I've heard somewhere draft boosters were selling less because WotC were distributing them less in the first place. But I think your point holds anyway: draft boosters have been removed because, with set boosters, the player base showed they were willing to pay more for less. So yes, the ultimate problem of MtG is its own player base.
That is also what I'd heard, but I couldn't find any source to back it up. Outside of "My local pre-release started giving Set Boosters instead of Draft Boosters as prizes". But that's not proof, you know?
You spoke so much about thematic failure in the battle video, I'm surprised you didn't touch more on what a flavor fail it is to have List cards in a limited format. Draft boosters are the way we immerse ourselves in a new set. We get to play with and against all the characters and mechanics unique to that set. Having List cards show up at pre-releases with characters and mechanics that don't match the set we're in is weird and potentially a bit format warping.
Dear lord, you're right. I completely forgot to mention it. When I first heard they were adding List slots to standard I was confused. Because, are they standard legal? Can you play them in a tournament? If not, is each player meant to have an encyclopedic knowledge of which cards are from which sets? I'm going to add this to my "videos to make" list
Stumbled upon this channel. I see that it is still new but darn fun and entertaining. I’m leaving a comment and like after subscribing, hope it helps the channel to grow!
I want to point out the math on the set boosters. The numbers you showed have ~75% chance to only have uncommons or commons in the booster, which means there's a ~25% chance for at least one rare in a pack. In 30 packs, that means 7.5 will include a second rare, meaning a box contains 37.5 rares as opposed to the draft box's 36 rares. In effect you're paying 5 pounds for an average of 1.5 extra rares. Though the real number is likely slightly higher due to the 1.5% chance that I rounded out and the chance you can pull multiple rares. So for a set where the rare slot is valued at 3.33 pounds or more the set booster is better value.
Good points. I think our definitions of value may differ slightly. I suspect the same would be true for WotC too as Set Boosters are just a much a victim of Play Boosters as Draft. Sadly it doesn't matter which you and I prefer as both are gone. Makes me kind of sad
@@RedBobcatGames I'm definitely not sold on the idea of Play boosters as they will probably be worse Draft boosters than draft boosters and worse Set boosters than set boosters. I also prefer draft boosters to set, just pointing out why most people prefered set boosters. People like me and (probably) you who value limited are in the minority who just want the most valuable cards /$.
Basically. And I know that this philosophy gets push back, but I also honestly believe a "rare" or "mythic" tag shouldn't push the price up at the point of sale. It costs the same amount to create those cards as it does commons, and WotC shouldn't have an eye on the secondary market because it will start to effect game play
@@RedBobcatGames Because the tag is inherently tied to availability, it's always going to impact the value. To use an example from another game: In Dragon Ball Super, there was a common card from Set 1 called "senzu bean" that was literally a 4 of in every deck that ran its colour. However because it was a common it only ever reached $5, compared to ~$20 of a playable "mythic" that one specific deck would run 2-3 of. Because despite being in a set with limited supply as the game aged, there was still reasonable supply thanks to it being a common.
New channel, with only a single video on it so far. I'm surprised anyone's found it at all to be honest. But I'm really glad you enjoyed it and thank you for the comment. My next video should be out monday, and is on Battle Cards
I mean I'm a commander player and I sometimes do pre release to see if I can get the wanted card, and I'm quite happy to get less bulk common that is taking space in my drawer.
I am new to magic (bought my starter pack two weeks ago). I have watched many vods about MtG and yours is the first that I understand. I didn't know what I should buy. Tbh, I still dont, but at least I know what to expect from packs now. Thank you.
You are more than welcome. I personally think the most important thing to get when you're first starting out, is whatever you and the people you'll be playing with think looks the most fun. It's just meant to be a fun game after all, and as long as you're enjoying it then there's no wrong way to play. Thank you for the comment, was a pleasure to read
The smart answer is don't buy packs unless you want to play limited. The smarter answer is draft/play boosters to draft, because draft is better than constructed. The smartest answer is what danacoleman said.
Set boosters were just more fun to open. Draft Boosters technically have more cards, but all of those extra cards were kinda worthless. Commons aren't very exciting. With set boosters however there are 4 slots to be interested in. Fun stuff. I feel like this will also be a boon for draft in that more people could end up interested in it. Before you had to choose between the fun of opening the packs, and fun of playing that format. Now you can have both. Another thing is that, because there is no MSRP, the price may not increase as much as it would seem in some places. But we will have to see how it goes in the future.
My concern is that they've said they'll have to change how they design sets to accont for the additional rares in Play Booster packs. You say Commons aren't very exciting, which sure is true. But without them in the draft environment, uncommons, rares and mythics may get down shifted in quality and playability to fill the void. What use is opening 4 mythics if they're all duds?
Basically all cards are duds. If you want non-duds you have to buy singles. If you are opening packs, you are gambling and set boosters have better gambling odds.
@@shadogiant Had*. From what I hear Play Boosters aren't doing well. Less exciting than Set boosters for Draft, but more expensive than Draft boosters as people are used to paying for Set. I also hear my main concern is coming to fruition, but in the opposite direction, and Commons and Uncommons are being raised in power level to match Rares and Mythics. But I'm pretty much put of Karlov Manor at this point, so haven't bought any Play Boosters myself. Can't confirm
Booster packs have always been thinly veiled casinos. This change will likely make that experience better for consumers. If you want specific cards, the optimal answer is usually to go to the secondary market.
@@skitsophrenic9476 Sure, but I think the point is that it's starting to feel less like a fan game where you can play with random cards and more like a casino game where you buy in for a large price and aim to pull a crazy expensive card
The chance of 2 mythics in a play booster is 37%, which is 37% higher than with Draft boosters. If you buy a box, you are likely to pull double rares out of at least 1 pack in the box. If you do, then you've already pulled more rares than a draft box has in it. The packs my have 1 less piece of chaff in exchange for a 37% chance of a second rare and a 4% chance of a 3rd. That seems like a worthwhile trade-off. As for the $30 total box price increase, that makes sense if you're gonna be pulling potentially 1-3 extra rares/mythics per box. Possibly more. 37% is not a small chance. You may not be getting better cash value, but you aren't getting worse cash value either, and you're getting more quality cards. As for the "Entry Price" being raised, anyone who will struggle after buying a $150 box will also be struggling almost as much after buying a $125 box. And boosters aren't a good way to get into magic as a new player anyway. Buying a prebuilt deck to learn on is much better and far cheaper than any of these options. Also, the fact that the Set Boosters outsold Draft Boosters really should tell you something. Clearly, the majority of people thought that the extra chance at rares was better. And to be honest outside of Draft format, it is. How many people are honestly buying Draft Boxes to Draft at home rather than just going to Friday Night Magic at an LGS? I've done it maybe once or twice. For most people, that's not a regular enough occurrence for the price increase to matter significantly. Most people who are buying booster boxes are doing it to add to their collection. Those people don't mind the extra price.
Well it's all academic now that Play Boosters have done away with both. My main concern now is that they've stated that how they design sets will need to change to accommodate the extra rares and mythic in products for draft. Obviously we have to wait and see, but I suspect that means that these cards will get down shifted in power. And then making them less desirable to those that wanted them instead of draft chaff. Chaff mythics may be on the horizon
@RedBobcatGames seems like a valid concern, but you didn't say that in the video. Your focus was on the increase of price and decrease of total product received. Several times, you gave the impression that the wild card slots are no better than 2 extra common or uncommon slots, which really isn't the case. It just kinda feels like you're trying to get people upset about being screwed over when nothing that crazy has really happened. I agree, though, if they start degrading Rare quality, then that would be bad and then everything you are saying would be justified but we have no way of knowing that yet.
