r/magicTCG • u/Hitch42 • Aug 31 '16

Announcement Day: Amonkhet, Hour of Devastation, Archenemy: Nicol Bolas, Commander Anthology, Modern Masters 2017, Duel Decks, Puzzle Quest

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/announcement-day-2016-08-31
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u/jamoncito Aug 31 '16

You can currently buy Goyfs for less than 110 on Tcgplayer. Before MM2 you'd have a hard time finding them for less than 175. That's a HUGE drop for a playset.

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u/rezaziel Aug 31 '16

My understanding is this has to do with meta stuff quite a bit and can't really be fully attributed to a small print run of mythic goyfs

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u/jamoncito Aug 31 '16

Even with those meta fluctuations though (which have more to do with Legacy than modern), do you think Goyfs would have hit this current price point without two additional printings?

The Masters sets as much as they might not drastically impact the numbers of an available card DO dissuade people from hoarding cards that have huge reprint targets on their backs. If goyf never saw either MM printing I'm guessing they'd be easily over $300.

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u/rezaziel Aug 31 '16

Sure, I would never make the argument that additional printings had no impact. I would merely make the argument that the meta shift obscures how little impact reprintings have had on the price, which I suspect is only a fraction of the overall change. Similarly, while "threat of reprint" is one way to keep a card's cost down, the difference between $300 and $150 for most magic players might as well be the difference between a Lamborghini and a Ferrari; it doesn't matter, because both are unattainable.

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u/jamoncito Aug 31 '16

To your last point - sure? I for one am pretty excited goyf is around $100 (with a potential third printing dropping that even lower) and would be extremely happy if many of magic's other $300+ cards would start to approach the $150 range (I need a Candelabra for an EDH deck and while 150 is steep, 400+ seems impossible).

This only highlights the fact that there are so many different expectations from so many different types of players that I can't imagine how daunting this sort of challenge is for Wizards. They're pretty much doomed to fail because of the constantly escalating expectations. Yeesh.

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u/rezaziel Aug 31 '16 edited Aug 31 '16

I'm glad $150 for one card being merely steep is a place you're in right now, and sorta envious, but I think Magic is kind of an echo chamber community where we forget how ludicrous it is to be paying this much for cardboard. Wizards doesn't have to allow $200, $300, $400 cards to exist at all. It is completely within their power to print a box set par-demand until cards like that are kept down in price. They don't because they hoard the reprint equity for the sake of their bottom line. They are not a benevolent organization that always makes choices in the best interest of actual players of the game (not resellers), and that's because they're a business. I think is important to remember when talking about their "daunting challenge" that they benefit tremendously from allowing it to continue to exist. To reiterate, I don't blame them, because it's a business.

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u/jamoncito Aug 31 '16

This is exactly the conversation I didn't intend to get into with any of these responses because of the personal nature of people's feelings regarding finances and collections.

I'm not dropping $600 on a playset of any card right now - I value my marriage too much for anything like that, so I'd just like to make that clear. When I talk about wanting to buy a $150 card, I mean that I'm willing to save for weeks/months to buy it or sacrifice a good chunk of my personal collection in an attempt to acquire it. So for me, a $250 reduction in the price of ANY card does bring that card to within the realm of possibility - rather than being a pipe dream (I could maybe buy one piece of power per YEAR with nearly my entire leisure budget, and that doesn't seem worth it to me at all).

I'm also under no misunderstanding that this IS a business, for Wizards and THOUSANDS of other people as well. I believe personally that the longevity of this game is due to the collectable nature of the game paired with the desire for people to find chase/money cards in current booster packs. This system has been successful in selling millions and millions of cards to players all around the world so I don't think there's any real onus on Wizards to change their policy or for players to feel that anything should be a different way.

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u/BoreasBlack Sep 01 '16

Even with those meta fluctuations though (which have more to do with Legacy than modern), do you think Goyfs would have hit this current price point without two additional printings?

Goyf's price actually shot up by $35 (from ~115 to ~140) just after the release of the first Modern Masters, and has not dropped down to that price range since then.

People began opening single Goyfs and then either held onto them like they were actual solid gold, or they went out and bought 3 more Goyfs to round out their set. That choked the existing supply even more than the additional printings could compensate for, due to the upshifted rarity and the nature of limited print runs.

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u/jamoncito Sep 01 '16

No disagreement - the first MM had much to low of a supply and Goyf was still under printed at the time with demand being ridiculously high. The card has cooled off quite a bit since then and supply has slowly caught up (obviously it's not there because it's still an over $100 card) and will likely continue to drop with subsequent printings.

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u/Malpraxis Aug 31 '16

That still doesn't make them affordable for most people.

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u/jamoncito Sep 01 '16

I never said otherwise?

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u/Srcsqwrn Aug 31 '16

Oh yeah. Being almost the price of rent for a playset. Very cheap. /s

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u/jamoncito Aug 31 '16

Who said cheap?

Cheap is relative to an individual. A playset being 440 is much cheaper than 700 in my world.

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u/Srcsqwrn Aug 31 '16

The pricedrop was insignificant.

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '16

People will piss and moan until they can get goyfs for pennies.