I couldn't agree more with the above statement. It's your money dude! Go spend it as you see fit. If that means you want a Lotus or a bunch of other RL cards, go do it! As a collector first and player second I do enjoy owning a lot of the history and powerful cards that I played with as a young teenager. Yeah, money in the stock market may appreciate more than RL cards, they may not. If you had that crystal ball, you'd be so rich you wouldn't need to discuss here! As for being part of the problem, you have to decide what is important to you. If owning the cards and preferring the "risk" of RL cards appreciating/depreciating over variances in the stock market, then there you go!
As for me, I do own a ton of RL cards and happily sunk thousands into them as recently as this year. I don't think you're part of the problem. There are a ton of people in their 30s and 40s that now have real jobs making 6 figures that can afford and want these cards. That's a big part of the reason you've seen the cost escalation.
Artists proofs are generally very niche - especially something that is easily reprinted like Polluted Delta. Given the right audience I think it'd be worth somewhere around face value but that's completely a guess and you'd have to find the right buyer. I'd go over to the facebook groups and either try to auction it there or ask for more specific advice.
Thanks. My only concern is it will break my playset lili (3 left). Most modern decks/ legacy decks only use up to 2 copy for now. Is it necessary to keep 4 copies ? When will next Modern Master release ? (Lili may drop price then)
As Seal said, I wouldn't worry too much about breaking the playset.
Gavin Verhey at WOTC has said that Modern Masters 2017 will be the last Modern Masters set for a while. WOTC wants to shake up how they handle their Masters sets, and they feel that they've hit Modern as a theme too much recently.
I get that you're giving up very useful cards, but I guarantee you that you will always be able to reverse this trade, if you feel that you want the planeswalkers back - if not with your original trade partner, then with me.
tough to say. The market for miscut cards is very dependent on the audience. I'd go over to the misprint Facebook page and try to auction it there. It is from Mercadian Masques which is an older set, but it's also not a very useful card. It also shows another card which is a HUGE plus on these things. I'd guess the value at $10, but I could easily be very wildly off here... It all depends on finding the right buyer.
My:
Jace, the Mind Sculptor (WW)
Lilina of the Veil x2 (INN)
His:
Polluted Delta Expedition
Pile B, and don't look back?
I mean, Polluted Delta Expo is $265 in theory, but there aren't any available for under $300. WWK Jace is $93, LOTV is $90 (for both walkers, NM replacement price is about equivalent to market price). While the 'walkers are really powerful cards that can't really be replaced by cheaper versions, that Expedition is not going to go down. Ever. More reprints (and they will be reprinted) will push the price of Jace and Lili down. This is my favorite kind of trade - expensive staple for premium expensive staple.
Thanks. My only concern is it will break my playset lili (3 left). Most modern decks/ legacy decks only use up to 2 copy for now. Is it necessary to keep 4 copies ? When will next Modern Master release ? (Lili may drop price then)
100% agree with Knick here. If it were me I'd snap this trade off in a heartbeat and wouldn't look back. As for breaking a playset, unless you're playing Jund (or maybe Grixis Death's Shadow) you're probably ok with 3 lili's. The meta had shifted some to using Liliana, The Last Hope in combination with Liliana of the Veil as a 2/3 or 2/2 split (including sideboard). Still, if the meta goes back to 4 LoTV's and I was short I'd still make this trade and find someone who had the 4th and give them a bit of value back to get one if it became critical.
First point you made is bogus because what people want are the reprints not the 240 msrp box sets. Wizards may want them and enjoy the publicity that the high prices generate from people complaining, but in general you have a very steep mountain to climb if you want to prove that people would rather pay 240 msrp per box for sets like Masters 25 and iconic masters compared to battlebond and conspiracy 2. The only other masters set besides M2013 that came close to doing it right was MM2017, and it was saved by the power of fetch lands more than the rarity bump of Snapcaster Mage and the inclusion of Liliana of the Veil.
