Thragtusk isn't a 20+ dollar card. It's simply just a fatty with an upside. I'm not saying that it isn't pivotal to standard right now, it's just very very overpriced currently.
It's very similar to Bonfire, but not mythic.
People want it enough to push the price past what is practical.
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Currently Playing: Standard:
Nothing, the format Bores me! Legacy: RBurn (Made on the Cheap!)R RGBelcherRG WSoldier StompyW BReanimatorB EDH: BUGRWSliver OverlordWRGUB BGeth, Lord of the VaultB
GO GO Thragtusk! If anyone wants an entertaining read there's a thread on Thrag's price prediction in Market Street Cafe months ago when he was around 10 and virtually everyone saw him as a $5 dollar rare, Goes to show you how unpredictable the future meta can be.
The key to evaluating his price tag lied not in evaluating his potential but in evaluating the lack of potential in most M13 rares.
I wish my 4/4s with haste and first strike that acted as Goblin Warchiefs were better and didn't die to instants and overshadowed all other 4 drops in the format. And that they had evasion too, and some way to dodge wrath effects.
It seems there's a threshold price level in M13. Anything above that price is moving upwards and anything below that price is moving downwards. This seems to be caused by a combination of two factors: so little of this set's product is being opened and added to supply, and the fact that there are very few playable cards in the set. Thragtusk could have gone either way, about a month ago. Turned out that he sees regular play and managed to land himself on the upper side of the divide - and up he goes. Now, his rising price alone is causing his price to rise further as hype catches hold. Had he fallen out of favour in Standard decks (say, if Return to Ravnica had produced a similar creature that could replace it), it indeed would have fallen to $5 at that crucial time, and perhaps could be $3 by now, with very little play and zero hype. But that's not how it worked out. I don't blame people for misreading Thragtusk. It truly isn't a remarkable card in terms of power level, and the "rich get richer, poor get poorer" price divide doesn't occur often. Saviors of Kamigawa is the textbook example for those who remember it.
What will happen to the price in the future? Well, now that it's where it is, it will have some staying power. Eventually, sanity will return and the price will cool, and also at some point (this is harder to predict because it depends in part on unknown future releases and meta changes) it will become less favoured in Standard decks, and the price will crash. It's not hard for me to imagine it selling for a few bucks a copy in a year or so. Being efficient and splashable, it will never be completely worthless.
Man R_E I think you are completely missing the reasoning behind Thragtusk. It is a Format Defining Card. That is why it is worth so much. He completely invalidates aggro strategies, because the resources necessary to remove a 5/3, a 3/3, and 5 life are just too much to overcome. If aggro can't consistently beat Midrange or Control by the time he comes down, the game is basically over. So, the whole format is kind of warping itself around Thragtusk. In addition, he is also easily splashable in any deck in a format with amazing mana fixing. I find it funny that you say you don't play Standard, but you call it 'unremarkable in terms of power level' when its price and playability are completely driven by Standard and the metagame in which it is the lynchpin card.
In summation.....Star Trek wins a prolonged naval battle against superior, yet less technologically advanced, numbers, with Picard leading the assault, while Kirk takes your soul by laying out Solo and probably his manservant Chewy as well, before impregnating and ditching your Princess.
Yeah.. hype isn't the right word. This card is bonkers good. How often does a rare fit as a 4 of in 2 top tier control decks AND all the midrange decks AND the aggressive decks?
Here's the decks I'm playing him in and playing against:
Jund Midrange/Control x4
Bant Control x4
Selesnya Midrange x4
Selexnya Aggro x2+ (wolfir silverheart fits here in some metas)
Junk anything x4
Naya brews x4
He's insane value and defines the meta game since infect has rotated. He's also synergistic with a LOT of top tier cards: Garruk Primal, Angel of Serenity, Restoration Angel. On top of all of that he's in the same color as Farseek which is an incredibly strong card at the moment.
I think he'll see strong play past Gatecrash unless they print a definitative answer for him.
It's not hard for me to imagine it selling for a few bucks a copy in a year or so.
Novemeber 2013 he'll have rotated and his price will be plummeting.. clearly.
Pretty sure I mentioned that it's being played like crazy. My point is that it's only because nothing else is available for the current metagame. On paper, it's not a powerful card. Vorapede is ten times the card Thragtusk is, and that's only one example - there are many more. But Vorapede isn't splashable, and mono-green isn't a force at all right now. So people are using Thragtusk, pushing up the price above the invisible threshhold level, further boosting the price, which has created hype, increasing both price and amount of play it sees.
