Because the Force of Will from Amonkhet is a "Masterpiece". I don't know specifics but they're basically the super-mega-ultra-rare of Amonkhet and isn't considered part of the set.
So... if you figure there are 30 Masterpieces in the set and the rate at which anyone can find one is say... 1 out of every 4 boxes* then there is only 1 FoW for every 120 boxes assuming all Masterpieces, themselves, are at the same rarity.
If a box sells for $100 a pop, some would need to spend $400 just for the chance to find one.
Luck plays a huge role in this too. But the numbers always favor the house.... always.
Conversely, I cracked about... er.... two.. maybe 2 1/2 boxes of Alliances and FoW was very plentiful. So much so that people couldn't give them away.
But I digress... there is nowhere enough printings of FoW in Amonkhet to put much of a dent in the price. It will dip a smidge, as people crack boxes but not enough to make it meaningful. I think the Masters reprint dropped the price further than the Amonkhet did and neither stayed there very long.
* I don't know if this is correct, it's just a numer I read somewhere.
The quantity of a reprint matters a lot. Look at the Modern/Eternal Masters set. Reprints at Common and Uncommon absolutely shatter prices there. At Rare, things get trickier. Reasonably played - but not heavy staple - cards that get reprinted here will dip in price, with a chance to recover. The size of the previous print run matters too, a card from Return to Ravnica will dip faster than a card from Mirrodin. Barely played rares get pushed down in value, while heavily played rares, such as the Fetchlands present in MM3, will not really feel it.
At Mythic rarity, it's even worse. The Mythics that lose in price in these sets tend to be the ones that either only see very niche play, or that have simply had very few printings in the past. Look at Mana Crypt - it's a card that still commands a respectable price tag, but it's certainly been hit by the EMA printing due to how few there were. However, if said Mythic is well-played or already present in decent numbers, a reprint here will not do anything to the price.
This works even moreso with Masterpieces. Because there are so few, and they have completely different art and everything, their price is way above what a normal version would already cost. This means that only rarely will a Masterpiece reprint make a dent in the prices of the original card.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Yes unfortunately I think you're right. I never bothered to look up the number of prints or the probability, guess it will never happen. Once again mythic rares ruin something.
Yes unfortunately I think you're right. I never bothered to look up the number of prints or the probability, guess it will never happen. Once again mythic rares ruin something.
At least the EMA printing did push down FoW's price, albeit not by much. It also allowed a good amount more of actual mint copies to come on the market. So never say never, I just doubt FoW will ever truly dip far given it's ubiquity in Legacy.
Also, if they hadn't made Mythic Rare, I doubt it would've changed much as EMA/MMA sets probably would've had more rares to compensate, which would in turn raise the average price for a rare.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Yes unfortunately I think you're right. I never bothered to look up the number of prints or the probability, guess it will never happen. Once again mythic rares ruin something.
At least the EMA printing did push down FoW's price, albeit not by much. It also allowed a good amount more of actual mint copies to come on the market. So never say never, I just doubt FoW will ever truly dip far given it's ubiquity in Legacy.
Also, if they hadn't made Mythic Rare, I doubt it would've changed much as EMA/MMA sets probably would've had more rares to compensate, which would in turn raise the average price for a rare.
If they increased the rares to compensate so as to keep the probability the same as if it were mythic rare, you'd be right. I do like that there are more near mint copies, a concern of mine was that cards like that were doomed to tear apart and there'd be none left, but it still doesn't solve the problem of completely unnecessary limitation.
The question I have is what do you feel the pricing impact would have been if the Masterpieces were legal in standard.
If it were simply "legal" in standard, more people would want it and the price would increase. But if it was reprinting in standard as a rare or uncommon, there'd be enough of them to lower the price, assuming that enough other op cards were also reprinting to provide enough variety of strategies so as to not rationally favor FoW over everything else, which personally I'd have nothing against because most of the decks I like building rely on op cards.
People dont understand the market and then are confused when it doesnt react as they think it should.
Price memory is a real thing. Many people have bought into the card at a set price. They are not going to let those cards go for less then they bought therm for. so even thought more are printed, there is a large supply of cards that have a floor price wise. The only cards that really see any play are the new print cards or the super rare masterpiece ones.
