MTG Salvation

Would now be the best time to buy goyfs?
Any chance they'll get lower?
Or maybe reprinted in iconic masters?
What about walking ballista? Will they go down much after rotation?

I currently have grixis shadow appart from scalding tarns and uw control.
Eldrazi Tron but missing chalice and ballista.

I'm also looking to buy into bg decks as I've always loved their gameplay.
Thing is, I'm building too many decks right? And not completing any of them.

Quote from Davidalb »

Would now be the best time to buy goyfs?
Any chance they'll get lower?
Or maybe reprinted in iconic masters?
What about walking ballista? Will they go down much after rotation?

I currently have grixis shadow appart from scalding tarns and uw control.
Eldrazi Tron but missing chalice and ballista.

I'm also looking to buy into bg decks as I've always loved their gameplay.
Thing is, I'm building too many decks right? And not completing any of them.

It's doubtful that Goyfs will get a reprint. Few decks are even using him these days though. I doubt the price will go much lower without a reprint as they're already hovering at around 60. I'd scoop them up now if you need them. Iconic Masters is a crapshoot. There's zero info about the set and what WotC considers as "iconic" so it's anyone's guess. My prediction would be no. Tarmogoyf was just reprinted in Modern Masters this year and if they keep reprinting it without some restraint, they'll crush it's value. I'd say it's probably as good a time as ever to get Goyf.

Walking Balista is another story. It's a 4 of in couple of different standard decks... so if that trend keeps up, then yes. It will likely drop in price. However, remember that Kaladesh Block isn't rotating out for over a year. If the Walking Balista decks fall out of favor with the inclusion of new sets, that price could dip between now and when the set rotates out of standard. It's probably just better to get the Ballistas if you need them now, unless waiting a year to see how the price changes doesn't bother you.

And yes, it would be best just to focus on one deck. Many of the expensive pieces in a deck are expensive because they are usually important pieces to the deck that aren't easily replaced, so you you just end up with a bunch of decks that are pretty subpar.

Quote from Ember_Twilight »

Quote from The Fluff »

Hi. Is this a good time to buy a playset of Verdant Catacombs? Really need them for my GB deck. Or is it better to wait? Any chance the enemy fetches would be reprinted again this year?

In 2017? Probably not. There's an outside chance they're in Iconic Masters, but probably not. Pretty safe to buy.

Ok, thanks for that. I don't really have enough to get a playset, but for sure I will get at least one Verdant next month when the salary money arrives. Need to replace the single Bloodstained Mire that my deck is using to fetch the single basic swamp...

Quote from Davidalb »

Would now be the best time to buy goyfs?
Any chance they'll get lower?
Or maybe reprinted in iconic masters?
What about walking ballista? Will they go down much after rotation?

I currently have grixis shadow appart from scalding tarns and uw control.
Eldrazi Tron but missing chalice and ballista.

I'm also looking to buy into bg decks as I've always loved their gameplay.
Thing is, I'm building too many decks right? And not completing any of them.

Hmm, with the recent lowering of prices.... gave me the strong feeling that goyf might get reprinted one more time this year which could drive down prices to about 50 each. Was supposed to buy another goyf this month, but chose to use the money to buy some shockland and fast lands instead.

Quote from FourDogsInAHorseSuit »

Buy or sell: Foil CoCos. I'm planning to use them in about four months when the first Iaxlan set comes out.

I would hold them. They're the kind of card that only get better with time.

Thoughts on Grove of the Burnwillows?

With a lack of play of traditional RG Tron and what looks like about a 2 year low, is there any more room for this to fall? Would it be wiser to see if it gets a reprint in Iconic Masters? Thoughts?

Well RG Tron isn't the only deck Grove of the Burnwillows is used in. Some Living End lists also play it and it's a 4 of in Lands in Legacy. Also foil prices have been going up.

In the case of just about all the really old cards their prices are basically always going to be inflated. The selling environment just encourages the prices to stay that way even with reprints, which basically is why Thoughtseize even with a standard reprint maintained a price of around 16 dollars during Theros release. It actually took the modern meta becoming unfavorable to the card for it to drop down to it's historic low of 11 usd during Aether Revolts release.

