NFTs, Hedge Funds And Shareholders | Money And Magic: The Gathering | Dies To Removal 41 

Did you miss out previous episode about how Universes Beyond Will Continue Until Morale Improves? Check it out here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9G0CubPcseU.html

Vince's accent work is a force to be reckoned with.

Prof: "I don't think capitalism is bad" Spice8Rack on the other side of the ocean: "oh no, my spicy senses are tingling"

“we’re not making a capitalism is bad episode” Well obviously, because spice8rack isn’t there.

Well, Prof predicted the content of the Arena economy stream perfectly. Not that it was much a surprise though!

It's funny, I can't really find a channel of this quality in other hobbies. One that consistently offers multifaceted analyses while properly discerning between fact and opinion; objective and subjective. I really hope MTG gets their shit together because currently, they do not deserve this guy.

Prof: “capitalism isn’t bad” Me: *breathes heavily in Spice 8 Rack*

Not going to lie, was sort of hoping Vince would do a full scar-face line of "not a drug" Halo powder before gunning down the other people at the table with some combo...

To answer Prof's last question, I think unquestionable to continue to push towards Alchemy. Vince is right, the most recent set championship was Historic and Alchemy specifically. And it was recently pointed out to me that the latest update to the intro decks you get for free as part of the "New Player Experience" include Alchemy cards. So the decks you get when you start the game as a new player aren't even Standard legal. They're clearly trying to funnel people into Alchemy to save face.

An episode with Professor Spice8rack would be amazing. The Arena stream has solidified my decision to avoid it entirely. I know it was more the community hyping up the stream than wizards was, but it definitely feels like it made things worse and killed a lot of people's trust. With walking dead I wish they'd finally tell us when the mtg versions are coming since they finally confirmed they will actually do them. So many problems with that lair, and coming just months after they acknowledged the buy a box problem and swapping those back to alt art.

These skits are amazing I love you guys so much

Corporations' fascination with the concept of infinite growth is infuriating.

This intro skit, more than makes up for last episode's lack of one. 🥰👏👏👏🥰

Brian was correct to be skeptical of hedge fund execs. Sounds like they are looking to engineer their next GameStop moment.

Okay but let's get Vince to Chicago 🤣

Great discussion. The intro was hilarious, Prof's timing is spot on. I can't get enough - keep it up! Please bring back Murray!

I'm waiting for 5 years from now when Prof's skits are so elaborate they will be feature films.

most of those business decisions arent even good for their business. WotC seems to constantly burn their long term credibility for short term gain (especially with regards to MTGA).

Really happy for Brian's kickstarter being such a huge success!

The crucial (but unstated) element of this is that they can only sell stuff people are buying. I stopped playing Arena when Alchemy came out. If that's their direction it's not worth my money (or time). And I haven't bought any Secret Lairs. But if I'm outvoted by people who want to pay it, then so be it. They're welcome to sell to people who want it. And apparently lots of them exist.

"You don't have a daughter" he said. Well, I proved him wrong.

the real thing they could do to make magic better is focus on longterm growth vs. sudden growth 5, 10 yr goals. reinvesting in the firm and game.

The "If Orson Wells came back as a starcraft player" line killed me.

Historically, Vinnie Gibrone is nothing more than a glorified crew

“Well if orson wells got reincarnated as a StarCraft player” god that’s a niche joke but I loved it so much my bang shot out my nose lol

The discussion was awesome as usual, but that opening skit was pure gold🤣

I come for the " you have a RU-vid channel" meme and stay for the stellar content! Keep up the good work prof!

I appreciate your integrity and consistency in your coverage of this side of Magic/Wizards. Also shout-out to Dan Olson!

Professor! You (and most of the people who will see this) are not a capitalist and that is a high compliment! You deal in commodities (in a general sense), not capital. You exchange Commodities for Money which you use to buy Commodities (C -> M -> C), while a capitalist exchanges Money for Commodities for more Money (M -> C -> M++)

as a super casual magic player last played in 2006, then 2012, the secret lair sets have actually got me back into magic. I love different worlds colliding and artwork of the latest set Neon Kamigawa is amazing.

QUESTION: does Vince fly back and forth to USA and UK a lot. Or does he crash with Brian for weeks at time or something?

I loved the Vinny Jabroni bit, tbh, I want to play a Commander game with Vince doing the voice/character the whole time.

