[Official] Bitching About Prices, Buyouts and Reprints Thread

[Bosque]

More buyouts and price spikes.

Transmute Artifact
Back to Basics
Humility
Gravity Sphere (?)
Polar Kraken (?)
Narwhal (???!?)

[Spam]

Nooooooo, not Narwhal!!!!

[Begle1]

It's hard to imagine a metagame where Narwhal is a good card.

Like, Sea Stompy makes a major comeback, and DnT becomes a mono-red deck?

Obviously buying out a reserve list card on TCGPlayer is just becoming a thing to do. And you can do it for well under $1000 on some of these cards.

[Ace/Homebrew]

Obviously buying out a reserve list card on TCGPlayer is just becoming a thing to do. And you can do it for well under $1000 on some of these cards.

Yeah, but there isn't any demand for Narwhal or Polar Kraken.
The price might spike, but good luck unloading them. It'll fall again and they'll still have trouble moving them.

Better buy Pale Bears while you can!

[Begle1]

Yeah, but there isn't any demand for Narwhal or Polar Kraken.
The price might spike, but good luck unloading them. It'll fall again and they'll still have trouble moving them.

Better buy Pale Bears while you can!

This is true.

However, a low demand makes the fantasy of cornering the market uniquely attainable. If somebody wanted to own every Narwhal ever, and they bought out everything they could find every month, it'd be really interesting to see where they'd be at in 5 years.

Still wouldn't be worth much, but it would be cool to have 75% of all Narwhal cards ever printed. I'm sure it'd cost less than what some people spend on pimping out their decks, and it'd give that certain somebody a warm fuzzy feeling inside. More power to them.

Then again, if it's know that he's buying out Narwhals, somebody might try to start a counter-buy out just to spite him.

But then he'll win the long con when he sells his Narwhals to the counter-buyers.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Oh no! They could have been warriors! Well, I feel so bad that instead of killing people, these players are... not killing people. I'm not sure exactly what the point of being an adventurer is considering things have largely been explored; maybe it means just going around the globe having fun, but I don't see that as more productive as it's really just a way of having fun. Inventing is productive, but generally requires a specific skillset.

Am I obligated to reply? If yes, than I’ll try to make this post sound like it‘s about MtG.

Even though Survival of the Fittest is banned by the Wizards, it’s still a main principle upon which the living Nature is build. Any organism that ignores this law is doomed to a downward evolutionary movement, a regression, a fall.
Speaking of human kind, and speaking of the interaction between the distinct societies, cultures and races, the SotF principle is best expressed in a maxim "Conquer or subdue“, and whom would you rather be: conqueror or conquered? Would you rather be a rare Alpha or would you rather flow in a Unlimited Sea of common Betas? The answer is yours, obviously... and your answer is obvious.

Sparta was the first real and for its time a successfull attempt to stop the downward trend in human evolution, a trend that was started by the Neolithical Revolution. It was a deliberate decision to stop the deterioration of Spartan stock (as it was limited to them alone) and to even increase its quality of human life through this upwards evolutionary pull; the reason why nowadays people miss this might be due to the fact that their are set to miss this very qualities as they are thrice misled:
- even if they think about evolution at all, they consider it an automatical process with an inherent upward surge; the fact that 99 % of species went downwards and are extinct by now, makes them not at least concerned
- they look upon Sparta with contempt or at least misunderstanding, because they are programmed to reject anything powerful, honest and natural, due to centuries long bathing in counter-Nature visions, worldviews and ideas
- finally, the most important reasons for why there is no Sparta anymore, is simply because there are no Spartans anymore, as they made the usual mistake of every great white society when they warred and miscegenated themselves to death.

The first two points are about mind, and it’s more than clear that a two millenia long exposition to an egalitarian doctrine that emphasizes the sheep qualities, encourages dysgenic behaviour, sets the Man above the Nature, and which messes with human inner being, should be seen as the main culprit of our todays decline, decadency and decomposition.
The third point? Well, the damage is done, and there are no more Spartans. But their Legacy still lives and hopefully it may be picked up some day when some less sheeplike stock arises.

Those societies that were the "polar antithesis of modern degeneracy" sucked to live in compared to today's world. It's a good thing we don't have to live in that kind of society anymore. It's easy to wax nostalgic about a harsh military dictatorship you never had to live under.