You are lumping everyone in to one bucket here. Getting value isn't the only reason for masters sets. The stated purpose is to increase supply.
If you take a look at it, most of the masters sets have been successful at their intended goal. That goal just doesn't happen to align with what you are looking for. You also flat out ignored my point of the great limited environment that the masters sets are.
Second Point: Both, and yes you CAN have both. Again, you're going into this weird mind set of not understanding that all things are relative and often a factor of time. Value is an ephemeral thing that is cyclical in nature. The point is to print the cards in a way that is affordable to the average consumer. Put the 100 dollar mythics in the 120 msrp box set and let their prices settle lower. No one playing the game benefits from them being priced like that, and not allowing people to get these cards any cheaper is part of the reason there is a flourishing counterfit market. Rebacks are the nightmare of Legacy / Vintage collectors, counterfits are the nightmare of modern buyers. You aren't just arguing for masters sets, you are arguing for something that is toxic to the community as a whole and a detriment to people who collect the cards as well.
If you actually believe that you can have value, lower the prices and print to demand, I think you should take a basic economics course. If you figure out how to successfully do it, sell that idea, become a billionaire, buy Hasbro and do whatever you want. Also - tell me how this is possible because every economist in the world will disagree with you. What is "affordable" and "average consumer"? That is impossible to define and not how strategic pricing works. You set a price point that you think the market will bear and that is what you set. Second - as I stated you cannot have a box that costs $7 and have an EV that is higher. Individual sellers and stores will artificially raise the price to the EV. What you want simply does not occur in the real world. If you look at the last several masters sets, the EV has cratered (excepting MM2017) far below the 240 MSRP that it was at during prerelease. Also nobody is paying that rate. Last I checked IMA can be had for around $130, M25 for $150. You can disagree with pricing all you want but it really doesn't matter too much what Wizards sets the MSRP at. The actual sellers are pricing the product close to the EV. For reference - MM13 was a $7 / pack being sold for about $11 / pack because that was the EV (note that timing was right around the launch of MM13). MM2017 is currently being had for around $12 / pack and is priced at $10 / pack. Why?
I'm not even going to discuss the counterfeit market. It is fairly easy to identify even the best counterfeits, and very few are actually that good.
Third Point: Yes, the reason the prices are high on Dominaria is because the new model that throttles the release of the new sets also coincided with a very good release that was widely enjoyed, thus players started coming back to the game while the supply was being artificially limited. The company had to do an emergency print run because they didn't realize it was going to be this way. Battlebond was also a set that no one expected to sell well and it ended up selling well.
Again, get off the conspiracy theories. Where is your proof of this "new model"? The (FAR) more likely scenario is that Wizards simply underestimated demand and didn't print enough to start with.
Hasbro/Wotc will dump SfM into whatever theme masters19 have. Some minor equipment theme will do.
It should temper the prices rise for a while. Until we get a return to return to zendikar.
I'm going to be frank: No one wants more masters sets. People want the cards reprinted, but the way they are doing them now this summer with reprinting cards in core sets and the summer supplementary sets is the way to do things. The only masters set that was done right from a value perspective was the first one and they under-printed it. On top of which, WoTC and a ton of TCG companies are trying a different print-run strategy to get the market moving. As I said elsewhere, the company is intentionally throttling back release day quantities of each set and are opening the gates on a set about 2-3 months after release.
First point here - I disagree with this. There are PLENTY of people who want more masters sets, both from a value perspective AND from a limited environment. Yes, people want cards reprinted and Masters sets accomplish this goal.
Second point - what is more important to you? Getting value or lowering card prices? As a general rule you can have one or the other but not both. I've seen multiple posts from you bemoaning card prices, yet you are unhappy here because Masters sets don't have enough value. It seems that you want these booster boxes to be like MM2013 where the price of packs is $7, the EV is $20, lowers EV to $12, and printed to demand. That's simply not going to happen.
