Hello, and Welcome. This is a small educative lesson, from me to you in order to advocate the control of the secondary market back towards the player based community of our favorite game.
First - I will state my argument towards how I believe the secondary market is being lost from the original control of the customer base Second - I will give examples of these situations occurring Third - I will give the end results of these situations Fourth and Conclusion- Advice to all online consumers, and my personal experience towards getting maximum value
Part 1 - The main argument
Over the past half of a decade, there have been many arguments towards the exclusivity (financially) of the game we all play. Namely the introduction of Mythic Rares have sparked a long and large complicated debate as to whether it is good, or bad towards the health of the current game. There are large amount of positives and negatives for such a tactic of introducing Mythic rares. [WARNING: I will not address the fact of Mythic Rarity in the products Wizards of the Coast produce. So in order to the points I will make, I ask that no debate on Mythic rares are posted in this specific thread.] Wizards of the Coast have been able to sail very well during this economic downfall, and provide fun towards all of us, most of their products in the past year, really make me want to spend more than what I can afford, which is great! They have released new interesting and obviously successful products such as From the Vaults, and Duel Decks. They have taken a large amount of concern for players of all types, and released new sets which adhere a large amount of my approval as a consumer. Yet I believe Wizards have been doing something wrong to the community, and by that I mean: They have not been taking action in preventing the community to suffer. For the past year, an inaction or accidental of this company has caused a large amount of distress, it may not be evident now, but I can assure you, as someone who studies psychology will have a long term profound effect on the game. I can summarize further in a few words: Pre-Released Sales.
What has been happening over the past year, is a large consistent trend, when a card is officially spoiled by Wizards of the Coast, or indirectly from Wizards of the Coast and given to a fan supported website. I would like to admit here, that as a consumer, I save a large amount of money by purchasing already opened, non-random product through multiple sellers. Purchasing un-opened boxes of cards is what I would like to do casually, and since I am on limited funding just like everyone else, I find that I would rather have the chance to be competitive, and receive in-store credit towards further purchases to reduce as many financial problems as possible. I believe the largest problem occurs when the cards don't even exist in our hands. What do I mean by this? I mean by example, that it's 2am on Monday morning, and wesbites such as Starcitygames.com, and Channelfireball.com are already waiting for you to make the purchase on these un-released cards. Cards take price immediately, and stores can generally guarantee sales, due to the fact of large amounts of product they have obtained in order to satisfy thousands of customers. Theoretically, these situations sound absurd. Why? Because not even within a few hours of notice, players have already lost any control they had whatsoever of the secondary market.
Personally, I was under the influence that preview cards were made to help sell the product from Wizards of the Coast, in order to build up hype and create a steady customer base. Yet when players like myself find an already existing struggle of purchasing single cards, and purchasing unopened product, it seems like the obvious decision is already there: buy the singles. Why should you? You save the randomized problem and are guaranteed product, you also can annihilate opening cards you find no use for which happens in randomized product. Yet randomized product can be amazing at the same time, and very profitable. The thin line now of sale dictation becomes How much is card X worth? Obviously supply and demand meet the largest requirements of financial value, yet what I would like to know: What determines a cards financial value that has only been previewed for less than 12 hours, and may not even be released into customers hands for weeks?
Within the game of Magic there are several answers to this question. First, Power Level: The strength of the card, and it's impact on legal formats. Second, Context: Whether the card has lots or little support for a specific strategy within most legal formats. Third, Availability: The card may be Mythic, Rare, Uncommon or Common, and in descending order of rarity, the more likely of a lower value.
Part 2 - Historic Examples of the Secondary Market
Historically referring to the past year, we have seen some large upsides and upsets when it comes to pre-sales and speculation. I would like to primarily start off with the most controversial, yet undeniably the most powerful card printed in years: Jace, the Mindsculptor. This card has merely been a year old, and has only increased in price since the pre-release sales of him. Started off as a 25$, is now nearing 90-110$. So if you got on this boat fast, congratulations, Because the upsides end here.
Let's look at every other mythic in recent constructed standard that has been heavily reviewed, and criticized that was released since: Gideon Jura - Started off near 45$ is now near 25$ Time Reversal - Started off near 35$ is now near 3$ Elspeth Tirel - Started off near 50$ is now near 14$ Mox Opal - Started off near 35$ is now near 20$ Koth of the Hammer - Started off near 65$ is now near 23$ Venser, the Sojourner - Started off near 50$ is now near 13$
(Note: These prices are generalized from eBay.com, Starcitygames.com, and Channelfireball.com)
Here is a small collection of online episodes Evan Erwin has posted for Starcitygames.com, directly hyping these specific cards. I encourage everyone here to review these episodes for themselves, it is under the free content.
So begs the question, why do cards go down in value? There are multiple reasons within the game for why a card can increase, and decrease, and they pertain to the first three reasons of price in general. 1) The context may change: with new sets, new cards being released, some card or strategy may become obsolete, and on the other spectrum, very powerful. 2) Supply: more or less can be in demand based on secondary products such as From the Vault, or Duel Decks. This also deals with other promotional cards for example with the Xbox promotion of Nissa or Garruk. 3) General Answers become legal: A recent example would be Mana Leak, a format defining card that is readily available for anyone to use. Yet, Mox Opal never saw many of these adherence's, nor did Time Reversal, and to an even larger extent, the new 3 Scars of Mirrodin planeswalkers, have not seen a tremendously large amount of competitive play. With Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas on the fence as the first mythic in Mirrodin Besieged that may break this streak of downwards price drops, I for one, am not happy about pre-sales.
How many people do you know, who've invested all this money, are now not even keeping half of their value while they are still in legality for constructed standard? How many? Be honest, did you? I have heard endless stories of people purchasing cards, then regretting the actions afterward and possibly left the game as a result. How could these actions that these companies are taking even beneficial for the game whatsoever? The player base is losing more and more control over the financial value of cards. Mythics have been thrown in our faces as near impossible to obtain cards and in order to "save" ourselves financial loss. We are investing hundreds, and hundreds of dollars into Mythics that have plummeted to possibly a quarter of the initial value. There is a large illusion of how impossible it is to obtain Mythic rares, while Jace, the Mindsculptor I believe is a general lottery for this decade, I believe these companies (starcity and channelfireball) are approving a message that these factors happens every 3 months.
