MTG Salvation

It's a little deceptive, because boxes that may feel like crap could still beat the 275 to 300 dollar threshold thanks to a good topper. I've seen some absolutely horrible boxes get saved by a single box topper lily. Unfortunately, my box was not one of them, but that is still something to take into account.

Quote from Joban8 »

Quote from Colt47 »

Huh, so we had the biggest spike in history with Magic the gathering after masters 25 got spoiled, and now the entire market is entering the worlds most epic bear market stage we've had in years. Probably because no one has any money left after wasting it all on the 300+ dollar boxes of complete randomness. And before anyone comments, I wasted my money, too, so this is not an accusation against OTHERS who have bought boxes.

... also my pulls were crap.

Hyperbolic much?

And "boxes of complete randomness" have been WotC's bread and butter for 25 years; what were you expecting this time around?
As soon as the first UMA reprints were revealed, anybody who typically sticks to buying singles creamed their pants. My list of reprint pick ups is getting longer by the day, however, I'm reluctant to pull the trigger until word starts to get around about just how large a print run we're looking at. Any given staple that was reprinted could either tank or spike tomorrow and it wouldn't be a surprise if it was a knee-jerk reaction in response to any info indicating the number of boxes in circulation/in the pipeline waiting to enter circulation.

I got more than I expected from ultimate masters. There is a huge gulf of difference between this set and masters 25, which was a complete catastrophe along with Iconic Masters, though I believe the boxes are surviving because of the box toppers, which are way overvalued. I feel as if the box toppers are simply expensive because they are borderless full art cards and not because they are actually good looking like the Masterpieces from Kaladesh. If I asked someone if they liked the art of Crucible of Worlds from the masterpieces or the new iteration of Tarmogoyf, it is pretty obvious the former wins. That and each unique printing they make of a card also devalues the other unique versions when it is done too often. They did this in the Guilds of Ravnica Master Edition and Ultimate Masters. What happens long term if they just keep doing this cheap cash grab version of collectible cards over and over again?

Quote from Colt47 »

What happens long term if they just keep doing this cheap cash grab version of collectible cards over and over again?

Tarmogoyf

First Print - $100
First Print Foil - $800

Ultimate Masters - $60
Box Topper - $250

So what happens? Well collectors get to hold onto their original prints, and ideally the foils, while others get to play with the cards.

I'd say its about the ideal?

so should i be holding onto my snapcaster box topper? im uncertain because the box toppers are kinda like the other masterpieces but not really.

Unless the print run is literally epic in scope, I dont see how the Box Toppers for the 'good' cards, dont hold value. Snaps, Lily, etc.

Honestly, if I had a ton of cash, I'd buy up a play set, I think it looks freaking amazing.

You can lose value in a lot of ways that aren't intuitive. The thing is, even collectors always want the next best thing. In the grand scope of things the box toppers are better than the Amonkhet block cards, but they are not on par with Expeditions or Inventions. Part of the specialness of a collectible version is the art used on the card and the layout. While the cards in ultimate masters have a unique "no border" type of effect, the artwork is literally a blown up version of the normal card, so in the long run this is sort of like having an alternate version of the basic foil. The thing that keeps the cards in ultimate masters valuable, even the box toppers, is their functionality.

Let me put it this way, I feel safer buying an alternate art Ophelia from force of will for 80 bucks than I do buying any equivalent box topper card right now. Heck, I feel better about buying the alternate art Ophelia than a freaking Liliana of the Veil. These box toppers are printed on a scale that is absurd. There's no sense of urgency with picking them up.

You all do realize that people are opening these, and selling them to subsidize their own boxes or to afford the regular cards for play, right? That is why the prices are stabilizing so fast and the prices for the toppers seem to be going no where.

Quote from Colt47 »

You can lose value in a lot of ways that aren't intuitive. The thing is, even collectors always want the next best thing. In the grand scope of things the box toppers are better than the Amonkhet block cards, but they are not on par with Expeditions or Inventions. Part of the specialness of a collectible version is the art used on the card and the layout. While the cards in ultimate masters have a unique "no border" type of effect, the artwork is literally a blown up version of the normal card, so in the long run this is sort of like having an alternate version of the basic foil. The thing that keeps the cards in ultimate masters valuable, even the box toppers, is their functionality.

