Arena program officially dead

[mintcollector]

To tie in with the already known European Arena program replaced with Gateway:

http://www.magiclibrary.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3635

I have confirmed here in the US that the Arena program is dead as well, to be replaced with Gateway as well. This was confirmed last Friday speaking with the Events Manager at Pastimes, which runs all major events in the midwest.

This leads to a very interesting question. We never saw cards 10 or 11 for Arena 2006. Do they exist and have never been released? Or did WOTC simply terminate Arean mid-year with the Gatway announcment?

I believe the latter is more likey to tie in with the new block starting, but I did want to pose this out there to keep an eye out for any Arean leaks of cards that may have been pre-printed and leaked out.

[Edit] Doing a quick Google search, I ran across this column:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=events/magic/arena

Arena is confirmed as dead. I am curious about the two new kits, as this does not seem to jive with the Gateway program support structure. Could the US have a new program that differs from the Gateway program?

Time will tell.

[dragsamou]

To tie in with the already known European Arena program replaced with Gateway:

http://www.magiclibrary.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3635

I have confirmed here in the US that the Arena program is dead as well, to be replaced with Gateway as well. This was confirmed last Friday speaking with the Events Manager at Pastimes, which runs all major events in the midwest.

This leads to a very interesting question. We never saw cards 10 or 11 for Arena 2006. Do they exist and have never been released? Or did WOTC simply terminate Arean mid-year with the Gatway announcment?

I believe the latter is more likey to tie in with the new block starting, but I did want to pose this out there to keep an eye out for any Arean leaks of cards that may have been pre-printed and leaked out.

[Edit] Doing a quick Google search, I ran across this column:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=events/magic/arena

Arena is confirmed as dead. I am curious about the two new kits, as this does not seem to jive with the Gateway program support structure. Could the US have a new program that differs from the Gateway program?

Time will tell.

Hi Mike.
While,I just bought those Promos in The US ;-)
What do you think will happen to the last 2 Arena Promos missing for this year 10/11 and 11/11?Can it be that Surging Flame 09/11 will be the Last one ?

[Volcanon]

What was the collection numbers for those two Gateway cards?

[mintcollector]

The Gateway cards are listed like this for the collector numbers:

Icatian Javelineers 2 DCI
Fiery Temper 3 DCI
Foil Wood Elves 1 DCI

So there is no tie into Arena dying off. Surging Flame is the last known Arena card. If everyone recalls, Arena cards as of late, feature cards with set mechanics of the new set. There has to be some sort of lead time to create, prnt, and distribute these cards. With Time Spiral so close to the annoucement of Gateway launching, it seems like one could bet that there are no #10 or #11 cards that got made for Arena to coincide with Time Spiral. Although there are possibly a couple cards "finalized" enough early in the set creation process that could have gone to print. I am only about 70% confident that 10 and 11 were never made.

The reason for a nice 30% uncertainty is that the annoucement stated that effectively immediately, Arena is dead. This abrupt change/annoucement may have the 2006 #10 and #11 cards sitting somewhere, or supposedly given a "destroy" order, or other things that I cannot think of currently. Working for a big company myself, I am well aware of he red tape and ever slow moving process where many times the "right hand" does not know what the "left hand" is doing. Hasbro is definitely big enough for a mistake of the cards getting printed and then someone pulling the plug on the program. I can see them sacking the card prints to reveal a new program to better tie in with the main block rotation.

[Ralph Herold]

The two missing cards are just the latest step of a series of inconsistencies. The Arena 2006 cycle started with 8 cards, then was upped to 11 without a reason during Guildpact. 2 cards were given out during Guildpact instead of one only to revert to one card for the Dissension and the Coldsnap season.

Incomplete cycles are famous for Arena. Veterans will remember the broken oversized 5th Edition painland cycle (3 of 5 were printed) and the broken Core Set basic land cycle (2 of 5 were printed). The remaining cards never appeared, so my guess is the last two cards of the 2006 cycle will not appear either.

Oh, and I will never understand why companies destroy their excessive promo items. Since they are already produced, they should at least be put to good use and made public somehow. There is no reason to waste more money for destroying them.

[mintcollector]

Ralph: One word.... control.

That is why companies do what they do. Run their games like puppeteers.

