[Official] Bitching About Prices, Buyouts and Reprints Thread

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Originally Posted by joemauer

So all these modern cards are exploding, right. But when is a good time to really unload them? When is the next PTQ or any other tourneys for modern?

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My initial guess is during the first few weeks of the PTQ season. However, at this point prior to the Pro Tour, we don't know which strategy will ultimately be the top tier - and this could cause wild fluctuations in prices.

For MTGO - the best time to sell back Modern cards will be this upcoming Wednesday when the format becomes officially sanctioned for tournament play. The demand there should spike heavily around that time.

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Originally Posted by kiblast

I don't care much about modern, so for me the good time is now. I have 12 Shocklands I purchased for 3-4 euros each and I think the best time to unload is now. I'm also wondering how much a foil Watery Grave should go for ?

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I would probably find an EDH player who needs Watery Grave and would pay out the nose to pimp his deck out with the foil watery grave, especially now with all the speculation. Otherwise, the general rule of 2-3x the non foil price I guess depending on demand.

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Originally Posted by Dia_Bot

Lol @ modern being just as expensive as legacy. This is just nuts.
It seems like people don't get that the reason legacy staples are expensive is because of the small print run..

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Doesn't this actually show the opposite? That Legacy prices are not actually priced based on player demand but by set by speculators?

I mean, I've heard numerous times that Mirrodin was where the popularity of the game really exploded, so therefore there should be a ton of these cards out there, even the "old" ones like Bob (and I have to laugh at calling that old) or whatever. SoFI won't even see much Modern play and it's $35/$80 regular/foil. And yes, I know, every EDH deck ever, but that's 1 copy each. Ditto Legacy, if you're playing SoFI, you're play SFM and 1 copy. So somewhow, there were a shit ton of these around, enough for everyone that wanted playsets when they came out, but now 1 is difficult to get (SCG is sold out of NM/M copies at $35 each) at 8 1/2 times the price of when they were at their peak for popularity? I mean, yes, I know that was 7 years ago. But finding a 2004 Honda Accord isn't much more difficult than finding a 2011 Honda Accord. It's not like these things were Mythic.

Much about the MTG singles market doesn't make very much logical sense.

Part of the problem is that no one is willing to sell at a lower price than they bought in for.

What about that Vesuva. It's about $25-30 now. To think I almost traded my 3 Vesuvas for a City of Traitors. Good thing he declined.

I used to think that the rapidly increasing prices on Legacy staples were a phenomenon unique to Legacy. That is, enough Magic players had caught up to what I had known ever since my Ball Lightnings and Cursed Scrolls plummeted in price--that buying into Eternal formats (Type 1/1.5 at the time) was much better, cheaper, and more enjoyable in the long run than buying into Standard. And I am sure that older Magic fans have been aware of this for even longer than I have. Around 2008, however, more players came to appreciate that Legacy staples were undervalued and began speculating, driving the price up accordingly.

However, I now believe that increased interest in Legacy is only one small factor contributing to increased prices across the board. Rather, price trends have been driven primarily by increased speculation. Many players have dedicated themselves to "grinding", acquiring massive volumes of cards (their "inventory") to add to their collections ("portfolios"). They write articles to glamorize what they do, inspiring other wannabes. As a result, speculation occurs on a much larger scale then it did before. If someone perceives card X as being slightly undervalued and writes about it, it's very much likely that every prominent online retailer will be cleaned out of X in a matter of hours.

I think the upward trends of "pimp" foils, EDH staples, and most recently, Modern staples is a manifestation of this increased speculation. Pimp cards aren't inherently necessary to be competitive in their respective formats. EDH cards is by its very nature not a competitive format, and from what I understand, is a format in which you can use non-tournament legal cards. And staples for Modern--a format that resembles old Extended--have seen prices double or triple their prices during Extended, even before Modern was officially announced as a format.

Maybe when enough Modern staples are reprinted, this speculation craze will subside.

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Originally Posted by lordofthepit

I used to think that the rapidly increasing prices on Legacy staples were a phenomenon unique to Legacy. That is, enough Magic players had caught up to what I had known ever since my Ball Lightnings and Cursed Scrolls plummeted in price--that buying into Eternal formats (Type 1/1.5 at the time) was much better, cheaper, and more enjoyable in the long run than buying into Standard. And I am sure that older Magic fans have been aware of this for even longer than I have. Around 2008, however, more players came to appreciate that Legacy staples were undervalued and began speculating, driving the price up accordingly.

