MTG Salvation

Quote from IMorphling89

Are there any renders of the following? Or are the renders compiled in any one place where I can check. It's hard to page through all 200 pages to find out!

Abrupt Decay
Restoration Angel
Batterskull
...

There is a "Search This Thread" feature.

Quote from zemogFC

Seriously people are adding a few infect cards to a regular deck?

If you want to go the infect route with quick kills then go all the way and make it the focus of the deck. Add infect creatures and proliferate artifacts to finish the job Nekusar starts.
I think it would be fun and work well.

Going the "tossed in" infect route; what do you do once you hit people with a draw and hopefully a wheel before he dies? Try to use the few cards in your library to get a another couple poison counters on their draw step? You just waited 9 damage on nothing.

I wish I could play in your metas where a Nekusar with infect will live more than a few turns.

The earlier posts highlight that that is exactly what they are not hoping for. A wheel with a way to copy it + infect is a table kill. Attempting to ping poison turn after turn is not the plan, its to turn 14 damage (2 wheels) into a kill in 1 turn.

Gravestorm! We need more gravestorm cards.

You can easily do a "6th color" but as an ongoing mechanic across multiple blocks. Don't treat it like a full out color where you are attempting an equal distribution, but as a mechanic that carries. The idea of portals could stem from a reality or even time breach, which I think they did already, but it would also allow them to bring back cards previously printed but in slightly different variations, perhaps how in hindsight they would have wanted them printed.

The idea of portals, could lead to time, color bleed (damnation), etc. Or even just an ongoing mechanic that works with exiled cards like previously proposed. Pulling in exiled cards from other peoples imprints, etc. Getting back your own path'd creatures, etc. Might be great for EDH if you specify that it only works on opponents stuff.

Quote from Thunderpig

My friend was not going to buy Tarmogoyf (due to price) until he opened one in is Modern Masters box. He then went out and purchased another 3 to complete a playset. In essence, the one he got prompted another 3 to be taken out of the market.

I suspect this may have happend to many people. Being 25 to 50% on the way to a playset of cards you have wanted seems to be a reasonable impetus to actively seek out the remainer.

So tired of hearing these stories because first, its completely opposite to anything I have witnessed related to MM, and because even if it did happen with your buddy, I think its pretty clear it would be rare. Lets really examine this. Play A doesn't play Modern, gets some MM packs, opens a 150$ card. Then decides to build a deck that starts with acquiring 450$ in goyfs alone? So the bar to entry for these players these stories elude to, is getting 150$ discount on a 1000$ deck? Thats whats stopping all these players who didn't play Modern before?

Further is this really where people think the stock of Goyfs went? These imaginary new players who only needed a 15% discount which SSG occasionally offers anyway, or tons of other sites. Even if you assume that MM created new Modern players, they would have needed to create 1 new player for every 4 goyfs for the price to stay the same, and more then 1 new player for every 4 goyfs for it to go up.

Quote from BenBleiweiss

I think there's a difference between "I personally did not receive what I had ordered" from "I heard from a friend of a friend that StarCityGames.com cornered the market on X!". One is a personal experience. The other is heresay, and based on my observations is incorrect over 75% of the time a card buyout is attributed to us (which most of them are).

- Ben

I would agree that one is worse then the other. Actually on one hand you would have people speculating on why a market fluctuates, like the person who posted earlier in this thread, in the normal world this would be acceptable. However stating company X ripped me off, without actually presenting proof, could actually be a bigger issue.

So typically commenting on a market with speculation is treated a lot less severely then claiming a company ripped you off when no such event happened.

I just want to add, that unfortunately while I support the discussion, the lack of proof will lead them to never go anywhere. One of the rules of lying is to bake a truth into it, not saying you are lying, nor am I saying anyone has a right to know if you are, but saying we only bought out cards a year ago and haven't since really doesn't sound too believable, especially when the last instance was as you admit so successful.

But to be fair, as a business owner, you really owe no one any explanation. You don't owe anyone insights into what you do in the market that makes SCG so successful, and as a business, even though not publicly traded, you really have no obligation but to make money, which it seems you guys do well.

I am going to put it out there, not only do I think SCG manipulates the market through pricing, which may or may not be the duties or role of a market leader, but I am also a customer. Thanks to their proximity to NYC, they are usually my go to shop due to speed and SP often being so damn close to NM. Think I am done with this discussion as I think in the end, its really fruitless, so what if they do, and who can prove they do or don't?

Edit: Just to add, I am against anyone being penalized for proposing such a thing happens. I think the mods are in a tough situation, however they are starting to look like the SCG defense force throwing infractions when anyone hints at the notion that SCG dictates pricing in the market.

Quote from Drifting Skies

I want to start off by saying that the mods have been keeping a close eye on this thread as it has evolved. This is a contentious issue and discussions have been very heated in the past, but at the same time, it is a topic worth discussing. We are going to keep the thread open for the time being, but accusations without proof and flaming, whether directed at Star City, its employees, or anyone else will be infracted. Please remain civil, keep discussion on the topic of the practice of buying / selling by stores without resorting to name calling or other flames

Ultimately, it comes down to what consumers are willing to pay for the cards, what stores are willing to pay to acquire them, and who is willing to blink first. I could go out and buy 1,000 copies of, say, Chord of Calling, tomorrow for $35, and I could set up on here and say that I'll be selling them for $45 on Monday.

At the same time, there's two inherent risks. First, there's the chance that despite my best efforts, a lot of Chords that weren't previously in circulation will now be as such. Cards have a funny way of crawling out of attics, EDH decks, and kitchen tables when prices get sufficiently high. And second, people might decide that no, they'd rather not spend that kind of money, and they'll either find substitutes for Chord of Calling, or perhaps they'll decide that Kiki-Pod isn't the deck they want to play after all. They might decide that Teachings.dec is more up their alley, and decide to leave the market for Chord of Calling specifically.

