Confirmed that LED and Moat buyout.
Economics forum
Posted on July 4, 2016, 6:25 a.m. by fluffybunnypants
Thank this douche.
He has some interesting points in the video, but overall, artificially creating market toxicity is sort of a dick move. The fact that he says he's doing this because he "wants to help his friends" sounds like he's lying to himself.
I recommend checking out this video as well.
In my mind he's nothing short of an asshole and, frankly, a criminal. In regulated markets (like ANY stock exchange system) what he did is actually incredibly illegal. It's called a pump and dump, and it's illegal not just because of the obvious moral issues and implications but also because of the instability and panic they cause. This is an easy way for markets to crash and get incredibly volatile, which is why we don't let people do it with stocks and bonds. So the question is why we let people do it with Magic cards, I get that sites like Tcgplayer.com make a percentage on all sales and therefore just benefit when this happens in the short-term, but long term it has a good chance of helping to kill an industry that they literally survive on. Then you have WoTC over here carrying the torch for an archaic, out of touch reserved list that keeps cards on it that are remotely playable from EVER hitting some level of stability. I was explaining this all to my fiance last night and even she doesn't get why there's no form of regulation to keep this stuff in check.
July 4, 2016 9:07 a.m.
Wait, you think someone should regulate the buying/selling of Magic cards?
July 4, 2016 9:23 a.m.
Well you cant compare magic with ANY stock excange system.. Worst case scenario when this happens in the world of magic is that some kids cant afford the cards they desire. That is annoying, but not criminal lol :)
July 4, 2016 9:57 a.m.
Lastdaysgunslinger says... #6
Yeah thats been happening for a while now. Mtg prices are completely ridiculous now and i have stopped playing vintage,legacy. And i wont buy standard cards until they drop past a certain price.
July 4, 2016 9:59 a.m.
Ah the eternal struggle - we want card prices to be high so that boosters are not duds, but we do not want cards to be too expensive, since we are not made of money.
When Baby Jace spikes from 10 bucks to 80, that is not a buyout, because the card "deserves" that price, because it is a good card. When a LED spikes from 80 (where it sat since just about forever) to double digits, it is suddenly a buyout.
In both cases, people desired good cards and the supply struggled to meet the demand, but only one of those is "justified" in the eyes of the community, despite the result being the same.
It seems to me that buyouts being a problem is a problem only in people's perception of fairness.
July 4, 2016 10:05 a.m.
Servo_Token says... #8
The magic market has come to a point where it's actually just bigger than several regulated markets, more people make a living off of it now than ever before. So yes, I agree that the market needs to be regulated. It's not ok to steal this much money from so many people and get away with it.
July 4, 2016 10:19 a.m.
ducttapedeckbox says... #9
If we start to see individuals buy out more and more of the reserve list and plan to sit on them as this guy plans to do, the supply becomes (more of) a problem. The purpose of the reserve list was to protect a collector's investments, but with the potential of the reserve list becoming the buyout list, should the distinction between a collector and an investor be made?
July 4, 2016 10:34 a.m.
Lastdaysgunslinger says... #10
In reality everything has its time limit and i hope those that buyout get burnt on it when the day comes that the game finally crashes.
July 4, 2016 11:18 a.m.
Legacy won't experience the natural growth it could potentially gather as a format with these buyouts/spikes. It hurts the game and Wizards is put in a tough spot. They have three options: Keep the reserved list and prices keep going up, do away with the reserve list and reprint (they won't do), or design new cards that can be substituted. The problem with new cards is that if a card is good enough to be substituted for a dual land, it is good enough to be played alongside a dual land, never effectively bringing down the price of the old cards but bringing up the interest level in the format which is exactly what these douche bags want so people buy their cards.
July 4, 2016 11:32 a.m.
@Camper116, this problem is far from limited to the reserved list, it just happens that this was a case of RL cards being bought out. When MM2 came out, pretty much every staple that wasn't on it jumped in price.
The natural growth you describe cannot happen, since there is a limited amount of these cards anyways and even no buyout occur normal wear-and-tear will occur that will keep copies off the market, constantly reducing the supply. With a constantly reducing supply, any increase in demand bumps up prices.