However, I now believe that increased interest in Legacy is only one small factor contributing to increased prices across the board. Rather, price trends have been driven primarily by increased speculation. Many players have dedicated themselves to "grinding", acquiring massive volumes of cards (their "inventory") to add to their collections ("portfolios"). They write articles to glamorize what they do, inspiring other wannabes. As a result, speculation occurs on a much larger scale then it did before. If someone perceives card X as being slightly undervalued and writes about it, it's very much likely that every prominent online retailer will be cleaned out of X in a matter of hours.

I think the upward trends of "pimp" foils, EDH staples, and most recently, Modern staples is a manifestation of this increased speculation. Pimp cards aren't inherently necessary to be competitive in their respective formats. EDH cards is by its very nature not a competitive format, and from what I understand, is a format in which you can use non-tournament legal cards. And staples for Modern--a format that resembles old Extended--have seen prices double or triple their prices during Extended, even before Modern was officially announced as a format.

Maybe when enough Modern staples are reprinted, this speculation craze will subside.

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Yeah, it is getting out of hand. What's next, painlands at $10? Geez. Vesuva at 25 is ludicrous. Time Spiral was a very heavily opened set, less than five years ago.

Either that, or there really isn't a lot of Magic stock.

The numbers of Vesuvas in active circulation have gone down a LOT since the EDH shebang started. I think that land is considered very much a "staple" in that format and it was creeping $10 before the Modern news hit.

A lot of people are putting themselves in a position to get seriously burned. I think it's important to remember Magic is a game and not rely on being able to cash out at the current value of cards whenever you feel like it. Right now the reason a lot of cards are valued what they are is because a significant amount of the secondary market is in the hands of vendors. There have never been more Magic dealers then there are right now and a lot of them have huge inventories of staple cards. I know of one guy locally who for example has a 300 count box full of Force of Wills and that isn't even the beginning of his stock obviously.

The way the economy is looking right now is shaky at best and a lot of people are starting to predict a double dip recession with round 2 coming in the next 2 years. If this happens a lot of the players are going to lose jobs or be short on money and start liquidating their collections. This will flood the market with a lot of cheaper cards at a time when there will be less demand with a downward economy and a lot of the people who have serious collections aging several years and making the transition from high school to college, or from college to looking for work, or from working to starting a family and needing extra money, or working to suddenly unemployed. If this happens a lot of the smaller outfits that have been greedy on holding extra stock will start to feel the sting and many will start to go under and end up further flooding the market with cheap stock and it all spirals down from there. Right now Magic cards are looking a lot like a classic bubble. Cards that were practically worthless for a long time are quickly shooting up in value and we are all paying out the ass for what amounts to a hobby, a lot of greedy dealers are setting prices that rely on record high demand and the fact that other dealers set equally high prices and also have huge amounts of stock.

If any of these pieces gets pulled out and prices start to fall as quickly as they have risen in the past a lot of collections could lose a lot of value overnight and all of a sudden the people who have been thinking they were so smart the last couple months could get caught with a basket full of unhatched eggs and end up looking quite foolish.

I'm not saying this to be a doom bringer or to make myself feel better because I'm some scrub with a weak ass collection (I'm not, I have at least a 3k collection right now). I'm just putting that out there because a lot of people in this thread seem to be stroking their own egos about how great they are at turning a profit off Magic cards and a lot more people seem to be on the verge of trying to get into the buying/selling game with dollar signs in their eyes. People seem to have very short vision when it comes to the current situation with card prices overall. It's one thing to lose 10-30% value if your collection is a personal hobby one it's quite another if that collection is something you view as an investment and you have a lot of extra stock in cards you banked on selling for what they were valued at when you bought them. All I'm saying is don't be foolish. It's hard to look at the current situation with so many small dealers out there holding huge stocks like every day is Christmas and not think that everyone is being a little greedy and shortsighted and if 10% of those dealers suddenly realize their investment is looking shaky and rush to sell out while they can it's not going to be so much a ripple effect but more of a nosedive.

Eternal staples are like GM stocks thirty years ago.

Given a little time, they won't be worth the paper they're printed on.

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Originally Posted by jandax

Eternal staples are like GM stocks thirty years ago.

Given a little time, they won't be worth the paper they're printed on.

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Yeah people said that right after AN was released; look at the game now.

