MUST READ! _ Major Changes to MTG Products!

[Bog Wraith]

First off, the decks all come with instructions and hints on how best to play the deck and on ideas of what cards to swap to make the deck different. I think this is a great way for all MTG players to learn a new set/block when it comes out. Especially when played against other Themed decks from that block to see the new mechanics & card types. Besides, they had beginners Theme decks whenever a Core set was released, so those covered that for the new player.

I think you guys missed the point Mark was making...WotC(Hasbro) exists to make money. The company has several possible courses of action in pursuit of this goal. a)Sell more cards somehow. b) branch off into another area of interest to consumers.
So of course the theme decks which WERE perfectly ok for teaching beginners are no longer suitable as they dont introduce new players to the concept of flat crack. If you havent ripped open a booster pack in hopes of finding great cards for your latest deck that you love then you arent truly addicted to the game yet. And this is the fundemental reason for the changes.

Yes Mythic Rares are the samething as Ultra Rares in Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh. Yes they will be hard to obtain and will drive down the price of ordinary rares and thus screw the secondary market to heck...though I dont feel sorry for any vendors who might suffer as they will recoup as they always do by hording more mythic rares than anyone else.

By the way I own 2 rares and a few uncommons and various commons that were part of some deck I saw on a sidewalk sale and bought along with about 300 Yu-Gi-Oh cards many of which are premiums but I assume are worthless. The rest of the cards I've owned were sold to a friend years ago. Well I do have about 7.5k digital cards on my Magic Online account but since the 3.0update thats been inaccessible to me and looks like that wont change unless I manage to get ALOT more RAM somehow. My point being: if you dont like it, you can do alot of things besides get upset and beef.

Dont get me wrong I love the game and I respect WotC's need/right to exist and survive (make money) but I can't be apart of that fiasco due to the fact that I'm not rich or crazy enough. If they start handing out free boosters though Ill be there with bells on.

I don't get your point in using a quote from what I wrote about Theme decks!?
I certainly didn't " miss the point", as you put it, about WoTC making money. That was never even hinted at in my post that you quoted!

First off, WoTC has, and continues to make boatloads of $$!
This has never been the problem. The fact that folks like you continue to pay the same price for digital cards that the printed one's cost has helped to fill their coffers, so please don't give me the " WoTC is a business and is in it to make money" argument. Isn't it obvious that is the goal of every business! I think we can all see that Mythic Rares are proof positive that WoTC continues to build on this foundation of making $$, which is fine, but not at the expense of giving players a great choice by removing these products!

Second, my point stands about the loss of Theme Decks. I have talked to many players, both online in Forum posts, and with many of my friends and fellow local players, and none of them agree with what WoTC is doing by eliminating these Themed decks. What's more, I spoke to many players who are relatively new to the game and they, for the most part, said that it was these Theme decks that helped them get from beginner status to a more intermediate skilled player by being able to purchase and play with these decks. Also, to a player, they mentioned how they purchased many booster packs from each of those sets to customize these decks following either the info from the play hints FAQ that came with the decks, or in trying to implement a style or strategy of their own.
So this again shows just how much product sales the Theme decks helped to generate!

I respect your opinion and you make some good points, but you nor anyone else will ever convince me that; A)Theme Decks didn't generate lots of $ for them and B)That this was not an ill conceived move on WoTC's part.

The loss of choice, especially in purchasing options for any product is rarely a good thing!

[extreme]

in my particular case, they just lost someone who buys all theme decks. I surely won't buy some incomplete stuff - but i don't buy boosters either, since i don't make my own decks, so i'm probably not the target audience for wotc.

[emperor799]

Theme decks introduced new players to gameplay just fine. What they didn't do was introduce new players to collectibility. Now when Jimmy and Steve go grab Intros to learn to play, they could grab the exact same intro (the same build or "theme" if you will). They then pull out the rules and the fixed cards and learn to play. Then they crack the packs that come with it to add stuff and play a real game. One of them (let's say Steve) will randomly open better stuff than the other, and will proceed to tromp Jimmy every game thereafter. Jimmy will either go back to the counter and buy some loose packs to try to "get back in the lead" or will dislike losing so much that he never plays Magic again. The End.

