I am on the fence over the price of City of Traitors, because I have currently have 2. I could get 2 more in order to optimize a deck with them later on, or, I could sell them while they're higher now to build something else.
From what I've seen, the price has been falling at a slow but predictably steady rate. Many players are already aware of this card as various stompy decks have gotten more popular and have already been seen in nearly every Legacy tournament over the last year which means the discovery bubble has already passed. On the other hand, it likely has not met its price cap yet which would allow the two factors to cancel out, leaving only a constant rate of growth/decay that explains its linear price decay currently.
Looking at the most recent sets, they do not seem to provide much utility for stompy or sneak/tell/breach decks and in fact offer more sideboard options against them when looking at cards like Damping Sphere and Mistcaller.
After looking through Guilds of Ravnica, I still don't see many cards that provide utility to these kinds of decks, so I predict the price will further fall at a mostly linear rate.
It will finally start to logistically decay to probably $100-$200 two or three months from now after we start to see new sideboard options implemented into tournament decks. I imagine however this trend is only until at least the printing of the next set which will probably include one or two new stompy cards after Wizards starts to print new cards ensure so many archetypes reliant on double lands don't become obsolete and also don't leave investors too short-changed.
But, I don't do any kind of mtg analysis often and this isn't anything formal, I'm not completely sure of what explains the previous price hikes, so are there other factors to be considered or cards that will make the archetypes more popular in Legacy/Vintage? If one more player wins a tournament with a stompy/aggro deck is it really going to make that much of a difference at this point?
City of Traitors got bought out in April, hence the price spike. As a reserve list card that's a 4x in some Legacy decks, it's easy to manipulate the price. People need City to play Eldrazi, and there aren't very many of them and there won't ever be any more printed. So the market will pay what it has to. It has very little to do with new tech being discovered, or old tech being invalidated (there's almost no motion in June, when DRS got hit with the banhammer).
TCG Market is $265, but you can get two LP copies from reputable sellers for about $215 each. If you're considering playing a City deck in Legacy - ever - I would buy those. If you're considering selling your Cities to finance something else, be aware of the competition - you'll have to price yours lower than that in order to make a sale. The price may continue to fall, but I doubt that it will fall too far, and be aware that many of the lower-priced copies will be HP and MP. I don't see NM or LP copies dropping below $200 ever again.
Your analysis of the new sets in the meta was accurate. But the meta is only vaguely associated with the price of RL cards anymore.
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How do you tell if a particular card is "bought out", whatever that means? There's been multiple price spikes for City though, did it get bought out 4 times?
Okay this is dramatically slower than in the general section, can this be moved there? I'm not necessarily looking for quality I'm looking more for the numbers of factors.
How do you tell if a particular card is "bought out", whatever that means? There's been multiple price spikes for City though, did it get bought out 4 times?
The jump on 4/10-4/12 is a huge jump that immediately starts dropping off, which is characteristic of someone trying to manipulate the market. The other factors that could explain that kind of behavior are a high profile tournament finish, which didn't happen - GP Seattle was a couple days prior, but there weren't any breakout performances by new stompy decks nor was there a strong finish by a stompy deck - or a new card that works particularly well with the old one - again, nothing spoiled at that time that worked better than existing cards with City, and this is also less applicable to cards that are already high priced. It's possible there's some other factor that I'm not aware of, but market manipulation on a widely played RL card seems most likely.
I'm with KnickM on best course of action. The card may continue to fall a little more, but I'd guess that it's more likely to rise over time. Chalice decks are approaching pillar of the format status in legacy as a way to fight cantrip decks and Cities are an important part of those. That said, I'd also agree that playability is a smaller factor when it comes to pricing RL cards than supply. Exodus presumably has a much higher supply than sets like ABUR/LEG/etc but it's still only a matter of time before those get even pricier (assuming that nothing happens to the RL, which is a reasonable assumption for the time being).
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How do you tell if a particular card is "bought out", whatever that means? There's been multiple price spikes for City though, did it get bought out 4 times?
Well, that's a question and a half.
In short, since there's a limited supply, people with a lot of money can just buy all of them at once. Or even 90% of them. The exact number doesn't matter, because once you start (especially if you then tweet about it, which some people do), FOMO will drive others to complete the buyout. All the cheap copies vanish, and then sellers compete to raise prices while buyers scramble to find the last few available cards, driving the prices up. Sometimes they then flip the cards at the new price, but often they just ... don't. The easiest way to tell when a buyout occurs is that the supply suddenly dries up without a new archetype showing up (City spiked a few years ago when Legacy Eldrazi became a thing). Or when someone tweets about it or releases a video.
Feel free to ask a similar question in MG, but "Will City of Traitors fall in price?" is definitely a Market Street question and the thread will stay here. Try asking about whether you should finish your set or sell your set - if you start getting into money questions or financial futures, the thread will probably get moved to Market Street.
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Okay, so Wizards somehow doesn't think the arbitrarily manipulation of a market by an individual other than themselves is unhealthy for the sustainability their business? If it's only one card, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but if it's a precedent for all usable cards, then format by format the game will simply become obsolete, it would be the inverse way that baseball cards collapsed.
