I'm not making this post to thumb my nose at anyone, or hold myself in any special regard as a Legacy player, I'm simply calling it as I see it, and offering it as a warning that Wizards will not be doing anything to address the prices of Legacy any time soon, and probably not ever. Best case thing you can hope for is a Wasteland reprint, or FoW showing up in an unobtainable FTV print, or maybe a judge foil. Maybe Zen fetches get a reprint. The format is not in any danger of dying, and evidence of that is pretty clear by the numbers of expensive cards still selling. SCG is sold out of Underground Seas at $250. They have 10 MP ones at $200. There are 9 remaining NM copies on TCG player. 18 seas of varying editions were sold in the last two days alone on a certain auction site. Somebody is buying them, and they're being bought in the $200-$250 range. I use Sea as an example, of course, because right now it seems to be the card price that is drawing the most shock and ire from players, but there were 27 Hierarchs sold in the last two days at their new, "insane, unaffordable" price. It seems that staples would have to reach vintage-esque pricing before demand would noticeably taper off.
My concern is that the people buying the Underground Seas aren't even playing with them, but are instead trying to make a profit. Investors buying from investors hoping to sell to other investors. There isn't anything wrong with turning a profit, but you can only play hot potato with a commodity so long before somebody is holding it when the price drops. I'm not entirely convinced that the demand is real.
I couldn't agree more. There are shops with cases full of expensive modern cards that don't even hold Modern events. Some of these shops have attempted to hold events, but the interest is not there. The competitive modern scene is sorely lacking when you consider the explosive upward price movements of modern staples.
Do they even teach cause and effect anymore in school? If this is truly the case, then these shops will go broke because they sunk all of their money into something that will not move. It's either that or you don't know what you're talking about and they're selling modern staples just fine. Contrary to popular belief, people do play modern and they do want cards for modern. And what do you know, increased demand with a static supply means higher prices. Instead, all people who can't or won't afford an eternal format just blame "hoarders". Yeah, because me having 3x Dark Confidant and not playing them is really causing you to not play the format.
There are a couple of shops like the person you responded too around me. One actual quit taking in modern legal cards that are worth more than 5 dollars because they sit around too long and actually willing to negotiate on prices. Both these shops tried to get modern going and couldn't really get a consistent turn out part of the reason was the people who where interested would get their butt handed to them by generally more expensive decks and quit. It is a smaller town and the less serious players who did show got stomped and when they saw the prices of the staple cards they dropped it and then traded their modern cards in for standard stuff. Needless to say neither shops could get even a consistent 8 for modern. They can however get usually around 16 for standard, and 30+ people for a pre-release. One of the most common things I see in my area is players don't want to spend that kind of money on one card. So either I have to spend money and leave town to find more players or play standard. I would gladly to take any kind of hit on my collection to have more players in the area. Don't even get me started on legacy there is only like 3 serious players here. Then for vintage we only have one person. I guess you could say there are technically more legacy or modern players here if you count casually decks, but there are nothing serious most of the time. Like a deck of mostly standard cards running counter spell or dark ritual or some modern legal or legacy legal commons or uncommons.
you'd have to convince me that someone who already owned a $500,000 (READ: everything is paid off) house would decide they just don't want that house anymore because it is now worth $250,000.
It's called downsizing. I've seen several people do it. They sunk around a quarter million dollars of savings into a McMansion thinking it would continue to appreciate indefinitely. Now, what was worth #250,000 is worth $100,000. To make matters worse, it's bigger than what they need so the utility expenses are horrendous and the tax evaluations are based on the peak and won't go down because local municipalities became dependent on the real estate tax revenue to support deficit spending of their own (muni bonds). Topping it all off, they're bitter and jaded about losing a huge portion of their savings. Sinking an additional $20k per year into something that's only worth five times that or less as an asset is no longer an appealing proposition, so they dump it.
...How does this relate to magic cards? Property tax? Utility costs? I said that this housing market crash analogy is a bad way to predict an outcome of a bubble that we don't even know exists, and you've got a list of things that once again don't relate to magic cards. Magic cards are not houses! Houses take decades to pay off. Magic cards are bought with hobby money. I'd honestly be buying up extra duals if the market were to "crash," and I'm not alone.
I dont believe Yu-Gi-Ho has eternal formats. They have 1 format and any cards that fall outside of that format are banned and unplayable. What makes Magic different is the majority of cards in Magic are playable in some format.
Yu-Gi-Oh! has 3 constructed formats and 1 limited format.
What is the 3rd constructed format? Beside Advanced and Traditional.
Something called Mega-Banned, where anything on the Banned/Limited list is totally banned from play. Its sort of a joke in the community overall and only ultra budget or truly bored players would ever suggest a Mega-Banned tournament. Its kind of like Vintage in that pretty much no one plays it but it exists for a reason.
you'd have to convince me that someone who already owned a $500,000 (READ: everything is paid off) house would decide they just don't want that house anymore because it is now worth $250,000.
It's called downsizing. I've seen several people do it. They sunk around a quarter million dollars of savings into a McMansion thinking it would continue to appreciate indefinitely. Now, what was worth #250,000 is worth $100,000. To make matters worse, it's bigger than what they need so the utility expenses are horrendous and the tax evaluations are based on the peak and won't go down because local municipalities became dependent on the real estate tax revenue to support deficit spending of their own (muni bonds). Topping it all off, they're bitter and jaded about losing a huge portion of their savings. Sinking an additional $20k per year into something that's only worth five times that or less as an asset is no longer an appealing proposition, so they dump it.
