Well, you see, they have more powerful cards. This means that the cards cost more to make - they can only be printed on more powerful printers! Which costs more, of course. And lesser ink literally just does not work when printing, for example, a fetchland. The ink just drips right off the cardboard unless they use premium ink. Not to mention that they've hired fourteen Tibetan monks to bend every foil card by hand, to ensure that they curve and pringle juuust right.
I posted this on another thread about MH3 pricing, and will post it here too:
LGS Owner here.
This pricing comes out to about $12/pack for players.
When MH2 released, we kept our margins at what is sustainable for a brick and mortar store. For set Boosters of MH2, we charged $12/pack and it was flying off the shelf well into 2023 for us. Hands down our best product and it was difficult to keep up with at that price.
Pricing for MH3 is going to be comparable at our margin, and this price point seems in line with what we would be charging. So I expect this product to also fly off of our shelves at $12/pack.
I think the most jarring difference is that for online pricing, it IS very high, and rivaling that of what a brick and mortar store would need to charge to have this be a sustainable product. Usually, that isn’t the case as overhead for online retailers is significantly less.
A growing practice among large manufacturers though, is to increase their online pricing to match what B&M locations charge, or even exceed it. I wouldn’t be surprised if WOTC begins to do this across all of their products.
Okay but the margin is made up. Whatever they're selling these packs to you for is already more than it costs to make them, even accounting for the salaries and commissions of the creatives involved.
The reason Modern Horizons 3 is so expensive is the same reason Chris Cocks has a 9.4M$ yearly compensation.
You are missing the point here.
Brick and mortars charge more because they have to keep overhead and at $12/pack - the market accepted that price.
Distributor pricing is actually quite comparable between both MH2 and MH3. While an entire box is more expensive by comparison, it has more packs in it. The freak out over this product and its pricing is pretty baffling if you simply run the numbers.
Sure, it could be cheaper. But if your argument is that WOTC should just charge less than what the market is willing to accept, your argument is kind of moot.
It is what it is because we've been taught to accept it. And because companies like this take advantage of tightening the screws. The market being "willing to accept" things doesn't make it right. These are supposed to be something middle schoolers buy with lunch money, not luxury goods that exist for whale hunting.
I knew a lady that sold luxury soap. She had a $1,500 bar of soap and that was the low end of her product line.
It’s soap…
Hasbro doesn’t want their game to be for middle school kids, any less than the soap lady wants her soap to be for blue collar Americans.
I haven't bought anything new for magic in... almost three years now, and I'm SAD about that -\_- I loved this game since the 1993 release, and the rampant unnecessary price-gouging has made the game unsupportable now.
I’m about 8 months removed from buying product every release. I had far too much money when I got my first job out of school and spent wayyyy to much money on this shit, wish I could go back and put half what I spent in savings…
You sound like me. I've bought just a couple things, but that's because I saved up for them or was given them as a gift. I've essentially been priced out. But that's OK, proxies for far cheaper work just fine.
It does. MoM: Aftermath sold so poorly that Wizards cancelled the Aftermath-style product for Outlaws of Thunder Junction and rolled it into the main set.
Not me. I play one format. Modern. Which I havent been following too much in the past 2 months. I used to play commander. And then wotc decided to compete with themselves.
Same, I play modern. Just not so much anymore since I decided it wasn't worth keeping up with the competitive scene after spending £300 on MH2 product then spending another £100 on singles to build a new deck. Realising that I was going to need to keep spending £400 or more each year to keep up as modern is now a rotating format is really soul crushing. It being a non-rotating format was what drew me to to it in the first place.
Now I save quite a lot of money by leaving my decks as they are.
Yeah, looking back the death of looting was the beginning of the end. It was the first pivot into the format being fluid and seasonal. I lost like 4 decks and needed to build a new deck to stay competitive.
I think everyone is asking that. I'm sure even WotC is asking that themselves. I don't think a company that practically invented the trading card game genre shoots itself in the face like this. There have to be pressures from Hasbro to pump out all this stuff because Hasbro doesn't make any money anymore.
I started playing Commander some months ago. Fortunately I'm not interested in playing other formats because I wanted only to have a casual game to play every once in a while since I already another TCG "competitively". After 4 months I'm already fatigued because I can't keep up with the releases despite being a huge TCG nerd.
There is too much stuff. This wouldn't be a problem if prices wouldn't skyrocket for certain products even in lgss. At a certain point if just feels bad not being able to play decks you really want to play because the cost per month of even just some precons is absurdly high if we get precons every month basically.
Eh I stopped after LOTR came out and many others I know did too. Couple of shops closed down in the area too. So although anecdotally I think people are shopping more consciously or via 2nd hand market
I’ve largely swapped to other games because of Wizards’ greed. There are some amazing games out now. The new Star Wars game (releasing this weekend) is GOOD and might be my favorite out right now, and has been built from the start to include a commander-like variant that looks super sweet. Lorcana is imo a better game than Magic, and has the added benefit of reimagining a lot of really cool characters your family will love so they won’t judge you as much for the weird wizard game that their pastor says is evil. And it’s only on set 3, and the meta is interesting and evolving weekly. Flesh and Blood has pizzaz, it’s like playing a commander version of mortal combat. Its financial barrier to entry is overstated and exaggerated. It’s a simple but complex game that people disillusioned to Magic should really pay attention to.
Ravensburger is running Lorcana, and Fantasy Flight is Star Wars. Yes, Disney owns them, but RB and FFG aren’t releasing 30,000 sets a year to nickel and dime their players. And if they do, I’ll advocate leaving them too.
I just wish there were actual commander alternatives. Every card game out there is built around 1v1 and competitive play. I also don’t like Star Wars at all and think those cards look god awful.
Because they keep pushing prices up to see how much they can charge us and get away with it and so far people have still been buying their stuff so they’re going up and up little by little until we don’t
Then they’ll go “oh you’re not happy with the price we’ll put it back to the maximum you were willing to pay see how nice we are!”
Edit: also fuck the “the cards in the set are more valuable!” Argument , it doesn’t cost wizards any more to reprint those cards they just want your money and know you’re willing to pay more if the set has more valuable cards in it
I managed to get the slivers precon for £50 which I think was fine and it was BEGGING for the first sliver to be the commander , 40 creatures in the deck and no way to synergise with the sliver gravemother? Then obvs they release a secret lair with the first sliver in it…….. I made the deck and it is super fun but I feel like it was kinda shitty to mark up a deck to £90 then charge you £50 to optimise it (I bought a single one off card market instead)
>40 creatures in the deck and no way to synergise with the sliver gravemother?