The more people are interested in the format, the more expensive any staples on it become. For example, if Wizards sanctions Pauper tomorrow, what do you think will happen with all the staples like delver, gurmag angler, bolt, etc.? They will shoot up, because supply is static while demand is exploding.
July 4, 2016 11:40 a.m.
I got to about 1:08 in that first video and I already hate him!
July 4, 2016 12:03 p.m.
GeminiSpartanX says... #17
I hope the reserve list goes away and that guy loses all $20k that he says he spent. It's just not healthy for the eternal formats if this trend keeps up.
July 4, 2016 4:59 p.m.
I would laugh if they just mass reprinted LED and they were worth 20-50$ a piece, it would never happen but I would love to see it happen because people like this.
July 6, 2016 1:58 a.m.
As a community, this is the type of people we need excommunicated from the game. Extremely selfish. If I see him at a GP, I'll probably punch him. lol
July 6, 2016 6 p.m.
00xtremeninja says... #20
love how he had to defend his earbuds......dude is a tool who will get his at some point in time, just end up being people who won't buy from him and he is stuck sitting on those cards.
July 6, 2016 7:51 p.m.
PistonGolem says... #21
Very crazy ideas that could work incoming.
What if WotC stopped supporting Vintage and/or Legacy, as they are near impossible to get into without dropping 1K on Staple cards such as dual lands? That way, they could reprint all they want in the Commander sets, and that exploiter is put into his place.
Another very crazy solution is to allow players to proxy cards that are worth more than 200 dollars.
July 6, 2016 11:12 p.m.
00xtremeninja says... #22
Lol Wizards essentially has given up on Vintage and Legacy. Plus they can't use the commander sets as outlets to print duals, the RL is blocking them.
Plus, if they did do that, we'd have the True-Name Nemesis all over again where people will just buy those like crazy and horde them.
Special sets and masters series won't drop the price of cards like that of they ever got rid of the RL, they'd need to print them several times in big normal sets to help the prices.
July 7, 2016 10:10 a.m.
@both above:
"What if WotC stopped supporting Vintage and/or Legacy, as they are near impossible to get into without dropping 1K on Staple cards such as dual lands? That way, they could reprint all they want in the Commander sets, and that exploiter is put into his place."
So, you need to stop caring about the history of a 20+ years old game, one of its few selling points and ignore the players already playing those formats, because new players cannot enter them. Then, they could make products less people will buy because they killed off the formats in which those crucial reprints would be played.
"Another very crazy solution is to allow players to proxy cards that are worth more than 200 dollars."
You can always do idea number 2, as long as it is a non-sanctioned tournaments. Remember the rule about proxies is not because of how expensive a card can be, but about the fact that you should not play the game without forgeries of any kind and damaging the game in the process.
If Wizards have given up on Vintage and Legacy, they would not be printing Eternal Masters to raving demand.
What WOTC have given up on is the Reserved List - it is here to stay and it will not change.
MTG is a luxury. Reserved list cards are luxury within that luxury that not everybody should have nor do they need to.
July 7, 2016 10:30 a.m.
00xtremeninja says... #24
I get that entertainment is a luxury in people's lives, but at what point does it start getting a little ridiculous that because of stupid high prices on things other people won't be able to join in as well.
Imagine being brand new to the game and you want to start playing competitively, so you make a deck you are proud of on your budget and you go to your lgs and proceed to get the ever living snot beat out of you by someone who has all the best of the best.
So you take notes, strive to get better, remember the cards you saw, and get home and start looking at prices and get deflated because the deck you want to make is at 2500 dollars. Many people see that and saw screw it, I'm not doing that.
So now MTG turns into an elitist game meant for those who only have the money to pony up for it. As enthusiasts we should want the game to grow, not have niches within a niche game where the only way to advance is to have a lot of extra money.
July 7, 2016 11:40 a.m.
ducttapedeckbox says... #25
You make it sound like Legacy/Vintage are the only formats...