...How does this relate to magic cards? Property tax? Utility costs? I said that this housing market crash analogy is a bad way to predict an outcome of a bubble that we don't even know exists, and you've got a list of things that once again don't relate to magic cards. Magic cards are not houses! Houses take decades to pay off. Magic cards are bought with hobby money. I'd honestly be buying up extra duals if the market were to "crash," and I'm not alone.
You were talking about houses and I responded.
There are applicable analogies to the housing bubble and Magic cards even if you don't see them. The primary one is that after a bubble bursts and the mania and fad behind it fade, the market concerned takes decades to fully recover, if it ever does. Hence my comment about a diminished game (or at least format within it) and specifically the tournament scene.
Some people like to use these analogies to falsely predict the impending death of M:tG, which is ridiculous. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that if Magic card prices are in a bubble and it pops, a great many people who bought them will be extremely pissed off values dropped precipitously, because most people believe that when they buy Magic cards they will be able to sell them in the future at an equal or greater price. A large portion of those people will quit and the format will take an extremely long time to recover, if it ever does. Again, this reaction wouldn't be rational, but markets and usually people as well aren't rational.
You and others who already play who would buy up cards being dumped at cheap prices isn't going to bring people back. You're right, Magic cards aren't houses. Everybody needs to have a place to live and if they don't own it, they'll be renting it from bargain buying landlords. Magic cards on the other hand are just game pieces and without voluntary demand for them they won't recover their peak value.
Wind of Endless Plains 2WWWWW
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Flying, Vigilance, Lifelink
Madness 3WWWWW
If Wind of the Endless Plains' madness cost was paid, destroy all lands and creatures. They can't be regenerated. Wind of Endless Plains gains Defender.
7/7
Waves of the Endless Island 2UUUUU
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Split-second, Non-basic Landwalk, Shroud
Madness 3UUUUU
If Waves of the Endless Island's madness cost was paid, return all permanents to their owner's hands. Waves of the Endless Island gains Defender.
7/7
Confusion of Endless Possibilities 5WUBRG
Legendary Creature - Avatar
When Confusion of Endless Possibilities enters the battlefield, target player skips his or her next turn and your life total becomes 1.
Hexproof, Haunt, Amplify 7
Madness 7WUBRG
If Confusion of Endless Possibilities' madness cost was paid, target player skips his or her next turn. Confusion of Endless Possibilities gains Defender.
7/7
SCG and pretty much all speculators/hoarders are a cancer on the game. They do little to nothing for the game and instead take and harm it for personal gain. It's these people that stop staples from getting reprinted in reasonable quanities, or keep the reserved list going. The game would be a thousand times better if they ceased to exist.
The day SCG goes out of business is the day I throw a party.
SCG and pretty much all speculators/hoarders are a cancer on the game. They do little to nothing for the game and instead take and harm it for personal gain. It's these people that stop staples from getting reprinted in reasonable quanities, or keep the reserved list going. The game would be a thousand times better if they ceased to exist.
The day SCG goes out of business is the day I throw a party.
Yeah, all SCG does is provide a large national circuit of events for Standard and Legacy players to play in. I mean, who even looks forward to playing in one of these events? I mean, if they canceled them, I'm sure no one would mind, right?
I'm sorry if this comes off as too ranty, but seriously, can we cut down on the misinformation? The day SCG goes out of business would probably mean the game of Magic is dead/nearly dead. If you are fine with no more new cards, a drastic cut in game stores (who basically stay open on the back of Magic), less people to play with/no new players, then yeah, good riddance.
SCG and pretty much all speculators/hoarders are a cancer on the game. They do little to nothing for the game and instead take and harm it for personal gain. It's these people that stop staples from getting reprinted in reasonable quanities, or keep the reserved list going. The game would be a thousand times better if they ceased to exist.
The day SCG goes out of business is the day I throw a party.
It doesn't look like they're for preserving the reserved list to me:
Wind of Endless Plains 2WWWWW
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Flying, Vigilance, Lifelink
Madness 3WWWWW
If Wind of the Endless Plains' madness cost was paid, destroy all lands and creatures. They can't be regenerated. Wind of Endless Plains gains Defender.
7/7
Waves of the Endless Island 2UUUUU
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Split-second, Non-basic Landwalk, Shroud
Madness 3UUUUU
If Waves of the Endless Island's madness cost was paid, return all permanents to their owner's hands. Waves of the Endless Island gains Defender.
7/7
Confusion of Endless Possibilities 5WUBRG
Legendary Creature - Avatar
When Confusion of Endless Possibilities enters the battlefield, target player skips his or her next turn and your life total becomes 1.
Hexproof, Haunt, Amplify 7
Madness 7WUBRG
If Confusion of Endless Possibilities' madness cost was paid, target player skips his or her next turn. Confusion of Endless Possibilities gains Defender.
7/7
SCG and pretty much all speculators/hoarders are a cancer on the game. They do little to nothing for the game and instead take and harm it for personal gain. It's these people that stop staples from getting reprinted in reasonable quanities, or keep the reserved list going. The game would be a thousand times better if they ceased to exist.
The day SCG goes out of business is the day I throw a party.
