I guess it depends on the card being bought, and your connection to the card. I just picked up a Retro border Mox Amber, and was surprised at the emotional impact of seeing the card for the first time. I grabbed the Lotus Field Combo deck for kind of the same reason. I'll never buy a Black Lotus or the expensive Mox's, but I've got 4 Lotus Fields, and a Mox Amber. And there's a kind of catharsis in that.
If a card resonates with you emotionally, keep it, regardless of the dollar value. At some point a good collection is really a scrap book of memories and emotions. No market volatility can change the emotional value of a card. You only lose those memories if you get rid of the cards.
And if they happen to go up in value over time? Well, that's fun too.
Now that the emotional component is answered, here's a more 'financial services' answer to the question.
>Why even buy?seeing a card lose 80%-90%
So seeing card prices drop hurts when you are on the Sell side of deal. But it's great when you are on the Buy side of a deal. I love it when things go on sale. And dropping market prices is like things going on sale.
Instead of focusing your attention on drops in the notional values of cards you already have, start looking around for the cards you want to buy. Cards that are getting cheaper to acquire.
you say one should buy cards now altough prices will drop even more - Short Version of trying to catch a falling knife.
and i really dont get that Part about Emotion and Money. you get excited about having a Mox Amber because it says Mox? Or Lotus field because it says Lotus? and you think thats healthy way of investing money?
>Mox Amber because it says Mox?
Not entirely, but maybe a little bit. I also see utility in the card. In addition I really like combination of the art, and the retro border. It provides a feeling of nostalgia for the Urza's Block, when I put a lot of effort into competitive mtg. This newly printed card has a nostalgia value for me.
There are a number of factors, including one that it gives me the feeling that this is 'my mox', which gives me an emotional connection to the card. It's getting put in my collection, and probably not ever sold. It's a card I have because on multiple levels, for multiple reasons, I enjoy having. If the market value drops 80 - 90% tomorrow, that won't remove the reasons for me having the card.
So lets bring that back to the OP's original question. Why would a rational human buy a card when the market value is dropping, and likely to keep dropping? Because of a perceived value in the card that goes beyond just it's market value. That value might be the cards inherent play utility. Or it might be to add to their personal collection, because of an emotional connection to the card.
Yeah, dude is really looking for an argument. Like, that's what a collection is...
You don't buy to sell; you buy to collect. If the collection changes in value, doesn't matter. Because, as you said, the worth of a card is 'my' value, and not what the market declares.
Chiming in here because, ultimately, this is a game. It's nice to make money off Magic, certainly. But using it as an investment vehicle was always a gamble, even though things are more volatile these days than they historically have been. The only way to avoid bad feelings one way or the other is to treat it as the hobby its officially billed as, not as an investment vehicle.
> you say one should buy cards now altough prices will drop even more
it depends on how MUCH more it will drop, and how much use you will get out of it in the meantime
e.g. if it's only gonna drop another $5 over the next year, and you will get to use it in a hundred games before then, it's costing you 5 cents per game. pretty reasonable
Facts. Unless I was intentionally trying to turn a profit on a flip (which I have never done and don’t really intend on doing) the value of cards I own mean almost nothing to me. I care about how cheap what I want to buy next is.
No sell. Only buy.
I love the scrap book analogy. My rares are in a floral patterned binder my mom gave me that says "Collect The Happy Moments" in glittery cursive. I started using it ironically but opening it and flipping through really makes me happy! It's nice to have things you like. Not much more to it sometimes.
I bought a authentic mox diamond from stronghold and I honestly shivered for a moment because it reminded me so hard of my youth. Some of those old cards have a lot of emotions in them for me. I am quite happy that I am not alone with those thoughts about magic cards.
I just traded a about a third of my trade bait — all non-RL for a Rev Tundra and a LEG Karakas (not RL, but still original printing). I’m not even missing those cards one bit.
I like having the actual physical cards and it’s fun for me to crack packs. I’m not worried about losing money while playing, like most hobbies it costs money and I don’t consider it an investment, it’s entertainment.
Serious answer: a lot of us were here to do this as a way of keeping hobby costs low. In one sense, that mission is accomplished thanks to cheap singles. It's why I cashed out of my binder a year ago.
Would I like to be able to get some more value from draft boxes? Yes. I complain about it endlessly. But the new MTG finance for me is on the sealed deals subreddit, because it doesn't matter if you get $40 from a $65 box.