All of the modern conveniences and technologies of today have essentially made it so you can accomplish the same basic amount (if not more) as people did back then while not having to spend as much time on it, leading to great leisure time. "Modern degeneracy" has led to significantly greater advances in a decade than people in Sparta did in a much longer period of time.

Those societies sucked only in your eyes. Living in a "harsh military dictatorship“ is not a bad thing per se, you just need to be the "harsh military dictator“ or at least rank high enough to be a (proxy) Alpha. Btw, I’m not extremely excited of the very term "harsh military dictatorship“, as it has unnecessary moral implications and as it obscures the real idea. In a world that stands upon a Survival of the Fittest principle, in a hostile and dangerous world, the Spartans‘ doctrine was the only reasonable stance, one that they polished to perfection and in their ever vigilant paranoia they were unmatched by all of their contemporaries except for Jews.

What Lycurgus brought to life was kind of a new human specie. Spartans‘ will to live (which is synonymus with a will to dominate), so much in harmony with the "expand or die" principle of Cosmos, such beauty (since times of Cro-Magnons unseen), and their upwards evolutionary drive, all that commands admiration of anyone who’s mind is not completely spoiled by the Flock of Rabid Sheep doctrine that has overridden the best of our healthy instincts and that turned us into a dying weaklings race that will be gone with all its glory and all the "modern conveniences and technologies of today“; conveniences and technologies that make us weak, dependant, effeminate and ridiculous. One of those "conveniencies and technologies" is this game that I became to hate.

You and I are similarly affected by what happened to Man, and in fact maybe it’s you who’s far more strong, far rarer Alpha than me; I can’t tell, as we don’t know each other. My point still stands, though, as for anyone to see and admire the beauty or strength, it is not necessarily required to also be beautiful and strong.
To look upon Sparta from a different point of view, you need to abandon an axiology of an alien oriental deathcult, one that through its many variances poisoned the mind of Man since at least the fall of Rome, maybe even since the great spiritual catastrophe of Zoroastrianism; after all, it’s a derivative of thereof.

/off topic.

tl;dr: unban Survival of the Fittest.

[Stuart]

Even though Survival of the Fittest is banned by the Wizards, it’s still a main principle upon which the living Nature is build.
...
Those societies sucked only in your eyes. Living in a "harsh military dictatorship“ is not a bad thing per se, you just need to be the "harsh military dictator“ or at least rank high enough to be a (proxy) Alpha.

FYI the "Gender & Gaming" thread is the appropriate place to post fascist rants.

Back on topic: what are the odds there's an Earthcraft spike? I'm interested in grabbing a few should it ever get unbanned. I have had trouble swallowing $25 for an unplayable card, but I'll feel worse paying $50 for them if they're unbanned.

[Ace/Homebrew]

Just want to point out that 'survival of the fittest' is not the only factor driving evolution, nor is it even the most important...
In fact, it is a common misconception that evolution has direction. It doesn't. Evolution is not a being with intent or purpose.

As a 'for instance': Gorillas and man can trace their lineage to a common ancestor. When you look at the fossil remains, our 'modern' hand is more similar to the ancestral creature's than the gorilla hand. The gorilla hand has morphed to fit specific needs. That means the gorilla hand is 'more evolved' than our hand. To say something has evolved is to say nothing about whether the changes are 'good' or 'bad', 'positive' or 'negative'. It simply means changes due to some pressure or factor.

The human race has been out of the food chain for millennia. The factors that allow for our survival have more to do with our ability to function in society than our fitness to conquer others.

In addition, Humanity has surpassed the point where we require individuals to be manly conquerors. We have grown to a point where society is benefitted greater by people who influence art, culture, and understanding. Some of the 'wasted warriors' you lament have day jobs working in these fields. In fact, you could argue they are more evolved than the soldiers of Sparta.

[sdematt]

Just want to point out that 'survival of the fittest' is not the only factor driving evolution, nor is it even the most important...
In fact, it is a common misconception that evolution has direction. It doesn't. Evolution is not a being with intent or purpose.

As a 'for instance': Gorillas and man can trace their lineage to a common ancestor. When you look at the fossil remains, our 'modern' hand is more similar to the ancestral creature's than the gorilla hand. The gorilla hand has morphed to fit specific needs. That means the gorilla hand is 'more evolved' than our hand. To say something has evolved is to say nothing about whether the changes are 'good' or 'bad', 'positive' or 'negative'. It simply means changes due to some pressure or factor.