Yeah, all SCG does is provide a large national circuit of events for Standard and Legacy players to play in. I mean, who even looks forward to playing in one of these events? I mean, if they canceled them, I'm sure no one would mind, right?
I'm sorry if this comes off as too ranty, but seriously, can we cut down on the misinformation? The day SCG goes out of business would probably mean the game of Magic is dead/nearly dead. If you are fine with no more new cards, a drastic cut in game stores (who basically stay open on the back of Magic), less people to play with/no new players, then yeah, good riddance.
Magic would be fine without SCG or SCG events, and makes it sound like you're spreading misinformation. You're just mad at his opinion because you clearly want to profit from speculation yourself.
SCG and pretty much all speculators/hoarders are a cancer on the game. They do little to nothing for the game and instead take and harm it for personal gain. It's these people that stop staples from getting reprinted in reasonable quanities, or keep the reserved list going. The game would be a thousand times better if they ceased to exist.
The day SCG goes out of business is the day I throw a party.
Yeah, SCG with its excellent tournament circuit, phenomenal coverage, renowned customer service, and plethora of articles is really hurting the game. They totally make decisions on which cards are going to be reprinted.
Salvation posters who whine about Magic, however, are indispensible, and I don't know how we can possibly enjoy the game without their insight. Attempting to incite trolling is in itself trolling. Trolling & flamebait infraction -Rax
Due to real-life obligations, I am taking a long break from Magic which may include missing the local Legacy GP. Apologies for not being able to keep my threads updated.
SCG and pretty much all speculators/hoarders are a cancer on the game. They do little to nothing for the game and instead take and harm it for personal gain. It's these people that stop staples from getting reprinted in reasonable quanities, or keep the reserved list going. The game would be a thousand times better if they ceased to exist.
The day SCG goes out of business is the day I throw a party.
Yeah, all SCG does is provide a large national circuit of events for Standard and Legacy players to play in. I mean, who even looks forward to playing in one of these events? I mean, if they canceled them, I'm sure no one would mind, right?
I'm sorry if this comes off as too ranty, but seriously, can we cut down on the misinformation? The day SCG goes out of business would probably mean the game of Magic is dead/nearly dead. If you are fine with no more new cards, a drastic cut in game stores (who basically stay open on the back of Magic), less people to play with/no new players, then yeah, good riddance.
Magic would be fine without SCG or SCG events, and makes it sound like you're spreading misinformation. You're just mad at his opinion because you clearly want to profit from speculation yourself.
Clearly you misunderstand. I'm not mad at his opinion because I want to profit (if I wanted to profit on the scale you suggest, I'd open a store, not sell random cards on ebay for people who don't have ebay accounts of their own). I'm just sick of seeing all these baseless comments that contribute little to the discussion besides more whining. Attributing printing or reserved list decisions to anyone other than WotC is actual misinformation, since they are the ones making the decision. Calling SCG a "cancer on the game" and saying they do "little to nothing for the game" is misinformation, as their contributions have been pointed out by others in this thread. Also, I'm not saying that the game of Magic NEEDS SCG. I'm saying that if SCG were to go out of business, that would probably indicate that the game is dying. It would be a symptom or result, not a cause. So before you resort to a baseless personal attack, why not do some reading and logical thinking before you decide who is and who isn't spreading misinformation.
Re-reading the rest of this thread, it seems that most of the reasonable discussion has already happened. I'm guessing it'll be more of the whiners rather than actual informed discussion, so I guess it's time to check out of this thread.
Ok, to the modern thread then Smile Same thing applies, pretty much the only difference is that there's some additional complaints about the reserved list in the Legacy thread.
So...can this entire thread be moved to the 'complain about legacy prices' thread yet? Same arguments, diff day.
Honestly, I am indifferent about Legacy prices and the Reserve List because I don't play the format and have no plans to do so. Now Modern, on the other hand...
Magic is in a bubble. You can compare this to "superstar" movie stars. They bano their fame release many movies in succession to capitalise on their popularity. Then they accept almost all endorsement offers and their faces are everywhere. Thats the peak. Mtg is going the same. Jace money? Figurines? Motion pictures? This is the peak.
As the prices go up more ppl make the decision that this hobby just isnt worth it anymore.
Card prices arent the only factor. Availabilty is much more of a ptoblem. There just isnt enough playsets of competitive cards for everyone to play modern let alone legacy.
The financially wise decision would be to not buy into the hype. There are too many examples of herd mentality ending badly.
Magic would be fine without SCG or SCG events, and makes it sound like you're spreading misinformation. You're just mad at his opinion because you clearly want to profit from speculation yourself.
Not true. SCG is one of the good guys. Yes they're ridiculously expensive, but they are the largest market force. They lobby for removing the Reserve List, they run more tournaments than WotC, and they have the best writing staff (though it's on a decline lately). They're partially responsible for prices being what they are, but at the same time they've just been businessmen that have recognized people were willing to pay more than they were currently paying. If SCG didn't do it, someone else eventually would have.
Magic is in a bubble. You can compare this to "superstar" movie stars. They bano their fame release many movies in succession to capitalise on their popularity. Then they accept almost all endorsement offers and their faces are everywhere. Thats the peak. Mtg is going the same. Jace money? Figurines? Motion pictures? This is the peak.
As the prices go up more ppl make the decision that this hobby just isnt worth it anymore.
Card prices arent the only factor. Availabilty is much more of a ptoblem. There just isnt enough playsets of competitive cards for everyone to play modern let alone legacy.
