Magic Finance Thread

[Thestatusquo]

As we were taught by the league of legends people. It is absolutely thoroughly impossible to discuss different aspects of the same game in a single thread. It is much better to make two threads that clutter the boards instead.

So, use this thread to discuss the various financial aspects of magic. What are you speculating on? What cards do you expect to drop heavily with the rotation? Remember, you cannot discuss these things in the strategy or pro tour thread. That would cause madness. It is much better if every topic has a seperate thread for each individual component of it. It makes everything more organized and doesn't over clutter the board at all.

[Thestatusquo]

I'm planning on speculating pretty hard on thoughtseize. They're going to go down to around 20, probably, but I don't think it will take too long for them to shoot back up after rotation.

Snapcaster is a good pick up right now. It's just below 20$ and will probably be a 50$ card in a few years. If you can find standard players trying to get out of their snapcasters, trade for as many as you can possibly get your hands on.

[kdowns]

Snapcaster will definitely go up, I know it sees play in Modern and I think it gets played in Legacy.

Also I see Reckoners going up with the rotation as well as Fleecemane Lions.

[mykonian]

aren't you scared a thread like this will invite people unsuitable for speculation on cards to try their hand at it (with predictable results)?

[saulres]

I think the Thelonite Monk is going to shoot up in value to be close to the Moxes. Stock up now.

[xRECKONERx]

Ashiok will bottom out around $10, which is when I'd start scooping them up. Because, inevitably, some pro player will top 8 with 1-2 Ashioks either main or sideboard and it'll bump up their value.

Scry lands won't ever be super valuable, so whatever to them.

Thoughtseize will go up a lot, seeing as how the original Thoughtseize is still sitting around $60 but the THS one is at $20ish.

[talah]

Tappus and Grimjaw would be the cards I'd mainly trade for, you can probably offload all of your Golemfly Hives because the same unmarked card is still being made into the foreseeable future.

I put all my Grimjaws into my main deck and try to have a mix of Forcedome and Tappus in my sub-deck. Actually this has become pretty standard play in the cross-summits, because they're both great utility cards and no problem to burn. If current trends continue these guys will probably go from about $5 right now to a $couple hundred within twelve months or so - a massive return on investment (considering the original production run will only last a few more weeks).

[Majiffy]

Hey everyone long time listener first time caller.

Never played LoL myself but I recommend you spend all your resources getting "Voodoo Economics", I heard it's the best magic economics you can find on the market these days.

[nhammen]

Well, I have never owned a card that was so valuable that I had to decide whether to speculate or not, until today. It's a new territory for me, and I'm unsure about what to do. From what you have said about Thoughtseize, I think I will hold on to mine for a while. Or maybe being new to this, I am one of the aforementioned "people unsuitable for speculation on cards"? Either way, what about Purphoros and Heliod? Sell ASAP or hold?

[Tamuz]

I had a black lotus once.

I ate it, best meal I've ever eaten.

[Thestatusquo]

Reck, I don't think you're right about Ashiok.

If nothing else, the floor will be way lower. If we look at Vraska, which is good comparison because its a planeswalker that didn't have an immediate home, it started out high and then bottomed out right around 3$, and which point it was a good time to buy in because even if its a planeswalker, its a niche one. Vraska is now about 5-6 after seeing some tournament success (it was played SB of jund as well as is in the mainboard of the GB control deck)

I think if you expect ashiok to follow a trajectory more than that you will be surprised. Just being played a little isn't enough to create that kind of value.

That being said, its probably an EDH card, which means if you intend to do a very long spec you could be rewarded.

[mykonian]

Or maybe being new to this, I am one of the aforementioned "people unsuitable for speculation on cards"?

If you ask the question you already know, don't you? Speculation is a simple idea. You buy, prizes rise or drop, you sell when high, you make free money. Where does the money come from? Someone is going to lose. And on top of that, there's an influx of cards. They get printed, after all. Every year hundreds of new cards come in, and it really doesn't matter wether they are reprints or not. If they are, the supply of perhaps a cool card you had in stock suddenly rises dramatically, suppressing the prize. If it's a new card, the things it does might render your cards obsolete. The supply and the possibilities of cards can only grow, and the amount of money that's going around in the second hand market should not be able to keep up with that growth in the long run. So it'll get spread out over more cards, which means that by holding on to cards you are playing a losers game, really.

And that's fine, to play a losers game. In the meantime you can have fun with your cards and that's worth something as well. But if you want to make money on it, you should really be sure you are ahead of the game and less then half the people that speculate can actually do that.

[chamber]

Historically its not really been a losers game to hold on to cards, that's because the magic community has far out grown the old supply of cards, and wizards typically doesn't like reprinting cards they deemed to be mistakes the first time around, which are often the ones that get the most expensive. They also learn from these mistakes so tend not to print cards that better replicate their effect.

This doesn't have to stay true, particularly if the Magic Community stops growing at the rate it has been, but in recent years staples of older formats have gone from being 10-20 while in standard to 30-50, 3-4 years later.

[Thestatusquo]

The magic market isn't any more of a losers market than any other form of speculation. Winners and losers are based off of knowledge about what they're speculating on. Most people don't know as much as they thing they do, so they lose money.