Here is where we dive into a little bit of psychology, I am speaking of course about rewards and punishments. I strongly suggest that you read a book or two in order to understand how an individuals mind really works. These presales, have negatively punished people for almost an entire year (they purchase a product, and lose value). Yet people do not want to open randomized product either. Investing in magic has been a very very large gamble from the beginning, yet making every single mythic drop in price like Black Tuesday is no laughing matter. We are losing the interest of new players, and veterans alike.
I have never, ever expected the game to go this far into a financial delve. I am fully aware, and I adhere to other players as well who read this: Learn your prices, and set yourself a limit towards pre-sales. I also advise people to hold off as long as possible until purchasing product online as a method to "save" money when it comes to building tournament decks. Borrowing cards, trading and selling all go a long way. On the other note, I do not want companies to determine initial prices of cards any longer. I would also like to note, that the game is less of an investment than ever before, the No Reprint Policy was implemented and has had large controversies since the beginning. This game is no longer an investment, but rather a hobby that one may endorse in. Very few cards hold financial value after the rotation of standard constructed.
Part 3 - The End Result
This portion of the argument will be as concise as possible, there are two realms to differ price increases and decreases that are relative without the argument of the reserved list (applying to Legacy and Vintage, along with Commander) and the rotation of Standard (every year, a new block enters the format, and the previous block and core set leave the format permanently).
There is a common consensus that all cards rotate from the standard environment, and in most cases, these cards lose value because of the demand behind them. This is a natural cycle that I employ, and I believe to be a correct method for the game to stay fresh and popular. There is nothing wrong with this level of demand and supply after a block rotates. My main argument, is how cards are losing DRAMATIC value from their initial prices, during their reign in standard which are inflated from pre-sales.
With Modern as our new constructed format of non-rotating choice, we have seen prices spike after reprints. The demand is too high for the current market to appeal to a new generation of players. I am a personal advocate of the modern format, and it chokes me everytime where I must appeal that a budget deck is near two pay-checks for this generation.
In conclusion, I strongly believe that the player base should determine the price of a card (how we go about this is up to us...), and for the past year, this has not been the case. People have even done as much as speculate that these companies are taking these actions fully knowing the long term financial value, in order to gain every dollar out of customers pockets. People are being hurt financially short term, and in the long term the game will suffer if the player base does not take control. Ridding of players before a new expansion is released is the most degrading way to treat consumers, Wizards will not grow, stores will not grow, and the player base will not grow as long as this trend continues.
I am for the record, not directly accusing these companies of purposefully pre-selling cards at higher than their expected values in order to gain more financial profit. I am however, promoting Wizards of the Coast, do something to prevent these kinds of sale promotions before the set release.
I am promoting this to all forum users, and specifically towards making Wizards aware, that these actions of pre-sales largely concerning Mythic rares at beyond ridiculous prices is unacceptable. I truly hope, that Wizards of the Coast, puts their foot down, and makes regulations of sales of opened, and unopened product before release date.
Aren't the massive drops in price indicative of players controlling the price? There will always be people who want to have cards immediately after a set comes out, whether it be for tournament or collectibility reasons and those players are apparently willing to pay a premium. Release hype is nothing new- if you look at older sets you will find that prices were inflated around the time of the release.
Also, fwiw, some of those presale prices are exaggerated.
How is it SCGs fault that cards are overhyped prior to release?
Because within a few hours of the card being spoiled, a price has already been determined by someone other than the magic community. Did you say Koth should be near 70$ starting? Cause I didn't and the guy to my right didn't either.
Ehh...welcome to the generation of "instant gratification". The prices are not set by the companies, they are set by these people who want the card RIGHT NOW. If they set the card at a price too high, no one would pre-order. If they set the card at a price too low (Green Sun and War Zone in Besieged for instance), as a smart player, you can take advantage of it.
Anyway, most Magic players know to NEVER order pre-sale unless in the case of underpriced cards. I remembered Green Sun started at 4 on SCG and I bought 4 of them. Hey I doubled my money! It's the new, uninformed players that we need to educate not to purchase pre-sales. That's all.
Because within a few hours of the card being spoiled, a price has already been determined by someone other than the magic community. Did you say Koth should be near 70$ starting? Cause I didn't and the guy to my right didn't either.
I'd be willing to pay the money too, if I was inexperienced and websites kept screaming in my face about how overpowered it was...
They definitely are not, I have copies from people who have sent me email receipts for those exact prices.
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First, Koth started at around 40. If SCG hadn't been selling him, I doubt they would have upped the price.
As for "65-70" yes, some people may have paid the silly prices. But that doesn't mean that most people who pre-ordered did. It's a tricky thing to generalize from what a few people do.
The basic rules of supply and demand do not stop existing for this game. Magic is no different than anything else people spend their disposable income on. How is this even a discussion?
'As for "65-70" yes, some people may have paid the silly prices. But that doesn't mean that most people who pre-ordered did. It's a tricky thing to generalize from what a few people do.
It's also tricky to generalize the other way, my facts stand though that people are buying them at ridiculous prices, based on the fact that there are videos provided by other people, showcasing "amazing or above average, which will dominate" competitive standard. I am here to show that more often than not, that those ridiculous prices are unwarranted, and not as powerful as advertised..
I am also here to prove the point, that the community doesn't have immediate control over the singles market. No one has addressed the issue of prices starting off at absurd heights within a few hours of spoilers.
What you have all done, is merely say "My Example X, is correct and your example Y is wrong" when that is absurd, and not even the argument I am attempting to make.
Next time spoiler season comes up, and a card is released in like oh I dunno 2 hours. Then the starting price of a card is just determined, try and figure out for yourself who determined those prices.
The basic rules of supply and demand do not stop existing for this game. Magic is no different than anything else people spend their disposable income on. How is this even a discussion?
If you read what I posted, I addressed this. In the long term, if people are deceived in one manner or another in order to purchase unopened product and feel negative about doing so. It won't help the game at all. I posted this as a small lesson to people, showing how prices generally fall down, and not up. You yourself are probably an individual who makes "good" choices if you feel this topic is irrelevant to you. So leave it at that, because I know there are hundreds of other players who feel opposite.
Ehh...welcome to the generation of "instant gratification". The prices are not set by the companies, they are set by these people who want the card RIGHT NOW. If they set the card at a price too high, no one would pre-order. If they set the card at a price too low (Green Sun and War Zone in Besieged for instance), as a smart player, you can take advantage of it.
