[Official] Bitching About Prices, Buyouts and Reprints Thread

[Royal Ass.]

My question "Why?" was not only about the price but I'm pretty curious how beta Lotus ended up that way :)

[dontbiteitholmes]

Ehm, you are aware that once you have Mage+Laboratory, u can play each instant/sorcery once more? You basically get a machine that recycles everything - sure its 2 Mana for bounce and then 2 Mana to replay mage BUT let's not forget what it then does. Take for example Academy Ruins - tell me what it does is cheaper.

It's 3 mana to bounce Mage because you are tapping 3 land then it is 2 mana + X to recast the spell. So in the end you are paying UUU3 to recast a Brainstorm for example, pardon me if I don't think this is particularly playable. I mean maybe a 1x in some builds but for sure not a $10 card or an auto-include.

Academy Ruins is a $5 card that can get back the same artifact infinity times and is barely played anymore. When it is played 90% of the time it wants to get back Engineered Explosives. I fail to see what Ruins being mediocre has to prove about Riptide Lab being good? Unless you thought I was going to heap praise on Ruins in which case you'd be wrong.

Well,

It is probably the only ripped in half beta black lotus in the world. Noone else has the guts to increase the population of those cards so because it is a rarity, people pay more than we would think was rational.

In truth, that is the most rediculous price paid for a card I have seen in a long time.

Except that it hasn't sold yet, so no one is paying $1000+ dollars for a ripped in half Lotus obviously.

[Cynicath]

My question "Why?" was not only about the price but I'm pretty curious how beta Lotus ended up that way :)

Way WAY back in the day... Maybe '94 or '95 they used to have matches (iron man I think they were called) where a card that was destroyed was literally DESTROYED. It used to be played in front of large crowds and always with p9. Of course this was also way before a Lotus could sell for $1000, but even then it made me cringe. Perhaps this is a victim of one of those matches?

[dontbiteitholmes]

Way WAY back in the day... Maybe '94 or '95 they used to have matches (iron man I think they were called) where a card that was destroyed was literally DESTROYED. It used to be played in front of large crowds and always with p9. Of course this was also way before a Lotus could sell for $1000, but even then it made me cringe. Perhaps this is a victim of one of those matches?

As long as I've been playing I can't believe I've never heard of that (or more likely I heard of it at one point and just forgot). Local store has about 50,000 commons in stock at 5cent a piece, maybe an Ironman pauper repack draft is in order.

[Picc]

As long as I've been playing I can't believe I've never heard of that (or more likely I heard of it at one point and just forgot). Local store has about 50,000 commons in stock at 5cent a piece, maybe an Ironman pauper repack draft is in order.

Reminds me of the old Chaos confetti story but sad to say I have seen games like this take place at my high school in 95. If a card would hit the graveyard it got ripped in two. Around here the winner would also take what was left of the looser deck. The most expensive card i ever saw get the axe was a Shivan (back when they were worth something). It didn't take long for people to start trying to game the system and win with progressively cheaper decks though.

[majikal]

We used to do Ironman tournaments at one of the now-defunct game stores in my hometown, only any time anything went to the graveyard for any reason it was destroyed. I remember this one guy had a Millstone deck that he used to grief people with. After a couple of physical altercations, they eventually stopped doing those. lol

[r0ckstAr]

Lol Millstone deck in iron man. Better come with a gun !

[umbowta]

As long as I've been playing I can't believe I've never heard of that (or more likely I heard of it at one point and just forgot). Local store has about 50,000 commons in stock at 5cent a piece, maybe an Ironman pauper repack draft is in order.

Sounds more like a Commons Burning is in order. Did you know Magic cards often make a popping noise when they're tossed into a nice hot fire? Especially the foils I think it has something to do with the glue outgassing rapidly with extreme temperature.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Reminds me of the old Chaos confetti story but sad to say I have seen games like this take place at my high school in 95. If a card would hit the graveyard it got ripped in two. Around here the winner would also take what was left of the looser deck. The most expensive card i ever saw get the axe was a Shivan (back when they were worth something). It didn't take long for people to start trying to game the system and win with progressively cheaper decks though.