"It is a Format Defining Card. That is why it is worth so much."
Sounds simple enough, but how do you define "FDC"? By my definition of FDC, there are a lot of rares that meet that description, but haven't come close to $23. I don't think you're seeing the whole picture, as someone who doesn't deal cards and doesn't have 15 years experience with supply and demand concepts. Playing Standard is merely one part of the puzzle my friend.
Yeah.. hype isn't the right word. This card is bonkers
Ironically, that's the exact definition of "hype" - when people claim that a card is bonkers. That's hype.
(Some, including you, seem to use the word "hyped" and "overhyped" interchangeably. They're not the same thing.)
Man R_E I think you are completely missing the reasoning behind Thragtusk. It is a Format Defining Card. That is why it is worth so much. He completely invalidates aggro strategies, because the resources necessary to remove a 5/3, a 3/3, and 5 life are just too much to overcome. If aggro can't consistently beat Midrange or Control by the time he comes down, the game is basically over. So, the whole format is kind of warping itself around Thragtusk. In addition, he is also easily splashable in any deck in a format with amazing mana fixing. I find it funny that you say you don't play Standard, but you call it 'unremarkable in terms of power level' when its price and playability are completely driven by Standard and the metagame in which it is the lynchpin card.
This is what he thought of Angel of Serenity when it was at $11.
Angel of Serenity doesn't look very good to me up this high. It's going to see play somewhere, and casual/Angel fans will use it, but unless there'\s a combo I'm not seeing, it should cool.
I wouldn't look to R_E for price speculation. His grasp of competitive Standard is... tenuous at best.
CorpT: he missed on a couple that you self-righteously quoted. aren't you a ****in hero. douchebaggery at its finest If you feel another user is behaving poorly please contact the staff or report it. Flaming is not allowed. - Galspanic
Me saying the card is bonkers is most definitely not hype. The card IS bonkers. Right now there are less than 1300 cards available in standard and Thragtusk might be the most powerful of them.
Playing with the cardpool is important if you want to understand power levels. Thragtusk > Vorapede because exile based removal is super popular right now. Hitting triple green used to be the problem but now that's not even the big problem with Vorapede.
I don't think you're seeing the whole picture, as someone who doesn't deal cards and doesn't have 15 years experience with supply and demand concepts. Playing Standard is merely one part of the puzzle my friend.
I can see the picture perfectly fine and that's why I picked up Thrag at first glance. When you're talking about new cards, standard is going to be one of the major price driving forces. The card went from 6$ initially and is at 20 and could conceivably hit 25+ since the event deck did nothing to slow it's price down. If Gatecrash doesn't have a replacement, a competetor, or direct hate, he will continue to drive the format. Then his price will plummet hard in March -> August as people dump him for rotation. He won't see much play in modern or other formats obviously. He's not that good in a vacuum comparison to existing cards with zero context sure. In standard he has no good answers and is too powerful to not play. You either play thragtusk, try to race it, or you try to counterspell it. Most people just pony up and play it because it's the most feasible choice.
Right now Thragtusk is one of the most powerful cards in standard, as well as being THE most demanded cards from an under-openned core set. The core set had the same fate of many "third" sets of past years, the set gets drafted less because people shift their attention to the shiny new block when it comes out, in this case RTR COMPLETELY overshadowed M13 and with still relatively low value to the set, not many are bothering to open it, when RTR or other sets provide a greater chance of something better.
By Format Defining Card I mean a card which every deckbuilder must take into account at the very ground level of deck building. Your deck either plays Thragtusk or it needs a definitive answer to Thragtusk or it is a bad deck.
Not many other cards fit this mold for a particular Standard metagame.
My understanding of supply and demand is just fine. I have also made quite a bit of money in the magic card market and I have been playing since Revised, so I also understand the game to a decent degree. I wasn't trying to disparage your viewpoint. I was simply trying to explain why I believe the card to be so valuable.
In summation.....Star Trek wins a prolonged naval battle against superior, yet less technologically advanced, numbers, with Picard leading the assault, while Kirk takes your soul by laying out Solo and probably his manservant Chewy as well, before impregnating and ditching your Princess.
In large part yeah. Right now the only $5+ cards from the set are as follows:
Sublime Archangel, Thragtusk, Thundermaw Hellkite, Ajani Caller of the Pride, Liliana of the Dark Realms, Garruk Primal Hunter, Jace Memory Adept.
Only the first 4 are worth $10 or more. The rest are around $7 each or so. After that it drops down to about $3 per card or less.