Anyway, most Magic players know to NEVER order pre-sale unless in the case of underpriced cards. I remembered Green Sun started at 4 on SCG and I bought 4 of them. Hey I doubled my money! It's the new, uninformed players that we need to educate not to purchase pre-sales. That's all.
This is the point he is trying to make. These players get hurt by this inflation and will be turned away from the game.
Also, the opening prices are not given to these companies by the public. Companies make it themselves. Singles pre-sales on MBS were low, but I didn't see those prices fluctuate once.
My question is this. Why is star city games the site to go for to look up prices for pre-sales and such? If they are always so dang high? Why cant some website use there own price of what they think a card is gonna do. They always go by star city? If one place thinks Tezzeret 2.0 is worth 20 dollars and one place thinks 40$ then who is to stop the one place from selling Tezzeret for 20?
My question is this. Why is star city games the site to go for to look up prices for pre-sales and such? If they are always so dang high? Why cant some website use there own price of what they think a card is gonna do. They always go by star city? If one place thinks Tezzeret 2.0 is worth 20 dollars and one place thinks 40$ then who is to stop the one place from selling Tezzeret for 20?
I used Starcity Games since it has most likely the most sales in the singles market. Think of it from the other spectrum, if someone like SCG is making 40 dollars a pop, and this guy who is working his ass off making an Ebay account is putting more man hours personally. Why doesn't he sell it for 40 a pop? More or less, if someone wants to undercut another, they will do it by the most miniscule amount. Most ebay BIN go for 2-3$ less than marketed stores.
I really don't see pre-order prices as being much of an issue. Retailers lost a decent ammount of potential revenue with cards like Jace, while players saw the opportunity to make some extra cash. This combination has driven up starting prices as well demand, so normal supply and demand economics are offset by speculation. Add price comparison sites like TCGPlayer, and the changes in price become highly fluid based off supply and demand.
Since the high availability of pre-orders and fluid changes in price are a relatively new concept to the market, I believe the market will, for the most part, stabilize and end up decently balanced. An additional component to balancing the equation is the availability of information. There are multiple writers and even web sites devoted to the financial value of the game, so players have multiple sources of information and can make better decisions. This has 2 effects, players who aren't as good at evaluating value loose less money, and players like myself who have been successful speculating gain less.
Ok, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, or three times, well... you know. If people refused to learn that ordering pre-sales is not a good idea, then it's their own fault. Plain and simple. I've done it both way before (ordered something overpriced as well as underpriced). I haven't ordered something overpriced since my 1st or 2nd time since I learned my lesson.
Also, back in the day when you didn't have presales (or not much at all), these things STILL HAPPENED!!!!! Players rush back from prereleases and put up all these hype cards on Ebay and they still get sold at ridiculous price. I know because I've done it, or traded them away at inflated values. Heck, that's how I was able to pay for my prereleases most of the time back then (when I was a poor high school student).
The point is that these prices are set based on "perceived power", whether or not you have stores pre-selling them. And don't tell me that all these writers have a substantial influence on people rushing and buying these cards. NOT every single writer/player support a single card. And for these writers' target audience, who are they exactly?? Do you think tournament-going, competitive-playing players are really going to order a playset of "possible" good cards every time? No. Do you think the casual player will order a playset of these cards every time to spice up their deck? Highly doubt it. Most of the casual players I know trade these expensive mythic cards for cards that they "perceive" to be good in their decks, or decks that they want to build.
Yes, stores set the prices and players more often than not are willing to pay them. If a card has some success in a major tournament you can expect the price to instantly jump regardless of whether people are buying.
Excuse me if it has already been pointed out, I just skimmed thru most of the thread. But it seems to me the pre-sales boom didnt really happen until wizards changed the time the new sets came into standard. Before, when there was a 2 week window to get cards, people had time to get what they needed for a deck. Pre-sales wasnt that big of a deal. But now that people think they need the cards RIGHT NOW to be competitive, people doing pre-sales are taking advantage.
Sadly, when new players jump into competitive magic there is a lot to take in. If someone isnt there to walk them thru it, there is time to get screwed. This is what can turn a new player off of competitive magic.
Excuse me if it has already been pointed out, I just skimmed thru most of the thread. But it seems to me the pre-sales boom didnt really happen until wizards changed the time the new sets came into standard. Before, when there was a 2 week window to get cards, people had time to get what they needed for a deck. Pre-sales wasnt that big of a deal. But now that people think they need the cards RIGHT NOW to be competitive, people doing pre-sales are taking advantage.
Sadly, when new players jump into competitive magic there is a lot to take in. If someone isnt there to walk them thru it, there is time to get screwed. This is what can turn a new player off of competitive magic.
How is this different than before when you had players selling cards at the hype price? Or now when experienced players traded for these mythics by giving the new players a crappy deal?
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you completely about walking a new player to the game. That's why you should start playing casual at FNM, identify the good AND nice players (doesn't every shop has one of these??), and ask for advice. And if you really want to get into competitive Magic, jeeze, you should really spend sometimes learning the game first right, don't you agree?
Again, the point I am making is that you can be smart at Magic. Use proxies and playtest the cards to see if it's good enough to be purchased, follow up strategies and tournament reports, trade a lot. If you are not willing to do any of these things, then maybe competitive Magic isn't right for your.
OP forgot to mention spikes wanting to play the Deck of the Week. Spikes prices higher than ever. See, UB Control, UW control 1 year ago, Valakut, and now, Tezz.
Players have almost complete control over most of the secondary market. Lots of stores offering identical products in competition with each other, plus the fact that supply is fixed, pretty much assures that.
However, you're not really talking about that, as I read your post. You're more talking about speculation - a very specific part of the secondary market. That's where the question gets interesting.
Of course, what drives the prices of unreleased cards is their perceived value; i.e., how powerful people think they're going to be. Lots of things can influence that, including the actual text of the cards themselves, and what writers on some websites say about the cards.
So in my eyes, the question becomes this: what are the incentives for businesses to inflate singles prices through the opinions of respected figures in the game? It's not as straightforward as it seems. Unless every noteworthy online retailer is colluding on price (a dumb business strategy on their end, as it leaves them vulnerable to undercutting from new competitors or from each other), this strategy has the potential to simply drive business to other sites that aren't inflating prices; or at least, to sites that are inflating prices less. I honestly don't have a good answer to this question at first glance.