Third point - did you ever consider that the player base may be growing again? Everything you mention are supply problems occurring over the last 3-4 months.Or maybe Wizards' underestimated the demand for Battlebond/Dominaria? I am not discounting that there is a potential supply chain problem - I don't know, but Dominaria is a print-to-demand set. However, let's drop the conspiracy theories that Wizards is intentionally screwing with the secondary market. From an overall perspective unavailability of the product is bad for Wizards. They learned that lesson back in '94 with the massive unavailability of Revised. It was not good for the game when people couldn't buy the product.
As for the relatively low premium for a foil Eternal Masters Mana Crypt:
Masters packs have a foil in every one, so that might depress foil prices generally.
On a card expensive even in nonfoil is there less room for growth?
Value looks fairly even, swapped extras for cards I wanted for decks, but am I missing something here?
Bomat Courier and Soul-Scar Mage are looking good in Standard right now, at least for the next few months. However, I really like the foil Daredevil. That's a card that will only get better as more cards get printed and definitely has Modern potential. Not sure I'd trade for the Khenra now, but if you have a Standard deck that wants it, then go for it. If the Chandra is extra, you could do a lot worse.
Yes, I wanted Khenra for Standard mono red aggro, and the cards I traded (including Chandra) were more than I needed for that deck.
I also wanted Daredevil for that deck and hadn't thought of the further upside, cool.
Agree with Knick here. The long term value of foil Dire Fleet Daredevil is exactly where I want to be. The cards you're trading away will all plummet in about 3 months.
I disagree with my offered tabernacle being a functional reprint. If indestructible creatures weren´t a thing, one could argue about it, but both cards work different with indestructible creatures like Marit-Lage, wich happens to see the light of play in decks that run tabernacle.
I mean, reverberate, increasing vengeance, twincast and harmless offering were different enough to be printed while fork and donate are on the reserved list. So we know that a simple colorshift is enough to make the card functional different enough, since there are several other examples (like sky spirit to the mentioned thunder spirit). Vengeance and offering have a target restriction the "original" spell didn´t have, but vengeance has an added benefit for that.
So why should my tabernacle be functional identical, while working different, while those are all ok?
To be a functional reprint, cards need to have (as far as i know) a) the same casting cost, b) the same rule text, and c) the same power/toughness in case its a creature. My tabernacle doesn´t have the same ruletext.
The thing is, wizards wiggles out of their own definitions by invokeing the "Spirit of the reserved list". But i think that is just a stunt to not have to explain why they don´t make such reprints as i offered.
Yes - we know that color shifting is not considered a functional reprint. However, I believe there was an uproar with Reverberate versus Fork. Reverberate was created in a different era of reprints. M10 released in July, 2009, before the major uproar that happened with the premium loophole because of Phyrexian Negator in a duel deck and Karn, Silver Golem in FTV: Relics in 2010.
So i'm looking at the RL duals, especially for blue, they are crazy high...especially Underground Sea and Volcanic Island. Will prices ever drop or should I just accept they will just keep increasing forever?
Just gotta accept it and pick up whatever you need before they climb even higher.
Pretty much this. They went into a lull and price dip maybe 2-3 years ago, but it's been consistently up since then. This trend is likely to continue in the short (next year or two) term as well. We're consistently seeing runs on RL cards and dual lands are probably the most consistent cards there. To make a stock market analogy they are the bluest of blue chips.
Depends greatly on condition. If it's NM, I'd price it in the $1700-$1900 range. English ones are $2600-$2800 right now, and the Italian ones are cheap by comparison.
For reference you can always check sold listings on Ebay or the Facebook group. Those are good places for information.
With the continual spike of Arabian cards, I'm wondering if now is the time to let my City of Brass go? Would getting Pile B be good value? A lot of modern staples have rebounded very well upon reprints, and I would expect Cavern to do the same. Is it worth Pile B?