@@skitsophrenic9476 Well, as I said in the video. It's a 49% chance that they're both common, and then a 24.5% chance that a single one of them is only uncommon. So statistically when you buy a pack, yeah you probably will end up with only a couple of extra commons. It may feel different when you buy a whole box, but it doesn't change the numbers. Also, you said in your first comment something about how a single Set pack having double rares would mean more rares in a box than in a draft booster box. But draft boxes have more packs in them, so I'm not sure that checks out either? But also, like I say none of this really matters any more. Whether people preferred Set or Draft, it doesn't matter because they've killed both. You seem a fan of Set bootsers. I was a fan of Draft boosters. I think we as consumers should be jointly upset. Especially as the excuse of "too many boosters" was nonsense as they're about to introduce "Beyond Boosters" Eugh... this is why I don't put it all in one video. I could go on all day haha
@RedBobcatGames My original comment was about play boosters, not set boosters. I was defending Play Boosters, which do have the same amount of packs in a box as the draft boosters, so if you got two Mythic/Rares in one that would make 37 total mythics/rares in the box which is more than the 36 you would get woth draft boosters. And even when buying just a few packs you chances of pulling 2 mythics/rares from 1 pack is 37% with set drafts it was a little over 20% and draft packs never had more than one which made your chances of pulling two 0%. So even if you're spending about half a buck or so extra for 1 less card, you have a significantly better chance of pulling better cards. This means that wizards are putting rare cards in these products as a whole. Which in turn would raise the price a bit. I don't see the reason to be upset.
@@skitsophrenic9476 Well, why would putting rare cards raise the price? Does it cost them more to print and design them? And I apologise, I hadn't realised you were speaking about Play Boosters. But then they aren't out yet, and like I said they're going to be changing how they design sets to accommodate the extra rares and fill the gap left behind by the removal of draft chaff. I can't see how they're going to do this any other way than just make Rares and Mythics worse to fill the chaff void. But we will see in time. Hopefully I'm wrong
a few months into play Boosters now and I hate them. for a lot of the reasons you covered tbh but they also just. feel worse to open. it's the absolute worst of both set and draft. In limited, you always could open a bad rare versus someone's good rare. but now, you can open an unplayable rare while your opponent has opened 3 bombs. these boosters have killed 6-pack sealed for me (the most prominent pre-release format) and they make drafting way less fun due to the massive variance. someone opposite you on the table opens a 3-rare pack? suddenly all 3 of them have an extra rare! then opening them vs set boosters. I don't know the numbers but the chance of higher rarity wildcards feels a lot less than set. for set, you'd get a dud pack here and there but certainly not as much as with play Boosters. and then the price hike of course. took the worst of both worlds and jammed them into one product. the ONLY product unless you're shelling out $30 for a single collector booster. instead of actually revitalizing draft and limited in any way, they axed it and gave us this zombie. promos worth getting, limited leagues, support for WPN events and stores, prizing, ANYTHING. but nah. they shovel it all into commander
draft boosters are for playing, set boosters are for opening. even though a draft box has 6 more guaranteed rares, you're still going to end up with more from a set booster box, not to mention more foils and special art cards. plus, many don't really care about having less commons in a pack because you end up with so many from opening the packs anyway with many just being left in the store as chaff regardless. i've seen entire packs left behind after the purchaser pulled out any cards over a dollar. i think the main issue would just be getting people to play draft in the first place and hiking the price with play boosters will only hurt it. draft boosters are supposed to sell through people playing limited events but many tend to shy away from those due to price of entry since they could just play commander with a deck they already paid for instead. we didn't really do much to kill the draft booster so much as wizards seems to have just given up on trying to make them accessible. there's also the topic of game balance when you throw more rares into the mix that may actually drive people away from enjoying the format, but that could be another discussion
Well, to your first point. You MAY end up with more Rares, but also you may not. It's a gamble. Like I said in the video, each pack has a 49% chance both wild cards are common, and a near 25% chance only one of them is as little as uncommon. It's far from a sure bet. Also, what about if someone doesn't buy a box, but only a pack or two? Like you said, Set Boosters are for opening. And they're not cheap. Pretty feel bad if a large portion of the time you've paid more for less cardboard, and they're not even rares or mythics. And that's not evening taking into account the question whether rares or mythics should cost more in the first place. Why? Not all mythics are goods or high value, and they certainly don't cost any more to produce than any other card. You are 100% correct when you talk about the price hike driving people away. I think you're right, and this will do more to hurt draft in the long run. Play Boosters don't seem to be for the health of the game, but for the health of Hasbro's bottom line. (and while I'm being salty with Hasbro. I'm not buying the excuse that Draft and Set boosters needed to go away because too many boosters were confusing. They're about to introduce Beyond Boosters, so I call bull.)
@@RedBobcatGames the real issue with "too many boosters" was them trying to force jumpstart boosters with every set instead of using them as a psuedo "core set" for introducing some new cards in fun half-decks with various reprints. also, even if you get a bonus uncommon, it's still better than getting a common, but i agree that they really shouldn't be charging more for these since it's overall less (and like them or not, no one's buying them for the art card), but if they weren't more expensive people would probably be worried about their "investments" as the cheaper the packs are to start, the less the potential price to the cards they own that get reprinted.
An ever trickier balance on the tightrope of keeping the fans of the game happy, the fans of the secondary market happy, and the shareholders happy with ever growing profits. Not that it seems to matter. WotC made money in 2023, but still had their staffing numbers slashed. Grim times for MtG
So I did my own pricing and for the last set that was a main set and had draft it was 110 murders at markhoff is pre-order priced at. 200 usd for all amounts
The math on Set boosters actually averaged more Rares for your dollar. 1/4th of the time the pack will have more than one rare guaranteed so of the 30 packs at least 7 of them will have two rares so the worst luck you can possibly get is 37 rares for 30 packs, but because of the chance to get up to 3 rares in about 1/8th of packs at least 3 of those 7 will have another rare. So your average Set booster has about 40 rares per box, but it goes up to as much as 44 rares a box and essentially never drops below 36 rares a box. Basically means you're paying 5 bucks more for a significantly better average while only risking getting what you used to at the statistically unlikely worst case scenario. WotC knew this going in and aimed those numbers at that crowd, they pointed the price per pack at people who had stopped buying 2 packs when they impulse bought a pack but could afford more than one pack on its own, people who would absolutely be down to gamble on a shot at getting 3 rares in one pack since they had already shrunk their impulse buy down. They designed set boosters such that they made sense for literally everyone other than drafters and prerelease players tactically and then shrugged and blamed buy patterns that they knew we would follow simply because the economics were better. Play Boosters are a whole other can of worms though, they have taken literally every downfall of the set booster is intensified by the play boosters and it's clear that the primary goal of these was to price hike product across the board by more than they could do with the excuse of inflation.
I'm absolutely pissed at the hike to prerelease cost though. It was already literally at the maximum of what I enjoyed paying for the event and it's about to nearly double in price.
Sure, I hear you and you're right. I'm just not a fan of gambling, because it's never implimented for our fun, but always as a means of squeezing more money out of the player base. I understand that these Play Boosters will also likely have more rares in them, but they are on record as saying they're adjusting how they design sets to reflect that. My biggest fear is that the "value" of a rare or mythic is going to have to adjust down to fill the hole left by removing a bunch of draft chaff. Look at the duds included on "The List" or in some Masters Sets. I fear we're on a road toward "Draft Chaff Mythics"
is it the same a couple months later? I just played the Duskmourn pre-release... is this in the end a ploy to sell more Precons that nowadays replace tehe draftrboosters of some sets? You can use the precons to draft so ... would this be why MTG lost draft boosters? Cuz Wotc could sell more precons, and not bother with draft packs? vs the better seller set packs ?
So it seems the reason draft boosters got replaced was because they wanted to remove the cheap entry point for players, and replace they with Play Boosters which cost more, have less cards, and now (after some recent changes) aren't even that much better in terms of pull rates
IMO, Draft Boosters were for Draft and Set Boosters were for playing the MTG Casino. If you are new to the game and want a deck, you're best product is likely a pre-con. If you want specific cards, you'd probably want to go to the secondary market for singles. All that said, WotC's only reason to produce Draft Boosters would be draft, which is inefficient for them as a company. By combining Set and Draft Boosters into Play Boosters, this still gives the Casino folks their chances at better cards and gives Draft players a viable product, with the added benefit of more rare cards in the Draft pool. So while Cost will increase, Value increases to match, ie, 'the number of Rares and Mythic Rares per dollar will remain the same.' In addition, with Value increasing, I would expect the Draft play Experience to increase as well. As someone who enjoys both Draft and Casino, I look forward to potentially opening a pack during draft and agonizing over which card to pick, desperately wishing I could just windmill slam both. I concede that this will make Play Boosters not very backwards compatible for Chaos Drafts, but I very rarely find people willing to go to the effort to arrange such. TLDR, While I recognize the cost of Draft will increase, I expect the overall value and experience to increase alongside it and therefore ok with this change. 7/10, reasonable decision.
