
The Curse of the Black Lotus (2015) - danso
https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=392381112
======
partomniscient
The game still has this balance/inflation problem though, which strangely
makes the previously huge unbalanced nature of some of the early cards less
powerful.

Over time, the amount of utility for mana cost with the current sets has
increased, which means the overpowered cards of the past are 'relatively' less
powerful. On the flip side it renders a ridiculous amount of cardboard never-
competitive playable again. 2/2 Grizzly Bears with no abilities for G(1)?

First turn Savannah Lions used to be huge.

For my starting era (late Revised / late Dark) first turn Kird Ape was about
the best you could do with the R/G dual-tap land, or maybe something involving
Sol Ring.

~~~
CocaKoala
On the other hand, I just came back to Magic after ~15 years out, and some
basic utility has gotten more expensive. R used to get you 3 damage back in
the day (Lighting Bolt), now it gets you two (Shock); you've gotta go up to 1R
if you want the three damage. Counterspell was UU, but now the generic counter
is 1UU, Cancel. You can sometimes get rides on top of that, like Sinister
Sabotage is 1UU and gets you surveil 1 on top of the counter, but you're not
going to get a straight up unconditional counter for two blue like you used
to.

Looking through the one-drops in Standard right now, I don't see any vanilla
2/2; which one are you thinking of?

~~~
thom
You missed Delver of Secrets and Wild Nacatl while you were away. Death's
Shadow is only very loosely a 1-drop creature, being more of a combo card, but
perhaps still counts. In Standard right now the level is still above Savannah
Lions.

Creatures were deliberately pushed to make them more central to competitive
play, which is why you got absurd stuff like the Titans in M11. At the same
time, Wizards never want a return to the degeneracy of Urza block and so
spells are less powerful. They still mess up regularly (Splinter Twin/Deceiver
Exarch was an oversight giving a reliably turn 4 combo kill, for example), but
it's true that some stuff will probably never reach that peak power level
again outside of combat.

~~~
CocaKoala
Delver of Secrets is a 1/1 that can transform during your upkeep, so it might
turn into a 3/2 on your second turn, but it's definitely still conditional and
not guaranteed. Wild Nacatl is a 1/1 for G that gets +1/+1 for having a
Mountain or a Plains, so again, you're not getting a vanilla 2/2 on turn 1 for
it.

Also neither of those are in standard right now.

------
ohithereyou
The problem of rising card prices in Magic: The Gathering, especially for
cards on the reserve list[1] has lead to increasingly good reproductions of
these cards[2]. Some are so good that, in protective sleeves that are commonly
used, you wouldn't notice from across the table, and in some cases, you
wouldn't notice without a light test or jeweler's loupe.

So the solution to WoTC refusing to reprint these cards is for people to do it
for them.

[1]
[https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Reserved_List](https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Reserved_List),
despite the fact that WoTC claims they don't consider the secondary market

[2] Calling them reproductions is being charitable. At best, they're
replacements when people use them in decks and are honest about them, and at
worst, they're counterfeit when people try to pass them off to others as
legitimate for a profit.

~~~
the_af
As the quality of counterfeits improves, I wonder: would you care if your
opponent openly used counterfeits? Is the most important part of your
enjoyment of M:tG that you and your opponent actually bought or chanced upon
the real cards, or is your enjoyment primarily about the gameplay and deck
building? If the latter, I wouldn't care where and how my opponents got their
cards, as long as they looked good enough and weren't distractingly badly
printed.

I understand WoTC going after counterfeits, because it's their business. But
players? Who cares how much money your opponent actually spent, as long as
you're both enjoying the game? This is WoTC's problem, but it shouldn't be the
players'.

~~~
azhenley
As a player I would care because now I'm at a disadvantage unless I also give
in and use counterfeit cards. At that point there is no point in any buying
any real cards!

~~~
the_af
But you're always at a disadvantage against someone with a lot of money to
spend on genuine cards.

