[Official] Bitching About Prices, Buyouts and Reprints Thread

[sigfig8]

I'm equally shocked about Force of Will. It was down to like 40 bucks for the longest time, and now Channel Fireball buys them for 50 bucks!!! SCG selling them at 60$ and are "out of stock". Have Force of Wills ever gone up over 60 bucks?

[Dragon_Whelp]

Right now we have a total of six Candelabras - four as individual cards, and two that are in complete AQ sets we have on the website. We are also completely sold out of Jace, TMS - but we are still working through our Edison, PAX East and Memphis Acquisitions right now. I would think that it would do us better to sell Jaces, and whatever decks people would buy that include Jaces, then to have thousands of dollars in dead inventory on a card we're showing zero of right now :)

Just a note: The numbers were thrown around for the sake of argument. I have absolutely no idea about what you stock. Though I'd really like there to be 3x foil 8th Edition Blood Moons, but whatever.

Now, while I doubt that you can do this on nearly the same level as the diamond industry, you must know that you are, at the very least, one of the major trendsetters within the Magic community. And you do have the possibility of driving up prices, if you wanted to. I'm not saying that you are the only retailer to do this, nor am I condemning those actions - in fact, I am rather impressed by what you have achieved, as a store. But it is a fact that you are one of the largest stores, and thus, if we want to know why a price has gone up, it is at least somewhat likely that printing out a graph of your price for the card.

I am aware that this is what players are willing to pay, but the problem is that this means that finances will almost certainly be a factor in deciding games. They already are, to an extent, but I doubt that many people who actually do play Magic already would not have been able to buy the contents of one of most Legacy decks just a year ago. But something like Saito's (I believe?) Stax with 4x Moat is simply not achievable for a student like myself. I know that this is the natural devlopment of a free market, but I also believe that there is a reason for why something would rise as rapidly as those Candelabras, because normal players look to the shops for prices when they want to unload their cards. It's inevitable.

Also, why the heck did you make it so darn hard for European customers to be allowed to order? If the money goes in, you should send the cards. It's geographical discrimination, it is! :(

[obituary 95]

I do not know if you guys will be able to answer my question or not but here it is any ways. why is dark depth at 19 dallors. the card does not see any play in extended partly due to the reason that it is banned. and the depths combo sees very limited play in legacy . am i missing something i know there was not alot of coldsnap opened but comon really 19 dallors for a copy, am

19 at scg.com and more or the same else were

[dahcmai]

Remember those rumors about the filler between legacy and extended? Maybe they aren't so rumorish after all. The idea is there. The demand for a longer format is there. I think it's going to cap on availability. I'm working on the "overextended staples" now.

You and me both buddy.

[Dragon_Whelp]

So... I can probably get ahold of 5 Earthcraft for about 6 $ a piece. I've seen quite a bit of people discussing its unbanning - so what do you think? Is it a reasonable investment, or will they just rot in a binder?

And while I know that 30 $ isn't much for most people here, it's still about half of my monthly budget, so...

[lordofthepit]

So... I can probably get ahold of 5 Earthcraft for about 6 $ a piece. I've seen quite a bit of people discussing its unbanning - so what do you think? Is it a reasonable investment, or will they just rot in a binder?

And while I know that 30 $ isn't much for most people here, it's still about half of my monthly budget, so...

Speculation has reached the point where anything that gets unbanned will jump to ridiculous prices as soon as it's announced, regardless of whether it will be viable.

In fact, I think it's at the point even if there's no credible reason to believe card X will be unbanned, it will still climb in price if you hype it up enough.

[(nameless one)]

I do not know if you guys will be able to answer my question or not but here it is any ways. why is dark depth at 19 dallors. the card does not see any play in extended partly due to the reason that it is banned. and the depths combo sees very limited play in legacy . am i missing something i know there was not alot of coldsnap opened but comon really 19 dallors for a copy, am

19 at scg.com and more or the same else were

There's this deck in Vintage called Dark Times that uses it (although that doesn't justify it)

[Dragon_Whelp]

Speculation has reached the point where anything that gets unbanned will jump to ridiculous prices as soon as it's announced, regardless of whether it will be viable.

