This is a little different than 90's comics/baseball cards. Firstly, 90's comics never had any value, alleged or otherwise, attached to anything except supposed collectibility. Legacy staples are in high demand for their playability, not rarity. With the exception of some select legends cards, most of these cards have primarily been expensive due to their playability.
Secondly, the 90's cards and comics were printed for an entirely different reason than Reserve list cards; there was a marketful of hungry speculators and these things were so overprinted to meet the demands of so many people buying them up beanie baby style, that they were no longer rare or special, and likely never will be.
While I do think it's almost insanity to buy any of the cards at these prices, and we are almost definitely seeing a bubble form, the result, when it pops, is only going to hurt the people buying these overpriced cards between now and then. I don't think that Legacy cards were ever in the bubble that some claimed existed before, but I'm pretty sure they are now. No one wants to buy into the format at these prices. No one wants to play Legacy THAT bad. And the speculators will eventually pay the price for it, when nothing moves the bubble will pop and things wil cool off to what they were before, or at least close to it. I have no lost love for people buying these cards purely as speculators, not players, trying to make a buck. I do feel for the poor soul that was one Moat away from finishing Miracles that decides to pull the trigger anyway, because if they've come this far they might as well, but people interested in buying cards that don't even play the game taking the cards away from players....that's just wrong. Even the most elitest of Legacy players doesn't want that.
Anyway, it seems like stores are unconvinced this price change is permanent. Most still have their old buylist prices of $250-$280 for Moat, for example. The exception is ChannelFireball, which is buying @ $600. If that's truly the case, why haven't they bought all the specc'd moats from buyout guy? Just holding out to see if someone wants to offer more?
The sky isn't falling, it's being pushed up and will fall back to where it is now. The question is how long will it take to fall?
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Legacy: TES
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
Now that Martin Shkreli himself is entering the market, there is some real, serious money that can buy out anything on a whim.
Also, there has now been a buyout on Humility. It has begun. There is a full-blown run on the Reserved List.
Regarding the Altar of Bone buyout, it wasn't driven by either Legacy or EDH. Altar of Bone is barely played in EDH. The demand is coming strictly from speculators.
EDH/Commander is a social format, right? So why don't people use their social skills to discuss what they like and don't like, instead of adopting a list with 60+ banned cards?
Only way to fight this is to refuse to buy at inflated prices, use your dollars as your weapon against the buyout.
Sadly, it may require tanking the format or even MTG in general to fight back. The reserved list should also be abolished. It couldn't be clearer now what a mistake that was to keep it around when they were given the opportunity to end it.
WoTC does not care if Legacy survives or not. It doesn't matter to their sales at all, Legacy players do not make WoTC a ton of money. They'll continue to update the B&R list for Legacy and maybe print an oddball card like Abrupt Decay or Past in Flames here and there, but it doesn't matter if every reserve list card is suddenly a million bucks and the format dies. They could care less about the secondary market, as long as booster boxes are being sold. Legacy may stop growing, but it will take a long, long, long time to die. Vintage is still on life support in different areas, and there's a lot more supply of Legacy cards than vintage.
It was a mistake to not ditch the reserve list years ago when cards were much cheaper. But the reason they didn't ditch it back then just made it that much more strong now.
Shkreli could have picked a better target than Lotus, he's apparently got 5 now. Hard to move when you're one of the small subset that can afford it to begin with at the existing price. Make Lotus go up another 5G and see who wants to buy one then.
Speculators are going to keep snatching up the most stupid cards on the RL, that's fine, no one really cares about most of the remainder anyway. It sucks if you needed a Serra's Sanctum for EDH or whatever, but like I said, the worst damage has been done. The duals still remain, and for reasons mentioned earlier, a buyout on them seems logistically near impossible, specially since they just got a price hike. Buyouts of Vintage stock don't affect most players, Shkreli's presence in vintage doesn't mean much for anyone who doesn't own or is trying to buy power. As long as he stays there, Legacy has more to worry from the Craig Berrys than the Shkrelis of the world.
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Legacy: TES
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
There is no chance that WOTC will abolish the reserved list. That schrelli schmuck will sue WOTC big time.