But what would cause a 'crash' on the prices (short of dropping the format)? Prices are only rising because people are willing to pay that much.

Dontbiteitholmes hit it on the head when he said this is a classic bubble. People talk like they did during the housing bubble.
These cards will only appreciate!
My cards doubled/tripled overnight!

Yeah I've been thinking this was bubble waiting to burst for a while now. Give it another year or two. Could be sooner if wizards does something stupid.

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Originally Posted by dontbiteitholmes

A lot of people are putting themselves in a position to get seriously burned. I think it's important to remember Magic is a game and not rely on being able to cash out at the current value of cards whenever you feel like it. Right now the reason a lot of cards are valued what they are is because a significant amount of the secondary market is in the hands of vendors. There have never been more Magic dealers then there are right now and a lot of them have huge inventories of staple cards. I know of one guy locally who for example has a 300 count box full of Force of Wills and that isn't even the beginning of his stock obviously.

The way the economy is looking right now is shaky at best and a lot of people are starting to predict a double dip recession with round 2 coming in the next 2 years. If this happens a lot of the players are going to lose jobs or be short on money and start liquidating their collections. This will flood the market with a lot of cheaper cards at a time when there will be less demand with a downward economy and a lot of the people who have serious collections aging several years and making the transition from high school to college, or from college to looking for work, or from working to starting a family and needing extra money, or working to suddenly unemployed. If this happens a lot of the smaller outfits that have been greedy on holding extra stock will start to feel the sting and many will start to go under and end up further flooding the market with cheap stock and it all spirals down from there. Right now Magic cards are looking a lot like a classic bubble. Cards that were practically worthless for a long time are quickly shooting up in value and we are all paying out the ass for what amounts to a hobby, a lot of greedy dealers are setting prices that rely on record high demand and the fact that other dealers set equally high prices and also have huge amounts of stock.

If any of these pieces gets pulled out and prices start to fall as quickly as they have risen in the past a lot of collections could lose a lot of value overnight and all of a sudden the people who have been thinking they were so smart the last couple months could get caught with a basket full of unhatched eggs and end up looking quite foolish.

I'm not saying this to be a doom bringer or to make myself feel better because I'm some scrub with a weak ass collection (I'm not, I have at least a 3k collection right now). I'm just putting that out there because a lot of people in this thread seem to be stroking their own egos about how great they are at turning a profit off Magic cards and a lot more people seem to be on the verge of trying to get into the buying/selling game with dollar signs in their eyes. People seem to have very short vision when it comes to the current situation with card prices overall. It's one thing to lose 10-30% value if your collection is a personal hobby one it's quite another if that collection is something you view as an investment and you have a lot of extra stock in cards you banked on selling for what they were valued at when you bought them. All I'm saying is don't be foolish. It's hard to look at the current situation with so many small dealers out there holding huge stocks like every day is Christmas and not think that everyone is being a little greedy and shortsighted and if 10% of those dealers suddenly realize their investment is looking shaky and rush to sell out while they can it's not going to be so much a ripple effect but more of a nosedive.

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Truth. Has the gospel of Beanie Baby taught us nothing? People were going to send their kids to college based on the turnaround on Beanie Babies. What did people think they were stuffed with, gold-pressed latinum?

As a guy who's had two potential careers poop in his lap over the last four years, I have to say that yeah I have a somewhat vested interest in seeing the price of Magic cards come down. I do not expect a magical candy-land where every card I ever wanted ever is 50 cents; at the same time I don't like watching the market turn to speculation, and I don't like watching hardcore competitive nerds satiate the speculators. It puts a lot of people in a position to just lose. Modern's effect on price points feels completely artificial and unfounded at this point; there's barely enough data to make a DTB gauntlet and people are putting $25 price tags on Temple Gardens? Fuck you.

I just cashed out whatever cards I have that have any value - if there's a crash anytime soon i can pick them all up again and more. It is, after all, as everyone's pointed out, unsustainable.

My 2c,

This is indeed out of hand. We have some indication of what good decks may be, and because of that, there has been absolutely massive increases in prices. I think that there are way to many people out there with money, or more likely cash advances, to burn that think (Probably incorrectly) that they can pick the big cards out of the format before they are established through tournament performances. They invest, as if it were a stock, into the card or cards that they believe is worthwhile. This is risky behavior which will ultimately burn some people.