In fact, I think it's at the point even if there's no credible reason to believe card X will be unbanned, it will still climb in price if you hype it up enough.

That's what I thought. The card really doesn't seem that good - Enchantress and Elves, maybe? - but I started buying into Legacy about two years ago at an extremely limited budget (During the first year, I managed to get me most of the good commons and uncommons for a Goyf Sligh deck, and a single Taiga for which I traded most of my good cards at that time), and almost all of that budget went into the one time I managed to get something in time - a playset of Tarmogoyfs for 100 $ and two Bitterblossoms. Now I have a budget which still reflects the fact that I am a student, but I try my best - I now own 5 duals (2x Taiga, 2x Plateau, 1x Savannah), the aforementioned set of Goyfs and the rest of a Big Zoo deck, plus a full Dragon Stompy deck and half of a mono-white Stax deck (Only 2 Diamonds, one of them FTV), and I probably also have everything I need for a Burn deck, if I want to build that. I'm also slowly gathering pieces for CounterTop.

So yes. I know that Legacy is expensive. But looking backwards in this thread, I become more and depressed. I thought the non-blue duals were okay when I bought them at 20-25 $ a piece. I also expected blue duals to be more expensive. As I go backwards, people become surprised at how high prices that would be considered ridiculously low today are. And I feel as if I've missed out on something. Is it really worth it, to collect a CounterTop deck, with Forces and blue duals? Well... I can probably buy one "good" dual a month. Or a Force and a half. Last month, it was 2 Koth (Waste of money, I know, but he fits in a spot that needed filling in my DS deck), 2 Jitte and 4 Humility (For Stax, in lieu of Moat). I don't think I've complained that much through the last 2 years, but I think it's quite depressing that it takes almost a year for me to collect decks. Whenever I finish one set of staples, all the others have risen. It's an uphill battle, and I'm not really sure that I can imagine the day where I no longer see one of my friends suggest a cool deck, scroll back up to the manabase and sigh at how long this will take me to finish, and how expensive it will be. So at this point, I really, really want to be one of the people to cash in on the latest crazy fad. If that means hoarding Earthcrafts en masse, just so I can sell them slightly cheaper than everyone else, so be it. I don't have a sizable collection, and I would really wish that I had.

Alright, sorry about that. It was a rant, I know, but I'm just frustrated. I would like to apologise if I offended anyone.

Have a nice day.

[(nameless one)]

I'm with Dragon_Whelp

I got lucky around Lorwyn time when I got 2 of my Force of Wills for $50 at Ebay. I got my AEther Vials, Sensei's Divining Top and Counterbalance around the same time for $5 each. Wastelands for $15 each (Which I thought was a rip-off back around that time). This was when Merfolk was still on the developmental stage.

I've always thought that those prices was too much for cards but looking back, I wish those prices stuck around.

I never had any Duals (I compensate with lots of Fetchlands) and as the prices go up, it looks like I will never have one. I feel bad because back in the day, our local store used to do a Legacy tournament once a month, now as prices go up, less people showed. Now, we don't do Legacy anymore and I have to drive an hour now to go to the nearest store that does Legacy.

I think Legacy is just gonna go the Vintage way. First, we'll all have proxy tournaments and then the format will collapse to its own weight. Its funny because when I first got into the format, I loved it because it was a budget alternative to Vintage. Now, it has went the other way around (in a sense that you need less staples to play Vintage, and Vintage staples printed after Ice Age cost less than Legacy staples - Like Oath of Druids and the first Tezzeret)

[kiblast]

Sincerely, if I could spend 60$ a month for MTG, I would not waste em into 10 Earthcrafts. Just buy good cards you need. When you feel the unbanning of something worth the investment, invest. I missed 4$ Time Spirals because I was out of money, and I missed 0.45 cents Phyrexian Devourers, and for both cards I actually menaged to prognosticate the value spike, but I was either out of money / lazy . But honestly, I would not invest in Earthcrafts. I'd invest in Hermit Druid instead, because they cost 35 cents, they are rare, and if they ever get unbanned, they already have a viable deck in which they can be played with some success, Hermit combo (some people at TheManaDrain were testing the deck in Vintage with some decent results).