Let me put it this way, I feel safer buying an alternate art Ophelia from force of will for 80 bucks than I do buying any equivalent box topper card right now. Heck, I feel better about buying the alternate art Ophelia than a freaking Liliana of the Veil. These box toppers are printed on a scale that is absurd. There's no sense of urgency with picking them up.

You all do realize that people are opening these, and selling them to subsidize their own boxes or to afford the regular cards for play, right? That is why the prices are stabilizing so fast and the prices for the toppers seem to be going no where.

so...are you saying you think they will go down? correct me if im wrong but it looks like the gist of what you are saying is that the box toppers are neither scarce nor 'cool enough' looking for collectors; therefore over time they will gravitate in price to their regular run-of-the-mill foil counterparts.

There is no way they hit the same price point as 'normal' foils. Not remotely reasonable or supportable prediction.

If the print run is there, sure they could come down a bit, but its not going to be normal cast.

Snaps Box Topper on my 3 normal site checks is sold out, at over $200 USD.

Sold Out.

It may go down, but its not going to hit normal (100-150) costs unless we want to pretend the box toppers are going to be MORE COMMON and less desired than normal printing foils.

Most special edition stuff that are not functional, will fall from their peak after awhile even if limited run. If you have "special" + "functional" you have a winner. Mass reprints in terms of other special versions of the same card e.g. another run of expeditions-like run but with different art will diminish the need to get the expedition for example. (Unless you are really into eldrazi, else its just a pretty pattern)

In my opinion, Box Toppers will hold value around the same way that Masterpieces, Inventions, or Invocations do. I do know the print run, so take my opinion with a HUGE grain of salt.

Quote from idSurge »

There is no way they hit the same price point as 'normal' foils. Not remotely reasonable or supportable prediction.

If the print run is there, sure they could come down a bit, but its not going to be normal cast.

Snaps Box Topper on my 3 normal site checks is sold out, at over $200 USD.

Sold Out.

It may go down, but its not going to hit normal (100-150) costs unless we want to pretend the box toppers are going to be MORE COMMON and less desired than normal printing foils.

Cards like Snap, Lily, and Tarmo will hold their values and probably suppress the values of the normal foil version. Others are going to take a while to start going up in value. Some, like Tasigur, are getting put up on the market and just kind of sitting there.

However, saying that the first ones will hold their value completely depends on the supply of the boxes.

Yes, as I said.

Quote from idSurge »

Yes, as I said.

Keep in mind I collect a lot of TCGs now and Magic the Gathering on a collectibles standpoint makes me face palm. The company doesn't make cards to collect even when they make cards to collect because they got stuck in a tug of war with resellers thanks to their reserved list promise way back in the 90s. Basically, in MTG it is the norm to buy up a reprinted tournament staple in a masters set, then hold them until they go back up in price and just trickle sell them back into the market. That's why liliana of the Veil, Noble Hierarch, Tarmogoyf, and other big named cards only stay low for a short period of time.

Let's face it, if someone is playing modern and is playing Jund at this point, even someone like me, who is hyper stingy with money, is going to have a playset of Liliana of the Veil. So who is really buying up Liliana? People who are playing with her, or people who are investing to resell her after the price goes up?

If you know that a card that is selling for 60-70 dollars will climb back up to 80-90 dollars in about three months, you can snap up as much as your wallet can handle and then trickle sell back into the market for a profit over time. The reason that wizards of the coast sells these sets at such a high msrp is because they know people are doing that and resellers can take advantage of the older price memory to justify selling them at such a high cost.

They have a way to fix it, but it potentially would destabilize the entire market place due to the precedence it would set and likely cause a panic selling of all the high cost mythic and rare cards.

Don't collect for money guys. Like tarmogoyf, no card in modern will stay high. Don't trick yourself. Maybe you make some money, but often you will be crushed. It is not worth

Quote from Mtgthewary »

Don't collect for money guys. Like tarmogoyf, no card in modern will stay high. Don't trick yourself. Maybe you make some money, but often you will be crushed. It is not worth

They aren't looking for the cards to stay high. They basically buy the card when it hits it's low point on a reprint and then sell it once it goes up again, because they know people are used to paying the higher price. That's the kind of market we live in with MtG due to the age. While some games there isn't any supply available (I'm looking at you Force of Will and your October -> December promos + Vingolf 3), MtG is a case where there's a higher supply, but that supply gets choked up in the secondary market due to the speculation consuming a large number of the cards upon reprint.