July 7, 2016 11:46 a.m.
Boza So that's probably the most egotistical and pompous comment I've read here in months. I'm not even going to take the time to respond to how wrong you are. That attitude is what kills the community.
BTW I play Legacy and can afford $300+ cards but that doesn't mean it's right.
July 7, 2016 12:07 p.m.
GeminiSpartanX says... #27
I've been playing magic for about a decade now, and I'm now thinking about selling out of legacy just because there seems to be less and less reason to get into it. The buyouts certainly don't help the demand for the cards, and locally there are few legacy events worth getting a deck put together. It's a bad proposition for people already in the format since stores will be more likely to host events that bring in the most people, and newer players will not replace those who sell out of legacy for whatever reason. Also those who sell their collections if they need the money for whatever reason won't be able to buy back in to legacy if the do decide to come back to the game. Eventually legacy will go the way of vintage where there will only be a handful of events each year for those who have the cards. In a way it really is sad, since future players won't experience the awesome old cards available which are part of the game's history.
July 7, 2016 12:53 p.m.
00xtremeninja says... #28
My LGS does 100% proxy legal legacy events, only for store credit and not dci sanctioned obviously, so I hear ya. Why keep my legacy deck, although it is only burn, when I can do that option
July 7, 2016 1:26 p.m.
Soooooooo Martin Shkreli, a man you might remember well from screwing over AIDS paitient by hiking the cost of their medication, has started mass buyouts of reserved list cards in the last 24 hours. I know my statement saying that there should be market regulation might have seemed extreme to some people (especially those unfamiliar with how markets work, I would have been just as confused a couple years ago) but THIS is why. This dude who spent 20,000 USD on Moat and Lion's Eye Diamond did cause some market manipulation, but 20,000 dollars is chump change compared to the money that changes hands in a ton of financial deals. All it takes is one guy with money to burn and the half a brain necessary to cause way worse manipulation and instability, which Martin is well on his way to doing.
July 7, 2016 1:38 p.m.
This is very, very bad for Magic. Literally every Dual Land online could be gone this weekend. He has hundreds of thousands to spend. God, this is literally tragic.
July 7, 2016 1:54 p.m.
ducttapedeckbox says... #31
Do you have a source that says he's started buying? All I can see is that he might start, or is just trolling after someone referred to Craig Berry as the Martin Shkreli of MtG.
Isn't that shit in jail?
July 7, 2016 1:58 p.m.
I haven't been able to find anything I can attribute directly to him, but I do know he's already starting to get in touch with some of the high end buyers and sellers in my area as well as others
July 7, 2016 2:08 p.m.
aeonstoremyliver says... #33
I saw a tweet that he picked up five Black Lotus...
If morons like him buyout Reserve List cards, there will be a market bubble like none other, creating a mass monopoly, Magic will hit a ceiling, and then crash. It would literally kill what's left of the Erernal formats, which would be a shame with the interest in Legacy that EMA generated.
July 7, 2016 2:11 p.m.
00xtremeninja says... #34
counting my blessings that i bought my 1 copy of each dual land a while back. But, this makes my hopes of trading my Scalding Tarn exp and foil Mana Crypt into a Mishra's Workshop even harder now if this dude does what is rumored to happen.
July 7, 2016 2:30 p.m.
00xtremeninja says... #35
July 7, 2016 2:34 p.m.
DrFunk27, despite apparently sounding "egotistical and pompous", I do believe that I am rather realistic about the whole thing. You cannot have everything you want, nor should you. The price barrier is real if you want the real deal and that is rather the case for everything in life that has a price tag.
Expecting that MTG cards should be different from stamps, baseball cards or virtually anything else collectible is quite surprising. The only difference and main point of contention seems to be the Reserved List. However, nobody seems to care that all other collectibles, including the ones mentioned, also have a Reserved List of sorts - the rarest and most highly collectible items are never going to be created again, because you cannot make a 160 years old stamp again, thus they are valuable and collectible.
The exact same thing happens in MTG, in fact it was the reason the RL was created - people feared for their value. And destroying the value of anything is an assured way to kill off what remains of it.
