You can call ebay customer service and explain the situation so they can look into it. Otherwise not sure. I know I've had to report shady or downright scammy sellers on ebay like that before via calling ebay customer service and that worked out okay. No guarantee that anything will be done, but if an individual seller does have 3 accounts and ebay can verify that along with any sort of suspicious activity it would go a long way towards them being able to do something at least. Anyhow, thanks for letting us know :).
Basically an online store that a business runs (like troll and toad, channel fireball, starcity games, and a ton of others out there) are not in the market for quick sells, they may occasionally have sales that make some of their cards cheaper than a lot of places temporarily, but generally their prices will naturally be higher than what you can find on ebay/tcplayer. For multi-seller sites like tcgplayer and ebay, the sellers have to deal with things like ebay/paypal fees, or tcgplayer/paypal fees typically, so while the prices will be lower they are still not as low as you may be able to find via other means, such as the aforementioned sick deals group. If you want the guarantees that come with ebay/tcplayer or the peace of mind that comes with buying from a highly reputable online store, but want to pay less than the lowest prices available from ebay/tcgplayer for established sellers, I could be wrong, but as far as I know, no such place currently exists. As with all things, you get what you pay for. If you want a seller with a high rep or a well known online store, you are going to pay more to account for that, as well as paying for the additional costs that go into running said online/physical stores or with the added fees that the sellers have to deal with when it comes to ebay/tcgplayer or the like. Basically ebay/tcgplayer typically have the best combination of a guarantee along with lower prices.
If I'm off the mark with what you are looking for, feel free to elaborate, but typically price+shipping lowest first on the search parameters on ebay (you can choose auction or buy it now or both if you want are one way to search out the best deals and just keep checking back as new listings get put up (though the lowest price stuff tends to get grabbed up FAST if someone who is looking to offload quick has their prices solidly below everyone else). Occasionally auctions on ebay can be a way to get some crazy good deals if you luck out on the timing of the bids, but that's no guarantee obviously. As far as tcgplayer goes, you can look at price lowest first, or price+shipping lowest first in the search parameters for cards and make use of their excellent combined shipping system to make for solid potential savings depending upon what you are looking for. Otherwise you are going to be looking for sites that lack a guarantee and selling fees but have cheaper deals (like I imagine the sick deals group). As far as trading goes, I'm not really a trader when it comes to doing so online, so I'll leave that to others who would know better there.
Honestly, ebay or tcgplayer both are fine enough for quick sales, a lot of the time people are just looking for the lowest price possible, regardless of whether the person selling has 1,000+ feedbacks to their account. One just has to be willing to offer their cards up at lower prices than everyone else and you would be surprised how quickly the cards can sell. I know when I am looking to purchase items on ebay I always look for price+shipping lowest first, and then look for the best deals I can find (good feedback is also important obviously, but with ebay/paypal protections for buyers it makes it a bit easier to go with someone without a ton of sales but still good overall feedback (no negatives)).
I was curious at the price mentioned for goyfs and went and checked on tcgplayer and ebay respectively and currently the cheapest possible playset on tcgplayer would be a combination of 3 goyfs (2 different editions) from 1 seller on tcgplayer and 1 goyf from a 2nd seller on tcgplayer for a total cost plus shipping of $255 (it goes up a decent amount after that) and those would be for LP copies.
On ebay you are looking at around $235 for a playset (LP condition) from a single seller, or $240 for a playset (NM condition) from a combination of 4 different sellers.
For those interested, its important to remember to always double check prices by looking manually at what is actually listed for each version of a card rather than looking at something like the price as low as on the summary page for the different editions of a card (those numbers are WAY off and I'm not sure why that is, there must be a glitch in their system that doesn't update that for some reason), though it does show the correct numbers for that when you go into the individual edition of a card (IE: 2017 masters goyf specifically).
It is kind of crazy to see goyf as low as it is now, but I suppose it was inevitable as the card kept getting reprinted. Right now though it seems to be available for as low as about $60-$65 per card (shipped).
With that all said, I think its inevitable that the card will continue to get reprinted. Its a high enough value modern available card that it would be foolish for wizards to not keep reprinting it if it can help sell packs. So as was mentioned by KnickM, basically you have to decide whether you need it now for a deck (then now is a perfectly fine time to buy to be able to use it), or if not, then honestly I think waiting is fine, it will trend back up until its next reprint and then drop lower again. I don't think there really can be a theoretical bottom for the card (though I suspect there may be some resistance at the $50 level just because $200 for a set is a nice large round number and all), but inevitably it just depends on supply/demand.