[(nameless one)]

Sincerely, if I could spend 60$ a month for MTG, I would not waste em into 10 Earthcrafts. Just buy good cards you need. When you feel the unbanning of something worth the investment, invest. I missed 4$ Time Spirals because I was out of money, and I missed 0.45 cents Phyrexian Devourers, and for both cards I actually menaged to prognosticate the value spike, but I was either out of money / lazy . But honestly, I would not invest in Earthcrafts. I'd invest in Hermit Druid instead, because they cost 35 cents, they are rare, and if they ever get unbanned, they already have a viable deck in which they can be played with some success, Hermit combo (some people at TheManaDrain were testing the deck in Vintage with some decent results).

But Earthcraft is less broken right and more likely to get unbanned?

I recently traded one Earthcraft for an EDH deck that I'm trying to build. With all these rumors running around it getting unbanned soon, it might be okay to trade for them. That said, I've already have a playset of Land Tax (Although I just love Parfait decks in general)

And how much are Devourers now?

And DCI Update is up: no changes in Legacy.

[Dragon_Whelp]

Sincerely, if I could spend 60$ a month for MTG, I would not waste em into 10 Earthcrafts. Just buy good cards you need. When you feel the unbanning of something worth the investment, invest. I missed 4$ Time Spirals because I was out of money, and I missed 0.45 cents Phyrexian Devourers, and for both cards I actually menaged to prognosticate the value spike, but I was either out of money / lazy . But honestly, I would not invest in Earthcrafts. I'd invest in Hermit Druid instead, because they cost 35 cents, they are rare, and if they ever get unbanned, they already have a viable deck in which they can be played with some success, Hermit combo (some people at TheManaDrain were testing the deck in Vintage with some decent results).

Here's a funny story: I traded for a single Phyrexian Devourer for about 1 $ worth of cards after Ooze-Survival started becoming popular - the guy knew about the combo, but he doubted its playability. I still have it. I have been unable to get rid of the thing, simply because no one was willing to trade for such a bad card, or whatever... I also had a foil Necrotic Ooze to go with it, but I got rid of that last night (Traded a lot of cards for a playset of Top and a single Counterbalance).

But enough about that. The problem with Hermit druid is that it really is degenerate. Earthcraft isn't that powerful. It's good, very good, but not truly degenerate. The Druid, however, is an absolutely insane engine in the right deck.

Or so I heard.

Really, I'm just wondering about whether speculating is worth it, or if I should just keep pinching pennies for those stable staples. (Horrible pun, I know - please forgive me)

[kiblast]

Earthcraft is not only that powerful, it's costly. I cannot afford to stockpile 8$ Earthcraft in case they get unbanned. I want to stockpile cards at ridicolously low price but with ridiculously good effect, such as Hermit Druid. Cards that if get unbanned, well, they'll provide something like a 1200% ROI. If are not, well, I just wasted 10$.

And, in my opinion, Hermit is actually not so overpowered in Legacy, due to the fact that is:

- a creature wich needs to stay alive 1 turn.
- subject to Pithing Needle and Phyrexian Revoker
- subject to Spell Snare
- Green, wich leads the player to splash for the weakest colour in combo decks.
- involved in a graveyard based combo ( Extirpate completely destroys this deck)
- subject to stifle.

However, Green Sun Zenith would just love to fuck with this little guy. And people would start considering Wordly Tutor (which is another card under my radar.)

[jazzykat]

IMO Speculating w/o having the cards you need to play your deck is a pretty big opportunity cost. You knowlingly bring an unoptimized deck to a tournament where you pay money to enter and can potentially win something greater than your entry fee. So if you forgoe the nescessary cards for your deck you put yourself at a disadvantage when it comes to competition. You surely aren't guranteed to win, but you certainly do increase your chances from 0.

Now if you buy a card hoping it will get broken/unbanned you have a choice to try and break the card and get your technology realized while you are sitting on 100 of card X/you hope against hopes that one day a card is unbanned.

