What is up with the prices??
General forum
Posted on April 20, 2013, 2:14 a.m. by Three-Left-Feet
I'm not sure how many people are into those staple cards of Legacy and Modern (like Tarmogoyf , Dark Confidant , Force of Will , Lion's Eye Diamond , and many others) but I've been noticing a quick rise in the card's prices.
Just a week or two ago, I was looking at Lion's Eye Diamond on Star City Games and the price for the card was $70. Expensive, but seemed a lot more reasonable than the $100 it just jumped to. Are they trying to keep people from joining the Legacy format??
Force of Will is also at $100 now, Tarmogoyf went to $130, Intuition is $40, a $10 jumped compared to the others jumping $20 to $30, but that's still a fat stack out of a wallet for a single card.
I understand that amazing cards can't always be cheap, I mean I just purchased a Show and Tell for $60 and in no way am I regretting it, but I am a little worried with the price increases on so many cards.
Tarmogoyf is expensive because he is versatile in any deck, and people have splashed Green into Mono-Colored decks (like Merfolk) to get it that extra Oumph. Not to mention he's legal in both Modern and Legacy, so he's not a Format-Specific card (assuming the gender of this Lhurgoyf is male)
Force of Will goes into every control deck in Legacy, but people do not base decks around this card. People do not splash in blue just to use it, and the card can't be used past Legacy.
Lion's Eye Diamond is amazing in the right deck, but that's just it; it has to be a right deck. Tarmogoyf goes in anything with green, and can be fit into anything without. Force of Will can be bittersweet, but usually worth it by countering a card that would win the opponent the game. But Lion's Eye Diamond cannot fit into most decks. Anything with Storm sure, because it's a Zero Drop. And then GraveYard decks sure get a nice bonus off of it, but $100?
I'm not sure what's happening, but I fear for the sake of the formats. Tarmogoyf 's price will go down after Modern Masters comes out, but until a Legacy Legionaries or whatever comes out, I fear for us new players that haven't been playing too long.
MindAblaze says... #3
Still cheaper than buying into standard every year.
That being said, I'm buying a box of Innistrad tomorrow hoping to pull 30 dollar snapcasters and 60 dollar lilianas
April 20, 2013 2:35 a.m.
SCG is quite notorius for buying out cards from smaller vendors in huge quanitites then spiking prices to control market flow. They have warehouses literally stockpiled with millions and millions of cards. Personally I hate SCG I think they are trash for this very reason. the Legends set is currently under "attack" from SCG atm with this thing that they do. I always encourage any person I know you buys online to never support this company, and to buy elsewhere even if the other place is slightly higher in price.
April 20, 2013 3:28 a.m.
All of the cards you listed aren't only Modern and Legacy staples, but Vintage staples as well. Then you have to consider some of these are staples for EDH (such as Force of Will and Dark Confidant ), which is growing in popularity. That's four formats that want to play a lot of these cards.
In other words, if you play anything outside of Standard, you're probably looking for playsets of Tarmogoyf , Force of Will , Lion's Eye Diamond , etc. That's a lot of players scrambling for the same cards that haven't been reprinted (or will never be reprinted) for over a decade in some cases.
April 20, 2013 3:48 a.m.
sylvannos the point is that this is a very recent trend with specific cards and its a HUGE super fast spike, some cards jumping to almost 150%-200% in the span of two weeks when the card was in a steady increase for a decade or so. this has happened a couple times before and every single time SCG has been behind it.They even blatently admitted its them doing it in the past. there is not a single other seller out there that has the kind of money or stock SCG has. they are the alpha dog and they know it so they act like it. give it a couple months and watch for SCG, theyll admit to it
April 20, 2013 4:40 a.m.
@ApocryphalSaint: Oh yah, of course. It's why I'm having such a hard time getting Misty Rainforest , Liliana of the Veil , and Scalding Tarn . SCG has been buying them all up and cranking up the price. It's also why the Black Lotus has spiked in price more than it needed to within the past couple years.
However, it goes beyond SCG. We're in the middle of a Modern Pro Tour circuit. Many people are buying up Tarmogoyf s and Dark Confidant s left and right. A lot of these cards are also popular among EDH players and Vintage players. Lion's Eye Diamond has become a Legacy staple for combo while also being a key component of Dredge in Vintage (which is ironically a budget deck).
Cards spike all the time, and they can lose value just as fast. Boros Reckoner went from being $8 to $20 in a week, while Jace, Architect of Thought crashed from $25 to $14. It's all just supply and demand, along with what the metagame looks like.
April 20, 2013 5:10 a.m.
Three-Left-Feet says... #8
jminute14 Your first sentence cracked me up XD it's entirely truthful too, especially with the hype based around new cards. Like Vraska the Unseen was $40 when it came out, and I should've sold her then because now she's just 20% of that price...
sylvannos I did not know we were in the middle of a modern tour... I haven't been playing long enough to see this happen, but do you think the prices will drop after the tour is over?
ApocryphalSaint I hear you about buying from SCG, I do not enjoy supporting them. But so many eBay vendors and shops base their prices off of SCG, it's just too hard to escape it...
Epochalyptik Your reasoning makes sense, but I just hope you're wrong. I want a playset of that card on day, and I don't want to spend $520 to get 4 cards, haha.
April 20, 2013 10:48 a.m.
Old School Gaming has great prices too but the search on Card Kingdom is great. Old School also sells commons as low as 3 cents a piece (most places i looked seem to start pricing at a quarter) which is great for people who like to play tons of different decks.
April 20, 2013 5:59 p.m.
rckclimber777 says... #11
One that I'm especially interested in that was not on this list was JTMS who is now averaging around 150, up from 100 a couple months ago and up from $60 this time last year.
April 21, 2013 9:57 p.m.
May I suggest to consider my Android App (MTG Wishlist) to check prices and avoid speculation? :-)
Epochalyptik says... #2
I don't really think Tarmogoyf 's price will drop after Modern Masters. There won't really be the kind of supply increase that needs to occur to lower prices by much.
Also, SCG has been known to spike their own prices to control the market.
April 20, 2013 2:30 a.m.