Sure. I just worry that we're costing people out of playing the game in the first place. It certainly puts me off. Like those bundles I hear now have less packs in them too. It's just a feel bad
Draft and set boosters always felt like it was just a means to an end for WoTC to raise prices on boosters and returning to a single booster product with play boosters basically confirms just that.
My dude, "The Gathering" part isn't just a name for the game. There's literally millions of people that play. Do you have a local game store? A lot of LGS's run all sorts of MTG events, and it's a good way to meet new people who share a hobby of yours. Or if it's easier, there's loads of online spaces where people can hang out and chat magic in Discord, or play webcam games / Magic Online / Arena or whatever. You're never alone when part of the Magic community
We specifically did not get rid of draft boosters. Repeated poor business and design decisions on WotC's part are the main culprits. When they stopped allowing draft boxes to be preordered, over set and collector boosters. When they repeatedly attempted to wring every last bit of profit from either poor power scaling up, or down. When they decided to further push away from LGS's with their sales. They ensured basic booster sales would decline. They were banking on draft sitting on shelves, because allotment forced stores to buy a certain amount. All they had to do, was wait till the numbers swung in their favor to make the switch to the more expensive product. A solution awaiting a manufactured problem.
Pretty much. But for all their faults, I will miss Draft Boosters now they're gone. It feels like everything you described was done intentionally, with the end goal of selling us the more expensive Play Booster
Fact is the game should have been burned to the ground when WotC went full greed-pig and locked cards into the Mythic rarity. They tamped down the (well justified) consumer rage by promising that Mythic would be used for big Legendary cards and giant Timmy cards that you wouldn't want to run 4-per deck. Fast forward a few years and they were printing head-and-shoulders better 4-per-deck 2-drops in the Mythic slot and making entire formats ride on the backs of 3-drop Planeswalkers. WotC has been a slash-and-burn scumbag operation for over a decade and its funny to see kids only cluing in now.
I'm not sure if I'm one of the kids you're talking about, but apart from that I largely agree haha. Though, I don't want to see the game gone. I still very much enjoy it, I've just taken Mark Rosewater's words to heart and so have stopped buying a majority of the products as they clearly "aren't for me"
I know this doesn't excuse this, but like... the way I looked at buying Set Boosters was that opening draft packs for draft felt like opening a Reece's peanut butter cup to scoop the peanut butterr out and leave the chocolate on the ground. Draft packs should be for those who wanna draft and having someone like me who's TERRIBLE at limited and doens't know enough people personally who do draft to actually get one going, I figured I'd stick to my lane and buy set boosters as to not encroach on the draftable product. I am sorry, and I do not support the move to play boosters.
No need to apologise, your opinion is as valid as anyone elses. This whole channel is just my opinion after all. What was it about Set Boosters that you liked though? Surely just buying singles would have been a better option, no?
@@RedBobcatGames the way I approach buying booster packs is that i do it for the surprise and fun of cards I just tuned out on during spoiler season. If I KNOW I want something, I buy the single (although I have a hard limit of $15 USD on a single if I'm going to buy one.) and otherwise, I let myself be surprised by what I crack and build with it if I happen to have a home for what I cracked. Lost Caverns of Ixalan was a good exmple of this. I knew there was one card I wanted to brew with (Ojer Pakpatiq, because I like spellslinger and winning with only blue instants seemed like a good challenge), and then I knew there was a general haze of goodstuff in the set, so after failing to find the Dinosaur precon at any of the local stores I checked after christmas with a gift card burning a hole in my wallet, I settled for a LCI Bundle, where I opened some really fun stuff like Thousand Moon Smithy and Ojer Taq. The excitement of the crack on a pack does work. the dopamine rush is real and I think it can be done responsibly. that being said, I'm the sort who realistically only cracks packs thee, maybe four times a year. The only packs I bought this year were Prerelease kits for All Will Be One, March of the Machine, a couple of Strixhaven set boosters as a treat after a major surgery I had while I was visiting a local game store, and the LCI packs I got on boxing day. (also, yes. prerelease sealed isn't draft and I usually wash out of any prerelease events i attend.)
@@ClexYoshi Yeah, that's interesting. I guess there is fun to be had in the small gamble of what's in a pack, and your odds are better on bigger pulls with a Set Booster. I worry the intetion from Wizards with any move like bringing in Set and Play boosters isn't for the fun of the player, but for their wallets though. But that's the game I suppose. I also enjoy a prerelease. I actually think it's probably my favourite event. But that's in part to the cost effectiveness of it. Even just including a dice makes it feel more like value for money. I hope you're feeling better after your surgery btw
Your evaluation on the wild cards is a little bit off. They're certainly not incredible, but you're going to rares out of them quite often. The average is around 40 a box. But it's very easy to get even more than that. It is a slightly better value if all you care about is that rare slot[s], that also had higher extremes in addition to the higher average so makes for something more exciting to open.
I hear you, but both Set and Draft are gone now so my main fear is with these new play boosters. They've said they're going to have to rebalance how they design sets to accommodate multiple mythics per pack. I fail to see how that's going to mean anything less than making those exciting mythics you mentioned less exciting so they don't break draft and standard.
Also makes chaos draft potentially weird. I guess you’d have to make sure if there’s play boosters that everyone brought the same number so that each round of the draft can be only draft or only play boosters. Kind of annoying.
How so? There was already a variance in the amount of cards before with some draft boosters (stuff like Commander Masters or Legends had more cards). And at least where I am, when I played Chaos Draft everyone had the same set of draft boosters to use.
Well they've gone on record to say that they're changing how they'll design a set because of the new Play Booster contents. So who knows what kind of effect that's going to have on a chaos draft. We of course won't know till they're out, but Play Boosters have the potential to be vastly different
Depends on what you're after. As a person who wants more cards for my money, and isn't that fussed about all the different art variants, I would say yes. Sadly, this soon won't be a choice we have to worry about as Play Booster will be the only option
Not really, most of extra cards you get from draft displays will not be too useful or valuable. On the other hand you get on average more rares in Set boosters, the actually valuable, and usually more useful cards.
Well, sure if you're after monetary value from cards you may be better off with set. But not always, they're more of a gamble. If you want to actually play the game you're better off with draft. You can't draft a set display box. So like I say, depends on what you're after
Them saying not every product is for you is basically telling them "Stop being poor or you are not our audience goodbye." An offer me and my 50 bucks printer are willing to take.
Yeah, like I said in my most recent video it feels like they're trying to introduce a caste system into the game. The haves and the have nots seperated by who's allowed to open up a rare in a pack. It's wild
I usually had good returns on Set boxes. I’ve played on and off since 1994 and only play Commander since 2019. Never played competitively. I hate Foils. Art cards make no sense in the game. WotC spends money to print something that has no value. You can’t sell them. You can’t collect them (b/c they have no value). They are a waste. I’m glad they scrapped them.
I also wasn't a fan of the art cards. If it was an addition to a pack I wouldn't have complained, but to take the place of a playable card just left me feeling bad about them
Remember when Rares were Rare... God I miss the days when it took a long time to wind up with a Deck where there are no commons, not a single Creature or Spell that doesn't have a short novel to read to figure out how to play it... God I miss OG Innistrad and OG Zendikar, and earlier sets. Also I haven't bought a single WotC product since before my Daughter was Born 4 years ago
Even just the quality of card has gone down hill. I looked at my old Grave Titan from like 15 years ago for a video recently and was shocked by how gorgeous the foiling was.
Here is the thing. Play boosters will on average have 1.5 rares in it. In a Play Booster Box we now can expect 5 Mythics on average. Draft Booster Box averaged 4. I am interested in seeing how Play Boosters work out.
For further context, I used math for Murder. It seems wild card rarity is not weighted meaning all cards are of equal chance to appear that means there is ~30.6% chance a rare/mythic rare to appear in that slot and a 3.12% chance of a rare to appear in the list slot. That makes the average of 1.5 rares per pack.
Sure, but I suppose being the contrarian that I am, I would ask "Does that justify giving us less cardboard for our money"? Do you think those extra rares and mythics cost any more to design and print? Also, they've said that they'll be adjusting game design to reflect the contents of the new packs. Is a Rare or Mythic today going to be the same level of power tomorrow? Or will the playability of these cards get dilluted down to replace the lost commons? Are rares going to be the the new draft chaff someday? Will we need a new "Ultra Mythic" to fill the gap at the top left by falling power levels of Mythics? And will that power level be falling in comparison to previously printed cards, or be falling in comparison to the strongest cards in it's own set? This feels to me less like power creep, and more play inflation. I suspect it's all just a way to raise prices without actually giving you anything more for your money
@@ethanjohnson2849 In the article Mark said you're getting the same amount of boosters per dollar. Given the prices used in the video and that play and draft boosters have the same amount of boosters per box, we can see the price going up 25%, and thus conclude that you actually get 1.25 rares per pack.