Also implied by your argument is the idea that most cards drop in value shortly after release, but I haven't seen any numerical data supporting that. Was there any mentioned? I admit, I'm short on time and I'm rushing this post (and rushed the read of the thread), so I might have missed something.
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"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite." - Paul Dirac
supply and demand. both players and stores have a control in setting prices and giving it all to one would be horrible for the market as a whole.
keep in mind what motivates players and stores. stores are out to make a profit, plain and simple. they are a business, and they exist to remain profitable. players are motivated by deriving enjoyment from the cards, either by winning tournaments or whatever.
at the launch of a new release, the suppliers have more control. why? because there is going to be alot of demand, and not much supply. therefore, a store can set its price to something it believes it will sell for the most profit. say they have 10 copies of card X, and they are selling 5 copies of card X at $40. there are 20 people who want to buy card X at $40. 5 of those people buy card X. there are still 15 people who wish to purchase card X at $40. now the store will obviously notice this, and seeing as how they wish to make more profit, sell another 5 cards at $45 now. another 5 people still want to buy card X at $45. so now, by virtue of having too much demand, the players have increased the price. this isnt the stores fault, it only has a limited supply of card X.
now say there is card Y, which the store also has 5 copies of. it thinks it will sell copies at $40. however there is no one who wants said card at $40. now the store is faced with 2 options. keep the price at $40 and expect to move no product, or lower the price and make less of a profit, but most importantly, still make a profit, since now they are moving product.
as time progresses, more and more cards are being introduced into the market. now lets say the store has 50 copies of card X, and there are now only 9 people who want this card at all, and none of those people are willing to pay $45 for it. the store can either keep its price at $45, and make no profit, or it can lower its price until it starts selling product again. this is the slide you usually see of cards that are perceived to be good, but that dont end up making homes. anyone who wants the card already has it, and those who dont are not willing to pay premium for it.
what happens if we give all control of the secondary market to players? since players want everything at the cheapest possible price that they are willing to pay for, which is $0, there is absolutely no incentive for a store to sell anything, because it will just be economically unviable, and the whole market is worse off now, since now there is abosolutely nothing being sold or bought. if we give all power to stores, then they will want to sell everything at maximum profit, which is infinite. since no one is willing to pay that, stores cannot make a profit, therefore it is economically unviable once again, and the whole market is worse off.
Investing in magic has been a very very large gamble from the beginning, yet making every single mythic drop in price like Black Tuesday is no laughing matter. We are losing the interest of new players.
new players are rarely going to be motivated by making a profit on cards. if you were totally focused on making an absolute profit on your MTG investment as a player, you would be part of the speculative buying that causes the prices to rise for everyone who isnt trying to make a profit.
most likely new players are going to be deriving enjoyment from actually playing with the card. as such the financial value of the card is going to be less of a problem. its sort of like buying a car. unless your buying a collectors item, your car will devalue from the moment you buy it. if you take the financial loss of buying a car into account, without thinking of any of the positive benefits, then there is never a reason to buy a car, because you will always lose money. once you start taking into account the convenience of being able to drive around and the time saved by driving around instead of walking, then the financial value of the car is less important than the other sugary benefits that it bestows.
If Star City is selling theirs for $40, why should I sell mine for $20. Obviously the market will bear $40. Why are ipads $599 because that's what people will pay for them. Apple determines that price is what somebody might pay.
Furthermore everyone would be trying to buy mine at $20 and resell at $40. Look at how many speculation threads there are. Those people hurt dealers and stores that provide a service of having those cards in stock.
I completely disagree that new players (who don't buy singles) are turned off by $40 prices. In fact they buy more packs hoping to get that $40 rare.
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Let's be honest here: the secondary market is a byproduct of what the pros do and play. Plain and simple.
Stores see the pros play certain cards, they adjust prices appropriately and everyone who plays for fun gets taken by the nuts because they want to emulate the pros.
The only time you may have a leg up on getting certain cards for a decent price is pre-orders, believe it or not. That $35 Tezzeret looks like a decent investment right about now, doesn't it? The only problem is that stores will always shift to correct past failures by manipulating future sales. If Jace was a $25 pre-order that is going for $90-$100 now, then everyone will have to deal with the fact that stores don't want to be screwed again.
It's life. Whatever.
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After 10 years of quitting, I'm back to my 2 pack a day habit.
Because within a few hours of the card being spoiled, a price has already been determined by someone other than the magic community. Did you say Koth should be near 70$ starting? Cause I didn't and the guy to my right didn't either.
I'd be willing to pay the money too, if I was inexperienced and websites kept screaming in my face about how overpowered it was...
First off, it's still too early to rule out Koth. We don't know what is in Action (or for that matter, any of next year's standard) Koth could easily skyrocket in price if he becomes a top tiered card in Standard when Zen rotates.
U/W contol is going to take a huge hit when Zen rotates. Most of the cards that make that deck tick are going to rotate leaving mostly just Venser and Elspeth. Which from my understanding are just support cards (I don't play standard.. I don't know). This happens all the time. Heck, the theme of the next block could make big dumb creatures really good and you'll see some creature based strategies skyrocket.
How markets work is cards fluctuate in price. Stores set initial prices, but then player demand and sales dictate their price from there. If you were a store, you would want to place the "pre order" price at the highest possible point that people will still buy at. And then as demand wanes (or demand surges) the price goes from there.
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I just want people who redraft to admit this:
"I can't draft objectively unless I am able to guarantee that I receive at least 3 rares. I am also better than most average/new players so I want to make sure that I get the best rares and they end up with worse ones. I care more about the monetary value of cards than actually playing the game for decent prizes."
Trust me you do not want WOTC involved in controlling the secondary market. I do not see any issue here as you are never forced to buy from a store and you can easily wait 1 week after the release and typically get cards at least 20% cheaper on average. You can also bust boxes just like the dealers can if you really wanted to.
Your argument sounds similar to how some people want the government controlling our lives so that everything is "equal and fair" but as soon as the government starts doing that everything goes to poo.(yes I'm very much a fiscal conservative as are most small business owners)
You did however make a great post and have some good points/arguments but I would have to disagree since I do not see any way that WOTC could really fix this and a free market is something we should enjoy.