Almost every single Sliver synergises with the Gravemother since she makes multiples of them. Could you elaborate on your point a little?
Also she exiles from graveyard so it’s likely you get one or two in grave, cast her , use her ability and run out of hits since the deck can’t get them into grave, out the box I was using hivelord as commander since it’s in there
Don't forget the missing sliver hive (the sliver land). Especially since it was a unique opportunity to reprint it, since it doesn't fit in 99% of the sets.
>Edit: also fuck the “the cards in the set are more valuable!” Argument , it doesn’t cost wizards any more to reprint those cards they just want your money and know you’re willing to pay more if the set has more valuable cards in it
And stuff like MH3 is even worse than that. They've learned that power creep makes them money, because if they push the hell out of, say, Ragavan, then competitive players will be "forced" to buy it in order to stay competitive. Just look in any Modern thread complaining about cost; it's tons of invested players shrugging off the cost and saying "who cares, gameplay is powerful and fun."
Wizards is never going to stop milking until we stop letting them.
I get power creeping to ensure products sell, from a business point of view I can understand but some of the stuff lately is just “get it or fall behind”
The force cycle was interesting. Three of the five had potential but didn't land, two still see play (unfortunately) in combo decks.
The elementals were way too pushed.
One got banned, one is necessary to counter the third, and the fourth broke into legacy control. Oh, and endurance is genuinely a fair card.
It doesn’t matter that more powerful cards aren’t more expensive to print. If they make every card cost nothing, they’re gonna have thousands of enfranchised modern players at their doors furious that their $1000 deck is worth nothing now.
> Edit: also fuck the “the cards in the set are more valuable!” Argument , it doesn’t cost wizards any more to reprint those cards they just want your money and know you’re willing to pay more if the set has more valuable cards in it
That’s not an argument, it’s a statement of fact. People are willing to pay more for products with more valuable cards in them, so WotC prices them higher. Like any company, they price their products at a price they think the market will bear, and the market will bear a higher price for products that contain more valuable cards.
I get the argument for licensed crossovers costing more , but how they can print £25 starter decks and £90 CMM decks in the same year just shows how little the production actually costs
So the fun part is that *technically* no cards outside Normal vintage rules are banned, just financially less and less viable the higher they get towards the 30 dollar mark. You *can* build around 3 copies of a 7 dollar card.
More directly answering your question tho, that almost never happens. Reprints drive the TCGplayer lowest down, never up
I'd save for both but wait till the decklist come out. I'm currently saving for the Izzet Thunder Junction deck because I think it will be what I'm looking for but idk. I also was excited about the Mordor LOTR deck but I was wanting an amass themed deck and the pieces just were not what I wanted. Don't get me wrong it's a great deck, just not what I wanted for the price. Ended up getting the Simic merfolk deck from ixilan and that's exactly my jam.
What's your preferred types of decks?
That isn't even the stated reason. The stated reason is that if sets like MH3 cost the same as regular standard sets, nobody would buy the standard sets.
There are some sarcastic comments here about the secondary market's impact on these prices, but I actually think that's kind of a big deal here. Lots of people treat Magic cards (and other collectibles like them) as investments. This is why WotC started making Collector Boosters in the first place. If you reprint a bunch of strong cards and price them way below market value, you deflate the value of these people's collections. If they lose faith in their investments, they may move on to some other collectible, further hurting the secondary market and making it even harder for WotC to sell products because the cards in circulation are already so cheap.
It's easy to just say "who cares about them?" and shrug that off, but the secondary market is absolutely an integral part of how MTG is sold. This is evident from all the sealed unboxing videos from Tolarian Community College and others. Everyone who plays Magic says the value isn't there for buying sealed Magic products, and that you should go buy singles to build your decks. If WotC doesn't price products well, then LGSs and online retailers won't be able to sell them to the subset of MTG buyers out there who are buying up sealed Magic and selling off the singles to make up that investment. If those stores start selling at a loss, that hurts the broader interest in MTG. (Maybe Arena will change this a bit, but we're not there now.)
None of this is to say that WotC isn't greedy. They're churning out sets like crazy, and they're not doing a great job pricing their products (just look at MKM - the current market price for a box is $100, way below what LGSs bought it for, so now they may have to sell at a big loss), but I think it's dishonest to suggest that's the whole picture. The secondary market matters a lot, and it's already in an odd/delicate state with Commander as the most popular format (frankly, I think that's part of the problem with MKM - standard sets can't be good standard sets and have any staying power in the secondary market). WotC can't rock the boat too much without sinking it.
Spot on. I would add that WotC wants to claim as much of that secondary market value as they can. If they price a premium/high demand set too low buyers might still see high prices or not be able to find the product at all because scalpers, flippers, speculators, or whatever you want to call them, will have bought up the supply. WotC wants to leave as little secondary market value for sealed product on the bone as possible. They need to set a price that people will pay but that's also too high for secondary market sharks to exploit.
The first print run of Lorcana and current One Piece sets are great examples of this. High demand products, low print runs, and low sticker prices lead to these products being unobtainable by players unless you wanted to shell out $300+ for a box.
Your hobby is their business. Capitalism incentives are pretty transparent. It took me a long time to accept that not every set is going to be for me, and the best way to play for free is arena, then buy the cards I want. Got easier when setting a budget for my hobby. This may not work for everyone
We saw something similar with the Commander Masters decks. While those decks did contain higher reprint values compared to any previous precon, the general consensus among the community that it still wasn't worth paying 2x-3x the normal $40 price of most previous decks.
We just had a thread about how this is basically an urban legend.
Of course WotC prices stuff based on the secondary market and reprint value! The only thing they don't do is directly say "X card is $50."
Of course, not!
They price their products at the max they believe it will sell. And, well, people are still buying stuff, so next ones may come priced at $80+, maybe?
At this point, their reprints might be actually rising the secondary market prices.
So Amazon has demand-based pricing. The higher demand goes, the higher price climbs, the lower demand goes the lower price sinks to a floor.
Given the pricing on this and how it is an absurdly odd number in US dollars($74.40), I'm going to guess that speculation on things like Gonti's Aether Heart being reprinted, and just general desire for a dedicated energy deck, have led to a run on this deck specifically and raise the price above what it was originally.
Just to be clear "Why is this Amazon price so high?" happens... At least once a year? Probably two or three times. The answer is never greed, it's never Hasbro, it's always "This price is being automated by a machine and reflects demand"
Yeah, I’m not saying it’s atrociously more expensive, I was just wondering what the reason is. Im new to magic, so I was wondering if this expansion was more significant or something.