The financially wise decision would be to not buy into the hype. There are too many examples of herd mentality ending badly.
I've made the same arguments, in my opinion MTG is in the delusional part of the mania phase. I don't know when that bubble will burst but it will eventually happen. MTG right now is in the same spot as MMO's in 2004 or comic books in 1992.
We've been through Magic's "golden age" and its "peak" many many times, the only real decline I can remember in my 20ish years of playing was due to affinity. Outside of that, we've hit Magic's peak a multiple times......and yet the bubble keeps rising.
Let me be honest, I do think there is some truth to the bubble theory. However, I also believe that not all of the value of Underground Sea or other reserve list cards are purely the result of overvaluing them. I do think a good chunk of the price is from demand, and while some vendors might be milking that a little extra, I don't think that the entire Magic economy is a giant bubble floating amidst thorn bushes.
Magic has had figurines before. We still don't actually have a motion picture, that's several years off at least, if it really does happen, and because WotC decided to have New Zealand mint produce a $20 chunk of silver with Jace's likeness and sell it to make an additional buck hardly is an indicator of impending doom.
I'm really not going to worry about the game until I see duals not being sold on ebay, and stores being completely out of them. And even then....I don't think the format would die overnight.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy: TES
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
Hey ebonclaw. Not to be rude but just to correct. Magic has not hit its peak before. There can only be one peak. Ive played on off since fourth ed. There is a lot of bull ***** going on. The "player base dip" after affinity was 100times the effect of chronicles. And all we hear is chronicles almost killed magic. Well I think it had more to do with too many sets (6?) Released in one year for a game in its infancy.
But when we talk about peak its more about mtg having peak exposure. The video game, comics etc if you play games you know mtg exists. There is very little fresh meat so to speak.
Now the bigger problem is the pyramid scam that wotc do on new customers. Anyone can "play" thats true but not everyone can play the most fun ie high level tournaments because there are not enough cards to go around.
I believe what Ebonclaw meant by 'peak' was periods in time where people thought the game 'peaked', whether in terms of popularity or pricing. This has definitely happened several times already in the past and probably happens on a daily basis these days According to the market street threads, nearly every day there's cards hitting new highs.
@people in this thread who would gladly take hits on their collection value just to have more people in the format, local players to play with, etc. I've got a suggestion. Hw about you just provide the decks. Apparently there's a lot of interest in non-standard formats, there's just somewhat of a price barrier. None of that's going to matter though - if you bring it, they will play.
I believe what Ebonclaw meant by 'peak' was periods in time where people thought the game 'peaked', whether in terms of popularity or pricing. This has definitely happened several times already in the past and probably happens on a daily basis these days According to the market street threads, nearly every day there's cards hitting new highs.
@people in this thread who would gladly take hits on their collection value just to have more people in the format, local players to play with, etc. I've got a suggestion. Hw about you just provide the decks. Apparently there's a lot of interest in non-standard formats, there's just somewhat of a price barrier. None of that's going to matter though - if you bring it, they will play.
Funny you mention it. That is precisely why I have two Modern decks, so I can lend one to a friend to play in between rounds of Standard FNM. (was hoping someone would pick up on that there are two Modern decks in my signature...)
I believe what Ebonclaw meant by 'peak' was periods in time where people thought the game 'peaked', whether in terms of popularity or pricing. This has definitely happened several times already in the past and probably happens on a daily basis these days According to the market street threads, nearly every day there's cards hitting new highs.
@people in this thread who would gladly take hits on their collection value just to have more people in the format, local players to play with, etc. I've got a suggestion. Hw about you just provide the decks. Apparently there's a lot of interest in non-standard formats, there's just somewhat of a price barrier. None of that's going to matter though - if you bring it, they will play.
Loaning out decks has an obvious limit. There are only so many cards out there. It isn't the price of legacy that I care about. Legacy continues to grow and there reaches a point where no matter how high the price someone is willing to pay, someone has to sell/give away staples for another person to enter. Obviously we haven't reached that point, but if the growth of legacy continues, it will happen eventually.
Hey ebonclaw. Not to be rude but just to correct. Magic has not hit its peak before. There can only be one peak. Ive played on off since fourth ed. There is a lot of bull ***** going on. The "player base dip" after affinity was 100times the effect of chronicles. And all we hear is chronicles almost killed magic. Well I think it had more to do with too many sets (6?) Released in one year for a game in its infancy.
The really big problem with Chronicles was that distributors and retailers were getting burned by falling prices of sealed product. The same was true of Fallen Empires preceding it and Homelands after. It was the *****s for some of the wholesalers and retailers who ended up having to sell those products at a steep loss just to clear stock and recoup some capital. And because WotC doesn't sell directly to consumers, it was a very big deal for them.
It really did almost kill the game, but not for the reason of a few collectors getting miffed, you're right about that.
EDIT: Although I would point out that while sealed product needs to retain a reasonable value, it doesn't need to appreciate to 10x+ MSRP within a few years to keep retailers and distributors on board.
Wind of Endless Plains 2WWWWW
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Flying, Vigilance, Lifelink
Madness 3WWWWW
If Wind of the Endless Plains' madness cost was paid, destroy all lands and creatures. They can't be regenerated. Wind of Endless Plains gains Defender.
