It was announced this Monday that the Magic Player Rewards program would be shutting down after its Winter 2010 mailing, taking place later this month.

Almost immediately, on the usual message boards, I discovered a type of player I never knew existed before: the player that only plays in sanctioned events for the player rewards. A player that never expects to win prize in any of the events they play in, but is somehow sated by the promise of textless commons/uncommons and the golden hope of a foil textless rare.

Really?

While the MPR program will be missed, what we are almost assuredly seeing here is a divestment of funds. Anyone with even the smallest concept of economics can see that it was a serious drain on WoTC's funds, with no truly measurable gains.

Think of it this way: All promos that WoTC gives out are sent to TOs or stores. That allows them to send out enough promos for X players. (Let's say 50.) This is convenient, promotes store growth, sales, and all of that.

Sending out promos to at least 30 of those 50 players directly is a much more costly endeavor. No, they aren't packages, but WoTC isn't in the business of mass mailings. Also the cost for organizing the mailings adds to the cost.

Not to mention that there is no reliable metric to measure the 'success' of a program that works on quarterly, delayed gratification mailings. It is infinitely easier to measure how successful giving promos away at events or stores is.

So people are (for the tenth time this year?) threatening to quit Magic because the MPR was 'unfairly taken away.'

It's like we have no promos anymore! (Except Prerelease, Release, GP, Pro Tour, Gameday participation, Gameday top 8, Gameday faction promos, FNM, Gateway)

WoTC hasn't fully explained everything, I grant you that, but the MPR mailings were set to go out, and they had to explain why they were giving people more cards than they were due.

So what could they be doing with the money saved from MPR? Plenty.

Supposedly, the Gateway kits have a third promo in them for Mirrodin Besieged. I doubt that is the full scope of the changes, but it is a sign that MPR is going to be replaced by something.

A friend of mine commented on Facebook about another idea for a new promo, one that makes more sense the longer I think about it.

As you see from my list of promos above, every WoTC-based organized event has its own promo attached to it... except PTQs. A PTQ participation promo would be a great boon to players. It could rotate with the PTQ season, or stay static through the year like the GP and Pro Tour promos.

The thing to note about promos is that all of them are 'free', just like MPR. Event entry fees are not skewed by the existence of them. Some you have to be won (Gameday Top 8, FNM) but the rest are ones you receive for participation. Or, to echo the sentiments of these players who only play for MPR “You don't have to win to get them”

We could also be expecting more in store spoiler cards perhaps like the Striders from Scars of Mirrodin gameday.

As long as WoTC finds some way to get new DCI cards to players, nicer than the plastic tear-offs you get when you sign up, I have zero to complain about the end of the Magic Player Rewards demise.

MPR has been going on for years, and it has been accepted as 'the best option'. Questioning the status quo and changing things never goes over well at first, but can result in great things down the line. It was a faulty system with not infrequent issues for players such as missing promos, and I would welcome anything that grows the game, because of all the things that MPR did, it did NOT grow the game in any measurable meaningful way.

Why? People prefer instant gratification over delayed gratification, and many players never even bothered to (or couldn't) sign up online for MPR in the first place.

It is too often forgotten that Wizards of the Coast is a company, and some long-existing things may be found to not be cost-effective. Programs that have easily identifiable negatives and no measurable upside don't last long under scrutiny.

When it is all said and done, MPR will be replaced with some benefit for players, hopefully as more promos. But you won't be finding them in your mailbox, that much I feel confident of.