[Official] Bitching About Prices, Buyouts and Reprints Thread

[keys]

What an idiot.

[Royal Ass.]

I can just hear this guys thought process ; "Hmmm, I can buy this card and glue it back together and then re-sell it for more... genius!"

[hyperchord24]

Who in their right mind would rip a black lotus in half?

[majikal]

Who in their right mind would rip a black lotus in half?
The same kind of person who would eat one with mustard at Gen-con.

[dahcmai]

Probably someone who knew it was fake?




Anyway, I always make a small prediction on new sets for my friends so I figured I'd start listing it here also. Doesn't hurt. I did get fairly good at it over time. It helps avoid the heavy speculators so you can trade for what will be useful.

Just a quick opinion on what to pick up and what to avoid on mythics and some other things worth keeping in mind. I kind of talk about them as an overall thought and not just Legacy or Standard. More of a "I want this card because it's going up in price" type thing.

+ or - after the name is an indicator on price going up or down. Take off about 15% as is from current stuff for pre-order frenzy stupid people. $400 foil snapcaster playsets? Pfftt You know that will drop hard. Even foil Stoneforge was down to reasonable amounts after a bit during her heyday.

Snapcaster Mage obv - $20 is ending price in my book if you're wondering. Amazing in Legacy, Into the Roil useful in standard. Kind of weird how it worked out like that. Foils will probably still hit $50 then $40 after some time.

Liliana of the veil + Yeah, it's good. Really good. Mainly standard though. It's going to see a ton of play. Borderline playable in Legacy.

Garruck - I just hate his activations to get him to flip. Deathtouch wolves are awesome, but man, what a bunch of hoops to jump through. I'm going to lean towards a Sarkhan Vol type card. You really want it to work, but it just doesn't. Especially since he's green and if you're playing that color his other incarnation is ten million times better.

Foil Invisible Stalker + It's not bad. It's Silhana all over again with Swords in the format. Not quite that enchantment of her day, but close. Plus, the picture is cool as hell.

Mentor of the Meek + Puresteel likes this guy

Past in Flames + Better than it looks. This one is begging to be busted, especially in Modern.

Giest of St Traft + This is one of the most underrated in my book. He's one aggressive guy. Reminds me a lot of Knight of the Reliquary for some reason. Hexproof is just silly on a guy that smashes face for 6 for 3 mana. Crappy when he's blocked though. He has to be played in something that can give him evasion or equip up.

Olivia Voldaren + I'm convinced this card is actually decent. Pings stuff for 2 mana, steals at your convenience? Ummm, that seems pretty awesome. Oh yeah, she pings once and she's a 4/4 flyer for 4 that keeps getting bigger? Why is no one interested in this card? Maybe it's just me, but it seems like a steal for the mana. I bought 4 foils for myself. At the worst I have 4 foil ones to trade off as Commander generals. It just screams sleeper to me.

Skaab Ruinator - Meet Dissipate, Skaab dude. Dissipate was played much more than you ever will be. Oh yes, it's in the same set. So sad. Cough, Blade decks are still around no less, it has a spot already, where's yours? Honestly though, He'll see play, but he's not that hot. It really comes down to whether or not control sticks around. If it doesn't he's amazing vs aggro, if control stays in the format like I suspect it will, he's terrible. Dissipate owns him hard and that's a great counter with all this flashback.

Mikaeus - Ajani Gold-not-so-hot - Yeah...

Mirror Mad Phantasm - I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this is total crap. It sure sounds like you could do all kind of cool shit, then you try to put it into practice. If I couldn't come up with even a remotely useful idea with it that couldn't be done with other cards better, then the chances are fairly small it's useful.

Reaper from the Abyss + Actually decent in Standard only. I kind of like this guy despite how expensive he is. 6 isn't too shabby for a guy who's going to double all your critter kill from there on out. Probably won't gain much, but he's still worth getting a couple if you play standard.

Other mythics are kind of jank.

Bloodline Keeper + Anything that sits over on your side and spews out tokens is usually good. The fact you get to do something with said spewed tokens is gravy. Slow, but reminds me of Skeletal Vampire. Standard only of course.

Champion of the Parish = This is probably worth watching just because he's efficient. White weenie hasn't been good in ages though.

Curse of Stalked Prey + I only mention this one since I thought of 5 infinite damage combos with this one right off the top of my head and 4 of them were only 2 card combos with it. Interesting to think about, though nothing really seemed worth building a deck around. Legacy only of course. The goblin in Standard that pings is pretty scary though.

Kesseg Wolf Run + Seems pretty decent in legacy since most of the best critters never seem to have trample. Obviously good in standard too.

Laboratory Maniac + I'm going to actually say there's a deck here. I played around with it and made this fun deck that's actually quite vicious. I pulled off a turn 3 kill with it and it wasn't anything all that hard to do. Worldly Tutors/BoPs/Thought Lash/Force/Misdirection/Daze/some other techy green card I forgot. You get the idea. I probably had too much beer thinking up that pile though.

Stony Silence + Tutorable with Enlightened in Legacy and a tad harder to kill than Null Rod, Null Rod in Standard. Worth a couple of bucks to be sure. Nothing expensive, but good.

Undead Alchemist + There's a Standard deck waiting to be built with this guy. I'm trying.



Anyway, most of the rares aren't worth getting worked up over. The werewolves are actually good btw. Luckily cheap too. The mythics are the only ones people care about anyway. So hope that helps somewhat while trading.

[Cynicath]

Probably someone who knew it was fake?






Skaab Ruinator - Meet Dissipate, Skaab dude. Dissipate was played much more than you ever will be. Oh yes, it's in the same set. So sad. Cough, Blade decks are still around no less, it has a spot already, where's yours? Honestly though, He'll see play, but he's not that hot. It really comes down to whether or not control sticks around. If it doesn't he's amazing vs aggro, if control stays in the format like I suspect it will, he's terrible. Dissipate owns him hard and that's a great counter with all this flashback.




I dunno... I think he'll see a ton of play in Birthing Pod decks. He's a decent threat pretty early in the 'chain', and BPs ability bypasses his additional cost and allows him to evade counters. He'll be pretty hot in standard IMO.

[keys]

The same kind of person who would eat one with mustard at Gen-con.

Is this a true story?

[majikal]

Is this a true story?
100% true story. It was probably 1996 or 1997, some guy waltzes into the card game room in the middle of a Magic tournament, holds up a Black Lotus, smothers it in mustard, and chows down on it in front of everyone.

[Tha Gunslinga]

The gentleman with the Darksteel Lotus is now fairly convinced that it is fake, and he has talked with ABU, who still claim it is real, and he is sending it to BGS for them to determine whether or not it is counterfeit. I suggested T&T or SCG instead, but we will see.

[Royal Ass.]

The plot thickens. Although, does T&T and SCG authenticate cards? Is it a service, do you have to pay them?

And if it come back as real? I guess he'll be pretty annoyed with you ;)

[Comrade]

Would ABU even accept a return on a card that's been glued?

[jandax]

Why would they sell one in the first place?

Seems bad for a business model

[KindGrind]

Wouldn't the "blue layer" be really easy to see in a torn-in-half Lotus like that one? Hence ABU telling the card is legit? (since they might have seen said blue payer?)

[mchainmail]

Mentor of the Meek + Puresteel likes this guy



It's in an intro pack, will probably hold the price down a little bit.

[dahcmai]

It's in an intro pack, will probably hold the price down a little bit.

Oh that's good to know! He's an actually decent card. I've been trying him out in Maverick oddly enough. Good for a refill after a Perish hits you.

[Royal Ass.]

Booster boxes are usually around $90 right? Why are innistrad boxes listed for around $100 on the major online retailers? Did something change?

[Onslaught]

What's a fair price for foil Preordain now that it's banned in Modern?

[useL]

What's a fair price for foil Preordain now that it's banned in Modern?

Maybe the same as before Modern appeared. Somewhere around $10

[Einherjer]

When is a good time to unload my Riptide Labs?

[Sims]

Booster boxes are usually around $90 right? Why are innistrad boxes listed for around $100 on the major online retailers? Did something change?

Most dealers get them at $85, so they usually only sell them around 90 as pre-orders or promotional stuff to make minimal profit but to attract people to the store.

Typical pricing tends to be $100-110 depending on if you buy online or from a brick and mortar retailer. That's not including shipping or applicable taxes.

[dontbiteitholmes]

When is a good time to unload my Riptide Labs?

2 weeks ago

[kiblast]

Foil Delver of Secrets is becoming expensive. Sellers on McM have it on sale for 8 eur/each...

[death]

If you are into tempo (Thresh/TA) might be worth getting those foils in foreign while they aren't that expensive yet. I mean Jap foil commons usually go for $25.

[Mr.C]

I've been a week without checking prices, and now Death Baron is the most expensive card in Shards? What happened there?

[264505]

I've been a week without checking prices, and now Death Baron is the most expensive card in Shards? What happened there?

Dude, Grimgrim EDH decks

[GGoober]

I've been a week without checking prices, and now Death Baron is the most expensive card in Shards? What happened there?

Wait what???

My 28 lord foil Zombie deck is expensive now??

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

Liliana of the Veil's price is rising pretty fast.

Ugh, really hope that's not Jace 2.0 again.

[keys]

Liliana of the Veil's price is rising pretty fast.

Ugh, really hope that's not Jace 2.0 again.

I think all the hype is because she's actually decent. She won't be format shaping like Jace, however. She can't really win the game on her own. How good is she in standard?

[dontbiteitholmes]

She's pretty good in Standard. Unfortunately for her mono-red is much better at stomping control than control is at handling mono-red. Once the next few sets come out she could be a powerhouse though.

[dahcmai]

I think the biggest thing she told the standard format was that they can't have things like Geist of St Traft and Thrun to dominate control decks like normal. She does do a number on those two.

With the flashback she can actually use that first ability to hurt people while negating the drawback at the same time. People can bash the card all they like, but they are obviously bad deck builders to not see the synergy she offers.

I really doubt she'll go much higher since Solar Flare was cool and all, but it does have some serious weaknesses and people will figure it out quick. They always do, but I'm not telling just yet what it's problems are. The deck is damned fun.

lol @ Death Baron. That one kills me. At least the foils are easy to get.

[Mr.C]

What the hell happened to Goblin Settler? Why is eBay sold out of them, and there are people offering me $50 for mine? Aren't they, like, bad?

[mrjumbo03]

EDH? I know I ordered mine for that. Kiki-Jiki plus this guy equals some pissed off people. Plus it came from that stupid Starter set that is really really scarce.

[HAVE HEART]

lol @ Death Baron. That one kills me. At least the foils are easy to get.

It has been at $3/4 for a while now. Obviously $7/8 is a little ridiculous, but so was $3/4. I know a dealer who makes a killing on cards like that and Nemesis of Reason, etc.

[Octopusman]

What the hell happened to Goblin Settler? Why is eBay sold out of them, and there are people offering me $50 for mine? Aren't they, like, bad?

This card has been steadily going up in price for a while. Mostly due to scarcity. I could see them reprinting it under a different name like many other starter/portal cards.

But yeah, astral slide plus goblin settler is pretty hilarious as well.

[dahcmai]

There's also a slightly unknown Goblins variant running around I have been toying with. I built the thing as a joke and it's not bad so far. I still don't think it's good enough, but eh, all my friends though it interesting enough to start picking Settlers up and there weren't many to begin with. It's pretty obscure to begin with.

Basically, you can use Ruinblasters, Settlers, Ports, Wastes, and Phantasmal Images to get all LD crazy on people. I wanted to capitalize on those goblin hands that can just about lock any deck out due to mana denial. You know those types of god hands they get. It's kind of scary when a Goblin deck goes LD on you. It's already a fairly fast deck, but when it concentrates more on the land destruction and not damage it's possibly worse. Nothing like dropping Settlers on people from a Lacky hit. I use the double striker also to get in more chances to LD people.

Rough deck, but it's shaping up. That might have something to do with it as people test it online here and there. I hate red decks so I don't mess with it much, but it's promising if you see it.