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You spend a lot of time talking about mythic prices dropping and looking for reasons for it, and miss the completely obvious - new things are more exciting and therefore more expensive. Virtually every new thing that is produced - cars, computer parts, movies, etc. - starts out expensive and drops in price over time; why would you expect Magic singles to be different?
new players are rarely going to be motivated by making a profit on cards. if you were totally focused on making an absolute profit on your MTG investment as a player, you would be part of the speculative buying that causes the prices to rise for everyone who isnt trying to make a profit.
That's not the argument made, I mentioned them in saving their financial stress in order to play the game. Would you like to pay 65$ for Koth or 25$? Or the expected "3rd best planeswalker ever in the game" to not go upto 100$? These companies got you to gamble.
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That's a strawman of sorts. People (experienced people, who know - or think they know - what they're doing) are willing to pay $40 or $50 for a card they think is going to be "the next big thing". If they're right, good for them. If not, well, shrug and cut your losses.
You assertion that this "secondary market" turns new players off the game isn't proveable one way or the other. You can cite instances where new players have been turned off by that, and I can cite instances where they haven't. It's not really quantifiable, and thus, can't be proven one way or the other.
I have no idea whether the population affected is a minority of a majority I admit, I have no proof one way or another, yet we both cannot deny that there are at least some number of people being affected. So as time goes on, no matter what the population affected is, that number will increase... and increase. Which is a large problem.
I believe a large amount of these secondary market implications, can be easily handled with a swift
"No sales of our products before release date, opened or unopened"
You spend a lot of time talking about mythic prices dropping and looking for reasons for it, and miss the completely obvious - new things are more exciting and therefore more expensive. Virtually every new thing that is produced - cars, computer parts, movies, etc. - starts out expensive and drops in price over time; why would you expect Magic singles to be different?
As much as that makes some logical sense when it comes to the mind of haves and wants. It doesn't portray very well within Magic. For example, some mythic rares may be more expensive and at risk, but others still won't breach past the 5 dollar range. Look at Praetor's Council, it didn't over-succeed the price of most green mythic rares by any margin at all. New and Flashy advertising does work, but it's not a certain formula.
I also don't expect magic singles to be very much different, but what I do expect is for them to be not overhyped into oblivion. For example, say we are put into a generation where dual core is the best thing ever, and then all of a sudden Sony advertises the absolute hell out of their brand new pc which is just pentium 3. The price is going up like nuts, lots of people say to the masses that this pentium 3 for some odd reason is the best thing ever the world has ever seen, etc.
Don't you find that this feels like manipulation? The smarter people could talk all they want, but the big company themselves said "no they lie this is how good it is!!" when it really and obviously isn't. Someone who is new with computers, will obviously go with what Sony had said, and not what other experts did.
That's the case I am making, and the pattern I have been seeing for over a year straight now. I am sick of it to my stomach. This is my notification to the public that they need to be tremendously well informed before making purchases of pre-sales, and if I had it my way, Wizards would step their foot in, in order to stop presales of singles before the sealed product is released (which only makes sense right?)
First - I will state my argument towards how I believe the secondary market is being lost from the original control of the customer base
Second - I will give examples of these situations occurring
Third - I will give the end results of these situations
Fourth and Conclusion- Advice to all online consumers, and my personal experience towards getting maximum value
Part 1 - The main argument
Over the past half of a decade, there have been many arguments towards the exclusivity (financially) of the game we all play. Namely the introduction of Mythic Rares have sparked a long and large complicated debate as to whether it is good, or bad towards the health of the current game. There are large amount of positives and negatives for such a tactic of introducing Mythic rares. [WARNING: I will not address the fact of Mythic Rarity in the products Wizards of the Coast produce. So in order to the points I will make, I ask that no debate on Mythic rares are posted in this specific thread.] Wizards of the Coast have been able to sail very well during this economic downfall, and provide fun towards all of us, most of their products in the past year, really make me want to spend more than what I can afford, which is great! They have released new interesting and obviously successful products such as From the Vaults, and Duel Decks. They have taken a large amount of concern for players of all types, and released new sets which adhere a large amount of my approval as a consumer. Yet I believe Wizards have been doing something wrong to the community, and by that I mean: They have not been taking action in preventing the community to suffer. For the past year, an inaction or accidental of this company has caused a large amount of distress, it may not be evident now, but I can assure you, as someone who studies psychology will have a long term profound effect on the game. I can summarize further in a few words: Pre-Released Sales.
What has been happening over the past year, is a large consistent trend, when a card is officially spoiled by Wizards of the Coast, or indirectly from Wizards of the Coast and given to a fan supported website. I would like to admit here, that as a consumer, I save a large amount of money by purchasing already opened, non-random product through multiple sellers. Purchasing un-opened boxes of cards is what I would like to do casually, and since I am on limited funding just like everyone else, I find that I would rather have the chance to be competitive, and receive in-store credit towards further purchases to reduce as many financial problems as possible. I believe the largest problem occurs when the cards don't even exist in our hands. What do I mean by this? I mean by example, that it's 2am on Monday morning, and wesbites such as Starcitygames.com, and Channelfireball.com are already waiting for you to make the purchase on these un-released cards. Cards take price immediately, and stores can generally guarantee sales, due to the fact of large amounts of product they have obtained in order to satisfy thousands of customers. Theoretically, these situations sound absurd. Why? Because not even within a few hours of notice, players have already lost any control they had whatsoever of the secondary market.
Personally, I was under the influence that preview cards were made to help sell the product from Wizards of the Coast, in order to build up hype and create a steady customer base. Yet when players like myself find an already existing struggle of purchasing single cards, and purchasing unopened product, it seems like the obvious decision is already there: buy the singles. Why should you? You save the randomized problem and are guaranteed product, you also can annihilate opening cards you find no use for which happens in randomized product. Yet randomized product can be amazing at the same time, and very profitable. The thin line now of sale dictation becomes How much is card X worth? Obviously supply and demand meet the largest requirements of financial value, yet what I would like to know: What determines a cards financial value that has only been previewed for less than 12 hours, and may not even be released into customers hands for weeks?
Within the game of Magic there are several answers to this question.
First, Power Level: The strength of the card, and it's impact on legal formats.
Second, Context: Whether the card has lots or little support for a specific strategy within most legal formats.
