Expansion Creep

Corn_Noodles

TL;DR: It's not only power creep we need to be on the lookout for, it's now expansion creep as well.

In the past, we've had smaller "second sets" that bolster cards from their main set. Battle for Zendikar had Oath of the Gatewatch, Shadows Over Innistrad had Eldritch Moon, Kaladesh had Aether Revolt, and now Amonkhet has Hour of Devastation. Previously, these second sets were smaller, but Hour of Devastation may exceed the size of Amonkhet.

When these second sets are released in MTGPQ, they are added to the pool of cards of the primary set. They are not sold separately, although they have been awarded separately as prizes or rewards. Due to the smaller number of cards in these second sets, their addition didn’t dilute the pool of possible pulls from their main sets too badly. This will change drastically by the addition of Hour of Devastation to Amonkhet.

OGW only added 53 cards to the existing pool of 238 BFZ cards, and EMN added 67 cards to the pool of 190 cards from SOI. But while AER only added 58 to the pool of 184 of KLD, HOU could add as many as 190 to the existing pool of 184 of AKH. While D3 has only officially previewed 156 HOU cards, their image directory has 190 cards (plus 10 new Masterpieces), although those last 44 are subject to change. D3 has always told us these things are subject to change, but the instances changing when it comes to preview cards can be counted on one hand. If things stay as they are, HOU (the second set) could have more cards than AKH (the primary set)!

[VIDEO BREAK]

What does this mean? This means that if you haven’t gotten the cards you wanted from Amonkhet, your chances of getting them after Hour of Devastation releases will be mightily reduced.

Just when I think D3 might have run out of ways to squeeze more money out of the players, they find a better grip and clamp down harder.

I’m not opposed to new cards, in fact, I love new cards. However, I’d like not to be taken advantage of as a player, and in this instance, I feel like I’m being exploited.

With the projected size of HOU, it would be in the player’s best interest to make these packs separate and not part of the overall AKH pool, but when is the last time D3 did something in the player’s best interest?

With AKH, we saw D3 try a new tactic, which was only releasing some of the cards at first, then releasing more into the wild in a second and third wave, while reducing the number of exclusives. I found this interesting, because unless you read the forums, you didn’t know that not all of the non-exclusive cards were being released when the set came out. I assume this resulted in an increase in mana crystal sales when wave 2 and wave 3 hit, because it’s already been confirmed that Hour of Devastation will see a similar release schedule. If you want to minimize your chances for duplicates, make sure you hoard your packs and crystals until after these release waves are finished. I won't be hoarding because I have no self-control and need instant gratification. I am ashamed.

I’m curious if there’s a reason other than money that D3 let Hibernum run wild and convert almost all of the HOU paper cards to digital this time.

Guess that Sandwurm Convergence will always be just out of my reach. Thanks D3!

Some numbers for those that are curious:

(Paper numbers taken from Gatherer [planeswalkers removed from counting] and digital numbers are taken from octal9's excellent website [masterpieces removed from counting])

Origins Paper - 273
Origins Digital - 246
Conversion of Paper to Digital – 90.1%

Battle for Zendikar Paper - 251
Battle for Zendikar Digital - 238
Conversion of Paper to Digital – 94.8%

Oath of the Gatewatch Paper - 181
Oath of the Gatewatch Digital – 53
Conversion of Paper to Digital – 29.3%

Shadows Over Innistrad Paper - 314
Shadows Over Innistrad Digital – 190
Conversion of Paper to Digital – 60.5% 

Eldritch Moon Paper - 221
Eldritch Moon Digital – 67
Conversion of Paper to Digital – 30.3%

Kaladesh Paper - 258
Kaladesh Digital – 184
Conversion of Paper to Digital – 71.3%

Aether Revolt Paper - 190
Aether Revolt Digital – 58
Conversion of Paper to Digital – 30.5% 

Amonkhet Paper - 282
Amonkhet Digital – 184
Conversion of Paper to Digital – 65.2% 

Hour of Devastation Paper - 205
Hour of Devastation Digital  – 190
Conversion of Paper to Digital – 92.7%

Furks

I've been hoarding packs, waiting for the new cards to be added to the pool. 

Corn_Noodles

I guess what I'm really trying to say here is: hurry up with the booster crafting because it's getting even harder to target cards we want!

shteev

I'm not sure this matters at the moment.

If your goal is to win as many games as possible, then you can do that with a handful of cycling cards from either set.

If it's to collect the entire set, then that's practically impossible anyway, with the drop rate of masterpieces being so low.

TBH I can't think of any other goal which isn't completely arbitrary.... if you set yourself a goal to, say, collect all the rares, or to play without cycling, or to play without ever popping blue gems or playing a card whose name starts with a vowel, and you think that this change will make your goal harder for you, well, then, just pick another arbitrary goal which you *can* achieve.

Corn_Noodles

shteev said:

I'm not sure this matters at the moment.

If your goal is to win as many games as possible, then you can do that with a handful of cycling cards from either set.