The human race has been out of the food chain for millennia. The factors that allow for our survival have more to do with our ability to function in society than our fitness to conquer others.

In addition, Humanity has surpassed the point where we require individuals to be manly conquerors. We have grown to a point where society is benefitted greater by people who influence art, culture, and understanding. Some of the 'wasted warriors' you lament have day jobs working in these fields. In fact, you could argue they are more evolved than the soldiers of Sparta.




On topic: I'm happy with 'no changes'. Format is enjoyable at the moment.

I think I'm going to do an anti-Miracles episode with the cast and push that out sometime soonish.

[Lemnear]

I think I'm going to do an anti-Miracles episode with the cast and push that out sometime soonish.

Like!

[H]

I think I'm going to do an anti-Miracles episode with the cast and push that out sometime soonish.

One thing I don't think I have ever seen discussed, which doesn't mean it hasn't been, is how to manage your own threat density and not over-extending in an attempt to win faster and avoid draws. While it sucks to accumulate draws in a real tournament, I have a hypothesis that this often plays directly into Miracles game-plan. If you attempt to push near the end, to close out the game, then they end up punishing you with a Terminus and winning themselves. Or you drop too many creatures to finish them off in a shorter time, they set up and Terminus you, then Jace to Fateseal you off anything for the rest of the game.

I take a slow-and-steady approach, only ever playing one creatures at a time (mostly, I will rarely play two depending how the game is going) and I like to get a 'walker down to add pressure. It's slow, but frankly I'll go 0-0-7 rather then play into their game-plan and lose myself the game. I may be totally wrong here, but if everyone stopped playing into their game-plan and stay patient (I realize this isn't always possible, but I think it is more often than not, at least for GB/X decks) even highly skilled Miracles players will find it very hard to win. If it is hard to win and easy to draw, you'll probably see less and less Miracles around, because you won't allow yourself to be "gotten."

Then again, I'm just some random jerk who enjoys making games grindy as hell and not much fun, what the hell do I know?

[ESG]

Back on topic: what are the odds there's an Earthcraft spike? I'm interested in grabbing a few should it ever get unbanned. I have had trouble swallowing $25 for an unplayable card, but I'll feel worse paying $50 for them if they're unbanned.

It's a popular casual card, which is mainly why it has slowly increased in value. If it were ever unbanned in Legacy, it would absolutely spike, but I don't see unbanning as a likely possibility. Perhaps some years down the road, but who knows how that will change things? Maybe there will be purple mana and commonly playing out of the exile zone by then. Legacy was a significantly different format four or five years ago, and it will likely be very different in the future.

[sdematt]

One thing I don't think I have ever seen discussed, which doesn't mean it hasn't been, is how to manage your own threat density and not over-extending in an attempt to win faster and avoid draws. While it sucks to accumulate draws in a real tournament, I have a hypothesis that this often plays directly into Miracles game-plan. If you attempt to push near the end, to close out the game, then they end up punishing you with a Terminus and winning themselves. Or you drop too many creatures to finish them off in a shorter time, they set up and Terminus you, then Jace to Fateseal you off anything for the rest of the game.

I take a slow-and-steady approach, only ever playing one creatures at a time (mostly, I will rarely play two depending how the game is going) and I like to get a 'walker down to add pressure. It's slow, but frankly I'll go 0-0-7 rather then play into their game-plan and lose myself the game. I may be totally wrong here, but if everyone stopped playing into their game-plan and stay patient (I realize this isn't always possible, but I think it is more often than not, at least for GB/X decks) even highly skilled Miracles players will find it very hard to win. If it is hard to win and easy to draw, you'll probably see less and less Miracles around, because you won't allow yourself to be "gotten."

Then again, I'm just some random jerk who enjoys making games grindy as hell and not much fun, what the hell do I know?

Getting the double-0-7 score 0-0-7 is the best you can hope for. You're a cool dude if you can.

I talked about this in my article that I wrote shortly after doing alright once at an SCG, but that was 3+ years ago. Maybe I'll just write an article if we can't do the whole get a cast together thing. PM me, H.

[Stan]

Am I obligated to reply? If yes, than I’ll try to make this post sound like it‘s about MtG.

