StarCity's new buy list

[DubDub]

Saw this thread over on MTGTheSource.



The discussion on TheSource revolves around whether SCG's prices will influence the market (upwards, in general), and why they're being more upfront about these buy prices (which in at least some cases are the same prices as ~2 months ago, but are much more visible now).  Also, whether this is a 'good thing' for Legacy.

SCG is holding several $10K weekends each with a $5K Legacy event in the next two months, so it's possible they know the demand will be there, and they just need to have Eternal cards in stock.  However, I'm wondering why they're willing to advertise paying so much for Power, as well as Vintage 'Standouts' and 'Staples'.  Do they plan just to sell Vintage cards at their existing Legacy events, or (hope against hope) is this a lead up to announcing some Vintage events?  Presumably they would better be able to move Vintage cards by drawing in non-Legacy-playing Vintage players, right?  Additionally, I wouldn't think they'd buy up Power just to use it as prize support for Legacy events.

[Troy_Costisick]

With 2 Legacy Gran Prix's this year and attendance at their Legacy Open events doubling over the last 12 months, SCG is anticipating a rocketing rise in prices for eternal cards.  Several of their articles in the past few weeks have talked about how prices on staples and any card that could conceivably be a staple in the future are going up.  By advertising these buy rates now, they are getting ahead of the curve.  They learned from Candelabra that there is no time to lose in acquiring eternal cards.  If they had advertised for it like this back a month ago, they would have made a killing today.

I believe that any cards that are Invasion Block and older are going to rise dramatically over the next 12 months.  Any card that has an effect that even *might* be useful will see its value go up.  Force of Will is going to be $100 by December.  Wasteland will be $75.  Duals will be outrageous.  Even oddball things like Diamond Valley, Mirror Universe, Sword of the Ages, Abeyance, or Transmute Artifact will increase.  Anything from Urza's will be redonk too, along with the original fetches.  Heck, I could even see the Shocklands increase in value as people turn to them who can't afford real duals.

This announcement SCG is just confirmation to me, at least, that Legacy- not Vintage or Extended- is now the driving force of prices in the after-market.  Now is the right time to hoard your cards and buy low anything you think might be valuable.

Peace,

-Troy

[Sextiger]

Just another attempt to control the market, they advertise for old Staples every couples of months.   Buy a shitload of cards, raise all their prices, sell a shitload of cards, rinse and repeat. 

[honestabe]

They're offering prices better than if you were to sell on eBay for most cards on that list.  Makes me think they're just trying to buy out all the cards so they dont loose potential profit from eBay

[Troy_Costisick]

Just another attempt to control the market, they advertise for old Staples every couples of months.   Buy a shitload of cards, raise all their prices, sell a shitload of cards, rinse and repeat.  

Their Open Series for Legacy has done more to drive demand for and therefore prices of eternal cards than any artificial manipulation of their Buy List they may or may not have done.

[Gambit]

Starcity has basically single-handedly built legacy. 2 years ago it was a format nobody wanted to play. I say fuck it, let em do whatever they want if they continue to push good eternal formats.Even if new high prices don't allow some entry into the format, the format is still 50x larger than it was before they started holding their tournaments. Why they are buying vintage stuff, I'm not sure, it would be great if they started holding some type 1 events.

[Will]

Why has no one taken into account that this is near mint prices?  I am well aware that these prices are far above what other stores will buy the same cards for but they are merely trying to be competitive.  When prices on the buylist get closer to what is at the time considered market value I am sure that SCG's scrutiny on NM vs. SP etc. will increase if it wasn't already very high.  Personally I feel that increasing the prices to eBay prices allows SCG to increase their push to buildup Legacy and their Eternal cardpool showing the strength of the format in their eyes.  As someone who is looking to sell more of these cards than buy I am happy but the long term implications of this price increase has yet to be seen; however, it appears that the price of Legacy cards has not reached a ceiling yet and may not have one.

[Mantis]

Could this possibly mean SCG is thinking about hosting Vintage SCG Opens again?