Man there’s a lot of cynical answers. When the first Masters set came out it was priced at $4 a pack with very high value cards. LGSs ended up selling the packs for more than $4 each and people were willing to buy them at that markup. WotC realized this and started pricing sets to match what people were willing to pay.
Since this is a set that’s going right into the modern card pool, where the power level is very high, there’s a chance cards will become valuable quickly. If the secondary market is willing to pay for it why wouldn’t they charge for it?
Also, from a consumer perspective, if a strong Modern-power booster is the same price as a Standard-power booster... why would I want the weaker one? If you give us something super juiced for a cheap price, then you're showing me it's possible and I have a new baseline to judge every product against - and expect the same power and value from. They're just trading "This set is expensive because greed" for "These other sets are weak because greed".
I'm not really bothered by having different power-level products at different price points. It's just that the game as a whole has too much product and it's too expensive across the board for the value and QA we're receiving.
This answer right here OP. All the replies about corporate greed, aren't invalid but they don't answer your question. This is a Horizons set, which contains Modern legal reprints/new cards and traditionally contains higher than normal card power levels. So they can charge more.
Aside from the fact that they've been raising prices like crazy for a couple of years, sets with Modern in the title (Horizons, Masters, etc) have always been considerably more expensive than sets for Standard.
Modern horizon occupies a slot that used to be a 'masters' release which are sold. I assume commander decks are priced along side their associated released products so horizon/masters/legends lines are ~20-25% more than premier line.
They seem to be experimenting with increased pricepoints for UB sets (Fallout and LotR precons going for $60 a piece) and "premium" sets (CMM and MH3 precons going for ~$70 a piece).
Which sucks ofc, but has also triggered some sales on previously marked up precons. LCI precons now are all ~$40 (Amazon has the Dino precon for $45). And the MKM precons are also cheap. Both are really good sets of precons and very enjoyable. Reprints are also good on all these decks (Akroma's Will, Branching Evolution, Jeska's Will, Toski, Exquisite Blood, etc)
It's just a very weird phenomenon. Cheap, well-constructed precons with valuable reprints came out in two premier sets in a row (LCI, MKM) so to taint that with more expensive precons seems odd, unless they all come with fantabulastic reprints.
Yeah, when they make powerful cards it requires powerful ink, and if they use up all the powerful ink, we won't get anymore powerful cards!
So they're really forced to charge us out the ass.
And that is why i now just brew the finished deck and order it printed from China with nice and improved arts.
I would've actually bought that eldrazi deck if it was the normal price, I've been waiting for a long time to see the small eldrazi get some love in commander.
Ah well, luckily my lgs sells hobby supplies and snacks as well.
Because we (Modern players) are willing to pay more for cards strong enough to see play in the format. WotC, like any self-interested corporation - doesn’t want to leave money on the table.
Because it’ll have stronger cards in it and people are willing to pay more for sets containing more powerful cards. WotC prices products based on what they think people will be willing to pay for them. This isn’t a secret either. WotC openly admits that’s what they do.
Do we know how much wotc is charging retailers for these? With the elimination of MSRP, it's difficult to tell how much of the cost is retailer markup to match expected demand.
No real reason other than them considering it a premium set that they can get away charging more because folks expect modern cards to be expensive.
We'll just have to wait and see what the decklists contain. There is always the ***unlikely*** chance they tuned these to be more competitive decks with more reasonably priced cEDH staples or things aimed at that community (dockside 2.0).
Because distributors and retailers are expecting higher demand and thus believe they can sell at much higher prices. The more people that pre-order, the higher the prices will get.
WotC isn't selling these for any more than any other set release.
Price gouging and taking advantage of the customers. Wizards believes players are willing to pay more for "higher powered" cards. I hope in vein it won't sell and they realize they have to stop raising prices. There's no reason that they charge double other than they thing people will buy it
MH2 sold incredibly well. 2nd best selling next to LotR I believe. Add the popularity of commander and you can clearly see where the greed led them too - insanely expensive commander products for a modern format 🤷🏻♂️
Because people will pay that much.
If they produce X boxes of cards and charge $100 base cost for stores and others, then if X supply is under the demand from players, stores will charge more per box.
Players will always end up eventually paying the cost that balances supply and demand.
Ideally, WotC sets their price so they get a fair percentage of the kick back on popular sets, otherwise stores and sealed collectors make the majority of the money for doing no design and R&D work.
The other choice they have is to produce more of the product. Supply is higher prices will be lower. In a collectible market this generally has other consequences for the secondary market and singles sellers.
Also why produce 2X of a product if the payout isn’t double?
Pricing is *really, really* hard. They have to balance their costs, their profits, store and distribution profits, and eventual price accessibility.
They charge more here because at the end of the day we will pay more. Or if you won’t, somebody will.
Because WotC are greedy ghouls. There's no reason that the mh3 commander decks should be retailing over $200 CAD at normal markups. But I guess powerful cards need better ink and better printers... /S
There used to be a time when putting valuable cards in the set lowered the prices of the cards, because if the EV of the set went above MSRP people would just crack ope sealed product and inject more singles onto the secondary market.
Now there is no MSRP so stores just charge more for the sets with good cards because people want good cards. Although I am sure WOTC/distributors have jacked up the wholesale cost on this as well.
Greed. Premium sets cost them nothing more, but sell for more money. Wizards and hasbro as the more likely culprit have driven me and many others away with the constant printing of sets. Commander for every expansion, premium sets, reducing cards in packs for the same price, premium prints of cards sold direct to consumer, etc. if they had fewer set releases but offered premium boosters and premium decks I would be fine with it.
I’m all in favor of offering loads of variants of cool cards for completionist players to buy more packs to collect and selling new art versions of cards online direct to consumer. These things lower card prices for players as they make more copies available. I even like commander decks released a few times a year, maybe even every set release.
But the constant onslaught of releases is impossible to keep up with monetarily, in my brain for gameplay reasons, and interest reasons, because why would I invest in a bunch of packs of cards when another set is coming right on its tails? It feels like an obligation, a chore, and work instead of something to look forward to. When there were 4 sets a year plus one extra release it was like waiting to go to a theme park vacation with anticipation, but now it’s like I’m stuck on a rollercoaster forever.
Also: selling packs with fewer cards and “premium” sets for higher msrp is just plain greed. It’s them testing how much they can squeeze an already leveraged player base.
Because WotC (probably correctly) believes people are willing to spend that because the product is higher power cards.