7/7
Waves of the Endless Island 2UUUUU
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Split-second, Non-basic Landwalk, Shroud
Madness 3UUUUU
If Waves of the Endless Island's madness cost was paid, return all permanents to their owner's hands. Waves of the Endless Island gains Defender.
7/7
Confusion of Endless Possibilities 5WUBRG
Legendary Creature - Avatar
When Confusion of Endless Possibilities enters the battlefield, target player skips his or her next turn and your life total becomes 1.
Hexproof, Haunt, Amplify 7
Madness 7WUBRG
If Confusion of Endless Possibilities' madness cost was paid, target player skips his or her next turn. Confusion of Endless Possibilities gains Defender.
7/7
I believe what Ebonclaw meant by 'peak' was periods in time where people thought the game 'peaked', whether in terms of popularity or pricing. This has definitely happened several times already in the past and probably happens on a daily basis these days According to the market street threads, nearly every day there's cards hitting new highs.
@people in this thread who would gladly take hits on their collection value just to have more people in the format, local players to play with, etc. I've got a suggestion. Hw about you just provide the decks. Apparently there's a lot of interest in non-standard formats, there's just somewhat of a price barrier. None of that's going to matter though - if you bring it, they will play.
Yup, my TES build is on loan to a friend taking it to St.Louis the weekend, and I'll probably be loaning out LiliPox in a month to another friend wanting to play in a tournament. I've loaned out my tabernacle, wastelands, and other staples if it let one more person play a legacy event than usuall. As long as other legacy players adopt similar attitudes, it would go a long way to ensuring the health of the format and softening the blow of acquiring staples.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy: TES
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
Im not sure thats believable. Stores have no reason to buy massive quantities and tie up capital and if the distributor does this thats business. Bad individual decisions can cause a given distributor out of business. Others will step up as its a good stable ROE business its just middle man with margins. But I get your point. Its all bull *****. Chronicles eventually sold out. Lousy products wouldnt sell. And no store in my city sold packs below cost.
Im not sure thats believable. Stores have no reason to buy massive quantities and tie up capital and if the distributor does this thats business. Bad individual decisions can cause a given distributor out of business. Others will step up as its a good stable ROE business its just middle man with margins. But I get your point. Its all bull *****. Chronicles eventually sold out. Lousy products wouldnt sell. And no store in my city sold packs below cost.
The retailers' reasoning was that after the chronic shortages of Alpha/Beta through the Dark, they would jack up their order quantities far beyond what they thought they'd actually sell so that when the distributors rationed out supplies on a percentage of order basis they would get more. Of course starting with Fallen Empires there were no shortages or rationing, so gigantic full orders went out. Then a couple of distributors reordered genuinely massive quantities after they initially sold large amounts. Chronicles wasn't quite so bad, but Fallen Empires was a disaster and Homelands wasn't much better. I remember finding places that had cases of the stuff they'd sell for $30 a box around 2001-2002 and it still wasn't selling.
You're right, it was bad business. And a lot of stores and distributors were in dire straights after similarly bad choices during the comic book and sports card boom and bust. Apparently the stores in your town didn't make such bad decisions. Unfortunately, that hasn't kept WotC from coddling those who did to the present and finding the most convoluted ways of doing so possible. The problems were very real, but instead of solutions they ended up with band-aid fixes and diversions. One only needs to look at their online game platform to see those organizational and problem solving practices are still in place.
Wind of Endless Plains 2WWWWW
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Flying, Vigilance, Lifelink
Madness 3WWWWW
If Wind of the Endless Plains' madness cost was paid, destroy all lands and creatures. They can't be regenerated. Wind of Endless Plains gains Defender.
7/7
Waves of the Endless Island 2UUUUU
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Split-second, Non-basic Landwalk, Shroud
Madness 3UUUUU
If Waves of the Endless Island's madness cost was paid, return all permanents to their owner's hands. Waves of the Endless Island gains Defender.
7/7
Confusion of Endless Possibilities 5WUBRG
Legendary Creature - Avatar
When Confusion of Endless Possibilities enters the battlefield, target player skips his or her next turn and your life total becomes 1.
Hexproof, Haunt, Amplify 7
Madness 7WUBRG
If Confusion of Endless Possibilities' madness cost was paid, target player skips his or her next turn. Confusion of Endless Possibilities gains Defender.
7/7
Im not a player of non-rotating formats at least now but I think the really important question is not what can be done to keep the prices of Legacy down. It's if Wizards even wants Legacy to live.
The format is dominated by cards that Wizards deems as mistakes that should have never been printed as they were. A lot of cards if not even the majority of cards that are played in Legacy were made before Wizards changed design philosophy.
The cant support Legacy that much because of the powerlevel. The have to be careful what they put in Standard sets. Cards that can see play in Legacy either have to have a niche ability that is still decent like Spirit of the Labyrinth or are just bonkers like True-Name Nemesis or Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
They dont make any money with Legacy.
I think all that shows that Wizards wants Legacy to die or just doesnt care what becomes of it.
I mean they have made the Modern format after all. They aggressively ban cards that they deem to powerful or unhealthy. They support it with actual product and since a lot of the power cards are cut out or banned they can more easily support it by placing cards in Standards sets that dont break Standard.
And if Legacy dies and those people leave the game its not even like Wizard will have lost much. Standard is far bigger and players that dont want to have rotation all the time can just jump in Modern that is maintained by Wizards. I think Wizard wants to make Modern into the new Legacy and that is the reason the wont do anything about Legacy and its prices at all.
