Reddit reviews Inflation, Stagflation, Rel Prices

> The deflation will depend on how many whales to f2p players there will be in the game.

No it won't. Thats the beauty of a deflationary system, it will deflate regardless of the cash input.

>But I dont thing valve will allow people to 'go infinite' in this game based on their matchmaking mechanic. Experienced players will be matched to experienced players.

I think you'll get a few people managing it anyway. Going infinite in mtgo was about 25% maintaining a solid winrate in draft, and 75% understanding how to effectively play the deflationary market. Basically, the better your winrate, the stronger an edge you had on the secondary market. It's not a matter of Valve allowing people to go infinite:

1. Valve gets a cut on every transaction, so they win no matter what, they don't care if you've gone infinite and are remaining within their market ecosystem because in a deflationary model they are profiting off the ecosystems activity rather than discrete purchases.
   
   
2. Valve can't actually stop anyone from going infinite. Again, it's mostly the market, and if you are aiming to go infinite, you probably aren't going to buy boosters anyway. As long as they keep tickets at a fixed cost the rise of an internal token economy is inevitable, and honestly, it's pretty clear they WANT that to happen.
   
   >this will slow down the deflation as if I consider 50-50 odds , going to 3 wins would be an exception.
   
   It's impossible to determine the speed of deflation but I would be surprised if it took more than 2-3 months, matchmaking isn't going to have much impact, as regardless of who wins or loses you get the same number of cards going into circulation, and the relatively flat rarity curve in this game is going to be a massive accelerant.
   MTGO hit full deflation inside of 12 months, and it only took that long because of the insane rarity their foil/mythic rarities introduced and because they did it entirely on accident.
   
   >So in expectation people would be losing money in the draft without cards entering in circulation.
   
   The additional draft cost is to compensate for the prizepacks entering the economy. Money is still being paid for those cards, it's just you paying for someone elses cards... unless you win, then it's someone else paying for your cards.
   The phantom draft complicates the hell out of the optics on this, but it's still adhering to a deflationary economic practice.
   
   If you are looking for more detail on the subject I can suggest a couple of books.:
   https://www.amazon.com/Deflation-What-Happens-When-Prices/dp/0060576456
   This is a good guideline for the sort of market behaviors to expect in the early months.
   
   https://www.amazon.com/Inflation-Stagflation-Relative-Imperfect-Information/dp/0521070848
   This one will be a bit dense if you aren't familiar with the finance, but stagflation is really the only other viable market state for the economy they are creating, and it isn't something that gets a lot of coverage in traditional finance circles. Artifacts economy will likely see alternation between stagflation and deflation with brief inflationary spiking whenever an expansion, re-launch, or marketing push brings in new players.
   
   I realize my excitement about this game as a brilliant participatory experiment in digital economics may be biasing me a little bit, but I don't think people are taking the time to understand whats really going on here... This is going to be an incredibly cheap game to play...