SCG GPs
Economics forum
Posted on June 10, 2015, 12:10 p.m. by ChiefBell
Has anyone else realised that modern price spikes tend to happen before SCG GPs but not before most other tournaments hosted by other organisers?
SCG buying others out to try to make more money selling at the GP?
Or simple hype train steaming onwards?
Rasta_Viking29 says... #3
SCG raised their buylist price on fetches and was buying out vendors in Las Vegas recently. They definitely know how to and have the means to move the market.
June 10, 2015 12:18 p.m.
Ew. Such bullshit.
Though if they wanted complete control of fetches they ought to lower their buylist price.
June 10, 2015 12:20 p.m.
Yeah everything is done by SCG. They're the biggest greediest strain on the magic market. Anybody who knows anything about what's going on behind closed doors in the magic economy knows that SCG is always sticking their greedy paws through every opportunity to hype and spike a card, and make a big profit on it at the expense of ill-informed players. They exploit modern the most I think... and they do it weekly at this point. There's always a new target hype card. In short, it's not a coincidence, it's well orchestrated market pressure by the biggest seller of single magic cards in the world.
June 10, 2015 12:22 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #6
If it is a part on SCG, i'll just say that businesses gonna business. Good on them to realize that they have the capacity to buy a bunch of stuff then sell it off at higher prices while your market comes running to you, that's like the ultimate business dream.
As far as when the price spikes happen, it's hard to say if SCG has a direct hand in it, or if it is just the SCG tryhards heading to a GP and realizing that they don't actually have a modern deck to compete with, buying up all the cards they need, and accidentally causing a spike.
June 10, 2015 12:22 p.m.
ThatJunkMage - Your reasoning would be legit if it was entire decks spiking but its only certain cards in decks. You know? Its not like ALL OF JUND, its like just huntmaster.
And yeah it is kind of good from an unregulated, anarchocapitalist, 'good on them for making our lives miserable!' kind of way. Because you know, this isn't good for us as real people.
June 10, 2015 12:29 p.m.
Rasta_Viking29 says... #8
Personally I have a favorable opinion of SCG as a business. They definitely do more good than harm for MtG. The whole "bad big business" rhetoric is off target in this instance.
June 10, 2015 12:33 p.m. Edited.
Yeah it's just plain not good. I have always detested everything about SCG for the last 5 years of playing Magic.
June 10, 2015 12:34 p.m.
I guess by hosting tournaments, getting people involved, and offering good prizes they do a lot of good for the community.
The good doesnt make the bad go away though!
June 10, 2015 12:39 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #11
i'm going to have to agree with Rasta_Viking29 here. As someone who works in the MTG secondary market, you strive to be like SCG. They produce quality content, have arguably the best customer service of any other store large or small, and whether you like it or not, you talk about them so their reach is astounding.
There's no legitimate reason to detest SCG for their company policies or procedures. Sure, you can disagree with the fact that they do buyouts, but you also have to realize that A: buyouts happen naturally in every market setting, and B: that SCG isn't the sole proprietor of MTG Buyouts. Plenty of groups of people are responsible for the fluctuations of the market. It's your job as a consumer to keep up.
Just to play devil's advocate here, I'm a fan of SCG's work whether it be what they put out into the community or how they influence the market, strictly from a business standpoint. They make prices higher, which means that I have to do zero work to make more money on the inventory that I already have. Seems awesome.
June 10, 2015 12:44 p.m.
"A: buyouts happen naturally in every market setting"
Dat shit's super frowned upon in many markets. It's actually sometimes even classed as illegal. So if one corporation were to buy all of the product offered by a competitor just to list it at a higher price an EU judge would be like 'uuuuhhh ..... no?'. EDIT: But I know the US is more lax about this kind of thing in general. There was a recent case in England about this regarding air travel companies sort of buying the rights to offer certain routes off each other, where they were essentially buying the right to be the ONLY company offering a certain product - then they jacked up the prices.
But again I would say. The good that SCG does DOES NOT negate the bad. They both exist as concepts, always in opposition. Just because they happen to be good guys in some ways doesn't make this disappear.
