Do uncollectible cards make MtGPQ better?

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  • TheDude1
    TheDude1 Posts: 210 Tile Toppler
    edited 27 June 2025, 02:21
    Neutral – They don't really affect my experience.

    @Xibvert said:

    @TheDude1 said:
    There are a handful of cards that are only available for customers that pay for them?

    I disagree with the premise that these cards are available. I haven't seen the PMA lotus bundle sold in years. The PM2 bundle was available for a limited time after the set released. That was almost a year ago and there's been no confirmation of if it will ever be sold again.

    Ok, were available. So they’re a limited run exclusive.

    I really don’t care if they’re never offered again, for pay or in booster packs. I’m not on board with the idea that paid cards absolutely must be added to boosters. It’s great that for the most part they are, but the expectation of all cards being available for free feels like ragebaiting, especially since most of them aren’t even meta-impacting. And if they do come back in the vault for cash, great, but if not, ::shrug::

    As mentioned previously, I’m not a completionist, so with the ease of winning in this game, I generally don’t have a strong reaction to cards being unavailable.

    Analogy: do people get really upset about not getting those pre-order exclusives on console games? Like are there polls and discussions about not getting the limited-edition gun or skin because they didn’t buy from GameStop 3 months ahead?

  • Xibvert
    Xibvert Posts: 198 Tile Toppler
    No – They make the game worse.

    @TheDude1 said:
    I really don’t care if they’re never offered again, for pay or in booster packs.

    That's kind of the point of this discussion. Since you don't care either way the games not being improved for you by having unobtainable cards. Making them collectible in some manner whether it requires money or not wouldn't hurt you at all. I'm with on not really caring which way they do that. I'm okay with having them always be a money only purchase. The popular opinion seems to be that it does bother players that they're making cards unobtainable. There seems to be a very small number of players who thought it makes the game better but none of them said why here. With very little effort of simply scheduling an existing event that has exclusive reward cards or offering a bundle in the shop like once a year they'd make a decent number of people feel the game is better while making very few people think the game was worse.

    Analogy: do people get really upset about not getting those pre-order exclusives on console games? Like are there polls and discussions about not getting the limited-edition gun or skin because they didn’t buy from GameStop 3 months ahead?

    This is off topic but that's not actually an analogy. You asked questions about something else without actually making a comparison between this situation and that situation. An analogy requires you to make the comparison. If you have the answers to those questions and then compare how that situation is is similar to this one then that would be an analogy.

    When Forrest Gump talked about how life is like a box of chocolates because you never know what you're gonna get that was an analogy. If he'd instead asked if life is like a box of chocolates then that would only be a question and not an analogy since no comparison is made.

  • TheDude1
    TheDude1 Posts: 210 Tile Toppler
    edited 28 June 2025, 19:24
    Neutral – They don't really affect my experience.

    That’s all fair. The question was asked how I feel about cards not being made available, and my opinion is that I’m indifferent. I know that isn’t widely shared, and I’m not advocating actively making the game worse. Let’s be clear, we’re talking about maybe a dozen or so cards, none of which (except Coalition Victory?) would even sniff regular play in the competitive meta? I don’t see how this is influential anywhere except for those whose goal is closer to “Gotta-catch-em-all”.

    But as I noted in the other poll, this whole exercise is a weird framing because “the game is worse” isn’t answered just by how players feel about getting/not getting those cards. Not to speak for the ones who said it was positive, but there are multiple possible explanations:

    —having limited-time exclusives incentivizes people to pay for things in the shop instead of waiting for them to be free from packs
    —having exclusive cards are a badge of dedication to show someone has been playing for a long time (for example, the holiday cards)
    —having exclusive cards are a differentiator in actual gameplay (not really true here, but possible)

    All of these could have positive effects for the game even if they’re not the best for all players. To answer whether this is better for the game as a whole, you’d have to view it beyond the lens of a player/card collector.

    As for the analogy, perhaps I could have been more clear. Preorder exclusives are not made available through the course of the game or in follow-up offerings in the game shop. They are the direct equivalent of a card that is available only once in the shop and never seen again. I think it holds in the context of this poll, as both are ways to have items that may or may not be impactful to active gameplay, and are offered on a one-time basis.

  • Xibvert
    Xibvert Posts: 198 Tile Toppler
    No – They make the game worse.

    @TheDude1 said:
    Let’s be clear, we’re talking about maybe a dozen or so cards,

    It's significantly more cards than that. It varies a little depending on what you want to count but here are some numbers.
    Zendikar vs Eldrazi: 30
    Daxos vs Kalemne: 34
    War of the Spark: 5
    Puzzle Masters: 4
    Puzzle Masters 2: 4
    Promotional Set
    (Julie, Slivers, Holiday cards): 18
    Full art cards: 757

    That's the total number of full art cards so that's a little high since they do still try to make some of them available. Not sure if I skipped anything. Aetherdrift also has 4 exclusives but it's only been 3 months since they ran Illusion and Flames so it's possible they might run it again. Presumably they'll stop running it eventually though and that'll be 4 more cards.

    The first three sets on the list are the ones that I find most annoying. The first two because while they are very small sets I don't really like that they're comfortable with pulling whole sets from the game and saying new players can't have them. War of the Sparks is a Ravnica set and they've been making new events where it's a legal set but there's no way to get those 5 old exclusive cards.

  • TheHunter
    TheHunter Posts: 355 Mover and Shaker

    War of the Sparks is a Ravnica set and they've been making new events where it's a legal set but there's no way to get those 5 old exclusive cards.

    I’m intrigued to know what those 5 WAR exclusives are @Xibvert ? I know there’s a 6 mana Fblthp creature but can’t think what the others are.

    I would argue that older Vanguards can be added to your list above. Right now the only Vanguards availble to buy in the shop are Tarkir. Also the huge number of Rare Vanguards offered in the early sets (WAR was first - 20 Rares I think?) makes them near impossible to collect because of the number of gems required even when the Rare duplicate packs are on offer.

  • Xibvert
    Xibvert Posts: 198 Tile Toppler
    No – They make the game worse.

    @TheHunter said:
    I’m intrigued to know what those 5 WAR exclusives are @Xibvert ?

    Stolen Identity
    Precinct Captain
    Seize the Soul
    Cytoplast Root-Kin
    War's Toll

    They even used Stolen Identity in one of the enemy decks in Signatures of the Guildpact. Which is weird. They highlight a card by using it in their new event and if you think it's interesting and you want it then you can't get it.

    Yeah vanguards I wasn't really sure how often they're offering the different sets. The number of sets isn't very large so you'd think that would be more manageable. I can see where it would be a problem though which gets worse over time as we get more sets. Anything not craftable can potentially be a problem because since it relies on them to schedule it to be it in the shop or to run an event where you can get it.

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