My suggestion for "safe" speculating is to trade any of your excess cards up into Legacy staples that can't foreseeably be easily replaced/reprinted and are between $20-$100. I am accidentally sitting on a 15-20/10-15 extra duals/fetches and they are about as liquid as any card in magic due to the incredible jump in popularity of Legacy. You can turn them into cash/whatever cards you need very easily and they are about the right value so you can carry around a good amount of them of different values so you can normally match up with whatever you want to trade for. OTOH, I should probably dump all my duplicates with a buy list like this and buy at least a couple of ETFs.

[android]

Speculating is how I fund 75% of my Magic related expenditures. I would say if you can pick up cards under $5 that have the potential to explode to the now standard $30-40 legacy staple overnight, it's a wise investment and an acceptable risk. Hermit Druid they will never allow so that card is highly unlikely to make you money. Having said that, if I were to find say 100 of them at 25¢ each, I would scoop them up. As for Earthcraft, yes it is a powerful card which allows combos which go infinite and can technically win on the spot. It is a card that I would feel safe buying at maybe $2-4 in large quantities. I think the card is probably worth about $8-10 but it would spike to $40 if unrestricted. If a card was once powerful, it has the potential to be powerful again. These are the cards that are worth picking up (if they have not been printed a million times) IMO.

Stoneforge Mystic was a no brainer. How could this card not be good? At $4, are you crazy? $6 foils? I bought as many as I could and I'm still hanging onto a bunch of them. The card is good and will be a staple in anything running creatures, equipment and white mana. I can see it being a splash card in many aggro decks.

Anyhow, I should include the fact that I have a ton of chaff from past failed experiments in speculation. Funny thing is, I will sell it off as worthless for next to nothing and then a year down the road I will realize, hey that lot had Phyrexian Devourer, Peacekeeper, Grindstone, Dark Depths, a million other cards & etc. and I sold it for $20. What I've learned is that sometimes it seems like you lose money in the short run but if you just nest the stuff away and you keep an eye on the trendy "Now" cards, you can make out like a bandit and fund you Magic sickness.

[Dragon_Whelp]

IMO Speculating w/o having the cards you need to play your deck is a pretty big opportunity cost. You knowlingly bring an unoptimized deck to a tournament where you pay money to enter and can potentially win something greater than your entry fee. So if you forgoe the nescessary cards for your deck you put yourself at a disadvantage when it comes to competition. You surely aren't guranteed to win, but you certainly do increase your chances from 0.

I already own 2 pretty much optimised decks - Zoo and Dragon Stompy. However, I have tried borrowing a friend's CounterTop, and, well... It's a fun deck. I like that you have a lot of decisions to make. There's a lot of stuff to keep track of. But holy handgrenade, is it expensive. Even if I make the relatively budget ThopterHumility version that he made me a list for - it's still very expensive. Stax is just... Well, I'll be honest: I'm a sadist.

But yes, it is definitely a risky venture to speculate. On the other hand, 17 years ago, people would tell you that trading your stupid double lands for a Shivan Dragon was solid. And yes, it was a different time. But years later, The Duelist would tell you that Army Ants was crazy tech. If you could trade your Tabernacles and Moats for Elder Dragons, you were considered a lucky, lucky guy.

I live in Denmark, where shops started buying Magic somewhere around Ice Age, I think. It's not like I can go to a flea market and find unopened Legends boosters. And, as much as I hate to admit it, I have played Magic for half my life. I've played since Apocalypse. You can do the math, but truth is, I've missed out on quite a lot when it comes to ye olde Magic cards. And catching up is very, very costly. So I'm pretty much willing to take every little shortcut on the way.

Now if you buy a card hoping it will get broken/unbanned you have a choice to try and break the card and get your technology realized while you are sitting on 100 of card X/you hope against hopes that one day a card is unbanned.

If I was to buy lots of the card, I would wait for the unbanning and then unload them as quickly as possible. Otherwise, one ends up like the woman with the eggs in H.C. Andersen's tale. Try reading it, it actually has a sound point, I think.