Definitely not the best of sets for value, which is why the top demanded cards are as high as they are.
If it wasnt for Magic Online Set Redemptions, and respectively, Thragtusk getting reprinted in the event deck, those prices would be probably about 50% higher across the board right now, simply due to lack of the set being openned (of course if those cards were 50% higher, then people might actually open it more because then the value would be better.
I wouldnt be surprised to see Sublime work its way up to $25-$30 given time, and Thragtusk rising back up to $25 before too long.
If the store owner says that I can't trade in the premises, I'll just go outside. If he says that I can't trade within 10m of his premises, I'll go to 11 meters. If he says that he doesn't want to see me trading, I will put a basket over his head and continue trading.
Yes, he's a local legend. He's only known to take his clothes off before he goes into the Ladies' Lockerroom. Nobody knows what he does in there because he's invisible, but it's almost certainly tons of masturbating.
Why am I not surprised half of the cards worth opening are planeswalkers.
Are you saying that walkers are overpriced? What? The top 3 spots are creatures and the walkers are WAY less priced. Its not them being walkers, its mostly the fact that they are mythics. If the walkers were rares, they wouldnt be that pricey at all.
Sublime and Hellkite will be in the 17 - 25 dollar range for as long as they are in Standard, barring a printing of a better card. They will fluctuate much during their time in standard, but will not be under 17 or over 25.
Ok, this is where my knowledge fails me as I am a purely paper player, but what are MTGO set redemptions, and how do they influence paper product values?
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Decks
Commander
Ezuri, Renegade Leader (Aggro/Combo - Favorite) Skullbriar, the Walking Grave (Sac and Grave hijinks) Azusa, Lost but Seeking (Landfall hijinks) Kaalia of the Vast (Heavily modded)
Ok, this is where my knowledge fails me as I am a purely paper player, but what are MTGO set redemptions, and how do they influence paper product values?
The online version of magic the gathering, is called mtgo for short. On magic online, if you completed a full set (1 of each card) from a set from the last couple years, you can redeem that set for a paper copy of that set which they will mail to you and remove the set from your magic online account. The amount of sets that gets redeemed from magic online is no small number and there are a lot of sellers on ebay that make great use of these as a way to make money and otherwise stock their stores and what not. Card prices for the set will often take a dip in paper magic about 2 months after a set is released in paper magic due to an influx of supply from these mtgo set redemptions hitting the market. MTGO releases their sets about 2 weeks after paper magic does. From there they wait a month to turn on redemption as an option, and then it usually takes about two weeks to process/ship/receive the cards before they will actually hit the market and start influencing prices.
The card's most recent move is on right. means no movement. is a card that wasn't on the list last update. This is the update's hottest mover. (#) is price in CND incl. shipping here.
The tally grows this update as SEVEN cards moved above the $3 threshold recently, making a total of 18 cards now worth opening in a booster pack.
Thundermaw has more than doubled in price over the past few weeks - who knew that a flying mythic beatstick undercosted by at least would do so well? Apparently, the comparisons to Akroma WERE valid after all! Sublime Archangel is no slouch, moving up by $5 or so recently. Thragtusk seems to be back below $20 at the moment. Ajani stalled, but Garruk boosted forward, as did Jace. Sunpetal Grove moved from off the list to 8th spot, vaulting past all the other dual lands, which had more modest gains. Rhox Faithmender surprised, going from $1 to $4 in very short order, as cards like Akroma's Memorial gained enough value to reappear on the lower rungs of the tally.
I reported last tally that box value was currently stable or rising. Indeed, it has risen a little more in the past couple weeks. This may come as a shock, but a box of M13 is now worth the same as a box of RTR. The latter set has been opened heavily and just gone through MTGO redemptions, so its price has bottomed, whereas M13 went through its low a few months ago and has been on the rise since. So at least for the moment, if you have a choice between a box of M13 and a box of RTR, you'll have to flip a coin because they're within a couple bucks of each other!
M13 is currently THE hottest set to open in all of Standard!
It's very similar to Bonfire, but not mythic.
People want it enough to push the price past what is practical.
Currently Playing:
Standard:
Nothing, the format Bores me!
Legacy:
RBurn (Made on the Cheap!)R
RGBelcherRG
WSoldier StompyW
BReanimatorB
EDH:
BUGRWSliver OverlordWRGUB
BGeth, Lord of the VaultB
The key to evaluating his price tag lied not in evaluating his potential but in evaluating the lack of potential in most M13 rares.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
Yeah, looking back on it, M13 was an absolutely horrible set.