Yeah, I'm old school too. We used to play for ante but I've never seen Ironman. There was one particularly brutal ante variant though that I could never talk anyone into. At the end of the game for each point of life you lost by you flipped the top card of your deck and gave it to your opponent. So if you just barely win by one life you get the top card of their library, but you could hold out and try to finish them with a giant fireball and end up with every card they hadn't drawn yet. Apparently this variant had a short run in the early years of Magic, I'm talking way back when Chaos Orb was tourney legal so people would play with their battlefield on a vertical metal board with magnetic strips.

Sounds more like a Commons Burning is in order. Did you know Magic cards often make a popping noise when they're tossed into a nice hot fire? Especially the foils I think it has something to do with the glue outgassing rapidly with extreme temperature.

[sporenfrosch1411]

Chaos Orb was tourney legal so people would play with their battlefield on a vertical metal board with magnetic strips.

This made my day, thanks for sharing that anecdote - really priceless. :)

[Tha Gunslinga]

Why?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Black-Lotus-...item3f0e20a658

That one's fake. It was a reback. You can tell by how shiny/bright it is and how it is miscut slightly. Disappointing to see a major retailer selling something like that.

[dahcmai]

Heh, Ironman was so brutal. I shredded a few duals during that time. Though we usually would give them a free one later if it was a kid. Luckily, they weren't worth all that much then. Beta Shivan was probably the most expensive one I ever tore up.

We played it where it was one shredded card from the opponent's deck for each life point you shoved him under 0.


Anyway, AlphaBetaUnlimited isn't a shabby seller. You'd think they would know the difference considering how much power they have go through the case. I've seen Lotus's that are that shifted before, but you're right about it being a tad too shiny on the front especially. notice the top has wear that doesn't extend to the front despite how beat it is. Weird, but you're probably right. Maybe it was done on purpose?

[Royal Ass.]

Well the scuff marks on the back of the card to not look like natural wear. Looks like someone was trying to make the card looked aged or something.

But Gunslinger, how does the centering on the card make it look like a collectors edition print? I have seen lots of beta/alpha card with centering like that.

Also, I don't have a lot of experience with collectors edition cards. How does the printing differ from Beta? Do they still have the same sized ink circles that you see on beta? Are they more glossy, saturated etc?

[ivanpei]

Camped on scg yesterday, refreshing every 5mins for foil preorders and nabbed a playset of foil snapcasters @ 50 ea. Woke up and its 70 usd now, what? Wow.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Well the scuff marks on the back of the card to not look like natural wear. Looks like someone was trying to make the card looked aged or something.

But Gunslinger, how does the centering on the card make it look like a collectors edition print? I have seen lots of beta/alpha card with centering like that.

Also, I don't have a lot of experience with collectors edition cards. How does the printing differ from Beta? Do they still have the same sized ink circles that you see on beta? Are they more glossy, saturated etc?

An awful lot of CE/IE P9 are miscut slightly, and if you look at a CE Lotus, typically it will be miscut like that. Most real Beta Lotuses are centered properly. CE/IE is slightly shinier than real Beta as well. The corners on that card are off as well. It is a fairly obvious fake.

[Esper3k]

An awful lot of CE/IE P9 are miscut slightly, and if you look at a CE Lotus, typically it will be miscut like that. Most real Beta Lotuses are centered properly. CE/IE is slightly shinier than real Beta as well. The corners on that card are off as well. It is a fairly obvious fake.

For those of us not as versed in Beta stuff, I was wondering what specifically was off about the corners?

[death]

It's like its having an identity crisis, not sure whether it wants to be an alpha or beta.

[Comrade]

Aside from not being shiny, this one is cut the same way.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Black-Lotus-...#ht_1572wt_932

[Tha Gunslinga]

That one is probably rebacked too.

[useL]

That one is probably rebacked too.

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