I will have to agree with the ebay gift card suggestion. Honestly prices on ebay tend to be the lowest you will find most places, occasionally tcgplayer is cheaper, but I would say in general ebay is the better and more flexible option (if you need something other than cards, the ebay gift card can help there too.
Back when I was still at the shop I used to own/run the magic singles/older sealed product at, and where I would help run and judge the events, a friend of mine decided to play in a booster draft. He didn't do it all that often, but had time and decided to give it a shot. In this case it was the release draft for Scars of Mirrodin. Koth of the Hammer was the big planeswalker hotness at the time for the set, I think koth was something like $40, and the foil was, well I'm not even sure, probably $70-$80. Anyhow, everyone gets their packs, and my friend goes to open his first pack, and says, I'm going to open a foil Koth, you just watch. I see him open the sealed pack that he had been given from a fresh box and sure enough, he just starts busting up, and sets down a foil koth from the pack to the amazement of everyone. Not only that, but the person next to him (a kid who loved angels and artifacts especially), ends up opening a foil indomitable archangel, and a regular koth. The kid saw the foil angel and immediately grabbed that, and passed the pack (basically the kid got the exact card he wanted and in foil no less), and thusly my friend got a regular koth on top of the foil one. I mean, seriously. He called his first pack opening of the foil koth, and then gets passed another. What are the odds? (And yes, that means that box had 2 foil mythics in it). We did ask the kid after if he knew how much koth was worth, and the kid said yeah, but the foil angel was the card he wanted, so he didn't care about passing the koth. Hard to argue with that.
Didn't developers say they'd be hit by a bus before they reprint Mana Drain?
Guess someone was unlucky.
That was meant more specifically for a normal standard set if I recall the reference. Reprint sets that don't affect which formats such cards can be played in wouldn't count towards that obviously :p.
That card only sees play on VINTAGE and on some multiplayer commander lists. Blergh.
EDIT: I like how my posts are in stark opposition to MrMime133 back-to-back, heh.
Seriously what is wrong with some of you. They could give out gold bullion and some would *****.
Oh yeah, please tell me in how many decks that so needed reprint will slot in.
It is not just about which list you are others are running now. Vintage is dead yes but Commander is not and is arguably the most popular format right now. Commander lists are not running Drain because it is a super high dollar card. When the price goes down and people have access it will be in literally tons of EDH decks. You tell me how many blue based EDH decks don't want Mana Drain?
Just like everyone is running mana crypt after the printing of eternal masters right? It sure dropped in price and helped everyone get the card and... oh wait.
It dropped from a 150 dollar card to a 60 dollar card. And it was increeeedibly rare before. Can't see how this will make the card more affordable for the everyday commander player.
Except you need to actually pull back the price chart to when EMA was released (bar at the bottom of the price chart). Mana Crypt was going for right around $170 for the original version before the reprint, now its under $100 for that version. The EMA version started in pre-sales at $130, dropped down to $60 and has since recovered to $75. Which is still less than half of the price of the original mana crypt before EMA was released. I would say the reprint succeeded quite well at increasing supply and reducing price accordingly. Reprints can and do lower the price of cards in the time after the release of the reprint set. Even for mythics in such masters sets. Karakas as another poster mentioned is another good example of old cards getting reprints. Mana Drains from iconic masters should be significantly lower than the current legends prices are, and with the increased supply will provide more opportunities for those interested in the card to be able to get them to use in their decks (Whether commander or otherwise).
Is the cat tribal deck the only reason why Nacatl War-Pride has jumped from an 63 cent common to a $2+ common?
I would assume its more to do that its a unique card that hasn't been reprinted.
I'm sure both reasons are why its spiked, but there has clearly been a buyout though, or just a ton of people all going for the card at the same time. Either way, the card firstly is an UNCOMMON, not a common from future sight, and secondly has always been a popular card among casual players, I know I would sell them fairly consistently at the shop over the years since the release of the set. I checked on ebay and tcgplayer and on ebay there is only one listing that hasn't gotten bought out yet at $15 for a playset with no other listings at all available (English copies), and tcgplayer has one seller with non-foils (NM copies) available at $6 per card. I think supply should even out soon enough on that once people realize the spike/buyout happened, which should bring it back down to earth some at least, but in the meantime, they look to be quite hard to find and much more expensive to purchase than they were just a few days ago.
