For a card like Stormbreath Dragon to be in the same realm as Thundermaw Hellkite, it would have to have a meaningful impact on the game without the 7 cost monstrous effect. In the vast majority of tournament situations there are much better options than paying 7 mana for +3/+3 and damage equal to opponent hand size, especially late game when 7 mana is actually there to use, AND the opponent has enough cards in hand for the damage to really count, AND none of those cards are an instant-speed removal spell due to the inherent weakness in monstrous resolution.
Thundermaw on the other hand is more than just flying damage, it's flying tapping as well (even for shroud/hexproof), which means for all but reach creatures it's also unblockable with haste. Stormbreath on the other hand can be chump blocked by all but white creatures.
Situationally Stormbreath gets around white spells, which is very relevant, but for long-term market impacts, all-around good creatures usually trump situationally better creatures with a single color protection.
With an increased supply that hopefully will extend past the event, we should see a decrease in price. But beware of the one-per-person limit, that can actually cause spikes in value because each buyer will only get one, they either keep the one that they got, or sell their only copy. There won't be any "duplicates" that sellers can keep 1 and sell 3 type thing on eBay. So we may not see the rush of inventory that we saw last year over the first few days.
I'd be willing to bet Wizards learned their lesson and will producing a lot more inventory this year. So the price should be substantially less over time than last year's.
CoC is a textbook example of core set impacts on a reprint even before the set was released. So was stifle. I'm a little bit surprised at stifle given they usually show a bit more respect for judge promo artwork, especially in the foil variety. But was a good reminder that nothing is sacred if it's off the reserved list. Birthing Pod, Spellskite and the New Phyhrexia legends are all big candidates for the next MM, if not a summer set like conspiracy. Also, the Zendikar fetch lands won't be far off, if not the allied fetches in a standard-block. There's no reason a massively opened set like Zendikar should have a rare worth $75+ in the long term. Short term they may continue the climb, but market street advice would be to take some of the gains for modern-explosions off the table.
Survival is one of the few reserved cards that has a modern border, foil print run. That combined with scarcity has a far larger discrepancy with the original printing than with Cradle. I've personally found the Survivals easier to move and spiking higher recently. Ebay will show you the same difference in availability - 4 survivals available to almost 20 cradles.
That said cradle can go in more decks and is legal in legacy. The trend could easily turn (as it did a couple years ago when cradle spiked to over $100, then $200, and now $300). But given the modern border and collectible aspect for Survival, I would be surprised if cradle ever passed survival again.
So I certainly wouldn't trade 1-1, but maybe a cradle and $50-75 today if you really wanted the old-border style of cradle.
Along with suggestions already given, you can also go on eBay, do a search for "altered" or "painted", and find an artist you like. Message them and ask if they have a FB page or website with other alters, and you'll find a way to communicate with them off eBay as well. Just make sure you aren't doing any direct offers through eBay messages, as that's against their terms (obviously).
If you walk into WalMart and they sell out of a limited-quantity sale product, are you also going to whine? I don't think so.
This is the case here.
Actually, that's not the case here. For that to be analogous you would have had to walk into Walmart, somehow get a cart that appears to have the item, go through the checkout, pay for the item, and then the next day find the box was actually empty, and also find a refund on your credit card, without any responses to emails or answers to phone calls as to what happened. Not at all the same the thing as a normal out-of-stock Walmart experience.
Still, I'd recommend taking it easy on the seller. The reddit effort was likely a broadcast attempt due to being inundated with emails and phone calls after too many orders to fill. Hopefully the seller will update the website to also account for available stock, so they don't wait for order shipment to mark things as sold.
A truly blunt reminder of what can happen with promo speculation. I think B.D. remains the biggest single card fall in MTG history (with certain criteria) - posted the same on this last year:
Everyone has some good candidates by going for Mythics, but all retail product included, the biggest fall belongs to Broodmate Dragon.
Thanks to a premature print release, a very limited number of the promo version found their way onto the market. Over a period of 12 months the card's value climbed to over $250.00.
Then, it was discovered that a Walmart promo pack was featuring the card, from the same print runs, in massive quantities. A handful of early Walmart buyers and current owners rushed to sell their copies on eBay, with a string of quick 1 day auctions revealing what was happening. Within 4 days, the card was down to less than $2.00.
Dollar wise that would certainly be the biggest drop. Percentage wise there may be a handful of rares or uncommons that went from $2.50 or more to 2 cents or less, but in legitimate retail prices, the dragon takes the cake.
Conspiracy is new, and I'm sure a lot of players want to have it right away and try it out first week. I think the potential for this quickly becoming a less-popular set esp with M15 right around the corner is a very real possibility, and boxes should stabilize if not fall back to some good-deals afterwards.
Having foils of some great cards will help maintain some value, but with so much of the set dedicated exclusively to the conspiracy format, players who find the format less enjoyable will quickly move-on to other sets.