Also when a person who wanted a play set of FOW's rips one or 2 out of packs (either MMA or a masterpiece) they now want to fill out their playset increasing demand, not lessening it.
So in short, demand goes up, not down for said reprints, older pricey cards have a floor or price memory that players are not going to sell under.
If those masterpiece FOW were Standard playable, they would be more expensive. upwards of $150-$200 a card. The more formats a card is played in the more demand, the higher the price gets.
No, it's...really more just the number of cards and the formats it's legal in, as well as the actual effectiveness of the card itself, which is true for any collectible thing, like coins or precious metals or stamps. Lightning bolt is one of the most used, if not the most often used non-land card in the game, yet it's only valued around $1-$2 simply because there's just so darn many of them. In a much more real and practical sense, price memory is non-existent. When there's a lot of copies of a card, individuals struggle against each other much more to actually sell the card, so their only option is to sell it for cheaper to make it available to more buyers.
If something like black lotus got reprinted and there were suddenly a million more copies on the market, what would happen is someone like you would try to sell it for like $1000 or however much it's worth now, but you'd wait months and months and months only to no avail, because the chances of someone specifically buying it from you would only be 1 in a million with today's average income. However, if you lowered the price by 50%, suddenly you'd have more of a competitive advantage, you might now suddenly have a 50% chance of a given person being interested in buying it from you. Would you rather sell it for cheaper and get some money immediately? Or would you rather take the card with you to the grave having never gained anything from it?
No, it's...really more just the number of cards. Lightning bolt is one of the most if not the most often used non-land card in the game, yet it's only around $1-$2 because there's just so darn many of them. In a much more real and practical sense, price memory is non-existent.
You are using a card that was reprinted many times (as a common) prior to it climbing to a double digit priced card. At one time bolt was at most a $3-$5 card when it was being played in Standard, Extended, Legacy and Vintage. If bolt became Standard legal again it would jump in price to probably about a $5 card. But you are right, its been reprinted like 5 or 6 times in Standard legal sets. Most of those sets being large print runs and the card being a common.
Now compare that to a card printed only once in a Standard legal set, as a rare, and then a few times in supplementary sets (read small print runs) as a mythic. first being a rare or mythic automatically makes the card printed less then a common. Add in the print run and rarity shift of the rare to mythic card.
FOW went from an uncommon to a mythic. The reprints did very little to relieve any pressure of demand. Hence the price stays high.
Look at the cards the supplementary sets have effected and its mainly the commons and uncommons and fringe played rares. You see a dip in the heavy played rares and played mythics. but the prices creep back to what they were over time because of less product being opened and supply drying up.
If bolt became Standard legal again it would jump in price to probably about a $5 card. But you are right, its been reprinted like 5 or 6 times in Standard legal sets. Most of those sets being large print runs and the card being a common.
If it somehow suddenly only became standard without being reprinted, which rarely happens if ever, you'd be right. But if it was standard, that would likely mean it would be reprinted as a common or uncommon which would lower the price. This concept of supply and demand I am using to explain the market is pretty common, price memory doesn't actually exist, it's really all just the number of copies there are vs how much people want it. Like I said, you can try to sell a card for some insanely high price that you think it's worth in a flooded market when no one cares about your opinion, but you will find you'll never make a sale until you lower the price, and most people would rather make at least some money than take a piece of cardboard with them to the grave.
For example, someone might have bought some signed Bill Cosby souvenir for $1000 around 8 year ago, and then they might try to sell it today. But nowadays, even though that individual would try to sell it for $1000 because their opinion is that it's worth $1000, no one would actually be willing to buy it for that price, someone would maybe consider buying it for like $80 as part of a more general collection that captures the overall history of television or the series, and that's because most people now found out he's more or less a monster and don't want anything to do with him. So, the demand for Bill Cosby products is greatly lowered to shift the value of the souvenir to $80 regardless of that seller's opinion that they should get $1000 for it.