How many games played to this day can boast with a history as large as this one and assets as valuable as this one? Pretty much none. The fact that people going against the RL and the value it retains is baffling.
People say that they want to play with powerful cards - but you can already do that with proxies. There is absolutely no difference when playing between a real card and a proxy.
You want the real card so you can have sanctioned tournaments of old formats a plenty? There are plenty of players in pretty much every area that are willing to give you a deck to play, because they are not getting enough players.
Other than that, why do you want the real card to be worthless? You have to see those cards as what they are - highly valued collectibles, not cards.
I do not see any point in abolishing the RL.
July 8, 2016 3:09 a.m.
@ Boza - The thing is MTG is a "trading card GAME" at heart and not a collectible series. Baseball cards were referred to as "trading cards" and that's fine. With Baseball cards the idea is once you have traded for a full collection you then are done trading.
With MTG people are upset because it's a game. I am really baffled how some people fail to see this.
July 8, 2016 3:30 a.m.
But how does a price of a card in any way stop you from playing with proxies? The only affected thing is really sanctioned tournaments, cause you can use proxies in anything else and I have mentioned that because of lack of interest in the format, there are few people playing it and those that do have decks to lend?
Besides, if the allure of legacy and vintage is "play with expensive cards", destroying the RL and thus the value of the cards is rather contradictory to the point.
July 8, 2016 3:35 a.m. Edited.
Boza The RL has served its point and it's done well, but when it can be taken advantage of, that's when it becomes a problem.
I wasn't arguing you were not realistic. Rather, the way you spoke and honestly, how you really feel is rather "high and mighty." Do I believe a 10 year old should have common access legacy cards? No. But an adult should not have to pay $1,000 for a card that was $300 the week prior because someone decided they wanted to game the system.
I get it. It's an "investment" and it's smart in reality, but it's extremely selfish, morally shady and a terrible business practice.
Anyways, I've digressed. To quickly answer your point about stamps and baseball cards, you're comparing apples to oranges. It's almost 180 degree different. Those were intended to be hoarded or collected. This is a card game. A GAME. The intent of MtG was never to become like this where there was a significant barrier between card and player.
As I've also mentioned, I own 2 Legacy decks so this is not coming from someone who "is salty over the RL and speculators". I'm just tired that players are the ones hurt over taking advantage of a clear fault that Wizards needs to address.
July 8, 2016 12:01 p.m.
I do not think what the intention behind something becoming a collectible matters. Also, you exclude the collectible part of the definition of the game. From the MTG website, About the Game section:
"Trading card games (TCGs) like Magic: The Gathering combine collectable cards with a strategy game."
Magic too was not envisioned as a collectible from start (the initial plan was to only have one set of Magic: The Gathering, but here we are, about 60 of those later), just like the makers of stamps or baseball cards did not envision them to be worth millions down the line. For example of something that actually started out as a collectable, look at the current worth of Beenie Babies.
You do not become something of collectible value because you start out like that, it is what the community create.
I am also against speculation and artificial rasing of card values, but completely destroying that value by abolishing the RL is NOT the way to go. Abolishing means ruin not only for card prices, but also for the allure of the formats those cards are played in.
Yes, those cards are objectively better in some ways, but the first thing you notice in the newest Lamborghini is not how advanced its paint job is or the quality of the leather seats, but the price tag and "how come an option of a different way to change gears costs as much as new regular car".
The price tag on these cards are actual marketing value and RL ensures it stays that way.
I am sure that most Google searches of players who have not heard of the game or by those Magic players who want impress their friends about their hobby show the auction for $100 000 Black Lotus. That is what is called a "unique selling point". It is the only game still being played today that has that kind of thing. Any other business would kill for this sort of free marketing power.
This is the side of the RL many people fail to grasp.
Boza says... #2
Well, although what he is doing may not be right per se, he is right that anyone who purchases low before the buyout will profit, aka his friends.
Buyouts are a pyramid scheme in the sense that the earlier on you join them, the more you profit.
July 4, 2016 7:34 a.m.