Puzzle Pieces

This thread is for discussion of the article Puzzle Pieces

i come to much the same conclusion as danger here, there seem to be relevant reasons to move med 4 time slot, but y specifacally mention legacy at all when were still in 2009? i proposed an idea that they wanted to also use classic as a testing ground for some of the iffy urzas block cards banned in legacy. ie we get to play urzas cards for 7-9 months of no power. it would be really interesting to see if any cards came off the legacy banned list after we hit med4 ala dream halls and entomb.

kind of bummed as to no legacy in 2010 i am getting old and would like to be able to play legacy already and of course vintage but hey i guess if they give me p9 i will somehow [sarcastic snicker inserted here] find a way to go on

Based on complete conjecture, I would come to the same conclusion as well, Danger. I think I will buy extra duals this year as a "bank account" for buying power in December. I think power/legacy will draw a lot of interest, and that duals will be the first things to fly up in price...

“How would you release the P9 online – would you make them mythic?”

No way, they are far more than some of the crap we call Mythic now.

I did probably release them as treasure cards in ME4 without any expansion symbol.

Originally posted by Weltenbrand “How would you release the P9 online – would you make them mythic?” No way, they are far more than some of the crap we call Mythic now. I did probably release them as treasure cards in ME4 without any expansion symbol.

LOL - yeah that would be awesome to have vintage online where only 10 people could play.

Great idea

so will drains as they are right now the most powerfull UNRESTRICTED blue card other than force of will, and are a pillar of the best performing deck in vintage.

Edited by menace13 - 17 Nov 2009 at 5:19pm

Treasure cards were a gimmick to sell Zen packs.  It is not an effective distribution method for cards that need to reach the masses.  Let's look at the math of what you suggest

A Treasure was found ~ one in every 20 boxes, or 720 packs of cards.

In a draft (far and away the main source of pack-crakcing online), 24 packs are cracked.  That means a single treasure would be found every 30 drafts.  During a good release week, ME3 was popping out drafts about 10 an hour, and even though this pretend ME4 set has these wonderful treasure, the rest of the set would be extremely weak -  unlike ME3.  There simply aren't many rares left.

Assming you put every single unrestricted and unreleased card as a mythic (of which there are 16), it would take 480 drafts to have a single set appear online.  At a rate of 10 drafts per hour, that's a single set of Power, Time Vault, Library, etc... every two days.

In order to get a single set out just to the people who have top 8 in 2009 in Classic events, it would take 482 days of 10 drafts an hour just to get enough of the treasures into the hands of people who'd at least done well in a classic DE/PE this year.  Never mind that there are many, many more people who'd want them.

MED4 will not be on sale for 482 days.  And it won't have a draft rate of 10/hour for the entire length of it's run.  And there will be far more than 241 players online who'll want them.

The goal is not to make Power 9 cards as expensive or as hard to obtain as they are in paper, Weltenbrand.  Your argument suggests you want this to occur.  Nothing could be worse for the format then adding cards that sell for hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars. 

Perhaps I've thought about this more than you think...

Originally posted by Cownose Putting the power at mythic makes the most sense. I dont know that they will necessarily go for 15 tickets either (maybe timetwister and mox pearl). Look at M10 as an example: M10 has cracked waaaaaay more packs than we could ever hope to in a MED set, and Baneslayer Angel is still over $40.     I dont think classic can take too many barriers to entry. A few barriers are good for the format as they make classic feel special and keep out the random little kids, but I think FoW and the Duals will serve this purpose, assuming wizards doesnt lose their minds and rerelease them. Having 100+ ticket power will ensure that almost noone will be playing Vintage online, I think power in the 20-30 range would be much better for the format as a whole.

Not to mention that if $100+ are your thing, there will always be FOIL mythic P9 :)

Oh I almost forgot to ask, how much did you think med2 duals would be worth?

Originally posted by endless I think they could only appear as rares. If they were made mythics, the demand/desirability curves would surely meet somewhere well over 100 tix. Look at baneslayer, how many standard decks use her? Now look at how many vintage decks use most if not all of power. To get people into vintage you'd need prices in the 20-30 tix range. Anything much over 200 tix for the set and you'd scare away many people interested in switching over. You have to remember that a "new" vintage player is going to need more than just the P9 to play.

Note - Urza's Legacy is scheduled for June, not September.  I've updated the article.

So we'll be getting 2/3s of Urza's very quickly.

Originally posted by Calavera there is a lot of good stuff left.

I urge you, if you think there is a lot of "good stuff" left, to try an put together MED4 yourself, just for fun.  But here's the kicker - don't put any restricted cards in a regular rare slot.    I've been doing it for the past couple of weeks, and there is very little in the way of what anyone would rightly term "good stuff" left, much less anything of any cohesion.

For example, 4 of your "good stuff" are restricted/rares.  And don't forget that these set have to be draftable, so the distribution has to be pretty even across the colors.

You also have to remember that in order to keep around the Mythic rarity, you have to put ~ 2 mythic rares for every 7 regular rares.  if you have just 10, it means just 35 rares in the set, but Master's Editions tend to be around 200 or so cards.

Here's what I cam up with:  Danger's MED4

Essentially, getting even 8 rares/ color was an impossibility with green (I left Multicolor out because it was basically killed with MED3), and in fact I gave up with the 8th green rare and just put in Birds of Paraside because I had a birds sub-theme going.

Getting blue creatures is also very hard.

So yes, there is some good stuff left, but try making even one MED4 set yourself, and you'll see that that in practice, those nearly 1000 cards leftover aren't enough to make even another set - of any size

If there is going to be an MED5, it won't follow the same rules as the previous ones with respect to new-to-online cards.