[GandoTheBard]

Reread what I wrote...this time with tongue in cheek.

First off, the decks all come with instructions and hints on how best to play the deck and on ideas of what cards to swap to make the deck different. I think this is a great way for all MTG players to learn a new set/block when it comes out. Especially when played against other Themed decks from that block to see the new mechanics & card types. Besides, they had beginners Theme decks whenever a Core set was released, so those covered that for the new player.

I think you guys missed the point Mark was making...WotC(Hasbro) exists to make money. The company has several possible courses of action in pursuit of this goal. a)Sell more cards somehow. b) branch off into another area of interest to consumers.
So of course the theme decks which WERE perfectly ok for teaching beginners are no longer suitable as they dont introduce new players to the concept of flat crack. If you havent ripped open a booster pack in hopes of finding great cards for your latest deck that you love then you arent truly addicted to the game yet. And this is the fundemental reason for the changes.

Yes Mythic Rares are the samething as Ultra Rares in Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh. Yes they will be hard to obtain and will drive down the price of ordinary rares and thus screw the secondary market to heck...though I dont feel sorry for any vendors who might suffer as they will recoup as they always do by hording more mythic rares than anyone else.

By the way I own 2 rares and a few uncommons and various commons that were part of some deck I saw on a sidewalk sale and bought along with about 300 Yu-Gi-Oh cards many of which are premiums but I assume are worthless. The rest of the cards I've owned were sold to a friend years ago. Well I do have about 7.5k digital cards on my Magic Online account but since the 3.0update thats been inaccessible to me and looks like that wont change unless I manage to get ALOT more RAM somehow. My point being: if you dont like it, you can do alot of things besides get upset and beef.

Dont get me wrong I love the game and I respect WotC's need/right to exist and survive (make money) but I can't be apart of that fiasco due to the fact that I'm not rich or crazy enough. If they start handing out free boosters though Ill be there with bells on.

I don't get your point in using a quote from what I wrote about Theme decks!?
I certainly didn't " miss the point", as you put it, about WoTC making money. That was never even hinted at in my post that you quoted!

First off, WoTC has, and continues to make boatloads of $$!
This has never been the problem. The fact that folks like you continue to pay the same price for digital cards that the printed one's cost has helped to fill their coffers, so please don't give me the " WoTC is a business and is in it to make money" argument. Isn't it obvious that is the goal of every business! I think we can all see that Mythic Rares are proof positive that WoTC continues to build on this foundation of making $$, which is fine, but not at the expense of giving players a great choice by removing these products!

Second, my point stands about the loss of Theme Decks. I have talked to many players, both online in Forum posts, and with many of my friends and fellow local players, and none of them agree with what WoTC is doing by eliminating these Themed decks. What's more, I spoke to many players who are relatively new to the game and they, for the most part, said that it was these Theme decks that helped them get from beginner status to a more intermediate skilled player by being able to purchase and play with these decks. Also, to a player, they mentioned how they purchased many booster packs from each of those sets to customize these decks following either the info from the play hints FAQ that came with the decks, or in trying to implement a style or strategy of their own.
So this again shows just how much product sales the Theme decks helped to generate!

I respect your opinion and you make some good points, but you nor anyone else will ever convince me that; A)Theme Decks didn't generate lots of $ for them and B)That this was not an ill conceived move on WoTC's part.

The loss of choice, especially in purchasing options for any product is rarely a good thing!

[Huggybaby]

I wrote a tongue in cheek missive in another forum the other day, and had three admin/mods jumping down my throat. So I decided they were too uptight for me any more, since I'm too much the happy go lucky type to put up with that. I don't like emoticons a lot, but maybe I should have added a few. You know what I'm saying? Stupid forums! ARRGHH!

[Bog Wraith]

Reread what I wrote...this time with tongue in cheek.

Read like that, point taken!

Huggy, I know your not including me in those comments for I would never react that way, nor do I even know what the content of it was or where the topic you posted is located! I agree that folks can sometimes go overboard! I hope my comments were not misconstrued in this way.

[Huggybaby]

No I wasn't talking about you Bogster, it was a true story, only about me, with no hidden points made, and it happened on another forum in a far corner of the internet.

[Bog Wraith]