Quote from Colt47 »

In the case of just about all the really old cards their prices are basically always going to be inflated. The selling environment just encourages the prices to stay that way even with reprints, which basically is why Thoughtseize even with a standard reprint maintained a price of around 16 dollars during Theros release. It actually took the modern meta becoming unfavorable to the card for it to drop down to it's historic low of 11 usd during Aether Revolts release.

Your Thoughtseize example lacks context. Thoughtseize commanded a price of nearly 50 bucks before the Theros reprint. Also, Thoughtseize was a 4 of in the top Standard deck at the time, while also being a 4 of in Jund, a modern top deck at the time and it also saw some play in legacy. So, despite adding more copies of the card into the market, it also gained a bunch of demand for Standard play. 16 bucks for a 4 of in the top played deck in a not very diverse standard seems pretty normal.

I don't necessarily disagree with you evaluation that some modern prices on older cards are slightly inflated; I just don't agree with your Thoughtseize example.

Quote from LeoTzu »

Quote from Colt47 »

In the case of just about all the really old cards their prices are basically always going to be inflated. The selling environment just encourages the prices to stay that way even with reprints, which basically is why Thoughtseize even with a standard reprint maintained a price of around 16 dollars during Theros release. It actually took the modern meta becoming unfavorable to the card for it to drop down to it's historic low of 11 usd during Aether Revolts release.

Your Thoughtseize example lacks context. Thoughtseize commanded a price of nearly 50 bucks before the Theros reprint. Also, Thoughtseize was a 4 of in the top Standard deck at the time, while also being a 4 of in Jund, a modern top deck at the time and it also saw some play in legacy. So, despite adding more copies of the card into the market, it also gained a bunch of demand for Standard play. 16 bucks for a 4 of in the top played deck in a not very diverse standard seems pretty normal.

I don't necessarily disagree with you evaluation that some modern prices on older cards are slightly inflated; I just don't agree with your Thoughtseize example.

In addition to that, thoughtseize was one of the few efficient ways of dealing with gods.
It is played in every format that it is legal in:
by current top cards by mtggoldfish
modern #4
legacy #13
edh #12

Quote from Pokerkingdave »

Quote from LeoTzu »

Quote from Colt47 »

In the case of just about all the really old cards their prices are basically always going to be inflated. The selling environment just encourages the prices to stay that way even with reprints, which basically is why Thoughtseize even with a standard reprint maintained a price of around 16 dollars during Theros release. It actually took the modern meta becoming unfavorable to the card for it to drop down to it's historic low of 11 usd during Aether Revolts release.

Your Thoughtseize example lacks context. Thoughtseize commanded a price of nearly 50 bucks before the Theros reprint. Also, Thoughtseize was a 4 of in the top Standard deck at the time, while also being a 4 of in Jund, a modern top deck at the time and it also saw some play in legacy. So, despite adding more copies of the card into the market, it also gained a bunch of demand for Standard play. 16 bucks for a 4 of in the top played deck in a not very diverse standard seems pretty normal.

I don't necessarily disagree with you evaluation that some modern prices on older cards are slightly inflated; I just don't agree with your Thoughtseize example.

In addition to that, thoughtseize was one of the few efficient ways of dealing with gods.
It is played in every format that it is legal in:
by current top cards by mtggoldfish
modern #4
legacy #13
edh #12

Right, the high level of play alone even with a heavy opening is still going to force the card to have an inflated price compared to other cards. Unfortunately the model used for distribution is about supporting draft more than meeting demand.

Quote from Colt47 »

Quote from Pokerkingdave »

Quote from LeoTzu »

Quote from Colt47 »

In the case of just about all the really old cards their prices are basically always going to be inflated. The selling environment just encourages the prices to stay that way even with reprints, which basically is why Thoughtseize even with a standard reprint maintained a price of around 16 dollars during Theros release. It actually took the modern meta becoming unfavorable to the card for it to drop down to it's historic low of 11 usd during Aether Revolts release.