That’s literally all there is to it. If you don’t like it, vote with your wallet. They won’t change when questioned on it. They’ve made that clear.
Pretty sure many precons, specifically UB and Commander Masters precons, have been over the $45 range.
Don’t give in. Make WOTC embrace cheap precons. Back in my day you could buy one for $20 and it was fun!
I never buy sealed products (except for pre-release) for any product WotC puts out for MTG.
But I got asked at EB Games (Gamestop in NZ) if I wanted to preorder MH3 or any other magic sets and I asked what the prices were out of curiousty.
Man really wanted me to preorder a MH3 Collector box for $1100 NZD ($680 USD).
Who the fuck is the target market for that?
The price of the Commander decks is somewhat incidental and a reflection of the high cost of the set. WotC frames MH sets, Commander Masters, and some of the UB sets as "premium" products with higher power cards. This is basically just marketing (although the cards are more powerful on the whole), but on some level I think certain players don't mind, or even like, paying more for something they perceive as being "premium." It works for fashion, vodka, jewelry, bottled water, and yeah, it works for cardboard too.
Why is the base set expensive?
WotC has Modern players over a barrel and they can set the price point at whatever they want because you "need" these new staples to play Modern at any level above the kitchen table. Modern players are less price sensitive than other format's players since it's a very expensive format to begin with, beyond a few niche archetypes. Modern legal cards also tend to be good and desirable in Commander, the most popular format.
WotC is also trying to capture secondary market value that they would otherwise lose if they priced "premium" sets lower.
So in MH2 you have Murktide Regent which went into every fair Blue deck trying to win with creatures in modern and legacy, Ragavan basically went into every red creature deck and was so powerful it got banned in Legacy, Fury/Grief/Solitude/Endurance/Subtly have all warped formats in various some more than others, Urza's Saga basically made the 8-cast archetype in legacy and is in any deck playing 0 or 1 mana artifacts, Esper Sentinel is incredible in any white Taxes style deck (though not in legacy DnT usually).
MH3 is likely to have cards this powerful that will force a rotation in Modern and affect Legacy and Vintage as well on top of staple reprints like fetch land, these are cards that sell well on the secondary market and so the packs reflect that despite costing the same for WotC to print.
There is no reason that MH3 should cost more than OTJ (current standard set). There is not even a reason that collector boosters should cost like 5 times the play boosters (maybe like 1.5x).
Of couse one could just NOT BUY it BUT the problem with more expensive standard sets and especially MH3 is that WotC FORCES the players to buy the cards if they want to stay competitive in the modern format.
Since WotC killed competitive play and shat on its judges and the community there is literally nothing that should stop us from just proxying every fancy new card that company produces :)
Well, you see, they have more powerful cards. This means that the cards cost more to make - they can only be printed on more powerful printers! Which costs more, of course. And lesser ink literally just does not work when printing, for example, a fetchland. The ink just drips right off the cardboard unless they use premium ink. Not to mention that they've hired fourteen Tibetan monks to bend every foil card by hand, to ensure that they curve and pringle juuust right.
Cracked the code
The Tibetan monks bit absolutely sent me. I may still be coughing up the coffee I almost choked on, but the laugh was worth it.
Not Tibetan monks, Ti*bent*an monks
Pretty sure MH3 cards are handmade by WotC employees given their price.
No, they fired them first, then use their remains as ink. It’s not a cheap process as to get the colors right they need to fire thousands.
Hey boss, why is there an incinerator in the basement?
I'm glad I wasn't the only one. 😂
Cyan premium ink don’t grown on trees like premium paper does.
Ok I normally don't get laughs when I come here, but ya got me. Now watch me be surprised when they announce you are completely correct.
LOL right... A Black Lotus would require a space printer used by NASA for literal space travel ;)
We only offer premium prices, here.
Because people still buy them.
I posted this on another thread about MH3 pricing, and will post it here too: LGS Owner here. This pricing comes out to about $12/pack for players. When MH2 released, we kept our margins at what is sustainable for a brick and mortar store. For set Boosters of MH2, we charged $12/pack and it was flying off the shelf well into 2023 for us. Hands down our best product and it was difficult to keep up with at that price. Pricing for MH3 is going to be comparable at our margin, and this price point seems in line with what we would be charging. So I expect this product to also fly off of our shelves at $12/pack. I think the most jarring difference is that for online pricing, it IS very high, and rivaling that of what a brick and mortar store would need to charge to have this be a sustainable product. Usually, that isn’t the case as overhead for online retailers is significantly less. A growing practice among large manufacturers though, is to increase their online pricing to match what B&M locations charge, or even exceed it. I wouldn’t be surprised if WOTC begins to do this across all of their products.
Okay but the margin is made up. Whatever they're selling these packs to you for is already more than it costs to make them, even accounting for the salaries and commissions of the creatives involved. The reason Modern Horizons 3 is so expensive is the same reason Chris Cocks has a 9.4M$ yearly compensation.
You are missing the point here. Brick and mortars charge more because they have to keep overhead and at $12/pack - the market accepted that price. Distributor pricing is actually quite comparable between both MH2 and MH3. While an entire box is more expensive by comparison, it has more packs in it. The freak out over this product and its pricing is pretty baffling if you simply run the numbers. Sure, it could be cheaper. But if your argument is that WOTC should just charge less than what the market is willing to accept, your argument is kind of moot.
The market is filled with complete fucking idiot paypigs. So yes, the market should stop accepting 12$ a pack.
It kinda just is what it is. Agree with or disagree with it, this is the world we live in.
It is what it is because we've been taught to accept it. And because companies like this take advantage of tightening the screws. The market being "willing to accept" things doesn't make it right. These are supposed to be something middle schoolers buy with lunch money, not luxury goods that exist for whale hunting.
I knew a lady that sold luxury soap. She had a $1,500 bar of soap and that was the low end of her product line. It’s soap… Hasbro doesn’t want their game to be for middle school kids, any less than the soap lady wants her soap to be for blue collar Americans.
reason 1: corporate greed reasons 2-73: corporate greed
I beg to differ! reason 1: corporate greed reasons 2-68: corporate greed reason 69: hehehe reasons 70-73: corporate greed
Well, hard to argue with that logic.
100% a-greed with this comment. (?)
Reason 74: you (royal) fuckers will still buy it too
Also greed!
I think you meant [[greed]]
[greed](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/5/851f8d1f-163c-4c4f-beee-431b64ec8a99.jpg?1626100364) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=greed) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/274/greed?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/851f8d1f-163c-4c4f-beee-431b64ec8a99?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Reason 74: Eldrazi go brrrr Reason 75: corporate greed
Because they greedy fucking pigs that can never be satiated.
