. Now that I have basically every card I could want, I'm concerned about the cash value of my collection over time. I wonder what will happen to its value if the worst happens: Wizards stops printing new cards.

This leads me to think about the game of Magic in general in a world without new core and expansion sets from Wizards. Would the game continue or would people lose interest? Would everyone quickly jump ship in a gaming apocalypse, or would players come up with new formats to sustain the game?

It's been said that "Communities which aren't growing are shrinking". Loss of community members is inevitable due to life changes, financial and time constraints, etc. Without new members, a non-growing community will eventually vanish; even one as large as the worldwide network of Magic players.

I pose the following questions about Magic after Wizards stops printing cards:
1. What would happen to card values?
2. What would happen to the game and the community of Magic players?
3. What could players do to keep the Magic community alive and growing?

Looking forward to your input.

[mondu_the_fat]

Standard would die, obviously. Standard staples would drop in price unless they were eternal/EDH staples as well. Extended will die as well for the same reason as standard, but at a slower rate.

So would the official forms of limited. No new packs, no limited. You'd have to resort to cube or repacks. But that gets old quick -- part of the appeal of limited is new stuff.

"Modern", whose existence lies on the hope that certain cards will be reprinted, will also die because no cards will be reprinted. It will be a much slower death than standard; maybe lasting as long as eternal.

Vintage and legacy would continue to exist, for a time. Vintage, in particular, has survived without official support for years. Obviously, the number of players will still dwindle, but not nearly as fast as the rate as of disappearance of standard players. EDH, pauper, peasant will also exist. The formats that exist will likely develop their own governing body outside the DCI. IT will up to them to keep the foramts from becoming stale, likely with a rotating B&R list.

[Glimyrpost]

1. Card values would depend. Cards that are staples/currently have a collector value (like P9, ABU, etc.) would probably take a sharp drop in value, and then over time go back up in value. Non staples would probably slowly rise in value as they got scarcer, and as collector value of a "dead" game went up (this would be slow, and not huge).

2. The community would probably shrink over time, I expect that for a few years, it would be more or less stagnant, then players would drop more quickly as things got boring and the same.

3. "normal" draft formats would of course die out. However, I assume that a few things would happen:
1. some weirder drafts might appear, eternal drafts, similar to cube
2. EDH would become more funsieser
3. since all magic would be casual, there would be lots of formats based on different stages of magic (stuff like modern, but plays on everything), so things like only older than X, or singleton "standard" or whatever.

[jedimindtricks]

If wotc folded right now, I can guarantee it wouldn't die there. Some other company would buy the rights and continue the game. Yo could bet their first set would be a cash grab with p9 and more in it. After that, who knows. Som card games have dedicated communities. I think if magic production absolutely stopped with no future production, legacy would live on for some time. Vintage would still be daunting to get into. Even if something is now worth 20$ after being hundreds like moxen, people are reluctant to let it go for that low.

[jclrb]

Even though Star Wars CCG from Decipher stopped production in 2001, there is a following for the game. There is even a group making new "cards" for the game.
Magic players can do the same thing or at least try nad hopefully someone would pick it up

[Dark Knightmare]

I'm sure another company would pick up Magic if WOTC decided to stop or if they folded. Heck Dragon Dice got picked up by another company before it bit the dust.

[Annorax]

Originally Posted by jclrb

Even though Star Wars CCG from Decipher stopped production in 2001, there is a following for the game. There is even a group making new "cards" for the game.
Magic players can do the same thing or at least try nad hopefully someone would pick it up

Somehow, I can't see Wizards doing what Decipher did with SWCCG and both STCCGs. Magic will never truly die; if Wizards went down Hasbro would either continue it themselves under another brand name or sell it off to another company, who would be faced with the choice to either affirm their commitment to honor their predecessors' promises and keep the Reserved List intact, or piss off the vast majority of their instantly acquired customer base, distributors, and SCG.

[Raptor1210]

What i have to say is pretty much what everyone else has already said, but I'll try to give it my own spin.

Standard/Extended/Modern:
These formats will most likely die out fairly soon after magic folds. Standard being the quickest and modern being the slowest, but Modern's death will be dependent on when magic dies. If it's soon, before more cards are available to stabilize the format, then it won't last as long as it would have if those cards had been printed/reprinted.

Legacy/Vintage:
Of the major formats supported by wotc these will be the ones to last the longest after magic death. Major tournaments will most likely be a thing of the past since most magic retailers, such as SCG, will most likely die with magic, but the formats are stable and fairly balanced.

Cube/EDH/Causal:
All of these will be around long after magic has died and it's bones have turned to dust. EDH was started independent of Wotc, gaining so much popularity that wotc finally acknowledged it as an official format, Cube was started in much the same way, independent of wotc. Since Cube is to EDH what limited is to constructed I really can't see one surviving without the other.