I suppose this has to do with your goals. With pile B you are 3/4 of the way towards most of tribal decks (fish, humans, elves). If you're going to get significant play out of those types of decks, then I'd make the trade. If you're looking at this specifically from a value standpoint, AN City of Brass is never going back down. It's such an iconic card, extremely low supply and in great condition.
My personal rule is I won't trade Reserve List cards (and I throw a lot of the old AN, AQ, and LEG cards that aren't RL but iconic in here) for anything less than others on the RL. If it were me I would not make the trade but I am more of a collector than player nowadays.
I gave up on dinosaurs after realizing it just falls apart to control and I have UW auras deck that I won a pptq with that I will use for the rptq.
This looks more like a humble brag post than a trade. As far as long term value goes this is a no brainer on which one I would prefer to have. In 18 months this will be the equivalent of trading $130 or $140 (mostly store credit - not cash) for an MP trop.
So Back to Basics, despite not being on the reserved list, has not seen a reprint, and now has risen to a much higher price than before. I'm honestly kind of surprised it's dodged so many masters sets while Blood Moon gets reprinted constantly. I'd say get rid of them at the current price for sure, what do you guys think?
I'd agree, if anyone has copies then now is the time to sell. Blood Moon has gotten three Masters printings thus far, but only one of those was in a non-Modern set. With WotC's announcement regarding the future of Masters sets, I'd expect to see Back to Basics sooner than later; the last two Masters sets combined have contained quite a few reprints of cards with price tags that were inflated due to scarcity more so than demand. It's an inclusion that would boost the perceived EV of a box prior to release and then drop back down to a <$15 card afterwards.
While I agree in general with the statement, why would you want to sell right now? There isn't another Masters set on the horizon and you have all of 2018 and some portion of 2019 before it stands a reasonable shot at a reprint.
Is sitting on a copy (I think I have one somewhere) for a few months a worthwhile decision?
As for me, I do own a ton of RL cards and happily sunk thousands into them as recently as this year. I don't think you're part of the problem. There are a ton of people in their 30s and 40s that now have real jobs making 6 figures that can afford and want these cards. That's a big part of the reason you've seen the cost escalation.
wait wait wait! I'd do that trade too!
100% agree with Knick here. If it were me I'd snap this trade off in a heartbeat and wouldn't look back. As for breaking a playset, unless you're playing Jund (or maybe Grixis Death's Shadow) you're probably ok with 3 lili's. The meta had shifted some to using Liliana, The Last Hope in combination with Liliana of the Veil as a 2/3 or 2/2 split (including sideboard). Still, if the meta goes back to 4 LoTV's and I was short I'd still make this trade and find someone who had the 4th and give them a bit of value back to get one if it became critical.
You are lumping everyone in to one bucket here. Getting value isn't the only reason for masters sets. The stated purpose is to increase supply.
If you take a look at it, most of the masters sets have been successful at their intended goal. That goal just doesn't happen to align with what you are looking for. You also flat out ignored my point of the great limited environment that the masters sets are.
If you actually believe that you can have value, lower the prices and print to demand, I think you should take a basic economics course. If you figure out how to successfully do it, sell that idea, become a billionaire, buy Hasbro and do whatever you want. Also - tell me how this is possible because every economist in the world will disagree with you. What is "affordable" and "average consumer"? That is impossible to define and not how strategic pricing works. You set a price point that you think the market will bear and that is what you set. Second - as I stated you cannot have a box that costs $7 and have an EV that is higher. Individual sellers and stores will artificially raise the price to the EV. What you want simply does not occur in the real world. If you look at the last several masters sets, the EV has cratered (excepting MM2017) far below the 240 MSRP that it was at during prerelease. Also nobody is paying that rate. Last I checked IMA can be had for around $130, M25 for $150. You can disagree with pricing all you want but it really doesn't matter too much what Wizards sets the MSRP at. The actual sellers are pricing the product close to the EV. For reference - MM13 was a $7 / pack being sold for about $11 / pack because that was the EV (note that timing was right around the launch of MM13). MM2017 is currently being had for around $12 / pack and is priced at $10 / pack. Why?