[Rainsford]

mintcollector,

Instinctively I agree with you. But as a game designer I took a step back and came to a different conclusion.

If I created a game which was wildly successful (or even modestly so) I would promote it by giving out promos at conventions and events/tournaments. I would say in my promotional material for those events "And the winner gets..." or "The first 20 to pre-reg get ...".

So I print 3,000 of "Special Item 0004" and begin the promotions. "Special Item 0004" is given out to the first 20 to pre-reg each event for the first half of the year and we retire that program. We had 100 events and we gave out 2,000 of the promos.

After ending the program I would destroy the 1,000 remaing cards... for these reasons:

1. Because I had told the players they could only get them at events they pre-reg early for. If I then give them out all over the place the players might think "why did I even both pre-registering in the first place then." It would certaining have an impact with future promotions.

2. 1,000 cards cost a negligable amount of money. It is worth the small loss in product (the promo cards) to keep my word to the most enthusiastic players I have.

-----------------

Best regards,

Rainsford

[Volcanon]

yeah i dont like how promos have been so devalued.

[dragsamou]

Hi Members.
I really hope that if these 2 Cards were made,they will find a way to sneak into the market ;-)
On another note,are they still Members thinking that the FNM Crystalline Sliver will be ever released Officialy,for me "No Way Jose"...

[Ralph Herold]

Rainsford: I am familiar with this argument, but I disagree. First, when you gave out the first 2000 copies, you never promised that you would never ever give out more. In fact, when the series of events started, it was not even clear how many copies would be given out in the end. Second, by giving out more at a later date, you make all those people happy who failed to get one of the 2000 copies so far. My baseline is that there is no need to protect the greed of those people who were lucky to get something for free. Even if they earned it (for example by winning a tournament), they are privileged enough to have gotten it first and without a financial investment and at a time where its resale value is at the top.

[mintcollector]

Rainsford: That si the problem with text....meaning gets lost. Although the comments I made are true in my opinion, I did not side with those who desire for all cards to be released. I fully agree with your example and how integrity of the company's word superceeds a few cards.

On another example...WOTC has their reprint policy. If they ever crossed that line, the damage that would occur is immeasurable on both the side of the company as well as the game itself from a player, collector, and dealer point of view.

Other companies have done this very thing, and also found other creative ways around this problem. For example....the old Battletech game put out by FASA. The old game was great. Giant mechs battling it out on the battlefield. Those mechs that were big, were slow weapon bearing arsenals often with heat generation problems or ammo limitations. Smaller quicker mechs were fast and quick, but were often light of armament to go up against medium or heavy mechs. Not only did they have many preconstructed mechs, but a great system to allow you to design your own constructs, but those that had the same problems of speed, heat, firepower, etc. Not only that, but there were great storylines behind the game with the major Houses battling each other for control and supremacy. Then you have freelance and smaller factions doing the biddings of those they allied with or those who paid them to mercanary. Then FASA introduces the outer sphere and the outcast Houses that have returned with bigger over powered mechs to crush the inner sphere. This was a turning point for me in the game, because FASA threw a great balanced system out the window as they introduced things to allow out spehrre mech builders to surpase heat problems by using double heat sinks, or new weapons like gauss cannons that did massive damage at longer range with little heat generation and a larger ammo supply. My point is introducing this stuff ruined the game flat out. I know my ramblings do not make sense, but they will shortly.

Out of the ashes of FASA, the son of FASAs founder created WizKids (Jordan Weissman). WizKids first game was Mage Knight created by Kevin Barrett. A new innovative game of collectible miniatures that wre relatively inexpensive and portable. Well WizKids had a hit on with Mage Knight the first couple years. The first GenCon I attended for them, Jordan Weissman gave us Warlords (judges and event coordinators) a speech. He stated that WizKids will never adopt a banning policy and that all figures can be used always. That official statement had rippling effects within the Mage Knight community. Fears of bans alleviated helped fuel the market as older figures often sought after became increasingly valuable.