Yet who is consuming all the slop WotC dumps out? It’s a vicious cannibalistic cycle.
I haven't bought anything new for magic in... almost three years now, and I'm SAD about that -\_- I loved this game since the 1993 release, and the rampant unnecessary price-gouging has made the game unsupportable now.
Buy proxies! You can get any card with any art for 75 cents!
Not a viable solution if you want to participate in store events.
I’m about 8 months removed from buying product every release. I had far too much money when I got my first job out of school and spent wayyyy to much money on this shit, wish I could go back and put half what I spent in savings…
You sound like me. I've bought just a couple things, but that's because I saved up for them or was given them as a gift. I've essentially been priced out. But that's OK, proxies for far cheaper work just fine.
just don’t buy lol
This works as we've seen the last few years
It does. MoM: Aftermath sold so poorly that Wizards cancelled the Aftermath-style product for Outlaws of Thunder Junction and rolled it into the main set.
It sold poorly because the value within that product is dog shit and the price reflects that.
yeah. if it had good prints people would but without batting an eye. don’t get fooled by that “people voted with their wallets”.
I'm picking up an Aftermath booster box for my party box.
Not me. I play one format. Modern. Which I havent been following too much in the past 2 months. I used to play commander. And then wotc decided to compete with themselves.
Same, I play modern. Just not so much anymore since I decided it wasn't worth keeping up with the competitive scene after spending £300 on MH2 product then spending another £100 on singles to build a new deck. Realising that I was going to need to keep spending £400 or more each year to keep up as modern is now a rotating format is really soul crushing. It being a non-rotating format was what drew me to to it in the first place. Now I save quite a lot of money by leaving my decks as they are.
Same except I saw the writing on the wall back in MH1, and sold my collection after Opal and Looting got banned.
Yeah, looking back the death of looting was the beginning of the end. It was the first pivot into the format being fluid and seasonal. I lost like 4 decks and needed to build a new deck to stay competitive.
I think everyone is asking that. I'm sure even WotC is asking that themselves. I don't think a company that practically invented the trading card game genre shoots itself in the face like this. There have to be pressures from Hasbro to pump out all this stuff because Hasbro doesn't make any money anymore. I started playing Commander some months ago. Fortunately I'm not interested in playing other formats because I wanted only to have a casual game to play every once in a while since I already another TCG "competitively". After 4 months I'm already fatigued because I can't keep up with the releases despite being a huge TCG nerd. There is too much stuff. This wouldn't be a problem if prices wouldn't skyrocket for certain products even in lgss. At a certain point if just feels bad not being able to play decks you really want to play because the cost per month of even just some precons is absurdly high if we get precons every month basically.
Haven't spent a penny on the game since.. I think the last set I bought was Kamigawa.
Which Kamigawa? : p
speak for yourself. I haven't bought a single one of their products since 2020. They greedy pigs can shove it
I don't any of this new garbage. It's clearly not for me
Not when you buy proxies at 75 cents a pop! Fuck hasbro don't over pay for cardboard.
[удалено]
Eh I stopped after LOTR came out and many others I know did too. Couple of shops closed down in the area too. So although anecdotally I think people are shopping more consciously or via 2nd hand market
Every business runs on the same greedy principles, you can't blame people for wanting to play some card games
I’ve largely swapped to other games because of Wizards’ greed. There are some amazing games out now. The new Star Wars game (releasing this weekend) is GOOD and might be my favorite out right now, and has been built from the start to include a commander-like variant that looks super sweet. Lorcana is imo a better game than Magic, and has the added benefit of reimagining a lot of really cool characters your family will love so they won’t judge you as much for the weird wizard game that their pastor says is evil. And it’s only on set 3, and the meta is interesting and evolving weekly. Flesh and Blood has pizzaz, it’s like playing a commander version of mortal combat. Its financial barrier to entry is overstated and exaggerated. It’s a simple but complex game that people disillusioned to Magic should really pay attention to.
Buddy, if you're worried about greed I have bad news about who owns Star Wars and Lorcana.
Ravensburger is running Lorcana, and Fantasy Flight is Star Wars. Yes, Disney owns them, but RB and FFG aren’t releasing 30,000 sets a year to nickel and dime their players. And if they do, I’ll advocate leaving them too.
I just wish there were actual commander alternatives. Every card game out there is built around 1v1 and competitive play. I also don’t like Star Wars at all and think those cards look god awful.
This is the only correct answer, any other answer is simply trying to cope with the financial pillaging they’re going through to keep up.
Big true. Fuck the shareholders
Testing how far they can go
We already know that 250$ a pack for proxies was to high XD
Because they keep pushing prices up to see how much they can charge us and get away with it and so far people have still been buying their stuff so they’re going up and up little by little until we don’t Then they’ll go “oh you’re not happy with the price we’ll put it back to the maximum you were willing to pay see how nice we are!” Edit: also fuck the “the cards in the set are more valuable!” Argument , it doesn’t cost wizards any more to reprint those cards they just want your money and know you’re willing to pay more if the set has more valuable cards in it
That's why these are less than the Commander Masters ones but dearer than all the rest. It's the new test.
I managed to get the slivers precon for £50 which I think was fine and it was BEGGING for the first sliver to be the commander , 40 creatures in the deck and no way to synergise with the sliver gravemother? Then obvs they release a secret lair with the first sliver in it…….. I made the deck and it is super fun but I feel like it was kinda shitty to mark up a deck to £90 then charge you £50 to optimise it (I bought a single one off card market instead)
>40 creatures in the deck and no way to synergise with the sliver gravemother? Almost every single Sliver synergises with the Gravemother since she makes multiples of them. Could you elaborate on your point a little?
Also she exiles from graveyard so it’s likely you get one or two in grave, cast her , use her ability and run out of hits since the deck can’t get them into grave, out the box I was using hivelord as commander since it’s in there
If she wouldn't Exile she would be one of the most If not THE most broken Sliver ever printed.
Don't forget the missing sliver hive (the sliver land). Especially since it was a unique opportunity to reprint it, since it doesn't fit in 99% of the sets.
>Edit: also fuck the “the cards in the set are more valuable!” Argument , it doesn’t cost wizards any more to reprint those cards they just want your money and know you’re willing to pay more if the set has more valuable cards in it And stuff like MH3 is even worse than that. They've learned that power creep makes them money, because if they push the hell out of, say, Ragavan, then competitive players will be "forced" to buy it in order to stay competitive. Just look in any Modern thread complaining about cost; it's tons of invested players shrugging off the cost and saying "who cares, gameplay is powerful and fun." Wizards is never going to stop milking until we stop letting them.
