So, I have been in this game since Unhinged and I got into the price of cards heavily around Worldwake when I had a playset of Jace, the Mind Sculptor and sold them for $120 not realizing that shortly after they would spike to that price....each! And within the last three years I have been collecting all the dual lands I could. I remember snipe bidding them off of eBay for $40 for Bayou and $70 for Tropical Island. Now Bayous are in the $160 range and Underground Sea is actually having to struggle for the title of "Most Expensive Original Dual Land" with Volcanic Island at almost $300 EACH!!!
So, can anyone tell me, why such the massive spike in price? Or is this just a common thing, like every 3 years they double in price (Which I have a complete Revised set now, so I wouldn't mind at all)?
And do you think Wizards will do anything about this spike in price, or just say "eff" it and let it keep rising? I know that there is a reserved list and they are on it for no reprinting....I mean just to make a BUG legacy deck, it will cost you like $2,800 for a decent land base and some force of wills and Tarmogoyf.
It doesn't hurt that Standard is pretty stale, often pushing people over to Modern or Legacy. I personally have been a Standard player ever since about 2004 and I recently have been playing Modern FNMs for the past 2 months. I couldn't be happier. (luckily for me, I had most of the cards I needed)
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
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Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Legacy has been growing at a pretty steady rate as the demand for duals goes up, but the supply stays the same prices just keeping going up. They spike in price every year or so and are basically constantly gradually rising. Its nothing new.
I remember buying bayous for 30$ each and selling them at 45$ thinking "they'll never get higher than this". Then buying more at 50$ each, and selling those at 80$, thinking "no really this time they will never get higher than this. Now they sit at around 130$ I'm just happy I bought the tundras, volcs and seas I needed last summer when they were 80$, 80$ and 110$ respectively.
Generally speaking, standard got boring. People moved into Modern. Modern prices went insane. People that had already been playing Modern cashed out and moved into Legacy. Legacy prices subsequently spiked.
This is exactly what happened to me. I was an early adopter. I sold my Tarns when they were $75-80, and finished my playset of Wastelands literally the week before they went nuts.
Multiple people on this very forum have mentioned selling off modern cards that have spiked, particularly zen fetches. They see these cards that are only a few years out of standard (that they bought for less than ten bucks a piece) that are hitting $50-$100 and see an opportunity to pick up duals that they never would have dreamed of previously. Add in tax returns around this time of year and there is A LOT of "free money" floating around to make people feel less guilty about buying pieces of cardboard for hundreds of dollars.
Legacy is growing, but it's also a result of the speculation craze that's been going on for the past few months. Cards have been spiking at a much higher rate than usual because everyone seems to be playing the role of speculator now.
I'm just happy that I already have my full playsets of the blue duals and some Bayous so at least the worst is over. I'm looking into getting a couple of Badlands and a Taiga for Legacy Jund but those duals aren't exactly as cheap as they used to be either.
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Special thanks to Hakai Studios and SushiOtter for the sig!
Legacy:UR Sneak and Show IUBG Team America IX Metalworker MUD Modern:UBR Blue Jund IWBX Eldrazi Processors IX Affinity IWRG Nacatl Burn IGR Tron IUBR Grishoalbrand
Generally speaking, standard got boring. People moved into Modern. Modern prices went insane. People that had already been playing Modern cashed out and moved into Legacy. Legacy prices subsequently spiked.
This is exactly what happened to me. I was an early adopter. I sold my Tarns when they were $75-80, and finished my playset of Wastelands literally the week before they went nuts.
I think this is being overly disingenuous.
The reason Legacy and Modern have seen a surge is due largely, if not solely, to a far greater level of support for the formats than has been seen in the past. Wizards has been pushing hard to support modern as a format, with high-profile reprints and product like MM, which was a crap-shoot when it was under development as Modern had yet to really take off to huge proportions.
SCG is also keeping Legacy afloat, and has been doing so for quite some time, by having the Open series.
Take these away, and neither format would be significant. There is interest in these formats as they allow a wider breadth of strategies than standard, any standard, could allow. At least in theory. It has little to do with "Standard being boring". If that were the case, most people would just up and quit the game as they did during Urza block or Mirrodin block.
People were arbitraging Modern staples for Legacy cards. A few months back, Karn Liberated and Noble Hierarch, for instance, were buy listed at $30. Very few traders would accept an offer of 4 Karn for a Volcanic Island, but that's exactly what dealers were doing with their buylists. Enough people took their modern staples an turned them into legacy staples, which were undervalued in relation to the Modern cards, that dealers started raising prices on legacy staples.
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The reason Legacy and Modern have seen a surge is due largely, if not solely, to a far greater level of support for the formats than has been seen in the past. Wizards has been pushing hard to support modern as a format, with high-profile reprints and product like MM, which was a crap-shoot when it was under development as Modern had yet to really take off to huge proportions.
SCG is also keeping Legacy afloat, and has been doing so for quite some time, by having the Open series.
etc. etc.