Oh no doubt. I guess my reply to you was more a question of worth. If they're readjusting the power level of sets to support extra rares, will those extra rares be worth the increase in price I wonder? Time will tell
I am a kinda new player and I hate this change. The first time I bought packs they were Ixalan set boosters, and I didn't like em at all. Next time i bought packa, i got draft boosters and absolutely loved how there were more cards and more commons. It feels more filling and commons feel a lot more "core" to a color. I dont get why the new ones are 14 cards either, doesn't that change draft? Why not just make em 15? Why not have the option to just have a "basic pack" without any of that silly list stuff
They're murdering set boosters for these shit things as well -- many of the things I liked about set boosters are getting watered down or even removed entirely to make them "draftable." I stopped buying Draft boosters and put up with the higher price of Set boosters for a reason, and now that reason is getting a kick in the balls.
Some things I think you missed about Set Boosters, too: 1. Fewer commons. There were set boosters I opened that had all of 2 commons, the rest being uncommon or higher, and most set boosters had well more than the normal 3 uncommons you get with Draft boosters. Maybe you haven't noticed, but most Magic commons are shit, and I don't need more bulk. 2. Guaranteed showcase cards for the current set. Generally one of those Wild Card slots was dedicated to the showcase cards, which, if you wanted to collect those, made getting them easier. 3. You could get inserts from the Commander-adjacent sets in the Wild Card slot. This means you could get versions of the commanders they released for each set that wouldn't turn into fucking Pringles. 4. The List. The List cards are an important source of reprints, and put a lot of downward pressure on singles included in a particular set's List. I cannot stress how important this has been for players on a budget, especially Commander players. You're right that the price increase for less cards was (and is) ridiculous, but like I mentioned above, there's reasons I preferred Set Boosters over Draft Boosters. Play Boosters are the worst of BOTH worlds.
Completely agreed. Tbf, my perspective is from someone that preffered Draft Boosters but all of your points are valid. I also hadn't really considered the what's going to happen once those commander exclusive, or magic art varients of secret lairs start rocking up in a draftable format. I suppose if you want those, it'll be Collector Boosters or bust, which feels like it's dragging the value of those down too now. Guess we'll see
@@RedBobcatGames I get that. I just figured this could use the perspective of someone who quite liked Set Boosters and isn't at all happy with this change from the other side of the coin. Collector Boosters have been and will continue to be too much money for too many foils, most of which are going to curl into tubes a half hour after you open them. Another thing that annoys me about Play Boosters is collapsing the Art card into Token/ad card slot. I throw away the ad card that don't have tokens on them, and thankfully they're usually pretty infrequent compared to tokens. I usually toss the Art card, too. I'm NOT keen in having the Token frequency cut down to accommodate Art Cards. And in Set Boosters, the List Card took the place of the Token, not one of your normal cards, unlike Play Boosters (which will cut out one of the common slots for the list cards). In short, there's two murders here -- the Draft AND Set boosters are getting piked, and the Play Booster is an unholy amalgamation of the worst aspects of both.
If I could reply here in the form of a meme, it'd be that epic handshake one, with draft booster fans and set booster fans uniting in hatred of play boosters
I think you may be the first person to actually share your local prices. Awesome. But also, by your maths the best saving is Collector Boosters and OH NO! Please no! lol
@@RedBobcatGames less then double the price, more then double the savings! its in, collectors is best box for your buck!!!! (might have to check per card prices for fuller data 😂)
I for one do not understand the marketing card. Like why does it need to be 2 sided? Why isn’t it a token 100% of the time with marketing on the other side???
Some of them used to be. I have a few still I think. I genuinely think it's because Tokens have a resale value on the secondary market, and they want packs to be even more of a lottery. It's not a lottery if there aren't bad pulls
@@RedBobcatGames which is weird because... tokens generally don't have a lot of resale value and WotC still make some tokens more rare than others... 🤷♂ Also 1 thing I did want to mention to you: 100% totally agree with you on your math, you are completely right, not arguing with you there. What I do think you have MISSED however is the "quality" of cards in the calculation. Basically the larger point is that the "pack" of cards missing from the new play boxes are all commons. Commons are the most worthless card in the game (most of the time, obviously I know about Pauper and sometimes good ones are made, etc). So I think part of the motive for the murder is that rares and mythics were so important to the game (as well as fancy alternate arts) that people were more willing to give up some commons in a pack for the CHANCE to open more rares/mythics. I think some of the realization of this is why Wizards thought they could get away with those aftermath "epilogue" boosters. At least that's the broad overview. I could probably go into more detail if you have any quibbles about it. (Also you did inspire me to write a post defending Brawl as a format. 😉)
Haha, I don't really have an issue with Brawl. LIke I say I've never actually played it. I just like ragging on my friend for fun. You raise an interesting point about quality though. However, my instinctive response then is, so what are they going to do now that there's less commons? They've already said they'll have to make adjustments to the way sets are designed to reflect the fact there's more rares and mythics. If I'm being honest, I think draft chaff commons serve many purposes (especially when taking the secondary market into consideration), so with less of those and more high end mythics... I think we might start seeing a weird shift in the power balance of sets where "chaff" might start including uncommons and rares too. Maybe even a few dud mythics like they seem to love including on The List and in Master Sets. WotC haven't done much to earn my confidence here
@@RedBobcatGames lol I figured in re: Brawl. If anything, I wish they were still releasing brawl decks instead of full on commander but that's a rant for another time... I think you're pretty spot on with the rest and have no argument there. Some of us were talking about how even rares seem about as valuable as commons nowadays with collector boosters pushing prices down across the board. Once in awhile you can find yourself a quality uncommon (I built greta food-fight deck just because) but it's pretty hit or miss.
Preach! I was starting to think I was the only one left. I made a video on why Draft Boosters got removed for Play Boosters, and a lot of people in the comments seem to believe set boosters were better as people don't want to draft anymore
I've heard somewhere draft boosters were selling less because WotC were distributing them less in the first place. But I think your point holds anyway: draft boosters have been removed because, with set boosters, the player base showed they were willing to pay more for less. So yes, the ultimate problem of MtG is its own player base.
That is also what I'd heard, but I couldn't find any source to back it up. Outside of "My local pre-release started giving Set Boosters instead of Draft Boosters as prizes". But that's not proof, you know?
I need a "Let an old bobcat be grumpy" T-shirt
Merch is on my "one day" list. I think I'd look good on a t-shirt
I think a part of the draft vs set boosters with set being more popular is that i bet set boosters were more “weighted” to get better rares/mythics.
Oooohhh. I never even considered that. Yeah, that could very well have been the case
You spoke so much about thematic failure in the battle video, I'm surprised you didn't touch more on what a flavor fail it is to have List cards in a limited format. Draft boosters are the way we immerse ourselves in a new set. We get to play with and against all the characters and mechanics unique to that set. Having List cards show up at pre-releases with characters and mechanics that don't match the set we're in is weird and potentially a bit format warping.
Dear lord, you're right. I completely forgot to mention it. When I first heard they were adding List slots to standard I was confused. Because, are they standard legal? Can you play them in a tournament? If not, is each player meant to have an encyclopedic knowledge of which cards are from which sets? I'm going to add this to my "videos to make" list
Stumbled upon this channel. I see that it is still new but darn fun and entertaining. I’m leaving a comment and like after subscribing, hope it helps the channel to grow!
Thank you very very much. It really helps
I want to point out the math on the set boosters. The numbers you showed have ~75% chance to only have uncommons or commons in the booster, which means there's a ~25% chance for at least one rare in a pack. In 30 packs, that means 7.5 will include a second rare, meaning a box contains 37.5 rares as opposed to the draft box's 36 rares. In effect you're paying 5 pounds for an average of 1.5 extra rares. Though the real number is likely slightly higher due to the 1.5% chance that I rounded out and the chance you can pull multiple rares. So for a set where the rare slot is valued at 3.33 pounds or more the set booster is better value.