Third, Availability: The card may be Mythic, Rare, Uncommon or Common, and in descending order of rarity, the more likely of a lower value.
Part 2 - Historic Examples of the Secondary Market
Historically referring to the past year, we have seen some large upsides and upsets when it comes to pre-sales and speculation. I would like to primarily start off with the most controversial, yet undeniably the most powerful card printed in years: Jace, the Mindsculptor. This card has merely been a year old, and has only increased in price since the pre-release sales of him. Started off as a 25$, is now nearing 90-110$. So if you got on this boat fast, congratulations, Because the upsides end here.
Let's look at every other mythic in recent constructed standard that has been heavily reviewed, and criticized that was released since:
Gideon Jura - Started off near 45$ is now near 25$
Time Reversal - Started off near 35$ is now near 3$
Elspeth Tirel - Started off near 50$ is now near 14$
Mox Opal - Started off near 35$ is now near 20$
Koth of the Hammer - Started off near 65$ is now near 23$
Venser, the Sojourner - Started off near 50$ is now near 13$
(Note: These prices are generalized from eBay.com, Starcitygames.com, and Channelfireball.com)
Here is a small collection of online episodes Evan Erwin has posted for Starcitygames.com, directly hyping these specific cards. I encourage everyone here to review these episodes for themselves, it is under the free content.
A large amount of discussion under Scars of Mirrodin, discussing the power level of the three new planeswalkers primarily.
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/m..._Extended.html
The discussion of the power level of Time Reversal
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/m..._Spoilers.html
The discussion of the new Planeswalkers in RoE
So begs the question, why do cards go down in value? There are multiple reasons within the game for why a card can increase, and decrease, and they pertain to the first three reasons of price in general. 1) The context may change: with new sets, new cards being released, some card or strategy may become obsolete, and on the other spectrum, very powerful. 2) Supply: more or less can be in demand based on secondary products such as From the Vault, or Duel Decks. This also deals with other promotional cards for example with the Xbox promotion of Nissa or Garruk. 3) General Answers become legal: A recent example would be Mana Leak, a format defining card that is readily available for anyone to use. Yet, Mox Opal never saw many of these adherence's, nor did Time Reversal, and to an even larger extent, the new 3 Scars of Mirrodin planeswalkers, have not seen a tremendously large amount of competitive play. With Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas on the fence as the first mythic in Mirrodin Besieged that may break this streak of downwards price drops, I for one, am not happy about pre-sales.
How many people do you know, who've invested all this money, are now not even keeping half of their value while they are still in legality for constructed standard? How many? Be honest, did you? I have heard endless stories of people purchasing cards, then regretting the actions afterward and possibly left the game as a result. How could these actions that these companies are taking even beneficial for the game whatsoever? The player base is losing more and more control over the financial value of cards. Mythics have been thrown in our faces as near impossible to obtain cards and in order to "save" ourselves financial loss. We are investing hundreds, and hundreds of dollars into Mythics that have plummeted to possibly a quarter of the initial value. There is a large illusion of how impossible it is to obtain Mythic rares, while Jace, the Mindsculptor I believe is a general lottery for this decade, I believe these companies (starcity and channelfireball) are approving a message that these factors happens every 3 months.
Here is where we dive into a little bit of psychology, I am speaking of course about rewards and punishments. I strongly suggest that you read a book or two in order to understand how an individuals mind really works. These presales, have negatively punished people for almost an entire year (they purchase a product, and lose value). Yet people do not want to open randomized product either. Investing in magic has been a very very large gamble from the beginning, yet making every single mythic drop in price like Black Tuesday is no laughing matter. We are losing the interest of new players, and veterans alike.
I have never, ever expected the game to go this far into a financial delve. I am fully aware, and I adhere to other players as well who read this: Learn your prices, and set yourself a limit towards pre-sales. I also advise people to hold off as long as possible until purchasing product online as a method to "save" money when it comes to building tournament decks. Borrowing cards, trading and selling all go a long way. On the other note, I do not want companies to determine initial prices of cards any longer. I would also like to note, that the game is less of an investment than ever before, the No Reprint Policy was implemented and has had large controversies since the beginning. This game is no longer an investment, but rather a hobby that one may endorse in. Very few cards hold financial value after the rotation of standard constructed.
Part 3 - The End Result
This portion of the argument will be as concise as possible, there are two realms to differ price increases and decreases that are relative without the argument of the reserved list (applying to Legacy and Vintage, along with Commander) and the rotation of Standard (every year, a new block enters the format, and the previous block and core set leave the format permanently).
There is a common consensus that all cards rotate from the standard environment, and in most cases, these cards lose value because of the demand behind them. This is a natural cycle that I employ, and I believe to be a correct method for the game to stay fresh and popular. There is nothing wrong with this level of demand and supply after a block rotates. My main argument, is how cards are losing DRAMATIC value from their initial prices, during their reign in standard which are inflated from pre-sales.
With Modern as our new constructed format of non-rotating choice, we have seen prices spike after reprints. The demand is too high for the current market to appeal to a new generation of players. I am a personal advocate of the modern format, and it chokes me everytime where I must appeal that a budget deck is near two pay-checks for this generation.
In conclusion, I strongly believe that the player base should determine the price of a card (how we go about this is up to us...), and for the past year, this has not been the case. People have even done as much as speculate that these companies are taking these actions fully knowing the long term financial value, in order to gain every dollar out of customers pockets. People are being hurt financially short term, and in the long term the game will suffer if the player base does not take control. Ridding of players before a new expansion is released is the most degrading way to treat consumers, Wizards will not grow, stores will not grow, and the player base will not grow as long as this trend continues.
I am for the record, not directly accusing these companies of purposefully pre-selling cards at higher than their expected values in order to gain more financial profit. I am however, promoting Wizards of the Coast, do something to prevent these kinds of sale promotions before the set release.
I am promoting this to all forum users, and specifically towards making Wizards aware, that these actions of pre-sales largely concerning Mythic rares at beyond ridiculous prices is unacceptable. I truly hope, that Wizards of the Coast, puts their foot down, and makes regulations of sales of opened, and unopened product before release date.
Also, fwiw, some of those presale prices are exaggerated.
They sell preorders at what people at willing to pay.
Because within a few hours of the card being spoiled, a price has already been determined by someone other than the magic community. Did you say Koth should be near 70$ starting? Cause I didn't and the guy to my right didn't either.