My goal is to have fun and cycling is not fun. How's that RSI? Is that fun?

shteev

Corn Noodles said:

shteev said:

I'm not sure this matters at the moment.

If your goal is to win as many games as possible, then you can do that with a handful of cycling cards from either set.

My goal is to have fun and cycling is not fun. How's that RSI? Is that fun?

Nuclear Throne is fun. Honestly, you say that like I haven't stopped playing because of it.

How does your 'fun' point relate to your earlier post? Can you not have fun without Sandwurm Convergence?

madwren

Thanks for crunching the numbers. Since there are commons in HOU--which is a first for expansions, right?--I'm hoping this means that they'll make HOU packs completely separate from AMK packs.  However, I'm not quite as upset as you are if they still merge them with AMK.

I always felt that including the Expansion in the Main was a very transparent anti-player gesture, since the Expansion card pool was 1) much smaller and at non-common rarity, and 2) diluted by the fact you'll keep drawing dupes of the Main set rather than obtaining the new cards you desire. They've banked on us spending money to try and get those new cards.

Thus, at least with a larger Expansion set, you're more likely to acquire new cards overall, which seems like a better return on investment.

Yes, it does suck for those of us still chasing some rares/mythics from the Main, I acknowledge that, but to be fair that's always sucked. I'm still amazed I don't have Anguished Unmaking (though at least it's irrelevant now).

Corn_Noodles

With the size of this set, I feel like it was designed with the idea that booster crafting was already finished. Since booster crafting was pushed back, it would be nice if they made HOU it's own set for purchase options until booster crafting is in place.

Corn_Noodles

madwren said:

However, I'm not quite as upset as you are if they still merge them with AMK.

...

I'm still amazed I don't have Anguished Unmaking 

I'm not really upset. I'm a bit tickled that they're found another way to squeeze more money out of me. Also, you're not alone in the lacking AU club.

babar3355

One thing that I have started to wonder is if they will remove KLD from standard now and just run with AER, AKH, and HOU?

Corn_Noodles

AER is the second set to KLD, so I don't think they'd want to break them up. I waiting for the announcement that Planeswalkers will be undergoing Standard restrictions. I can feel it coming, although it could also be gas.

Gunmix25

Is it me or does HoU seem a bit tailored towards making standard builds be more resilient to Legacy decks? 

octal9

That would be brutal. 

And yes the size of this set is insane. Took me longer to do than AKH. 

Slypenslyde

I've been thinking about this a lot, I just started a couple of weeks ago and it was a little frustrating at first. But I have a feeling booster crafting is going to address it, and I look at the game in a way that makes me not expect much out of free boosters. There are other things that make free boosters very frustrating.

I've got a lot of BFZ cards because I played for a week in November, then quit. My best Chandra deck right now features Zada and Rolling Thunder. I have to remove them every time I play an event because that set's not in "standard". More than half the cards I have are not in Standard, so I can't use them. Every set that releases, there's a higher probability I'll get cards that I can't use in events. 

But then I bought a KLD Premium Pack with 300 crystals. I got a guaranteed rare and 25 cards in total. That's 8 days worth of free boosters but, most importantly, it came from a standard-legal set. So I can use all of the cards for the time being. I figure until I have the bulk of them, I'm going to focus on AKH and HOU sets with my future crystals. 

So that's sort of my non-answer to the problem. The basic boosters are free, and I'm sadly used to free things in F2P games being a crapshoot. Maybe one day it'll be a sweet mythic I'm missing, but I have a feeling as time goes on it'll be dupes as far as the eye can see. My only way to combat this right now is to see "progress" as "buying Premium Packs with currency I grind out".

Booster crafting is probably going to address this by helping me convert the dupes into packs that are more likely to contain what I want.

I don't think there's a way to make the daily booster exciting without disrupting the game's "please send us money" needs. 

Theros

Corn Noodles said:

With the size of this set, I feel like it was designed with the idea that booster crafting was already finished. Since booster crafting was pushed back, it would be nice if they made HOU it's own set for purchase options until booster crafting is in place.

Booster crafting was delayed 1 week before going live, which implies the system was already crafed. It does not make sense to postpone it several months from now.

Firinmahlazer

babar3355 said:

One thing that I have started to wonder is if they will remove KLD from standard now and just run with AER, AKH, and HOU?

I pretty sure it's by block not by specific set. So KLD+AER is considered the KLD block. Whatever releases after HOU will push out the entire KLD block and leave us with AKH+HOU, and Origins of course.  At least that's the way I understood it. 

khurram

Earlier expansions like OGW, EMN and AER should have included more cards from paper too and should have had their own separate packs. (Also, remember the 5 card packs with guaranteed rare for EMN and OGW that you could win from events? That was a good idea.)

I am actually glad they are adding more cards and its probably because they are caught up with paper magic and the waiting period between new sets is gonna be much longer. But yes, HOU should have it's own separate packs.