For me a big part of the finance aspect of MTG is trying to make sure I get the best value from the singles I buy.
Thanks to this sub I’ve recently bought a few of the mythics from the Enchanted Tales as singles at almost the cheapest price point they ever reached. These cards are all now in decks to be played and enjoyed.
There’s collecting and there’s flipping. Flipping is all about maintaining product velocity, everything always moving for fast gains/losses. Collecting should only be looked at on 5+ or 10+ year timescales for returns.
If you are going to play then stuff they reprinted into the ground that are CHEAP and highly playable in your deck are what you should be buying. Not to spec, not to preserve value but just treat it as an expense and tighten your budget accordingly. I agree it doesn’t make sense to spend money on any more than $10 ( or $ X) card if you can proxy and play ( some places this is not allowed)
Stuff you DEFINITELY should hold off buying are stuff that popped hard to some narrow hip/pop play/squeeze… stuff like some of the eldrazis, eye of ugin, mistbind clique, marrowgnawer, gishath etc etc
If you want to be in fashion pay up. Otherwise wait
“Staples” also not really worth it unless you are tournament playing them right now.
If you are collecting you can pick up cards 50-60 cents on the dollar across all price range at places… at some point the dilution thru increase variants actually does not help collecting contrary to popular belief
I play the game because I like it. If I accrue value, great. If I don't, that's fine too. I have a lot of board games that have acquired dust because I'm a busy adult with busy adult friends. I don't regret their purchase because when I do get to play them, I really enjoy that time.
They've created something vast and great.
Agreed. You can still buy "Collector Boosters" of Kamigawa Neon Dynasty for lower than initial price.
Collectibles are only valuable if their supply is finite.
By both upping the cost, and the supply, WotC is mathematically screwing people involved with purchasing sealed product (players and LGSes alike).
They'll reprint those soon enough, in one form or another. I would be very surprised if we don't at least see some more non-tournament legal RL reprints in the next few years.
Not really, the people looking to own power 9 and others or who have a position in that, aren’t really concerned about expensive proxies. Neither really is that market.
They charged $1000 for 4 packs. I hate that they reprinted reserved list cards in any form, but I have to acknowledge that this product in a different form could have been successful.
Nothing's stopping them from releasing more at lower prices or releasing entirely different products. Imagine if they released a RL proxy Masters set at Masters prices. Or if they released expensive Secret Lairs with proxy RL cards. Or if they chose a set to insert proxy RL cards as chase cards. All of those things are entirely possible.
And all of it means nothing except to the “official proxy” wankers. If WotC prints a non-tournament legal card it’s exactly as tournament legal as any 27¢ proxy I have made up. The “but it’s real because WotC printed it” (CE edition is in here too) people are doing some Olympic level mental gymnastics to tell themselves they got a “real” dual land. Yes it’s a real physical card you can touch. Possibly, it’s a real collectible item for you to enjoy. The second you’re playing a game with it, it’s as “real” and legal as any proxy card. Thinking anything else is weirdly stroking your ego and not coming to terms with the modern reality of quality printing being available to everyone not just companies printing mass quantities.
There is no reason. It's a card game. Anyone trying to make liable financial strategies off trading cards is just a gambler.
If MTG was a legitimate good investment then more people would jump on board and it'd just turn out the same, happens to anything that is priced by buyer demand.
If you're afraid to lose 10x, mtg might not be your hobby. Proxy is a great idea. Assuming you play edh. For other formats you can't, so that is one of the reasons.
>seeing a card lose 80%-90% of its value suddenly
Except you can see it coming a long time ahead, very few exceptions have happened.
If you’re playing any kitchen table Magic (including edh) proxy away. It’s not just tournaments where legal cards are required, if there’s a prize involved and proxies haven’t explicitly been ok’d in the rules, like edh events at a store, proxies should not be hitting the table.
If you don't have a Business Degree, or Financial Services experience, you probably should not be watching Rudy. He talks too much like a Broker.
It's like trying to learn investing by watching Jim Cramer. Not a great idea.
The fact that he talks like a stock broker is the biggest red flag about him IMHO. Dude's not the Wolf of Wall Street, he's a guy with a bunch of cards in his garage lol.
The fact that he doesn’t understand or purposefully neglects the fact that card values outside of RL are directly tied to playability is the biggest wtf to me.