Good points. I think our definitions of value may differ slightly. I suspect the same would be true for WotC too as Set Boosters are just a much a victim of Play Boosters as Draft. Sadly it doesn't matter which you and I prefer as both are gone. Makes me kind of sad
@@RedBobcatGames I'm definitely not sold on the idea of Play boosters as they will probably be worse Draft boosters than draft boosters and worse Set boosters than set boosters. I also prefer draft boosters to set, just pointing out why most people prefered set boosters. People like me and (probably) you who value limited are in the minority who just want the most valuable cards /$.
Basically. And I know that this philosophy gets push back, but I also honestly believe a "rare" or "mythic" tag shouldn't push the price up at the point of sale. It costs the same amount to create those cards as it does commons, and WotC shouldn't have an eye on the secondary market because it will start to effect game play
@@RedBobcatGames Because the tag is inherently tied to availability, it's always going to impact the value. To use an example from another game:
In Dragon Ball Super, there was a common card from Set 1 called "senzu bean" that was literally a 4 of in every deck that ran its colour. However because it was a common it only ever reached $5, compared to ~$20 of a playable "mythic" that one specific deck would run 2-3 of. Because despite being in a set with limited supply as the game aged, there was still reasonable supply thanks to it being a common.
damn, was shocked when I saw 11 subs. you deserve way more bro
New channel, with only a single video on it so far. I'm surprised anyone's found it at all to be honest. But I'm really glad you enjoyed it and thank you for the comment. My next video should be out monday, and is on Battle Cards
it is slowly fixing itself ! couple to 10K now !
I mean I'm a commander player and I sometimes do pre release to see if I can get the wanted card, and I'm quite happy to get less bulk common that is taking space in my drawer.
Are you happy with the price increase in pre-release though? I'm pretty sure they cost double now
That's a problem for future me
A philosophy I live by
good video. I hope it gets pushed to more people!
Thank you, I hope so too!
I am new to magic (bought my starter pack two weeks ago). I have watched many vods about MtG and yours is the first that I understand. I didn't know what I should buy. Tbh, I still dont, but at least I know what to expect from packs now. Thank you.
You are more than welcome. I personally think the most important thing to get when you're first starting out, is whatever you and the people you'll be playing with think looks the most fun. It's just meant to be a fun game after all, and as long as you're enjoying it then there's no wrong way to play. Thank you for the comment, was a pleasure to read
Get out now, before you've invested too much.
@@danacoleman4007 lol.
@@RedBobcatGamesthank you for the reply
The smart answer is don't buy packs unless you want to play limited. The smarter answer is draft/play boosters to draft, because draft is better than constructed. The smartest answer is what danacoleman said.
Set boosters were just more fun to open.
Draft Boosters technically have more cards, but all of those extra cards were kinda worthless. Commons aren't very exciting.
With set boosters however there are 4 slots to be interested in. Fun stuff.
I feel like this will also be a boon for draft in that more people could end up interested in it. Before you had to choose between the fun of opening the packs, and fun of playing that format.
Now you can have both.
Another thing is that, because there is no MSRP, the price may not increase as much as it would seem in some places. But we will have to see how it goes in the future.
My concern is that they've said they'll have to change how they design sets to accont for the additional rares in Play Booster packs. You say Commons aren't very exciting, which sure is true. But without them in the draft environment, uncommons, rares and mythics may get down shifted in quality and playability to fill the void. What use is opening 4 mythics if they're all duds?
Basically all cards are duds. If you want non-duds you have to buy singles. If you are opening packs, you are gambling and set boosters have better gambling odds.
@@shadogiant Had*. From what I hear Play Boosters aren't doing well. Less exciting than Set boosters for Draft, but more expensive than Draft boosters as people are used to paying for Set.
I also hear my main concern is coming to fruition, but in the opposite direction, and Commons and Uncommons are being raised in power level to match Rares and Mythics.
But I'm pretty much put of Karlov Manor at this point, so haven't bought any Play Boosters myself. Can't confirm
@@RedBobcatGamesI'm actually excited to see some power creep in Pauper.
I kinda just wish we could get tournament packs come back. So at least we can get some bulk commons from a set.
Commons don't sell though. It's all mythics now, baby! At least they've learned their lesson in the number of planeswalkers they're printing
Awesome. I found this extremely informative Thanks xD
No man, thank you
Great points. With all the "Wild Card" nonsense, WotC seems to be leaning into the loot box aspect of packs that's also killing video games :/
At some point I'll do a video on Universes Beyond too I'm sure
Booster packs have always been thinly veiled casinos. This change will likely make that experience better for consumers. If you want specific cards, the optimal answer is usually to go to the secondary market.
Except that's exactly what packs have always been though?
@@skitsophrenic9476 Sure, but I think the point is that it's starting to feel less like a fan game where you can play with random cards and more like a casino game where you buy in for a large price and aim to pull a crazy expensive card
Great points highlighted here! Thank you. 🎈
Thank you, this was a lot of work. Glad it's appriciated
The chance of 2 mythics in a play booster is 37%, which is 37% higher than with Draft boosters. If you buy a box, you are likely to pull double rares out of at least 1 pack in the box. If you do, then you've already pulled more rares than a draft box has in it. The packs my have 1 less piece of chaff in exchange for a 37% chance of a second rare and a 4% chance of a 3rd. That seems like a worthwhile trade-off. As for the $30 total box price increase, that makes sense if you're gonna be pulling potentially 1-3 extra rares/mythics per box. Possibly more. 37% is not a small chance. You may not be getting better cash value, but you aren't getting worse cash value either, and you're getting more quality cards. As for the "Entry Price" being raised, anyone who will struggle after buying a $150 box will also be struggling almost as much after buying a $125 box. And boosters aren't a good way to get into magic as a new player anyway. Buying a prebuilt deck to learn on is much better and far cheaper than any of these options. Also, the fact that the Set Boosters outsold Draft Boosters really should tell you something. Clearly, the majority of people thought that the extra chance at rares was better. And to be honest outside of Draft format, it is. How many people are honestly buying Draft Boxes to Draft at home rather than just going to Friday Night Magic at an LGS? I've done it maybe once or twice. For most people, that's not a regular enough occurrence for the price increase to matter significantly. Most people who are buying booster boxes are doing it to add to their collection. Those people don't mind the extra price.
Well it's all academic now that Play Boosters have done away with both. My main concern now is that they've stated that how they design sets will need to change to accommodate the extra rares and mythic in products for draft. Obviously we have to wait and see, but I suspect that means that these cards will get down shifted in power. And then making them less desirable to those that wanted them instead of draft chaff. Chaff mythics may be on the horizon
@RedBobcatGames seems like a valid concern, but you didn't say that in the video. Your focus was on the increase of price and decrease of total product received. Several times, you gave the impression that the wild card slots are no better than 2 extra common or uncommon slots, which really isn't the case. It just kinda feels like you're trying to get people upset about being screwed over when nothing that crazy has really happened. I agree, though, if they start degrading Rare quality, then that would be bad and then everything you are saying would be justified but we have no way of knowing that yet.
@@skitsophrenic9476 Well, as I said in the video. It's a 49% chance that they're both common, and then a 24.5% chance that a single one of them is only uncommon. So statistically when you buy a pack, yeah you probably will end up with only a couple of extra commons. It may feel different when you buy a whole box, but it doesn't change the numbers.
Also, you said in your first comment something about how a single Set pack having double rares would mean more rares in a box than in a draft booster box. But draft boxes have more packs in them, so I'm not sure that checks out either?
But also, like I say none of this really matters any more. Whether people preferred Set or Draft, it doesn't matter because they've killed both. You seem a fan of Set bootsers. I was a fan of Draft boosters. I think we as consumers should be jointly upset. Especially as the excuse of "too many boosters" was nonsense as they're about to introduce "Beyond Boosters"
Eugh... this is why I don't put it all in one video. I could go on all day haha
@RedBobcatGames My original comment was about play boosters, not set boosters. I was defending Play Boosters, which do have the same amount of packs in a box as the draft boosters, so if you got two Mythic/Rares in one that would make 37 total mythics/rares in the box which is more than the 36 you would get woth draft boosters. And even when buying just a few packs you chances of pulling 2 mythics/rares from 1 pack is 37% with set drafts it was a little over 20% and draft packs never had more than one which made your chances of pulling two 0%. So even if you're spending about half a buck or so extra for 1 less card, you have a significantly better chance of pulling better cards. This means that wizards are putting rare cards in these products as a whole. Which in turn would raise the price a bit. I don't see the reason to be upset.