My current decks!
http://tappedout.net/users/ThePhasewalker/
What will happen to the price in the future? Well, now that it's where it is, it will have some staying power. Eventually, sanity will return and the price will cool, and also at some point (this is harder to predict because it depends in part on unknown future releases and meta changes) it will become less favoured in Standard decks, and the price will crash. It's not hard for me to imagine it selling for a few bucks a copy in a year or so. Being efficient and splashable, it will never be completely worthless.
.
Here's the decks I'm playing him in and playing against:
Jund Midrange/Control x4
Bant Control x4
Selesnya Midrange x4
Selexnya Aggro x2+ (wolfir silverheart fits here in some metas)
Junk anything x4
Naya brews x4
He's insane value and defines the meta game since infect has rotated. He's also synergistic with a LOT of top tier cards: Garruk Primal, Angel of Serenity, Restoration Angel. On top of all of that he's in the same color as Farseek which is an incredibly strong card at the moment.
I think he'll see strong play past Gatecrash unless they print a definitative answer for him.
Novemeber 2013 he'll have rotated and his price will be plummeting.. clearly.
"It is a Format Defining Card. That is why it is worth so much."
Sounds simple enough, but how do you define "FDC"? By my definition of FDC, there are a lot of rares that meet that description, but haven't come close to $23. I don't think you're seeing the whole picture, as someone who doesn't deal cards and doesn't have 15 years experience with supply and demand concepts. Playing Standard is merely one part of the puzzle my friend.
Ironically, that's the exact definition of "hype" - when people claim that a card is bonkers. That's hype.
(Some, including you, seem to use the word "hyped" and "overhyped" interchangeably. They're not the same thing.)
.
This is what he thought of Angel of Serenity when it was at $11.
I wouldn't look to R_E for price speculation. His grasp of competitive Standard is... tenuous at best.
If you feel another user is behaving poorly please contact the staff or report it. Flaming is not allowed. - Galspanic
Me saying the card is bonkers is most definitely not hype. The card IS bonkers. Right now there are less than 1300 cards available in standard and Thragtusk might be the most powerful of them.
Playing with the cardpool is important if you want to understand power levels. Thragtusk > Vorapede because exile based removal is super popular right now. Hitting triple green used to be the problem but now that's not even the big problem with Vorapede.
I can see the picture perfectly fine and that's why I picked up Thrag at first glance. When you're talking about new cards, standard is going to be one of the major price driving forces. The card went from 6$ initially and is at 20 and could conceivably hit 25+ since the event deck did nothing to slow it's price down. If Gatecrash doesn't have a replacement, a competetor, or direct hate, he will continue to drive the format. Then his price will plummet hard in March -> August as people dump him for rotation. He won't see much play in modern or other formats obviously. He's not that good in a vacuum comparison to existing cards with zero context sure. In standard he has no good answers and is too powerful to not play. You either play thragtusk, try to race it, or you try to counterspell it. Most people just pony up and play it because it's the most feasible choice.
Not many other cards fit this mold for a particular Standard metagame.
My understanding of supply and demand is just fine. I have also made quite a bit of money in the magic card market and I have been playing since Revised, so I also understand the game to a decent degree. I wasn't trying to disparage your viewpoint. I was simply trying to explain why I believe the card to be so valuable.
In large part yeah. Right now the only $5+ cards from the set are as follows:
Sublime Archangel, Thragtusk, Thundermaw Hellkite, Ajani Caller of the Pride, Liliana of the Dark Realms, Garruk Primal Hunter, Jace Memory Adept.
Only the first 4 are worth $10 or more. The rest are around $7 each or so. After that it drops down to about $3 per card or less.
Definitely not the best of sets for value, which is why the top demanded cards are as high as they are.
If it wasnt for Magic Online Set Redemptions, and respectively, Thragtusk getting reprinted in the event deck, those prices would be probably about 50% higher across the board right now, simply due to lack of the set being openned (of course if those cards were 50% higher, then people might actually open it more because then the value would be better.
I wouldnt be surprised to see Sublime work its way up to $25-$30 given time, and Thragtusk rising back up to $25 before too long.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Are you saying that walkers are overpriced? What? The top 3 spots are creatures and the walkers are WAY less priced. Its not them being walkers, its mostly the fact that they are mythics. If the walkers were rares, they wouldnt be that pricey at all.