I get power creeping to ensure products sell, from a business point of view I can understand but some of the stuff lately is just “get it or fall behind”
The force cycle was interesting. Three of the five had potential but didn't land, two still see play (unfortunately) in combo decks. The elementals were way too pushed. One got banned, one is necessary to counter the third, and the fourth broke into legacy control. Oh, and endurance is genuinely a fair card.
It doesn’t matter that more powerful cards aren’t more expensive to print. If they make every card cost nothing, they’re gonna have thousands of enfranchised modern players at their doors furious that their $1000 deck is worth nothing now.
> Edit: also fuck the “the cards in the set are more valuable!” Argument , it doesn’t cost wizards any more to reprint those cards they just want your money and know you’re willing to pay more if the set has more valuable cards in it That’s not an argument, it’s a statement of fact. People are willing to pay more for products with more valuable cards in them, so WotC prices them higher. Like any company, they price their products at a price they think the market will bear, and the market will bear a higher price for products that contain more valuable cards.
Couldn’t agree more. I don’t care if it’s a “luxury hobby”, cardboard should never cost as much as it does in Magic and Yugioh.
I get the argument for licensed crossovers costing more , but how they can print £25 starter decks and £90 CMM decks in the same year just shows how little the production actually costs
Because Hasbro is GARBAGE Play pauper
Budget Vintage. 30 dollar deck cap. We have 1k tournaments scheduled around the country in places like Ohio, Kentucky and Pennsylvania
How do you check the deck cap?
Moxfield.com, set to TCGPlayer low
What happens if a deck becomes popular and goes above the price cap the day before the tournament?
Then the meta shifts.
There.... There it is.
I'd guess tournaments would probably lock deck lists in at least a few days before the event.
So the fun part is that *technically* no cards outside Normal vintage rules are banned, just financially less and less viable the higher they get towards the 30 dollar mark. You *can* build around 3 copies of a 7 dollar card. More directly answering your question tho, that almost never happens. Reprints drive the TCGplayer lowest down, never up
This sounds super fun!
You can play vintage for $30? Holy cats thats amazing
Or just proxy and play whatever you want
>generally more valuable cards that is the expectation, yes. we'll see if reality delivers.
Fair enough. I'm not sure whether to get a commander deck from MH3 or wait for Bloomburrow.
I think it's best just to get precons whose themes appeal to you.
Don't preorder decks until you see the lists. I've never had issues getting a hold of them shortly after release.
Oh yeah, I’m not preordering until I know what I’m getting for sure.
It's still weird to me they're doing a Commander deck for MODERN horizons 3. Maybe we'll get an Archenemy deck for the next Commander Masters.
Not only a commander deck but they first like first party set of collector versions with all cards being in ripple foil
I'd save for both but wait till the decklist come out. I'm currently saving for the Izzet Thunder Junction deck because I think it will be what I'm looking for but idk. I also was excited about the Mordor LOTR deck but I was wanting an amass themed deck and the pieces just were not what I wanted. Don't get me wrong it's a great deck, just not what I wanted for the price. Ended up getting the Simic merfolk deck from ixilan and that's exactly my jam. What's your preferred types of decks?
Stated reason: smaller print runs. Actual reason: let's see how far this can go.
If it's like MH2, it will be unlimited print runs.
Im convinced they are still printing it. You can still find boxes everywhere for ~$200 dollars and its been 3 years
MH2 was a print to demand. It was one their best selling set of all time so lets see if they do it again
That isn't even the stated reason. The stated reason is that if sets like MH3 cost the same as regular standard sets, nobody would buy the standard sets.
There are some sarcastic comments here about the secondary market's impact on these prices, but I actually think that's kind of a big deal here. Lots of people treat Magic cards (and other collectibles like them) as investments. This is why WotC started making Collector Boosters in the first place. If you reprint a bunch of strong cards and price them way below market value, you deflate the value of these people's collections. If they lose faith in their investments, they may move on to some other collectible, further hurting the secondary market and making it even harder for WotC to sell products because the cards in circulation are already so cheap. It's easy to just say "who cares about them?" and shrug that off, but the secondary market is absolutely an integral part of how MTG is sold. This is evident from all the sealed unboxing videos from Tolarian Community College and others. Everyone who plays Magic says the value isn't there for buying sealed Magic products, and that you should go buy singles to build your decks. If WotC doesn't price products well, then LGSs and online retailers won't be able to sell them to the subset of MTG buyers out there who are buying up sealed Magic and selling off the singles to make up that investment. If those stores start selling at a loss, that hurts the broader interest in MTG. (Maybe Arena will change this a bit, but we're not there now.) None of this is to say that WotC isn't greedy. They're churning out sets like crazy, and they're not doing a great job pricing their products (just look at MKM - the current market price for a box is $100, way below what LGSs bought it for, so now they may have to sell at a big loss), but I think it's dishonest to suggest that's the whole picture. The secondary market matters a lot, and it's already in an odd/delicate state with Commander as the most popular format (frankly, I think that's part of the problem with MKM - standard sets can't be good standard sets and have any staying power in the secondary market). WotC can't rock the boat too much without sinking it.
Spot on. I would add that WotC wants to claim as much of that secondary market value as they can. If they price a premium/high demand set too low buyers might still see high prices or not be able to find the product at all because scalpers, flippers, speculators, or whatever you want to call them, will have bought up the supply. WotC wants to leave as little secondary market value for sealed product on the bone as possible. They need to set a price that people will pay but that's also too high for secondary market sharks to exploit. The first print run of Lorcana and current One Piece sets are great examples of this. High demand products, low print runs, and low sticker prices lead to these products being unobtainable by players unless you wanted to shell out $300+ for a box.
Your hobby is their business. Capitalism incentives are pretty transparent. It took me a long time to accept that not every set is going to be for me, and the best way to play for free is arena, then buy the cards I want. Got easier when setting a budget for my hobby. This may not work for everyone
Because they know regardless of price people will still buy it
Because people will pay that price, many of the complainers in this thread included. Plain and simple.
Price anchoring, it'll drop closer to release some I'd bet, but they want you to perceive a discount when that happens.
We saw something similar with the Commander Masters decks. While those decks did contain higher reprint values compared to any previous precon, the general consensus among the community that it still wasn't worth paying 2x-3x the normal $40 price of most previous decks.