Your Thoughtseize example lacks context. Thoughtseize commanded a price of nearly 50 bucks before the Theros reprint. Also, Thoughtseize was a 4 of in the top Standard deck at the time, while also being a 4 of in Jund, a modern top deck at the time and it also saw some play in legacy. So, despite adding more copies of the card into the market, it also gained a bunch of demand for Standard play. 16 bucks for a 4 of in the top played deck in a not very diverse standard seems pretty normal.

I don't necessarily disagree with you evaluation that some modern prices on older cards are slightly inflated; I just don't agree with your Thoughtseize example.

In addition to that, thoughtseize was one of the few efficient ways of dealing with gods.
It is played in every format that it is legal in:
by current top cards by mtggoldfish
modern #4
legacy #13
edh #12

Right, the high level of play alone even with a heavy opening is still going to force the card to have an inflated price compared to other cards. Unfortunately the model used for distribution is about supporting draft more than meeting demand.

What's your definition of inflated though? It's simple supply and demand. The card had high demand coming from all format. Normally, standard wouldn't even be a factor in its price, but since it became standard legal, that market put strain on the price too.

So, we have greatly increased supply, which dropped the price considerably, followed by heavily increased demand, which corrected the price back upwards. The end result was a card that cost a mere 30% of its previous cost. 16$ a pop actually seems quite reasonable, rather than inflated, for Thoughtseize during those conditions.

Ask someone what sounds like an inflated price to them and you'll get different answers from each person for a given product. My own take on it goes into subjects best left for elsewhere.

I'd say a card's price is inflated if it's still holding onto its old value despite declining in use and plenty of supply available. You could call this "price memory". It's not that hard to believe that individuals or stores that bought into a card at a certain price would want to get their value back out of it whether it's justified or not.

You could also say that Standard's effect on price is another form of inflation because it's temporary for cards that won't see play in non-rotating formats. A card from recent memory that comes to mind is Thundermaw Hellkite. I remember wanting to build a dragon deck when it was in Standard, and the price was over $20 each. That's a really inflated price IMHO even if it was fair at the time. And even today at $7 I think it's inflated.

Well, I tend to be of the opinion that spikes and net decking are a big factor in the expense in modern as it is one of the formats that supports that kind of behavior. If wizards had a different printing policy to support modern demand on cards things would be different, but they mostly care about modern for it's marketing potential. That and wizards isn't controlling the prices of singles, the secondary market is. Cards like Karn, Liberated would be sold out instead of lingering at 60+ dollars otherwise.

Quote from Colt47 »

Well, I tend to be of the opinion that spikes and net decking are a big factor in the expense in modern as it is one of the formats that supports that kind of behavior. If wizards had a different printing policy to support modern demand on cards things would be different, but they mostly care about modern for it's marketing potential. That and wizards isn't controlling the prices of singles, the secondary market is. Cards like Karn, Liberated would be sold out instead of lingering at 60+ dollars otherwise.

Yeah, for Modern they print a set every 2 years, charge 2.5x the price of a regular pack ($10 vs $4), and make the most desirable cards mythic (regardless of original rarity) so it doesn't help drive the price down much if at all. I'm not spending $10 for a small chance at a good card. I'd wager most of the MM product is opened by singles sellers.

Speaking of Karn, he's going to keep going up I think. I paid $120 for my paper pair, and I will eventually get two more to run a full Gx Tron list.

Quote from The Ceaseless Hunger »

Quote from Colt47 »

Well, I tend to be of the opinion that spikes and net decking are a big factor in the expense in modern as it is one of the formats that supports that kind of behavior. If wizards had a different printing policy to support modern demand on cards things would be different, but they mostly care about modern for it's marketing potential. That and wizards isn't controlling the prices of singles, the secondary market is. Cards like Karn, Liberated would be sold out instead of lingering at 60+ dollars otherwise.