It's frustrating because no matter how much it gets discussed, it is just impossible to change how people behave. When you need to subsidize the hobby to afford it this is the kind of market situation that results from it. People who play the game can afford to keep playing it thanks to the selling and trading of the cards, but since the money is tied up in the system and the prices have to keep going up on each trade / sale, the price to entry rises.

I mean, if someone wanted to play modern and generally be able to build most of the decks, they are looking at buying up fetchlands, shocklands, Caverns, fast lands, and all the major sideboard artifacts before even getting to the main deck cards. Someone can cut the cost down on entry if they are willing to play budget decks with full powered lands and staple sideboard cards, but it has been three years now and I'm still not fully equipped to play a modern tournament without using proxies. Meanwhile, I can rock other games easily on the same amount of money I'm putting into magic.

Edit: And I'm in no way shape or form throwing mud at people who pay the price to play modern. If you managed to get into the format early or just made it that one big hobby you enjoy, than you are fine. The insults and mudslinging are really aimed at WoTC being greedy as heck and scared to rebuild actual faith in the game for long term players. There is absolutely no reason to build a financial barrier to modern as it plays so differently from standard. Standard provides an environment where players can react to changes on the game table, where as modern encourages rapid fire games that use interaction to hedge the match in ones favor. Modern getting cheaper isn't going to take sales from standard. If anything, more people would probably be willing to try playing standard if they didn't have to spend so much money on buying a few cards for modern.

Quote from Colt47 »

Let's face it, if someone is playing modern and is playing Jund at this point, even someone like me, who is hyper stingy with money, is going to have a playset of Liliana of the Veil. So who is really buying up Liliana? People who are playing with her, or people who are investing to resell her after the price goes up?

Well I personally used to own 0 copies of Liliana of the Veil, and now have 3. I opened one, and picked up two more UMA copies on eBay for $63 and $65. Whether or not I sell them will depend on how high they go. Either way, I bought her for both reasons. She is played in GDS in small degrees, and multiple other black attrition strategies, which I now have access to (not necessarily only Jund/BGx). But when (not if, but when) she goes back up to $100+, I can comfortably sell 1 or 2 of them, and still keep a copy by to slot in next to my Liliana, the Last Hopes. She is incredibly powerful and played in multiple top tier decks in both Modern and Legacy.

If anything, I put much more stock in her (and Engineered Explosives) than I do Snapcaster Mage, which himself sees little to no meaningful presence at top tables. Which is sad for a lover of all things Snap.

Quote from motleyslayer »

picked up a set of Original Bloodbraids for $16 Canadian. at that price should I get a few more sets to sit on?

Price of the originals on SCG right now, 2.14 for slightly played. Probably cheaper on other online stores.

Quote from cfusionpm »

Quote from Colt47 »

Let's face it, if someone is playing modern and is playing Jund at this point, even someone like me, who is hyper stingy with money, is going to have a playset of Liliana of the Veil. So who is really buying up Liliana? People who are playing with her, or people who are investing to resell her after the price goes up?

Well I personally used to own 0 copies of Liliana of the Veil, and now have 3. I opened one, and picked up two more UMA copies on eBay for $63 and $65. Whether or not I sell them will depend on how high they go. Either way, I bought her for both reasons. She is played in GDS in small degrees, and multiple other black attrition strategies, which I now have access to (not necessarily only Jund/BGx). But when (not if, but when) she goes back up to $100+, I can comfortably sell 1 or 2 of them, and still keep a copy by to slot in next to my Liliana, the Last Hopes. She is incredibly powerful and played in multiple top tier decks in both Modern and Legacy.

If anything, I put much more stock in her (and Engineered Explosives) than I do Snapcaster Mage, which himself sees little to no meaningful presence at top tables. Which is sad for a lover of all things Snap.