I'm not even going to discuss the counterfeit market. It is fairly easy to identify even the best counterfeits, and very few are actually that good.
Again, get off the conspiracy theories. Where is your proof of this "new model"? The (FAR) more likely scenario is that Wizards simply underestimated demand and didn't print enough to start with.
First point here - I disagree with this. There are PLENTY of people who want more masters sets, both from a value perspective AND from a limited environment. Yes, people want cards reprinted and Masters sets accomplish this goal.
Second point - what is more important to you? Getting value or lowering card prices? As a general rule you can have one or the other but not both. I've seen multiple posts from you bemoaning card prices, yet you are unhappy here because Masters sets don't have enough value. It seems that you want these booster boxes to be like MM2013 where the price of packs is $7, the EV is $20, lowers EV to $12, and printed to demand. That's simply not going to happen.
Third point - did you ever consider that the player base may be growing again? Everything you mention are supply problems occurring over the last 3-4 months.Or maybe Wizards' underestimated the demand for Battlebond/Dominaria? I am not discounting that there is a potential supply chain problem - I don't know, but Dominaria is a print-to-demand set. However, let's drop the conspiracy theories that Wizards is intentionally screwing with the secondary market. From an overall perspective unavailability of the product is bad for Wizards. They learned that lesson back in '94 with the massive unavailability of Revised. It was not good for the game when people couldn't buy the product.
Agree with Knick here. The long term value of foil Dire Fleet Daredevil is exactly where I want to be. The cards you're trading away will all plummet in about 3 months.
Yes - we know that color shifting is not considered a functional reprint. However, I believe there was an uproar with Reverberate versus Fork. Reverberate was created in a different era of reprints. M10 released in July, 2009, before the major uproar that happened with the premium loophole because of Phyrexian Negator in a duel deck and Karn, Silver Golem in FTV: Relics in 2010.
Here's Maro's take on Reverberate:
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/32012175825/if-fork-is-on-the-reserved-list-why-is
Here's his take on Karn, Silver Golem
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/26148843985/karn-silver-golem-is-on-the-reserved-list-and
More info:
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/beyp6/wotc_clarifies_reserved_list_reprint_policy/
Funny, I bought the last 2 I needed last week for the exorbitant price of $50 each. Guess that is now looking like a bargain.
Pretty much this. They went into a lull and price dip maybe 2-3 years ago, but it's been consistently up since then. This trend is likely to continue in the short (next year or two) term as well. We're consistently seeing runs on RL cards and dual lands are probably the most consistent cards there. To make a stock market analogy they are the bluest of blue chips.
For reference you can always check sold listings on Ebay or the Facebook group. Those are good places for information.
I suppose this has to do with your goals. With pile B you are 3/4 of the way towards most of tribal decks (fish, humans, elves). If you're going to get significant play out of those types of decks, then I'd make the trade. If you're looking at this specifically from a value standpoint, AN City of Brass is never going back down. It's such an iconic card, extremely low supply and in great condition.
My personal rule is I won't trade Reserve List cards (and I throw a lot of the old AN, AQ, and LEG cards that aren't RL but iconic in here) for anything less than others on the RL. If it were me I would not make the trade but I am more of a collector than player nowadays.
This looks more like a humble brag post than a trade. As far as long term value goes this is a no brainer on which one I would prefer to have. In 18 months this will be the equivalent of trading $130 or $140 (mostly store credit - not cash) for an MP trop.
While I agree in general with the statement, why would you want to sell right now? There isn't another Masters set on the horizon and you have all of 2018 and some portion of 2019 before it stands a reasonable shot at a reprint.
Is sitting on a copy (I think I have one somewhere) for a few months a worthwhile decision?