[Commandant]

Could this possibly mean SCG is thinking about hosting Vintage SCG Opens again?

That could be Mantis. However I'm more inclined to believe that SCG may be picking up P9 and other staples because 1.5 players (Eternal players in general) are more likely to get involved or are already involved in Type 1; targeting the player population is how one makes the best sales. Unfortunatly SCG Type 1 has not gathered enough interest in a long while to make it worth running for Ben. I do hope they are willing to test the waters again.

[Troy_Costisick]

Could this possibly mean SCG is thinking about hosting Vintage SCG Opens again?

We can always hope!  But I think they've noticed that prices on these cards aren't coming down despite the utter decimation of the Vintage format after 2008.  So Vintage staples look like solid investments that can really pay off down the line if they get unbanned in Legacy.

Peace,

-Troy

[DubDub]

Could this possibly mean SCG is thinking about hosting Vintage SCG Opens again?

We can always hope!  But I think they've noticed that prices on these cards aren't coming down despite the utter decimation of the Vintage format after 2008.  So Vintage staples look like solid investments that can really pay off down the line if they get unbanned in Legacy.
Peace,

-Troy

Power 9 (substituting Time Vault for Timetwister), Workshop, and Bazaar have 0% chance of unbanning in Legacy.  Any of those would dominate Legacy to extent that would make the Mystical Tutor and Survival bans laughable (well, more laughable).

Timetwister and Library of Alexandria might not dominate Legacy, but with the added demand of exposure to the Legacy playerbase I would expect their price to become jaw-dropping insane.  If they're (WoTC, DCI, Hasbro, whoever; not SCG) going to stick to the Reserve list they would be wise not to release four-digit-per-card-playsets into the most popular format.

The only other cards legal in Vintage and banned in Legacy (that I see) are Mana Drain, Sol Ring, and Tolarian Academy.  Drain is down from its longstanding price of ~$100, so it makes sense for them to buy at this price.  (Amazing what printing a competitor at common can do.)  Plus, they can move them to the EDH/Commander crowd probably pretty easily.  Sol Ring is the most desired 'casual card' of all time and they can sell truckfuls at whatever price they set, so that makes sense.  Tolarian Academy is a bit of an odd case.  It's banned in EDH/Commander and Legacy, with no chance (in my opinion) of becoming unbanned in Legacy.  Perhaps they're stockpiling in case of an unban announcement for EDH/Commander?  Or maybe they've just found that the card is still in quite high demand, and think they can turn profits on it without some big shift in demand.

Or, it is possible that seeing what their support of Legacy has done to prices of staples in that format SCG is going to intentionally drive demand for Vintage (and Vintage-Legacy) cards by announcing support for Vintage.  If they announced a no-proxy $1K Vintage tournament at each of their $10K weekends starting in June 2011 or whenever (held on Saturdays to compete with Standard and not Legacy) the prices of the cards they're buying now would increase drastically.

[Tha Gunslinga]

A rising tide lifts all boats.

[ELD]

If Library of Alexandria were to reach Mox level prices, due to being legal in Legacy, I see no problem.  The problem comes when there are no viable alternatives.  If there is a legacy deck that is good and costs 10K, I see no issue if you can compete against it with a deck that is 1K.  Legacy has way more viable decks than Vintage, and that's because they have more tools to work with.  So long as they don't limit deckbuilders, the system is large enough to balance itself. 