I would accept my summary as being an oversimplification, but disingenuous? Hardly. Though anecdotal, a large number of posts in this thread alone, as well as experiences in the gaming community in my area support the Modern price spike --> move into legacy angle I was touting. While SCG does keep Legacy afloat, the support for legacy from both them and Wizards has remained static over the last year or two, and wouldn't account for a jump in price only recently. There has to be other factors.
Isn't it also part of the spring/summer doldrums? People just sell out of RTR block cards that are good only for standard and can reinvest in other things. With the looming specter of Modern staple reprints, Legacy would seem the smarter choice.
I know the sell-off is usually around the core set, but I wouldn't be surprised if the boringness of Born of the Gods accelerated the usual pattern.
Legacy is growing, but it's also a result of the speculation craze that's been going on for the past few months. Cards have been spiking at a much higher rate than usual because everyone seems to be playing the role of speculator now.
People have been speculating and buying out cards. This reduces the supply, but I can't see it bumping prices past the point that people who want to play are willing to shell out. Unless you think we have speculators buying from speculators for higher and higher prices and nobody actually paying these amounts for play purposes. That's an incredible claim, though. Format attendance is growing - new players must therefore be buying in and are indeed paying these high prices to do so.
Long story short, many people like me took one look at the price of a Scalding Tarn ($100) and the price of a MINT Revised Bayou ($100)and thought, "if I had a hundred bucks, which one would be better period?"
I don't think Legacy is "growing". People sitting on dozens of extra fetchlands did turn them into Duals, but the average Joe with only a set of Tarns and Misty did not suddenly sell them to buy duals.
If they did, that's not very bright, as you need the fetchlands in Legacy quite a lot. Sure the Tarn will go down a bit and you can buy back, but in the meantime, what do you do?
Hoarders changed the nature of their hoard, nothing more. The duals are much more secure and a better investment than fetchlands (especially at the current price... at 12$ each you couldn't go wrong), which, as it was pointed out many times before, will be reprinted sooner than later. Speculators are the ones who benefited the most from the ridiculous Modern prices.
I had just recently purchased a moderately played Savannah (Revised) and I can't believe it shot up in price with in a week. I notice prices are starting to decline a little, but it was so weird to see such a jump on all duals. I really do wonder what is going on to make sense of it. Is EDH or Legacy causing these prices to spike?
I don't think Legacy is "growing". People sitting on dozens of extra fetchlands did turn them into Duals, but the average Joe with only a set of Tarns and Misty did not suddenly sell them to buy duals.
If they did, that's not very bright, as you need the fetchlands in Legacy quite a lot. Sure the Tarn will go down a bit and you can buy back, but in the meantime, what do you do?
Hoarders changed the nature of their hoard, nothing more. The duals are much more secure and a better investment than fetchlands (especially at the current price... at 12$ each you couldn't go wrong), which, as it was pointed out many times before, will be reprinted sooner than later. Speculators are the ones who benefited the most from the ridiculous Modern prices.
I did this, set of zen fetches netted me 1k, 1k netted me 2 of each blue dual and a few others, I'm gonna proxy till fetches get reprinted, if they don't come back in standard then I'm just gonna put my cards away and wait a few years. Theres more people doing this than you think, the opportunity to trade in new cards for old cards is pretty under rated I think. On the Legacy Gainers thread people were talking about how they would snap trade a revised dual for moxen, there is not difference here, I would snap trade a fetch for dual.
Attendance at major tournaments (in North America and Europe) is steadily, measurably, increasing. This doesn't mean the format is growing - perhaps simply more players already in Legacy are entering the bigger events? But there is zero reason to assume this.
If the Magic player base is growing, which we are told it is, then it is likely growing for almost all formats to varying degrees. Obviously some people are hoarding, some people are trading in, but if your a tournament player, you can't just "proxy" and play. Fetches are something you need if you want to attend tournaments as are duals. Believe it or not, most people don't play this game for the up/down swing of the market, they actually play the game because they love to compete. The average player now has to deal with an economic frenzy that simply didn't exist 4+ years ago, or certainly not to the degree it does today.
As for dual pricing. It's not surprising. Artificial pricing or not (for a short period of time anyways), these cards, especially revised copies, have intense pressure put on a finite amount. Did people really expect duals to be $50-100 forever? These cards are like 16+ years old.
So, I have been in this game since Unhinged and I got into the price of cards heavily around Worldwake when I had a playset of Jace, the Mind Sculptor and sold them for $120 not realizing that shortly after they would spike to that price....each! And within the last three years I have been collecting all the dual lands I could. I remember snipe bidding them off of eBay for $40 for Bayou and $70 for Tropical Island. Now Bayous are in the $160 range and Underground Sea is actually having to struggle for the title of "Most Expensive Original Dual Land" with Volcanic Island at almost $300 EACH!!!