But, I suppose that's a good point in showing why the price wouldn't dramatically fall in the near future, though I still think it will fall some before rising again. Since however these cards are used for so many different styles of decks whereas moat is not, I also do not foresee that it will be easy for someone to buy out the stock, it would likely be more gradual as it's been with smaller spikes.
Okay, so Wizards somehow doesn't think the arbitrarily manipulation of a market by an individual other than themselves is unhealthy for the sustainability their business? If it's only one card, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but if it's a precedent for all usable cards, then format by format the game will simply become obsolete, it would be the inverse way that baseball cards collapsed.
WOTC has a policy of not commenting on the Reserve List, and allegedly not paying attention to the secondary market. It's part of the reason that Modern was created as a format - they wanted a format where all cards were reprintable.
But, I suppose that's a good point in showing why the price wouldn't dramatically fall in the near future, though I still think it will fall some before rising again. Since however these cards are used for so many different styles of decks whereas moat is not, I also do not foresee that it will be easy for someone to buy out the stock, it would likely be more gradual as it's been with smaller spikes.
So, here's the thing. I own 5 copies of City of Traitors - four for my own use, and one I've promised to a friend. As far as the market is concerned, those copies may as well not exist, since I'm never planning to sell/trade them - I'm going to jam them in a Legacy deck, or 4 EDH decks, or maybe a very weird casual deck. When I (and other) say "buy out", we don't mean that people acquire all the copies in existence, just all the copies on the market. This market manipulation only works because so many copies of cards are "lost" - locked into decks, or in collections that will never be sold.
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Well if they'll "never" be sold then there's literally no point paying a high price for them in the first place, you can't make money selling something you never sell, so there is definitely a price where even someone with cards in a deck will say "it's worth it" to sell which seems to be how most or all the Moats available to the market were acquired by one person.
And, if people keep a card for literally "years", then they not only have to worry about it getting damaged but also have to worry about inflation because there is a point over a given interval of time where the devaluation of currency will exceed the profit made from the raised price of a card along with paying for increased shipping costs. Though, if Wizards doesn't pay attention then there are also equally manipulative ways to devalue such cards, with a little more work.
Well if they'll "never" be sold then there's literally no point paying a high price for them in the first place, you can't make money selling something you never sell, so there is definitely a price where even someone with cards in a deck will say "it's worth it" to sell which seems to be how most or all the Moats available to the market were acquired by one person.
And, if people keep a card for literally "years", then they not only have to worry about it getting damaged but also have to worry about inflation because there is a point over a given interval of time where the devaluation of currency will exceed the profit made from the raised price of a card along with paying for increased shipping costs. Though, if Wizards doesn't pay attention then there are also equally manipulative ways to devalue such cards, with a little more work.
Sure - everyone has their price, and I'm sure that if, for example, City cracks a grand, I'd resign myself to never playing it and ship my copies. But when you say "literally no point paying a high price for them in the first place", you're discounting the reason that most of us picked them up in the first place - we want to sleeve them up and put them into a deck. I didn't get them to make a profit (although since I got my first copy out of a pack for $2.50, I'd say I'm doing all right). The people who're buying them for a profit are definitely offering them for sale - just at a much higher price.
You have touched upon one of the aspects of a price spike - people whose prices get met. When a card price rises, a number of people who have copies of the card will dig them out and post them for sale at a little under what the big guys are charging, to try to get in on that action. Sometimes there are enough people digging cards up that the price starts to go down again, as people compete to post the lowest price. But for cards like City of Traitors, old cards on the reserve list that are known quantities in Legacy, most people will shrug and say "Eh, I'm still using mine."
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I am on the fence over the price of City of Traitors, because I have currently have 2. I could get 2 more in order to optimize a deck with them later on, or, I could sell them while they're higher now to build something else.
From what I've seen, the price has been falling at a slow but predictably steady rate. Many players are already aware of this card as various stompy decks have gotten more popular and have already been seen in nearly every Legacy tournament over the last year which means the discovery bubble has already passed. On the other hand, it likely has not met its price cap yet which would allow the two factors to cancel out, leaving only a constant rate of growth/decay that explains its linear price decay currently.
Looking at the most recent sets, they do not seem to provide much utility for stompy or sneak/tell/breach decks and in fact offer more sideboard options against them when looking at cards like Damping Sphere and Mistcaller.
After looking through Guilds of Ravnica, I still don't see many cards that provide utility to these kinds of decks, so I predict the price will further fall at a mostly linear rate.
It will finally start to logistically decay to probably $100-$200 two or three months from now after we start to see new sideboard options implemented into tournament decks. I imagine however this trend is only until at least the printing of the next set which will probably include one or two new stompy cards after Wizards starts to print new cards ensure so many archetypes reliant on double lands don't become obsolete and also don't leave investors too short-changed.