[Bunbury]

I believe that any cards that are Invasion Block and older are going to rise dramatically over the next 12 months.  Any card that has an effect that even *might* be useful will see its value go up.  Force of Will is going to be $100 by December.  Wasteland will be $75.  Duals will be outrageous.  Even oddball things like Diamond Valley, Mirror Universe, Sword of the Ages, Abeyance, or Transmute Artifact will increase.  Anything from Urza's will be redonk too, along with the original fetches.  Heck, I could even see the Shocklands increase in value as people turn to them who can't afford real duals.
Peace,

-Troy

\
I agree to an extent. Many eternal staples have doubled in price in the last year (Was it largely due to the reserve list announcements? I'm honestly not sure) and some even more. I don't think we've seen the ceiling. But I don't think duals are going to be too much higher. Underground Sea I think is turning into about what the cap will be, +/- 15 dollars. Prices only hold as long as some people will pay it. Eventually card prices would get so high that no one wants to drop over 500 on 4 lands and card prices will stabilize. I do wish I hadn't sold my trops and FoWs, as I sold them (Albeit at a great deal) a few years back. I hope wastes get that high though. If I can get that in the next year or so, I'd probably take it. I mean, they'll already buy them for way more than I paid, and I just bought mine last May.

But I'm getting off-topic here. Times are great to sell cards, not so good to buy. I'm slightly worried what that means for the growth of the game. That's not to say magic is dying. It won't die for many years to come, I don't think. But legacy and vintage will become more difficult to enter.

[honestabe]

Legacy and vintage will be almost exclusive to MTGO by 2 years.

Maybe not Vintage, where proxies are the norm, but Legacy will be mostly Online shortly, unless they do something to get more Wastes/Forces/Duals into circulation.

[Troy_Costisick]

Legacy and vintage will be almost exclusive to MTGO by 2 years.

Maybe not Vintage, where proxies are the norm, but Legacy will be mostly Online shortly, unless they do something to get more Wastes/Forces/Duals into circulation.

Forces are more rare online than they are in paper.  Unless they do something to increase the circulation of Wastes, Duals, and Forces online, Legacy is going to stay a paper format.

[honestabe]

Every Legacy card is cheaper online the exception being FoW ($110 online), Lion's Eye Diamond ($77) and Daze ($10).  Oh, and wasteland is the same price.

But aside from that, I don't really know what you mean Troy, since every other card is significantly cheaper.

Just off the website of a dealer,  found these prices (you could find all of these cards 5-15% cheaper from humans selling them in the classified on MTGO)

Counterbalance: $1
AEther Vial: $1.50
Tundra: $11.75
Underground Sea: $17.75
Sinkhole: $6.75
Tarmogoyf: $29.00
Phyrexian Dreadnought: $24.00
Stifle: $5.00
Flooded Strand: $8.50
Umezawa's Jitte: $3.25
Sensei's Divining Top: $1.50
Candelabra of Twanos: $4.50

With prices like this, I feel the only factor keeping Legacy online down is the oppresive price of FoW.  Even with Force being so expensive, Legacy has been increasing in popularity quite a bit on mtgo.

[Troy_Costisick]

That and you can't ever redeem them for the real thing, so the prices are still too high to justify buying pixels.  Again, unless the price of FoW, Duals, and Wastes come down, Legacy will remain a paper format.

[TheBrassMan]

Some people are opposed to buying virtual goods- but this isn't some vast majority.  People who have no problem buying virtual goods include the millions of players who make WoW and Farmville the most popular games ever, and the countless magic players who prefer to have their collections online rather than owning real-life cards (because that's where the events are).  That's to say nothing of the people who are willing to buy or work for things that have no intrinsic value, but only fiat value provided by an authority that says "I promise, you'll have something to trade this stuff for (that is, the billions of people who own paper magic cards... or US currency

edit:  Note that this is not to say I'm in the "prices are high! sky is falling! legacy is doomed!" camp.  Prices are getting high because there's such a huge demand (i.e. there's more people playing legacy now than ever in history.)  If starting today, no new player ever picked up the format - we'd *still* be better off than when the prices were low.  If the prices get so high that people won't spend them to get in the format... then the prices will drop... but I think we're a ways off from that - and that wouldn't kill the format, it would just mean less growth.

Incidentally, this could be an opportunity to extol proxy vintage as the budget format, for people who are interested in legacy but aren't willing to make the investment.

[Diakonov]

Legacy and vintage will be almost exclusive to MTGO by 2 years.