Exactly, you did the right thing and bought them at the low point. like a lot of other people did, but I do know that there are those that are hording them since they've made it a hobby of buying and reselling the cards once they rebound. Not going to name the person in question, but the reason I mentioned Liliana of the Veil in particular is because he has 13 Liliana left from original innistrad, 6 Liliana from Masters 2017, and now has bought up about 25-28 LoTV from the new set to sit on and drip sell once the price hits around 80 again. He's been doing this with commander cards as well and does it with a lot of the top end cards in modern, though he's probably lost more money on Goyf than he is willing to admit to. He had a pretty strong position on Goyfs and by the time he saw they were reprinting Tarmogoyf in basically every single masters set known to man he kind of gave up.

The problem was that he had a ton of future sight ones that he sold off back in 2014, bought the newer version that came out in mm2015 assuming they weren't going to reprint it a third time, than they reprinted them in 2017. So from the perspective of making money on big name cards, he probably is in the negative. Like, you do NOT want to see how many tarmos he has. You know that guy who is a crazy person that seems to have pages and pages of one particular card? That is this person with his Turbo Tarmo derby.

Quote from Colt47 »

[quote from="cfusionpm »" url="/forums/the-game/modern/554992-modern-prices-discussion?comment=14443"]
The problem was that he had a ton of future sight ones that he sold off back in 2014, bought the newer version that came out in mm2015 assuming they weren't going to reprint it a third time, than they reprinted them in 2017. So from the perspective of making money on big name cards, he probably is in the negative. Like, you do NOT want to see how many tarmos he has. You know that guy who is a crazy person that seems to have pages and pages of one particular card? That is this person with his Turbo Tarmo derby.

I was about to leave and go work when I saw this post. hahaha Made me laugh. Wow, that's an entire town of tarmogoyf. So there's a mailman tarmogoyf, girl tarmogoyfs who jog in the morning, a tarmogoyf on a bicycle who sells ice cream and kid tarmogoyfs who buy from him? Just kidding.

Seriously now though, I'm also in the negative when it comes to goyf although not by much. I have a set and bought two when he was at 70 something. Got the others when he was at 60+.

I got burned badly by KTK fetches. I have pages of Flooded Strand and Polluted Delta sitting in a binder, NOT moving in price whatsoever in 3 years. I mean, I guess that's my fault for thinking blue fetches would be relevant (Twin was still legal at the time), but it's just not worth heavily investing in any one card, unless you're also playing them or you got stupidly cheap prices.

I still think there is a time when they can go up. It's just that Magic has too many other distractions right now (new sets, Promos, reprints, buyouts, reserve list). I would hold on to them. I myself have 5 extra Polluted Delta and 3 extra Flooded Strand from KTK. I think those and Bloodstained Mire are the only ones that I have extra KTK fetches for, but yeah it has been a while with no increase.

*On a larger note, I think cards go up when they are the main distraction. There are so many undervalued cards right now. I could just state a stupid card, Panharmonicon. Outside of reprints, this card has nowhere to go but up. It's one of literally thousands...probably more. But people are busy paying attention to other cards right now. When Reserve list staples EXPLODED in price, I wished I had bought more of those instead of Gurus. But then Gurus also started to go up. They were undervalued and hadn't gone up that much in a long time. I ended up selling 22 Guru lands to a Vendor, who obviously underpaid by a lot, for $6,500 at the GP Denver. I probably paid around $2,000 at the most for those lands and even more than half of those were bought after they had been in the $100s. This is why people sometimes actively start a buyout. They want to initiate the action, rather than waiting for the action to happen.

The thing with undervalued cards and buyouts is that the individual conducting the buyout seeks to gain a monopoly on that card and enforce a bargaining position based on the control of the supply. Usually, a true monopoly isn't possible on a card, but it is not necessary to have one in mtg because of the joint benefit of all stake holders.

As a player and collector, my position is to have the cheapest price possible and push for as close to free as I can get. If I do not exert or support this position strongly, than I am giving ground to those that conduct the buyout.

However, the side I'm pushing for is fractured between apologists, partial stake holders, and those with weak positions, hence the favor is always on the side of the seller as far as price goes.

just wanted to share this cool site i found. it aggregates data from tcgplayer so you can look at box EV, changes in card prices over different formats, etc. nothing groundbreaking, but cool nonetheless.

http://mtg.dawnglare.com/?p=sets