Capenna was a mess despite some cool parts, Khans had fetchlands mostly and Rudy hyped it to hell and back.
Oh, and MSRP is back, look at this shit.
They want $189 a booster box.
I'm happy that Wizards of the Coast is bringing back fullsized Jumpstart for Foundations, but overall I'm more worried about their schedule for product releases both from a consumer and retail perspective. This year they've come out with Ravnica Remastered, Murders at Karlov Manor, Universes Beyond - Fallout, Outlaws of Thunder Junction, Modern Horizons 3, Universes Beyond - Assassin's Creed, Bloomburrow, and Duskmourn.
That's one remaster set, four full sized standard sets, one full sized straight to Modern set, one Universes Beyond small sized set, and one Universes Beyond set of commander decks.
That's an absolutely insane level of product, the LGS in my area still has stock from Outlaws of Thunder Junction and Modern Horizons 3 on their shelves, and mind you those were Summer releases, prime time for hobby and card game sales since the prime demographics are all on break or working less.
Then in November we're getting Foundations? A fifth standard legal, full sized set, that will stay in print until at minimum 2029.
While next year, we're getting another Remaster set, six full sized standard legal sets, half of which are UB, all of which are also getting Commander Decks, then add Foundations on top of it. Even if they half the amount of commander decks per set, that's an insane amount of product Wizards is expecting Retailers to move and for Consumers to keep up with. Wizards may make money no matter what if Retailers keep buying from them, but every box or pack that Consumers don't buy off store shelves is wasted money from a Retailers perspective. This is compounded for Local Gaming Stores who are also going to be buying additional products such as Organized play kits and who also operate on much thinner margins then the big box stores who also carry Magic cards.
The more product Wizards of the Coast is printing and Retailers buy from them, the bigger the margin for loss. Something I also think is more likely with the speed of releases increasing causing Consumer exhaustion combined with the increases in price,, both of which are terrible for a consumer discretionary good like MTG, which is further compounded by increasing costs of living.
Mind you, these sets don't have to sell badly for Retailers to get burned, they just need to all pile up faster than they can leave store shelves, and if Retailers get burned they'll eventually have to stop buying as much product, hurting Wizards bottom line.
TLDR: The sets don't have to sell badly to hurt retailers, they just need to sell not good enough. Which makes Wizards less money in the long run.