Allowing anyone to use counterfeits tends to level the playing field: just
print the cards you want yourself (or buy them cheap, hopefully not at the
same price as the real deal!). This also means M:tG turns into something more
about skill ("I know how to build an effective deck and play well with it")
than about money. I know which game I'd want to play ;)

~~~
AmericanChopper
You’ll always be at a disadvantage if you’re trying to play competitive
constructed without a budget. But that’s not what most MTG gameplay is. I
agree constructed staples are priced too highly, but most gameplay is friendly
matches, and drafting, where the game tends to be more about fun than either
skill or money. You’re also forgetting one element of skill that isn’t always
restricted by money, brewing. A budget swans deck has won a tournament.

------
mcphage
I played for a few years back in the mid 90s... I really didn’t expect it to
last nearly as long as it had. That WotC has kept the game fresh and popular
for long is a serious achievement on their part.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> The rare dragons and creatures and even rare flowers started to go for more
and more money.

It's always strange hearing people who are not into Magic, describing Magic.
"Flowers" here refers to Black Lotus- whose defining feature is that it's an
artfiact. But, I guess, it's also a flower. So dragons and creatures and "even
rare flowers".

~~~
danso
It’s a story for a general audience (i.e. NPR), for which using the game’s
terminology of “artifact” is not helpful. In any case, it can still be both a
flower and be in the artifact category.

~~~
kbenson
That's true, but it hides the reasoning because it implies a larger influence
of a specific attribute than it really has. It's sort of like a story about
baseball cards noting that uniforms with a lot of red do well. It's more
likely to do with some popular teams or players that happen to be that color.

It's one of those things that while technically true, the dumbed down
explanation leaves people with incorrect assumptions about fundamental aspects
of the story.

~~~
danso
The story isn’t about the rules of the game. It is about a card that has a
literal name and illustration of a flower. That it is what the game terms an
“artifact” is not a fundamental aspect of the story, which does not purport to
be a “how to play MTG” type story. The audience, who is interested in the
economical angle, does not become smarter or better served by hearing
unnecessary details.

~~~
kbenson
I would say the story is less about a specific card, which is only used as a
focusing example, and about the managed economy of MTG cards in general.

It's not that they need to explain the rules of the game, it's that they are
imparting some of the value on the basis of rarity, and some on the basis of
it being a flower or dragon, when in reality it's a function of rarity and
utility in the game. They do touch on this in the article, as they note the
power of some of these rare cards (equating it to buying extra aces in poker),
so it's not that they haven't explained it, it's that they chose poor wording
in that specific sentence which could cause confusion or misunderstanding.

It's only worth mentioning because the story went to lengths to explain the
reason how the market functions as it does for these cards, and then throws in
extra attributes into a sentence either as a mistake or because they wanted to
use words such as "flowers" and "dragons" to impart something to the reader
(familiarity? Oddness of those in a game? I dunno).

It's unfortunately one of the few problems Planet Money suffers from that has
persisted over the years. They'll do a great job of explaining some topic, and
in their wrap-up they dumb it down a tad too much or choose form over function
in their prose and actually hurt some of the understanding they've built over
the last 15-30 minutes by introducing new ambiguity.

~~~
danso
The rarity and economic value of the Black Lotus card has nothing to do with
it being of the "artifact"-type category. And imparting the detail that this
most valuable card is a flower is of value to the non-MTG-playing audience.
Because it imparts an unexpected quirky detail to the layperson audience -- in
a game about dueling wizards and summoned monsters, the card that excites
players (and their wallets) the most is a card that depicts a flower. Hence,
the use of the word "even" \-- e.g. "even rare flowers" \-- to denote what the
authors think is an interesting quirk about MTG/WoTC's lore/eco system. There
is no claim that "flower" is an actual category in the game, or details about
how certain spell cards are sometimes limited to affecting a certain category.
Such a simplification/summarization is only "dumbing down" if the story
purported to be a helpful guide on how to play MTG.

~~~
kbenson
I think I'm somewhat in the wrong here, as while I think my general point has
merit, I don't this it does in this case on this story. I made the mistake of
going partially from memory on this story, since this is at least my fourth
time encountering is (twice in audio form, once on a prior submission here I
believe). Upon reviewing it closer, they do revisit the visual note later
while noting the reason the card is useful is because it allows for easily
beating an opponent, clearly correcting any misinterpretation that might have
been earlier introduced.

So... sorry for wasting both our time. :/

------
praptak
I looked into MtG and found the pay-to-win aspect unappealing. I don't mind
paying for a game but paying to increase chances of winning is a deal breaker.
Is there a fixed budget option to get into MtG?