Secondary little note. I'm a firm believer that Liliana's day is going to come to a fast end. I have a newer standard deck that's incredibly good and eats Solar flare and RDW for lunch. Liliana is soooo bad against it. RUG with Vengeance is definitely amazing stuff so you can expect her to go down some after it comes out at States.

[Esper3k]

Yeah, while Liliana is going up, my brain tells me that she's going to go down even though she's powerful and popular. Here's my reasoning:

Innistrad is the first set of a block. So, throughout the entire ISD draft season, there are always going to be ISD packs opened (we're going to have III, IID, IDX). Unlike Jace, who was both extremely powerful, popular, and rare (Worldwake was only opened in drafts with ZZW since ZEN was such a weird draft format), there should be a much higher number of Lilianas opened and on the market over time.

This is the same reason I'm holding off on Snapcasters - it's only a rare and there should be a huge number of them opened.

[dahcmai]

Eh, just trust that little write up I did on Innistrad. I usually am dead on and it's looking like this one will be also. Even down to the Kesseg Wolf Run being played. I actually didn't even think about Inkmoth when I wrote that so it's much better than I had even thought at the time. That's just sickening.

I saw a couple of decks with Olivia in them so looks like that one will eventually come out. Tree of Redemption I totally missed. Didn't think about it. It's a silly good sideboard card. Grab some while they are cheap. Sucks in Legacy of course, but I think about all formats. Snapcaster is about the only thing anyone in Legacy is going to care about.

I need to go find the New Phyrexia one I did and see how close that one was.

[useL]

What is your prediction on Flusterstorm? Going up or down?

[GoblinSettler]

There's also a slightly unknown Goblins variant running around I have been toying with. I built the thing as a joke and it's not bad so far. I still don't think it's good enough, but eh, all my friends though it interesting enough to start picking Settlers up and there weren't many to begin with. It's pretty obscure to begin with.

Basically, you can use Ruinblasters, Settlers, Ports, Wastes, and Phantasmal Images to get all LD crazy on people. I wanted to capitalize on those goblin hands that can just about lock any deck out due to mana denial. You know those types of god hands they get. It's kind of scary when a Goblin deck goes LD on you. It's already a fairly fast deck, but when it concentrates more on the land destruction and not damage it's possibly worse. Nothing like dropping Settlers on people from a Lacky hit. I use the double striker also to get in more chances to LD people.

:D

It feels great to drop into play early off of a Lackey: Nice basic, thanks for playing around Wasteland.

Currently I run Settler as a one-of. I haven't come up with a brew with room for more. Which is just as well, since I haven't found any more copies. :/

I realize there's one on eBay right now... but $50 is a bit too much, IMO.

[sdematt]

I think Flusterstorm will stay as it is. It's a good card, but VERY narrow.

-Matt

[useL]

I think Flusterstorm will stay as it is. It's a good card, but VERY narrow.

-Matt

Just sold two at $25 each, god I love living in a small country with a limited supply.

I guess that every time someone wins a SCG with a sideboard card they dont have, people want it.

[dahcmai]

Matt's right on Flusterstorm. It's a good card, but it is really, really narrow. Every deck that wants it also really wants Spell Pierce. The two are fairly interchangeable. Pierce nails Jace, EE, and a few other goodies which is huge though. If you really fear High Tide, Flusterstorm is the better choice. It's a toss up. It's like comparing Smother to Snuff Out really. Both good, but situational.

$20 seems a little high for Flusterstorms actually since you can just buy the Commander deck and get one along with a Chaos Warp and a Sol Ring no less. People are stupid though. It's not hard to find those online at $30 still either.



Goblin Settler is actually starting to look like a decent price at $50 considering how hard it is to find them now. That was the lowest I could find. Kind of sucks when that happens.

[bruizar]

Good to know i have 5 goblin settlers.

[Sims]

I've been a week without checking prices, and now Death Baron is the most expensive card in Shards? What happened there?

People want to play their Zombie Tribal decks in modern, duh!

[oldbsturgeon]

And just to make sure noone overpays for 1 flusterstorm, coolstuffinc has their polictical puppets deck in the on sale page for 19.99.

With that said, will snapcaster be the first rare in a while since mythics being introduced to get to a high price.
It already is more than any recent standard rare I can think of at this moment, but of course I don't always think very well.
Is the upcoming states going to make it go even more?

[Di]

Is nobody aware that SCG has Flusterstorm for sale at $11.99? Where the hell are people going to buy these things for 20?

[whienot]

With that said, will snapcaster be the first rare in a while since mythics being introduced to get to a high price.
It already is more than any recent standard rare I can think of at this moment, but of course I don't always think very well.
Is the upcoming states going to make it go even more?

I'm pretty sure Standard and State Champs are what's pushing it up now. I'm expecting SCM to drop somewhat after states passes. Also, Innistrad hasn't been out too long. People are still drafting and cracking packs. The price will drop.

[Dark Ritual]

Wow goblin settler is 70? Last I checked it was around 5 dollars. Starter 1999 cards are officially the stupidest when it comes to pricing sans P3K; goblin settler isn't even playable in legacy or vintage sans maybe in goblins like some have said but even there I'm not sure if it's worth it.

Lulz I have one death baron from planechase; 15 dollars seems outrageous for that card but lol I'll gladly sell it for 8 or something.

[honestabe]

People want to play their Zombie Tribal decks in modern, duh!

Don't joke about that. We're 1 or 2 more ban list updates from that being the best deck.

[Sims]

Don't think it will happen. Though on the flip side of that coin, with vial and enough good 1-2 drops from this block, a 12 lord zombie deck might actually get there.

[dontbiteitholmes]

And just to make sure noone overpays for 1 flusterstorm, coolstuffinc has their polictical puppets deck in the on sale page for 19.99.

With that said, will snapcaster be the first rare in a while since mythics being introduced to get to a high price.
It already is more than any recent standard rare I can think of at this moment, but of course I don't always think very well.
Is the upcoming states going to make it go even more?

States is the reason Innistrad cards are so high right now. The set just officially came out a week and a half ago and in less than one week we have States, which if you count all states attendance together, is probably going to be the biggest Magic event ever. Last year 5757 people played in States, the year before it was 6605 people. Assuming 20% of these people are playing or want to play 4x of any one new card that means you are looking at demand of around 4000-5000 of that card by this Saturday on a set that hasn't even been out 2 weeks. Liliana is a mythic, which means less than one a box. Many decks lately have been running 3x-4x Liliana. Add in the people who want the cards but aren't even playing in States then apply what you already know about supply and demand.

After States the prices are going to drop pretty quickly. More and more of the chase cards will be opened, Snapcaster is likely not as good in Standard as everyone originally thought (plenty of bad matchups), Liliana is also probably going to under-perform as people start to hate on Solar Flare more and more, everyone who needed the cards for States will either have them already or no longer have to sense of urgency that lead people to overpay for cards this week, ect. The prices will drop after States unless one strategy completely dominates and we end up with a new Caw/Blade scenario. Barring that everything indicates the prices have nowhere to go but down.

[lordofthepit]

Snapcaster Mage is now $89.94 (nonfoil) and $210.00 (foil) on Amazing Discoveries.

At first, I was going to ask if anyone had any experience with that retailer, and to ridicule the store for raising prices to such obscene values. Then I realized they are likely primarily a CCG dealer at all, but rather, a cocaine supplier that disguises its operations by smuggling expensive powder in card sleeves.

[ivanpei]

Probably they've got the currency mixed up? Anyway in case none of you guys are familiar with standard, the card is the shitnutz with decks splashing blue just for it. Midrange wolfrun decks are splashing blue just for snapcaster. I don't really play standard but from what I've observed and discussed with the local ptq grinders, it's by a long mile the most powerful card in standard.

[majikal]

Those people are doing it wrong. Snapcaster is actually only supremely good in a very few decks where it can recur removal and card draw spells. RG decks splashing for it would honestly be better off playing more burn spells.

[Pippin]

So no comments about new trends?

Prices of Legacy staples seem to be going downwards for the most part - aka see Wasteland (SCG & ebay), something like Entomb (reprint), etc.

Seems like a good time to start entering the format for those that were put away with constant price hikes.

[Offler]

When talking about Snapcaster - have heard of some combos, but I really dont believe it will be something supreme.

Its a body with flash, with ability similiar to good old Scrivener, Anarchist.

Direct power level of this wizard is bit ridiculous when comparing manacost body and abilities with scrivener. Allows to recall any spell once again, 4x in a deck, if you still have grave.

Indirect power level in standard is bit out of my scope since I dont play such format and dont know the meta or matchups. All I see is just T2 players are running crazy when first deck on tournament is running some easy mechanic which works. Snapcaster is good, but the price is ridiculous.

[arebennian]

I know this is probably not the best place to put it but after a quick search, I couldn't find anywhere better.

Short of Ebay, what is the best place to sell your cards if you live in London, UK? Is there some sort of trade form like MOTL (which seems to be Americancentric) for the UK, or continental Europe for that matter?

Cheers!

[SmallFish]

Have you tried MKM? I would think that would be the best version.

On a side note, does anyone know a good place to pick up some full art Mutavaults? I'm in need of a few and no one on MOTL seems to have them.

[Hopo]

On a side note, does anyone know a good place to pick up some full art Mutavaults? I'm in need of a few and no one on MOTL seems to have them.

The dealers at the GP Amsterdam had some for 220 euros. Someone who knows better can most likely tell you the name of the shop as well as the contact information.

[Di]

Have you tried MKM? I would think that would be the best version.

On a side note, does anyone know a good place to pick up some full art Mutavaults? I'm in need of a few and no one on MOTL seems to have them.

That is currently one on Star City. Granted, it's $400, but they have one.

[UnderwaterGuy]

So no comments about new trends?

Prices of Legacy staples seem to be going downwards for the most part - aka see Wasteland (SCG & ebay), something like Entomb (reprint), etc.

Seems like a good time to start entering the format for those that were put away with constant price hikes.

yup

I just finished my wasteland playset.

The duals only seem to be rising though :(

[SmallFish]

That is currently one on Star City. Granted, it's $400, but they have one.

I did see that, but it seems quite high, as none have sold on ebay higher than $255. There were two on MKM about a week ago for $169 euro, but I don't know anyone over there to pick them up for me :(.

[r0ckstAr]

The duals only seem to be rising though :(


Yes ! Seas seem to have taken a 20% rise in the last 2 months, same for trops...

[socialite]

Meh.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/250915746832?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

[GGoober]

Lol, yeap! Mind = blown.

I already feel Korean Foils going the way of Jap foils. I guess it's a good thing I'm not a foil whore (I actually don't like new-bordered foils) so I might just stick to Korean non-foils for consistency, until the hype dies out (which it never will, looking at Jap foils all these years)

[dontbiteitholmes]

Word on the street is Korean M12 is bombing in South Korea. Apparently the cards have lots of translation errors so Koreans can barely understand how to play the game and obviously MtG failed to launch in Korea before. Wouldn't be surprised if Korean M12 ends up being as hard to find as older Korean stuff in a couple years.

[dahcmai]

Yeah, I'm having a hell of a time finding it in that country. It seems all the stores sell the crap out of Gundam (whatever that is about), but you can't find MTG for the life of you. Got a guy running around trying to find some, but he's been to a bunch of hobby stores and they don't deal with it.

[ivanpei]

How the hell has that full art Mutavault reach Power Nine levels? Thats insanity! On another note, do any of you think the Graveborn decks are a good buy @ 30 USD? The deck has Cabal Therapy, Animate Dead and Entomb confirmed. Those alone make it worth buying the deck. I've preordered 4. If they throw in Reanimate, Exhume and Careful study as well, we are talking major good deal!

[dahcmai]

Yeah, it's a really good buy just from what I have seen also. Even with only a foil Cabal Therapy , alt art Animate Dead, and Entomb, that pretty much makes your money right there. I'm buying 3, but that's only because I expect to be able to trade for the last singletons and I don't want a pile of the ones that come as 2 or 3 of's.

