After vintage masters, I decided to hold my collection and wait for the VMA cards to go back up, but if anything, they've dropped to nearly 70% of their lowest prices. Not just VMA cards, nearly every card across legacy, modern, and standard has taken a huge drop. My collection prior to the beginning of Khans was about $1500, but is now worth under $800. I understand fluctuations, but what is happening to modo and the price market on it? I've been waiting 5 months to sell my collection, but I don't know if I should keep waiting or if the prices will continue to fall.
All VMA cards tanked heavily. The vintage fan base is very small none of the cards rebounded. Dack did spike mid way during VMA when people found out he was vintage playable, then he went back down due to spectators.The legacy cards that did not get reprinted went up (daze, port, sneak attack). Now there is tempest remastered which is dropping the prices of wasteland, city of traders and intuition.
Odyssey block drafts happened recently.
Goyf dropped since it was announced in MMA2.
Birthing Pod got banned in modern which hit a bunch of cards (pod, voice, linvala, angel of thune, pontiff). And scapeshift basically died.
So there's lots of fluctuation. The difficult thing to understand was why haven't VMA prices gone up. The prices for eternal cards go back up after being out of circulation for a while (like flashback drafts)
Constructed has tanked because various WotC policies have devalued boosters that are awarded in prizes.
Which policies?
Too many to summarize, but:
1 (long ago) - The impact of Alara rarity has reduced the amount of sets that can be redeemed. Disregarding foils, In Lorwyn era, one set could theoretically be redeemed for each 80/55 packs (large set/small set), now it's 121/80. This reduces the minimum prices in-print singles can fall to.
2 (significant) - The impact of the $20 increase in redemption fees. This simply reduces the value of full sets by $20, and thus the singles in a pack by ~16c (large sets) or 25c (small).
Those two lower in-print singles prices.
3 (not a WotC policy) - Falling singles prices make it harder to 'go infinite' through drafting, suppressing demand for boosters. (This would in turn slightly increase singles prices, except that prices are *solely* driven by redemption at the moment for most redeemable sets)
4 (not a WotC policy) - Reductions in the chance to 'go infinite' in limited push more grinders into Constructed.
5 (the most important point) - WotC policy of awarding the same packs for all Constructed events means the market gets flooded to ridiculous levels with the present set.
6 - Higher supply of recent packs, lower demand - these combine to terrible prices, which makes Constructed unappealing.
Lee Sharp has little to do with VMA prices, tempest remastered, and modern bannings.
You can blame the following on Lee Sharp:
1)Bad daily event schedule (I do not follow momir so I don't know what's going on with it)
2)KTK booster prices
3) MOCS promos
4)Gimmick events
Momir doesn't affect prices except for the momir avatar. I feel this complaint is not what this thread is about and is better served in the complain about mtgo thread.
He hasn't done anything to address KTK booster prices. So he's doing a bad job. It took Turian months to make changes. I figured Lee would make changes after a few weeks of complaints/data. But I don't think the OP is complaining about KTK booster prices.
As for MOCS promos I think they're fine. They're reprinting 10-15 ticket standard playable cards, which is useful to more people. It's better than cryptborn horror or entomb. But I'd rather just see them pick a top 5 expensive card and reprint it. They're improving, but clearly they could do more.
Gimmick phantom events have to be popular otherwise they wouldn't have them. If they weren't phantom then the prices of cards would drop even more, which is what the OP is asking about. So this complaint should also be in the complaint thread.
I don't know for sure if people play in them. But WoTC always removes events that don't do well. So I assume these low EV phantom events are popular. I assume they are popular since they break up the grind and they are unique events.
Basically everything has been horrible after Lee sharpe took over:
Basically 0 reaction to pack price problem.
Killing off Momir, while also forgetting to mention it in the article and then make a last-minute argument to motivate it.
Mediocre Mocs-promos
having ridioulus gimmickevents be phantom (alara and lorwyn) when modern needs nobles and cryptics etc
We were hoping for a boost to block with the new event schedule. It seems to have hurt participation. (EV is likely the other factor).
I understand Momir. I love the format and would like to see more MTGO only formats like it, but there is no reason for it to take a daily slot.
They killed M15 Sealed which was needed. It never fired. (Fortunately I was able to trade my last M15 packs for nearly 4 each a 1 tix profit from where i bought them).
I agree with Rickster_. Mocs promo's are better than they were. It shouldn't be the reason you grind MOCS. If the EV of MOCS itself isn't enough they can look at that. (See Grand Prix Promo's for what I think they are going with here).
ALA block drafts might fire, maybe this is a test of the water. LLM wasn't nearly as popular as SSE last time they did it (EV might have had something to do with that).
They did change the payouts of sealed daily events on 3 wins to 3/3 rather than 4/2 making it align with the sealed event rather than draft event.
The big issue with KTK prices is 1) 2 Mans pay in KTK still. 2) The 1 pack win on Swiss pays in KTK. I understand that WotC wants the drafts to pay in the kind of boosters they need to draft, but every store on the planet is paying in the new stuff when players get to choose. MTGO should be no different. WotC has to acknowledge the glut of KTK on the secondary market and that this draft environment is only going to last another month at best.
FRF/KTK/KTK isnt' as popular a format as 3xKTK. People are holding out for DTK events. Personally I think KTK packs will rise eventually but I'm content to accumulate sets at under 60 ea right now. I think the goal should be to get pack prices around 3.33 across the board and adjust payouts on the fly accordingly (esp 2 mans).