Alchemy is a scam for forcing players to use wildcards. Arena is now a pure drafting environment.

I agree with Vince that capitalism at its core is about unlimited growth which is ultimately destructive

I always think I need those chairs after seeing how comfortable you always seem to be in them.

Maybe Wizards should take a page from Riot and how they’ve expanded their universe through multimedia… I know if there was a series of hour long plus animated films of choice magic history, I’d watch it. It’d help give life to characters who don’t have their own cards or places never seen before…

"You guys get paid?" Awesome job with this one, guys.

Amazing discussion, as always! Love the series. Suggestion: a deep-dive, long-view browse of that beautiful bookshelf, item by item and the story behind it. 😊

Vehicles are pretty good since creature board wipes don't affect them unless its at instant speed. Also lovely skit.

Asmodee buying WotC would be the worst thing that could happen. It would not remotely be good.

Really like the editing in this one. Give my praise to the editor 🥰

Nooooo! Why is the episode over? GIVE ME MOAR!!!! But for real, I love Dies to Removal. I wish this was a daily talk show.

Very insightful discussion and one we definitely need more. There are many ways to generate profit and build/further the IP of the game we all love so much. Some of these options may not be as easy as printing singles but they could do the IP a lot more good and bring in a new generation of players (e.g. creating high quality MTG-related multimedia content which old and new fans can enjoy).

Stay tuned for the next economics discussion, featuring special guests Rudy and Spice8Rack

Last time I tried getting into Arena it was mindless grinding with crappy standard decks to get daily gold to do drafts. After the entire season I had enough wildcards for half of a decent standard deck.

Right there with you prof. BEEEEEEEEEEP

The editing in this video is still masterclass two years later.

man, when are we getting the Spice8Rack x PleasantKenobi x TCC in person episode??? Go to the UK, Prof, make it happen!! (please lol) also, the cut on Vince's laugh on the last frame was TOO good lmao

I appreciate you two bringing up the conversation with Kibler. I had only seen info about it in passing on Twitter and was interested to see what came of it. To hear your side of it is refreshing.

an episode with spice8rack has to have super bowl levels of production considering how extra both are. edit: the only way spinning off wotc would be good for magic is that it went private later. that way you're not legally required to purely bring profits to shareholders.

To add to one point Vince was making here, you can't reach a stable point because of the competition too. Corporations are constantly in a state of grow or die. Corporations that try to just even out almost always end up getting priced out of the market by some competitor that is growing itself recklessly. It's a system of selection that favors unsustainable, exponential growth.

Those final seconds. No words, just slowly getiing your arms down and staring at the void. Perfection.

The phrase you're searching for Vince is "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism"

I am a magic the gathering boomer and I actually LOVE alchemy. It's a very simple premise that includes online cards that work in such a way that they only make sense online as well. That is literally what alchemy is, simple and fun! I love conjuring cards into my hand or seeking random cards from my deck, things like that which again are not possible in the physical format.

"You have a RU-vid channel?!?" Is the best returning bit and I live for it

It's so cool seeing Dan Olson's video get so much attention, thanks for helping spread it

00:56 This joke just got ten times better

Thanks

I was really hoping for a spice8rack seizing the means of goblin production comment.

Great video! My only complaint is that yes, capitlism really is bad.

respectfully - The point of NFTs isn't to change gameplay at all; point is that the 'cards' you buy exist separately to a centralised platform meaning they can be utilised in contexts outside of arena too. When they stop supporting arena, you don't lose all your cards; likewise anyone can develop decentralised platforms to utilise them too - game variations, sites to play on and even just being able to display cards in your own digital wallet outside of the game.

I love this game an would also like to give the power back to wizards ❤️

Your intro was so good it should be a recurring series. I actually forgot it was just an intro

he should pay the 1 if he knows whats good for him

Vince's Italian-American by way of Marlon Brando with an English accent is really confusing to the ear.

Nice Dan Olsen folding ideas plug, but I've seen it already a few times. He's a great creator who gets into some serious deep dives.

The Professor: "If they're watching this: Please don't sue me; Don't ever call me again." I busted out laughing at that.