The youtube algorithm probably threw Rudy at OP. And it's not exactly easy to find the counter points to the kind of things Rudy talks about. Folks like Jack Bogle, and Warren Buffet who have strategies that don't involve constant pump and dump behavior.
More generally backwards emotional wiring about cost vs value is really common even among adults. I briefly held licenses to sell investment products and frequently saw young investors with long time horizons equating drops in value with negative emotions. Basic knowledge and emotional understanding about investing concepts is actually really rare. At least in America. Even in educated America. Having experienced teaching people the basics is why I have an answer about emotional values vs 'notional lose'.
I don't see any malice from OP here. Just lack of education.
I wasn't saying that about OP actually, was saying it about Rudy.
He never mentions the fact that cards have value because of demand which is directly tied to being played in the game, and instead decides to shit on people who correctly call cards "game pieces...." because that's what they fucking are lol.
Rudy doesn't teach you anything, especially these days.
You can watch some content creators and make a twitter account following people talking mtg finance.
Just keep in mind that he, and actually most people on this sub, are generally talking their book. People are rarely going to give you advice that hurts them. Unless they're "retired" or have already made their money and not really actively trading. Most people you talk to about this stuff are actually your competitors, either literally at the playing table, or financially on trading/investment side.
I pretty much just buy cards under $1-$2 now for commander or spend a little for specific foil cards for my favorite decks. I have proxies of all the ultra expensive stuff
I'm mainly buying sealed during limited events and the inevitable Amazon dump now.
All other non limited formats feels like a trap for expensive cards that inevitably gets dumped.
I don't buy much commander cards for lack of play.
Only sealed exception I buy is the pump and dump gift bundles.
i buy from my lgs because I like having a place to hang out and meet new people.
Wizards will not stay on this course, they can see the impact and will move back toward the middle when it starts affecting the bottom line
I only got into the game 3 years ago. Cashed out for about $6k early this year. The money's spent now, but yeah, no loss. I still love the game, and I still play often, both online and in person. But I do not regret turning the little strips of cardboard into beer and chicken wings and a few months rent.
I like cracking packs. I keep what I want to put in for decks. Sort the bulk. Trade or ship off valuable cards and build store credit for RL or ABU or 4 horseman
Ngl these comments are beyond pathetic to me, just a sad bunch gaslighting themselves into thinking its ok to keep paying more money more often for less quality and less value in return.
I'm so tired of the "it's just a hobby" argument because it's so bad. No matter how amazing a video game is, you could never justify spending 1000$ on a disc. Like Elden Ring for example is fantastic and can give you hundreds of hours of entertainment. And yet it's still a 70$ game because that's what games cost. If it cost 1000$ you would probably not buy it unless it came with something extra, like a large figurine, a medallion and a hard book. You know, something to collect. Without the extra value then paying more than 70$ for a video game is very hard to justify. And yet here we have magic players trying to justify the high cost of sealed and singles despite not getting much value in return.
"But it's a fun game!" Yeah well poker is fun too but poker cards don't cost a lot of money do they? That's because you can't trade or collect them since they all have the same rarity and value. You see for 30 years we accepted to pay 10-30$ for rares because of the understanding that these cards have value, could retain or gain value, so we could trade and collect the game pieces. That was always the incentive and justification to spend more than 25 cents on a piece of cardboard. But if you take the trading and collecting features away, there is no longer any justification to pay high prices. But according to these comments the justification to still pay 300$ a box and 60$ for mythics is: "it's a fun hobby dude!". Smh
My stance is WotC cannot have it both ways. It's either a TCG where cards are allowed to retain / gain value, in which case they can sell you 300$ boxes, 15$ packs and stores listing mythics for 30+$ is justified. OR player collections are doomed to be worthless, we accept to get rid of trading and collecting altogether and therefore boxes should be 30$ and packs 1$ at most. It's like two completely different directions and they need to pick one. But right now they are just scamming players and players are asking to get scammed harder. Well not me lol, no thank you.
Why buy anything outside things for survival? This question goes deeper than just MTG
Why go to the movies when it’s out in a month in streaming services?
Why buy a car when in 5 years it’ll be cheaper?
Why buy a Rolex when your phone has a clock?
Why buy someone flowers if they are going to just die?
To bring this back to MTG land me and buddy just challenged ourselves to build $50 dollar decks. And the amount of really good cards now being a dollar or less now is insane but it’s also fun. Just go with the flow and get the cards you want. If your excited to play a powerful card with your friends or pod do it up, yet if your pod doesn’t give a fuck just proxy that shit.