Why exclusive?  This seems backwards to me.

Perhaps some people will sell their cardboard to play Eternal online, but I would imagine that people who like the format would play both.  If anything, I think it would bring more Eternal players to the cardboard world.

[Dr. Sylvan]

My read on the original topic of the SCG buylist is that these cards have retained value well enough---or skyrocketed dramatically in price---and sold so consistently, that there's no reason not to grab all the supply that's not nailed down. Heck, I'm considering selling my Ancestral Recall to them. It's been collecting dust for most of the ~7 years I've owned it.

Note that this is not to say I'm in the "prices are high! sky is falling! legacy is doomed!" camp.  Prices are getting high because there's such a huge demand (i.e. there's more people playing legacy now than ever in history.)  If starting today, no new player ever picked up the format - we'd *still* be better off than when the prices were low.  If the prices get so high that people won't spend them to get in the format... then the prices will drop... but I think we're a ways off from that - and that wouldn't kill the format, it would just mean less growth.

The theory I'm coming around to, barring a sudden outbreak of common sense resulting in the abolition of the reserved list, is that Wizards will eventually do a wave of secondary-market-driven bans, which they'll announce a year in advance. Otherwise, they'll just let Legacy wither away, with "OverExtended" as their next eternal format.

Incidentally, this could be an opportunity to extol proxy vintage as the budget format, for people who are interested in legacy but aren't willing to make the investment.

If the duals and Forces reach prices someone won't pay for Legacy, what kind of proxy limit are you talking about for Vintage? 20? 25?

[honestabe]

Legacy and vintage will be almost exclusive to MTGO by 2 years.

Why exclusive?  This seems backwards to me.

Perhaps some people will sell their cardboard to play Eternal online, but I would imagine that people who like the format would play both.  If anything, I think it would bring more Eternal players to the cardboard world.

I feel like the rising prices of cardboard will encourage people to just sell out and buy the cheaper MTGO versions.  I also think that new players trying to get into the format are much more likely to drop $150-$200 on the MTGO version of a deck (that they can play everyday both for fun or in a tournament) than drop $500-$1000 on the very same deck in real life.  Especially if there isn't a big legacy scene where they live.

[TheBrassMan]

I feel like the rising prices of cardboard will encourage people to just sell out and buy the cheaper MTGO versions. 

Sell out?  Sell to who?  Someone ends up with the cards.  It's not like they're going to sell them all to SCG, and SCG is going to sit on them and say "500 dollars a force of will, hahahahahahah!".  If there are more sellers than buyers than SCG lowers the prices - they don't keep going up unless people keep playing.

[Diakonov]

The theory I'm coming around to, barring a sudden outbreak of common sense resulting in the abolition of the reserved list, is that Wizards will eventually do a wave of secondary-market-driven bans, which they'll announce a year in advance.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this.  Could you elaborate?

Legacy and vintage will be almost exclusive to MTGO by 2 years.

Why exclusive?  This seems backwards to me.

Perhaps some people will sell their cardboard to play Eternal online, but I would imagine that people who like the format would play both.  If anything, I think it would bring more Eternal players to the cardboard world.

I feel like the rising prices of cardboard will encourage people to just sell out and buy the cheaper MTGO versions.  I also think that new players trying to get into the format are much more likely to drop $150-$200 on the MTGO version of a deck (that they can play everyday both for fun or in a tournament) than drop $500-$1000 on the very same deck in real life.  Especially if there isn't a big legacy scene where they live.

I'm fine with the idea that a newcomer would start online.  If there isn't a Legacy scene in their area, they wouldn't randomly start playing cardboard Legacy anyway.  Perhaps this is incorrect thinking, but I believe that part of what makes Magic such an awesome game is the social aspect attached to it, and that doesn't really exist online.  In fact, I'm not familiar with anybody who plays only online (not saying they aren't out there, but hopefully there aren't many).