June 10, 2015 12:50 p.m. Edited.
But it is interesting that this phenomenon seems to be more about SCG than about actual modern players. Thats the point worth talking about really.
June 10, 2015 1:05 p.m.
mathimus55 says... #14
Star city puts on most of the larger events and they're an A+ TO, CFB being second from what I've experienced but it's a distant second. The number of events that SCG make it hard to say "before an SCG GP" because they do a GP or an Open every other weekend it seems(mainly opens but still). Yes their prices are higher than TCG, but they don't have to compete with others like individuals on TCG do. SCG will have their followers and that's fine. Buyouts happen whether SCG is around or not. They just happen to be so large already that it doesn't effect them as much bc most likely they already have their stock ready to react to a spike whether they caused it or not. Plus the beauty of the free market says you don't have to buy from them.
All in all, I'd rather have SCG exist and put on their events, produce content and have their prices be 20% more. Instead of saying that SCG charges too much, buy somewhere else. Other vendors cause buyouts/price hikes too so giving SCG the whole of the blame is sending the attention the wrong way.
June 10, 2015 1:45 p.m.
SpartanCEL says... #17
No problem ThatJunkMage! I thought of that meme while reading this haha
June 10, 2015 1:58 p.m.
Is there potentially some shady stuff going on? Possibly. Though I certainly think there's a chicken and egg scenario going on here. SCG has routinely run the largest Modern constructed events. That generates a lot of interest in Modern even outside the GP itself since all the GPTs and other smaller tournaments will be in Modern as well. This is arguably when demand for Modern cards will be at their highest, so prices are naturally going to be more. Which leads to discoveries that cards like Huntmaster of the Fells Flip or Deceiver Exarch are way underpriced for the amount of play they see relative to their scarcity.
June 10, 2015 2:23 p.m. Edited.
SpartanCEL says... #20
This is pretty interesting, same stuff we're talking about.
Although one user says some other stores like channel fireball are doing it to?
June 10, 2015 2:45 p.m.
SpartanCEL says... #21
Quoting the user at the bottom of my link
"Anyone following the modern prices and with a bit of knowledge about how economics work (supplementary product) could see this coming. You should get the staples you need that weren't in MM15 the day it was fully spoiled. Also the game had a big growth a few years ago, but most players start with standard and roll into modern a few years later (which is now). Especially if there's a modern masters set. So naturally there will be a lot of new modern players looking for staples. Don't get blindsighted by the slower growth of the game the last year, this has no effect on the current growth of modern.
bottom line: modern gets cheaper for short periods (buy your fetches now), but if you don't buy at the right time it stays as expensive as ever."
Well now I know what to do, but I already sorta know to get my fetches now
June 10, 2015 2:51 p.m.
mathimus55 says... #22
It happens every year for modern season, demand goes up when people want to build the deck of the season, after modern GP's are done everyone sells their modern decks bc it's standard rotation and all the GP's are standard. Then repeat
June 10, 2015 4:17 p.m.
dont forget they need to make money to put on a lot of these events, an open needs to have 400 players just to cover the pay out, now add in judge fees, thats another 75-100 players for the weekends fees, oh wait we get a playmat also? even if they cost $1 each to make thats another 25 players required to cover those costs, so were at 525 player opens minimum, but lets not forget paying the coverage crew and staff, transport fees, venue fee etc.
when all is said and done, youre talking 600-650 people minimum required to cover the costs of an open with anything less losing hundreds or more, selling singles is how they make money. hosting gps deffinetly is more profitable, but youre also competeing witha lot more buyers/sellers as far as singles go.
im fine with them doing buy outs and raising the prices for the above reasons of it makes me $$ super easily on inventory i already own, plus often times it makes it easier for me to buy a collection and flip it to high buy prices.
ChiefBell says... #2
For reference snappys last spike was before an SCG GP in 2014.
Also the fetchland spike was straight before SCG GP in 2014 too.
June 10, 2015 12:12 p.m.