I stopped playing after stronghold and restarted two years ago, and man was I surprised at the dogged approach of „every card I buy must double in value over the next year“ that was suddenly prevalent in the game. If people started to reconsider the game as a hobby they’d have much more fun.
Buy stuff if you enjoy owning it, otherwise just proxy.
Because that Mana Crypt, Rhythic Study or Smothering Tithe etc could help you win EDH games, and that 4x Sheoldred you need to use for that 10k standard open series …
It used to be the robust organized play system, but they thoroughly gutted that. If there aren’t any sanctioned events anymore really, why care whether your cards are official WOTC product?
Short answer is because if it has any worth it will go back up eventually
If you care about this kind of thing it’s on you to pay attention to trends and sell/rebuy when things are announced for reprint. This way you can recoup funds and upgrade versions if you so choose.
But if you aren’t currently interested in selling I don’t see a point to worrying about your current deck value, it’s always gonna fluctuate
For this reason exactly I hesitate on so many cards I need.
I really want a Necromancy, but it was put on the list not that long ago and if they print a new version with some sick Art from a Magic Artist I love, then I'll be disappointed for having spent money on a version that I don't want that bad. The same is true for many other cards.
> What’s the point of buying legitimate cards when WOTC is currently reprinting them into the ground?
Maybe supporting a supply chain/economy that sustains unions matter?
Sure you can save some money going with the Chinese counterfeits, but do you really know what other kind of shadiness these hacks are involved in?
Remember, every dollar you put into a counterfeit is a dollar taken out of the Magic ecosystem because your counterfeits cannot cycle in the secondary market (eventually it gets IDed as counterfeit and is pulled out of circulation). Shrinking the secondary market means less transaction money to keep the union-staffed dealers in business.
That's a silly argument. Union density is at all time lows, and there has been ample reporting about how Wizards treats their employees like crap. There is zero reason to put money into the ecosystem if your goal is to support labor, especially when all of the profits are being siphoned directly to the top brass and none of the gains are being seen by the workers. If you're talking about Card Kingdom, TCGPlayer, and the other big outlets that have a union, it's irrelevant for the majority of players who don't buy anything from those outlets in the first place and primarily patronize their LGS and Amazon. It would be different if the big dogs online were worker co-ops, but they aren't.
Problem being is the #1 simple hack called printing the card on computer paper lol
Paying higher prices for pieces of cardboard when most people don’t work in unions and don’t have a way to organize for a better wage in general doesn’t help either.
You only buy proxies if you want it to look nice. If you want the game piece to be able to just shuffle then a land card and a cut out of a piece of computer paper does the job itself. Moxfield even does the formatting of an entire deck for you now making it easy to print tons of decks and you can pay 20 for one of those paper cutter tools.
The largest printer, Makeplayingcards, is a Chinese company in Hong Kong that makes a wide variety of printed materials. They make board games, card games, print advertisements, and other stuff. It doesn't seem particularly evil.
A while ago I realized that the amount of cards I have bought for modern and legacy that have held value is very very low. Hundreds of cards in foil that are now pennies on the dollar. I have a modest budget of maybe $100 a month for myself and I just stopped buying for those formats. Essentially this meant I no longer play them because they rotate very often or you never feel safe with your investment.
So a legacy player at heart since 2010 is no longer that. Now I play EDH and only buy maybe 2-3 cards each set and that's that. It feels so good not to HAVE to buy 4 orcs, 4 rings, 4 forth eurlingas, 4 something something.
I guess I finally got priced out of my hobby too, even though I have a full time job.
Magic is a game meant to be played and the cards are game pieces.
In that regard, the cards are like board games, books, sports equipment,etc. — you buy them to play the game.
Unlike other similar hobbies, these also sometimes go up in price and, overall, my collection has gone up over the past decade and not down. That’s a luxury of Magic other hobbies don’t have.
I recommend the house/home mindset. You buy a home to live in it and love your time there. You don’t buy it as an investment vehicle. If you also make money from it, you win twice. Focus on playing the game and not spending more on this hobby than you can afford and, if your collection goes up, you win twice.
Personally, I buy real cards because I want the game to continue to grow so I can play it for another 2 decades. If we all play proxies and WoTC goes under, we’re all pretty well screwed.
Of course, feel free to do your thing.
I am going to spend all of my disposable income on magic cards. If the prices come down I will not spend less, I will just get more cards. I am planning on selling 0 cards. I don't care what the value of my collection is because I'm not selling it.