Recks post is an example. If anything ashiok is overprices right now. His thoughts about how much he likes it personally are causing him to not see what is obvious to everyone else: That it is fringe playable at best in one deck, so it will not be able to retain a price much about 5$. Historically this is true. Buying in at 10 is going to cause him to lose a lot of money unless he is willing to wait for a long time for scarcity to set in and the EDH crowd to use the card. These are the people who lose money on speculation.

[xRECKONERx]

Huh, I didn't know Vraska hit $3. When I pulled a foil one it was around its lowest price, I thought, and the foil was at $30, and usually it's about 2.5-3x as much for the foil than the regular one.

I do see Ashiok dropping incredibly low, though. Nobody likes it, at all, and nobody is impressed. I could see it being run as a one-of in Esper and that's about it. I want it to be good, but I'm not saying it will be. I would still invest in low dollar planeswalkers, though, because eventually you can make that money back.

Also... thoughts on the new dragon? He seems WAY overpriced at $25.

[Thestatusquo]

Everything is going to be overprices right after it comes out. This is a basic tenet of scarcity. There aren't enough copies in circulation to meet current demand. This will all change next week.

[nhammen]

So... ummm... how do you sell cards and not get ripped off? I've been trying to sell my Purphoros for a month now. I tried my local store, but they were only willing to give 30% or so of the value. I tried craigslist and got no offers at all. I tried to go on eBay, but saw that doing local only was really complicated and gave up on that. It has now gone down in value by $5 since I first tried to sell it. But my Voice of Resurgence has gone up by $6, so I guess that all works out fine. But I'd still like to sell it before it drops further.

[NabakovNabakov]

The magic market isn't any more of a losers market than any other form of speculation. Winners and losers are based off of knowledge about what they're speculating on. Most people don't know as much as they thing they do, so they lose money.

There's going to a variance of returns in any market, but the real question is whether the whole pie is growing or shrinking over time. I can hold a diversified portfolio of stocks and, absent some kind of horrible disaster that would probably render my investment wealth moot anyway, expect to make a good return over the long run. The value comes not from my knowledge of the market, just the actual value generated by the firms whose stock I hold. That might not matter if you're planning on taking the purely speculative route, but there's no reason to speculate in a shrinking market if you don't have to.

All things considered, the MTG market

has

been bolstered by a large and growing (or at least churning) fanbase, but compared to your option to just invest in financial instruments, there are a lot of downsides. First, Wizards always gets their cut. Second, Wizard's meddling makes card values highly volatile, with no commensurate increase in return. A single rule change or new card can devastate the value of an old card tomorrow, but that fact isn't going to increase the card's value today. Third, you're paying a nonzero amount to ship and store cards, not to mention basic market frictions (person-to-person singles sales are time-consuming/sketchy (see above), which is why middlemen like SCG can take such a big margin).

You might still know enough about Magic to make it work and turn a profit, but the true measuring stick will always be how much you could have made investing that money elsewhere.

[Thestatusquo]

Nhammen, I'd suggest buylisting cards to stores like Channelfireball mtgcardmarket cardkingdom and starcitygames. You will get probably 66% of the value of the card, but its typically better than trying to ebay it and paying all their fees. This is especially good if you want to sell a lot of cards at once, quickly.

A big mistake people make at first is assuming they're going to get retail price for their cards. You are not a retail store. No one is going to pay retail prices for your cards. The best you can hope for is ebay which is typically a little less than retail prices or buylist as I mentioned above. Each has their merits, but as you're probably just a casual seller and don't intend to sell magic cards long term I would suggest seeing what you can get for your stuff on a buylist.

[xRECKONERx]

So... ummm... how do you sell cards and not get ripped off? I've been trying to sell my Purphoros for a month now. I tried my local store, but they were only willing to give 30% or so of the value. I tried craigslist and got no offers at all. I tried to go on eBay, but saw that doing local only was really complicated and gave up on that. It has now gone down in value by $5 since I first tried to sell it. But my Voice of Resurgence has gone up by $6, so I guess that all works out fine. But I'd still like to sell it before it drops further.

full value is only really relevant in trades or if you're buying the single

[talah]

full value is only really relevant in trades or if you're buying the single

True, I learned that when I anted my zpherdramidor in a low-stakes challenge over skype. He wanted that card something awful. I lost the game and then opened a foil to find two of the same - like wtf! So I emailed my opponent and arranged to sell "my other zpher" to him and scored a sweet fifteen dollars from the deal, minus postage of course.

[bv310]

I feel like Whip of Erebos is underpriced at $3. If the mono-B devotion lists keep turning up like they are on MTGO, I think it'll spike to $10 or so. Probably worth grabbing a set or two of, just in case.

[xRECKONERx]

Agreed. Whip seems insanely underpriced.

I'm shocked at how expensive Sylvan Caryatid is right now, but I guess it kind of makes sense. I wonder if it'll spike any further?

Also, just picked up a playset of Prophet of Kruphix at $1.50 each. I think the UG/Bant lists running him that are seeing some successes will become slightly more popular and people will see that he is actually just pretty insane.

[Thestatusquo]

Also, this is the difference between magic players and people who are should be posting in this thread.

When you see a good spec, you don't buy "a playset or two." you buy fucking 200. That's the only way to make money in this market.

[xRECKONERx]

I picked up a playset to use in a deck for now, if they go up, I'll trade for other shit I need.