They made the Universes Beyond available so people are more incentivized to get set boosters. Don’t forget they raised prices with Kamigawa, so they can now “justify the increase” partially at least

I only just now realized that the 'broken record' bit in the intro music is poking fun at the name of the podcast, since "dies to removal" is like the skip of a broken record to anyone evaluating new cards for any amount of time.

As to NFTs - the problem with them is that somebody decided to make them be collectible pictures, instead of using them to represent ownership of functional items in a digital economy, so now they have a bad reputation. MODOs are basically NFTs, but not on a block chain - or rather, MTGO could make NFTs to represent the MODOs and use a blockchain ledger for trades and to record games. They trade the trust of a corporation (i.e. WotC) for the trust of a blockchain ledger in verifying ownership of a digital object. The current implementation of NFTs, compared to what the technology could be used to do, is like vending machine collectable cards as compared to Magic cards. There's no intrinsic value, because there's no ecosystem in which they have a proper function - they're just stickers at this point. Edit: 47:33 is the real point for why NFTs aren't a good fit for Magic - the scale is off (as in, you'd need too many resources overall), and the fundamental problems with MTGO don't stem from a mistrust of WotC anyway. If they haven't had their system hacked to shuffle around MODOs yet, they probably aren't much of a target, and that security is the only real reason you'd want a blockchain ledger to secure your ownership rights. The weak point in the security chain is the individual account anyway, as opposed to the servers, so having such a ledger wouldn't actually keep YOU any safer, though it would make it easier to track down mule accounts and ban them.

- People buy Coldplay, that doesn't mean they're good. - I don't know who that is. Bless you prof

Thanks for standing up

Prof, love what you do. Keep up the good work!

Fun fact related to the company's pursuit of profit: As recently as the 2000s, Hasbro employed the labor of slaves incarcerated by the Catholic Church at their "industrial schools" in Ireland.

THE EDITOR A++++ 😂😂😂

never noticed the D&D books until now. nice!

I notice that the Prof placed his copy of Disney's Villainous board game next to his MtG stuff. Is he trying to show a connection between the two? I wonder.

damm nice sketch and quality ! sharper then other 4k video

I've been waiting patiently for the next episode of Dies to Removal and it did not disappoint! Thanks Prof and Vince! Regarding this hedge fund play to spin off WOTC: this is really about value stock vs growth stock. Currently, Hasbro is regarded as more of a value stock. They take their profits and reinvest a portion back into the business but distribute a substantial chunk to shareholders as dividends. A growth stock, on the other hand, reinvests most profits back into the business to try to grow as quickly as possible rather than pay dividends to shareholders. This hedge fund believes that WOTC has a lot of untapped growth potential and that it is being hindered because Hasbro is more focused on paying dividends than trying to grow quickly. So their proposition is that WOTC should be spun off from Hasbro so that Hasbro could focus on dividends and an independent WOTC could focus on growth. What I find interesting about them trying to court player support is that generally it seems like the community has been hostile toward recent WOTC efforts to grow and expand the player base. I keep hearing spokespeople with WOTC saying things like, "well maybe this product isn't for you." If Twitter and Reddit are at all representative of the playerbase, enfranchised players despise hearing this. And yet, WOTC can't grow without getting new customers to buy their products or getting existing customers to buy more. Based on this, it would seem to me that the community would be completely against the idea of WOTC transitioning into a growth model because that would mean more of what they are already mad about. I sense a lot of concern from the community that there is a metaphorical gentrification happening where WOTC is catering to new players and existing players with deep pockets and that this is slowly pushing out the average enfranchised paper player. It is weird for me, because I have been aware of magic for many years but was only finally able to play after Arena was released. From my perspective, things like the reserved list and constant rotation make the game very expensive to play plus the requirement of needing to have a play group or LGS to play at (which is difficult for a dad with three little kids). Arena finally gave me a way that I could play magic without spending a bunch of money and needing to block off an entire weeknight or Saturday afternoon away from my kids. It has been so much fun that I started getting into online content (which was when I found this amazing video podcast!). It is a bid weird though, that so many people online are so mad at Arena when it has been such a great thing for me. I hope there is a future where we can all enjoy magic the way we want to play it and that enfranchised paper players won't be pushed out and new digital-only players like me won't be pushed out either.

I love that you two are doing this in your socks.