The staples are expensive because people are willing to pay for them. While more and more people are being priced out of the format, it's only because others are willing to buy into them. For every ten players that can't break into legacy for price reasons, there's one who isn't. While there are far more players who can't buy in, there's more than enough who are willing to plunk down the cash to put a choke on the limited supply and keep driving the price up. Those that have already bought into the formats aren't going anywhere.
Besides, the biggest issue is that too many people want instant gratification and price legacy as one lump sum of change that hits all at once. Legacy decks for most people take months or years to complete. If you want in, then stop buying packs of dragon's maze, stop sitting on your standard cards as they rotate, and stop taking your prerelease and fnm winnings in anything besides store credit if you have the option.
There's a massive difference in buying $400 worth of standard over the course of a year and buying a play set of fetches or a few duals. Get back to me in 2 years and I'll show you what that difference is.
If you really want the damned lilies so bad, go sell your bitterblossoms or your mutavaults or whatever to an online store for credit and use it to buy your lilis. While you might think you're getting the short end of the stick right now, go check the prices again in a year
The people that are putting the strain on the market are the ones who have figured this stuff out and are slowly buying into the format while everyone else sits back buying boxes of Born of the Gods and complain about the price of force of will.
For the most part, I agree, but then what about the people who force price spikes like the JTMS foil spike?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
There are a couple of shops like the person you responded too around me. One actual quit taking in modern legal cards that are worth more than 5 dollars because they sit around too long and actually willing to negotiate on prices. Both these shops tried to get modern going and couldn't really get a consistent turn out part of the reason was the people who where interested would get their butt handed to them by generally more expensive decks and quit. It is a smaller town and the less serious players who did show got stomped and when they saw the prices of the staple cards they dropped it and then traded their modern cards in for standard stuff. Needless to say neither shops could get even a consistent 8 for modern. They can however get usually around 16 for standard, and 30+ people for a pre-release. One of the most common things I see in my area is players don't want to spend that kind of money on one card. So either I have to spend money and leave town to find more players or play standard. I would gladly to take any kind of hit on my collection to have more players in the area. Don't even get me started on legacy there is only like 3 serious players here. Then for vintage we only have one person. I guess you could say there are technically more legacy or modern players here if you count casually decks, but there are nothing serious most of the time. Like a deck of mostly standard cards running counter spell or dark ritual or some modern legal or legacy legal commons or uncommons.
I loathe creatures! Praise Prison and Land Destruction!
My Peasant Cube (looking for feedback)
...How does this relate to magic cards? Property tax? Utility costs? I said that this housing market crash analogy is a bad way to predict an outcome of a bubble that we don't even know exists, and you've got a list of things that once again don't relate to magic cards. Magic cards are not houses! Houses take decades to pay off. Magic cards are bought with hobby money. I'd honestly be buying up extra duals if the market were to "crash," and I'm not alone.
Something called Mega-Banned, where anything on the Banned/Limited list is totally banned from play. Its sort of a joke in the community overall and only ultra budget or truly bored players would ever suggest a Mega-Banned tournament. Its kind of like Vintage in that pretty much no one plays it but it exists for a reason.
You were talking about houses and I responded.
There are applicable analogies to the housing bubble and Magic cards even if you don't see them. The primary one is that after a bubble bursts and the mania and fad behind it fade, the market concerned takes decades to fully recover, if it ever does. Hence my comment about a diminished game (or at least format within it) and specifically the tournament scene.
Some people like to use these analogies to falsely predict the impending death of M:tG, which is ridiculous. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that if Magic card prices are in a bubble and it pops, a great many people who bought them will be extremely pissed off values dropped precipitously, because most people believe that when they buy Magic cards they will be able to sell them in the future at an equal or greater price. A large portion of those people will quit and the format will take an extremely long time to recover, if it ever does. Again, this reaction wouldn't be rational, but markets and usually people as well aren't rational.
You and others who already play who would buy up cards being dumped at cheap prices isn't going to bring people back. You're right, Magic cards aren't houses. Everybody needs to have a place to live and if they don't own it, they'll be renting it from bargain buying landlords. Magic cards on the other hand are just game pieces and without voluntary demand for them they won't recover their peak value.
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Flying, Vigilance, Lifelink
Madness 3WWWWW
If Wind of the Endless Plains' madness cost was paid, destroy all lands and creatures. They can't be regenerated. Wind of Endless Plains gains Defender.
7/7
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Split-second, Non-basic Landwalk, Shroud
Madness 3UUUUU
If Waves of the Endless Island's madness cost was paid, return all permanents to their owner's hands. Waves of the Endless Island gains Defender.
7/7
Legendary Creature - Avatar
When Confusion of Endless Possibilities enters the battlefield, target player skips his or her next turn and your life total becomes 1.
Hexproof, Haunt, Amplify 7
Madness 7WUBRG
If Confusion of Endless Possibilities' madness cost was paid, target player skips his or her next turn. Confusion of Endless Possibilities gains Defender.
7/7
The day SCG goes out of business is the day I throw a party.
Yeah, all SCG does is provide a large national circuit of events for Standard and Legacy players to play in. I mean, who even looks forward to playing in one of these events? I mean, if they canceled them, I'm sure no one would mind, right?