[Dr. Sylvan]

The theory I'm coming around to, barring a sudden outbreak of common sense resulting in the abolition of the reserved list, is that Wizards will eventually do a wave of secondary-market-driven bans, which they'll announce a year in advance.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this.  Could you elaborate?

Sure, I'm predicting that they would have to ban the $100+ cards, otherwise so few people would be able to play sanctioned Legacy that the format would functionally cease to exist. I'm predicting they'd announce it long in advance to prevent some kind of overnight price collapse. On the other hand, there's nothing stopping a Force of Will reprint (FTV, Judge foil, whatever), so if they keep ignoring that as FoW hits $100, it's a sign that they plan to let the format slowly die off.

[DubDub]

My read on the original topic of the SCG buylist is that these cards have retained value well enough---or skyrocketed dramatically in price---and sold so consistently, that there's no reason not to grab all the supply that's not nailed down. Heck, I'm considering selling my Ancestral Recall to them. It's been collecting dust for most of the ~7 years I've owned it.

Posters (including in particular Ben Bleiweiss) have made the argument on TheSource that SCG doesn't hold monopoly power because they have many competitors.  But I think that argument breaks down when you consider that SCG is the only dealer available at their $5K opens.  As the only seller, they by definition are a monopoly there.  Perhaps they allow trading, but traders would be foolish to value cards significantly differently from the price-setter in the room: SCG.  Knowing as much SCG could plan to make profit on the captive demand their opens attract, which they're better able to do if prices are inflating over time.

Note that this is not to say I'm in the "prices are high! sky is falling! legacy is doomed!" camp.  Prices are getting high because there's such a huge demand (i.e. there's more people playing legacy now than ever in history.)  If starting today, no new player ever picked up the format - we'd *still* be better off than when the prices were low.  If the prices get so high that people won't spend them to get in the format... then the prices will drop... but I think we're a ways off from that - and that wouldn't kill the format, it would just mean less growth.

The theory I'm coming around to, barring a sudden outbreak of common sense resulting in the abolition of the reserved list, is that Wizards will eventually do a wave of secondary-market-driven bans, which they'll announce a year in advance. Otherwise, they'll just let Legacy wither away, with "OverExtended" as their next eternal format.

The immediate problem with secondary-market driven bans is that the cards become ridiculous in the aftermath.  Imagine WoTC saying "we know Candelabra is only $15 now, but it was $300 when it was unbanned and we have to preserve the format".  It's pretty clear at that point that simply printing more of the card would solve the issue.  Especially since so many of the cards now reaching outrageous prices are niche cards like Candelabra or Tabernacle where banning them greatly undermines a whole archetype.

Eventually the real problem will be the question of banning 'for-cost' the most central staples: dual lands, Force of Will, Wasteland.  You can't ban them right?  Because that fundamentally changes Legacy in a way even banning Candelabra or Tabernacle doesn't.  But what do you do when they're not $60-$60-$30, but $200-$200-$100?

I feel like the rising prices of cardboard will encourage people to just sell out and buy the cheaper MTGO versions.

Sell out?  Sell to who?  Someone ends up with the cards.  It's not like they're going to sell them all to SCG, and SCG is going to sit on them and say "500 dollars a force of will, hahahahahahah!".  If there are more sellers than buyers than SCG lowers the prices - they don't keep going up unless people keep playing.

It's possible that cards become intrinsically valuable at some point once they've become expensive.  So cards may pass from players to collectors.  Juzam Djinn and (Beta) Birds of Paradise, for instance.  Maybe those examples are 'iconic' where the Legacy staples are not.  I could see someone in ~3 years saying "No, no, no, I don't play with my 40 Revised dual lands.  I just have them.  Everybody plays online anyway."

The theory I'm coming around to, barring a sudden outbreak of common sense resulting in the abolition of the reserved list, is that Wizards will eventually do a wave of secondary-market-driven bans, which they'll announce a year in advance.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this.  Could you elaborate?

