cards that you feel are overpriced/overhyped
Economics forum
Posted on March 4, 2016, 2:17 p.m. by Lastdaysgunslinger
Just wondering what cards some of you feel arent worth their price tag.
While I can give no cards in particular, I sometimes find it interesting how the most random cards can retain their value based on public opinion alone. A mythic can see nearly no play whatsoever but have kind of cool abilities and it can be a couple dollars more than your typical bottom of the barrel $1 mythic. This is most noticeable with the Planeswalker cards of times past that receive no love anymore. They rarely drop below a $4 minimum.
Another great example are rares that used to be played in old seasons of Modern and/or Standard but are played no longer that, for some reason, retain some of their value. While I can't bring any specific examples I'll notice when pricing at the shop that some cards just kind of keep their tag, where as other rares that were played (looks over at Desecration Demon) will absolutely Plummet (ah-ha) in price after they are no longer relevant.
March 4, 2016 2:26 p.m.
None. All prices are indicative of what people will actually pay to obtain the product. This is how things work and therefore by definition nothing is overpriced.
March 4, 2016 2:28 p.m.
FAMOUSWATERMELON says... #5
ChiefBell You're forgetting the reserved list and cards that aren't printed anymore.
So old cards I guess?
March 4, 2016 2:29 p.m.
Reserve list cards are still only the price they are because people are actively buying the card at that price. If people were to stop paying so much the price would fall.
March 4, 2016 2:31 p.m.
greenkingwashere says... #7
Am I the only one who thinks Jace, Vryn's Prodigy isn't very good?
March 4, 2016 2:42 p.m.
FAMOUSWATERMELON says... #8
Or just because people are sitting on their cards. Like Jacques le Vert. He's not 5 bucks because he's played anywhere, he's that price because people keep him for value.
March 4, 2016 2:48 p.m.
yes greenkingwashere... yes you are.
He immediately saw play in winning control decks from Standard to Legacy when he was released. He's a wanna-be Snapcaster Mage with lots of interactive capability.
March 4, 2016 3:19 p.m.
Paying over $5 for any card is just a silly to me. Have I done it? Yes, but only for a few cards out of about 1,000 cards.
March 4, 2016 3:20 p.m.
Why isn't Storm Crow more? I understand there's probably countless thousands and thousands of copies in existence, but seriously... you think people would have started to buy that card out hard thanks to the culture.
March 4, 2016 3:20 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #13
This thread was moved to a more appropriate forum(auto-generated comment)
March 4, 2016 4:15 p.m.
@ChiefBell - Not necessarily since a group of people may organize a buyout. That inflated price isn't representative of the community as a whole.
March 4, 2016 4:49 p.m.
grumbledore says... #15
Those are the exception though, and the price quickly stabilizes afterwards
March 4, 2016 5 p.m.
greenkingwashere Yeah, sorry but Jace is exceptionally good. Most of his price is propped up by Standard at the moment, but make no mistake he is $30-$50 after rotation.
March 4, 2016 5:02 p.m.
i think jace is crap too greenkingwashere, but i don't like a naf looter of fake snap, i play tron, infect and EDH, so everyone can keep there flippy jace haha
March 4, 2016 5:09 p.m.
Imperial Seal. It's a slower Vampiric Tutor, yet it is so expensive because it came from a small print set.
March 4, 2016 5:31 p.m.
Lastdaysgunslinger says... #19
ChiefBell this is more for just opinion based. We all know when you were paying 4.00 a gallon for gas you wasnt saying the same thing.
March 4, 2016 5:32 p.m.
Lastdaysgunslinger says... #21
Ouch. I do agree with your 2nd statement though. If people would stop buying at ridiculous prices they would drop.
March 4, 2016 5:39 p.m.
Yeah I was kind of joking anyway. Supply and demand economics assume that solely buyers set prices. They don't. Sellers set prices as well. We all know that StarCityGames has as much impact on the price of a card as we do.
March 4, 2016 5:41 p.m.
VampireArmy says... #24
Storm Crow is cheap. Storm Crow
on the other hand...
March 4, 2016 6:47 p.m.
slovakattack says... #25
A lot of specific hate cards have spiked recently, in a desperate effort to combat the eldrazi menace. I believe that if Eldrazi does get banned out or otherwise mitigated, cards like Worship will fall close to what they were before eldrazi winter.
March 4, 2016 8:16 p.m.
Lastdaysgunslinger says... #26
Some of the commons that are higher than rares are the ones making me laugh.Simian Spirit GuideSerum VisionsAncient Stirrings
I understand they are deck staples but if you didnt have a playset or 12 of these cards from back then your screwed. Hell i probably had 35 Serum Visions in a misc box years back.
March 4, 2016 8:22 p.m.
Really, $25? You were fine at $8!
March 4, 2016 9:02 p.m.
greenkingwashere, no you aren't the only one. He sucks. Ok, he useful, kinda. Never saw him do anything that changes the game enough to warrant that price tag or his hype train everyone is riding.
March 4, 2016 9:25 p.m.
Lastdaysgunslinger says... #29
I had a guy at my lgs play his jace right after he dumped $$ on 2 for the deck, just so i could burn him before eot with my .35 Fiery Impulse. He was pissed and i was laughing.Jace can ride that hype train as long as he wants, i wont be wasting cash on him.
March 4, 2016 9:33 p.m.
FAMOUSWATERMELON says... #30
And to think that Serum Visions used to be worth twice that price XD
March 4, 2016 9:58 p.m.
alanwescoat says... #31
Snapcaster Mage baffled me until I learned about buyouts. Yes, it is an excellent card. At the time, Twin was doing very well, but it was only an option for Twin. You could build a perfectly competitive version of Twin with NO Snapcaster Mage. Other decks could use it, but they were not tier 1 at the time.