In the end, the investors pay extremely hefty margins even when an investment goes your way. For example, say I want to invest in card X, I pay full retail for it and shipping to buy many copies of it. The more copies you get, the smaller the effect that shipping costs affect the per unit cost of X, so I buy 100 copies at 4.00. Suppose that the price doubles to 8.00 at the retailer where I purchased it. Chances are I can barely profit because the dealer probably only credits half the price (perhapse 25% trade bonus). Only a few retailers are willing to accept so many copies of a card, almost certainly not your local B&M store. Now you are faced with the work of either selling to the one of the large online retailers for almost no profit or auctioning off your surplus. With an auction, as the seller you pay a hefty fee to use the service, cutting into profit. The shipping costs are factored into bids so chances are you will eat that cost as well. In addition, there is a significant risk of getting ripped as the seller on auction sites. Auction sites tend to side with the purchaser so you might want to protect your backside with address confirmation, another cost you eat. Complicating the situation is that unlike when you purchased 100 copies and paid one shipping fee, chances are you will be selling many smaller auctions, further exacerbating the shipping and auction fee problems.

So, what you need in the end is for a card to really spike by more than double for it to be worth your while. The unit cost needs to be high enough in the end to justify the shipping, and you need to be able to turn product quickly enough to avoid any negative changes in the market, like what happenned with Candelabra of Tawnos. In the end, yes you can make some money if you have your ear to the grindstone and you are willing to work really hard to buy and sell when the moment is right. I would rather get paid consistently for minimum wage than try to time the market and accept those rediculous margins. I bet there are many people out there like me.

However, I also bet that there are many people chasing the dream of buying a 300 cards for a buck and then selling them at 25. Easy investments with credit or savings make the dream seem real. We will see in time whether it was worth it for the speculators, my money is on no.

Wow, Vesuva is $25+ now? I bought my foil one for $7 just a year ago!!

Think it's time to unload. The land is not even that good in EDH (unless you're using it to kill Cradles/Kor Havens or the rare occassion on copying a Workshop).

Also, what are your thoughts on Reflecting Pool for Modern? The card used to be sky high in Standard, and I think RPool is going to be an important staple for Modern. It hasn't creeped up yet, but thoughts if it'll hit $20+? For control/mid-range decks that are 3+ colors, I think you would have to play 2-4 Reflecting Pool to have the manabase work without dying to Boltlands.

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Originally Posted by phonics

But what would cause a 'crash' on the prices (short of dropping the format)? Prices are only rising because people are willing to pay that much.

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Legacy Staples A, B, and C start going up like crazy in price.

EDH Staples M, N, and O go up in price.

Modern Staples X, W, and Y go up in price, plus cycle Z1, Z2, Z3, Z4, and Z5 shoot up as well.

In the next set, C, O, and Y are reprinted, plus all of cycle Z. Obviously, that depresses the prices of each of those cards, and probably makes speculators think twice about speculating in the future. Non-reserved cards likely get hit as a collateral effect, and the speculation momentum stops.

Of course, this depends on what the mindset of speculators are. The ones who have bought in for the purpose of aggressively reselling are certainly more optimistic than me (which is why I don't do anything but buy my necessary playsets for own use), but I imagine this would stop them. I'm not saying this as a bitter player with a tiny collection either (I have all the Legacy staples: 40+ duals, 50+ fetchlands, Forces, Jaces, LEDs, Goyfs, NOs).

All it takes is some reprints and prices could crash through the floor, causing a lot of collateral damage to the game in general. Just look at the 1990s comic crash for how damaging a magic speculation bubble popping could be.

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Originally Posted by Zolek

All it takes is some reprints and prices could crash through the floor, causing a lot of collateral damage to the game in general. Just look at the 1990s comic crash for how damaging a magic speculation bubble popping could be.

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So I hear people still read comics.


/edit: So I actually took the time to inform myself on that comic book crash. As a matter of fact it was just another bubble, caused by massive speculation, bursting. Those things happen, just look at what happened even to global economy 2-3 years ago. However, don't blame the people that burst the bubble but actually those who played their part in creating it. If reprinting Legacy staples is going to hurt people who kept believing their cards would never drop in price, I'm fine with that. It's not like I'm advocating reprinting reserved list stuff (without providing an about 5-year warning before doing so) but: please go ahead and reprint any Legacy staples that aren't on the reserved list. This includes bending the reprint policy (that MaRo and Aaron Forsythe would love to get rid off anyways) as far as possible (snow duals? do it!). If doing so actually hurts "prices" this will be due to people just feeling justified to keep ignoring that prices might drop.