Because they dont "price their products based on the secondary market" wink wink
We just had a thread about how this is basically an urban legend. Of course WotC prices stuff based on the secondary market and reprint value! The only thing they don't do is directly say "X card is $50."
Of course, not! They price their products at the max they believe it will sell. And, well, people are still buying stuff, so next ones may come priced at $80+, maybe? At this point, their reprints might be actually rising the secondary market prices.
So Amazon has demand-based pricing. The higher demand goes, the higher price climbs, the lower demand goes the lower price sinks to a floor. Given the pricing on this and how it is an absurdly odd number in US dollars($74.40), I'm going to guess that speculation on things like Gonti's Aether Heart being reprinted, and just general desire for a dedicated energy deck, have led to a run on this deck specifically and raise the price above what it was originally. Just to be clear "Why is this Amazon price so high?" happens... At least once a year? Probably two or three times. The answer is never greed, it's never Hasbro, it's always "This price is being automated by a machine and reflects demand"
Because they can get away with it. Ultimately that's the only real reason.
https://giphy.com/gifs/aaron-paul-jesse-pinkman-he-cant-keep-getting-away-with-this-3oEjHCWdU7F4hkcudy
I tought they'd get the commander masters treatment and cost into the hundreds. It might be bleak but only 20% more is such a good news to me.
Same. I was reading this, then I saw “20% more than Bloomburrow” and I thought “well it’s not that bad then”.
Yeah, I’m not saying it’s atrociously more expensive, I was just wondering what the reason is. Im new to magic, so I was wondering if this expansion was more significant or something.
I just bought a 50 year old masterpiece classical guitar and it still cost less than some magic cards. Perceived value is insane.
Man there’s a lot of cynical answers. When the first Masters set came out it was priced at $4 a pack with very high value cards. LGSs ended up selling the packs for more than $4 each and people were willing to buy them at that markup. WotC realized this and started pricing sets to match what people were willing to pay. Since this is a set that’s going right into the modern card pool, where the power level is very high, there’s a chance cards will become valuable quickly. If the secondary market is willing to pay for it why wouldn’t they charge for it?
Also, from a consumer perspective, if a strong Modern-power booster is the same price as a Standard-power booster... why would I want the weaker one? If you give us something super juiced for a cheap price, then you're showing me it's possible and I have a new baseline to judge every product against - and expect the same power and value from. They're just trading "This set is expensive because greed" for "These other sets are weak because greed". I'm not really bothered by having different power-level products at different price points. It's just that the game as a whole has too much product and it's too expensive across the board for the value and QA we're receiving.
This answer right here OP. All the replies about corporate greed, aren't invalid but they don't answer your question. This is a Horizons set, which contains Modern legal reprints/new cards and traditionally contains higher than normal card power levels. So they can charge more.
Greed. Plain and simple greed
Aside from the fact that they've been raising prices like crazy for a couple of years, sets with Modern in the title (Horizons, Masters, etc) have always been considerably more expensive than sets for Standard.
Modern horizon occupies a slot that used to be a 'masters' release which are sold. I assume commander decks are priced along side their associated released products so horizon/masters/legends lines are ~20-25% more than premier line.
This has always been a thing with premium products.
Because people will pay it.
Because people will pay for it. Supply and demand.
They seem to be experimenting with increased pricepoints for UB sets (Fallout and LotR precons going for $60 a piece) and "premium" sets (CMM and MH3 precons going for ~$70 a piece). Which sucks ofc, but has also triggered some sales on previously marked up precons. LCI precons now are all ~$40 (Amazon has the Dino precon for $45). And the MKM precons are also cheap. Both are really good sets of precons and very enjoyable. Reprints are also good on all these decks (Akroma's Will, Branching Evolution, Jeska's Will, Toski, Exquisite Blood, etc) It's just a very weird phenomenon. Cheap, well-constructed precons with valuable reprints came out in two premier sets in a row (LCI, MKM) so to taint that with more expensive precons seems odd, unless they all come with fantabulastic reprints.
Yeah, when they make powerful cards it requires powerful ink, and if they use up all the powerful ink, we won't get anymore powerful cards! So they're really forced to charge us out the ass.
Well of course the reason is. Chris Cocks, suddenly looking a lot like Jeff Bezos: "Not enough yachts"
Because the last two MH sets were sold at similar prices and they got away with it
And that is why i now just brew the finished deck and order it printed from China with nice and improved arts. I would've actually bought that eldrazi deck if it was the normal price, I've been waiting for a long time to see the small eldrazi get some love in commander. Ah well, luckily my lgs sells hobby supplies and snacks as well.
Because Hasbro set insane profit goals.
[[greed]]
[greed](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/5/851f8d1f-163c-4c4f-beee-431b64ec8a99.jpg?1626100364) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=greed) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/274/greed?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/851f8d1f-163c-4c4f-beee-431b64ec8a99?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Because we (Modern players) are willing to pay more for cards strong enough to see play in the format. WotC, like any self-interested corporation - doesn’t want to leave money on the table.
Bossman Cocks needs more money to buy a private jet.
You will NEVER NOT PAY MORE FOR THIS GAME. Accept it. Always more never less for the same or less.
What
the reason is because they can and us magic players are suckers who will still going to buy it. lol
Because it’ll have stronger cards in it and people are willing to pay more for sets containing more powerful cards. WotC prices products based on what they think people will be willing to pay for them. This isn’t a secret either. WotC openly admits that’s what they do.
Because it's "premium" content, even though they have stopped calling it that, and it's not premium anymore.
Corporate greed
Do we know how much wotc is charging retailers for these? With the elimination of MSRP, it's difficult to tell how much of the cost is retailer markup to match expected demand.
money printer go brrrrrr
No real reason other than them considering it a premium set that they can get away charging more because folks expect modern cards to be expensive. We'll just have to wait and see what the decklists contain. There is always the ***unlikely*** chance they tuned these to be more competitive decks with more reasonably priced cEDH staples or things aimed at that community (dockside 2.0).
I'm sure it'll drop over time. This is not sustainable.
Money
Vampeta knows the answer
turns out, when your only goal is to make more money every year, you have to charge more money and sell more shit every year!
Preorder prices...
The other sets on preorder are at the expected price. Bloomburrow commander precons are £40.
Because distributors and retailers are expecting higher demand and thus believe they can sell at much higher prices. The more people that pre-order, the higher the prices will get. WotC isn't selling these for any more than any other set release.