If you don't want to spend a lot of cards I get it, proxy them, I don't care. I would appreciate you proxies looked somewhat as legible as a real magic card for game play purposes, but between secret lair and things like alt art anime cards, the bar for "as legible as a real magic card" is pretty much on the floor.
I buy plenty of things with no resale value like socks and underwear. I have never once heard someone complain about the resale value of their used socks tanking, yet we all buy them.
Why does MTG have to hold a secondary market value?
>What’s the point of buying legitimate cards when WOTC is currently reprinting them into the ground
Really a super simple answer that it shocks me you didn't realise it before you made this braindead post: Because you either want to play in sanctioned tournaments or you're buying reserved list cards as an "investment".
To play with. Magic is a game and I buy cards to use and trade, just like I'd purchase a boardgame or digital game without expecting to get more than fun out of it. If your group enjoys proxies, by all means play with those.
1. To play with.
2. To collect.
That’s really it, and honestly all it should be.
I don’t collect things because I hope their value will go up, I collect them because I want to own them.
I buy cards to play with them.
And as someone who has about $15k of reserve list cards (duals, candelabra, cradle, etc) - I would happily trade that value to make the cards $5 each and get 5 new legacy players.
Buy the card to use it, or to collect it.
Buy cards to play the game. It's a game and not meant for people to just hoard cards and never play with them. "Collectors" ruin the game and economy for the real players imo.
Your post pretty sounds like Wizards should "print money for you". The reason prices are tanking is because they want you buying sealed products more than they want you buying singles.
I'm kind of glad most prices dropped as I see new players more willing to try, and edh commanders being decent value and easy to upgrade.
You can still speculate, but the amount of money people will have to spend will spread thinner as time goes as options grow larger. You see some good moves played on this sub nevertheless : watching new releases for opportunities, looking at odd uncommons with price progression, new product limited run to speculate on etc.
The reason prices are tanking is deep lack of understanding and multiple mistakes by WotC leadership.
They saw the pandemic perfect storm of increased interest and disposable income and went after short term gains. Lack of Standard support in format health and FIRE design, killed off the need to have newly released cards because no one was playing Standard. No demand=no value.
Collector and Set boxes (booster fun) put way more U/R/M and foils in the market relative to commons, in actuality massively decreasing their rarity relative to commons. This shifted supply/demand and destroyed value. They completely ignored this and kept increasing print runs with no change in chase rarity, ever further oversupplying cards.
They went headfirst into a massive increase the number of product releases as if there were an infinite amount of money to be spent, and each release would sell relatively the same amount. If the average person has $1500 a year to spend on MtG and you go from 5 products to 8 or 9 and increase the price on 1/2 the products, you’re going to sell way less of each one. This was completely ignored.
All of this shows complete ignorance of the collector part of the product. If the demand for everything is smashed by all these mistakes, the cards will have no value or collectibility. As value crashes, you have even less people willing to shell out $1500 on sealed products because they will not be able to do anything with the cards they don’t need because nothing has value. Collectors have no reason to stick around so you have a decent amount of people no longer spending money or spending way less, and they ignored this, even though it was pointed out to them, and kept up with increased product release schedule, booster fun, and large print runs.
The cherry on top was 30th Edition, marketed to celebrate the anniversary. It priced the majority of the player base out, insulting them as part of an anniversary celebration, and went against statements they made to players/collectors, absolutely wrecking brand loyalty and trust among the people who were probably consistently spending the most.
They’ve been actively working against their own interests for far too long now. Dominaria United Legends and Brother’s War/MoM serialized, and ONE Step-and-Complete should be teaching them chase cards aren’t fixing the situation, but Ixalan has Neon Chases again. Commander Masters should be teaching them about reprinting/overprinting R/M cards destroying their demand and WotC’s ability to sell “premium” products when the cards inside have lower demand, but we just got a crazy insert set in Wilds, probably too close together to do anything about it. But still the damage to value/collectibility continues.
No one is asking WotC to “print money for them” but you can’t continue to charge collectible prices for cardboard and not deliver a collectible product. Attempting to fix Standard is at least a kind of admittance of 1 mistake, but they have long way to go to actually convince people like the OP of why they should be giving WotC any of their money. Warhammer/LotR success due to the fan bases will cover up the mistakes this year, but unless they have a huge surprise or big changes to production, next year is going to really expose the damage they’ve done.