I'm sorry if this comes off as too ranty, but seriously, can we cut down on the misinformation? The day SCG goes out of business would probably mean the game of Magic is dead/nearly dead. If you are fine with no more new cards, a drastic cut in game stores (who basically stay open on the back of Magic), less people to play with/no new players, then yeah, good riddance.
Check out my Blog: CommanderAlters
Visit me on Facebook
See my available alters Here
Sale: Magic Collection and Heroclix
It doesn't look like they're for preserving the reserved list to me:
Visiting Wizards, Reprints, and the Reserved List
Should Wizards do Away with the Reserved List?
I Hate the Reserved List
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Flying, Vigilance, Lifelink
Madness 3WWWWW
If Wind of the Endless Plains' madness cost was paid, destroy all lands and creatures. They can't be regenerated. Wind of Endless Plains gains Defender.
7/7
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Split-second, Non-basic Landwalk, Shroud
Madness 3UUUUU
If Waves of the Endless Island's madness cost was paid, return all permanents to their owner's hands. Waves of the Endless Island gains Defender.
7/7
Legendary Creature - Avatar
When Confusion of Endless Possibilities enters the battlefield, target player skips his or her next turn and your life total becomes 1.
Hexproof, Haunt, Amplify 7
Madness 7WUBRG
If Confusion of Endless Possibilities' madness cost was paid, target player skips his or her next turn. Confusion of Endless Possibilities gains Defender.
7/7
Magic would be fine without SCG or SCG events, and makes it sound like you're spreading misinformation. You're just mad at his opinion because you clearly want to profit from speculation yourself.
Yeah, SCG with its excellent tournament circuit, phenomenal coverage, renowned customer service, and plethora of articles is really hurting the game. They totally make decisions on which cards are going to be reprinted.
Salvation posters who whine about Magic, however, are indispensible, and I don't know how we can possibly enjoy the game without their insight.
Attempting to incite trolling is in itself trolling. Trolling & flamebait infraction -Rax
Legacy
UWR Miracles UWR
GWB Maverick GWB
GB Elves GB
UBR ANT UBR
RG Combo Lands RG
Vintage
BUG BUG Fish BUG
Modern
GBW
Junk PodMagic: the BuylistingClearly you misunderstand. I'm not mad at his opinion because I want to profit (if I wanted to profit on the scale you suggest, I'd open a store, not sell random cards on ebay for people who don't have ebay accounts of their own). I'm just sick of seeing all these baseless comments that contribute little to the discussion besides more whining. Attributing printing or reserved list decisions to anyone other than WotC is actual misinformation, since they are the ones making the decision. Calling SCG a "cancer on the game" and saying they do "little to nothing for the game" is misinformation, as their contributions have been pointed out by others in this thread. Also, I'm not saying that the game of Magic NEEDS SCG. I'm saying that if SCG were to go out of business, that would probably indicate that the game is dying. It would be a symptom or result, not a cause. So before you resort to a baseless personal attack, why not do some reading and logical thinking before you decide who is and who isn't spreading misinformation.
Re-reading the rest of this thread, it seems that most of the reasonable discussion has already happened. I'm guessing it'll be more of the whiners rather than actual informed discussion, so I guess it's time to check out of this thread.
Check out my Blog: CommanderAlters
Visit me on Facebook
See my available alters Here
Sale: Magic Collection and Heroclix
As the prices go up more ppl make the decision that this hobby just isnt worth it anymore.
Card prices arent the only factor. Availabilty is much more of a ptoblem. There just isnt enough playsets of competitive cards for everyone to play modern let alone legacy.
The financially wise decision would be to not buy into the hype. There are too many examples of herd mentality ending badly.
Not true. SCG is one of the good guys. Yes they're ridiculously expensive, but they are the largest market force. They lobby for removing the Reserve List, they run more tournaments than WotC, and they have the best writing staff (though it's on a decline lately). They're partially responsible for prices being what they are, but at the same time they've just been businessmen that have recognized people were willing to pay more than they were currently paying. If SCG didn't do it, someone else eventually would have.
I've made the same arguments, in my opinion MTG is in the delusional part of the mania phase. I don't know when that bubble will burst but it will eventually happen. MTG right now is in the same spot as MMO's in 2004 or comic books in 1992.
Let me be honest, I do think there is some truth to the bubble theory. However, I also believe that not all of the value of Underground Sea or other reserve list cards are purely the result of overvaluing them. I do think a good chunk of the price is from demand, and while some vendors might be milking that a little extra, I don't think that the entire Magic economy is a giant bubble floating amidst thorn bushes.
Magic has had figurines before. We still don't actually have a motion picture, that's several years off at least, if it really does happen, and because WotC decided to have New Zealand mint produce a $20 chunk of silver with Jace's likeness and sell it to make an additional buck hardly is an indicator of impending doom.
I'm really not going to worry about the game until I see duals not being sold on ebay, and stores being completely out of them. And even then....I don't think the format would die overnight.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
But when we talk about peak its more about mtg having peak exposure. The video game, comics etc if you play games you know mtg exists. There is very little fresh meat so to speak.
Now the bigger problem is the pyramid scam that wotc do on new customers. Anyone can "play" thats true but not everyone can play the most fun ie high level tournaments because there are not enough cards to go around.
@people in this thread who would gladly take hits on their collection value just to have more people in the format, local players to play with, etc. I've got a suggestion. Hw about you just provide the decks. Apparently there's a lot of interest in non-standard formats, there's just somewhat of a price barrier. None of that's going to matter though - if you bring it, they will play.