Honestly there isn't much point in looking at existing decklists, because before a couple of days ago, the decks running a bunch of planeswalkers had no use for the card. These things usually take some time to update if I recall correctly. However I imagine now that we have the planeswalker/legendary change that we will start seeing more decks running such a card. Now whether that is worth its current $10 price tag on ebay is another thing entirely. I honestly don't know what the increased demand will do in the long term to the card's value but I do believe that a decent increase due to more potential uses now that planeswalkers are legendary too is perfectly reasonable. One thing I have learned about spikes though, is that inevitably supply eventually reacts to the increase in price/demand and eventually things balance out again with the price back down to a more reasonable one. Whether it settles at $8 or $6 or $5 however will remain to be seen. It seems like any land that can tap for multiple mana even if it does come into play tapped has potential for decent use under the right circumstances. The land will never be a bulk/Dollar rare again, but I doubt it sticks around $10 for too long, even being from the very under-opened kamigawa block.
As a side note to buying and holding. Back several years ago, buying and holding was still a reasonable option, all sorts of cards from zendikar block and earlier (from right when the playerbase started rocketing up to the moon), ended up going sky high, I know I saw a large portion of my collection at the shop increase dramatically in value from 2009-2012, in part because I ended up buying/holding the non-standard/rotated stuff because I didn't have time to deal with the older stuff on a regular basis. However these days as I work to sell off my collection (keep getting busy with lots of other stuff (mostly family stuff) and still have lots to go), each new set with reprints in it (mostly commander esque products or masters sets) I have to watch like a hawk and hope that it doesn't hit a ton of stuff that I still have left to sell that I hadn't gotten around to yet since reprints can really put a dent in a lot of cards values. Reprints are good for the game, for the record, but isn't so good when you are sitting on a massive collection.
Anyhow, the point of that story was this: Be careful about buying and holding, if its modern stuff you have to worry about any reprint products and modern masters. If its pre-modern stuff you have to worry about eternal or similar masters products and other reprint products. The reserved list is about the only safe place, but even then there can be such massive fluctuations that it can be a pain to figure out what would be worth investing in or not, and a lot of the reserved list stuff tends to be stable for quite some time ... until it suddenly isn't, and even then theres no guarantee any new higher prices will stick after a buyout or otherwise. So just be safe, don't invest too much, and even when you are talking about an upcoming ... say ... commander product with themes like this last one, without knowing the full extent of the decklist yet there is every chance you could end up with a winner as you could end up with something that gets reprinted and could drop in value potentially significantly depending upon what it is due to the added supply.
As was said in the previous post though, its easier to both gain and lose more from investing in a ton of lower valued cards than it is in picking cards that are on the reserved list and relatively stable. Just like with investing in stocks in the market, you have to decide just how much risk you are willing to accept, the more risky stocks can have the potential for more gains, but also the potential for greater losses, while the less risky stocks (the blue chip stocks, lets call them dual lands), are likely to remain fairly stable which means less chances of significant losses, but also less change of significant gains. Personally I've always been a more safe investor when it comes down to it, though until I get my collection sold off I still have significant risk from reprints for a large part of my collection.
The best way to invest though is by keeping up on as much information and knowledge of cards and their uses in the game as possible, so when something like a rules change like the planeswalkers/legendary stuff happens, you can think about what cards will benefit from that, and go to town, but as always you have to be quick because there are 1,000's or more people in the same position doing the exact same thing at the exact same time so its easy to miss out, and even then not all stores will honor sales made right before a spike sadly, but such is the way things are unfortunately, such stores put their own short-term profits above good PR and good customer service.
Anyhow, I'm rambling a bit at this point, I hope some of that information was useful at least, and as before good luck :).
UPDATE: Save $15 on purchases of $75+ using the code "POSTECLIPSE15" -- ends 8/26 at 6:00pm PDT.
Thanks for the heads up, was able to catch a couple of things right before it ended, I have to start remembering to check the ebay main page at least a couple times a day just in case.
I don't mind putting in some work and a little investment to figure out that some cards will most likely increase with value based on the reserved list or new product release of commander product. Seems like I have been on the other side of that equation a lot. For example, the new Commander product with Vampires was spoiled, and released 2 days ago. I picked it up, and next week, I am going to order some really great vampire commander cards which are probably already listed on EDHREC, and I will probably spend much more on them than if I had bought them 2 weeks ago.