Regarding Holiday Gimick Events. I normally play in the sealed ones that are 10 Phantom packs like the ones for Halloween and Thanksgiving. I certainly am not grinding the format but what else are you spending phantom points on?
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
Do people really play in the gimmick events? They seem really bad, not only EV but they just don't look like a lot of fun.
I played a single Pot O Gold last week the night before maintenance and it made me regret not playing them all week. It seemed like only I and my finals opponent knew what we were doing (granted, it was very fortunate for me that my theoretical strategy panned out the first try).
The prize structure is awful, but you have to consider how bad the average skill level in the queue is, how secretly degenerate is the format, and of course that intangible fun factor. Mono ARB seems broken and in a way that wasn't collectively understood by all players so it was fun for me. I expect random formats like Spooky Sealed and the bird one to be less exciting (in terms of crushing people) because there are too many cards to craft a powerful strategy.
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Which policies?
Odyssey block drafts happened recently.
Goyf dropped since it was announced in MMA2.
Birthing Pod got banned in modern which hit a bunch of cards (pod, voice, linvala, angel of thune, pontiff). And scapeshift basically died.
So there's lots of fluctuation. The difficult thing to understand was why haven't VMA prices gone up. The prices for eternal cards go back up after being out of circulation for a while (like flashback drafts)
Too many to summarize, but:
1 (long ago) - The impact of Alara rarity has reduced the amount of sets that can be redeemed. Disregarding foils, In Lorwyn era, one set could theoretically be redeemed for each 80/55 packs (large set/small set), now it's 121/80. This reduces the minimum prices in-print singles can fall to.
2 (significant) - The impact of the $20 increase in redemption fees. This simply reduces the value of full sets by $20, and thus the singles in a pack by ~16c (large sets) or 25c (small).
Those two lower in-print singles prices.
3 (not a WotC policy) - Falling singles prices make it harder to 'go infinite' through drafting, suppressing demand for boosters. (This would in turn slightly increase singles prices, except that prices are *solely* driven by redemption at the moment for most redeemable sets)
4 (not a WotC policy) - Reductions in the chance to 'go infinite' in limited push more grinders into Constructed.
5 (the most important point) - WotC policy of awarding the same packs for all Constructed events means the market gets flooded to ridiculous levels with the present set.
6 - Higher supply of recent packs, lower demand - these combine to terrible prices, which makes Constructed unappealing.
You can blame the following on Lee Sharp:
1)Bad daily event schedule (I do not follow momir so I don't know what's going on with it)
2)KTK booster prices
3) MOCS promos
4)Gimmick events
Momir doesn't affect prices except for the momir avatar. I feel this complaint is not what this thread is about and is better served in the complain about mtgo thread.
He hasn't done anything to address KTK booster prices. So he's doing a bad job. It took Turian months to make changes. I figured Lee would make changes after a few weeks of complaints/data. But I don't think the OP is complaining about KTK booster prices.
As for MOCS promos I think they're fine. They're reprinting 10-15 ticket standard playable cards, which is useful to more people. It's better than cryptborn horror or entomb. But I'd rather just see them pick a top 5 expensive card and reprint it. They're improving, but clearly they could do more.
Gimmick phantom events have to be popular otherwise they wouldn't have them. If they weren't phantom then the prices of cards would drop even more, which is what the OP is asking about. So this complaint should also be in the complaint thread.
We were hoping for a boost to block with the new event schedule. It seems to have hurt participation. (EV is likely the other factor).
I understand Momir. I love the format and would like to see more MTGO only formats like it, but there is no reason for it to take a daily slot.
They killed M15 Sealed which was needed. It never fired. (Fortunately I was able to trade my last M15 packs for nearly 4 each a 1 tix profit from where i bought them).
I agree with Rickster_. Mocs promo's are better than they were. It shouldn't be the reason you grind MOCS. If the EV of MOCS itself isn't enough they can look at that. (See Grand Prix Promo's for what I think they are going with here).
ALA block drafts might fire, maybe this is a test of the water. LLM wasn't nearly as popular as SSE last time they did it (EV might have had something to do with that).
They did change the payouts of sealed daily events on 3 wins to 3/3 rather than 4/2 making it align with the sealed event rather than draft event.
The big issue with KTK prices is 1) 2 Mans pay in KTK still. 2) The 1 pack win on Swiss pays in KTK. I understand that WotC wants the drafts to pay in the kind of boosters they need to draft, but every store on the planet is paying in the new stuff when players get to choose. MTGO should be no different. WotC has to acknowledge the glut of KTK on the secondary market and that this draft environment is only going to last another month at best.
FRF/KTK/KTK isnt' as popular a format as 3xKTK. People are holding out for DTK events. Personally I think KTK packs will rise eventually but I'm content to accumulate sets at under 60 ea right now. I think the goal should be to get pack prices around 3.33 across the board and adjust payouts on the fly accordingly (esp 2 mans).
Regarding Holiday Gimick Events. I normally play in the sealed ones that are 10 Phantom packs like the ones for Halloween and Thanksgiving. I certainly am not grinding the format but what else are you spending phantom points on?
I played a single Pot O Gold last week the night before maintenance and it made me regret not playing them all week. It seemed like only I and my finals opponent knew what we were doing (granted, it was very fortunate for me that my theoretical strategy panned out the first try).
The prize structure is awful, but you have to consider how bad the average skill level in the queue is, how secretly degenerate is the format, and of course that intangible fun factor. Mono ARB seems broken and in a way that wasn't collectively understood by all players so it was fun for me. I expect random formats like Spooky Sealed and the bird one to be less exciting (in terms of crushing people) because there are too many cards to craft a powerful strategy.