@@skitsophrenic9476 Well, why would putting rare cards raise the price? Does it cost them more to print and design them?
And I apologise, I hadn't realised you were speaking about Play Boosters. But then they aren't out yet, and like I said they're going to be changing how they design sets to accommodate the extra rares and fill the gap left behind by the removal of draft chaff. I can't see how they're going to do this any other way than just make Rares and Mythics worse to fill the chaff void. But we will see in time. Hopefully I'm wrong
These presentations are fantastic more please
Well thank you very much. They're a lot of work, so it's nice to know it's appriciated
The little guy is awesome and the visual aspect makes it so easy to understand. Your efforts are appreciated and I hope this channel takes off....
a few months into play Boosters now and I hate them. for a lot of the reasons you covered tbh but they also just. feel worse to open. it's the absolute worst of both set and draft. In limited, you always could open a bad rare versus someone's good rare. but now, you can open an unplayable rare while your opponent has opened 3 bombs. these boosters have killed 6-pack sealed for me (the most prominent pre-release format) and they make drafting way less fun due to the massive variance. someone opposite you on the table opens a 3-rare pack? suddenly all 3 of them have an extra rare! then opening them vs set boosters. I don't know the numbers but the chance of higher rarity wildcards feels a lot less than set. for set, you'd get a dud pack here and there but certainly not as much as with play Boosters. and then the price hike of course. took the worst of both worlds and jammed them into one product. the ONLY product unless you're shelling out $30 for a single collector booster.
instead of actually revitalizing draft and limited in any way, they axed it and gave us this zombie. promos worth getting, limited leagues, support for WPN events and stores, prizing, ANYTHING. but nah. they shovel it all into commander
And don't forget extend the time cards are legal for in Standard... for some reason!
draft boosters are for playing, set boosters are for opening. even though a draft box has 6 more guaranteed rares, you're still going to end up with more from a set booster box, not to mention more foils and special art cards. plus, many don't really care about having less commons in a pack because you end up with so many from opening the packs anyway with many just being left in the store as chaff regardless. i've seen entire packs left behind after the purchaser pulled out any cards over a dollar.
i think the main issue would just be getting people to play draft in the first place and hiking the price with play boosters will only hurt it. draft boosters are supposed to sell through people playing limited events but many tend to shy away from those due to price of entry since they could just play commander with a deck they already paid for instead.
we didn't really do much to kill the draft booster so much as wizards seems to have just given up on trying to make them accessible.
there's also the topic of game balance when you throw more rares into the mix that may actually drive people away from enjoying the format, but that could be another discussion
Well, to your first point. You MAY end up with more Rares, but also you may not. It's a gamble. Like I said in the video, each pack has a 49% chance both wild cards are common, and a near 25% chance only one of them is as little as uncommon. It's far from a sure bet. Also, what about if someone doesn't buy a box, but only a pack or two? Like you said, Set Boosters are for opening. And they're not cheap. Pretty feel bad if a large portion of the time you've paid more for less cardboard, and they're not even rares or mythics.
And that's not evening taking into account the question whether rares or mythics should cost more in the first place. Why? Not all mythics are goods or high value, and they certainly don't cost any more to produce than any other card.
You are 100% correct when you talk about the price hike driving people away. I think you're right, and this will do more to hurt draft in the long run. Play Boosters don't seem to be for the health of the game, but for the health of Hasbro's bottom line.
(and while I'm being salty with Hasbro. I'm not buying the excuse that Draft and Set boosters needed to go away because too many boosters were confusing. They're about to introduce Beyond Boosters, so I call bull.)
@@RedBobcatGames the real issue with "too many boosters" was them trying to force jumpstart boosters with every set instead of using them as a psuedo "core set" for introducing some new cards in fun half-decks with various reprints.
also, even if you get a bonus uncommon, it's still better than getting a common, but i agree that they really shouldn't be charging more for these since it's overall less (and like them or not, no one's buying them for the art card), but if they weren't more expensive people would probably be worried about their "investments" as the cheaper the packs are to start, the less the potential price to the cards they own that get reprinted.
An ever trickier balance on the tightrope of keeping the fans of the game happy, the fans of the secondary market happy, and the shareholders happy with ever growing profits. Not that it seems to matter. WotC made money in 2023, but still had their staffing numbers slashed. Grim times for MtG
Great video. I'm glad someone's talking about this
Thank you. Glad you enjoyed
Great points! WotC suck lately
Careful. They'll send the Pinkertons after you for talk like that
Great content! The video, I mean, not the game.
Haha, thank you. I mean the game's pretty great too
So I did my own pricing and for the last set that was a main set and had draft it was 110 murders at markhoff is pre-order priced at. 200 usd for all amounts
Sorry, are you saying the price has inceased by 90 dollars?! Am I understanding that right? That's mental if true. That's nearly double!
We need more purple bear
I dunno about that. He has exactly two decks. Storm and Dredge.
The math on Set boosters actually averaged more Rares for your dollar. 1/4th of the time the pack will have more than one rare guaranteed so of the 30 packs at least 7 of them will have two rares so the worst luck you can possibly get is 37 rares for 30 packs, but because of the chance to get up to 3 rares in about 1/8th of packs at least 3 of those 7 will have another rare. So your average Set booster has about 40 rares per box, but it goes up to as much as 44 rares a box and essentially never drops below 36 rares a box.
Basically means you're paying 5 bucks more for a significantly better average while only risking getting what you used to at the statistically unlikely worst case scenario.
WotC knew this going in and aimed those numbers at that crowd, they pointed the price per pack at people who had stopped buying 2 packs when they impulse bought a pack but could afford more than one pack on its own, people who would absolutely be down to gamble on a shot at getting 3 rares in one pack since they had already shrunk their impulse buy down. They designed set boosters such that they made sense for literally everyone other than drafters and prerelease players tactically and then shrugged and blamed buy patterns that they knew we would follow simply because the economics were better.
Play Boosters are a whole other can of worms though, they have taken literally every downfall of the set booster is intensified by the play boosters and it's clear that the primary goal of these was to price hike product across the board by more than they could do with the excuse of inflation.
I'm absolutely pissed at the hike to prerelease cost though. It was already literally at the maximum of what I enjoyed paying for the event and it's about to nearly double in price.
Same!
Sure, I hear you and you're right. I'm just not a fan of gambling, because it's never implimented for our fun, but always as a means of squeezing more money out of the player base. I understand that these Play Boosters will also likely have more rares in them, but they are on record as saying they're adjusting how they design sets to reflect that. My biggest fear is that the "value" of a rare or mythic is going to have to adjust down to fill the hole left by removing a bunch of draft chaff. Look at the duds included on "The List" or in some Masters Sets. I fear we're on a road toward "Draft Chaff Mythics"
is it the same a couple months later? I just played the Duskmourn pre-release... is this in the end a ploy to sell more Precons that nowadays replace tehe draftrboosters of some sets? You can use the precons to draft so ... would this be why MTG lost draft boosters? Cuz Wotc could sell more precons, and not bother with draft packs? vs the better seller set packs ?
So it seems the reason draft boosters got replaced was because they wanted to remove the cheap entry point for players, and replace they with Play Boosters which cost more, have less cards, and now (after some recent changes) aren't even that much better in terms of pull rates
IMO, Draft Boosters were for Draft and Set Boosters were for playing the MTG Casino. If you are new to the game and want a deck, you're best product is likely a pre-con. If you want specific cards, you'd probably want to go to the secondary market for singles. All that said, WotC's only reason to produce Draft Boosters would be draft, which is inefficient for them as a company. By combining Set and Draft Boosters into Play Boosters, this still gives the Casino folks their chances at better cards and gives Draft players a viable product, with the added benefit of more rare cards in the Draft pool. So while Cost will increase, Value increases to match, ie, 'the number of Rares and Mythic Rares per dollar will remain the same.' In addition, with Value increasing, I would expect the Draft play Experience to increase as well. As someone who enjoys both Draft and Casino, I look forward to potentially opening a pack during draft and agonizing over which card to pick, desperately wishing I could just windmill slam both. I concede that this will make Play Boosters not very backwards compatible for Chaos Drafts, but I very rarely find people willing to go to the effort to arrange such.