I wouldn't say that exactly. If the reserved list was abolished now, the main cards would retain a lot of their pricing. The difference between the revised and beta versions of Underground Sea are substantial. Take Eternal Masters also for example. Yes, the new supply was ok with getting more versions of those cards out on the market, but only the EMN versions are going down in price, and not the newer versions. Mana Crypt is the best example of this.
I am not disagreeing with you, but I am pretty positive that would be the case, then again, I am no speculator, so...
Reserve List ain't goin nowhere. The solution is to print cards that compete with or can stand in for reserve list staples.
Can't do that either under the current policy as it would violate the "spirit" of the reserve list. Fetchlands were the best things we could hope to get to reduce the demand on duals.
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Legacy: TES
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
What about Harmless Offering? It's basically the same card as Donate, which is on the Reserve List, except it's in Red not Blue. Is this card violating the "spirit" of the Reserve List?
It's an entirely different color, so I think that's their argument. Moving something to an entirely different color makes a world of difference in what you can do with it/what you can play it in.
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Legacy: TES
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
You can do the same thing with Diabolic Intent. Altar of Bone's current TCG mid is actually higher than Diabolic Intent's, but its low is lower. Altar of Bone's looks to be starting to fall back down following the buyout or whatever it was.
What about Harmless Offering? It's basically the same card as Donate, which is on the Reserve List, except it's in Red not Blue. Is this card violating the "spirit" of the Reserve List?
Also, the cards can target differently. One targets any player and one targets only opponents.
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I'm fairly confident I will think of something to say. Active Player: 1994-1999, 2016-
Reserve List ain't goin nowhere. The solution is to print cards that compete with or can stand in for reserve list staples.
Can't do that either under the current policy as it would violate the "spirit" of the reserve list. Fetchlands were the best things we could hope to get to reduce the demand on duals.
Of course you can. And, remember, there's no definition of "Spirit of the Reserve List" so it's silly to talk about it like it's a hard and fast rule.
But, it doesn't matter anyway. You can absolutely get cards that fill the same or similar functional niche.
Moat -> Magus of the Moat
Null Rod -> Stony Silence
Sphere of Reistence -> Thalia, Lodestone Golem
etc, etc
None of these cards are identical, all are better or worse in different circumstances, but the ones that actually "get there" (like Stony Silence) help reduce the demand for the original and give people an option to play those format. You can absolutely do this for other cards. For example:
Strange Dual Land
Forest Island
When this enters the battlefield, all players Scry 1.
There ya go. Doesn't offend the reserve list, situationally better or worse then Revised dual lands.
And on top of that, you can print cards that just do something that is competitive with the old cards without replacing them.
Mana Drain -> Spell Pierce, Mental Misstep, Mindbreak Trap, Flusterstorm
Ancestral Recall -> Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time
etc etc
Stop thinking so myopically about the RESERVE LIST, PRAISED BE HIS NAME and realize that WotC can (and IS!) printing its way out of the problem with new cards.
You can do the same thing with Diabolic Intent. Altar of Bone's current TCG mid is actually higher than Diabolic Intent's, but its low is lower. Altar of Bone's looks to be starting to fall back down following the buyout or whatever it was.
I think it hit $20, but now they are closer to $8. Diabolic Intent is pretty close to $15; it definitely is better than Altar of Bone.
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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)
Craig Berry- the Moat guy- struck again last night with a daring raid that pushed Lion's Eye Diamond to $250.
I'd call him the Shkreli of Magic but you know that he would treat it as a complement.
I hope you know that since you compared them that you're the one that brought Magic to his attention. He has a bot that alerts him whenever his name is mentioned.
but it doesn't matter if every reserve list card is suddenly a million bucks and the format dies.
If every Reserved List card was much more expensive than now (not 1 million, obviously) it would be because Eternal formats are suddenly played by people willing to pay more for cards than now (or because interest in collecting grows, but that would remove from the tables mainly Mint cards, which are a negligible part of the print run). The format would still exist, it wouldn't die. It would just be played by richer and/or more enthusiastic people. Why are Reserved List cards much more expensive than now? Because some people are willing to pay more than what the highest "bidder" was willing to pay before.
For a Sea to be sold for $300, someone has to sell it, someone that values that money more the card. It just changes hands, but it still exists and it's still mainly demanded by players. Or by someone that expects to sell it to a player, and if he's wrong, and nobody wants to pay a higher price, he'll just drop it and some player will buy it (or another reseller, and the process repeats).
