A Modest Proposal

Man oh man, is Masters Edition ever fun! I have played in one release league so far and I hope to play in a few more as budgetary constraints allow. For those of us who weren't around for the beginning (or even middle) of the game's history, it's a blast to get to play with a bunch of new (to us) cards, explore the differences between then and now and basically just explore new formats. It makes me wonder if the business model of MODO couldn't change a bit.

The economics of MODO is driven by the extreme scarcity of Invasion Block cards, just as the real life economies of Vintage and (to a lesser extent) Legacy are driven by a scarcity of ABU¹. Online Extended is dramatically different than real life extended due to the cost of Pernicious Deed, Orim's Chant and others. The reason for this is Wizards has stated they are never rereleasing those sets, no matter what. The only way new cards enter the pool is from the periodic IPA tourneys². Now, some people have invested a lot of money in IPA cards, in the expectation that Wizards will never reprint them. But what if? What if Wizards were to start supporting older formats on MODO?

I am not talking about rereleasing all the cards for unlimited play all the time. Instead, I propose Wizards use a business model more similar to Disney. As anybody with kids can tell you, Disney's back catalog is not all available at any given time. Movies like Bambi, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid and so forth are brought out in a new edition every 5-10 years. Disney "restores" them and adds a few documentaries or other things your kids will never watch and then launches it out into the world for a limited time (six months or so). This has a couple of effects. One is that the resale value of Disney movies is far, far higher than your average movie on DVD. The limited release schedule also increases anticipation as people are aware of a new release of Aladdin or whatever nine months before it comes out, even though the product is already known!

You can easily imagine Wizards saying that a given block (Invasion through current, nothing they'd have to program) would be available for 3 or 4 months. Then it would not be available again for however long it takes the wheel to spin. I don't think they should run release events or anything as the MODO calendar is already pretty cluttered as it is, not to mention the fact that releases bring down the server on a regular basis. Instead, just start up draft queues and leagues, and maybe a few 2X Block Constructed PEs. Wouldn't that be awesome? I, for one, would absolutely love to experience the 5 color mishmash that was IPA draft. Or the signalling free environment that was Mirrodin.

Thinking about it, a 4 month rotation makes the most sense. 3 blocks a year. They can up the rate once more blocks are online. As an example

March-June 2008- IPA goes on sale.
July-October 2008-Odyssey
November 2008-February 2009-Onslaught
March-June 2009-Mirrodin
July-October 2009-Kamigawa
November 2009-February 2010-Ravnica
March-June 2010-IPA (or MED, maybe?)

I think you'd want to have a rule where the block doesn't go into this rotation until it has been out of standard for 2 years. That's why I don't have TSP in there until next time.

I don't put this proposal forward as a way to fix the economics of Extended. Invasion Block prices won't matter after the 2008 rotation anyway. Instead, I put it forward as a fan of the game, as a way for people to play more formats and more cards, and for Wizards to make ever more obscene amounts of money. After all, if they do, don't we get to keep getting our fix of cardboard crack? Yes, we do.


¹Imagine if FoW had been ABU and then never reprinted. Those playsets would be a lot worse than $100.
²And given what a cock-up the last one was, it's unlikely we'll see too much more of that until V3 a/k/a 2009.