TLDR, While I recognize the cost of Draft will increase, I expect the overall value and experience to increase alongside it and therefore ok with this change. 7/10, reasonable decision.
Sure. I just worry that we're costing people out of playing the game in the first place. It certainly puts me off. Like those bundles I hear now have less packs in them too. It's just a feel bad
Draft and set boosters always felt like it was just a means to an end for WoTC to raise prices on boosters and returning to a single booster product with play boosters basically confirms just that.
Oh yeah, and soon we'll be getting "Beyond Boosters". I'm sure just another step in the cycle repeating itself once more
Play with friends?! 😞 I wish they sold booster packs that had friends in them.
My dude, "The Gathering" part isn't just a name for the game. There's literally millions of people that play. Do you have a local game store? A lot of LGS's run all sorts of MTG events, and it's a good way to meet new people who share a hobby of yours. Or if it's easier, there's loads of online spaces where people can hang out and chat magic in Discord, or play webcam games / Magic Online / Arena or whatever. You're never alone when part of the Magic community
Common WOTC L
Tell me about it
We specifically did not get rid of draft boosters. Repeated poor business and design decisions on WotC's part are the main culprits. When they stopped allowing draft boxes to be preordered, over set and collector boosters. When they repeatedly attempted to wring every last bit of profit from either poor power scaling up, or down. When they decided to further push away from LGS's with their sales. They ensured basic booster sales would decline. They were banking on draft sitting on shelves, because allotment forced stores to buy a certain amount. All they had to do, was wait till the numbers swung in their favor to make the switch to the more expensive product. A solution awaiting a manufactured problem.
Pretty much. But for all their faults, I will miss Draft Boosters now they're gone. It feels like everything you described was done intentionally, with the end goal of selling us the more expensive Play Booster
Fact is the game should have been burned to the ground when WotC went full greed-pig and locked cards into the Mythic rarity. They tamped down the (well justified) consumer rage by promising that Mythic would be used for big Legendary cards and giant Timmy cards that you wouldn't want to run 4-per deck. Fast forward a few years and they were printing head-and-shoulders better 4-per-deck 2-drops in the Mythic slot and making entire formats ride on the backs of 3-drop Planeswalkers. WotC has been a slash-and-burn scumbag operation for over a decade and its funny to see kids only cluing in now.
I'm not sure if I'm one of the kids you're talking about, but apart from that I largely agree haha. Though, I don't want to see the game gone. I still very much enjoy it, I've just taken Mark Rosewater's words to heart and so have stopped buying a majority of the products as they clearly "aren't for me"
I know this doesn't excuse this, but like... the way I looked at buying Set Boosters was that opening draft packs for draft felt like opening a Reece's peanut butter cup to scoop the peanut butterr out and leave the chocolate on the ground. Draft packs should be for those who wanna draft and having someone like me who's TERRIBLE at limited and doens't know enough people personally who do draft to actually get one going, I figured I'd stick to my lane and buy set boosters as to not encroach on the draftable product.
I am sorry, and I do not support the move to play boosters.
No need to apologise, your opinion is as valid as anyone elses. This whole channel is just my opinion after all. What was it about Set Boosters that you liked though? Surely just buying singles would have been a better option, no?
@@RedBobcatGames the way I approach buying booster packs is that i do it for the surprise and fun of cards I just tuned out on during spoiler season. If I KNOW I want something, I buy the single (although I have a hard limit of $15 USD on a single if I'm going to buy one.) and otherwise, I let myself be surprised by what I crack and build with it if I happen to have a home for what I cracked.
Lost Caverns of Ixalan was a good exmple of this. I knew there was one card I wanted to brew with (Ojer Pakpatiq, because I like spellslinger and winning with only blue instants seemed like a good challenge), and then I knew there was a general haze of goodstuff in the set, so after failing to find the Dinosaur precon at any of the local stores I checked after christmas with a gift card burning a hole in my wallet, I settled for a LCI Bundle, where I opened some really fun stuff like Thousand Moon Smithy and Ojer Taq.
The excitement of the crack on a pack does work. the dopamine rush is real and I think it can be done responsibly.
that being said, I'm the sort who realistically only cracks packs thee, maybe four times a year. The only packs I bought this year were Prerelease kits for All Will Be One, March of the Machine, a couple of Strixhaven set boosters as a treat after a major surgery I had while I was visiting a local game store, and the LCI packs I got on boxing day.
(also, yes. prerelease sealed isn't draft and I usually wash out of any prerelease events i attend.)
@@ClexYoshi Yeah, that's interesting. I guess there is fun to be had in the small gamble of what's in a pack, and your odds are better on bigger pulls with a Set Booster. I worry the intetion from Wizards with any move like bringing in Set and Play boosters isn't for the fun of the player, but for their wallets though. But that's the game I suppose.
I also enjoy a prerelease. I actually think it's probably my favourite event. But that's in part to the cost effectiveness of it. Even just including a dice makes it feel more like value for money.
I hope you're feeling better after your surgery btw
good video
Thanks!
Your evaluation on the wild cards is a little bit off. They're certainly not incredible, but you're going to rares out of them quite often. The average is around 40 a box. But it's very easy to get even more than that. It is a slightly better value if all you care about is that rare slot[s], that also had higher extremes in addition to the higher average so makes for something more exciting to open.
I hear you, but both Set and Draft are gone now so my main fear is with these new play boosters. They've said they're going to have to rebalance how they design sets to accommodate multiple mythics per pack. I fail to see how that's going to mean anything less than making those exciting mythics you mentioned less exciting so they don't break draft and standard.
Also makes chaos draft potentially weird. I guess you’d have to make sure if there’s play boosters that everyone brought the same number so that each round of the draft can be only draft or only play boosters. Kind of annoying.
Oh man, I didn't even think about that. Yeah, you're right. Jeeze
How so? There was already a variance in the amount of cards before with some draft boosters (stuff like Commander Masters or Legends had more cards).
And at least where I am, when I played Chaos Draft everyone had the same set of draft boosters to use.
Well they've gone on record to say that they're changing how they'll design a set because of the new Play Booster contents. So who knows what kind of effect that's going to have on a chaos draft. We of course won't know till they're out, but Play Boosters have the potential to be vastly different
so... its better to buy a Draftdisplay than a Setdisplay?
Depends on what you're after. As a person who wants more cards for my money, and isn't that fussed about all the different art variants, I would say yes. Sadly, this soon won't be a choice we have to worry about as Play Booster will be the only option
Not really, most of extra cards you get from draft displays will not be too useful or valuable.
On the other hand you get on average more rares in Set boosters, the actually valuable, and usually more useful cards.
Well, sure if you're after monetary value from cards you may be better off with set. But not always, they're more of a gamble. If you want to actually play the game you're better off with draft. You can't draft a set display box. So like I say, depends on what you're after
Them saying not every product is for you is basically telling them "Stop being poor or you are not our audience goodbye." An offer me and my 50 bucks printer are willing to take.
Yeah, like I said in my most recent video it feels like they're trying to introduce a caste system into the game. The haves and the have nots seperated by who's allowed to open up a rare in a pack. It's wild
I usually had good returns on Set boxes. I’ve played on and off since 1994 and only play Commander since 2019. Never played competitively. I hate Foils. Art cards make no sense in the game. WotC spends money to print something that has no value. You can’t sell them. You can’t collect them (b/c they have no value). They are a waste. I’m glad they scrapped them.
I also wasn't a fan of the art cards. If it was an addition to a pack I wouldn't have complained, but to take the place of a playable card just left me feeling bad about them
Remember when Rares were Rare... God I miss the days when it took a long time to wind up with a Deck where there are no commons, not a single Creature or Spell that doesn't have a short novel to read to figure out how to play it... God I miss OG Innistrad and OG Zendikar, and earlier sets. Also I haven't bought a single WotC product since before my Daughter was Born 4 years ago
Even just the quality of card has gone down hill. I looked at my old Grave Titan from like 15 years ago for a video recently and was shocked by how gorgeous the foiling was.
Here is the thing. Play boosters will on average have 1.5 rares in it. In a Play Booster Box we now can expect 5 Mythics on average. Draft Booster Box averaged 4. I am interested in seeing how Play Boosters work out.
For further context, I used math for Murder. It seems wild card rarity is not weighted meaning all cards are of equal chance to appear that means there is ~30.6% chance a rare/mythic rare to appear in that slot and a 3.12% chance of a rare to appear in the list slot. That makes the average of 1.5 rares per pack.