By the way, Wizards does profit from Eternal formats. They do directly in two ways (and in more ways indirectly, it's great publicity that very expensive cards exist). First, by printing new cards that are good in that format. And by reprinting cards which aren't in the List, with sets like Eternal Masters.
Craig Berry- the Moat guy- struck again last night with a daring raid that pushed Lion's Eye Diamond to $250.
I'd call him the Shkreli of Magic but you know that he would treat it as a complement.
I hope you know that since you compared them that you're the one that brought Magic to his attention. He has a bot that alerts him whenever his name is mentioned.
Shkreli is friends with a big MODO streamer, Billy something, he knows what Magic is.
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These days, some wizards are finding they have a little too much deck left at the end of their $$$.
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
Reserve List ain't goin nowhere. The solution is to print cards that compete with or can stand in for reserve list staples.
Yep, this is what I've been saying. There is plenty of design space when it comes to cards that are as powerful as Black Lotus and Ancestral Recall. They can easily find ways to design new cards that are arguably equal to those. And this is the best solution because it enables Wizards to sell new product, giving them a financial incentive.
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Secondly, the 90's cards and comics were printed for an entirely different reason than Reserve list cards; there was a marketful of hungry speculators and these things were so overprinted to meet the demands of so many people buying them up beanie baby style, that they were no longer rare or special, and likely never will be.
While I do think it's almost insanity to buy any of the cards at these prices, and we are almost definitely seeing a bubble form, the result, when it pops, is only going to hurt the people buying these overpriced cards between now and then. I don't think that Legacy cards were ever in the bubble that some claimed existed before, but I'm pretty sure they are now. No one wants to buy into the format at these prices. No one wants to play Legacy THAT bad. And the speculators will eventually pay the price for it, when nothing moves the bubble will pop and things wil cool off to what they were before, or at least close to it. I have no lost love for people buying these cards purely as speculators, not players, trying to make a buck. I do feel for the poor soul that was one Moat away from finishing Miracles that decides to pull the trigger anyway, because if they've come this far they might as well, but people interested in buying cards that don't even play the game taking the cards away from players....that's just wrong. Even the most elitest of Legacy players doesn't want that.
Anyway, it seems like stores are unconvinced this price change is permanent. Most still have their old buylist prices of $250-$280 for Moat, for example. The exception is ChannelFireball, which is buying @ $600. If that's truly the case, why haven't they bought all the specc'd moats from buyout guy? Just holding out to see if someone wants to offer more?
The sky isn't falling, it's being pushed up and will fall back to where it is now. The question is how long will it take to fall?
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
I'd blame EDH for that. It's a reserve-listed tutor, but the hoop is probably too great for Legacy to jump.
Also, there has now been a buyout on Humility. It has begun. There is a full-blown run on the Reserved List.
Regarding the Altar of Bone buyout, it wasn't driven by either Legacy or EDH. Altar of Bone is barely played in EDH. The demand is coming strictly from speculators.
glorious
Well, there goes the neighborhood.
Edit: confirmed https://twitter.com/MartinShkreli
Sadly, it may require tanking the format or even MTG in general to fight back. The reserved list should also be abolished. It couldn't be clearer now what a mistake that was to keep it around when they were given the opportunity to end it.
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
It was a mistake to not ditch the reserve list years ago when cards were much cheaper. But the reason they didn't ditch it back then just made it that much more strong now.
Shkreli could have picked a better target than Lotus, he's apparently got 5 now. Hard to move when you're one of the small subset that can afford it to begin with at the existing price. Make Lotus go up another 5G and see who wants to buy one then.
Speculators are going to keep snatching up the most stupid cards on the RL, that's fine, no one really cares about most of the remainder anyway. It sucks if you needed a Serra's Sanctum for EDH or whatever, but like I said, the worst damage has been done. The duals still remain, and for reasons mentioned earlier, a buyout on them seems logistically near impossible, specially since they just got a price hike. Buyouts of Vintage stock don't affect most players, Shkreli's presence in vintage doesn't mean much for anyone who doesn't own or is trying to buy power. As long as he stays there, Legacy has more to worry from the Craig Berrys than the Shkrelis of the world.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
I wouldn't say that exactly. If the reserved list was abolished now, the main cards would retain a lot of their pricing. The difference between the revised and beta versions of Underground Sea are substantial. Take Eternal Masters also for example. Yes, the new supply was ok with getting more versions of those cards out on the market, but only the EMN versions are going down in price, and not the newer versions. Mana Crypt is the best example of this.