Sure, I'm predicting that they would have to ban the $100+ cards, otherwise so few people would be able to play sanctioned Legacy that the format would functionally cease to exist. I'm predicting they'd announce it long in advance to prevent some kind of overnight price collapse. On the other hand, there's nothing stopping a Force of Will reprint (FTV, Judge foil, whatever), so if they keep ignoring that as FoW hits $100, it's a sign that they plan to let the format slowly die off.

Sorry for quoting... and then quoting again.  I doubt they'd be very considerate about announcing such bans a year in advance.  What if a metagame predator comes up that reduces the price in the intervening 12 months?  How would that protect players from a card like Candelabra that explodes overnight?  ("So, it's banned in a year?  Okay, I guess I'll get a set now to remain competitive, and then sell them in ~10 months.")  It also introduces a weird incentive system.  If I have a set of $30-$40 dollar cards that I think are broken then I better win a $5K the week I debut my deck, or they're skyrocket, then get banned, then drop to $15 per.

[Troy_Costisick]

Until Wizards sees a drop-off in attendance for Legacy tournaments, we're not going to get an Over-Extended format.  Right now Legacy tournaments are smashing records.  There's no reason to believe that the current price points of cards are too onerous for new players to join in.  The clearly are [joining in].  

*edited to add [joining in] for clarity's sake.

[DubDub]

They clearly are joining in. 

Are my edits correct?

I think you make a good point.  Prices are up because demand has been spurred.  Most of us would probably compare to prices seen in Vintage before proxies became standard, but the levels of support Vintage got then and Legacy has now are quite different.  Just serves to reiterate that the most direct path to getting people to play Vintage is to support the format.  SCG allegedly ran the first few Legacy $5K's at a loss, and look at their open series now.  It would be amazing if they were willing to do the same (with $1K's) for Vintage.

[metalhead666]

Until Wizards sees a drop-off in attendance for Legacy tournaments, we're not going to get an Over-Extended format. 

I do not agree with this.  I do not think that Wizards will create another format at this point.  They already have enough, and the most popular formats are standard, limited, and extended.  They will continue to support these formats until they see a drop off in attendance at those tournaments.

There's no reason to believe that the current price points of cards are too onerous for new players to join in.  The clearly are. 

I do not agree with this at all.  All that a new player has to do is find friends who play and they can borrow cards from until they can buy/trade for their own cards.  There are also several decks that you can play that are relatively inexpensive (and probably cost less than current standard decks).

[Troy_Costisick]

Until Wizards sees a drop-off in attendance for Legacy tournaments, we're not going to get an Over-Extended format. 

I do not agree with this.  I do not think that Wizards will create another format at this point.  They already have enough, and the most popular formats are standard, limited, and extended.  They will continue to support these formats until they see a drop off in attendance at those tournaments.

There's no reason to believe that the current price points of cards are too onerous for new players to join in.  The clearly are. 

I do not agree with this at all.  All that a new player has to do is find friends who play and they can borrow cards from until they can buy/trade for their own cards.  There are also several decks that you can play that are relatively inexpensive (and probably cost less than current standard decks).

Two things.  1) According to WotC's own data, Legacy is the second most popular constructed format.  Not Extended.  2) You misunderstood my post.  I don't believe- at all -that prices on Legacy cards are too high.  People are clearly still joining the format in large numbers.  Prices will have to go much, much higher than they are now to have any negative impact.

They clearly are joining in. 

Are my edits correct?

I think you make a good point.  Prices are up because demand has been spurred.  Most of us would probably compare to prices seen in Vintage before proxies became standard, but the levels of support Vintage got then and Legacy has now are quite different.  Just serves to reiterate that the most direct path to getting people to play Vintage is to support the format.  SCG allegedly ran the first few Legacy $5K's at a loss, and look at their open series now.  It would be amazing if they were willing to do the same (with $1K's) for Vintage.

Yes!  Your edits are correct and Yes! it would be incredibly exciting if they started doing $1k events, like on Fridays or something at their open events.

Peace,

-Troy