This is a thread for talking about all things concerning paper Magic prices. If you're speculating on paper Magic, put it here instead of the MODO thread.

I will use this thread to occasionally detail funny things I sell, because enough people get a kick out of it in chat I thought I'd share it with everyone else too.

For the record, http://www.cardshark.com/resources/last20.asp is always hilarious (and sometimes it's even my stuff!)

Some topics to discuss:
-Is mythic rarity (Baneslayer, Jace) pushing prices too high and pricing too many players out?
-Are online stores like Star City Games, Channel Fireball, and Troll & Toad hiking prices too much (Tarmogoyf, Tabernacle, Scroll Rack, Loyal Retainers) and hurting players?
-Is the recent Legacy price explosion/SCG's Tournament Series good for Magic?
-Is EDH's popularity adversely affecting prices for casual non-EDH players?

It seems like a harder thing to speculate on, because you can't just hit the bots for 20+ cards, and then move them on in a few days for profit.

You could if you attended GPs/PTs, though that's not very cost-efficient anyway.

That said, there is certainly a thriving spec market on PTs, I guarantee people are heading to PT:SD with things like Jaces to get rid of, it's happened well over the years on things like Polluted Deltas and whatever else dealers tend to run out of.

do you speculate on paper cards often? the writer for channelfireball said it's better to speculate on cards based on the competitive season (buying chalices outside of extended season, for example) rather than buying cards that might be good from an upcoming set. has this been your experience?

Are you saying that the popularity of EDH increases the pool of casual players interested in certain cards, and thus drives the price up, or is there some other mechanism? EDH players are usually only going to be interested in one copy, not a playset, so I don't think the increase in demand would be that significant.

Also, I looked at in-store prices for the first time in a couple months last night, to see that Tarmogoyf was up to almost $80. According to the owner, at the GP stores were buying at $70 cash. :pmoshock: I know it's partially due to the season, but that's kinda ridiculous.

I've never hardcore speculated like MODO people do, but there's always cards in a set I don't mind overstocking on.

For instance, I think right now you want to be picking up Zendikar fetches, they're sure to be good for two years minimum, and the price is probably as low as they're going to get.

mythics rares are bs

I see only two ways that this could be true.

1. Collusion. Essentially, all these different retailers are getting together and fixing prices. Possible, but it seems unlikely. There's too many retailers and they still have to compete with players selling and trading directly.

2. Hoarding. The stores are artificially inflating prices by buying up all the cards. Starcity currently has no Goyfs in stock and Coolstuff only has one. ChannelFireball and Troll & Toad do have 40-50 in stock, but that doesn't seem like much of a hoard to me. I don't think this is likely either.

All that's left is the assertion that these are simply the prices the market will bear. Supply and demand. Ebay prices aren't that much lower than the ones in the stores, and if you look at completed listings you can see that people are paying $60+ for Goyf and $200+ for Tabernacle.

Do the prices hurt players? Yeah, I think so. It's certainly dampened my own enthusiasm for Constructed.

Mythics are pretty cringe worthy whenever they print a good one, I have made a pretty conscious decision not to play white because of Baneslayer Angel.

I think the megastores probably caused the uptick in prices by unlocking supply. Like, if there's a stable but scarce market for tabernacles on ebay for $100, maybe it's not worth it for you to sell one if it's the only card you want to sell and it's a lot of incremental effort to list it. And then on the other side, if you're a player looking for a legacy deck, you're not going to build white stax if your local store is always sold out and a tabernacle gets listed on ebay like once a week or so.

So then megastores come around and not only have an easy way to for players to buy cards, but they can also restock on demand by adjusting their buylists. Then some dude sees he can make $150 or $200 by putting the card in the envelope and a whole pocket of casual sellers gets unlocked. Liquid supply and liquid demand suddenly reveals that the price of tabernacles is really $300.

Anyway, amateur economics go.

Do you really think there are that many Tabernacle owners that also read major sites that haven't considered selling?

I mean, once the price hike starts, sure, I get that a lot of people might now sell that won't. But, given that a lot of people just don't read strategy sites/regularly visit online card stores, I don't know if that's sufficient to get the ball rolling, as it were.

Oops wrong thread.

I think the market is sufficiently depressed that if you get a handful of dudes who sell to SCG/channelfireball/stikezone/w/e instead of figuring out ebay or w/e that will significantly increase liquidity for cards like that.

Aether vials are worth like ten bucks now, in case anyone else had a stack of them and didn't realize.

I have at least 20. Guess it might be time to get rid of them, especially seeing as how I haven't even played competitive paper magic in about 3 years anyway.

