gkhd11a wrote:I wonder who has already had access to what the prices are going to be? Who determined pricing, hopefully some clarity will be possible on this, unlike other times where the pricers weren't announced until months later that a select group of players had free access to leagues to test for weeks.
Yes, it would be unjust if that happened right before Barnstormers, giving the pricers and testers a distinct advantage in the tournament. On top of that are the new relief pitcher rules. Not only would the testers have greater knowledge of the cards, but they will have had more experience using the new relief pitcher rules.
Obviously the card pricers and testers were sworn to secrecy, though surely some people knew, judging from the recent posts in this forum regarding card pricing. Somebody was either tipping his hand, or was trying to influence the card pricers, or maybe both, as SOM seemed to have always used a committee in the past to price cards. It is also possible that the purpose of those posts was to surreptitiously solicit input on pricing from members of the community. Some members of past pricing committees have admitted to being on the committee in this forum. If the committee used 4 members of the ATG gaming community, it wouldn't be hard to guess their identities if you gave regular players a dozen or so guesses. With around 5000 cards in the ATG8 set, repricing didn't happen over night and probably took place over a number of months, unless SOM automated the process, which would have been the expedient thing to do.
Unless there is a leak, we likely won't know the identity of the card pricers and testers any time soon. Unfortunately, with the tourney set to begin, knowing the identity of the pricers and testers now is a little too late, and like my mother always said, it would be like "closing the barn door after all the horses ran out."