~~~
cproctor
The fun of the game is that it's played at two levels--tactics during gameplay
and strategy as you tune your deck. To get this effect without pay-to-play,
you can get some friends together, deal twenty cards to each player, and then
take turns drafting more cards from a shared pool of a few hundred. Everyone
gets to build their deck from their pile of cards. After each round, everyone
can update their deck and the loser gets to draft some more cards from the
shared pool.

~~~
praptak
Thanks. This looks like an excellent protocol to get an enjoyable game between
people whose bought decks vary in strength.

~~~
Pinckney
This is called Cube, by the way. There are a ton of resources out there for
building a good cube.

------
yawaworhtttt
Most of the decisions regarding reprints and the reserved list are influenced
by a small clique of card hoarders, collectors and other stakeholders in bed
with WotC execs and resellers, and they are known to whine a lot whenever a
reprint takes place. Like, _a lot_. For instance, Fork is on the reserved
list, but Reverberate was printed (although it does not exactly do the same
thing, it is almost identical to Fork in practice, thereby not breaching the
reserved list promise), and there was a huge outcry among these people. This
is despite the fact that both cards see zero play in competitive formats. They
just feel entitled to treat cards as stock options because of a non legally
binding promise made by WotC in 1995, and because of them the older formats
are simply dying out due to lack of new players. I have zero empathy for the
hoarders.

All people I know who play MtG have an extensive collection of old cards worth
tens of thousands of dollars. All of them wish the reserve list gone and the
cards reprinted to hell. They care more about being able to actually play the
game with human opponents who can afford it rather than masturbating over a
triple sleeved A+ graded beta Lotus. Hell, even big card stores such as
StarCityGames or ChannelFireball want it gone too, because holding such
fragile assets worth that much ($300+ pieces of cardboard) is a liability that
sees limited transfers.

------
stallmanifold
I played Magic for about 12 years (1994 - 2006), and played competitively for
a good chunk of that time. I am absolutely mind-blown at how expensive the old
stuff has become. I remember when moxes were $100 cards and dual lands were $5
cards, compared to now. I played a lot of vintage back then, and while it was
an expensive hobby, it was still possible to afford it with some diligence and
effort. The best part about magic was that it simultaneously doubled as both a
collector's hobby and a competitive outlet for me. The collecting aspect of it
is too expensive now (for my particular tastes), but I do miss having a
competitive gaming outlet. 5 color control ('The Deck') is still my favorite
deck in the history of the game, even though it stopped being competitive in
vintage around 2003. And to make things more fun my favorite variant of it is
still Brian Weissman's creatureless Jester's Cap build where you pick your
opponent's deck clean with Jester's cap and disruption and then either deck
them with Stroke of Genius, or burn them out with Kaervek's Torch to finish.

------
haste410
Amazing that while I haven't played Magic in years I immediately recognized
the Pro Tour clip they played a snippet of.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t0pzLnSWw0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t0pzLnSWw0)

------
yosefzeev
I suppose it is easy to say that the objective of the card game wasn't money,
but yet there's that 25,000 black lotus despite all the attempts to make it
otherwise...

------
jsnell
Earlier discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9192628](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9192628)

------
Pulcinella
See also this video:

[https://youtu.be/AAvLC3fz068](https://youtu.be/AAvLC3fz068)

------
robertAngst
Something I dont understand-

Play a 2$ steam game or spend dozens of dollars on card games.

Anyone care to explain?

~~~
c22
Why spend money on games at all? You can dig a hole in the dirt with a pointy
stick.

~~~
laurentl
I’ve got a rare, first edition Pointy Stick in mint condition that I’m willing
to sell at a very reasonable price ;)

~~~
Pulcinella
We’ve banned the Power 6 in my group. They are just too good, especially
Pulley and Inclined Plane.

~~~
laurentl
I’m partial to the Fulcrum + Lever combo. Played well, it’s powerful enough to
move the world.

Tangentially related anecdote on the Power 9: a play tester claimed he had a
card so powerful, he could win all his games with it. It was the Time Twister,
which initially stated that “opponent loses next turn” (it meant, of course,
that the other player had to _skip_ the next turn).

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Nine](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Nine)