Problem of No New Cards:
As has already been said other games have died and thier players have continued to produce cards for them and expand the game. If magic were to suddenly die then I have no doubt something similar would happen with it. Just go check out the "Card Creation Forum" on this site alone, it's constantly buzzing with activity and people creating new cards and sets.

Finally, I REALLY don't think Magic is going anywhere anytime soon, it's entirely possible for Magic to outlive everyone reading this post, it's simply a matter of having a good person leading the game and making sure everything is moving in the right direction. I don't know about the rest of you but I'd happily play Magic for the rest of my life.

[bighaben]

I think magic is a sure bet to being produced for the next 7-10 years. The good news is, I think the death of Magic will be slow and predictable. You should know when to sell off your cards well before the game actually belly ups. Safe investment, after all there is an entire business building up around Magic.

But screw investments, you'll be playing this game for decades, and you got all the awesome cards. If I spent 10,000 dollars for all the cards I want, and that value is worth 500 bucks 25 years from now, I wouldn't care in the least bit. Well, outside of when I need 10,000 dollars.

[RCarlysle]

It largely depends on whether or not the Apocalypse has happened and everything has degenerated to a lawless land where people are wearing tank tops and fighting over precious little resources. Savagery, pillaging, murder abundant, and the vile act of playing with cards without proper sleeves.

[Samot]

Originally Posted by RCarlysle

It largely depends on whether or not the Apocalypse has happened and everything has degenerated to a lawless land where people are wearing tank tops and fighting over precious little resources. Savagery, pillaging, murder abundant, and the vile act of playing with cards without proper sleeves.

Then, magic cards will become a new form of currency. Bottle caps be damned.

[dgschess]

MLB Showdown was a tabletop baseball game made by Wizards of the Coast. They stopped making those some years ago, when MLBPA decided that Topps would be only company to produce cards with the likeness of baseball players on it.

I know a few people that tried to keep MLB Showdown alive. I still have literally six binders worth of MLB Showdown cards. However, nobody plays the game anymore and the cards aren't worth anything.

I know that Magic is more popular than MLB Showdown, so it may be able to sustain without any new cards or sanctioned tournaments for a bit longer, but I suspect Magic would similarly crash and burn if Wizards abandoned it.

[CubFan81]

Assuming a full on death meaning no new official cards from WoTC or from any other company that has the license then as others have pointed out, official formats would slowly die off. Standard and Extended for obvious reasons of no new sets to make up the format. Legacy is popular now because it constantly shifts with the influx of new cards (Mental Misstep, Coralhelm Commander, Emrakul, Progenitus, Knight of the Reliquary, Goyf, etc). No new cards would mean that the format could eventually become stagnant.

I think the ideal situation to arise would be some form of Bring Your Own Standard. It would be a nightmare for judges and deck legality but with the already massive number of blocks released the permutations are crazy.

Not having any idea on how to handle earlier non-block sets like Legends and Arabian Nights and starting with Ice Age block (including Coldsnap here) and counting Lorwyn/Shadowmoor as one block you get about 190 different Block pairings. That goes from Ice Age block right on through Innistrad block and includes the unreleased but presumably worked on and soon to be released Hook/Line/Sinker block, Friends/Romans/Countrymen block and Huey/Dewey/Louie block.

Each of those could then be paired with any of the 13 core sets to date (12 really since A/B/U are all the same, and 11 if you wanted to just ban A/B/U from the beginning for power and accessibility reasons).

And again, that's without considering Legends, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, The Dark, Fallen Empires, or Homelands.

Do you use Revised as your core set for the duals or would you be better off with M11 with the Titans and Baneslayer? Ice Age with Dark Ritual and Necropotence paired with Odyssey block and Torment's black focus? etc, etc.

[Valarin]

MTG is practically printing money at this point. Printing a pack of cards that costs less than a penny to produce and selling them for $4.

Any IP THAT profitable isn't going to die for a LOOONG time.

[Sweeney]

If Magic became unprofitable as as a collectable game, you'd probably see it get folded in to the games portfolio with other lines, sold as a couple hundred card boxed "basic" game, with a hundred or so more cards released every so often as "expansion" games.

It wouldn't be so highly profitable, as the base game probably couldn't be sold for more than $29.99-$39.99, and expansions for less.

Though, they'd probably need a good decade or more before wanting to try it, so that the old cards, which would gradually be degrading to worthless were lost/destroyed etc.


Beyond that, the game system itself is really cool, and if Hasbro dropped it, someone would at least scavenge the game mechanics for use elsewhere. It wouldn't be Magic, though.