This might seem arbitrary due to the emotional aspect, but it is still rationally consistent. People buy such products for the entertainment or a feeling of contentment from possessing them. If they find out their former idol is a monster, then that same product no longer provides the satisfaction that it use to, and therefore its economic utility (or its ability to entertain and stimulate contentment) is much lower, which means the product has less value to people.
Price memory is real. There is much more then how many copies there are and how many want them. There are how many copies certain entities own and what they bought into those cards for and whay is the lowest they will go selling them. Or in other words the floor. People are selling those cards at those prices because they also control the supply to an extent. If I own 100 copies of Goyf, and I bought in at say $90. I dont care if Goyf goes under $90 because I am not selling under $90. The price will come back to me over time. Especially with high priced cards such as Goyf.
Also, if you go back and look the last time Bolt was in Standard, it was printed as an uncommon and even with all the previous printings, bolt was around $5 a pop eve with the reprint. There are players that wont have them for whatever reason and there will be demand. As I said, the more formats a card is played, the higher the price.
Supply and demand is just a part of the market. But the Magic market isnt a true supply and demand type market. There are other factors that come into why cards prices are what they are.
It's already been demonstrated that, for the most part, price memory doesn't exist, which is a fundamental economic principal. Any card that has a flood of copies will inevitably drop in price. You personally might be too stubborn to lower your price, and in that case you will likely never sell your card, which means you are not acting rationally. But a majority of people will act rationally and lower the price to meet the demand for the card.
The only qualifier you have is maybe the case of a monopoly, which is pretty hard in this game with so many cards, even for dual lands. You would definitely need a hell of a lot of investment money up front too.
Also, if you go back and look the last time Bolt was in Standard, it was printed as an uncommon and even with all the previous printings, bolt was around $5 a pop eve with the reprint. There are players that wont have them for whatever reason and there will be demand. As I said, the more formats a card is played, the higher the price.
Because a card like that is going to have a much higher demand when it becomes standard, because standard is a more common and accessible format. No one drafts legacy, there's simply too many cards to do it with, people are much more likely to encounter and demand lightning bolt when it's reprinted standard, and you're also referring to a much earlier time before there were as many copies as there are now.
But the Magic market isnt a true supply and demand type market.
It literally exactly is a supply and demand market like nearly all markets. If there were 10 times as many tarmogoyfs as there are now, the price would lower significantly. WoTC is the only one who really controls the supply. They could make all cards like dual lands and tarmogoys and black lotus into commons, but they choose not to because they make more money from the 10% of players who are willing to spend that kind of money on the game than if they made those cards common and accessible to everyone. I've explained detailed examples thoroughly, you are confusing your own emotional attachment to cards for rational actions.
Price memory is a thing invented by the MtG community to describe the secondary market behavior caused by the poor management of the card pool by Wizards of the Coast. Pretty much Magic on the secondary market is suffering from near constant supply issues due to the popularity of certain cards that the company itself isn't addressing. Because Wizards is notorious for not supporting the card pool, even when cards get reprinted resellers will rarely drop the price on existing copies of the card because they know the card wont get reprinted again and with the rarity system in place, the number of copies will be limited.
So basically price memory is really just people knowing the influx of supply on most cards is abysmal and playing up on this fact. If Wizards actually started dedicating resources to reprinting the playable cardpool in non-rotating formats you'd quickly see "Price Memory" get blown into the wind. The company has to make better use of reprint avenues like Commander, Deck Builders Tool kits, duel decks, etc, to hit the big name cards instead of avoiding them. Basically they have to break peoples expectations on reprints, and that means in the short term flooding the market on high demand and high value cards until the prices drop. If that triggers alarm bells with some folks I'm not surprised as that rings back to the situation with Chronicles. However, todays market can handle it, the market back in the 1990s couldn't because the game was too new.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Price memory is a thing invented by the MtG community to describe the secondary market behavior caused by the poor management of the card pool by Wizards of the Coast. Pretty much Magic on the secondary market is suffering from near constant supply issues due to the popularity of certain cards that the company itself isn't addressing.
So in other words, a shortage, an economic phenomena caused by a supply and demand market wherein a demanded product is under-produced.
Price memory is a thing invented by the MtG community to describe the secondary market behavior caused by the poor management of the card pool by Wizards of the Coast. Pretty much Magic on the secondary market is suffering from near constant supply issues due to the popularity of certain cards that the company itself isn't addressing.
