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@maro254 Since you asked for players' opinions in your blog post about Double Masters, here's my perspective, in the following thread: accessible and affordable reprints are the single most important factor in the long-term health of a card game. 1/
Allowing casual players to easily and affordably access all the game pieces they may need to advance to high-level competitive play if they so desire is how you keep that competitive community thriving. 2/
This sort of market fragmentation between haves and have-nots within a game can only harm it long-term, as you discourage the majority of your playerbase from making that advance to the next level, since they won't be able to afford it. 3/
As someone who used to play Yu-Gi-Oh! in addition to Magic, I--despite my personal beef with Konami--greatly respect the approach that game has toward keeping itself accessible: every in-demand card is virtually guaranteed a reprint at a lower rarity after a year or so. 4/
By making it easier for anyone to play at whatever level they desire, regardless of their level of income, Yu-Gi-Oh! fosters a much more welcoming play environment to newcomers. Magic is a wonderful game, but I fear that this push of catering more and more toward the... 5/
...affluent segment of your playerbase at the expense of the rest will end up alienating all *but* that affluent segment, driving people away from the game and bringing fewer people in. 6/
The problem, to clarify, isn't the existence of these sorts of luxury reprints, but rather the fact that luxury reprints are seemingly the only reprints we're getting of late. 7/
A $300 Double Masters box with cool alternate art cards wouldn't be a problem if there was simultaneously, perhaps, a version of the same set priced at the normal level for a booster box, that maybe didn't have those alternate art cards. 8/
That way your affluent players can bling out their decks with these exclusive variations, but more typical versions of the cards themselves remain within reach for everyone else. 9/
Imagine a version of chess where only the richest players get an extra Queen on their board. It would be unthinkable! But that's essentially what Double Masters is doing by locking so many necessary reprints behind an obscene $300 wall. 10/
To sum up, accessibility and affordability are *the* most important factors in the long-term health of a trading card game, as I said at the top of this thread. *This* is why we're upset by Double Masters: it flies directly in the fact of that. 11/end
