Magic: The Gathering’s foray into the world of Final Fantasy has begun. Though the set won’t be fully launching until mid-June, yesterday’s first look gave us plenty to chew on until then. We saw spoilers aplenty, and some spicy alternate-art treatments to boot. It’s safe to say that excitement is now through the roof for this expansion. Lurking in the background, however, are serious concerns about the product pricing for MTG Final Fantasy.
Across social media, players have been taking note of the pre-order prices for the set. While some kind of markup was expected for a popular IP like this, few foresaw the exorbitant rates product is currently going for. Aside from being another step in the normalization of expensive Magic product, the fact that Final Fantasy is a Standard-legal set presents its own set of issues.
The Problem With MTG Final Fantasy Product Pricing
You don’t need to look far to find MTG players complaining about the Final Fantasy product pricing. A r/MagicTCG thread on the subject has amassed over 640 comments since yesterday’s announcement. There’s also plentiful discussion on the topic on Twitter and YouTube. Lots of people are talking about this, in other words.
Based on pre-order prices on Amazon and Best Buy, Final Fantasy represents a big step up in price compared to other recent sets. We saw this on Monday when the Commander precons for the set were revealed to cost $70, or $150 for Collector’s Edition variants. This is pricing in Modern Horizons 3 territory, for a Standard-legal set.
This principle extends to the rest of the product lineup, too. Other than the Starter Decks, which remain reasonable at $20, everything else is much pricier than usual. We’re talking $185 Play Booster boxes and $430 Collector Booster Boxes. Compared to $135 and $270, respectively, for Aetherdrift, the issue is clear to see. Heck even Innistrad Remastered, a recent premium set, was cheaper, with boxes going for $162 and $325.
Naturally, players aren’t too happy about this. PleasantKenobi put it succinctly on Twitter:
“Am I going crazy, or is all of the content around Final Fantasy ignoring the price hike? It’s significant, because they have successfully Modern Horizon style premium-ified Standard of all things.”
PleasantKenobi
PleasantKenobi wasn’t alone in his thoughts. SmilodonnaVT noted that “It’s atrocious honestly.” Pizza-Penguin echoed this, adding “For a Standard set it’s actually insane.” As much as players love the new cards, they really don’t love the new prices.
An Accessibility Issue
You don’t need me to tell you why Magic: The Gathering products getting drastically more expensive is bad news for the average player. Pricey sets mean big premiums on format staples. Just look at The One Ring, Orcish Bowmasters, Ocelot Pride, etc. We’ve come to expect this kind of thing from premium sets. With its high product pricing, however, Final Fantasy brings this problem into MTG Standard.
If a Standard set costs as much as a straight-to-Modern release like Modern Horizons 3, then it stands to reason that the staple cards from such a set will command similar price tags. Perhaps even higher, since Standard typically drives more demand. The upshot of this will be a much higher barrier to entry for players seeking to compete in Standard at the highest level.
The timing on a move like this really couldn’t be worse. Wizards has been pushing Standard a lot recently, and its efforts finally seem to be bearing fruit. The one-two punch of new-player-friendly sets Bloomburrow and Foundations last year succeeded in rekindling interest in the format. This was proven at the Standard Spotlight Series event back in January, which drew over 1400 players.
Making the format much more expensive to play seems like a good way to squander all that goodwill. Throw in the existing issue of many players being uncomfortable with Universes Beyond being part of Standard, to begin with, and there’s potential for a mass exodus out of the format come June. That would be a crying shame, given how long many have waited for Standard to “get good” again. Selling the set for the usual Standard price would’ve reduced that risk a lot, but that isn’t the path Wizards has chosen.
A Worrying Trend
The worst part of all of this? Many of these pre-orders are already sold out. MTG Players are so excited about Final Fantasy that they’ve already cleaned Amazon out, predatory product pricing be damned. It’s impossible to know whether these sales are going to actual players or just scalpers, of course. In this case, the latter seems likely. Those invested in the game’s financial scene have watched what happened with The Lord of the Rings, and they won’t be missing out on a wave like that again.
This, unfortunately, continues a long-running trend we’ve seen in the MTG community. Players get up in arms about decisions like this but then sets like Modern Horizons 3 deliver record sales regardless. Players need new cards to keep up with the game, of course, but that doesn’t account for the huge success of Collector Boosters.
Products selling out at price points like these set a precedent for Wizards, which then raises prices further in the future. Usually, these issues only really affected premium products, and Standard was a safe haven from the problem. Starting with Final Fantasy, that’s no longer the case.
Tying a highly collectible product into the fate of Standard is an incredibly risky move on Wizards’ part. With two more Universes Beyond sets coming later this year, it’s only going to get worse. An increased volume of product is one thing, but if half of that product packs a premium price tag the whole thing just becomes unsustainable.
Hopefully, Wizards has foreseen this problem and has a workaround in mind. It would be unfortunate to see the great gameplay of Magic: The Gathering crumble under its own collectibility for the sake of record profits.