They support Legacy for their own sake, not because they try to be the nice guys.
SCG is still the prime price gouger as far as Legacy is concerned. They rise the prices and the rest of the market follows suit.
They're a business and free to do whatever they like - including dropping Legacy support in favor of Modern.
It's like feeding starving people with slighty-poisoned food - while you might feel better now, it will kill you in the long-term.
If those are NM there's your chance to make a few bucks by selling them on MKM for more, and at the same time sucking the staples out of your local playerbase. Happened with my local community some time back so we're stuck with 2 people having legacy cards instead of 20+ we used to get to nowadays non-existent local tournaments.
They've done more for Legacy in the last 3-4 years than any other entity has. Obviously, they're doing it because it benefits them but the community has grown because of it as well.
I have no problems with them profiting when they put the work, time , and effort into promoting the format.
I'd sig this. Except that I don't even bother asking for discounts, unless I'm making some super special trade. As long as I got everything I need, there's hardly any reason to discuss discounts on "three Ponders, one Teferi's Response" kind of trades...
Also, I like how people in our lgs always come up with "I can buy XYZ for only ?*' crowns on MKM, so give me a 95% discount or I'll seduce your wife." Frankly, I laugh right into their faces and tell them to buy from MKM then, esp. if they love to pay fees and play the game of "will it finish in my mailbox or will it not finish it in my mailbox, and even if it will finish in my mailbox, what will be the condition?" that is so thrilling esp. speaking of "three Ponders, one Teferi's Response" kind of trades.
Otoh, with the advent of online selling and such stuff, it's much harder to get ripped, you simply check the [you name the site] and say "gg, bb, cya" to anyone not willing to offer you a reasonable sale.
Honestly, I think I may trade with one or two guys of our lgs, and there are several whom I always laugh at and send them farming the moment they ask about my binder. Silly, yes, but so they are.
tl,dr: I hate trading. I'd love to win a million crowns so that I don't need to do it.
Btw, what's happening with Karakas? Our shop had it for 1800 CZK around Christmas, now it's priced at 2300 and they got none. Is DnT sooo good?
I just remembered about the guy i've met at BoM sunday. Spend 20 minutes of talking for a condition I can barely live with, he agrees, i get money, come back and he just tells me that he can get more elsewhere.
We are talking about a trade that was already clear in his favor.
Decided that I don't carry binders around anymore
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I buy from SCG, just like any other online store/seller, when I find the best deal for a specific card I'm looking for. Also, SCG's card condition tends to be better and more accurate than some other online retail stores I've used frequently in the past.
I most definitely don't use them exclusively. Just on mid range purchases where on TCG I'd have to go through multiple vendors to get what I want, but I don't see any reason to not buy from them if the deal is good. Of course my LGS is similarly priced, but at times I'm unhappy with their grading on condition.
And SCG supporting legacy is the reason that the format is even relevant. I don't feel bad supporting them for their tournaments. Prices suck ass right now, but if people keep buying them obviously the market at the set prices is there.
I think if the US cashes out to a degree and prices drop, Europe will yet again buy up the real estate and RL cards due to lower/competing prices. And the cycle resets itself if there is an abundance of cards under a price point which people are willing to pay. The Legacy scene goes indy and people keep the format alive regardless of a lack of support from WoTC(SCG). I'm no economist but it is a plausable way for things to head in five years or a decade's time. I hope I'm wrong, all that would suck worse than $300 USeas
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So many jaded Euros in this thread. SCG actually runs a pretty tight ship, and yes some of their prices are high on a few key staples and popular cards. However, they also sell a lot of other cards cheaper than you can find on eBay.
I'm also loving all the retarded comments about how <super pimped out scarce card> is too much for you to afford. There are always alternatives.
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I don't buy much from SCG these days, but I do recognize that if I do, I'm paying for them having what I want in stock as well as not having any issues with grading, etc.
I've had much more problems with TCG sellers than I have SCG or even eBay sellers.
Funny you say "overpriced". If someone is willing to pay the price they set, it can't actually be overpriced - it's just what the market will bear.
I would call 40-50 tournaments a year and paying out 10k per tournament a bit more than "a few".
This is true. They also stock rare and hard to find items that I can't easily find elsewhere, so I'll pay whatever for the convienece. Also, they're reputable, so you won't worry about getting ripped off on a high ticket item and their customer service team is pretty great (had a water damaged booster, was super easy to do an exchange and they threw in a couple goodies for my trouble).
It's a few. 40 tournaments where they make money, they're not altruits, they're doing this for a sole benefit of profit. They manipulate the market, they get inside info of new sets, and they inflate the prices of the cards artificially.
The market bears it for now but people are not happy with the way it's going, and people need to be happy to continue to buy product. Happy customers happy company.
Also yeah, 40 tournaments is nothing. 400k in award money (is it money or is it store credit?) is almost nothing compared to what they make in product sales at those tournaments.
Just calculate the price of admission multiply it with number of attendants, then subtract some fee for organisation and they'll still be in plus.
They're just glorified traders doing it for a sole purpose of profit. Nothing else.
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SCG actually has the best customer service of the online magic shops. The cards they sell are actually in the conditions you buy them in and they don't cancel orders because the price spiked before they were able to ship them. They run more than a few legacy tournaments, they run a fuck ton of them, they even stream them online for players to watch. Also they don't mask anything, they are a business, which exist to make make money.
If you can't afford the price of legacy cards don't blame scg, who advocate getting rid of the reserve list btw, blame wizards for keeping the reserve list, blame hoarders who collect cards because they think its a retirement fund, blame players for paying high prices.
Long story short:
SCG will restock their inventory, if the only way to get players to sell their underground seas is to raise their buylist close to tcg player prices thats what they will do.
Don't hate the player hate the game.
It's just bidness.
Last edited by Aggro_zombies; 04-04-2014 at 02:29 PM.
also, of course magic can be an Investment, and a very nice one indeed.
Im fucking horrible at stocks, but im pretty sure you need to be doing insider Trading to match value increase legacy staples have seen the last 4 years.
Im not so horrible at magics, and do very much so enjoy speculation.
The relevant discussion here should be about the ramifications of scg having the ability to dictate prices to a degree that other retailers cannot.
The market leader has always been able to do that. The ramifications are that either (a.) the market marches to SCG's drum or (b.) the market will reject whatever SCG is doing and SCG will have to do the moving and shaking in order to accomodate the market.
I'm more interested in Wizards releasing godbooks to certain people/entities, while others are left out in the cold. I did not know of this apparently commonplace practice until recently. Seems pretty bogus to me.
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