Wanted Card List: (PM me)
1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
1 Ravages of War
1 Swords to Plowshares (Judge)
1 Land Tax (Judge)
U
1 Mana Vortex
B
1 Desolation Angel (Foil)
1 Guardian Beast
1 Contamination
R
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
G
1 Food Chain
WUBRG
1 Rohgahh of Kher Keep
X
1 Charcoal Diamond (Foil)
1 Fellwar Stone (Foil)
T
1 Temple Garden (Foil)
3 Mutavault
1 Kor Haven
Sublime and Hellkite will be in the 17 - 25 dollar range for as long as they are in Standard, barring a printing of a better card. They will fluctuate much during their time in standard, but will not be under 17 or over 25.
Commander
Ezuri, Renegade Leader (Aggro/Combo - Favorite)
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave (Sac and Grave hijinks)
Azusa, Lost but Seeking (Landfall hijinks)
Kaalia of the Vast (Heavily modded)
Standard
Waiting for Innistrad...
Extended
Hah!
Modern
Living End Cascade (RGB)
Legacy
Burn
Vintage
None
Casual
WB Aggro-Control
Green Stompy
Pink Floyd (UWr Wall Control)
Lunch Box (Fatty ramp)
D-Bag (White Control)
Level 13 Task Mage
The online version of magic the gathering, is called mtgo for short. On magic online, if you completed a full set (1 of each card) from a set from the last couple years, you can redeem that set for a paper copy of that set which they will mail to you and remove the set from your magic online account. The amount of sets that gets redeemed from magic online is no small number and there are a lot of sellers on ebay that make great use of these as a way to make money and otherwise stock their stores and what not. Card prices for the set will often take a dip in paper magic about 2 months after a set is released in paper magic due to an influx of supply from these mtgo set redemptions hitting the market. MTGO releases their sets about 2 weeks after paper magic does. From there they wait a month to turn on redemption as an option, and then it usually takes about two weeks to process/ship/receive the cards before they will actually hit the market and start influencing prices.
Thragtusk dips below $20 while the set overall surges upward:
1) Thundermaw Hellkite (34) / / / / / / / / / / / / /
2) Sublime Archangel (23) / / / / / / / / / / / / /
3) Thragtusk (19) / / / / / / / / / / / / /
4) Ajani, Caller of the Pride (11) / / / / / / / / / / / / /
5) Garruk, Primal Hunter (11) / / / / / / / / / / / / /
6) Jace, Memory Adept (9) / / / / / / / / / / / / /
7) Liliana of the Dark Realms (9) / / / / / / / / / / / / /
8) Sunpetal Grove (5) /:thumbsup:
9) Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker (4) / / / / / / / / / / / / /
10) Omniscience (4) / / / / /
11) Rhox Faithmender (4) /:thumbsup:
12) Vampire Nocturnus (4) / / / / / / / / / / / / /
13) Chandra the Firebrand (3.5)
14) Primordial Hydra (3.5) / /
15) Akroma's Memorial (3)
16) Dragonskull Summit (3)
17) Drowned Catacomb (3)
18) Glacial Fortress (3)
The card's most recent move is on right. means no movement. is a card that wasn't on the list last update. This is the update's hottest mover. (#) is price in CND incl. shipping here.
The tally grows this update as SEVEN cards moved above the $3 threshold recently, making a total of 18 cards now worth opening in a booster pack.
Thundermaw has more than doubled in price over the past few weeks - who knew that a flying mythic beatstick undercosted by at least would do so well? Apparently, the comparisons to Akroma WERE valid after all! Sublime Archangel is no slouch, moving up by $5 or so recently. Thragtusk seems to be back below $20 at the moment. Ajani stalled, but Garruk boosted forward, as did Jace. Sunpetal Grove moved from off the list to 8th spot, vaulting past all the other dual lands, which had more modest gains. Rhox Faithmender surprised, going from $1 to $4 in very short order, as cards like Akroma's Memorial gained enough value to reappear on the lower rungs of the tally.
I reported last tally that box value was currently stable or rising. Indeed, it has risen a little more in the past couple weeks. This may come as a shock, but a box of M13 is now worth the same as a box of RTR. The latter set has been opened heavily and just gone through MTGO redemptions, so its price has bottomed, whereas M13 went through its low a few months ago and has been on the rise since. So at least for the moment, if you have a choice between a box of M13 and a box of RTR, you'll have to flip a coin because they're within a couple bucks of each other!
M13 is currently THE hottest set to open in all of Standard!
:o:o:o
.
M13 worth as much as RTR...
Gotta admit... I did not see that twist coming!
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)