Funny you mention it. That is precisely why I have two Modern decks, so I can lend one to a friend to play in between rounds of Standard FNM. (was hoping someone would pick up on that there are two Modern decks in my signature...)
Loaning out decks has an obvious limit. There are only so many cards out there. It isn't the price of legacy that I care about. Legacy continues to grow and there reaches a point where no matter how high the price someone is willing to pay, someone has to sell/give away staples for another person to enter. Obviously we haven't reached that point, but if the growth of legacy continues, it will happen eventually.
The really big problem with Chronicles was that distributors and retailers were getting burned by falling prices of sealed product. The same was true of Fallen Empires preceding it and Homelands after. It was the *****s for some of the wholesalers and retailers who ended up having to sell those products at a steep loss just to clear stock and recoup some capital. And because WotC doesn't sell directly to consumers, it was a very big deal for them.
It really did almost kill the game, but not for the reason of a few collectors getting miffed, you're right about that.
EDIT: Although I would point out that while sealed product needs to retain a reasonable value, it doesn't need to appreciate to 10x+ MSRP within a few years to keep retailers and distributors on board.
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Flying, Vigilance, Lifelink
Madness 3WWWWW
If Wind of the Endless Plains' madness cost was paid, destroy all lands and creatures. They can't be regenerated. Wind of Endless Plains gains Defender.
7/7
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Split-second, Non-basic Landwalk, Shroud
Madness 3UUUUU
If Waves of the Endless Island's madness cost was paid, return all permanents to their owner's hands. Waves of the Endless Island gains Defender.
7/7
Legendary Creature - Avatar
When Confusion of Endless Possibilities enters the battlefield, target player skips his or her next turn and your life total becomes 1.
Hexproof, Haunt, Amplify 7
Madness 7WUBRG
If Confusion of Endless Possibilities' madness cost was paid, target player skips his or her next turn. Confusion of Endless Possibilities gains Defender.
7/7
Yup, my TES build is on loan to a friend taking it to St.Louis the weekend, and I'll probably be loaning out LiliPox in a month to another friend wanting to play in a tournament. I've loaned out my tabernacle, wastelands, and other staples if it let one more person play a legacy event than usuall. As long as other legacy players adopt similar attitudes, it would go a long way to ensuring the health of the format and softening the blow of acquiring staples.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
The retailers' reasoning was that after the chronic shortages of Alpha/Beta through the Dark, they would jack up their order quantities far beyond what they thought they'd actually sell so that when the distributors rationed out supplies on a percentage of order basis they would get more. Of course starting with Fallen Empires there were no shortages or rationing, so gigantic full orders went out. Then a couple of distributors reordered genuinely massive quantities after they initially sold large amounts. Chronicles wasn't quite so bad, but Fallen Empires was a disaster and Homelands wasn't much better. I remember finding places that had cases of the stuff they'd sell for $30 a box around 2001-2002 and it still wasn't selling.
You're right, it was bad business. And a lot of stores and distributors were in dire straights after similarly bad choices during the comic book and sports card boom and bust. Apparently the stores in your town didn't make such bad decisions. Unfortunately, that hasn't kept WotC from coddling those who did to the present and finding the most convoluted ways of doing so possible. The problems were very real, but instead of solutions they ended up with band-aid fixes and diversions. One only needs to look at their online game platform to see those organizational and problem solving practices are still in place.
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Flying, Vigilance, Lifelink
Madness 3WWWWW
If Wind of the Endless Plains' madness cost was paid, destroy all lands and creatures. They can't be regenerated. Wind of Endless Plains gains Defender.
7/7
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Split-second, Non-basic Landwalk, Shroud
Madness 3UUUUU
If Waves of the Endless Island's madness cost was paid, return all permanents to their owner's hands. Waves of the Endless Island gains Defender.
7/7
Legendary Creature - Avatar
When Confusion of Endless Possibilities enters the battlefield, target player skips his or her next turn and your life total becomes 1.
Hexproof, Haunt, Amplify 7
Madness 7WUBRG
If Confusion of Endless Possibilities' madness cost was paid, target player skips his or her next turn. Confusion of Endless Possibilities gains Defender.
7/7
The format is dominated by cards that Wizards deems as mistakes that should have never been printed as they were. A lot of cards if not even the majority of cards that are played in Legacy were made before Wizards changed design philosophy.
The cant support Legacy that much because of the powerlevel. The have to be careful what they put in Standard sets. Cards that can see play in Legacy either have to have a niche ability that is still decent like Spirit of the Labyrinth or are just bonkers like True-Name Nemesis or Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
They dont make any money with Legacy.
I think all that shows that Wizards wants Legacy to die or just doesnt care what becomes of it.
I mean they have made the Modern format after all. They aggressively ban cards that they deem to powerful or unhealthy. They support it with actual product and since a lot of the power cards are cut out or banned they can more easily support it by placing cards in Standards sets that dont break Standard.
And if Legacy dies and those people leave the game its not even like Wizard will have lost much. Standard is far bigger and players that dont want to have rotation all the time can just jump in Modern that is maintained by Wizards. I think Wizard wants to make Modern into the new Legacy and that is the reason the wont do anything about Legacy and its prices at all.
That is just my speculation on this.
For the most part, I agree, but then what about the people who force price spikes like the JTMS foil spike?