(not that it should matter, but this comes from someone who owns most of those staples, I wan't to see reprinted.)

Regardless of if the bubble bursts or not I think Modern is going to end up sinking a lot of these smaller dealers. I don't think everything is going to be reprinted, but I do think Shocklands will almost definitely be reprinted soon and that is going to completely tank their value to about 25% of what they go for now. You do not want to be caught holding on to shocklands when that happens. I think a lot of the Modern cards that are being speculated now are going to tank on their own though because they won't end up being that good.

I have two questions: When The Phantom Menace was released, I bought all the action figures and kept them in the box because of what happened with the first trilogy. Now I'm sure a lot of people did the same. Now because every one has them, they're not as valuable (no demand). Is this what people mean by the term "bubble bursting?"

The other one is regarding reprints. I remember when they reprinted time warp. That card went from a dollar rare to a 10 dollar card when it was reprinted. Was that really only because it was a mythic or because it was useful in a couple of standard decks?

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Originally Posted by dontbiteitholmes

Regardless of if the bubble bursts or not I think Modern is going to end up sinking a lot of these smaller dealers.

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Modern isn't going to harm dealers. The only thing it does is making them some money if they're wise enough (from my perspective) to sell while modern cards are overpriced due to speculation.

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Originally Posted by hyperchord24

I have two questions: When The Phantom Menace was released, I bought all the action figures and kept them in the box because of what happened with the first trilogy. Now I'm sure a lot of people did the same. Now because every one has them, they're not as valuable (no demand). Is this what people mean by the term "bubble bursting?"

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Not exactly. In your case, there seems to have never been a bubble. One of those is created by people buying certain things under the assumption that it will increase in value due to something (in Magic: being/becoming suddenly useful in a certain format). Therefor, the price will increase - at least in the way of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once people realize this, the bubble burst as people try to cash out asap.

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Originally Posted by hyperchord24

The other one is regarding reprints. I remember when they reprinted time warp. That card went from a dollar rare to a 10 dollar card when it was reprinted. Was that really only because it was a mythic or because it was useful in a couple of standard decks?

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The supply of Time Warp increased because it was reprinted, but demand also increased, to a much greater extent, because the card was now legal and very playable in the most popular Constructed format there is. Generally speaking, every time a commodity in a market's supply decreases or demand increases, its market clearing price will raise due to the Laws of Supply and Demand.

A bubble happens when the price of something starts to rise fast due to an external shock (in this case, the launch of a new format where they are supposed to be staples). People see the prices rising quickly and jump to buy it before they cost even more either to grant their copies of whatever is bubbling or to stock copies to sit on and sell later for profit. This leads the prices to keep rising. A positive feedback ensues, and soon all the goods in the market are way above initial price.

At some point, people will stop buying because either they already have it or they were priced out of it. At this point, selling becomes each time harder, and the more aware stockpilers start trying to dump their reserves before the prices crash. This, in turn, floods the market driving prices back down. As soon as dealers realize prices are dropping they too try to unload, making matters worse.

That second part is the bubble bursting.

Some of these people will be able to cash out before the crash, and make big bucks in the process. Some will be left full of items now worth a lot less than they paid for, and might go bankrupt as a result, depending on how much they invested on said items.


I am not sure anyone is investing enough in Modern staples (as opposed to houses in USA`s housing bubble, for instance) as to risk actual bankrupcy, but people paying USD35+ for Hallowed Fountains or Breeding Pools are out to get hit by reprints, given universally appealing rares like the Zendikar Fetchlands floated around USD12 the first time around.

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Originally Posted by Julian23

Modern isn't going to harm dealers. The only thing it does is making them some money if they're wise enough (from my perspective) to sell while modern cards are overpriced due to speculation.

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While I completely agree with this assessment, my point was that at least 10-20% of these dealers is not wise enough and will get caught off guard when prices start to go back down.

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Originally Posted by hyperchord24

I have two questions: When The Phantom Menace was released, I bought all the action figures and kept them in the box because of what happened with the first trilogy. Now I'm sure a lot of people did the same. Now because every one has them, they're not as valuable (no demand). Is this what people mean by the term "bubble bursting?"