So, can anyone tell me, why such the massive spike in price? Or is this just a common thing, like every 3 years they double in price (Which I have a complete Revised set now, so I wouldn't mind at all)?
And do you think Wizards will do anything about this spike in price, or just say "eff" it and let it keep rising? I know that there is a reserved list and they are on it for no reprinting....I mean just to make a BUG legacy deck, it will cost you like $2,800 for a decent land base and some force of wills and Tarmogoyf.
It doesn't hurt that Standard is pretty stale, often pushing people over to Modern or Legacy. I personally have been a Standard player ever since about 2004 and I recently have been playing Modern FNMs for the past 2 months. I couldn't be happier. (luckily for me, I had most of the cards I needed)
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I remember buying bayous for 30$ each and selling them at 45$ thinking "they'll never get higher than this". Then buying more at 50$ each, and selling those at 80$, thinking "no really this time they will never get higher than this. Now they sit at around 130$ I'm just happy I bought the tundras, volcs and seas I needed last summer when they were 80$, 80$ and 110$ respectively.
This is exactly what happened to me. I was an early adopter. I sold my Tarns when they were $75-80, and finished my playset of Wastelands literally the week before they went nuts.
Also, people are tired of playing mono blue and mono black in Standard.
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Legacy is an amazing format. Im glad more and more people are playing, even though prices are getting tough to swallow.
I'm just happy that I already have my full playsets of the blue duals and some Bayous so at least the worst is over. I'm looking into getting a couple of Badlands and a Taiga for Legacy Jund but those duals aren't exactly as cheap as they used to be either.
Special thanks to Hakai Studios and SushiOtter for the sig!
Legacy: UR Sneak and Show I UBG Team America I X Metalworker MUD
Modern: UBR Blue Jund I WBX Eldrazi Processors I X Affinity I WRG Nacatl Burn I GR Tron I UBR Grishoalbrand
2) Buy powerful cards on reserve list
3) Profit
also I heard a story about some asian dude buying out a bunch of lands at a GP, but I don't know if that is credible or not.
I think this is being overly disingenuous.
The reason Legacy and Modern have seen a surge is due largely, if not solely, to a far greater level of support for the formats than has been seen in the past. Wizards has been pushing hard to support modern as a format, with high-profile reprints and product like MM, which was a crap-shoot when it was under development as Modern had yet to really take off to huge proportions.
SCG is also keeping Legacy afloat, and has been doing so for quite some time, by having the Open series.
Take these away, and neither format would be significant. There is interest in these formats as they allow a wider breadth of strategies than standard, any standard, could allow. At least in theory. It has little to do with "Standard being boring". If that were the case, most people would just up and quit the game as they did during Urza block or Mirrodin block.
I would accept my summary as being an oversimplification, but disingenuous? Hardly. Though anecdotal, a large number of posts in this thread alone, as well as experiences in the gaming community in my area support the Modern price spike --> move into legacy angle I was touting. While SCG does keep Legacy afloat, the support for legacy from both them and Wizards has remained static over the last year or two, and wouldn't account for a jump in price only recently. There has to be other factors.
I know the sell-off is usually around the core set, but I wouldn't be surprised if the boringness of Born of the Gods accelerated the usual pattern.
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People have been speculating and buying out cards. This reduces the supply, but I can't see it bumping prices past the point that people who want to play are willing to shell out. Unless you think we have speculators buying from speculators for higher and higher prices and nobody actually paying these amounts for play purposes. That's an incredible claim, though. Format attendance is growing - new players must therefore be buying in and are indeed paying these high prices to do so.
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RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
If they did, that's not very bright, as you need the fetchlands in Legacy quite a lot. Sure the Tarn will go down a bit and you can buy back, but in the meantime, what do you do?
Hoarders changed the nature of their hoard, nothing more. The duals are much more secure and a better investment than fetchlands (especially at the current price... at 12$ each you couldn't go wrong), which, as it was pointed out many times before, will be reprinted sooner than later. Speculators are the ones who benefited the most from the ridiculous Modern prices.
I did this, set of zen fetches netted me 1k, 1k netted me 2 of each blue dual and a few others, I'm gonna proxy till fetches get reprinted, if they don't come back in standard then I'm just gonna put my cards away and wait a few years. Theres more people doing this than you think, the opportunity to trade in new cards for old cards is pretty under rated I think. On the Legacy Gainers thread people were talking about how they would snap trade a revised dual for moxen, there is not difference here, I would snap trade a fetch for dual.
RIP Karn EDH
Attendance at major tournaments (in North America and Europe) is steadily, measurably, increasing. This doesn't mean the format is growing - perhaps simply more players already in Legacy are entering the bigger events? But there is zero reason to assume this.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
As for dual pricing. It's not surprising. Artificial pricing or not (for a short period of time anyways), these cards, especially revised copies, have intense pressure put on a finite amount. Did people really expect duals to be $50-100 forever? These cards are like 16+ years old.