1. Good article, but speaking for myself, I hope you’re wrong.

    Given the strict bottleneck FoW & Wasteland place on Classic/Vintage in terms of price, if they don’t drop, I have very, very little interest in playing – as others have said, may as well play in paper.

  2. Thanks for your comment, Jest! I hear this sentiment quite a bit (re: FoW and Wasteland prices), and while I certainly understand it to some degree, it confuses me just as equally, so please don’t misunderstand me as I try to rationalize this polarizing discussion. Dangerlinto wrote an excellent summary (http://puremtgo.com/articles/price-vintage-part-2) last Fall regarding the price differences between paper and digital for the most common Vintage decks. In every single case, online decks were substantially cheaper than their paper counterparts even when taking the Power 9 out of the equation. It must also be said that last Fall prices for both Fow and Wasteland were much higher than they are today thanks to the TSE flashback drafts and the second release of FoW promo’s. This overall digital vs. paper price discrepancy is mainly due to the fact that the Dual Lands and Fetch Lands are about 1/4th the price as their paper counterparts, but there are many other cards that are much cheaper as well such as Drain, Snapcaster Mage, Jace, and even Tarmogoyf.

    Perhaps the greater question is what most people believe is a fair price to pay to play Vintage online? To me, the heart of the matter is the perception of what is worth the price of digital. In today’s ever shifting economic landscape, people are more and more willing to buy digital objects such as movies, songs, and even video games. While all of those things are significantly cheaper than buying a digital trading card deck (especially for Vintage and to a slightly lesser extent, Legacy), none of those digital objects can be transferred and recouped for their initial investment, or sold at a profit. Many of the people that have been playing Classic/Legacy for years have gained considerable returns on their investments and if Vintage and Legacy continue to fire regularly, continued growth is certainly not out of the question, especially for Power cards.

    At what price point would significantly more people be interested in buying an expensive digital product to play/practice any time of the day and (presumably) enter tournaments at their leisure than those that would prefer to pay several times more for a paper product that is nearly impossible to play other than in isolated areas around the world a few weekends out of the entire year? Obviously there are other factors involved such as socializing with other players, etc., but if that is anyone’s main goal, then they probably should have bought paper years ago.

    One final thought I have on the matter is the price difference in paper vs. digital for Modern. Modern online is the second most popular constructed format by a wide margin, and might even be close to on par with Standard on MTGO, in terms of event participation. Modern is far from cheap online, though the mana base is similar to Vintage/Legacy in that it is cheaper than in paper. People don’t seem to have a problem paying $70 for Liliana which goes in just a couple Modern decks (it can be used in Legacy, as can the next card), or Tarmogoyf for $80+, but paying $70-90 for FoW and/or Wasteland which go in nearly every single deck is any different?

  3. To be clear: I want Vintage to succeed and if that means prices have to be significantly lower, then I certainly hope that VM achieves that goal. I just think it’s not likely that the EV of cracking a VM pack will be high enough to justify putting all the necessary Vintage cards in VM, or even a vast majority of them. There are going to have to be concessions, and in packs that might contain Power, I just don’t see WotC throwing in even more “money” into each pack by placing FoW and Wasteland in with all of the other cards which should be reprinted. There are going to be plenty of money commons/uncommons that should be printed in VM as well, such as Gush, Daze, Brainstorm, Swords to Plowshares, etc.

    Another factor which I didn’t really get into here is that most of the cards that people want to see in VM are spells and/or lands, whereas MMA was mostly creatures with some complimentary spells and enough lands to make the limited mana bases reasonable. The creatures are going to have to come from somewhere, and likely at the expense of spells like Show and Tell/Intuition/Undiscovered Paradise/Imperial Seal. We must also think of the color balance. Blue is the most played color in Vintage, but we can’t have the set being 50% blue and 50% everything else as limited would probably be awful. It’ll be difficult to get all of the necessary blue cards in VM, so some cards from that powerful list are not going to make it.

  4. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Excellent article, loved it. I’ve been prepping for vintage for a bit, but needed a bit better angle on it, thanks again.