Even though Survival of the Fittest is banned by the Wizards, it’s still a main principle upon which the living Nature is build. Any organism that ignores this law is doomed to a downward evolutionary movement, a regression, a fall.
Speaking of human kind, and speaking of the interaction between the distinct societies, cultures and races, the SotF principle is best expressed in a maxim "Conquer or subdue“, and whom would you rather be: conqueror or conquered? Would you rather be a rare Alpha or would you rather flow in a Unlimited Sea of common Betas? The answer is yours, obviously... and your answer is obvious.

Sparta was the first real and for its time a successfull attempt to stop the downward trend in human evolution, a trend that was started by the Neolithical Revolution. It was a deliberate decision to stop the deterioration of Spartan stock (as it was limited to them alone) and to even increase its quality of human life through this upwards evolutionary pull; the reason why nowadays people miss this might be due to the fact that their are set to miss this very qualities as they are thrice misled:
- even if they think about evolution at all, they consider it an automatical process with an inherent upward surge; the fact that 99 % of species went downwards and are extinct by now, makes them not at least concerned
- they look upon Sparta with contempt or at least misunderstanding, because they are programmed to reject anything powerful, honest and natural, due to centuries long bathing in counter-Nature visions, worldviews and ideas
- finally, the most important reasons for why there is no Sparta anymore, is simply because there are no Spartans anymore, as they made the usual mistake of every great white society when they warred and miscegenated themselves to death.

The first two points are about mind, and it’s more than clear that a two millenia long exposition to an egalitarian doctrine that emphasizes the sheep qualities, encourages dysgenic behaviour, sets the Man above the Nature, and which messes with human inner being, should be seen as the main culprit of our todays decline, decadency and decomposition.
The third point? Well, the damage is done, and there are no more Spartans. But their Legacy still lives and hopefully it may be picked up some day when some less sheeplike stock arises.




Those societies sucked only in your eyes. Living in a "harsh military dictatorship“ is not a bad thing per se, you just need to be the "harsh military dictator“ or at least rank high enough to be a (proxy) Alpha. Btw, I’m not extremely excited of the very term "harsh military dictatorship“, as it has unnecessary moral implications and as it obscures the real idea. In a world that stands upon a Survival of the Fittest principle, in a hostile and dangerous world, the Spartans‘ doctrine was the only reasonable stance, one that they polished to perfection and in their ever vigilant paranoia they were unmatched by all of their contemporaries except for Jews.

What Lycurgus brought to life was kind of a new human specie. Spartans‘ will to live (which is synonymus with a will to dominate), so much in harmony with the "expand or die" principle of Cosmos, such beauty (since times of Cro-Magnons unseen), and their upwards evolutionary drive, all that commands admiration of anyone who’s mind is not completely spoiled by the Flock of Rabid Sheep doctrine that has overridden the best of our healthy instincts and that turned us into a dying weaklings race that will be gone with all its glory and all the "modern conveniences and technologies of today“; conveniences and technologies that make us weak, dependant, effeminate and ridiculous. One of those "conveniencies and technologies" is this game that I became to hate.

You and I are similarly affected by what happened to Man, and in fact maybe it’s you who’s far more strong, far rarer Alpha than me; I can’t tell, as we don’t know each other. My point still stands, though, as for anyone to see and admire the beauty or strength, it is not necessarily required to also be beautiful and strong.
To look upon Sparta from a different point of view, you need to abandon an axiology of an alien oriental deathcult, one that through its many variances poisoned the mind of Man since at least the fall of Rome, maybe even since the great spiritual catastrophe of Zoroastrianism; after all, it’s a derivative of thereof.

/off topic.

tl;dr: unban Survival of the Fittest.

The virtues of the Spartan citizenry were well respected until well into the Modern Era. Many American founding fathers admired their civic virtue, for example. Be that as it may, their downfall was inevitable, because it was a logical consequence of how they structured their society. Classical Sparta was the single society that was most dependant on slavery in all of human history, with the slaves outnumbering the citizens almost 5 to 1. The citizens devoted all of their time to service to the polis and martial training, and the work was done by the slaves (who were culled every few years to prevent them from getting uppity). Such societies will breed hard men, but also rather useless men, who can't plow fields, build houses,... A strong but very brittle race. One significant defeat at Leuctra ended their hegemony (not enough citizens left to repopulate fast enough.

