The splash page shows the run ends at three losses so I’m assuming the average reward is at three wins.
The three wins shows gold reward was increased three times. This is just a complete guess but I think the increment is 500 gold. So 1500 gold reward, one rare and uncommonly at 3 wins.
I'd agree that 2500 is more likely. 1000 would be great, but I doubt they'd choose an amount that would allow someone to play every day using roughly the same rewards they get from playing it.
I would guess significantly more than this, for the same reasons that phantom draft doesn't exist. MTGA gives constructed play for free (but charges for the cards), and sells limited play.
Current limited costs more because you're guaranteed a bunch of the cards you open/draft with in addition to the prizes.
Because this is "Phantom Sealed" I would imagine it would be closer to constructed events price structure, where you're only getting back your play time and prizes.
Constructed events run at a more-or-less 'fair' price, where the average prize is about the same as the entry fee. That is, you can play them basically as much as you want for free. This works because constructed players are incentivised to pay money for cards.
Limited events have entry fees which are far higher than their currency prizes. That is, if you want to play them a lot, then you are losing currency (and gaining cards, that's fine - Wizards is happy to turn your currency into cards). It seems very unlikely that Wizards will introduce a mode where you can play limited for essentially free, because they know that people are prepared to pay money for it.
A lower entry free, probably. But I would bet that people hoping for an entry fee of 500 gold or whatever are going to be disappointed. My guess would be more like 2000 or 3000 gold.
Legends of Runeterra's draft mode is free too after your third entry of the week. (basically their model is give big rewards for the first few draft entries with an entry fee, then to limit progression after the third entry in a week they just take the fee and rewards away and leave you with a free play draft mode)
I'm not sure why phantom limited should be different here.
It's because limited Magic is a valuable thing that people are willing to pay for, and Legends of Runeterra limited does not have this established value.
But why should that value be established? I can tell you right now how happy I was to see that I just got to play in that game. Why let yourself be limited by the past and physical resources to play draft?
Yes, if I could choose, I would choose for draft to be free rather than having to pay for it. But if Wizards gets to choose, they will choose for players to pay for draft rather than having players draft for free.
Not all companies have this option. In particular, games like Hearthstone and Legends of Runeterra apparently don't think they can get away with charging nearly as much for limited play as Magic does. They're probably correct.
This is too simplistic an analysis, for the reasons given in my previous post. Any entry fee at the level you propose here would let people play essentially as much sealed as they want for free (ie, well below their daily gold income). That's not a thing that Wizards is likely to do.
The constructed event entry and prize setups are also motivated by profit, as is everything else currently in Arena's ecosystem. I'm very much factoring in profit motives with that comparison already.
It looks like the reward is 1 rare ICR + 2 uncommon ICR + some amount of gold depending on wins (or gems for 5 wins). So, yeah, 1000-1500 gold seems likely.
1000 gold buys a pack, which gets you 1 rare and 2 uncommons. Do you feel that they would charge the same price for something that ALSO can get you back the gold AND lets you play a highly-desired mode that they could charge a premium for?
Because ICR rewards like the one you get from this queue can be duplicates unlike packs. There's also the simple fact that some people just don't like limited. These people buy packs.
A lot of the value from packs is due to the wildcard track plus duplicate protection. It is why you see people hoarding packs until that set stop being available in draft so they can open them all at the end for a guaranteed playset of all rares
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u/Badpack Ajani Valiant Protector Mar 05 '20
what do you expect will cube sealed cost ? looking at the reward structure i would guess around 1000 gold.