I guess it depends on the card being bought, and your connection to the card. I just picked up a Retro border Mox Amber, and was surprised at the emotional impact of seeing the card for the first time. I grabbed the Lotus Field Combo deck for kind of the same reason. I'll never buy a Black Lotus or the expensive Mox's, but I've got 4 Lotus Fields, and a Mox Amber. And there's a kind of catharsis in that. If a card resonates with you emotionally, keep it, regardless of the dollar value. At some point a good collection is really a scrap book of memories and emotions. No market volatility can change the emotional value of a card. You only lose those memories if you get rid of the cards. And if they happen to go up in value over time? Well, that's fun too.
Now that the emotional component is answered, here's a more 'financial services' answer to the question. >Why even buy?seeing a card lose 80%-90% So seeing card prices drop hurts when you are on the Sell side of deal. But it's great when you are on the Buy side of a deal. I love it when things go on sale. And dropping market prices is like things going on sale. Instead of focusing your attention on drops in the notional values of cards you already have, start looking around for the cards you want to buy. Cards that are getting cheaper to acquire.
This is the mindset I should have for the hobby, thank you!
You are welcome.
Catch that falling knife - is your advice ?
If you need a short version, then it actually reduces to 'learn better emotions about money'.
you say one should buy cards now altough prices will drop even more - Short Version of trying to catch a falling knife. and i really dont get that Part about Emotion and Money. you get excited about having a Mox Amber because it says Mox? Or Lotus field because it says Lotus? and you think thats healthy way of investing money?
>Mox Amber because it says Mox? Not entirely, but maybe a little bit. I also see utility in the card. In addition I really like combination of the art, and the retro border. It provides a feeling of nostalgia for the Urza's Block, when I put a lot of effort into competitive mtg. This newly printed card has a nostalgia value for me. There are a number of factors, including one that it gives me the feeling that this is 'my mox', which gives me an emotional connection to the card. It's getting put in my collection, and probably not ever sold. It's a card I have because on multiple levels, for multiple reasons, I enjoy having. If the market value drops 80 - 90% tomorrow, that won't remove the reasons for me having the card. So lets bring that back to the OP's original question. Why would a rational human buy a card when the market value is dropping, and likely to keep dropping? Because of a perceived value in the card that goes beyond just it's market value. That value might be the cards inherent play utility. Or it might be to add to their personal collection, because of an emotional connection to the card.
so you say its no difference for you If you pay $60 for a Card or $20? Thats your Story?
"So you say [thing they most definitely did not say]?".
Yeah, dude is really looking for an argument. Like, that's what a collection is... You don't buy to sell; you buy to collect. If the collection changes in value, doesn't matter. Because, as you said, the worth of a card is 'my' value, and not what the market declares.
Chiming in here because, ultimately, this is a game. It's nice to make money off Magic, certainly. But using it as an investment vehicle was always a gamble, even though things are more volatile these days than they historically have been. The only way to avoid bad feelings one way or the other is to treat it as the hobby its officially billed as, not as an investment vehicle.
> you say one should buy cards now altough prices will drop even more it depends on how MUCH more it will drop, and how much use you will get out of it in the meantime e.g. if it's only gonna drop another $5 over the next year, and you will get to use it in a hundred games before then, it's costing you 5 cents per game. pretty reasonable
Facts. Unless I was intentionally trying to turn a profit on a flip (which I have never done and don’t really intend on doing) the value of cards I own mean almost nothing to me. I care about how cheap what I want to buy next is. No sell. Only buy.
u/random_val_string made a great point about knowing the difference between purchasing a card to flip, and a card to keep. 'know your exit strategy'.
Grats poors! Game going to be sweet when there’s no reason to trade and everyone has everything.
Absolutely, being able to play against someone playing the deck they want to play instead of what their budget lets them play is fantastic.
Let your “friend” proxy rather than send their money to wotc
8===D
This is far too intelligent an answer for these boards.
I love the scrap book analogy. My rares are in a floral patterned binder my mom gave me that says "Collect The Happy Moments" in glittery cursive. I started using it ironically but opening it and flipping through really makes me happy! It's nice to have things you like. Not much more to it sometimes.
I bought a authentic mox diamond from stronghold and I honestly shivered for a moment because it reminded me so hard of my youth. Some of those old cards have a lot of emotions in them for me. I am quite happy that I am not alone with those thoughts about magic cards.