WizKids did a couple things to get around this. First off the figures became increasingly more powerful and broken, thereby making older figure value plummet as everyone rushed to get the new latest cool figures that could trounce their ancestors. This alone was not enough to bypass the banning policy Jordan stated. They released Mage Knight 2.0. With 2.0, the new figures also were more powered, but moreso created a rift of starting 2.0 only tournaments where basically the banning policy was technically being violated. To top this breach of ethics, WizKids did finally lay down the hammer and lay down a banning policy, blatantly going against the founder's word. My point here is to illustrate what lacks of control over the game can and will do. Jordan did not learn the mistakes his father made in FASA, and the Mage Knight line evenutally died out as a result.

So I fully understand and support a company's desire for control and balance to keep the great gears turning in the game system. A company has their reasons to do what they do to save face and integrity. If Arena was a failing program in their eyes, then someone examined the problem at hand and made a corrective decision called Gateway. The program varies from Arena if you look closely at it. I think Gateway is designed to try and fix some of Arena's shortcommings in hope of revitalizing this facet of organized play. The promos are already better. I also think the program structure itself is improved as well. So both from a player and collector standpoint, the program is basically the phoenix rising out of the ashes of Arena.

So in closing I agree with you Rainsford, and I think my ramblings show my view on this topic.

[Volcanon]

Yugioh screwed this up too, but it was actually the american distributor who were jerks by making the game too expensive. The game also had incredibly bad power creep, where they kept printing stuff that was better than other cards in every way.
Then they printed cards that were $100 promos before, as $0.25 commons. Take that, secondary market.

[mintcollector]

Volcanon: I only had heard bits and pieces about the Pokemon debacle. Game balance is imperative for a game to stay alive. Having ever increasing powered sets is a bad bad thing. Companies need to learn this.

Also screwing over the secondary market is another bad bad thing when you tought yourself with a tagline "Collect'em All". Why collect if they will just ever churn out rep-prints of pricier cards? Stupid move and basically shooting yourself in the proverbial foot.

[Ralph Herold]

I wish to add that I am a strong offender of the Reserved List. I deeply believe it is a burden to the game and should be laid to rest. Numerous cards on the list would have been an ideal candidate for reprint over the years, but WotC holds true to a promise the vast majority of people (at least that is what I think) do not wish to be kept. That said, I believe that the fear of those who wish to protect the Reserved Policy is unfounded. Most cards on the list have a very low market value, and basically nobody would mind to see them reprinted. The broken cards on the list are not reprinted because WotC does not want to reprint them. They are too disruptive for the game. There are enough broken cards not on the list which have never been reprinted to prove this. The expensive cards on the list are not reprinted because, again, WotC does not want to reprint them. The Reserved List would allow to print promo versions of all cards on the list any time, but we have never seen a promotiuonal reprint of a card with a higher value than $ 50 US. The bottom line is that the Reserved List does on the one hand not really protect the cards which should never be reprinted and on the other hand is a hindrance to all those cards whose reprint would not hurt the game or even benefit it. Therefore, it must go.

[mintcollector]

Ralph: I strongly disagree with you on your Reserved/Banned list view. The purpose of this list is designed to preserve game balance. Any game design has Alpha and Beta playtest phases. The playtest phases are designed so that mistakes, overpoweredness, etc can be caught and corrected.

After a set is released, the cards are then made public. It is at that time cards often find ways by the public massses to be abused and create overpowered, hard to beat combos. The Banned and Reserved lists are designed so that WOTC has a "legal" way to maintain the delicate game balance for various formats. If a card was deemed to be problematic to the fabric of public game play, the card has rightfully been put onto this list to make a course correction for the game balance.

Why would a reprint of any sort from these lists be benefical? I'l agree with you on one point that the lists are a burden, but one that is necessary for game balance. No, not necessary, but imperative. So saying this, I'd be interested in hearing your opinions on specific cards on the list and your reasons why they could be reprinted. Even more recent additions like Memory Jar, Tolarian Academy, and yes even Skullclamp were deemed to be problematic. Any card value is subject to supply veruss demand. Cards like Skullclamp are plentiful in number, but are indeed problematic. Then you get to rarer cards like Academy, which do have a higher value. Then you get to even rarer card due to lower printing runs like the Moxen that still have high demand even while the cards are on the Reserved list. So not to tie in value to the sbuject, I would be more interested to hear why you think cards should be reprinted from this list from a simple game balance point of view.

If you do wish to discuss value, then please address this separately as although there is a small bridge between the two, value is not the key factor why a card makes the list or not.