But, I don't do any kind of mtg analysis often and this isn't anything formal, I'm not completely sure of what explains the previous price hikes, so are there other factors to be considered or cards that will make the archetypes more popular in Legacy/Vintage? If one more player wins a tournament with a stompy/aggro deck is it really going to make that much of a difference at this point?
City of Traitors got bought out in April, hence the price spike. As a reserve list card that's a 4x in some Legacy decks, it's easy to manipulate the price. People need City to play Eldrazi, and there aren't very many of them and there won't ever be any more printed. So the market will pay what it has to. It has very little to do with new tech being discovered, or old tech being invalidated (there's almost no motion in June, when DRS got hit with the banhammer).
TCG Market is $265, but you can get two LP copies from reputable sellers for about $215 each. If you're considering playing a City deck in Legacy - ever - I would buy those. If you're considering selling your Cities to finance something else, be aware of the competition - you'll have to price yours lower than that in order to make a sale. The price may continue to fall, but I doubt that it will fall too far, and be aware that many of the lower-priced copies will be HP and MP. I don't see NM or LP copies dropping below $200 ever again.
Your analysis of the new sets in the meta was accurate. But the meta is only vaguely associated with the price of RL cards anymore.
I'm with KnickM on best course of action. The card may continue to fall a little more, but I'd guess that it's more likely to rise over time. Chalice decks are approaching pillar of the format status in legacy as a way to fight cantrip decks and Cities are an important part of those. That said, I'd also agree that playability is a smaller factor when it comes to pricing RL cards than supply. Exodus presumably has a much higher supply than sets like ABUR/LEG/etc but it's still only a matter of time before those get even pricier (assuming that nothing happens to the RL, which is a reasonable assumption for the time being).
Well, that's a question and a half.
In short, since there's a limited supply, people with a lot of money can just buy all of them at once. Or even 90% of them. The exact number doesn't matter, because once you start (especially if you then tweet about it, which some people do), FOMO will drive others to complete the buyout. All the cheap copies vanish, and then sellers compete to raise prices while buyers scramble to find the last few available cards, driving the prices up. Sometimes they then flip the cards at the new price, but often they just ... don't. The easiest way to tell when a buyout occurs is that the supply suddenly dries up without a new archetype showing up (City spiked a few years ago when Legacy Eldrazi became a thing). Or when someone tweets about it or releases a video.
Check out this article - it's an interview with one of the guys who's doing this: http://blog.mtgprice.com/2016/07/05/an-interview-with-the-man-behind-the-buyouts/
Feel free to ask a similar question in MG, but "Will City of Traitors fall in price?" is definitely a Market Street question and the thread will stay here. Try asking about whether you should finish your set or sell your set - if you start getting into money questions or financial futures, the thread will probably get moved to Market Street.
But, I suppose that's a good point in showing why the price wouldn't dramatically fall in the near future, though I still think it will fall some before rising again. Since however these cards are used for so many different styles of decks whereas moat is not, I also do not foresee that it will be easy for someone to buy out the stock, it would likely be more gradual as it's been with smaller spikes.
WOTC has a policy of not commenting on the Reserve List, and allegedly not paying attention to the secondary market. It's part of the reason that Modern was created as a format - they wanted a format where all cards were reprintable.
So, here's the thing. I own 5 copies of City of Traitors - four for my own use, and one I've promised to a friend. As far as the market is concerned, those copies may as well not exist, since I'm never planning to sell/trade them - I'm going to jam them in a Legacy deck, or 4 EDH decks, or maybe a very weird casual deck. When I (and other) say "buy out", we don't mean that people acquire all the copies in existence, just all the copies on the market. This market manipulation only works because so many copies of cards are "lost" - locked into decks, or in collections that will never be sold.
Well if they'll "never" be sold then there's literally no point paying a high price for them in the first place, you can't make money selling something you never sell, so there is definitely a price where even someone with cards in a deck will say "it's worth it" to sell which seems to be how most or all the Moats available to the market were acquired by one person.
And, if people keep a card for literally "years", then they not only have to worry about it getting damaged but also have to worry about inflation because there is a point over a given interval of time where the devaluation of currency will exceed the profit made from the raised price of a card along with paying for increased shipping costs. Though, if Wizards doesn't pay attention then there are also equally manipulative ways to devalue such cards, with a little more work.
Sure - everyone has their price, and I'm sure that if, for example, City cracks a grand, I'd resign myself to never playing it and ship my copies. But when you say "literally no point paying a high price for them in the first place", you're discounting the reason that most of us picked them up in the first place - we want to sleeve them up and put them into a deck. I didn't get them to make a profit (although since I got my first copy out of a pack for $2.50, I'd say I'm doing all right). The people who're buying them for a profit are definitely offering them for sale - just at a much higher price.
You have touched upon one of the aspects of a price spike - people whose prices get met. When a card price rises, a number of people who have copies of the card will dig them out and post them for sale at a little under what the big guys are charging, to try to get in on that action. Sometimes there are enough people digging cards up that the price starts to go down again, as people compete to post the lowest price. But for cards like City of Traitors, old cards on the reserve list that are known quantities in Legacy, most people will shrug and say "Eh, I'm still using mine."