[jandax]

Yeah, it's a really good buy just from what I have seen also. Even with only a foil Cabal Therapy , alt art Animate Dead, and Entomb, that pretty much makes your money right there. I'm buying 3, but that's only because I expect to be able to trade for the last singletons and I don't want a pile of the ones that come as 2 or 3 of's.

The way you guys are talking, it seems not that far of a stretch that lots of other people are seeing this as a Legacy pre-con. Seas and FoW and etc aside, this list should have a lot of the cards the regular deck means. Makes one wonder if more of this archetype will pop up

[TheArchitect]

That 2-color land cycle in scars are now like 7$-12$ (Seachrome Coast, Darkslick shores, etc.). I am not into standard, so this really snuck up on me; last I knew they were like 1$-2$ rares. It makes sense though, they must be the best lands in standard with Fetches gone, and they aren't even half bad in legacy if for some ungodly reason you don't need fetches for top, brainstorm, more than 2 colors, KotR, lavamancer, etc.

[dahcmai]

Yeah, I was kind of sad about that since I had been picking up foil play sets of them for dirt cheap for a bit and missed out on getting the Seachrome's waiting for a good deal.

They are probably one of the better lands in Standard now, but they are Legacy playable. Especially in reanimators since you never go over 3 land most of the time anyway. I was using them in a reanimator that pulled Sundering Titans out of the grave for a bit. Works like a charm in that kind of deck.

[ivanpei]

The ub scars lands are played some in legacy like in dredge or reanimator simply because you can't island walk on it. Lol, surprisingly relevant. I can't wait to see the decklists. I think this deckbox will allow plenty of traditionally aggro control/control players to try out combo. Since entombs are used in one deck only, it's pretty low on most player's priority lists as they cost a ton. I would say we'll be seeing slightly more reanimator play now.

[Mr.C]

And English P3... whoa.

Good thing I'm selling out now and not six months ago. :p

[Pippin]

So... legacy prices keep dropping. What's the rock bottom of what has been obviously a big bubble?
I can only imagine how this will end if Brainstorm gets the axe :)

My advice for all those speculators who are afraid of prices dropping even more is to cash out as soon as possible. I know I'll be keeping my own cards because I play with them, and hopefully my local community will be able to pick more playables thanks to discount.
Feels like recession has finally hit speculator's driven MTG market.

[SmallFish]

How the hell has that full art Mutavault reach Power Nine levels? Thats insanity!

I just picked one up from an online vendor for 100 euro and I've seen a few others go relatively cheap. I think the ones on ebay have gone for alot because people aren't really looking too many places elsewhere (like the Japanese foil Mutavaults selling for $40 higher than SCG had them for sale - while they had some in stock).

I am still looking for some Champs Mutavaults though, if anyone can point me in the right direction.

[dontbiteitholmes]

So... legacy prices keep dropping. What's the rock bottom of what has been obviously a big bubble?
I can only imagine how this will end if Brainstorm gets the axe :)

My advice for all those speculators who are afraid of prices dropping even more is to cash out as soon as possible. I know I'll be keeping my own cards because I play with them, and hopefully my local community will be able to pick more playables thanks to discount.
Feels like recession has finally hit speculator's driven MTG market.

Most Legacy players are 18-24 years old and this is the point in college where shit starts to get hard and people put Magic on the back burner to concentrate on school. Add to that a lot of people who thought they were super smart putting money into speculating on Magic cards have been sitting on them for the better part of 6 months waiting for them to pull a Candelabra and now they are cutting their losses. The prices will go back up in time, this is a notoriously slow time of year for MTG going into the holiday season with more people concentrating on school/family and less tournaments scheduled. If you are into buying cards now is a good time. I bought in Winter of last year and paid about $250 for NM- playsets of Seas and $80 for NM playsets of Wastelands and similar prices for other staples. If that doesn't tell you something about the seasonal nature of Legacy cards...

[dahcmai]

It's always a good time to buy right now. Prices always dip because it's that time of year right before the Christmas season when stores start hurting for income. November always sucks for sales. I just grin and bear it since after Christmas rocks. (Kids get money from gifts). Before Dec is just a seriously slow time. Good time to buy that expensive stuff since it doesn't get much cheaper than right now. Everyone is saving for gifts and such and not buying for themselves.

[Royal Ass.]

For those of you who had been following this little saga earlier. Just stumbled across this again. The auction has changed! It just warms my heart :)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MTG-Black-Lotus-altered-CE-/160677272411?_trksid=p4340.m444&_trkparms=algo%3DPI.WATCH%252BCRX%26its%3DC%252BS%26itu%3DUCC%252BSI%252BUA%252BLM%252BLA%26otn%3D5%26po%3D%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D4151916006330499646

[jandax]

Most Legacy players are 18-24 years old...

In your area? I'd add ten years to that for an average around here

[Tha Gunslinga]

For those of you who had been following this little saga earlier. Just stumbled across this again. The auction has changed! It just warms my heart :)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MTG-Black-Lotus-altered-CE-/160677272411?_trksid=p4340.m444&_trkparms=algo%3DPI.WATCH%252BCRX%26its%3DC%252BS%26itu%3DUCC%252BSI%252BUA%252BLM%252BLA%26otn%3D5%26po%3D%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D4151916006330499646


I told him it was fake, and we had an extended series of conversations which culminated in him sending it in to BGS to determine whether it was rebacked. They sent it back ungraded, he talked to ABUgames and they gave him a $1900 refund (out of 2k) and let him keep it as a proxy, so he bought a real Alpha Lotus and is now apparently selling this one.

[Royal Ass.]

Thanks for the back story Gunslinga. I love his description of the card in the auction, it's priceless. So he bought an Alpha Lotus? For how much and in what condition and from who? I'm curious as there are not a lot of them floating around these days for a decent price. I bought a Beta lotus a few months ago and it was difficult to find much to chose from.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Pretty sure it was this one:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Black-Lotus-Mtg-Magic-Alpha-X1-LP-/250921850052?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a6c1b94c4

[Royal Ass.]

That's not bad.

[TheAardvark]

And English P3... whoa.


Eff a bunch of Capture of Jingzhou. That was going to be my next acquisition, as the last time I looked at them they were ~$50, but $200+ can suck it.

[dahcmai]

I know, I so wanted another Rolling Earthquake, but hell with that price for a card I don't have a huge use for. Same goes for Ravages of War. Armageddon by another name is cool, but not that cool. I'll take my chances with Meddling Mage.

Why is Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed so much right now anyway? I know he's a favorite black EDH general, but $200 worth of coolness? He can't be that amazing in EDH. What am I missing with him? There some awesome combo with that guy or something?

I'm still sad I sold 2 Imperial Recruiters for $90 years ago thinking they would never go above that. lol I need two more now to have a play set. Irony.

[Koby]

I know, I so wanted another Rolling Earthquake, but hell with that price for a card I don't have a huge use for. Same goes for Ravages of War. Armageddon by another name is cool, but not that cool. I'll take my chances with Meddling Mage.

Why is Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed so much right now anyway? I know he's a favorite black EDH general, but $200 worth of coolness? He can't be that amazing in EDH. What am I missing with him? There some awesome combo with that guy or something?

I'm still sad I sold 2 Imperial Recruiters for $90 years ago thinking they would never go above that. lol I need two more now to have a play set. Irony.

It's upto $200? I remember just a few years ago we were discussing it (probably in this thread) about it being around $40. This doubling game makes no sense...

[Sims]

I know, I so wanted another Rolling Earthquake, but hell with that price for a card I don't have a huge use for. Same goes for Ravages of War. Armageddon by another name is cool, but not that cool. I'll take my chances with Meddling Mage.

Why is Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed so much right now anyway? I know he's a favorite black EDH general, but $200 worth of coolness? He can't be that amazing in EDH. What am I missing with him? There some awesome combo with that guy or something?

I'm still sad I sold 2 Imperial Recruiters for $90 years ago thinking they would never go above that. lol I need two more now to have a play set. Irony.


Demonic Tutor + XD is a combo, and in Mono black you can usually generate a shit ton off Coffers so you can recast him from the command zone a few times. He also lets you generate infinite and then kill a table with repeat Drain/Consume if your exsanguinate gets Praetor's grasp'd or otherwise RFG'd for instance.

He's just a massive swiss army knife in a properly built mono-black EDH deck as he is almost always useful. Hell I had gone beatdown with him a few times and rode Horsemanship FTW

[Damoxx]

I had gone beatdown with him a few times and rode Horsemanship FTW

I see what you did there. Well played, sir, well played.

[Richard Cheese]

Was cleaning out the binder the other day and noticed that Willow Satyr is now rocking almost $20 retail. Can someone T8 a SCG Open with this guy in their board so I can profit even more off that one pack of Legends I bought back in the day?

[dahcmai]

Willow Satyr is one of those hardly used, but amazingly good in EDH cards people just never caught on to. I use it and he's pretty amazing in that format. It will go up on it's own just because of his general stealing ability.

[TheAardvark]

Why is Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed so much right now anyway? I know he's a favorite black EDH general, but $200 worth of coolness? He can't be that amazing in EDH. What am I missing with him? There some awesome combo with that guy or something?


Corpse Dance is the primary reason people want him for EDH. At least, that is the reason I built him as a General. His ability is strong, and Corpse Dance makes it almost amazing. I say almost because of his timing restriction.

Stupid Portal.

[Amon Amarth]

Demonic Tutor + XD is a combo, and in Mono black you can usually generate a shit ton off Coffers so you can recast him from the command zone a few times. He also lets you generate infinite and then kill a table with repeat Drain/Consume if your exsanguinate gets Praetor's grasp'd or otherwise RFG'd for instance.

He's just a massive swiss army knife in a properly built mono-black EDH deck as he is almost always useful. Hell I had gone beatdown with him a few times and rode Horsemanship FTW

XD is also very good with Profane Command.

[sephorusFR]

and wth with Retribution of the meek hitting 6+$ ? Maverick SB against Emrakul and friends or ?

[useL]

Sorry if this is asked in the wrong thread:


I have found a guy selling a Wheel of Fortune saying that its French and from Summer Magic. Was this edition printed in other languages than English? How can I tell that it's a true Summer Magic card and not a regular 4th edition or similar?

[ivanpei]

I don't think there's French summer. He probably meant French white bordered properly. Summer cards have a "1994" printed at the bottom of the card, which isn't present on normal revised versions.

[Markers]

Sorry if this is asked in the wrong thread:


I have found a guy selling a Wheel of Fortune saying that its French and from Summer Magic. Was this edition printed in other languages than English? How can I tell that it's a true Summer Magic card and not a regular 4th edition or similar?

- Summer Magic / Edgar is ONLY available in English
- There is no Wheel in 4th Edition (Wheel exists only in Alpha / Beta / Unlimited / Revised / Summer/ Collector's Edition and as Judge foil (with new art).
- Summer Magic cards have the Revised-Tap-Symbol (not "Tap" or the "arrow" but the T:)
- Next to the artist's name at the bottom you see "Illus. (c) 1994"

This is how a Summer Wheel would look like: link (http://www.magiclibrarities.net/731-rarities-summer-magic-cards-english-cards-red-cards.html#card047)

[Richard Cheese]

and wth with Retribution of the meek hitting 6+$ ? Maverick SB against Emrakul and friends or ?

Eh? I know it went up for a while, but I see it at around $1 mostly.

[sephorusFR]

Eh? I know it went up for a while, but I see it at around $1 mostly.

Well : http://www.magiccardmarket.eu/Retribution_of_the_Meek_%28Visions%29.c1p8520.prod

[Richard Cheese]

Well : http://www.magiccardmarket.eu/Retribution_of_the_Meek_%28Visions%29.c1p8520.prod

Maybe it's a European thing?

http://store.tcgplayer.com/products.aspx?name=Retribution+of+the+Meek

Not a lot of copies available, but def. a couple playsets to be had for cheap. BIN prices on ebay look pretty high, but checking completed listings I see a ton of them going for cheap lately:

4x: 4.99 + 1.99 S&H
6x: 2.85 + 1.50 S&H
4x: 2.26 + 1.95 S&H

Again though, there aren't that many listings for it. I think it's just one of those cards that has had a bump in popularity, but not enough that people have gone and dug it out of their junk rare bins, so supply is artificially low.