If you must look at the classical age for a paragon of virtue and manhood, Republican Rome may be a better example.

[H]

Getting the double-0-7 score 0-0-7 is the best you can hope for. You're a cool dude if you can.

I talked about this in my article that I wrote shortly after doing alright once at an SCG, but that was 3+ years ago. Maybe I'll just write an article if we can't do the whole get a cast together thing. PM me, H.

Tried, says your inbox is full though.

[MaximumC]

The virtues of the Spartan citizenry were well respected until well into the Modern Era. Many American founding fathers admired their civic virtue, for example. Be that as it may, their downfall was inevitable, because it was a logical consequence of how they structured their society. Classical Sparta was the single society that was most dependant on slavery in all of human history, with the slaves outnumbering the citizens almost 5 to 1. The citizens devoted all of their time to service to the polis and martial training, and the work was done by the slaves (who were culled every few years to prevent them from getting uppity). Such societies will breed hard men, but also rather useless men, who can't plow fields, build houses,... A strong but very brittle race. One significant defeat at Leuctra ended their hegemony (not enough citizens left to repopulate fast enough.

If you must look at the classical age for a paragon of virtue and manhood, Republican Rome may be a better example.

Or, you know, we could look to the time in human history where people wielded more power individually than ever in the past, ate better, knew more, communicated better, lived longer, and were safer than at any other time. You know, the absurdly amazing modern day.

Seriously, you folks who get excited talking about the Manly Men Who Lived In Crappy Times And Beat People Up All The Time just boggle my mind. Were the ancient cultures stronger than us? Absolutely not! What possible metric could you look at to suggest that we're weaker than any of them?

Military strength? Even Rome, a high water mark for a civilization that could take a punch (in the words of Dan Carlin) and not implode, was always at risk of being destroyed by wandering bands of nobody-tribes who occasionally invaded from Germany. Every civilization in the World was helpless against the Mongols centuries later. With the rise of modern technology, and the fact that we've explored the whole world know who is there, organized states are essentially immune from the existential threat created by the barbarian hordes. Even modern nation-state warfare has, so far, resulted mostly in a bunch of short term death and destruction followed by a new society based on similar technology.

Genetic resilience? Hardly! Since practically anyone can breed in modern society, and we keep people alive who would have died in earlier eras, the diversity in the human gene pool is ENORMOUS. Each new mutation circulates around randomly and less of them result in death of the host than ever before. If we do encounter some kind of extinction bottleneck, we're maximizing the chances of some part of the population having obtained a mutation that will assist against it.

Mental resilience, or "grit?" Hard to define, but this is the same thing as the genetic issue. Sure, we have lots of people who would not do well in a Greek Phallanx around today. They had lots of people who did not do well there back in Greece, too. But, given our huge population, it's absurd to think we could not field a large number of people with "grit" today, or train them quickly. And, of course, this ignores the issue that technology wins battles today: "grit," to the extent it applies at all, probably is most relevant in keeping the people working in factories churning rather than trying to politically shut down the conflict.

Ability to live without society, as in a nuclear winter or so on? Pish posh! People in ancient times may have lived closer to the Earth, it's true. More people in Rome probably knew how to farm than do today (as a percentage). And yet, they had a very narrow and specialized form of knowledge, easily disrupted by climate or pests. Today, anyone who cares to learn can benefit from thousands of years of books or other information and acquire both the knowledge on how to become a farmer, and learn more that will help them better adapt to changes. This assumes technology isn't even involved; once you account for the power of machines and chemistry, if available, things get even more absurdly skewed in favor of modern man.

I can't conceive of a measure on which modern society does DOMINATE any ancient society on any metric relevant to strength. Unless your metric is the amount of Olympic events that must be performed in the nude.

[Voley]

That sad moment when foil Brainstorm from MM costs more than most duals. Getting foil FoW and Brainstorm playsets costs a fortune.

[Megadeus]

Welcome to the world of pimp

[MaximumC]

That sad moment when foil Brainstorm from MM costs more than most duals. Getting foil FoW and Brainstorm playsets costs a fortune.

Isn't that where the money should be, though? No one is unable to play Legacy for lack of Pimp.

[CutthroatCasual]

That sad moment when foil Brainstorm from MM costs more than most duals. Getting foil FoW and Brainstorm playsets costs a fortune.

If you're pimping, you really don't have the "right" to complain about prices.