I am mostly looking for the best methods to manage this. I am not interested in trading people for cards, or harassing people at local stores to buy cards off them for cheap. I want to buy like 10 Vampire cards for $2 each that seem good 2 weeks before the product releases, then sell them for 300% markup 2 weeks after the product releases. Another perspective would be to buy cards like fetch lands for $6 each when they are in the current set, then hold them for 6 months, then sell them when they are going for $20 each. I reliably spend money on cards when they are more expensive, so if I can do the inverse on some cards, it can help fund my costs to play the game. I am just wondering what is the best method for doing that? Probably TCGPlayer or EBay?
A lot of that is keeping up on information online for various new products or tournament results each weekend to see what cards have potential going forward, or what products will be coming out soon that could benefit from certain cards and going after those. Its a lot of intuition and lucky timing a lot of the time. Price spikes after tournament results or when new products are revealed can happen very quickly, and even then you will find that some stores will cancel orders when a spike occurs, so its always better to get more than enough for your needs than less. There is no surefire way to be able to make a quick and easy profit, that's for sure, but a little knowledge can go a long way. I would make yourself aware of all of the online stores out there that consistently stock singles, as well as all of the sites like tcgplayer and such that multiple stores and sellers use, as well as of course ebay. Anyhow, all I can say with the mtg buying/selling process is good luck. And as always the more effort you are willing to put in, the greater chance of potential profit in the long run. Just be aware that there are costs to buying online as well as selling online (shipping costs, selling fees, etc etc), so its important to factor that into the buying/selling process as you go.
Did Bolt spike in price? Last I checked it was around $3. Now it's, like, $4-$5.
Assuming you are referring to lightning bolt You can still find them for as low as $2 shipped for NM copies on tcgplayer, and there are a ton still available below $3.
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If I'm off the mark with what you are looking for, feel free to elaborate, but typically price+shipping lowest first on the search parameters on ebay (you can choose auction or buy it now or both if you want are one way to search out the best deals and just keep checking back as new listings get put up (though the lowest price stuff tends to get grabbed up FAST if someone who is looking to offload quick has their prices solidly below everyone else). Occasionally auctions on ebay can be a way to get some crazy good deals if you luck out on the timing of the bids, but that's no guarantee obviously. As far as tcgplayer goes, you can look at price lowest first, or price+shipping lowest first in the search parameters for cards and make use of their excellent combined shipping system to make for solid potential savings depending upon what you are looking for. Otherwise you are going to be looking for sites that lack a guarantee and selling fees but have cheaper deals (like I imagine the sick deals group). As far as trading goes, I'm not really a trader when it comes to doing so online, so I'll leave that to others who would know better there.
On ebay you are looking at around $235 for a playset (LP condition) from a single seller, or $240 for a playset (NM condition) from a combination of 4 different sellers.
For those interested, its important to remember to always double check prices by looking manually at what is actually listed for each version of a card rather than looking at something like the price as low as on the summary page for the different editions of a card (those numbers are WAY off and I'm not sure why that is, there must be a glitch in their system that doesn't update that for some reason), though it does show the correct numbers for that when you go into the individual edition of a card (IE: 2017 masters goyf specifically).
It is kind of crazy to see goyf as low as it is now, but I suppose it was inevitable as the card kept getting reprinted. Right now though it seems to be available for as low as about $60-$65 per card (shipped).
With that all said, I think its inevitable that the card will continue to get reprinted. Its a high enough value modern available card that it would be foolish for wizards to not keep reprinting it if it can help sell packs. So as was mentioned by KnickM, basically you have to decide whether you need it now for a deck (then now is a perfectly fine time to buy to be able to use it), or if not, then honestly I think waiting is fine, it will trend back up until its next reprint and then drop lower again. I don't think there really can be a theoretical bottom for the card (though I suspect there may be some resistance at the $50 level just because $200 for a set is a nice large round number and all), but inevitably it just depends on supply/demand.
That was meant more specifically for a normal standard set if I recall the reference. Reprint sets that don't affect which formats such cards can be played in wouldn't count towards that obviously :p.