The problem with speculating in paper is reduced portability of paper cards. It's one thing to pick up loads of X from bots and quite another to scour Ebay and your LGS's for paper copies of X. The opportunity cost in time spent is much higher than for MODO. In the second case, your having to watch auctions and make car trips to various stores in a small window of time, might nix the expected gain of profit on X.

Add to this the tendency for people to value their IRL cards more than they are worth. A .3 tix rare on MODO is a .3 tix rare. A culling scales IRL might be a dollar bin rare, might be a toss-in on a large trade, or might be some fat casual noob or dbag shop owner trying to gouge you for his poor judgment 6 years ago.

Man, this thread makes me want to go break the KoL market some more. brb.

Does it count as speculation if I bought something from a store that massively undervalued it, because I knew (not predicted) I could get more for it?

I am thinking specifically of the store where I found $4 Natural Orders and Dark Depths (recently).

I don't think I've ever had a 'true' speculation (predicting future rise) work out for me, except backwards (I knew better than to sell/trade my Eldrazi Monument at $3, but I didn't actually stock up on them, I just held on to my one copy from a draft).

I also 'negatively' speculated on Lotus Cobra and Mindbreak Trap (more drafting yay), trading that shit away fastfastfast because I was sure they were going to plummet, and they did.

Stay outta the delicious salad market, though. That one's mine. :mad:

This is the big reason why I have the personal rule never to trade for new cards at a prerelease, people value them waaaaay too high.

Wait, how do you make money off of those? Are you sure you aren't talking about super salad?

It's actually pretty easy, once you get a system going. All you need to do is talk them up a bunch in chat, the forums, etc. Inevitably, some sucker will come along and decide that he had better buy into a salad portfolio before the rush, and snap up all your stock. Then, once he realizes it's not going anywhere, he'll start selling it at a loss, and you can buy it all back at a heavy discount. I've lost track of exactly how much I've made by looping salad like that, but it's a lot.

Latest funny sale: nine [card]Boggart Ram-Gang[/card]s

So can we stop talking about post restriction crap and start talking about lynching people?

How about postmodifier? Shitty_wok, what do you think about postmodifier? What about sloppo?

Sloppo, why do you think Shitty_wok is scum? What do you think about postmodifier?

That shit is hilarious. I never do anything like that. Usually I make my money by patrolling the mall for situations where one part of a crafting chain has gone up or down an the price hasn't filtered to the rest of the pieces yet, then buying millions worth of the relevant piece of the chain.

I take monthlong breaks, except I summon snowcones, hearts, and craftables.

Then when I actually start playing again I have another 1-2 million meat just from selling all that crap.

I haven't played in a long time. Are Tint Plastic Swords still awesome?

They're not bad per se, but they're much less necessary. they introduced a holiday that drops 6 drunk boozes, plus some other high-end booze from other vectors (hobopolis)

edit: they're still expensive though.

Sloppo is just a lurker while illandir is actively scummy, and therefore a Righteous Lynch.

If you all keep whining about not having the votes instead of putting them on the guy I can guarantee we'll be stuck without lynching though.

ewie, make your mafia posts in bad threads, like my music one

paper speculation: picking up stoneforge mystic while they're $10 a set.

edit: feeling pretty smart for the playset of basilisk collar i bought last week. thanks weasel!

Yeah I'm trading for Mystics too (I would rather not spend cash when I have a trade binder).

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/18...art_2_of_3.html

I'd be doing a disservice if I didn't bring this article series up. This one focuses on eliminating the Reserve List and reprinting expensive cards that aren't on it, for the health of the game.

I find myself being far, far too biased to give an impartial opinion on the subject.

I think he's right, the reserved list is dumb at this point. They have a loophole that let's them reprint whatever they want anyway and the inability to reprint them in standard legal sets just insures most of those cards remain mostly worthless. It's long past the point where it has any signifigance to collectors or useful function.

Latest comical sale: 4x [card]Immortal Coil[/card] :eek:
Sadly I did not have any Bazaar Traders to also sell him

Bazaar trader! IT'LL TEAR UP STANDARD

Is there any reason Wasteland won't just keep going up forever? How close to a Force of Will style uncommon will it get?

I had assumed they were still probably about 5 bucks, but now that I see what they are going for now I kind of wonder if it's worth picking up 10 or 20 more and holding onto them a few years.

In December, I predicted Wasteland would hit 25 by the end of SCG's Legacy invitational.

I heard from a guy that a Bazaar Trader deck 5-0'd last night at PTSD

I have no proof whether or not it's true.

not PTSD, no. i did hear that it won the LCQ.

More believable and more hilarious! I hope they post a list soon.