I am not disagreeing with you, but I am pretty positive that would be the case, then again, I am no speculator, so...
EDH DECKS
Currently under construction
MAGECRAFT STORM
-Veyran, Voice of Duality-
Protection from Degeneracy
Do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.
Well, it's a two card instant win combo with Academy Rector.
Sac Rector to Throne of Bone, trigger on the stack. Search our Omniscience. Resolve Bone, get Emrakul or (for serious LOLs) Sparkcaster. Win da game.
Can't do that either under the current policy as it would violate the "spirit" of the reserve list. Fetchlands were the best things we could hope to get to reduce the demand on duals.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
The Reserve List has no soul
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
You can do the same thing with Diabolic Intent. Altar of Bone's current TCG mid is actually higher than Diabolic Intent's, but its low is lower. Altar of Bone's looks to be starting to fall back down following the buyout or whatever it was.
Also, the cards can target differently. One targets any player and one targets only opponents.
Active Player: 1994-1999, 2016-
Sign & Share Petition To Fix MTG: Arena's Economy: https://goo.gl/z8fop8
Of course you can. And, remember, there's no definition of "Spirit of the Reserve List" so it's silly to talk about it like it's a hard and fast rule.
But, it doesn't matter anyway. You can absolutely get cards that fill the same or similar functional niche.
Moat -> Magus of the Moat
Null Rod -> Stony Silence
Sphere of Reistence -> Thalia, Lodestone Golem
etc, etc
None of these cards are identical, all are better or worse in different circumstances, but the ones that actually "get there" (like Stony Silence) help reduce the demand for the original and give people an option to play those format. You can absolutely do this for other cards. For example:
Strange Dual Land
Forest Island
When this enters the battlefield, all players Scry 1.
There ya go. Doesn't offend the reserve list, situationally better or worse then Revised dual lands.
And on top of that, you can print cards that just do something that is competitive with the old cards without replacing them.
Mana Drain -> Spell Pierce, Mental Misstep, Mindbreak Trap, Flusterstorm
Ancestral Recall -> Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time
etc etc
Stop thinking so myopically about the RESERVE LIST, PRAISED BE HIS NAME and realize that WotC can (and IS!) printing its way out of the problem with new cards.
I think it hit $20, but now they are closer to $8. Diabolic Intent is pretty close to $15; it definitely is better than Altar of Bone.
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 hope you know that since you compared them that you're the one that brought Magic to his attention. He has a bot that alerts him whenever his name is mentioned.
If every Reserved List card was much more expensive than now (not 1 million, obviously) it would be because Eternal formats are suddenly played by people willing to pay more for cards than now (or because interest in collecting grows, but that would remove from the tables mainly Mint cards, which are a negligible part of the print run). The format would still exist, it wouldn't die. It would just be played by richer and/or more enthusiastic people. Why are Reserved List cards much more expensive than now? Because some people are willing to pay more than what the highest "bidder" was willing to pay before.
For a Sea to be sold for $300, someone has to sell it, someone that values that money more the card. It just changes hands, but it still exists and it's still mainly demanded by players. Or by someone that expects to sell it to a player, and if he's wrong, and nobody wants to pay a higher price, he'll just drop it and some player will buy it (or another reseller, and the process repeats).
By the way, Wizards does profit from Eternal formats. They do directly in two ways (and in more ways indirectly, it's great publicity that very expensive cards exist). First, by printing new cards that are good in that format. And by reprinting cards which aren't in the List, with sets like Eternal Masters.
Shkreli is friends with a big MODO streamer, Billy something, he knows what Magic is.
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
Yep, this is what I've been saying. There is plenty of design space when it comes to cards that are as powerful as Black Lotus and Ancestral Recall. They can easily find ways to design new cards that are arguably equal to those. And this is the best solution because it enables Wizards to sell new product, giving them a financial incentive.