Yeah, for Modern they print a set every 2 years, charge 2.5x the price of a regular pack ($10 vs $4), and make the most desirable cards mythic (regardless of original rarity) so it doesn't help drive the price down much if at all. I'm not spending $10 for a small chance at a good card. I'd wager most of the MM product is opened by singles sellers.

Speaking of Karn, he's going to keep going up I think. I paid $120 for my paper pair, and I will eventually get two more to run a full Gx Tron list.

This is a case where the market feels like it moved faster than wizards did and wizards is this overweight person trying to chase after the entire thing. If they had regularly priced reprint sets instead of luxury ones I think a lot more people would be happy and it seems WoTC agrees with this, given they are now bringing back core sets next summer. Unfortunately, it looks like we still have to deal with two over priced luxury sets coming out the gate.

Price is a function of supply and demand. A card being overpriced means that the price of the card is above where the demand and supply curves intersect (in a hypothetical supply and demand economic model). What causes overpricing is often delayed effects such as price memory or future expectations. Standard isn't exactly an example of overpricing as the price of standard cards usually reflects the amount of play it receives in both standard and all other formats. Karn is likely overpriced right now due to price memory as well as future expectations (likely not going to be reprinted soon and thus supply on the market will likely fall).

Prismatic Omen seems to be sold out everywhere. Does anyone know if this is a buyout? I've been wanting to get 2 English copies for my deck since I have Chinese ones right now, but it looks like it might not happen.

EDIT> Looks like it's just a few stores. Some places still have them...

There seem to be a few English listings on Ebay for under $20.

Quote from Tanukimo »

There seem to be a few English listings on Ebay for under $20.

It's odd to me. I noticed that 6 online stores were sold out, but then I went to a very popular one (not SCG or CFB because they're sold out) and they had 40 Nm copies. It's really odd to me. Sorry, I don't know buyout trends too well. I just assume that someone goes to every store online and buys them out.

Maybe this is just a lack of availability for some reason? It does seem like a decent spec since Titanshift is picking up steam, most lists now run some Omen, and it has only been printed once in an old set.

Quote from ET1 »

Price is a function of supply and demand. A card being overpriced means that the price of the card is above where the demand and supply curves intersect (in a hypothetical supply and demand economic model). What causes overpricing is often delayed effects such as price memory or future expectations. Standard isn't exactly an example of overpricing as the price of standard cards usually reflects the amount of play it receives in both standard and all other formats. Karn is likely overpriced right now due to price memory as well as future expectations (likely not going to be reprinted soon and thus supply on the market will likely fall).

Price is a function of how well the company is addressing demand, which it is absolutely not doing despite people saying they want the cards. Instead, what they have done is basically "Oh, you want the cards. Let our marketing team figure out the prices and we'll get back to you. Oh okay, people are paying 80+ for the card, so we'll put it in here at mythic for you in the masters set that we charge 240 msrp for. Here you go!"

This isn't addressing demand, it's using the lack of availability on the secondary market to maximize profits. It doesn't help players or collectors and it just drives speculators into a frenzy. I don't know, I just think the entire TCG model seems like it is difficult to run in a world where people can never forget about older cards. They got this slowly growing pool of cards that needs to be managed and even though a Arcbound Ravager may be 40 usd today, people still remember when it was 15 dollars and that is the kind of price a lot of players expect from heavily played cards. That and their penchant for novelty over playability in standard is getting a bit long in tooth.

Yeah, Porphyry Nodes definitely spiked. Went from ~$2 to ~$10 on TCG a couple days ago. Looks like nobody's buying it at that price, though.

Quote from LEH »

Quote from Seymour_TUBES »

Yeah, Porphyry Nodes definitely spiked. Went from ~$2 to ~$10 on TCG a couple days ago. Looks like nobody's buying it at that price, though.

Do you know why it spiked? Is it new tech in UW Control or something? Yeah, I'm glad I got mine when they were jank 20p rares or something.

It's speculation due to legacy. There was a lot of talk over drop of honey and how it's not hard to splash for the node over the reserved list card. Since the market cost to own that monopoly estate was low people jumped on it.