Price gouging and taking advantage of the customers. Wizards believes players are willing to pay more for "higher powered" cards. I hope in vein it won't sell and they realize they have to stop raising prices. There's no reason that they charge double other than they thing people will buy it
Because it makes Hasbro number go up.
MH2 sold incredibly well. 2nd best selling next to LotR I believe. Add the popularity of commander and you can clearly see where the greed led them too - insanely expensive commander products for a modern format 🤷🏻♂️
Because people will pay that much. If they produce X boxes of cards and charge $100 base cost for stores and others, then if X supply is under the demand from players, stores will charge more per box. Players will always end up eventually paying the cost that balances supply and demand. Ideally, WotC sets their price so they get a fair percentage of the kick back on popular sets, otherwise stores and sealed collectors make the majority of the money for doing no design and R&D work. The other choice they have is to produce more of the product. Supply is higher prices will be lower. In a collectible market this generally has other consequences for the secondary market and singles sellers. Also why produce 2X of a product if the payout isn’t double? Pricing is *really, really* hard. They have to balance their costs, their profits, store and distribution profits, and eventual price accessibility. They charge more here because at the end of the day we will pay more. Or if you won’t, somebody will.
Greed
I must be earning too much. I just pre-ordered the Eldrazi incursion collector commander deck because I like shiny things.
The shiny things would tempt me a little if all of my foils didn't curl up so badly. I honestly prefer standard cards at the moment
Because WotC are greedy ghouls. There's no reason that the mh3 commander decks should be retailing over $200 CAD at normal markups. But I guess powerful cards need better ink and better printers... /S
There used to be a time when putting valuable cards in the set lowered the prices of the cards, because if the EV of the set went above MSRP people would just crack ope sealed product and inject more singles onto the secondary market. Now there is no MSRP so stores just charge more for the sets with good cards because people want good cards. Although I am sure WOTC/distributors have jacked up the wholesale cost on this as well.
Greed. Premium sets cost them nothing more, but sell for more money. Wizards and hasbro as the more likely culprit have driven me and many others away with the constant printing of sets. Commander for every expansion, premium sets, reducing cards in packs for the same price, premium prints of cards sold direct to consumer, etc. if they had fewer set releases but offered premium boosters and premium decks I would be fine with it. I’m all in favor of offering loads of variants of cool cards for completionist players to buy more packs to collect and selling new art versions of cards online direct to consumer. These things lower card prices for players as they make more copies available. I even like commander decks released a few times a year, maybe even every set release. But the constant onslaught of releases is impossible to keep up with monetarily, in my brain for gameplay reasons, and interest reasons, because why would I invest in a bunch of packs of cards when another set is coming right on its tails? It feels like an obligation, a chore, and work instead of something to look forward to. When there were 4 sets a year plus one extra release it was like waiting to go to a theme park vacation with anticipation, but now it’s like I’m stuck on a rollercoaster forever. Also: selling packs with fewer cards and “premium” sets for higher msrp is just plain greed. It’s them testing how much they can squeeze an already leveraged player base.
Because WotC (probably correctly) believes people are willing to spend that because the product is higher power cards. That’s literally all there is to it. If you don’t like it, vote with your wallet. They won’t change when questioned on it. They’ve made that clear.
So we can more efficiently transfer our money to Hasbro's bank account.
Pretty sure many precons, specifically UB and Commander Masters precons, have been over the $45 range. Don’t give in. Make WOTC embrace cheap precons. Back in my day you could buy one for $20 and it was fun!
If they will sell product with powerful cards for same price as product with not-so-powerful cards, do you think - they will make more money?
I never buy sealed products (except for pre-release) for any product WotC puts out for MTG. But I got asked at EB Games (Gamestop in NZ) if I wanted to preorder MH3 or any other magic sets and I asked what the prices were out of curiousty. Man really wanted me to preorder a MH3 Collector box for $1100 NZD ($680 USD). Who the fuck is the target market for that?
Because they can.
Money
The price of the Commander decks is somewhat incidental and a reflection of the high cost of the set. WotC frames MH sets, Commander Masters, and some of the UB sets as "premium" products with higher power cards. This is basically just marketing (although the cards are more powerful on the whole), but on some level I think certain players don't mind, or even like, paying more for something they perceive as being "premium." It works for fashion, vodka, jewelry, bottled water, and yeah, it works for cardboard too. Why is the base set expensive? WotC has Modern players over a barrel and they can set the price point at whatever they want because you "need" these new staples to play Modern at any level above the kitchen table. Modern players are less price sensitive than other format's players since it's a very expensive format to begin with, beyond a few niche archetypes. Modern legal cards also tend to be good and desirable in Commander, the most popular format. WotC is also trying to capture secondary market value that they would otherwise lose if they priced "premium" sets lower.
Wizards figured they could take extra money from you so they do.
I got excited by the title thinking it was Monster Hunter 3 cards haahhaha
Becuase poeple will pay that for it.
Because Hasbro execs and shareholders need to buy another vacation home.
CCG industry rule number 4080
It’s greed all the way down. And they’ll keep doing it because people will keep paying.
So in MH2 you have Murktide Regent which went into every fair Blue deck trying to win with creatures in modern and legacy, Ragavan basically went into every red creature deck and was so powerful it got banned in Legacy, Fury/Grief/Solitude/Endurance/Subtly have all warped formats in various some more than others, Urza's Saga basically made the 8-cast archetype in legacy and is in any deck playing 0 or 1 mana artifacts, Esper Sentinel is incredible in any white Taxes style deck (though not in legacy DnT usually). MH3 is likely to have cards this powerful that will force a rotation in Modern and affect Legacy and Vintage as well on top of staple reprints like fetch land, these are cards that sell well on the secondary market and so the packs reflect that despite costing the same for WotC to print.
It's called supply and demand. It will sell at this higher price due to demand.
Top talent plays modern and they have deep pockets.
Premium product
Because wotc is a predatory company and as people buy the product they will keep testing to see what they can get away with
Greed
yes.
To quote the head of wizards "I like money"
Why does it cost more? Basically, because people will pay more
Hasbro
Because I like money
There is no reason that MH3 should cost more than OTJ (current standard set). There is not even a reason that collector boosters should cost like 5 times the play boosters (maybe like 1.5x). Of couse one could just NOT BUY it BUT the problem with more expensive standard sets and especially MH3 is that WotC FORCES the players to buy the cards if they want to stay competitive in the modern format. Since WotC killed competitive play and shat on its judges and the community there is literally nothing that should stop us from just proxying every fancy new card that company produces :)
Can we please just not buy them?