Not as long as stores are selling bulk rares for under 10 cents, which is the case today for newer sets. If you go far enough back in older sets you can get more, but generally I wouldn't expect to ever get more than ~50% of the cheapest rares in the set, since that's what the store has to be prepared to get, and then make a profit on a sale.
At the moment they are falling ~ $100/week. After selling as high as $900, they are down to ~$700 on eBay completed listings, we'll see if they smooth out there once initial supply dries up. Elesh Norn on the other hand has done the opposite, with initial supply ~$250 completely gone, and at the moment only two available in the $400s range.
Depends on price. If it's a $20+ card, I actually do a sleeve, upside down in top loader, tape the top (and folder over the tape so it's easy for the buyer to open without using scissors and risking anything else). Then put the top loader in a ~4x6 bubble mailer and ship it with delivery confirmation and tracking for $1.93 through Paypal. You can find top loaders with almost any thickness for up to ~10 cards thick. Any more, just use multiple top loaders and eventually a bigger envelope.
I'd be careful on this one as an investment or medium-term holding. Conspiracy is very unique in the sense that a significant number of cards are designed exclusively for the format. My local play group for example has absolutely no interest in playing the format after seeing the spoilers thus far, simply because so many of the cards involve "noting" things, "player to your left, right, etc" which makes the draft and game-play more tedious than it already is (Torpor Orb, Rest in Peace, Blind Obedience, Stranglehold, etc). There are still some great singles applicable to other formats, but that may lessen the appeal of sealed-product.
I'm mostly surprised how fast the Elesh Norn's dried up. There are 10x more Forces right now that Elesh Norn, and her price is over $400 now after starting ~$250. The risk with all this is there is no stated volume guarantees for judge promos. As cool as all of these are, I remain hesitant to buy new judge foils for at least the first 6-9 months.
Wow, i love them, please let them be in conspiracy (they must be, as that is the last pre-m15-frame Set right?)
If that was the case they'd probably have the conspiracy set symbol, but these look like the promo symbol, like judge. =( We'll have to wait and see - she probably wasn't supposed to spoil these yet!
All credit due I like Terese's art esp her previous zendikar fulls. But the colors seem muted on this post, hopefully they're a bit more vibrant IRL. Personally would have preferred a good full art John Avon (those unhinged full art...) or a new full-art style for Judge, but these will be really nice. Now getting 20 of them for a deck... good luck.
She did not work on Zendikar lands in fact the only full cycle of basic lands she ever worked on were the guru lands.
Oh that's right! I keep thinking she did the Véronique Meignaud lands especially that tornado island. But it wasn't. Guru is actually right in line with these - although with new borders and the zendikar frame, I still hope they are more vibrant IRL.
Thundermaw on the other hand is more than just flying damage, it's flying tapping as well (even for shroud/hexproof), which means for all but reach creatures it's also unblockable with haste. Stormbreath on the other hand can be chump blocked by all but white creatures.
Situationally Stormbreath gets around white spells, which is very relevant, but for long-term market impacts, all-around good creatures usually trump situationally better creatures with a single color protection.
I'd be willing to bet Wizards learned their lesson and will producing a lot more inventory this year. So the price should be substantially less over time than last year's.
That said cradle can go in more decks and is legal in legacy. The trend could easily turn (as it did a couple years ago when cradle spiked to over $100, then $200, and now $300). But given the modern border and collectible aspect for Survival, I would be surprised if cradle ever passed survival again.
So I certainly wouldn't trade 1-1, but maybe a cradle and $50-75 today if you really wanted the old-border style of cradle.
Actually, that's not the case here. For that to be analogous you would have had to walk into Walmart, somehow get a cart that appears to have the item, go through the checkout, pay for the item, and then the next day find the box was actually empty, and also find a refund on your credit card, without any responses to emails or answers to phone calls as to what happened. Not at all the same the thing as a normal out-of-stock Walmart experience.
Still, I'd recommend taking it easy on the seller. The reddit effort was likely a broadcast attempt due to being inundated with emails and phone calls after too many orders to fill. Hopefully the seller will update the website to also account for available stock, so they don't wait for order shipment to mark things as sold.
A truly blunt reminder of what can happen with promo speculation. I think B.D. remains the biggest single card fall in MTG history (with certain criteria) - posted the same on this last year:
Having foils of some great cards will help maintain some value, but with so much of the set dedicated exclusively to the conspiracy format, players who find the format less enjoyable will quickly move-on to other sets.
If that was the case they'd probably have the conspiracy set symbol, but these look like the promo symbol, like judge. =( We'll have to wait and see - she probably wasn't supposed to spoil these yet!
Oh that's right! I keep thinking she did the Véronique Meignaud lands especially that tornado island. But it wasn't. Guru is actually right in line with these - although with new borders and the zendikar frame, I still hope they are more vibrant IRL.