My suggestion for "safe" speculating is to trade any of your excess cards up into Legacy staples that can't foreseeably be easily replaced/reprinted and are between $20-$100. I am accidentally sitting on a 15-20/10-15 extra duals/fetches and they are about as liquid as any card in magic due to the incredible jump in popularity of Legacy. You can turn them into cash/whatever cards you need very easily and they are about the right value so you can carry around a good amount of them of different values so you can normally match up with whatever you want to trade for. OTOH, I should probably dump all my duplicates with a buy list like this and buy at least a couple of ETFs.

I do this already. The thing is, I need most of the cards that I trade for. Occasionally I get something I already had, but that is quickly turned into something I didn't have.

For example, I recently traded a pile of jank for an Engineered Explosives. I was told not to trade it, even though I only have one and I don't need it right now. Probably sound advice, but... Darn.

[Gaius Darkfire]

Dragon_Welp, you're situation is almost exactly where I was 2 years ago. I had almost zero income (about $75 a week from a work) and was in Uni full time, so what I spent on cards went towards staples. A few Tops here, a dual land there, it slowly builds up, and while it is tougher now that prices have risen, it is definitely worthwhile to stick with it. 2 years ago I sighed like you at the latest decks that I had no chance of building, now I look at them and consider if I want to play them, rather than if I can. It's a long road but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Right now I'm locked out of playing very few decks (I dont have Grindstones, Phyrexian Dreadnoughts, Enchantress stuff, High Tide combo), and while getting to this point takes a while, keep with it.

As for speculating on unbannings, dont do it unless you can afford the loss. While hitting that jackpot is nice, wasting that period of practical acquisition isn't worth the chance.

[keys]

I just want to say that anyone who claims Legacy will eventually "go the way of Vintage" is missing the point. The physical card pool of Legacy staples is much larger than that for Vintage staples, meaning it will always accommodate more players. If the player base were to shrink, the price of cards would decline and then more people would buy back in. Only the introduction of another more popular format (potentially something like "overextended") could pull enough players away to marginalize the format similar to the way Vintage now fills a smaller niche.

[Amon Amarth]

Speculating is how I fund 75% of my Magic related expenditures. I would say if you can pick up cards under $5 that have the potential to explode to the now standard $30-40 legacy staple overnight, it's a wise investment and an acceptable risk. Hermit Druid they will never allow so that card is highly unlikely to make you money. Having said that, if I were to find say 100 of them at 25¢ each, I would scoop them up. As for Earthcraft, yes it is a powerful card which allows combos which go infinite and can technically win on the spot. It is a card that I would feel safe buying at maybe $2-4 in large quantities. I think the card is probably worth about $8-10 but it would spike to $40 if unrestricted. If a card was once powerful, it has the potential to be powerful again. These are the cards that are worth picking up (if they have not been printed a million times) IMO.

Stoneforge Mystic was a no brainer. How could this card not be good? At $4, are you crazy? $6 foils? I bought as many as I could and I'm still hanging onto a bunch of them. The card is good and will be a staple in anything running creatures, equipment and white mana. I can see it being a splash card in many aggro decks.

Anyhow, I should include the fact that I have a ton of chaff from past failed experiments in speculation. Funny thing is, I will sell it off as worthless for next to nothing and then a year down the road I will realize, hey that lot had Phyrexian Devourer, Peacekeeper, Grindstone, Dark Depths, a million other cards & etc. and I sold it for $20. What I've learned is that sometimes it seems like you lose money in the short run but if you just nest the stuff away and you keep an eye on the trendy "Now" cards, you can make out like a bandit and fund you Magic sickness.

QFT. This is the best way to make money and expand your collection without having to pay out the nose for everything. SFM was pretty obvious. Card advantage on a reasonably priced body. The next block after it was released was an artifact block that would probably have powerful equipment. That was a pretty safe investment and thy were only 3 dollars forever.

[keys]

Remember those rumors about the filler between legacy and extended? Maybe they aren't so rumorish after all. The idea is there. The demand for a longer format is there. I think it's going to cap on availability. I'm working on the "overextended staples" now.

You and me both buddy.

What would these be?