Marketing of Magic: Timeshift 2.0
By now most Magic players have heard about the “Priceless Treasures” in the Zendikar boosters – not some advertising gimmick of a few artifacts but legitimate cards worth up to several hundred a piece. The set has officially been out for less then four days and it’s already sold out at the distributor level. But instead of looking at this as a rabid fanboy, it’s time to view this in the eyes of a marketer and why this works so well.
Hilariously bad. Still.
Time Spiral and Time Shifting
Time Spiral was a lot of things to Magic – a hodgepodge of keywords, cards oozing with flavor, a return to Dominaria and Wizards first attempt at toying with a new rarity: purple for time shifted cards. This mess of cards was exactly what a veteran player was looking for and it worked: it got me back into the game. But back in 2007’s State of Design, Mark Rosewater said that while nostalgia is potent, it’s not universal. As a whole, the Time Spiral block is my favorite block besides Invasion. But the real take away is the introduction of Time Shifted cards – old reprints with a new symbol ranging from exceptionally good to hilariously bad (Foil Squire is still a personal favorite). But clearly Wizards learned something – players want more access to old cards.
People still want these.
Land, Land and More Land
With Zendikar being labeled as the “Land Matters” set, it’s interesting to note how they’ve gone about this. First, are the awesome full-art basic lands. The Unhinged and Unglued lands have always been popular and they’re only available in two ways: booster packs and fat packs. The biggest problem here seems to be the removal of the Tournament pack – 75 cards for the price of three boosters that includes 30 lands. Without the tournament pack, I don’t see how new players will amass the needed land – unless they buy a lot of lands or buy the fat pack. Even with that though, Wizards of the Coast seems to be moving towards a boosters only attitude. Without the means to get lands, new players may be faced with a land shortage.
Have you ever realized how big that fruit must be?
Spike Retailers
Many players buy booster boxes online when the new set comes out and traditionally a booster box of 36 packs goes for $80-$90 but Zendikar’s price jumped overnight to $115-$135 for the box. While this doesn’t do anything for Wizards in terms of profit, it almost guarantees the necessity of a reprint. If retailers know they can get 50% more per box, they’re going to do that.
Priceless Treasures
The inclusion of super rare cards in packs of Zendikar may be one of the smartest moves possible for WotC and big retailers of cards. Wizards went out and bought huge amounts of rarely sold singles – cards that literally just take up space. Sure, they’re worth a ton but are very rarely sold. Very few people are going to pay several hundred (or even thousand) for a Black Lotus but Wizards clearly used their power as both the supplier and the buyer to get some hefty discounts. Why go through the hassle?
Truly mythic.
Two major reasons. First, it gets the cards back in the hands of players. Any player who opens an out of print card will probably stay with the game a while and that player will being playing in formats that allow them to use their cards. A single Mox Sapphire may be all it takes to get that player to jump into limited, helping out the secondary market dealers big time. For Wizards though, the goal is simple: get people talking about the set. Sure, Lotus Cobra is exciting but that’s nothing when you hear about a player opening up a signed Unlimited Dual Land. This buzz has done one thing: increased sales. The chance of opening one of these cards in a booster is an experience few have ever had. I usually only buy a box of each expansion but this time, I bought three. Why? For the chance to open something truly mythic.
