There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
I'm assuming that you all know about the reserved list, the list of cards Wizards have said they will not print ever again. This is where this inherent problem with MTG's secondary market all stems from and is, in my opinion, the real issue at play here.
Craig Berry is not the problem, but an evil created by this broken system that has been present ever since the reserved list was introduced. It is only now, after people understand how easy it is, that these issues are coming to the forefront of any current or prospective Eternal player, or MTG Trader. The problem is, with enough capital, you, me, or anyone else could purchase every copy of anything that sees Eternal play and create this scarcity. I liken it to how DeBeers creates artificial supply constraints on diamonds in order to raise prices. This is not something new.
So what do we do? Nothing really - we sit by idly while the big wigs at WOTC debate and figure out how they want to approach these issues. The problem there is that I don't think there is a person working at WOTC who has enough sway, or enough time to propose a revision to the list that has existed for this long. It is not a priority and any person that works at WOTC, no matter what their title, is in part responsible for moving their revenue numbers. At the end of the day any change to this list would not result in an increase in revenue unless this change was announced with a special booster box containing all reserve list cards (trollface).
So we have 2 problems, a systems where buyouts are a financially viable option (with enough capital), and a company that wants to care (hopefully) but does not have the desire or resources to change their reserved list. How do we fix this? Well, I actually think that Wizards have already approached the issue in a really interesting way in Eldritch Moon by printing Harmless Offering. Same text, similar casting cost, as the reserved list card, Donate. And it's being reprinted in a standard set! Sure this really has a very tiny effect on the current meta, it will combo with a few things, but more than anything it is a new take on how Wizards approaches reserved list cards.
It opens the door to printing functional reprints of reserved list cards with slight changes, like title or color. We'll see if this actually happens, as I still believe that most reserved list cards really will adversely affect standard so this is not a real answer, just an interesting take on a systemic issue that gives me hope that someone at WOTC is just as upset with these problems as we all are.
Let me know what you think in the comments below, do you like the precedent set by Wizards with harmless offering? I left out a ton of other viable solutions to the reserved list for brevity's sake. Feel free to bring those up in the discussion below and let's have a conversation :)