So in other words, a shortage, an economic phenomena caused by a supply and demand market wherein a demanded product is under-produced.
Well, as I write out further it's used to describe that and the fact secondary sellers will literally refuse to drop prices on some cards even during reprints because they know the prices will go back up shortly in a few months. It's that expectation of minimal resupply and support that completely flushes out the definition.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
WotC isn't really trying to drop prices with reprints. They either reprint cards in high cost sets (like modern masters) or they make reprints super rare, like the recent masterpieces. People were asking for reprints in the typical way, as rares in Standard sets. WotC said screw that and screw you.
The reason they did that is because they tried to reprint cards and the "expectation that reprints are scarce" held by singles sellers on the secondary market led to serious arbitrage. Ever since that time Wizards basically grew cold feet on repeating the effort even if it would serve to improve the situation for players in the long run. Their marketing team decided that having box products with (and mind the foul language, just no other way to explain it) *****ty cards always on store shelves is better than having products with good cards get bought out, broken down, and resold at inflated prices. That's also why they made modern masters bogus expensive.
And yes, there were non-resellers buying up multiple boxes of various products as well factoring in, but the majority were singles sellers and investors grabbing the boxes up. It was a disaster that wizards could have fixed by simply printing a larger number of boxes to break the camels back, but they got scared due to the history with Chronicles or some other reason we may never hear of.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
If you can buy a force of will from the amonkhet invocations set now, why is force of will still valued at exactly the same price it was before?
It is a combination of expected value and increased demand.
First the expected value is how much value you get when you open a box. A card like the new force of will will have a high price. As we can se from MM3 the most expensive cards are usually the most ressilient to dropping in price at the cost of the other cards in the sett.
With more force of will out there the threshold of getting force of will decreases, increasing demand.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have dyslexia, no I am not going to spell check for you, yes you have to live with the horrors of it.
The reason they did that is because they tried to reprint cards and the "expectation that reprints are scarce" held by singles sellers on the secondary market led to serious arbitrage.
In other words they didn't reprint enough to stop card prices from staying high.
And then proceeded to not do a second wave or anything. This has been the pattern they have been following for a while and when they did try a second wave, namely with Eternal Masters, it caused some sellers and investors to complain. My own thoughts are "yes, they are going to complain because they expected the reprints to be scarce" and bought a bunch to hold onto instead of selling them like they were supposed to. The only way card prices are going to go down is if they keep doing that to break that assumption and force sellers to sell cards instead of holding onto them.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Just to add to Bocephus' point on price memory - if X number of people bought a card for $15 each, including many play sets purchased by players, then when the card sees no play and it inevitably goes down in price, those people are not SUPER willing to sell at a much lower price. Some people cut their losses and sell for $5 each for example, so they only lose $40. Others hold on to it longer and lose much more. Or...it eventually goes up after seeing some play and spikes back to the $15 price tag or higher. It happens all the time and I will tell you personally, that I don't sell a lot when the values of my cards go down. I wait for its highest expected value and then sell. I'm sure many do the same as me.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
those people are not SUPER willing to sell at a much lower price.
That only matters if there's an exceptionally limited supply, which is still an economic problem in a supply and demand market that has nothing to do with the emotional aspect, but rather still the rationality of being able to sell the card for that higher price. The reality is that when millions of people compete with each other to try and sell a card at a higher price in a flooded market, they only have a 1 in a million chance to make a sale, so a given individual may not even sell the card by the time they die, which means the risk associated with not selling the card outweighs the potential benefit of keeping it at that price. Their only rational choice is to lower the price, and that's exactly what nearly everyone does, because they would rather have some money than none.
Speculating on a card doesn't change this, you are simply anticipating changes in the demand while the number of prints stays the same by gambling that it won't get reprinted again. Assuming you are acting rationally, all this means is that you've calculated that the risk associated with not being able to sell the card at a profit is less than the potential benefit because it's future value is still high enough to make a profit after it's been discounted, which is only true because there's a limited enough supply to allow you to charge a high enough price to make that profit over that period of time, which again is probably only a few years at most anyway, you're not going to wait until after you die to sell it. If a newcomer who had no memory or history of the card simply just walked into the market and spontaneously speculated, they would still come to the same conclusion if the math or their intuition showed it so, memory has no effect on the situation.