If either of those happen, I as the speculator have two options. First, I can double down on my investment and try to keep buying up the stock. But that has a lot of risks as well - I have to pay my bills, including the debt I likely accumulated, in cash. Sadly, I can't decide to pay my employees in Chord of Callings - they too need cash to pay their bills. Secondly, I decide I want to liquidate, in which case I have to lower the price to what other people are willing to pay. Ultimately, if there aren't people willing to pay $45 for Chord of Callings, they're not going to sell, and I'm trapped in an illiquid investment.

If people do, on the other hand, believe that $45 is fair for Chord of Calling, then I stand to make a sizable profit, and the true underlying price of Chord will increase to represent this. But the fact that I'm selling them for $45 doesn't magically make them worth that much, nor does it mean that I will find buyers at that price.

This is very true, and what are some ways that people can evaluate if a card is worth that price? Its not just what they are willing to pay, but if others are willing to pay it as well. This because a dangerous game when you control the perception of the sales through your own stock.

If you were in your above situation, and could push the TCG stock supply low, and give the perception that they were selling by "listing" your stock as low, even though you may be sitting on tons you bought, you would be effectively creating the image that the card is in fact worth that price.

Would people choose a cheaper deck? I think that is something we have seen is not true. People will pay largely whatever it costs to build the deck they want to play, if they feel that deck will win. is the extra 20$ per copy of Cord going to stop someone from paying it? Usually not, and that is the issue, people who play competitively are used to paying hundreds for their decks.

Edit: Just want to add that while its nice to see this topic staying open, and while I understand the issue of Ben posting on here, the idea that these "perceived" issues with SCG and pricing are often shot down because people do not have access to their accounting records and a signed confession is kind of silly. There will never be proof, we as customers of MtG do not have subpoena power or the ability to open investigations, so asking for proof is really just a waste of everyone's time, and a waste of moderators time to constantly penalize everyone who sees what they believe is obvious but can not actually provide proof of.

I watch MtG streams all weekend and I have to disagree that she is disproportionately shown.

Quote from flyingtiger

Where do you see Doubling Season in the original thread in Speculation? Not the gatheringmagic.com site, that's baseless as far as I'm concerned.

Of the cards you listed that are actually known, only the original Swords and Shackles really have availability problems. If the Swords are promoted to mythic and the print run is as short as being suggested, Modern Masters is not going to make a dent in the supply. Just as with Goyf and Bob..the fact they're being reprinted is great, but promoting them to mythic means people will barely be able to get their hands on the actual cards.

PtE, KotR, Elspeth, Vial have all been reprinted recently in relatively good numbers, the first three in Duel Decks, and prices have stayed close to their lower post-reprint levels. So this suggests there's not really an availability issue.

What about the duds on the list you didn't mention?

The Vivid lands
Narcomoeba
Spellstutter Sprite
Pestermite
Echoing Truth
Grapeshot
Empty the Warrens
Desperate Ritual

I am not saying these are bad cards in any way. But I am not excited at all about them being reprinted, and they are not facing availability issues from being in older sets etc. - fixing those supply problems was one of the originally stated (conflicting) goals of Modern Masters.

This whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Don't get me wrong, I have a box pre-ordered at under MSRP, but I can only imagine how people who paid twice that will feel when they crack basically nothing.

They have to print commons and uncommons in this set, so not every card is going to be a card with availability issues.

If you don't understand the purpose of mapping, you will do it wrong. If you are chasing 4$ cards as a price point for selling, you are opening the wrong things. Second if you are using SCG as a price marker and selling on Ebay, you are probably losing even more. That 4$ SCG card is typically not going to sell on Ebay for 4$.

Next issue, if you are looking to sell things in sets, which is less value then selling them individually, then you should map the boxes completely before fulling opening them all, that way you know how many complete sets you will open.

Biggest issue, you don't map boxes of sets that have deflated. No one is valuing shocks at their face price because they are everywhere, everyone seen Reckoner plummet and is typically avoiding it at face value, this current set is not one you want to map, you need stars, you need a card that will make up for the 6 packs it takes to map the box in the first place. You need 30$+ planeswalkers, or heck 30$+ chase rares.

Top it all off, stores that traffic singles benefit from this, and people who do high volume trading and playing already. People who can move a ton of uncommons, or those that realize those crappy uncommons may have value later. Think of all the beat up Shallow Graves that were selling for 20$ on ebay a few weeks ago.

I decided to redo some of the earlier double-faced cards:

Delver of SecretsReckless WaifCloistered YouthHuntmaster of the FellsBloodline KeeperMayor of AvabruckGarruk RelentlessWolfbitten Captive
Other single-sided DFCs by me

Expedition Filterlands 2nd round

Flooded Grove
Wooded Bastion
Fire-Lit Thicket
Twilight Mire

The Cloud of Faeries is gone! HAHAH

(There is probably only like 2 people who care about this)

Sphinx of the Final Word

Bearer of Silence
Vile Redeemer
Reality Smasher

Eldrazi Displacer

Here's how I recommend approaching these kinds of situations in the future.

It's just a game of EDH. If someone has the kill, let them kill you. Everyone deserves a story to tell.

Technically not illegal but I wouldn't want to play with you any more if you did stuff like that. The player had a winning move. You stopped it not to save yourself but simply out of spite saying "I don't care if I lose as long as YOU don't win". There were NO GAIN for you in you conceding and all you managed with it was to prolong an already won game and piss off a player.