| > The fact that a card like Tarmogoyf goes for $200 shows that Modern is far from unpopular. Tarmogoyf is a really poor example. It's popular in every format in existence, including Legacy and even Vintage. Modern is not solely driving its price, likely not even mostly. Any non-rotating format is going to be more expensive than a rotating format. Modern being as "expensive" as it is is a good argument that they should've ditched the Reserved List, not that they ever will at this point. > $20 gets you into Sealed and Draft. $500 gets you the most expensive deck in Constructed. That's a LOT cheaper and you only have to know about a couple hundred cards. With Draft, you have to pay $20 every single time you want to play a game and the cards you come away with may well be worthless. With Standard, you have to pay that $500 every 18 months and those cards tend not to hold value well short term. > They don't make money from those formats. Wizards absolutely makes money from "eternal" formats. Even setting aside the products they print with eternal-only cards - which sell like gangbusters - Wizards makes money from players treating the game as a long term investment. If Standard was the only format, cards would plunge in value once they turned 18 months old. |