As I said before, Price Memory is something that the MtG community invented to explain the phenomena they keep seeing with prices. Not much else to it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So... if you figure there are 30 Masterpieces in the set and the rate at which anyone can find one is say... 1 out of every 4 boxes* then there is only 1 FoW for every 120 boxes assuming all Masterpieces, themselves, are at the same rarity.
If a box sells for $100 a pop, some would need to spend $400 just for the chance to find one.
Luck plays a huge role in this too. But the numbers always favor the house.... always.
Conversely, I cracked about... er.... two.. maybe 2 1/2 boxes of Alliances and FoW was very plentiful. So much so that people couldn't give them away.
But I digress... there is nowhere enough printings of FoW in Amonkhet to put much of a dent in the price. It will dip a smidge, as people crack boxes but not enough to make it meaningful. I think the Masters reprint dropped the price further than the Amonkhet did and neither stayed there very long.
* I don't know if this is correct, it's just a numer I read somewhere.
At Mythic rarity, it's even worse. The Mythics that lose in price in these sets tend to be the ones that either only see very niche play, or that have simply had very few printings in the past. Look at Mana Crypt - it's a card that still commands a respectable price tag, but it's certainly been hit by the EMA printing due to how few there were. However, if said Mythic is well-played or already present in decent numbers, a reprint here will not do anything to the price.
This works even moreso with Masterpieces. Because there are so few, and they have completely different art and everything, their price is way above what a normal version would already cost. This means that only rarely will a Masterpiece reprint make a dent in the prices of the original card.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Yes unfortunately I think you're right. I never bothered to look up the number of prints or the probability, guess it will never happen. Once again mythic rares ruin something.
At least the EMA printing did push down FoW's price, albeit not by much. It also allowed a good amount more of actual mint copies to come on the market. So never say never, I just doubt FoW will ever truly dip far given it's ubiquity in Legacy.
Also, if they hadn't made Mythic Rare, I doubt it would've changed much as EMA/MMA sets probably would've had more rares to compensate, which would in turn raise the average price for a rare.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
If they increased the rares to compensate so as to keep the probability the same as if it were mythic rare, you'd be right. I do like that there are more near mint copies, a concern of mine was that cards like that were doomed to tear apart and there'd be none left, but it still doesn't solve the problem of completely unnecessary limitation.
If it were simply "legal" in standard, more people would want it and the price would increase. But if it was reprinting in standard as a rare or uncommon, there'd be enough of them to lower the price, assuming that enough other op cards were also reprinting to provide enough variety of strategies so as to not rationally favor FoW over everything else, which personally I'd have nothing against because most of the decks I like building rely on op cards.
Price memory is a real thing. Many people have bought into the card at a set price. They are not going to let those cards go for less then they bought therm for. so even thought more are printed, there is a large supply of cards that have a floor price wise. The only cards that really see any play are the new print cards or the super rare masterpiece ones.
Also when a person who wanted a play set of FOW's rips one or 2 out of packs (either MMA or a masterpiece) they now want to fill out their playset increasing demand, not lessening it.
So in short, demand goes up, not down for said reprints, older pricey cards have a floor or price memory that players are not going to sell under.
If those masterpiece FOW were Standard playable, they would be more expensive. upwards of $150-$200 a card. The more formats a card is played in the more demand, the higher the price gets.
No, it's...really more just the number of cards and the formats it's legal in, as well as the actual effectiveness of the card itself, which is true for any collectible thing, like coins or precious metals or stamps. Lightning bolt is one of the most used, if not the most often used non-land card in the game, yet it's only valued around $1-$2 simply because there's just so darn many of them. In a much more real and practical sense, price memory is non-existent. When there's a lot of copies of a card, individuals struggle against each other much more to actually sell the card, so their only option is to sell it for cheaper to make it available to more buyers.