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Basically in a bubble something is overvalued whether it's houses, or tech stocks, or Magic cards. What happens is people look at the constantly rising price and start to get greedy thinking the price is going to continue to rise indefinitely. Then the "investors" come in and start buying up things they don't need assuming the value will keep rising, example people "flipping houses" or people who invested thousands of dollars in internet startups in the early 2000's raising hundreds of millions of dollars in investments before the company had even turned a single month of profit. Suddenly the smarter people start to realize that everyone else is being foolish and they realize they have to sell before they lose money. As more and more people notice the smart people abandoning ship they start to sell their holdings as well which quickly floods the market with cheap product/stock. Since a large part of the price was inflated by people speculating and buying way more than they needed assuming the price would continue to climb when those people stop buying demand drops off quickly and as soon as the price starts dropping everyone panic sells and floods the market and the value crashes. The moment everyone realizes they have been overvaluing something and the panic selling starts the bubble has burst.

That's usually the case with the stock market and property but mtg cards have strangely strong "price memory". Legacy staples that have developed a reputation of being expensive rarely drop much in price. Look at survival of the fittest. Its still 30 dollars easy due to it's "cult" status and reputation. It may be the nostalgia value or people refusing to dump, but generally eternal staples have strong price memory. Under the radar cards like led, dreadnought, grindstone etc etc all hold value well.

As for modern, the reprints are bound to happen. When it does, the rav duals are going to tank badly. I got mine really cheap so I'll hold on to my set, but I'd sell all my extras right now.

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Originally Posted by ivanpei

That's usually the case with the stock market and property but mtg cards have strangely strong "price memory". Legacy staples that have developed a reputation of being expensive rarely drop much in price. Look at survival of the fittest. Its still 30 dollars easy due to it's "cult" status and reputation. It may be the nostalgia value or people refusing to dump, but generally eternal staples have strong price memory. Under the radar cards like led, dreadnought, grindstone etc etc all hold value well.

As for modern, the reprints are bound to happen. When it does, the rav duals are going to tank badly. I got mine really cheap so I'll hold on to my set, but I'd sell all my extras right now.

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Yeah, normally I would agree. I see you live in Asia so you might not know the situation in America all too well. We just were starting to make a recovery from the last recession now our credit rating got downgraded and the stock market is in free fall. If there is another recession a lot more people are going to fall on hard times and the multi-thousand dollar game collection is probably going to be one of the first things that gets sold if people lose their jobs and have to scrape together several months of rent and bills to cover them until they get that next job. If the market gets flooded and less people are buying and more people are selling the only thing that makes sense is prices dropping. Since Modern is coming out strong I think it would make it a lot easier for people to dump those Legacy cards thinking Legacy is eventually going the way of Vintage, which it is, it's just a matter of if it will happen in a couple years or be more like 5-10 years out.

I wouldn't put to much stock personally in Magic cards. I mean they are collectible, and even if things go sour for a couple years they will still probably bounce back at some point, but in the end it's just a game and right now a lot of the prices are not being set by the players actual demand so much as greedy small time dealers buying massive amounts of cards and banking on them increasing in value. Like I said I have about a $3000 collection at least at current prices. If I need money fast they are pretty much the only thing I have to sell quickly and if I had to sell I would. That said I don't want to sell my cards and will probably end up holding on to them for a while until I no longer care about the game and maybe want some money to start a college fund for some future children. If they tank for whatever reason I'd be pissed because I don't like losing money, but I'm not staking my way of life on them increasing in value so I wouldn't be as devastated as some people.

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Originally Posted by ivanpei

Look at survival of the fittest. Its still 30 dollars easy due to it's "cult" status and reputation.

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Actually, it's a $15-20 card according to ebay. I'm willing to bet it's staying that high mostly because it's not banned in all formats (read EDH). Quite a difference from the peak of $50-60 it hit during the "Survival craze".

Same thing will happen with any massive reprints of any given card. In my opinion, shockduals will keep the current crazy price until the moment they get spoiled in the upcoming set...

True, however there is still one extremely playable modern powerhouse that still has not spiked: gifts ungiven. It's 6 usd on scg and 4 on eBay. It is the last remaining powerhouse blue card in modern and will definitely be heavily played in modern. If you checked out Gavin gerhey's scg article on modern, you'd also realize any blue control deck in modern will play gifts. So will tron and cloudpost decks, it's the defining blue card at the moment. Grove is already 20-25 usd and so are the other modern rare staples. Gifts is gonna spike. Bank on it.