Sure, but I suppose being the contrarian that I am, I would ask "Does that justify giving us less cardboard for our money"? Do you think those extra rares and mythics cost any more to design and print? Also, they've said that they'll be adjusting game design to reflect the contents of the new packs. Is a Rare or Mythic today going to be the same level of power tomorrow? Or will the playability of these cards get dilluted down to replace the lost commons? Are rares going to be the the new draft chaff someday? Will we need a new "Ultra Mythic" to fill the gap at the top left by falling power levels of Mythics? And will that power level be falling in comparison to previously printed cards, or be falling in comparison to the strongest cards in it's own set? This feels to me less like power creep, and more play inflation. I suspect it's all just a way to raise prices without actually giving you anything more for your money
@@ethanjohnson2849 In the article Mark said you're getting the same amount of boosters per dollar. Given the prices used in the video and that play and draft boosters have the same amount of boosters per box, we can see the price going up 25%, and thus conclude that you actually get 1.25 rares per pack.
Oh no doubt. I guess my reply to you was more a question of worth. If they're readjusting the power level of sets to support extra rares, will those extra rares be worth the increase in price I wonder? Time will tell
I am a kinda new player and I hate this change. The first time I bought packs they were Ixalan set boosters, and I didn't like em at all. Next time i bought packa, i got draft boosters and absolutely loved how there were more cards and more commons. It feels more filling and commons feel a lot more "core" to a color. I dont get why the new ones are 14 cards either, doesn't that change draft? Why not just make em 15? Why not have the option to just have a "basic pack" without any of that silly list stuff
Ahh, you see the answer there is "money". Something I was annoyed enough about to make this whole channel
15:16
Now there's Value Boosters. Seven pieces of cardboard, and it's not guaranteed a rare.
I think TH-cam may have blocked my previous response. if it has, you can imagine what I had to say about Value Boosters haha
@@RedBobcatGames BWAHAHAH Same.
They're murdering set boosters for these shit things as well -- many of the things I liked about set boosters are getting watered down or even removed entirely to make them "draftable." I stopped buying Draft boosters and put up with the higher price of Set boosters for a reason, and now that reason is getting a kick in the balls.
Some things I think you missed about Set Boosters, too:
1. Fewer commons. There were set boosters I opened that had all of 2 commons, the rest being uncommon or higher, and most set boosters had well more than the normal 3 uncommons you get with Draft boosters. Maybe you haven't noticed, but most Magic commons are shit, and I don't need more bulk.
2. Guaranteed showcase cards for the current set. Generally one of those Wild Card slots was dedicated to the showcase cards, which, if you wanted to collect those, made getting them easier.
3. You could get inserts from the Commander-adjacent sets in the Wild Card slot. This means you could get versions of the commanders they released for each set that wouldn't turn into fucking Pringles.
4. The List. The List cards are an important source of reprints, and put a lot of downward pressure on singles included in a particular set's List. I cannot stress how important this has been for players on a budget, especially Commander players.
You're right that the price increase for less cards was (and is) ridiculous, but like I mentioned above, there's reasons I preferred Set Boosters over Draft Boosters. Play Boosters are the worst of BOTH worlds.
Completely agreed. Tbf, my perspective is from someone that preffered Draft Boosters but all of your points are valid. I also hadn't really considered the what's going to happen once those commander exclusive, or magic art varients of secret lairs start rocking up in a draftable format. I suppose if you want those, it'll be Collector Boosters or bust, which feels like it's dragging the value of those down too now. Guess we'll see
@@RedBobcatGames I get that. I just figured this could use the perspective of someone who quite liked Set Boosters and isn't at all happy with this change from the other side of the coin.
Collector Boosters have been and will continue to be too much money for too many foils, most of which are going to curl into tubes a half hour after you open them.
Another thing that annoys me about Play Boosters is collapsing the Art card into Token/ad card slot. I throw away the ad card that don't have tokens on them, and thankfully they're usually pretty infrequent compared to tokens. I usually toss the Art card, too. I'm NOT keen in having the Token frequency cut down to accommodate Art Cards. And in Set Boosters, the List Card took the place of the Token, not one of your normal cards, unlike Play Boosters (which will cut out one of the common slots for the list cards).
In short, there's two murders here -- the Draft AND Set boosters are getting piked, and the Play Booster is an unholy amalgamation of the worst aspects of both.
If I could reply here in the form of a meme, it'd be that epic handshake one, with draft booster fans and set booster fans uniting in hatred of play boosters
@@RedBobcatGames I can get behind that.
Price Box Per pack Saving
Draft 7.00 199 5.53 1.47
Set 9.00 219 7.30 1.70
Collectors 35.00 369 30.75 4.25
(note, in aud)
I think you may be the first person to actually share your local prices. Awesome. But also, by your maths the best saving is Collector Boosters and OH NO! Please no! lol
@@RedBobcatGames less then double the price, more then double the savings! its in, collectors is best box for your buck!!!! (might have to check per card prices for fuller data 😂)
@@RedBobcatGames
- Per Card (booster) Per Card (box) saving per card
0.47 0.37 0.10
0.64 0.52 0.12
2.33 2.18 0.15
@@o_vivian0975 This is more research than I've put into any video haha
but brawl is awesome!!!
I'll let you in a secret. I've never actually played it. At some point I'm sure my arm will be twisted
I for one do not understand the marketing card. Like why does it need to be 2 sided? Why isn’t it a token 100% of the time with marketing on the other side???
Some of them used to be. I have a few still I think. I genuinely think it's because Tokens have a resale value on the secondary market, and they want packs to be even more of a lottery. It's not a lottery if there aren't bad pulls
@@RedBobcatGames which is weird because... tokens generally don't have a lot of resale value and WotC still make some tokens more rare than others... 🤷♂
Also 1 thing I did want to mention to you: 100% totally agree with you on your math, you are completely right, not arguing with you there. What I do think you have MISSED however is the "quality" of cards in the calculation.
Basically the larger point is that the "pack" of cards missing from the new play boxes are all commons. Commons are the most worthless card in the game (most of the time, obviously I know about Pauper and sometimes good ones are made, etc). So I think part of the motive for the murder is that rares and mythics were so important to the game (as well as fancy alternate arts) that people were more willing to give up some commons in a pack for the CHANCE to open more rares/mythics.
I think some of the realization of this is why Wizards thought they could get away with those aftermath "epilogue" boosters.
At least that's the broad overview. I could probably go into more detail if you have any quibbles about it.
(Also you did inspire me to write a post defending Brawl as a format. 😉)
Haha, I don't really have an issue with Brawl. LIke I say I've never actually played it. I just like ragging on my friend for fun. You raise an interesting point about quality though. However, my instinctive response then is, so what are they going to do now that there's less commons? They've already said they'll have to make adjustments to the way sets are designed to reflect the fact there's more rares and mythics. If I'm being honest, I think draft chaff commons serve many purposes (especially when taking the secondary market into consideration), so with less of those and more high end mythics... I think we might start seeing a weird shift in the power balance of sets where "chaff" might start including uncommons and rares too. Maybe even a few dud mythics like they seem to love including on The List and in Master Sets. WotC haven't done much to earn my confidence here
@@RedBobcatGames lol I figured in re: Brawl. If anything, I wish they were still releasing brawl decks instead of full on commander but that's a rant for another time...
I think you're pretty spot on with the rest and have no argument there. Some of us were talking about how even rares seem about as valuable as commons nowadays with collector boosters pushing prices down across the board. Once in awhile you can find yourself a quality uncommon (I built greta food-fight deck just because) but it's pretty hit or miss.
I always wanted to give Oathbreaker a go. That looks like it has the potential for crazy combos
I just can say, good, hope magic finally dies
Awww, I hope not. I moan a lot but I do still like the game
I only ever buy physical product to draft.
So this does just suck ass.
Preach! I was starting to think I was the only one left. I made a video on why Draft Boosters got removed for Play Boosters, and a lot of people in the comments seem to believe set boosters were better as people don't want to draft anymore
Join the proxy boat
Cats don't like water. If I'm getting on a boat, I'd rather it was a real one
I know I'll never get any good rares.....
CUZ I DON'T BUY BULLSHIT PRODUCT FROM WIZARDS OF THE COAST ANYMORE!😂😂😂
I buy singles as often as I can
WOTC L’s continue
You can say that again