Thanks for the link to the Line goes up! Great video

Hot take: Alchemy as a format isn't what's making it unpopular, it's just the lack of viable free to play options for getting into the format. More people would at least try out the format if they didn't have to sink rare and mythic wildcards in to start playing.

Hah! Omg! At the start; “ you guys get payed?” I laughed so hard! Ahhhh I’m still laughing while writing this! Bravo!

Crim and PK are the best duo.

Hot Potato can be a scam or a thing that will burn you, a difficult thing or theme to hold in your hands for long enough. So Pleasant Kenobi is correct 😝✨

I am all for wizards being it’s own public company because we can then look at their financial statements without other Hasbro activities being mixed in

I 100% agree with your take on Arena though, Wizards did choose to create very predator economy in it.

Anything with Crim is an instant like and love from me.

What would be cool is if we had something given to players at FNM for Arena. Say someone wins a draft, give them a thing that will unlock something on Arena

As soon as Prof said that hardly anyone buys his mech from the RU-vid links, I had to immediately buy a mug from the RU-vid link. 😁

The opening skit was gold, gotta be honest Now, re: Alchemy... It's a trend in online service games like Arena that companies can't/don't walk back big new play modes or design shifts like that. They tend to have a certain inertia, and once that cat is out of the bag and running, catching it and putting it back in often just doesn't happen. So I don't think we'll see them back up on it much. The trend is normally for companies to instead "incentivize" these play modes and activities that they've spent resources on, rather than writing them off as a lost cause. So as dreadful as the thought is, I think Vince is right: we're far more likely to see them tie the Pro Tour or some new form of competitive play to Alchemy than for them to just quietly support it with smaller or less frequent releases more in line with its current playerbase. As part of that we *might* see them start to offer Wildcards for adjusted cards, but that's about as far as I see them going. Maybe in an ideal world we might see them drop the rarities on the unique Alchemy cards, but they have a tried and true argument against doing that: that it's not fair to people who invested rarer Wildcards to get those cards originally (it's not a *good* argument, really, but it's one that tends to be effective in similar circumstances for other games). Given how they responded to the idea of dusting, I suspect they'd be very likely to pull this argument out of the hat, too, when it comes to more substantial change to the cost of Alchemy.

That was an awesome and hysterical intro!

11:14 And their predictions were perfectly accurate 🙃

The total urban population in the US is about 250,000,000. The total rural population is about 60,000,000.... But your point is well-taken. I live in an area with small towns and no WPN Pro stores; it's about 90 miles to my nearest WPN Pro Store, I believe.

Great 'Codex Angels of Death' T shirt Plesantkenobi!

They definitely have different printers contributing to card quality. I can even often tell by feel differences between cards sold in different languages or from different sets.

They mentioned the Arena livestream, but was that the one where WOTC just said they know the Arena economy is terrible but they wont actually tell us anything until later?

Oh my gosh… the editing in this video was PERFECT. And this is not a scam :P

The objective of a business is to maximize shareholder value. Shareholder value is most visibly reflected in the price of the stock which in turn reflects the cash being generated by the business. Hasbro stock price for last five years on or about March 22nd each year: 2017 = $99.97, 2018 = $84.22, 2019 = $83.51, 2020 = $46.11 (so severe I thought it might be a stock split, but not, probably COVID), 2021 = $95.93, 2022 = $89.57. There is a lot in these numbers and it is an over simplification, but gives a sense of the health of the parent company. If WotC is doing so well then A.) WotC is a small part of the bigger business, B.) we are subjected to a bit of hyperbole by WotC representative, or C.) a little of both. Finally, most businesses (I believe Hasbro is one example) are not maliciously trying to take advantage of their customers, this is bad for long term viability of the business. Most are out in the market trying to deliver a competitive product and trying to deliver the best experience for the money spent on the product. Businesses try to do well by their customers. It is unfair to act as though WotC is a bunch of malicious fiends (even if it may feel that way at times), they are just trying to run a successful business. It would be my guess that based on stock price, most of the success of WotC is through increased sales from new offerings and new customers. Scale economies from these increased new sales would be reflected in profits. Over-simple but the gist

I love hear you two talk with one another. That said, Prof are you aware how often you cut Vince off when he’s talking? I’ve noticed you do when doing interview/discussion type videos, as well. But watching this one, it was quite frustrating as the interruptions disrupted Vince’s and didn’t provide him an opportunity to finish his thought.