I'd be willing to pay the money too, if I was inexperienced and websites kept screaming in my face about how overpowered it was...
They definitely are not, I have copies from people who have sent me email receipts for those exact prices.
Anyway, most Magic players know to NEVER order pre-sale unless in the case of underpriced cards. I remembered Green Sun started at 4 on SCG and I bought 4 of them. Hey I doubled my money! It's the new, uninformed players that we need to educate not to purchase pre-sales. That's all.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=487991
My Sell List:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10893911#post10893911
First, Koth started at around 40. If SCG hadn't been selling him, I doubt they would have upped the price.
As for "65-70" yes, some people may have paid the silly prices. But that doesn't mean that most people who pre-ordered did. It's a tricky thing to generalize from what a few people do.
Trade thread // Twitter
It's also tricky to generalize the other way, my facts stand though that people are buying them at ridiculous prices, based on the fact that there are videos provided by other people, showcasing "amazing or above average, which will dominate" competitive standard. I am here to show that more often than not, that those ridiculous prices are unwarranted, and not as powerful as advertised..
I am also here to prove the point, that the community doesn't have immediate control over the singles market. No one has addressed the issue of prices starting off at absurd heights within a few hours of spoilers.
What you have all done, is merely say "My Example X, is correct and your example Y is wrong" when that is absurd, and not even the argument I am attempting to make.
Next time spoiler season comes up, and a card is released in like oh I dunno 2 hours. Then the starting price of a card is just determined, try and figure out for yourself who determined those prices.
If you read what I posted, I addressed this. In the long term, if people are deceived in one manner or another in order to purchase unopened product and feel negative about doing so. It won't help the game at all. I posted this as a small lesson to people, showing how prices generally fall down, and not up. You yourself are probably an individual who makes "good" choices if you feel this topic is irrelevant to you. So leave it at that, because I know there are hundreds of other players who feel opposite.
This is the point he is trying to make. These players get hurt by this inflation and will be turned away from the game.
Also, the opening prices are not given to these companies by the public. Companies make it themselves. Singles pre-sales on MBS were low, but I didn't see those prices fluctuate once.
I used Starcity Games since it has most likely the most sales in the singles market. Think of it from the other spectrum, if someone like SCG is making 40 dollars a pop, and this guy who is working his ass off making an Ebay account is putting more man hours personally. Why doesn't he sell it for 40 a pop? More or less, if someone wants to undercut another, they will do it by the most miniscule amount. Most ebay BIN go for 2-3$ less than marketed stores.
Since the high availability of pre-orders and fluid changes in price are a relatively new concept to the market, I believe the market will, for the most part, stabilize and end up decently balanced. An additional component to balancing the equation is the availability of information. There are multiple writers and even web sites devoted to the financial value of the game, so players have multiple sources of information and can make better decisions. This has 2 effects, players who aren't as good at evaluating value loose less money, and players like myself who have been successful speculating gain less.
Also, back in the day when you didn't have presales (or not much at all), these things STILL HAPPENED!!!!! Players rush back from prereleases and put up all these hype cards on Ebay and they still get sold at ridiculous price. I know because I've done it, or traded them away at inflated values. Heck, that's how I was able to pay for my prereleases most of the time back then (when I was a poor high school student).
The point is that these prices are set based on "perceived power", whether or not you have stores pre-selling them. And don't tell me that all these writers have a substantial influence on people rushing and buying these cards. NOT every single writer/player support a single card. And for these writers' target audience, who are they exactly?? Do you think tournament-going, competitive-playing players are really going to order a playset of "possible" good cards every time? No. Do you think the casual player will order a playset of these cards every time to spice up their deck? Highly doubt it. Most of the casual players I know trade these expensive mythic cards for cards that they "perceive" to be good in their decks, or decks that they want to build.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=487991
My Sell List:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10893911#post10893911
:EDH:
WR Gisela, Blade of Goldnight (HOLD/100) WR
WB Teysa, Orzhov Scion (HOLD/100) WB
Sadly, when new players jump into competitive magic there is a lot to take in. If someone isnt there to walk them thru it, there is time to get screwed. This is what can turn a new player off of competitive magic.
How is this different than before when you had players selling cards at the hype price? Or now when experienced players traded for these mythics by giving the new players a crappy deal?
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you completely about walking a new player to the game. That's why you should start playing casual at FNM, identify the good AND nice players (doesn't every shop has one of these??), and ask for advice. And if you really want to get into competitive Magic, jeeze, you should really spend sometimes learning the game first right, don't you agree?
Again, the point I am making is that you can be smart at Magic. Use proxies and playtest the cards to see if it's good enough to be purchased, follow up strategies and tournament reports, trade a lot. If you are not willing to do any of these things, then maybe competitive Magic isn't right for your.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=487991
My Sell List:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10893911#post10893911
GB [Primer][Competitive][Stax][Combo] Meren of Clan Nel Toth 95% RETIRED
UW [Primer][Competitive][Combo][Stax] Brago, King Eternal RETIRED
BR Rakdos, Lord of Riots (75%)
G Titania - 75%
W SRAM - Welcome to the cheeri0s jam 95%
U Teferi - stax 100%
R Neheb - janky mono red eggs combo 90%
B Gonti - 50% valuetown
However, you're not really talking about that, as I read your post. You're more talking about speculation - a very specific part of the secondary market. That's where the question gets interesting.
Of course, what drives the prices of unreleased cards is their perceived value; i.e., how powerful people think they're going to be. Lots of things can influence that, including the actual text of the cards themselves, and what writers on some websites say about the cards.
So in my eyes, the question becomes this: what are the incentives for businesses to inflate singles prices through the opinions of respected figures in the game? It's not as straightforward as it seems. Unless every noteworthy online retailer is colluding on price (a dumb business strategy on their end, as it leaves them vulnerable to undercutting from new competitors or from each other), this strategy has the potential to simply drive business to other sites that aren't inflating prices; or at least, to sites that are inflating prices less. I honestly don't have a good answer to this question at first glance.
Also implied by your argument is the idea that most cards drop in value shortly after release, but I haven't seen any numerical data supporting that. Was there any mentioned? I admit, I'm short on time and I'm rushing this post (and rushed the read of the thread), so I might have missed something.