[sephorusFR]

Maybe it's a European thing?


Yes maybe



Again though, there aren't that many listings for it. I think it's just one of those cards that has had a bump in popularity, but not enough that people have gone and dug it out of their junk rare bins, so supply is artificially low.


Make lot of sense too

[Leto]

You need to be careful with mcm-prices, as their is a lot of manipulation and hyping of prices going on, resulting in crapy cards rising up from 1€ to 10€ in one day with no cards sold at all. This is happening with 3-4 Cards a week, so be careful and compare prices

[dahcmai]

Well, I get to make a whole lot of people eat some crow this week as the last card I thought would be a good investment out of Innistrad just shot up in price due to Chapin's use of it at Worlds. Olivia Voldaren was the only one I disagreed with Ben B over in his article also.

To be fair, I didn't expect Solar Flare to get quite as popular among the kids considering it's quite expensive to put together. That deck single-handed keeps Olivia from being playable with the Phantasmal Images. With that deck finally dropping I guess I should have seen it coming.

Well, hope you people took my advice and picked up a set way back when they were a buck, they are quickly selling out now.


In Legacy news, Foil Unearth is getting quite silly to get your hands on.

[Royal Ass.]

On the Lotus front I just noticed that SCGs increased their lotus prices across the board. NM Alpha is up to 4k from 3k, Beta went from 2.5k to 3k and Unlimited went up a bit too. They don't even have any A/B in stock yet they increased the price. IMO this brings the up to current market prices. For a while there I felt they were selling A/B lotus below market price.

[SmallFish]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mutavault-full-art-promo-foil-HOT-/150719375657?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2317932929

Guess these are worth more than I thought!

[Goin Aggro]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mutavault-full-art-promo-foil-HOT-/150719375657?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2317932929

Guess these are worth more than I thought!

They're not worth that much.

I would be shocked if it sold for anywhere close to that price.

They're still under 1k AFAIK.

[kusumoto]

There are no bids on it and I doubt there will be any. People are so silly on ebay sometimes.

[SmallFish]

They're not worth that much.

I would be shocked if it sold for anywhere close to that price.

They're still under 1k AFAIK.

I was kidding :tongue:. It is the internet though, so it's hard to tell.

[264505]

Grove of the Burnwillows is back down near $10. Now seems like a good time to pick them up with the next PTQ season being Modern, not to mention how good they are in Maverick decks in the current meta.

[dschalter]

Grove of the Burnwillows is back down near $10. Now seems like a good time to pick them up with the next PTQ season being Modern, not to mention how good they are in Maverick decks in the current meta.

People think they will be banned in Modern, that's why the price has gone down.

[264505]

People think they will be banned in Modern, that's why the price has gone down.

I think that would be a mistake. It wasn't really all that oppressive. Its no where near as strong as Cloudpost was (as Cloudpost completely invalidated every control strategy). Its not like the card invalidated aggro strategies either. Affinity performed decently well and half the zoo decks were too busy doming players for 5 with Tribal Flames. Honestly, the ban would hurt control decks more than aggro.

[TonyRo]

I think that would be a mistake. It wasn't really all that oppressive. Its no where near as strong as Cloudpost was (as Cloudpost completely invalidated every control strategy). Its not like the card invalidated aggro strategies either. Affinity performed decently well and half the zoo decks were too busy doming players for 5 with Tribal Flames. Honestly, the ban would hurt control decks more than aggro.

The argument is so much that it's oppressive to the format - all the general Magic deck genres exist, except that there's only one really viable aggro deck. You ever try to play Faeries in the Modern Queues? Don't. Only one aggro deck exists right now, and it's mostly because Zoo's resistant to Punishing Fires, and quite good. Most other aggro decks fold to P-Fire on the spot.

Also, it's the most annoying card to play with or against purely because of the effort required to continually mess with it. Top was the same way, and it got banned in Constructed during it's time as well for this reason.

[Royal Ass.]

Before:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/180743812434


After:
http://sales.starcitygames.com/carddisplay.php?product=376358

Thought this was interesting. I think he got a good deal originally, but that's a pretty steep mark-up.

[dontbiteitholmes]

So Darkslick Shores seem to be fetching quite a bit now a days. This is a tough read for me for some reason, I kind of want to ditch them now but I have a feeling they may not drop much when they rotate. Second opinions?

[thegrinningdemon]

So Darkslick Shores seem to be fetching quite a bit now a days. This is a tough read for me for some reason, I kind of want to ditch them now but I have a feeling they may not drop much when they rotate. Second opinions?

They will drop quite a bit when they rotate. I just don't see the rare lands from Scars of Mirrodin being playable in any other format other than standard. They sure have increased in price when you could purchase playsets for $10-12 on eBay.

[264505]

So Darkslick Shores seem to be fetching quite a bit now a days. This is a tough read for me for some reason, I kind of want to ditch them now but I have a feeling they may not drop much when they rotate. Second opinions?

They will probably drop down to where they were before Zen Block rotated the fetch lands out. The next block is going back to Ravnica so all indication is that the shock lands will be getting reprinted.

[Undomian]

They will probably drop down to where they were before Zen Block rotated the fetch lands out. The next block is going back to Ravnica so all indication is that the shock lands will be getting reprinted.

The guys over at Salvation seem to be pretty convinced that this is not the case.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=361706

[dahcmai]

I'm fairly certain that the Scars lands will hold some value though I would suspect it may be only Darkslick Shores in the end. Sundering Titan goes very well with those types of lands.

Reanimators use them for budget choices also since it's rare to need more than 3 lands in those also. Much cheaper alternative to Underground Seas and it actually works better than the Ravnica lands in those decks. Only problem is you can't fetch one up, but they are excellent any other time.

The other colored ones don't have too much use past budget reasoning, but Darkslick goes in quick black/Blue decks quite well.


I've been watching another trend lately. EDH staple foils are starting to get even more insane. Have you noticed that even the fairly newer ones are getting out of hand quickly? That format has way too much control on prices it seems. Though I like it since it gave some value to old crappy cards.

[Amon Amarth]

I don't think any of the Scars lands will be worth shit when they rotate. They aren't playable anywhere, especially Commander.

[kiblast]

Just bought 2 Legends Moats (english).They are NM/NM-. Is 144 eur (roughly 185 usd) each a good price? I think it is since I see NM Italian ones go for 120 eur each... what do you think?

[dahcmai]

Seems like a good price. It's a decent investment too since it's not like that card will ever see print again and it's never going to get outdated by some improved version.

[Octopusman]

Nice acquisitions in regards to the Moats! Congrats.

[kiblast]

Nice acquisitions in regards to the Moats! Congrats.

Thanks. I highly suggest heading to MKM for expensive cards (as long as you are EU, or have a friend in EU) as MKM sellers usually grade their cards very strictly and have competitive prices. The seller described the Moats as ''Good'', and had scans available. I was amazed by the beautifulness of those ''good'' Moats. Something like that would easily pass for Mint on ebay or on Motl.

Also picked a set of Mint foil Pernicious Deeds (not JR ones) for 122 eur shipped. Seriously MKM has some nice prices. I really would like them to go international, prices would be even better probably.

Edit: Speaking of foil Deeds. I just sold my old JR foil set, and picked the booster foils. I thought that normal booster foil would go for way more than the JR promo foil, but they are almost on the same level. Someone even values the JR ones slightly more than the boosters one. Why? To me the old foil Deed is unquestionably sexier.

[264505]

The guys over at Salvation seem to be pretty convinced that this is not the case.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=361706

Still possible the shocks make an appearance soon. Part of the reason they named them the way they did (as opposed to the karoos) was so that they could be reprinted at a later date.

[snappingbowls | ಠ_ಠ]

Gravecrawler is already $5! bumped up from a 1.99 this morning.

We don't know what else is in the set yet, but if they print more zombies like this we may have a real deck on our hands here. If that's the case I could easily see this thing stabilizing in price at $10-$12 conservatively, possibly $8, but I'm temped to think they're really gonna drive this zombie theme home.

[millerd33]

Gravecrawler is already $5! bumped up from a 1.99 this morning.

We don't know what else is in the set yet, but if they print more zombies like this we may have a real deck on our hands here. If that's the case I could easily see this thing stabilizing in price at $10-$12 conservatively, possibly $8, but I'm temped to think they're really gonna drive this zombie theme home.

This guy is the buy-a-box promo card for the set. Alt art but not sure what that will do to the price.

[dontbiteitholmes]

This guy is the buy-a-box promo card for the set. Alt art but not sure what that will do to the price.

Here's a hint. It will increase supply without increasing demand.

As far as Standard cards go Birthing Pod looks like a sure bet with undying.

Also looks like Zombies are the new Vampires.

[makochman]

I don't think any of the Scars lands will be worth shit when they rotate. They aren't playable anywhere, especially Commander.

They are very good in Modern. Looking at Daily MTGO tournaments, in Jund people usually play 4-5 Ravnica duals and 5-6 Scars duals. Tempo decks also love them.

[clavio]

When did Gaea's Cradle become a sixty dollar card? Fucking bullshit.

[Koby]

When did Gaea's Cradle become a sixty dollar card? Fucking bullshit.

About 10 months ago when Matt Nass did well at San Jose.

[Mr.C]

So, everyone happy that the hype and speculation have died down substantially?

[atropos]

So, everyone happy that the hype and speculation have died down substantially?

Magic card prices tend to be cyclical, I'm sure this thread will be up and running with gusto again soon.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Magic card prices tend to be cyclical, I'm sure this thread will be up and running with gusto again soon.

This last cycle through was extra swingy mostly on account of card speculators hoping to make a quick buck. Read back in this thread about 6-10 months and see how many people were "so smart" to be buying out the stock of X or Y cards. Now imagine how stupid those people are feeling right now stuck with all that cardboard. I'm guessing this last year taught a lot of Magic buyers a quick lesson in economics they won't be forgetting anytime soon. I'm also guessing a lot of these casual speculators who took a hit are just sitting on stocks of cards waiting for them to go back up so they can break even and not look like idiots. If I'm right that means the next time prices go up there will be extra supply to keep them down a little.

[Picc]

So, everyone happy that the hype and speculation have died down substantially?

In a word yes, no market cant sustain to many speculators without crashing eventually and the last year or two seems to have really increased the number of folks "trading for profit". Series like pack to power and sites like Quietspec really caused an explosion in the popularity of the monetary aspect of the game. Part of it is high single card prices and and tough economic times but whatever the reason the market has been literally glutted with armature speculator/grinders for the last year or so and I think were finally starting to see the backlash of that effect as the promised easy money fails to materialize. All in all its nice to see things slowing down a bit again. I wonder how long it will last this time XD

[Mr Miagi]

I don't know what are you all braging about. The prices are still ridiculus. True they are not going up anymore, but since Underground sea in ex condition is now at least 80€ and all other blue duals going for the 60-70€ range.. i don't know what all the fuss is about.

The prices stopped rising, but they sure as hell didn't go down... which leaves me where? Exactly at the same spot. So..:really:

[dontbiteitholmes]

I don't know what are you all braging about. The prices are still ridiculus. True they are not going up anymore, but since Underground sea in ex condition is now at least 80€ and all other blue duals going for the 60-70€ range.. i don't know what all the fuss is about.

The prices stopped rising, but they sure as hell didn't go down... which leaves me where? Exactly at the same spot. So..:really:

They came down, trust me.

They are still high in that $100 for any card is a high price IMO. Seriously though you can get U. Seas stateside for $85-$100 all day on ebay. Considering they went for like $110-$120 for a while that is a considerable drop. All duals went down about 10-15% but Tundras seem to have gone down the least and Savannahs seem to have recovered the fastest as people want to pick up pieces for Maverick. Considering there are at least 2 US Legacy GPs and even more SCG events this year prices are pretty low. They will probably start to pick up steam again as we close in on GPs and distance ourselves from the holiday season (where events are at a severe lull and people are tapped out).