EDIT: People already explained bubbles better.

EDIT: Few more thoughts; massive speculation and increased prices on little bits of paper that are NOT on the reserved list is unbelievably logical AND smart. People are trying to turn their investments around rapidly BEFORE the tournaments determine which cards are going to be crucial, to avoid having to risk anything. Ie, anything you lose buying, say, Dark Confidants and Vesuvas high and not having a positive long-term investment is made up for by people buying your "full set of Ravnica Shock-Duals, only 1k$! Be ready for Modern, come what may!" before the prices drop on half of them because those color combinations blow, or they get reprinted.

Trust me, SSG realizes this is unsustainable. They're not thinking long term with most of these price-hikes, they're realizing that people will pay out the nose now to avoid paying out the ass later, and riding the wave. They will lose literally nothing from all this player-speculation, and unload quite a bit of inventory for a MUCH higher price than they would normally see. Even if they do misjudge and oversell, and end up having to buy back some cards at close to the value they sold them for, it won't likely come close to what they earned in the buildup to Modern, and the cost will be spread out over time which softens the blow significantly.

TL;DR: SSG is so meta, you don't even know.

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Originally Posted by evanmartyr

EDIT: People already explained bubbles better.

EDIT: Few more thoughts; massive speculation and increased prices on little bits of paper that are NOT on the reserved list is unbelievably logical AND smart. People are trying to turn their investments around rapidly BEFORE the tournaments determine which cards are going to be crucial, to avoid having to risk anything. Ie, anything you lose buying, say, Dark Confidants and Vesuvas high and not having a positive long-term investment is made up for by people buying your "full set of Ravnica Shock-Duals, only 1k$! Be ready for Modern, come what may!" before the prices drop on half of them because those color combinations blow, or they get reprinted.

Trust me, SSG realizes this is unsustainable. They're not thinking long term with most of these price-hikes, they're realizing that people will pay out the nose now to avoid paying out the ass later, and riding the wave. They will lose literally nothing from all this player-speculation, and unload quite a bit of inventory for a MUCH higher price than they would normally see. Even if they do misjudge and oversell, and end up having to buy back some cards at close to the value they sold them for, it won't likely come close to what they earned in the buildup to Modern, and the cost will be spread out over time which softens the blow significantly.

TL;DR: SSG is so meta, you don't even know.

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Simian Spirit Guide has overrun the format?

Begin new Korean card speculation. :\

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rukcus

Begin new Korean card speculation. :\

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Won't be too bad since it will be in print. Korean foil might be a lot, though.

With it being an in-print set, and with the availability of foreign cards now, Korean shouldn't be epically expensive, but I think the foils will be pricey, like Jap/Rus. There's a HUGE gap where Korean wasn't printed, so matching up decks will be a bitch.

Still, if I need some hot Legacy staples, having a deck in Russian/Korean will be SUPER sick. Korean foils will hopefully make my day. Imagine if they reprint Confidant, with the possibility of Korean Foil? Damn.

-Matt

Wow it's about time they reprinted Korean. I thought it was a joke. Now I have to start paying attention to new sets!

Good news for my MTG/pimp interests, bad news for my wallet!

With the presence of modern making prices on cards jump sky high, I decided to go ahead and move on this opportunity.
Here in WV there was this store that sold mostly sports items but did sell MTG cards. At one time he had future sight but it was fairly bought out so I never bought any.
I went by there on friday, and there was a new box of future sight. He told me he had increased the price of the packs to 4.99 as he had noticed a price spike in the set, but since he doesn't really deal in non sports cards, didn't know why.
I took this opportunity, spent $40, and got what I think to be some awesome pulls.
grove of the burnwillows, pact of negation, slaughter pact, and tarmogoyf. The best part is now I don't have to buy any more of the box really.
Sure there are a few others and the lure of foil goyf, but I'll pass and take my winnings. Now if he only had ravnica :)

I scooped up some Gifts Ungiven this week. I'm not buying into the Modern hype, it's just a card I wanted a playset of for a while and I'd rather not pay $50 for them later when I could just get them quickly for $20.

It's interesting to note that some Legacy only cards have taken a dip in pricing in the last few weeks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr.C

It's interesting to note that some Legacy only cards have taken a dip in pricing in the last few weeks.

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Which ones?