"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite." - Paul Dirac
keep in mind what motivates players and stores. stores are out to make a profit, plain and simple. they are a business, and they exist to remain profitable. players are motivated by deriving enjoyment from the cards, either by winning tournaments or whatever.
at the launch of a new release, the suppliers have more control. why? because there is going to be alot of demand, and not much supply. therefore, a store can set its price to something it believes it will sell for the most profit. say they have 10 copies of card X, and they are selling 5 copies of card X at $40. there are 20 people who want to buy card X at $40. 5 of those people buy card X. there are still 15 people who wish to purchase card X at $40. now the store will obviously notice this, and seeing as how they wish to make more profit, sell another 5 cards at $45 now. another 5 people still want to buy card X at $45. so now, by virtue of having too much demand, the players have increased the price. this isnt the stores fault, it only has a limited supply of card X.
now say there is card Y, which the store also has 5 copies of. it thinks it will sell copies at $40. however there is no one who wants said card at $40. now the store is faced with 2 options. keep the price at $40 and expect to move no product, or lower the price and make less of a profit, but most importantly, still make a profit, since now they are moving product.
as time progresses, more and more cards are being introduced into the market. now lets say the store has 50 copies of card X, and there are now only 9 people who want this card at all, and none of those people are willing to pay $45 for it. the store can either keep its price at $45, and make no profit, or it can lower its price until it starts selling product again. this is the slide you usually see of cards that are perceived to be good, but that dont end up making homes. anyone who wants the card already has it, and those who dont are not willing to pay premium for it.
what happens if we give all control of the secondary market to players? since players want everything at the cheapest possible price that they are willing to pay for, which is $0, there is absolutely no incentive for a store to sell anything, because it will just be economically unviable, and the whole market is worse off now, since now there is abosolutely nothing being sold or bought. if we give all power to stores, then they will want to sell everything at maximum profit, which is infinite. since no one is willing to pay that, stores cannot make a profit, therefore it is economically unviable once again, and the whole market is worse off.
new players are rarely going to be motivated by making a profit on cards. if you were totally focused on making an absolute profit on your MTG investment as a player, you would be part of the speculative buying that causes the prices to rise for everyone who isnt trying to make a profit.
most likely new players are going to be deriving enjoyment from actually playing with the card. as such the financial value of the card is going to be less of a problem. its sort of like buying a car. unless your buying a collectors item, your car will devalue from the moment you buy it. if you take the financial loss of buying a car into account, without thinking of any of the positive benefits, then there is never a reason to buy a car, because you will always lose money. once you start taking into account the convenience of being able to drive around and the time saved by driving around instead of walking, then the financial value of the car is less important than the other sugary benefits that it bestows.
Furthermore everyone would be trying to buy mine at $20 and resell at $40. Look at how many speculation threads there are. Those people hurt dealers and stores that provide a service of having those cards in stock.
I completely disagree that new players (who don't buy singles) are turned off by $40 prices. In fact they buy more packs hoping to get that $40 rare.
Stores see the pros play certain cards, they adjust prices appropriately and everyone who plays for fun gets taken by the nuts because they want to emulate the pros.
The only time you may have a leg up on getting certain cards for a decent price is pre-orders, believe it or not. That $35 Tezzeret looks like a decent investment right about now, doesn't it? The only problem is that stores will always shift to correct past failures by manipulating future sales. If Jace was a $25 pre-order that is going for $90-$100 now, then everyone will have to deal with the fact that stores don't want to be screwed again.
It's life. Whatever.
First off, it's still too early to rule out Koth. We don't know what is in Action (or for that matter, any of next year's standard) Koth could easily skyrocket in price if he becomes a top tiered card in Standard when Zen rotates.
U/W contol is going to take a huge hit when Zen rotates. Most of the cards that make that deck tick are going to rotate leaving mostly just Venser and Elspeth. Which from my understanding are just support cards (I don't play standard.. I don't know). This happens all the time. Heck, the theme of the next block could make big dumb creatures really good and you'll see some creature based strategies skyrocket.
How markets work is cards fluctuate in price. Stores set initial prices, but then player demand and sales dictate their price from there. If you were a store, you would want to place the "pre order" price at the highest possible point that people will still buy at. And then as demand wanes (or demand surges) the price goes from there.
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Your argument sounds similar to how some people want the government controlling our lives so that everything is "equal and fair" but as soon as the government starts doing that everything goes to poo.(yes I'm very much a fiscal conservative as are most small business owners)
You did however make a great post and have some good points/arguments but I would have to disagree since I do not see any way that WOTC could really fix this and a free market is something we should enjoy.
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That's not the argument made, I mentioned them in saving their financial stress in order to play the game. Would you like to pay 65$ for Koth or 25$? Or the expected "3rd best planeswalker ever in the game" to not go upto 100$? These companies got you to gamble.
I have no idea whether the population affected is a minority of a majority I admit, I have no proof one way or another, yet we both cannot deny that there are at least some number of people being affected. So as time goes on, no matter what the population affected is, that number will increase... and increase. Which is a large problem.
I believe a large amount of these secondary market implications, can be easily handled with a swift
"No sales of our products before release date, opened or unopened"
As much as that makes some logical sense when it comes to the mind of haves and wants. It doesn't portray very well within Magic. For example, some mythic rares may be more expensive and at risk, but others still won't breach past the 5 dollar range. Look at Praetor's Council, it didn't over-succeed the price of most green mythic rares by any margin at all. New and Flashy advertising does work, but it's not a certain formula.
I also don't expect magic singles to be very much different, but what I do expect is for them to be not overhyped into oblivion. For example, say we are put into a generation where dual core is the best thing ever, and then all of a sudden Sony advertises the absolute hell out of their brand new pc which is just pentium 3. The price is going up like nuts, lots of people say to the masses that this pentium 3 for some odd reason is the best thing ever the world has ever seen, etc.
Don't you find that this feels like manipulation? The smarter people could talk all they want, but the big company themselves said "no they lie this is how good it is!!" when it really and obviously isn't. Someone who is new with computers, will obviously go with what Sony had said, and not what other experts did.
That's the case I am making, and the pattern I have been seeing for over a year straight now. I am sick of it to my stomach. This is my notification to the public that they need to be tremendously well informed before making purchases of pre-sales, and if I had it my way, Wizards would step their foot in, in order to stop presales of singles before the sealed product is released (which only makes sense right?)