The real losers were Modern cards which pretty much tanked across the board as the format changed multiple times in the past 6 months and lots of people temporarily lost interest in the format. Not to mention people start getting nervous as WotC seems poised to drop some reprints in the near future, but who knows what that will amount to.

A lot of Legacy staples that were underspeculated have dropped only a little bit or not at all (example Onslaught fetches) which shows how big a part speculation played in the recent increase.

[John Cox]

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/50-MTG-MAGIC-RARES-Mint-All-Different-RARES-ONLY-/200390002777?_trksid=p5197.m8&_trkparms=algo%3DMW%26itu%3DUCC%26otn%3D12%26po%3DLCA%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D5914794864360107926#ht_1263wt_1270

I saw this and laughed.

[dahcmai]

What's so bad about it. Be a good way to stock up on EDH randomness. I must be missing something. You're sure to not get any chase rares, but $16 isn't horrible for 50 crap rares.

[kusumoto]

Except that it's cheaper from Starcity of all places.

http://sales.starcitygames.com/carddisplay.php?product=18916

[John Cox]

What's so bad about it. Be a good way to stock up on EDH randomness. I must be missing something. You're sure to not get any chase rares, but $16 isn't horrible for 50 crap rares.

I see that now, for some reason I thought the going rate was 25-40/ $5 for bulk rares.

Edit: I was right.
See http://www.trollandtoad.com/p101621.html
25/ $5.00

[Wirrsturm]

So I found out foil aven mindcensor is 20+ dollars today. It always astonishes me to find out that a random card like that, which is played as a 1-2 of in one deck, has gotten so expensive. I picked one up today because I thought it was kinda cool from a guy. We didn't think to look up its value so he just called it a couple bucks.

[John Cox]

look up foil dryad arbor some time, its crazy!

[death]

Jap foil Dryad Arbor is crazier.. 6 months after I got my 2nd copy, I've seen none below $135. Even after Natural Order lost its hype to Delver.

[dahcmai]

Foil Gaea's Cradle is starting to slowly catch up to the normal ones. Kind of funny. The normal one went up quite a bit, but the foil didn't follow it. For a bit they were almost the same price around $50-60 or so with the foil only about 10-20 above that. They are finally breaking the hundred mark now though and sold out at just about everywhere but Ebay.

[Einherjer]

Im thinking about buying the BUG pool - im missing Bayous, Tropicals, Fetchlands, Goyfs, Snapcasters and Lillianas....

When is the best time to buy these? Now? Because its winter? Should I wait with goyf until the next edition to see if its reprinted? Thanks for any advice mates.

Greetings

[csy]

Here is my lore nerd feeling about Tarmogoyf getting reprinted.

the *Goyf species is a species Dominaria. Avacyn is not in Dominaria, thus I dont think he'll be printed until some form of return happens. I mean, sure wotc could just decide, hey people keep complaining about this card being expensive.. lets make him a mythic and people will go apeshit. Honestly I just dont see him coming for a while.

AND sometimes people take the futureshifted thing, imo, out of context. What Tarmogoyf gave us was the knowledge that Planeswalkers and tribal were coming. That may be all he ever shows us.

from the MTGS wiki, thats sources a maro article on timespiral
" Each of the cards features some quality that has never appeared in the game before, such as a new keyword ability (Fleshwrither), the application of a new keyword for an old ability (Thornweald Archer), or even referencing cards and card types that do not exist yet (Goldmeadow Lookout, Steamflogger Boss). Each of these unique aspects appear on only a small number of cards, indicating that they may be more properly explored in later sets."

and goyf sploiling that planeswalkers could in fact enter the GY was a pretty big bit of information.


so if you need them now, get them now. If you can wait for Modern PTQ season to be over get them then. Lili is pretty affordable at the moment though.

[Glo]

So I found out foil aven mindcensor is 20+ dollars today. It always astonishes me to find out that a random card like that, which is played as a 1-2 of in one deck, has gotten so expensive. I picked one up today because I thought it was kinda cool from a guy. We didn't think to look up its value so he just called it a couple bucks.

I actually did a trade in November where I was a little short (like $1-$2), so I asked about the foil Trinket Mage he had. He gladly threw it in. I later saw it valued at $10-$12 :eek:

[kombatkiwi]

I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post this.

Here are pictures of an English Mana Drain that is quite heavily played.

http://imgur.com/7jV7z,6DqQl

I was wondering if anybody could give me the approximate value ('Ebay Price') of this card.

Thanks

[dahcmai]

Played English Mana Drains tend to get around $80-90 or so. That's a fairly safe guess though a few other factors fall in like feedback rating and such.


@Phillip Don't buy unless you're getting a good deal right now. Prices will be a tad higher than normal. People are getting tax returns. They seem to think they can outbid everyone right now due to that. April would be the next decent time to buy. July is a bad time also (birthdays). November is the best time to buy always. Broke people needing money for Christmas.

[Kich867]

Played English Mana Drains tend to get around $80-90 or so. That's a fairly safe guess though a few other factors fall in like feedback rating and such.


@Phillip Don't buy unless you're getting a good deal right now. Prices will be a tad higher than normal. People are getting tax returns. They seem to think they can outbid everyone right now due to that. April would be the next decent time to buy. July is a bad time also (birthdays). November is the best time to buy always. Broke people needing money for Christmas.

Things like that always boggle my mind, I don't doubt the accuracy in that but it always feels like that should be logically impossible--that any given time is better than another and it's in any way shape or form predictable. Because if that were true, and it was known, then it would immediately be untrue. If everyone knew that November was the best time to buy, always, then November would be the worst time to buy because everyone is then..buying.. in November.

[jandax]

Things like that always boggle my mind, I don't doubt the accuracy in that but it always feels like that should be logically impossible--that any given time is better than another and it's in any way shape or form predictable. Because if that were true, and it was known, then it would immediately be untrue. If everyone knew that November was the best time to buy, always, then November would be the worst time to buy because everyone is then..buying.. in November.

It seems you got hung up on the claim that one time is better or worse to buy than another, and didn't look at the context he provided. We could go on to further demonstrate his points, and I'd even add that before and after Pro Tours would be a bad time to buy. Anyways, it kind of makes sense, and the market does flucuate given Holiday seasons/huge tournaments/etc.

[Kich867]

It seems you got hung up on the claim that one time is better or worse to buy than another, and didn't look at the context he provided. We could go on to further demonstrate his points, and I'd even add that before and after Pro Tours would be a bad time to buy. Anyways, it kind of makes sense, and the market does flucuate given Holiday seasons/huge tournaments/etc.

Direct quote from my post: "I don't doubt the accuracy in that but it always feels like that should be logically impossible"

I recognize it is true, I am saying that I feel like it shouldn't be given that it's common knowledge and if all people acted accordingly on that common knowledge, the inverse should be true. -- It's just something I find to be a curiosity.

[hyperchord24]

I think it depends on how many people know this trend. I doubt many do or have the patience to wait. I know I don't

[thegrinningdemon]

I don't think knowing the trend has anything to do with what actually happens. If you are short money around Christmas time, are you really going to say to yourself "I had better buy some Magic cards because it's the best time to buy?" Probably not. There are always people buying, but those numbers do tend to drop around the holidays. It may be worth noting the amount of fixed price auctions on eBay during the holidays. I offered quite a bit of fiixed price or buy it now auctions with high starting bids since I did not want to lose my shirt when my items did not receive many bids.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I don't think knowing the trend has anything to do with what actually happens. If you are short money around Christmas time, are you really going to say to yourself "I had better buy some Magic cards because it's the best time to buy?" Probably not. There are always people buying, but those numbers do tend to drop around the holidays. It may be worth noting the amount of fixed price auctions on eBay during the holidays. I offered quite a bit of fiixed price or buy it now auctions with high starting bids since I did not want to lose my shirt when my items did not receive many bids.

This.

It doesn't matter that people "know" that mid-November through December is the best time to buy.

#1: If I am preparing for an event that is in a month, I can't wait until the end of the year to buy cards.
#2: Most people need their money during the holidays for other things. For college kids it's the end of the semester and they need to save money for buying books next semester. If they have kids all the money goes to presents. If they are young and get money from mom and dad they will likely have to wait to get extra spending money for a Xmas present.
#3: The cards still aren't free. I mean you might see around a 10-20% drop in prices but enough people know that it's a good time to get deals that not much will slip through the cracks and go for like 1/2 what it's worth. That said the people who are bidding are looking for deals so not many people are willing to get into bidding wars to bid up to "normal" prices.


Basically the same time of year where people have the least money is also the slowest time of year for MtG events. It's not that big a deal though, if you plan on playing the cards in lots of events between now and then just get them. The price of duals and other legacy staples tends to rise slightly over the year so if you get them before GP fever hits (if it hasn't already) they will probably be similar if not less than what they end up selling for next winter.

[SmallFish]

So apparently the price of Full art Mutavaults has skyrocketed, unfortunately. Looks like I may be priced out of collecting the card I collect :P. BTW, I am not one of the people who spent over $600 on one.

[mrjumbo03]

So apparently the price of Full art Mutavaults has skyrocketed, unfortunately. Looks like I may be priced out of collecting the card I collect :P. BTW, I am not one of the people who spent over $600 on one.

Is there an estimate as to how many of these full art foils were actually printed? I just don't understand how it can go up to $600 considering Merfolk is poorly positioned right now.

[majikal]

Is there an estimate as to how many of these full art foils were actually printed? I just don't understand how it can go up to $600 considering Merfolk is poorly positioned right now.

It's a combination of hype from Modern and a small number of people collecting them in bulk.

[socialite]

LOL (http://www.ebay.com/itm/MTG-Foil-Korean-Snapcaster-Mage-MINT-/120858425079?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c23b936f7)

Le sigh.

[GGoober]

LOL (http://www.ebay.com/itm/MTG-Foil-Korean-Snapcaster-Mage-MINT-/120858425079?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c23b936f7)

Le sigh.

Sighs... Talking about WAY overhyped. I know Korean cards are incredibly hard to find, but sure does not deserve the hype that it's being listed as. Anyway, glad I took the decision to go the 'unpimp' non-foil Korean route. Meh, fits nicer with my awesome old-bordered Korean non-foils.

I'm just sad Korean went the way of Jap foils as well, but that was kind of expected.

[Koby]

Ditto on non-foil Korean. That's the only way to go. :D

I think right now, I'm comfortable with 2x price premium on English -> Korean on Standard cards. Anything more than that is just gouging.

[socialite]

LOL (http://www.ebay.com/itm/MTG-Foil-Korean-Snapcaster-Mage-MINT-/120858425079?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c23b936f7)

Le sigh.

Gentlemen the cake has been taken (http://www.ebay.com/itm/MTG-Magic-Gathering-Mythic-Rare-Innistrad-KOREAN-FOIL-LILIANA-VEIL-/280826644019?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4162928633).

I'd like to point out that no Korean Foil should ever approach the price of the Snapcaster/Liliana. There is a ton of new print Korean product on the market, domestic LGS's can even order boxes. I gotta say if you are paying this kind of price for Korean Foils that are not M12 and you haven't been time warped 5-10 years in the future - you're doing it wrong.

Edit: Oh man it sold for 650.00. Haha

[dahcmai]

There's a small problem with Korean cards. I have three friends in Korea trying to find me the cards. They just aren't popular there. Korean hobby stores are packed with Gundam stuff (whatever that is). To make it worse, Magic has a few things lost in translation that make the game very hard to learn for a newer player. So it's practically a dead game to them.

My friends tried and tried to buy up some boxes for me, but they plain couldn't find it since the stores kept dropping the product. They didn't sell so they refused to buy more.

Yeah, that's one way to drive up the price.

[atropos]

There's a small problem with Korean cards. I have three friends in Korea trying to find me the cards. They just aren't popular there. Korean hobby stores are packed with Gundam stuff (whatever that is). To make it worse, Magic has a few things lost in translation that make the game very hard to learn for a newer player. So it's practically a dead game to them.

My friends tried and tried to buy up some boxes for me, but they plain couldn't find it since the stores kept dropping the product. They didn't sell so they refused to buy more.

Yeah, that's one way to drive up the price.

