Dan Barnett of Walt's Cards in Baltimore, Maryland saw retailer Stephen Armstrong’s comments about deep discounting of Dungeons and Dragons product (see “Stephen Armstrong of Mad City Comics on D&D 4E Discounting”) and observes that not only is there still discounting of Magic: The Gathering product, the new rarity scheme (see “Sweeping Changes to Magic”) is unnecessary:
My initial thought was in response to Mr. Armstrong's comments that Wizards of the Coast has a policy discouraging deep discounting on Magic: The Gathering products and wishes they would do the same for D&D. Really? What policy is that to discourage deep discounting in M:TG products? I can go online and find M:TG boxes for sale at $79.99. This is about 50 cents less than my distributor charges me for the same box. If there is a policy against deep discounting it sure as bleep ain't working.
Additionally there is the WotC preferential treatment of only a very few of their Tournament Organizers, but this issue has been discussed.
WotC has announced a number of changes in M:TG and I would like to address a few of them.
First, WotC has announced that they are making more sets with fewer cards per set. They claim that the Standard format is too large right now. If the format is too large it is only so because of decisions made by WotC. The Timespiral set had the "shifted" cards and so was 35% larger than a regular set. Of course the Standard format will be larger. The set itself is larger. You've got Coldsnap, a smaller set which logically doesn't fit into the Standard format definitions anywhere but nonetheless is included. Then WotC compounds the problem by not deleting the Timespiral/Coldsnap blocks when, by former definitions, they ought to be retired. If you don’t pull stuff out of the standard format, it will get too large. This is not rocket science. Stuff comes in; stuff goes out, if you want to maintain a balance.
WotC is making more sets with fewer cards in each. Yu-Gi-Oh! is often criticized for coming out with too many sets, but with 60 cards per set, I feel the complaints are unwarranted. But why does WotC want to go down that road?
Next WotC has announced a new level of rarity: Mystic Rare. Why? I have always promoted the simplicity of M:TG's rarity structure as a positive factor as opposed to say, Yu-Gi-Oh!, where you have Commons, Short Print Commons, Super Short Print Commons, Rares, Super Rares, Ultra Rares, Secret Rares, Ghost Rares, Hidden Rares, Ultimate Rares, and maybe a few others. Trying to keep track of which rare is which and exactly how "rare" is it only causes confusion, particularly as Yu-Gi-Oh! has printed the same card in several different rarity values. Now WotC wants to have Mystic Rares. To what point?
WotC is putting Basic Lands into its Booster Packs, claiming that new players can't get enough basic land. Leaving aside that Walt's has the land box for tournament use and 20 lands for $1.00 otherwise, new players can't buy Tournament Packs? They can't get a Fat Pack?
So my question is: Who convinced WotC that Yu-Gi-Oh! is the wave of the future? At Walt's, Yu-Gi-Oh! players graduate to Magic. Not the reverse.
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