The card was sitting at around $35 for a while. I had 3x, 2x in Korean. My friend who deals Korean cards on eBay regularly saw an opportunity for me. He sold my 2x at about $70 each with the understanding that he would take the profit, get me 3x English, and pocket a little profit. He sold the cards, ordered my 3x in English, and...it looks like someone was shortselling. By the time the PayPal dispute was handled (no fuss, just time), the card had risen to about $70 for the English. Eventually, we applied the money to get Thoughtseize for me, which I needed more than Snapcaster Mage anyway, so no big loss to me, but it was irritating.
The buyouts and sudden price spikes are a continual frustration. There is no way to plan. For example, about a month ago, I looked up Mox Diamond, which was at about $35 each. I found playsets at about $140. I had money coming in. I planned to buy them after I got paid. Before I even saw the money, the price had doubled everywhere. That is simply frustrating.
Another example is that I have been on the lookout for 4x Thorn of Amethyst, what was a reasonably priced card and is an option for some of my decks. A few days ago, I found a great deck which runs it, and I thought about getting it. Problem: the price had risen by 400% basically overnight, from about $15 for a 4x playset to about $60. This is just stupid.
On the note of being a good consumer fighting this nonsense of dealers abusing the market with buyouts, I take note of certain dealers. There is one dealer in particular which always has multiple of playsets of high-demand cards. These cards are invariably priced higher than the market value. I see what is going on. Most other dealers do not have playsets available. That dealer (and others) are engaging in buyouts and gouging. They make a decent profit during the brief period of demand and then make smaller profits slowly selling out the cards when they go back down, but usually not back down to the previously lower price.
One thing that I do is to take note of such dealers and simply choose not to do business with them. Yes, there is some inconvenience for me. If I need a playset, international shipping becomes prohibitive, and I need to order from one dealer, usually, but I am not going to reward the price-gouging opportunist who is manipulating the market with buyouts. I simply will not do it. I never need a card badly enough for that.
Also note that just as soon as Eternal Masters was confirmed, Underground Sea took a hike of $80 per card. That seems to be connected to those who bought heavily into M.T.G. twenty years ago and then bullied Wizards into agreeing to the monstrosity which is the Reserved List. Supposedly, there is no shortage of the dual lands, as long as you are willing and able to pay those who hoarded the supply decades ago and effectively locked Wizards into abandoning its intellectual property for the benefit of the price-gouging opportunists.
Of course, those engaged in price gouging keep repeating, "A promise has to means something. Wizards made a promise. They have to keep their promise." That is really the entire argument. There is nothing more to the argument. There is also Mark Rosewater's perpetual refrain, "I cannot talk about it". A promise made to a bunch of jackasses under duress is truly meaningless, and continuing to gouge with the sky as the limit over decades is genuinely asinine.
March 4, 2016 11:42 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #32
What about those fringe cards that no one really notices until they start building things like EDH, Highlander or Cube? While not wallet breaking, their price still baffles.
Battle Screech and Godsend come to mind, and searches haven't really revealed anything.
March 14, 2016 2:20 a.m.
Battle Screech is high because of White Weenies in Pauper. Most people follow the MTGO card rarities and Screech was printed at Common in Vintage Masters.
March 14, 2016 8:42 a.m.
Femme_Fatale Godsend is not played in EDH -- it's a staple of one of's and it does nothing. However, casuals love big swords so that's likely where the $5 is coming from.
March 14, 2016 11:26 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #35
Got another one: Azorius Signet. I understand the other version is 50% cheaper, but it is still over 200% more expensive than any other one.
March 20, 2016 7:48 p.m. Edited.
Femme_Fatale says... #37
But why not just play RG tron ...
Regardless, that makes sense. I was almost thinking some form of Legacy or Vintage requirement. But I don't know those. Hell potentially Pauper.
March 21, 2016 2:57 a.m.
slovakattack says... #38
DrFunk27: Godsend is played in a few decks in EDH, as exiling your opponent's general will more or less take it out of the game for good.
March 21, 2016 4:44 a.m.
RicketyEng says... #39
Godsend won't prevent your opponent's general from being cast as long as the general goes back to the command zone instead of being exiled.
March 21, 2016 11:02 a.m.
slovakattack You can't permanently exile a commander. The owner can always choose which zone it goes in.
March 21, 2016 11:26 a.m.
@DrFunk27 - You can. I could exile your commander with something like Roon of the Hidden Realm pre-combat to "get a safe attack" only to play Sundial of the Infinite mainphase two, activate it, and leave my opponents commander in the exile. Granted, that still requires them to accept to having their commander enter exile, but here it at least seems innocuous.
March 21, 2016 12:08 p.m.
That's incredibly conditional. I was saying godsend will not permanently exile a commander because they have the choice of zones.
March 21, 2016 12:15 p.m.
Well sure, but the post I was referring to explicitly stated that exiling a commander was impossible.
March 21, 2016 12:19 p.m.
TheDevicer Yeah, it was a poor choice of words on my part. You CAN permanently exile a commander, but not using Godsend. That's what I meant to say. Long weekend lol >.>
March 21, 2016 12:40 p.m.
slovakattack says... #45
DrFunk27: Wrong choice of wording in my part. I meant that if you exile a commander with Godsend, you get a Nevermore effect on it, making that commander impossible to cast (regardless of what zone it's in) until godsend leaves play. Some decks want that snakebite effect against voltron generals.
March 21, 2016 2:47 p.m.
slovakattack That's very true. I had not thought about that.
meecht says... #2
Tarmogoyf
March 4, 2016 2:24 p.m.