QFT. I spent a year there teaching English (i.e. drinking) and all I managed to find was one halfway decent store in Seoul with extremely overpriced singles. The only lively tournament scene was on the American military base and they only played draft, standard, and extended.

[cdr]

Would be interesting if the majority of the Korean print run is going to the US/Europe. Sounds like Wizards has a struggle on their hands for market share, though they had to have good reason to believe printing in Korean again was worthwhile.

[socialite]

I've heard similar accounts of players living in Korea. It's also important to point out that market share is what originally pushed WotC to stop printing in Korean the first time. This "difficulty" is all hype - people keep saying the same thing about it being hard to find new Korean sealed product, personally I think it's bs. I knew two people in Korea at the time of the M12 release and they had no issue finding product in addition the amount of sealed Korean on eBay and similar auction sites over the past few months has been astronomical. My LGS is able to pick up 2-3 boxes every PO as well which speaks volumes to me. Really people are just price gouging, no surprise here.

[sdematt]

Question for y'all: how much should I actually be paying on a Korean Volrath's Stronghold?

-Matt

[GGoober]

Auctions go for around $40 but I would pay ~$30 for an EX-EX+ Stronghold (NM may be ~$40). I got mine at $20 6 months ago :)

Anyway Ertai, regarding the $650 Liliana Korean foil, do people not click the 'completed auctions' (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Korean-Liliana-Veil-FOIL-x-1-MINT-Innistrad-MTG-Magic-Gathering-/320824518534?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab2a1a786#ht_500wt_1182) button?

On a side question, what is a fair price to pay for a Korean Snapcaster? I'm thinking $40-50 is alright since that's around x2 the enlighs price.

[Koby]

Auctions go for around $40 but I would pay ~$30 for an EX-EX+ Stronghold (NM may be ~$40). I got mine at $20 6 months ago :)

Anyway Ertai, regarding the $650 Liliana Korean foil, do people not click the 'completed auctions' (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Korean-Liliana-Veil-FOIL-x-1-MINT-Innistrad-MTG-Magic-Gathering-/320824518534?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab2a1a786#ht_500wt_1182) button?

On a side question, what is a fair price to pay for a Korean Snapcaster? I'm thinking $40-50 is alright since that's around x2 the enlighs price.

I was bidding until the last minute on the completed 2x auction, but wasn't going to go above $90 shipped... it ended at 91 lol. I think once more product gets released, it will settle at 30-35. Keep in mind all the shops are still getting about a box or 2 per shipment, so we're not at the choke point yet.

[TheAardvark]

I think $45 is fair for a Korean Snapcaster, and $50 is ok if you *really* want it, but anything beyond that is a no go.

@Matt,

I say $35 is good. I know auctions have been hitting $40, but the handful I have seen at events and such, people have tended to value them slightly lower.

[hyperchord24]

What's the deal with the Zendikar full art lands? I wanted some because I was bored with my usual lands, but I looked at 3 reliable online vendors and they've been cleaned out! A couple more have limited or no stock on the foils. I understand they're pretty and are probably a safe investment, but 3 stores. 3! Am I missing something?

[Koby]

What's the deal with the Zendikar full art lands? I wanted some because I was bored with my usual lands, but I looked at 3 reliable online vendors and they've been cleaned out! A couple more have limited or no stock on the foils. I understand they're pretty and are probably a safe investment, but 3 stores. 3! Am I missing something?

Regular or foil? I know the foil ones are starting to become scarce, but the regular versions are everywhere...

[hyperchord24]

Trollandtoad, coolstuffinc and lotusvault are cleaned out of the regular full art lands.

[Koby]

Trollandtoad, coolstuffinc and lotusvault are cleaned out of the regular full art lands.

http://findmagiccards.com/Cards/ZE/Island__234_.html
http://findmagiccards.com/Cards/ZE/Island__236_.html

etc

Also, www.Cardshark.com

[death]

Yours isn't actually a problem at all when compared to my problem:


http://static.starcitygames.com/sales/cardscans/MAGBAT/island_4.jpg

http://www.magiccardmarket.eu/Island_5_(Battle_Royale) (http://www.magiccardmarket.eu/Island_5_(Battle_Royale).c1p14721.prod)

[from Cairo]

Yours isn't actually a problem at all when compared to my problem:


http://static.starcitygames.com/sales/cardscans/MAGBAT/island_4.jpg

http://www.magiccardmarket.eu/Island_5_(Battle_Royale) (http://www.magiccardmarket.eu/Island_5_(Battle_Royale).c1p14721.prod)

http://www.abugames.com/card139121-245631/Island---D-Battle-Royale-Magic-The-Gathering-Single-Card.html

[dahcmai]

Yeah, I was about to post that link also. I was wondering why that particular one was so high. It shouldn't be. Royale wasn't hard to get at all. I have a bunch of those lands lying around myself.

[KevinTrudeau]

Due to the ICP Time Walk, Personal Tutor has shot up to around $45, which is excellent news for me, a proud owner of two. I'm gonna try to trade them (probably indirectly) for Wastelands as soon as I can.

What clearing price do you guys think Tutor will settle at? Warrior's Oath never really came down after that artifact that ends your turn in M12 saw print, so I don't foresee it dropping below $30 long term.

[cdr]

I don't see Personal Tutor ever coming back down, either. I still have my $2 one I got for EDH, I think.

[Julian23]

Right now, people are asking 30+€ for them. However, according to mcm statistics, none has sold at that price thus far.

[Picc]

I don't see Personal Tutor ever coming back down, either. I still have my $2 one I got for EDH, I think.


IMO its going to drop a bit once people get over the ZOMG miracle is power thing (mox opal wasn't, visions from beyond wasn't, time reversal wasn't, temporal mastery isn't). R&D is just burning through more "magic equity" as they put it and savvy traders are buying out online stocks so they can ride the hype by looking at what we want to combo it with.

IMO personal would also plummet the moment mystical got unbanned.

[Goin Aggro]

If you're lucky enough to have personal tutors, (Or like medina, bought them out of store)

You should probably dump them on ebay now. Even if you only get 30-35 a piece, you'll do pretty well.

All the hype with tutor is way overblown. You're not going to waste a card just so you can find a time walk. Especially the people who think they'll be noxiousing it up for secondsies.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Even if Mastery is as good as everyone is acting like it is it's still not worth Personal Tutoring up. Oh hai, Personal Tutor for Mastery, it gets countered :'''(. Of course if it is as good as everyone says then it will probably get banned sooner than later. Either way I'd sell Personal Tutor's ASAP.

[Oiolosse]

Agreed, sell now. Running 4 sorceries to find 4 conditional sorceries leaves you with 52 cards that need to get there. People will realize that masturwalking for three turns isn't as jizzy as maturstorming for one.

[dahcmai]

Most of the Warrior's Oath auctions that are up are all me anyway. I haven't sold one in a while. I just don't see any others and have a monopoly on it right now so why not hold out. Last one I got rid of went at $25 to a local. That's probably closer to a real price though I personally think it should be lower aside from that whole rarity thing. That's it's real reason for holding a price anymore, not playability.

It's nothing special other than a collector's piece. Final Fortune is the best of those cards anyway. The portal Last Chance one should run you less if you feel the need to run more than 4.


Personal Tutor is one I hold onto. It is after all one of the last cheap costed tutors in Legacy. Intuition is better for the most part, but Personal can have it's uses and there's no good replacement for it. It kind of sucks still even with Psuedo-Walk, but it's going to eventually have a target worth ditching that card for and that's when it's going to really go up. I'll wait for it. It also has that rarity factor to buffer the loss over time.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Most of the Warrior's Oath auctions that are up are all me anyway. I haven't sold one in a while. I just don't see any others and have a monopoly on it right now so why not hold out. Last one I got rid of went at $25 to a local. That's probably closer to a real price though I personally think it should be lower aside from that whole rarity thing. That's it's real reason for holding a price anymore, not playability.

It's nothing special other than a collector's piece. Final Fortune is the best of those cards anyway. The portal Last Chance one should run you less if you feel the need to run more than 4.


Personal Tutor is one I hold onto. It is after all one of the last cheap costed tutors in Legacy. Intuition is better for the most part, but Personal can have it's uses and there's no good replacement for it. It kind of sucks still even with Psuedo-Walk, but it's going to eventually have a target worth ditching that card for and that's when it's going to really go up. I'll wait for it. It also has that rarity factor to buffer the loss over time.

I think the key is that Personal Tutor is super inflated right now because of noob speculation with Mastery. Kind of how when a new card gets unbanned it shoots up in value 300% for a couple weeks, then everyone realizes it's not that great and it settles back around 120-150% of what it used to go for. If you are speculating P Tutor for sale I'd pull the trigger three days ago, it's only going to go down, if you think it's going to get broken one day you can always buy them again once the hype dies down and all the kids who bought stacks on speculation are looking to ditch them at half what they paid to move on to their next failure. Really though I wouldn't get my hopes up too high, anything worth running Personal Tutor in a deck for is worth running as a 4 of, and at that point Intuition and Lim-Dul's Vault are just infinity times better most of the time in my book. (Can't believe no one's brought up Lim-Dul's Vault for Mastery yet, just more proof that the Legacy community is very narrow minded when it comes to forum hype.)

I think the floor is going to fall out on Mastery soon though. People are starting to actually test it and realize that 4x Mastery does not instantly make every single deck in existence better. I've seen 100 people say it's too good and needs to be banned, and I've seen all of one deck list so far where it actually seemed to make the deck any better (and about 50 crappy ones).

[death]

http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_full_width_scaled/hash/31/d1/31d189f91ebd581afd919805282c9dd4.jpg

It may not be a bad idea after all to reserve a playset for yourself. I've stockpiled on Personal Tutor after Mystical was banned. Now will be the best time to sell those before one of these shit gets banned

[Oiolosse]

I want it for the art. I love how you can see her nip.

[Lord Seth]

Due to the ICP Time Walk, Personal Tutor has shot up to around $45, which is excellent news for me, a proud owner of two. I'm gonna try to trade them (probably indirectly) for Wastelands as soon as I can.

What clearing price do you guys think Tutor will settle at? Warrior's Oath never really came down after that artifact that ends your turn in M12 saw print, so I don't foresee it dropping below $30 long term.Depends significantly on the actual impact of Temporal Mastery (and to a lesser extent the other Miracle cards). If Personal Tutor+Temporal Mastery becomes a thing in Legacy and maybe other formats, its price is going to stay up, though it may drop some after the initial rush. If it turns out to be overrated and dies out or becomes so powerful that bannings result in it losing power (whether that banning be Personal Tutor, Brainstorm, or Temporal Mastery itself), then Personal Tutor's price is going to go back down. Too much really depends on how Temporal Mastery and the other Miracle cards actually do in real play, particularly in conjunction with Personal Tutor.

[dahcmai]

You can add foil Noxious Revivals to that list of enablers that went up.

[Occam]

Has anyone been paying attention to the prices rarities go for these days? Completely ridiculous, with an inflation rate far higher than legacy staples. My collection appreciated by a lot as a result, but I'm still not really too happy with all the speculation and price spiralling going on.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Has anyone been paying attention to the prices rarities go for these days? Completely ridiculous, with an inflation rate far higher than legacy staples. My collection appreciated by a lot as a result, but I'm still not really too happy with all the speculation and price spiralling going on.

Rarities meaning hard to find versions of cards? (Example Foil Port)
If so who cares. I'm fine with pimp shit being expensive, it's the non-pimp shit everyone should be worried about.

[lordofthepit]

Rarities meaning hard to find versions of cards? (Example Foil Port)
If so who cares. I'm fine with pimp shit being expensive, it's the non-pimp shit everyone should be worried about.

I think he's talking about stuff like Summer rares, foil test prints, etc.

I don't think anyone has a problem with the super rare stuff (which are exclusively a domain of collectors) going up in price. In fact, it's probably more desirable that way (even though I never plan to get into it).

[ramanujan]

Yes,

Rarities have been increasing in value dramatically recently. I bet there was just a big cohort of people that have gotten some good raises in the last year and they don't have families to spend it on. I could probably buy a very high end washing machine with the lost money on the misprint I destroyed by now.