If something like black lotus got reprinted and there were suddenly a million more copies on the market, what would happen is someone like you would try to sell it for like $1000 or however much it's worth now, but you'd wait months and months and months only to no avail, because the chances of someone specifically buying it from you would only be 1 in a million with today's average income. However, if you lowered the price by 50%, suddenly you'd have more of a competitive advantage, you might now suddenly have a 50% chance of a given person being interested in buying it from you. Would you rather sell it for cheaper and get some money immediately? Or would you rather take the card with you to the grave having never gained anything from it?
You are using a card that was reprinted many times (as a common) prior to it climbing to a double digit priced card. At one time bolt was at most a $3-$5 card when it was being played in Standard, Extended, Legacy and Vintage. If bolt became Standard legal again it would jump in price to probably about a $5 card. But you are right, its been reprinted like 5 or 6 times in Standard legal sets. Most of those sets being large print runs and the card being a common.
Now compare that to a card printed only once in a Standard legal set, as a rare, and then a few times in supplementary sets (read small print runs) as a mythic. first being a rare or mythic automatically makes the card printed less then a common. Add in the print run and rarity shift of the rare to mythic card.
FOW went from an uncommon to a mythic. The reprints did very little to relieve any pressure of demand. Hence the price stays high.
Look at the cards the supplementary sets have effected and its mainly the commons and uncommons and fringe played rares. You see a dip in the heavy played rares and played mythics. but the prices creep back to what they were over time because of less product being opened and supply drying up.
Its really simple economics.
If it somehow suddenly only became standard without being reprinted, which rarely happens if ever, you'd be right. But if it was standard, that would likely mean it would be reprinted as a common or uncommon which would lower the price. This concept of supply and demand I am using to explain the market is pretty common, price memory doesn't actually exist, it's really all just the number of copies there are vs how much people want it. Like I said, you can try to sell a card for some insanely high price that you think it's worth in a flooded market when no one cares about your opinion, but you will find you'll never make a sale until you lower the price, and most people would rather make at least some money than take a piece of cardboard with them to the grave.
For example, someone might have bought some signed Bill Cosby souvenir for $1000 around 8 year ago, and then they might try to sell it today. But nowadays, even though that individual would try to sell it for $1000 because their opinion is that it's worth $1000, no one would actually be willing to buy it for that price, someone would maybe consider buying it for like $80 as part of a more general collection that captures the overall history of television or the series, and that's because most people now found out he's more or less a monster and don't want anything to do with him. So, the demand for Bill Cosby products is greatly lowered to shift the value of the souvenir to $80 regardless of that seller's opinion that they should get $1000 for it.
This might seem arbitrary due to the emotional aspect, but it is still rationally consistent. People buy such products for the entertainment or a feeling of contentment from possessing them. If they find out their former idol is a monster, then that same product no longer provides the satisfaction that it use to, and therefore its economic utility (or its ability to entertain and stimulate contentment) is much lower, which means the product has less value to people.
Also, if you go back and look the last time Bolt was in Standard, it was printed as an uncommon and even with all the previous printings, bolt was around $5 a pop eve with the reprint. There are players that wont have them for whatever reason and there will be demand. As I said, the more formats a card is played, the higher the price.
Supply and demand is just a part of the market. But the Magic market isnt a true supply and demand type market. There are other factors that come into why cards prices are what they are.
It's already been demonstrated that, for the most part, price memory doesn't exist, which is a fundamental economic principal. Any card that has a flood of copies will inevitably drop in price. You personally might be too stubborn to lower your price, and in that case you will likely never sell your card, which means you are not acting rationally. But a majority of people will act rationally and lower the price to meet the demand for the card.
The only qualifier you have is maybe the case of a monopoly, which is pretty hard in this game with so many cards, even for dual lands. You would definitely need a hell of a lot of investment money up front too.
Because a card like that is going to have a much higher demand when it becomes standard, because standard is a more common and accessible format. No one drafts legacy, there's simply too many cards to do it with, people are much more likely to encounter and demand lightning bolt when it's reprinted standard, and you're also referring to a much earlier time before there were as many copies as there are now.
