Modern is the Future

Wizards of the Coast announced the Modern format a few weeks ago, and last Friday changed the format of the upcoming Pro Tour Philadelphia from Extended to Modern.

There has been some of backlash about what some feel is a heavy handed ban list, and the short notice for the Pro Tour change, but these are smallish, temporary problems. The main contention has been over the ban list, but as Tom LaPille pointed out in his announcement, the ban list can be changed.

I'm excited about Modern and I think this is going to be a major format. In fact, I think it will become the eternal format at some point in the not too distant future.

Modern was created because the Vintage and Legacy formats are becoming too expensive. Due to Wizards' long-standing and unfortunate reprint policy they have no power to control the pricing of some of the eternal format staples. Vintage has long since been an "enthusiast only" format. With extremely expensive cards like Black Lotus a competitive deck can easily cost thousands of dollars. Legacy doesn't allow the ridiculously powerful and expensive "Power Nine", but supply and demand with no reprints is driving the price of Legacy staples up also. You'll be hard pressed to find an Underground Sea for under $100 (and that's just one of your twenty something lands).

Modern is a new eternal format starting not from Beta, but from the original Mirrodin block (2003) going forward. This new set conveniently excludes every card protected by the reprint policy.

Wizards' has said multiple times they wish the reprint policy never happened, but it's a promise they intend to keep. Some people think they should break their promise "for the benefit of the game", but I disagree. Whether or not they broke a promise they made many years ago is only part of the problem. The other problem is related to what the reprint policy was actually trying to do: protect collectors.

Imagine if you wanted to play vintage and you finally saved up $2000 and bought a set of moxen (you got a really good deal). Then you find out Wizards decided to break their reprint policy and sell a special edition, from the vault, tournament legal box product with the same set for $100. What a slap in the face. Doing this for the legacy staples would have a similar (though not as severe) effect. Disrespecting your most die-hard fans and breaking a promise you said you intend to keep multiple times does not seem like the best thing for Magic.

Now for "Modern Magic" the reprint policy is behind them. Reprints are fair game. Of course the ability to reprint a card doesn't decrease its value, you have to actually reprint it. Can we count on Wizards to reprint the Modern staples which are becoming too expensive? Take Tarmogoyf for example. This guy is listed on Star City Games for $80 (and sold out). To me, that's already too expensive, but over time the price will only go up. Will Wizard's reprint Tarmogoyf?

I'm no expert on the trading card business, but I suspect the longer a card is out of print, the less money Wizards makes off it. Most constructed players buy their cards individually from retailers, but every card purchased ultimately comes from a product sold by Wizards of the Coast. So when players buy cards for their Standard decks this increases the demand for sets currently for sale. Wizards sells mass amount of booster boxes to re-sellers who then sell the boxes or open them and sell the cards individually. However, the second, third, fourth, and fifth re-sales of those cards bring zero money to Wizards. Wizards isn't selling any more boxes of Future Sight so as the demand for Tarmogoyf goes up, there are no more boxes to sell - only secondary price skyrocket.

If, however, Wizards added the mighty Tarmogoyf to the next core set as a mythic rare, you now have extra demand on the new core set which sells more cards for Wizards, and since there are now more goyfs in the world now, its price drops. Interestingly, the fairly recent of invention of the mythic rare can be used in this case to have a more controlled price drop of a reprinted card (as opposed to reprinting at rare). This is a win-win situation: Wizards makes money off a high demand reprint and players have access to cheaper cards.

From a business point of view it makes sense, but what about for the game? What would happen to Standard if Tarmogoyf was reprinted in a core set? The new yearly core set release schedule allows for reprints to be Standard legal for one year instead of two. This would make it less risky to introduce a questionably powerful card into Standard and allow for dominant cards to get in and out quicker.

Then again, Standard is the main format of Magic. I doubt many risks would be taken with Standard for Modern's sake. You could imagine a situation where Modern needs a card reprinted but it would harm standard so the card would not get reprinted. The solution here, and probably the best solution overall for supporting an eternal format, is to reprint cards that aren't Standard legal. I think the best way to do this is with something like event decks. You can put very clearly on the front of the package "Modern Format". This should minimize the unpleasant situation of players buying the product then finding out it's not legal for Standard. Event decks, box sets, or from the vault sets can contain key Modern reprints without affecting Standard. Wizards could price each product to engineer the price of the card post-reprint. I imagine they would aim to drop the price of an expensive card but not tank it. Controlled price drops protect the investment people have already made in their product. Again it's a win-win situation. Wizards prints cardboard and sells it for insane profit while players feel like they're getting a steal.

Modern, free from the shackles of the reprint policy, is a solid foundation on which to build an eternal format. Right now it's a far cry from the madness of Vintage and Legacy, but over time, as more and more sets are released the difference between Modern and its father formats will decrease. Eventually Modern will become the eternal format and Legacy will join Vintage as an "enthusiast only" format featuring ancient artifacts of immense power and extreme cost.