I doubt that this trend will continue much further. There just arent enough millionares out there to sustain a redoubling any time soon on rarities.

[dahcmai]

I have an Excell file that keeps track of my collection's worth and is compared to my own retirement investments and 401k. It's truly hilarious. Magic can literally be considered one of the riskiest, but most profitable investments in history. My 401K's lousy 3%-6% at best (if it's not going down) has nothing on the 170% return on average on my collection.

That's kind of scary really.


Personally, I would rather have $20-40 duals and half affordable Summer cards again in a heartbeat over the craze sweeping through anymore on just about anything.

[warai]

Magic cards rise up in prices are an economic bubble. How much of you guys are just buying cards and speculating on its prices? I bet that a significant percentage isn't even playing real life legacy on a regular basis. By regular I mean 1 time for 2 months.

When everyone realize that legacy is no longer fun or another risk event happening like the popularity of modern rising up, a downfall in prices will happen and a lot of people are going to loose money. And the risk exists!!!

[Picc]

Magic cards rise up in prices are an economic bubble. How much of you guys are just buying cards and speculating on its prices? I bet that a significant percentage isn't even playing real life legacy on a regular basis. By regular I mean 1 time for 2 months.

When everyone realize that legacy is no longer fun or another risk event happening like the popularity of modern rising up, a downfall in prices will happen and a lot of people are going to loose money. And the risk exists!!!

While I do agree with you that the current trend in pricing is an economic bubble the problem with the rest of your statement is that legacy is fun even if we don't all get to play it as much as we use to / would like. Even if the speculator cash out (and I kinda wish they would) the rest of us are still going to want our legacy cards for playing with even if they no longer function as "investment" vehicles.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Worth noting prices always spike this time of year. Tax returns do wonders for pimp card prices. It's a lot easier to drop $100 on one card when you are holding a check for $5000.

Speculating Magic cards is dumb. Saying your collection is worth something and actually cashing it out for that are two different things. I can sell $5000 in stocks in 5 mins. and get full value. If I go to sell $5000 worth of Magic cards its either all going on Ebay for 12% off the top or it might take me months to years to sell it all for full value.

Every time I come into this thread I almost fall out laughing. I love to go back and read the posts from 8-10 months ago for comedic effect when everyone was Warren Buffet up in this bitch. I wonder how many kids are still sitting on all that crap only to see it sitting at roughly the same value it was almost a year ago.

[TsumiBand]

I might just suck at using The Source's search engine, but I don't believe I've seen much mention of EDH in this thread. Super relevant to Legacy staple price spikes. EDH not only lets Timmy Johnny and Spike play whatever kind of Magic they like, it also has its own set of precons to invite new kids to come play. And those kids are going to want duals/fetches/tutors/shocklands/etc, basically anything in that goofy Venn diagram between Eternal formats.

People used to flip shit about Modern coming in and usurping the player base; you guys forgot Poland. Commander is overtaking both the major Eternal formats in such a palpable way. There's hardly an 'extra product' set anymore, be it FTV or Planechase or whatever, that EDH can't cherry-pick the goods from and just go "Welp, I'll tack about 400% onto the cost of that card for you."

[phonics]

I might just suck at using The Source's search engine, but I don't believe I've seen much mention of EDH in this thread. Super relevant to Legacy staple price spikes. EDH not only lets Timmy Johnny and Spike play whatever kind of Magic they like, it also has its own set of precons to invite new kids to come play. And those kids are going to want duals/fetches/tutors/shocklands/etc, basically anything in that goofy Venn diagram between Eternal formats.

People used to flip shit about Modern coming in and usurping the player base; you guys forgot Poland. Commander is overtaking both the major Eternal formats in such a palpable way. There's hardly an 'extra product' set anymore, be it FTV or Planechase or whatever, that EDH can't cherry-pick the goods from and just go "Welp, I'll tack about 400% onto the cost of that card for you."

I think for the most part edh 'hype' has plateaued and any cards outside of new releases have their values relatively set (aka there isn't much left to speculate on). I was really into EDH and getting foils and whatnot for my decks as a hobby. Its kind of crazy that in a couple years I have been pretty much priced out of that market.

[Oiolosse]

I have an Excell file that keeps track of my collection's worth and is compared to my own retirement investments and 401k. It's truly hilarious. Magic can literally be considered one of the riskiest, but most profitable investments in history. My 401K's lousy 3%-6% at best (if it's not going down) has nothing on the 170% return on average on my collection.

That's kind of scary really.


Personally, I would rather have $20-40 duals and half affordable Summer cards again in a heartbeat over the craze sweeping through anymore on just about anything.

Guest Starring on the boards tonight...Waaaaaarreeen Buuuuuffeeett, ladies and gentlemen.

EDIT: damnit Holmes. You ninja'd the W.B. reference

[dahcmai]

Make fun all you like. Cashing out of Vintage was good enough for me to be quite happy for a long time.

[sigfig8]

Surprised there's been no mention of the Helvault foil goodies yet. With incredibly scarce, known quantities, where will the foil angel/demon token and foil oversized cards end at? Perhaps in the short term they remain in check value-wise, but since they are mostly Angels (of which there are many casual collectors), could their values rise rapidly in time? Look at the rarity of the Jin He angel token, for example.

[Koby]

Surprised there's been no mention of the Helvault foil goodies yet. With incredibly scarce, known quantities, where will the foil angel/demon token and foil oversized cards end at? Perhaps in the short term they remain in check value-wise, but since they are mostly Angels (of which there are many casual collectors), could their values rise rapidly in time? Look at the rarity of the Jin He angel token, for example.

I guess people like paying lots of money to collect stamps too. Gives something for the "collectors" to get a boner for without affecting the "players". I approve of this general idiotic behavior on the "foil token madness" crowd.

EDIT: Bolded for reference.


The Helvaults that had the foil tokens also had an extra card thrown in like a Judge Demonic Tutor or a full art Wrath or something along those lines.

Those foil DCI judge promos have already existed in the market, so it's not as though they are more rare as a result.

[264505]

I guess people like paying lots of money to collect stamps too. Gives something for the "collectors" to get a boner for without affecting the "players". I approve of this general idiotic behavior on the "foil token madness" crowd.

The Helvaults that had the foil tokens also had an extra card thrown in like a Judge Demonic Tutor or a full art Wrath or something along those lines.

[Surging Chaos]

I have an Excell file that keeps track of my collection's worth and is compared to my own retirement investments and 401k. It's truly hilarious. Magic can literally be considered one of the riskiest, but most profitable investments in history. My 401K's lousy 3%-6% at best (if it's not going down) has nothing on the 170% return on average on my collection.

That's kind of scary really.

Forbes actually did mention Magic as a "bizzare investment strategy". See for yourself. (http://www.forbes.com/pictures/el45ejhkg/magic-the-gathering-cards/)

[dontbiteitholmes]

Forbes actually did mention Magic as a "bizzare investment strategy". See for yourself. (http://www.forbes.com/pictures/el45ejhkg/magic-the-gathering-cards/)

Yes we've all seen that article, prices have gone down from 5-6 months ago, but they are still inflated.

A lot of people were buying cards like crazy last year thinking the prices would keep going up. They didn't. A lot of stores got caught holding lots of extra stock that there was no demand for, which is why prices have gone down, the stores still have to sell cards to stay in business. Meanwhile, all the financial wizards like the ones who used to pollute this thread aren't a store. They still are holding lots of cards they bought at the peak of pricing. Some will ship the cards at a loss if they need the money, a lot of them though are still playing the waiting game. They are willing to wait it out and see if the prices go back up, but a lot of them will probably ship before then and the ones that don't will be the first ones to sell when the prices go back up since this is what they bought the cards planning to do in the first place. If a lot of these people sell as soon as prices go back up it will keep the prices low. Take my word for it. I heard all the big talk both on these boards and at events. A lot of people are sitting on a lot of cards they don't need. When prices start to go back up they will plateau for a while when all these speculators can finally unload the cards for a small profit and flood the market.

[socialite]

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5445/7005605230_4e28af5a43_o.jpg
I'm special! (http://www.magictraders.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/092770.html#2)

I have no hope for MoTL and is why I focus my attention mostly on other sites. For the record I'd probably offer 75-90 max on a Korean Foil Cavern of Souls - gotta start off with low balls. :(

Derp Derp (http://www.ebay.com/csc/i.html?_sacat=See-All-Categories&_from=R40&_nkw=foil+korean+snapcaster+mage&LH_Complete=1&rt=nc) Fuck people are stupid. MTGKorean shill bids his stuff all the time. He has a bunch of accounts that have 70% activity with his main account, check out some of his other auctions.

[Mr.C]

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5445/7005605230_4e28af5a43_o.jpg
I'm special! (http://www.magictraders.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/092770.html#2)

I have no hope for MoTL and is why I focus my attention mostly on other sites. For the record I'd probably offer 75-90 max on a Korean Foil Cavern of Souls - gotta start off with low balls. :(

Derp Derp (http://www.ebay.com/csc/i.html?_sacat=See-All-Categories&_from=R40&_nkw=foil+korean+snapcaster+mage&LH_Complete=1&rt=nc) Fuck people are stupid. MTGKorean shill bids his stuff all the time. He has a bunch of accounts that have 70% activity with his main account, check out some of his other auctions.

fyi, that was an absurdly low BIN. That's why it sold instantly.

[socialite]

fyi, that was an absurdly low BIN. That's why it sold instantly.

Yeah it was low but I really do not think it should hit anything near 350.00. I'm rather fed up with the shill bidding/fake price fixing. It's unfortunate that people do not do more research before going all in on these prices as once they commit and an actual sale is made it's difficult to rationalize a more realistic price.

[Koby]

Foils are overrated and overvalued.

[csy]

I agree with that statement. I really dont like foils.

[lordofthepit]

Foils are overrated and overvalued.

And ugly.

[Picc]

And ugly.


^, I've always avoided them.

[xfxf]

+1 For not liking foils. And sometimes they have great alternate art but you can't put them in your deck just because they are foils:
http://www.wizards.com/mtg/images/daily/events/promo/magic2011_birdsofparadise_en.jpg
http://static.starcitygames.com/sales/cardscans/MAGPRM/demonictutorJDG.jpg

[lordofthepit]

+1 For not liking foils. And sometimes they have great alternate art but you can't put them in your deck just because they are foils:[/IMG]

Here's a serious dilemma.

The judge foil Sword of Fire and Ice looks sweet as hell because it has the older borders, but unfortunately, it's foil:

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/jr/57.jpg

Is it possible to remove the foil from these cards without damaging them?

[Zakman86]

Here's a serious dilemma.

The judge foil Sword of Fire and Ice looks sweet as hell because it has the older borders, but unfortunately, it's foil:

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/jr/57.jpg

Is it possible to remove the foil from these cards without damaging them?

It's not.

[socialite]

It will be interesting to see how much this (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Magic-the-Gathering-MTG-KOREAN-FOIL-SNAPCASTER-MAGE-super-rare-FOIL-/320901967732?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab73f6f74) gets shilled. I'm sure it will end at some ridiculous amount and be re-posted days later like the rest of them.

[lordofthepit]

Scroll Rack (http://magiccards.info/tp/en/298.html), SMH

[sigfig8]

Scroll Rack (http://magiccards.info/tp/en/298.html), SMH

Scroll Rack can't possibly maintain this price tag, right?

[xfxf]

I am sad that I sold a scroll rack to a store for store credit just to get some Zendikar fetches last summer (along with some other old rares for 3-5 dollars). I had that card since 1998, it also had sentimental value. Now it also has monetary value :cry:

[dernestor86]

what happened to scroll rack? i still have quite a few in various languages, because i was too lazy to list them. thought they were a 5$ card

[socialite]

Good thing I have a bunch o' Korean Scroll Racks, lol miracle deck.

[majikal]

Scroll Rack (http://magiccards.info/tp/en/298.html), SMH
What the everloving fuck.

Does anything even play that card??