It literally exactly is a supply and demand market like nearly all markets. If there were 10 times as many tarmogoyfs as there are now, the price would lower significantly. WoTC is the only one who really controls the supply. They could make all cards like dual lands and tarmogoys and black lotus into commons, but they choose not to because they make more money from the 10% of players who are willing to spend that kind of money on the game than if they made those cards common and accessible to everyone. I've explained detailed examples thoroughly, you are confusing your own emotional attachment to cards for rational actions.
So basically price memory is really just people knowing the influx of supply on most cards is abysmal and playing up on this fact. If Wizards actually started dedicating resources to reprinting the playable cardpool in non-rotating formats you'd quickly see "Price Memory" get blown into the wind. The company has to make better use of reprint avenues like Commander, Deck Builders Tool kits, duel decks, etc, to hit the big name cards instead of avoiding them. Basically they have to break peoples expectations on reprints, and that means in the short term flooding the market on high demand and high value cards until the prices drop. If that triggers alarm bells with some folks I'm not surprised as that rings back to the situation with Chronicles. However, todays market can handle it, the market back in the 1990s couldn't because the game was too new.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
So in other words, a shortage, an economic phenomena caused by a supply and demand market wherein a demanded product is under-produced.
Well, as I write out further it's used to describe that and the fact secondary sellers will literally refuse to drop prices on some cards even during reprints because they know the prices will go back up shortly in a few months. It's that expectation of minimal resupply and support that completely flushes out the definition.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The reason they did that is because they tried to reprint cards and the "expectation that reprints are scarce" held by singles sellers on the secondary market led to serious arbitrage. Ever since that time Wizards basically grew cold feet on repeating the effort even if it would serve to improve the situation for players in the long run. Their marketing team decided that having box products with (and mind the foul language, just no other way to explain it) *****ty cards always on store shelves is better than having products with good cards get bought out, broken down, and resold at inflated prices. That's also why they made modern masters bogus expensive.
And yes, there were non-resellers buying up multiple boxes of various products as well factoring in, but the majority were singles sellers and investors grabbing the boxes up. It was a disaster that wizards could have fixed by simply printing a larger number of boxes to break the camels back, but they got scared due to the history with Chronicles or some other reason we may never hear of.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
It is a combination of expected value and increased demand.
First the expected value is how much value you get when you open a box. A card like the new force of will will have a high price. As we can se from MM3 the most expensive cards are usually the most ressilient to dropping in price at the cost of the other cards in the sett.
With more force of will out there the threshold of getting force of will decreases, increasing demand.
Yeah this topic is already resolved, there's no need for you to re-hash points that have already been brought up.
And then proceeded to not do a second wave or anything. This has been the pattern they have been following for a while and when they did try a second wave, namely with Eternal Masters, it caused some sellers and investors to complain. My own thoughts are "yes, they are going to complain because they expected the reprints to be scarce" and bought a bunch to hold onto instead of selling them like they were supposed to. The only way card prices are going to go down is if they keep doing that to break that assumption and force sellers to sell cards instead of holding onto them.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)That only matters if there's an exceptionally limited supply, which is still an economic problem in a supply and demand market that has nothing to do with the emotional aspect, but rather still the rationality of being able to sell the card for that higher price. The reality is that when millions of people compete with each other to try and sell a card at a higher price in a flooded market, they only have a 1 in a million chance to make a sale, so a given individual may not even sell the card by the time they die, which means the risk associated with not selling the card outweighs the potential benefit of keeping it at that price. Their only rational choice is to lower the price, and that's exactly what nearly everyone does, because they would rather have some money than none.
Speculating on a card doesn't change this, you are simply anticipating changes in the demand while the number of prints stays the same by gambling that it won't get reprinted again. Assuming you are acting rationally, all this means is that you've calculated that the risk associated with not being able to sell the card at a profit is less than the potential benefit because it's future value is still high enough to make a profit after it's been discounted, which is only true because there's a limited enough supply to allow you to charge a high enough price to make that profit over that period of time, which again is probably only a few years at most anyway, you're not going to wait until after you die to sell it. If a newcomer who had no memory or history of the card simply just walked into the market and spontaneously speculated, they would still come to the same conclusion if the math or their intuition showed it so, memory has no effect on the situation.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!