Except you need to actually pull back the price chart to when EMA was released (bar at the bottom of the price chart). Mana Crypt was going for right around $170 for the original version before the reprint, now its under $100 for that version. The EMA version started in pre-sales at $130, dropped down to $60 and has since recovered to $75. Which is still less than half of the price of the original mana crypt before EMA was released. I would say the reprint succeeded quite well at increasing supply and reducing price accordingly. Reprints can and do lower the price of cards in the time after the release of the reprint set. Even for mythics in such masters sets. Karakas as another poster mentioned is another good example of old cards getting reprints. Mana Drains from iconic masters should be significantly lower than the current legends prices are, and with the increased supply will provide more opportunities for those interested in the card to be able to get them to use in their decks (Whether commander or otherwise).
I'm sure both reasons are why its spiked, but there has clearly been a buyout though, or just a ton of people all going for the card at the same time. Either way, the card firstly is an UNCOMMON, not a common from future sight, and secondly has always been a popular card among casual players, I know I would sell them fairly consistently at the shop over the years since the release of the set. I checked on ebay and tcgplayer and on ebay there is only one listing that hasn't gotten bought out yet at $15 for a playset with no other listings at all available (English copies), and tcgplayer has one seller with non-foils (NM copies) available at $6 per card. I think supply should even out soon enough on that once people realize the spike/buyout happened, which should bring it back down to earth some at least, but in the meantime, they look to be quite hard to find and much more expensive to purchase than they were just a few days ago.
Just checked ebay and its still available there for $3 for NM copies. Not sure what caused the spike though.
Anyhow, the point of that story was this: Be careful about buying and holding, if its modern stuff you have to worry about any reprint products and modern masters. If its pre-modern stuff you have to worry about eternal or similar masters products and other reprint products. The reserved list is about the only safe place, but even then there can be such massive fluctuations that it can be a pain to figure out what would be worth investing in or not, and a lot of the reserved list stuff tends to be stable for quite some time ... until it suddenly isn't, and even then theres no guarantee any new higher prices will stick after a buyout or otherwise. So just be safe, don't invest too much, and even when you are talking about an upcoming ... say ... commander product with themes like this last one, without knowing the full extent of the decklist yet there is every chance you could end up with a winner as you could end up with something that gets reprinted and could drop in value potentially significantly depending upon what it is due to the added supply.
As was said in the previous post though, its easier to both gain and lose more from investing in a ton of lower valued cards than it is in picking cards that are on the reserved list and relatively stable. Just like with investing in stocks in the market, you have to decide just how much risk you are willing to accept, the more risky stocks can have the potential for more gains, but also the potential for greater losses, while the less risky stocks (the blue chip stocks, lets call them dual lands), are likely to remain fairly stable which means less chances of significant losses, but also less change of significant gains. Personally I've always been a more safe investor when it comes down to it, though until I get my collection sold off I still have significant risk from reprints for a large part of my collection.
The best way to invest though is by keeping up on as much information and knowledge of cards and their uses in the game as possible, so when something like a rules change like the planeswalkers/legendary stuff happens, you can think about what cards will benefit from that, and go to town, but as always you have to be quick because there are 1,000's or more people in the same position doing the exact same thing at the exact same time so its easy to miss out, and even then not all stores will honor sales made right before a spike sadly, but such is the way things are unfortunately, such stores put their own short-term profits above good PR and good customer service.
Anyhow, I'm rambling a bit at this point, I hope some of that information was useful at least, and as before good luck :).
Thanks for the heads up, was able to catch a couple of things right before it ended, I have to start remembering to check the ebay main page at least a couple times a day just in case.
A lot of that is keeping up on information online for various new products or tournament results each weekend to see what cards have potential going forward, or what products will be coming out soon that could benefit from certain cards and going after those. Its a lot of intuition and lucky timing a lot of the time. Price spikes after tournament results or when new products are revealed can happen very quickly, and even then you will find that some stores will cancel orders when a spike occurs, so its always better to get more than enough for your needs than less. There is no surefire way to be able to make a quick and easy profit, that's for sure, but a little knowledge can go a long way. I would make yourself aware of all of the online stores out there that consistently stock singles, as well as all of the sites like tcgplayer and such that multiple stores and sellers use, as well as of course ebay. Anyhow, all I can say with the mtg buying/selling process is good luck. And as always the more effort you are willing to put in, the greater chance of potential profit in the long run. Just be aware that there are costs to buying online as well as selling online (shipping costs, selling fees, etc etc), so its important to factor that into the buying/selling process as you go.
Assuming you are referring to lightning bolt You can still find them for as low as $2 shipped for NM copies on tcgplayer, and there are a ton still available below $3.