[warfordium]

The judge foil Sword of Fire and Ice looks sweet as hell because it has the older borders, but unfortunately, it's foil:

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/jr/57.jpg

Is it possible to remove the foil from these cards without damaging them?

I came back to the game in January 2011 after 12-13 years away; i'm into the new card frame but goddamnit, artifacts should be brown. mythic rarity and foils drive me bananas, but THIS CARD RIGHT HERE. uNF. it makes me shiver a little its so pretty.

whenever i bitch about foils i get the 'only foils go up in value' nonsense. there's also a missed opportunity cost: you could own twice (or more) the non-foil cards and have a much deeper card pool available to you. don't people play this game to, yknow, play the game?

[xfxf]

I have been selling old rares like Birds of Paradise and Scroll Rack and trying to build up my Legacy card stock with Duals and Fetches in fear of being too late before the prices increase even more. I just realized that there's no end to it...

I mean I got the blue duals since they are always needed but meanwhile Savannahs jumped to 100$ and now Maverick deck is out of my reach. I thought I could buy the cross format, cross archetype staples first and complete more specific staples like LED later, and LEDs jumped to 55ish from 35ish. I thought I could buy cards like Scavenging Ooze the last as the good to have cards and they jumped to 40 something. Meanwhile my poor Scroll Rack became a 25$ rare competing with Time Spiral and I'm now sad that I let it go.

Currently I can't even sell/trade my old Ball Lightnings and Cursed Scrolls in fear of losing value on them. I also can't prioritize any purchases as anything have the potential to see an incomprehensible price jump. You go for duals, you lose on the chaff, you go for chaff you lose on the money cards. Mind you, you only need so many money cards but when you calculate the value of "chaff" for any deck you see that it's around half the value of the deck and owning just the money cards doesn't really make the deck cheaper unless you can put in an effort to buy boosters and trade for the cards you need. Just take any bant deck and see how much it costs after you subtract the duals, fethches, wastelands and FOWs.

On the other hand rather than getting the support cards (the ones you play or don't play according to the metagame) and all the necessary sideboard options for two different decks, you can get a piece of P9. Rather than completing a single Legacy deck from scratch you can get half of the P9.

Currently the market is crazy.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I have been selling old rares like Birds of Paradise and Scroll Rack and trying to build up my Legacy card stock with Duals and Fetches in fear of being too late before the prices increase even more. I just realized that there's no end to it...

I mean I got the blue duals since they are always needed but meanwhile Savannahs jumped to 100$ and now Maverick deck is out of my reach. I thought I could buy the cross format, cross archetype staples first and complete more specific staples like LED later, and LEDs jumped to 55ish from 35ish. I thought I could buy cards like Scavenging Ooze the last as the good to have cards and they jumped to 40 something. Meanwhile my poor Scroll Rack became a 25$ rare competing with Time Spiral and I'm now sad that I let it go.

Currently I can't even sell/trade my old Ball Lightnings and Cursed Scrolls in fear of losing value on them. I also can't prioritize any purchases as anything have the potential to see an incomprehensible price jump. You go for duals, you lose on the chaff, you go for chaff you lose on the money cards. Mind you, you only need so many money cards but when you calculate the value of "chaff" for any deck you see that it's around half the value of the deck and owning just the money cards doesn't really make the deck cheaper unless you can put in an effort to buy boosters and trade for the cards you need. Just take any bant deck and see how much it costs after you subtract the duals, fethches, wastelands and FOWs.

On the other hand rather than getting the support cards (the ones you play or don't play according to the metagame) and all the necessary sideboard options for two different decks, you can get a piece of P9. Rather than completing a single Legacy deck from scratch you can get half of the P9.

Currently the market is crazy.

Damn, you are paying almost double Ebay prices. Unfortunately for you France, Spain, and Italy are full of MtG Ebay scammer so no one will ship to those countries. Otherwise you could easily get Savannahs for $60-$70 all day.

[xfxf]

I am not actually paying those prices, I was just talking about store prices. But the thing is the store prices drive up the prices in places like MKM as well. Savannahs are around 80$ dollars there and LEDs are around 60$, Ooze around 32$ which is still quite high. By bargain hunting I was able to get 60eur NM- Volcanic Islands and 52eur NM- Tarmogoyfs yet it's getting harder and harder to find those bargains and prices are increasing almost every 3 weeks.

[sdematt]

Some people think Scroll Rack is a great card in Legacy. Some people think Miracles are capable of being a deck in Legacy. Both of these people have paid too much for Scroll Racks, both of these people are fools.

I paid $12 for mine on Tuesday for my EDH, and it's good in EDH. I think $12ish is perfectly reasonable. $40 is stupid, and the price will come down as everyone unloads their newly acquired Scroll Racks. Everyone keep calm.

-Matt

[phonics]

Someone just cleared all online stock to speculate probably.

[dsck]

Sensei's Divining Top is about 300 times better, I hope the hoarders flop and take some losses.

[rxavage]

It seems that with enough capital and knowledge of mtg the market would be pretty easily manipulated. Especially since sellers are quick to raise their prices and slow to lower them. The fact that there are more than a few people out there that will pay inflated prices out of fear of missing out because they aren't able to objectively evaluate the true value of a card makes the situation worse. I believe Quiet Speculation takes advantage of this along with a few other tactics and schemes.

[Leftconsin]

So, I walk into FNM today and someone starts talking to me about how he recently bought out eBay and TCGPlayer of couple dozen Scroll Racks. I responded "OMG! You're that guy!"

I know he did this with Force of Wills a while back and bought 50 or so all at once. I also remember him doing it with Exploration and Manabond when 43lands was the flavor of the month.

[dontbiteitholmes]

So, I walk into FNM today and someone starts talking to me about how he recently bought out eBay and TCGPlayer of couple dozen Scroll Racks. I responded "OMG! You're that guy!"

I know he did this with Force of Wills a while back and bought 50 or so all at once. I also remember him doing it with Exploration and Manabond when 43lands was the flavor of the month.

So Explorations are worth roughly the same as they've always been and Manabond is a $2-3 card, Force it really depends on when he bought them, but is this really a winning strategy for him?

[CorpT]

So Explorations are worth roughly the same as they've always been and Manabond is a $2-3 card, Force it really depends on when he bought them, but is this really a winning strategy for him?

I think the idea is that you do it early and get out quickly. You're not making any money sitting on a card. Buy up all of an old card with a limited supply and you can quickly adjust the price up. It will settle back down once the market adjusts, but if you sell while it's up, you can theoretically make money. The problem is that the market adjusts quickly, it require a lot of capital and is somewhat risky. If you had the capital already, it would probably smarter to just spend your time playing the actual market.

[dahcmai]

Actually, you make more on the long run. I tend to sit on cards that are obviously not going to get reprinted better than the current version. I stay away from reserve list cards unless they are legacy viable, which is a very short list. I'm way ahead by doing that.

I could make quick cash in short term sales, but it's more volatile. You can lose your ass quite easily.

[majikal]

This weekend the price of Firestorm jumped to $40 on-site. I don't think that will be the settled price, but it will be far more than the $10ish it has been for a while.

[caiomarcos]

This weekend the price of Firestorm jumped to $40 on-site. I don't think that will be the settled price, but it will be far more than the $10ish it has been for a while.

WHAT??? People are indeed crazy.

But on-sute prices don't mean much, availability is too limited and the hype too strong in those situations. Ebay still has dozens of Firestorms selling for around U$10.

[dahcmai]

About time that one jumped. Some cards just make you wonder why they are cheap at all.

[Pippin]

About time that one jumped. Some cards just make you wonder why they are cheap at all.

:laugh: Right.

Firestorm was $4 a year ago... to suggest it's normal to bump it to $40 and have a 10 times increase is just...

Anyway, no place to panic, there are still lots of copies for $10, or a bit under available both on ebay, online shops and MKM. I seriously hope that speculators will fail with this one.

[bfeingersh]

SCG is sold out of Sneak Attacks and almost sold out of Show and Tells at $40 and $50 respectively. Quite a bump there for Sneaks.

[dontbiteitholmes]

SCG is sold out of Sneak Attacks and almost sold out of Show and Tells at $40 and $50 respectively. Quite a bump there for Sneaks.

I think a lot of SCG prices for old playable Legacy staples is driven by the fact that they will ship overseas, where 95% of Ebay sellers will not ship overseas and SCG prices after conversion are usually equal to prices in Euros or Pounds or whatever. Show and Tell is just getting really popular state side I'm guessing there is quite the shortage overseas compared to other Legacy staples from that era.

[ESG]

Also, Sneak & Show made the finals in the last two SCG Opens, winning the last one. People always scramble to build what's perceived as the strongest deck, and that obviously drives up price. Incidentally, the power level of Show and Tell will continue to rise as long as WOTC continues printing more ridiculous cards to cheat into play. We had a thread somewhere mention how Progenitus pales in comparison to Griselbrand, and WOTC seems to have unending love for pushing the power level of huge creatures, so if Griselbrand doesn't break the card, something else will.

[UnsungHero]

Something that I have wondered is how Volcanic/Tundra/Tropical are all $120 (starcity prices) cheaper than Underground Sea ($150). All of those Blue Duals have seen much more play than Sea has as of late. Granted duals really aren't losing value, but still im surprised they haven't shot up to the same price as Sea, if not higher.

[xfxf]

Vintage maybe? Tundras are not that popular in Vintage and Trops/Volcanics are more like support for a UBx base, am I wrong?

[csy]

its all about Usea in vintage. its basically THE land.

[dahcmai]

Vintage and typically the pro tour if it's Legacy sees a lot of Useas due to storm.


But seriously back on the Firestorm thing, how long has that card been cheap? I doubt it will stay up at $40 for long, in fact I expect that one to go right back to where it was. There's a lot of those out there.

It just reminds me of a few cards like Gemstone Mine, Ill Gotten Gains, or one of my favorite cheap wonders Argothian enchantress. Obviously used cards that stay at the same price forever. Not that I am complaining, but it seems weird after all this time for them to not jump like so many others do.

[frogczar]

It seems that with enough capital and knowledge of mtg the market would be pretty easily manipulated. Especially since sellers are quick to raise their prices and slow to lower them. The fact that there are more than a few people out there that will pay inflated prices out of fear of missing out because they aren't able to objectively evaluate the true value of a card makes the situation worse. I believe Quiet Speculation takes advantage of this along with a few other tactics and schemes.

Whatever happened to just aquiring the cards one needs to play with? This is a disturbing trend. I can't see it sustaining itself.

Magic should not be a stock market with speculators who buy and sell "shares" of a card to make a profit.

How this is resolved eludes me, but I can't see it going on this way forever. It's a game and I would hope the players want to keep it that way. Demand for a card should not be driven by someone buying 100 copies of a card strictly to sell them at a profit.

ugh.

-Frog

[CorpT]

Whatever happened to just aquiring the cards one needs to play with? This is a disturbing trend. I can't see it sustaining itself.

Magic should not be a stock market with speculators who buy and sell "shares" of a card to make a profit.

How this is resolved eludes me, but I can't see it going on this way forever. It's a game and I would hope the players want to keep it that way. Demand for a card should not be driven by someone buying 100 copies of a card strictly to sell them at a profit.

ugh.

-Frog

Welcome to the real world. If WotC wasn't making money, there wouldn't be a game. If dealers weren't making money, there would be no market to acquire the cards.

[caiomarcos]

Whatever happened to just aquiring the cards one needs to play with? This is a disturbing trend. I can't see it sustaining itself.

Magic should not be a stock market with speculators who buy and sell "shares" of a card to make a profit.

How this is resolved eludes me, but I can't see it going on this way forever. It's a game and I would hope the players want to keep it that way. Demand for a card should not be driven by someone buying 100 copies of a card strictly to sell them at a profit.

ugh.

-Frog

A LOT of things should not be how they are today, but they are because of the opportunity to make a profit. Nothing worng with that...
The good thing, and here I agree with you, is that it is not sustainable. I quit buying staples for a while already, they all have become too expensive. Interesting enough I started to buy sealed product more often, my last sizable purchases were an Innistrad booster box and a couple of Commander decks.