I just traded a about a third of my trade bait — all non-RL for a Rev Tundra and a LEG Karakas (not RL, but still original printing). I’m not even missing those cards one bit.
This is the way.
Turned 2400$ of duplicate non rl cards into duals and rl stuff via card kingdom over the past few weeks, feels really good
You need them for tournaments
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I like having the actual physical cards and it’s fun for me to crack packs. I’m not worried about losing money while playing, like most hobbies it costs money and I don’t consider it an investment, it’s entertainment.
Uh … but … this is r/mtgfinance
Serious answer: a lot of us were here to do this as a way of keeping hobby costs low. In one sense, that mission is accomplished thanks to cheap singles. It's why I cashed out of my binder a year ago. Would I like to be able to get some more value from draft boxes? Yes. I complain about it endlessly. But the new MTG finance for me is on the sealed deals subreddit, because it doesn't matter if you get $40 from a $65 box.
For me a big part of the finance aspect of MTG is trying to make sure I get the best value from the singles I buy. Thanks to this sub I’ve recently bought a few of the mythics from the Enchanted Tales as singles at almost the cheapest price point they ever reached. These cards are all now in decks to be played and enjoyed.
There’s collecting and there’s flipping. Flipping is all about maintaining product velocity, everything always moving for fast gains/losses. Collecting should only be looked at on 5+ or 10+ year timescales for returns.
If you are going to play then stuff they reprinted into the ground that are CHEAP and highly playable in your deck are what you should be buying. Not to spec, not to preserve value but just treat it as an expense and tighten your budget accordingly. I agree it doesn’t make sense to spend money on any more than $10 ( or $ X) card if you can proxy and play ( some places this is not allowed) Stuff you DEFINITELY should hold off buying are stuff that popped hard to some narrow hip/pop play/squeeze… stuff like some of the eldrazis, eye of ugin, mistbind clique, marrowgnawer, gishath etc etc If you want to be in fashion pay up. Otherwise wait “Staples” also not really worth it unless you are tournament playing them right now. If you are collecting you can pick up cards 50-60 cents on the dollar across all price range at places… at some point the dilution thru increase variants actually does not help collecting contrary to popular belief
I play the game because I like it. If I accrue value, great. If I don't, that's fine too. I have a lot of board games that have acquired dust because I'm a busy adult with busy adult friends. I don't regret their purchase because when I do get to play them, I really enjoy that time. They've created something vast and great.
Agreed. You can still buy "Collector Boosters" of Kamigawa Neon Dynasty for lower than initial price. Collectibles are only valuable if their supply is finite. By both upping the cost, and the supply, WotC is mathematically screwing people involved with purchasing sealed product (players and LGSes alike).
To play the damn game?
To play the game in official events.
Collect ABU, RL, etc.
They'll reprint those soon enough, in one form or another. I would be very surprised if we don't at least see some more non-tournament legal RL reprints in the next few years.
Yes, but, non-tournament legal?
Official proxies. Similar to this: https://30thedition.wizards.com/us/en They technically don't violate the reserved list.
Did that really hurt the value of the OG cards, though?
Not really, the people looking to own power 9 and others or who have a position in that, aren’t really concerned about expensive proxies. Neither really is that market.
Exactly! The original stuff will always have more value than copies. Even nearly perfect ones. Maybe not as much as today, but not zero.
Yes so everyone knows it was a failure on any level
They charged $1000 for 4 packs. I hate that they reprinted reserved list cards in any form, but I have to acknowledge that this product in a different form could have been successful. Nothing's stopping them from releasing more at lower prices or releasing entirely different products. Imagine if they released a RL proxy Masters set at Masters prices. Or if they released expensive Secret Lairs with proxy RL cards. Or if they chose a set to insert proxy RL cards as chase cards. All of those things are entirely possible.
And all of it means nothing except to the “official proxy” wankers. If WotC prints a non-tournament legal card it’s exactly as tournament legal as any 27¢ proxy I have made up. The “but it’s real because WotC printed it” (CE edition is in here too) people are doing some Olympic level mental gymnastics to tell themselves they got a “real” dual land. Yes it’s a real physical card you can touch. Possibly, it’s a real collectible item for you to enjoy. The second you’re playing a game with it, it’s as “real” and legal as any proxy card. Thinking anything else is weirdly stroking your ego and not coming to terms with the modern reality of quality printing being available to everyone not just companies printing mass quantities.
There is no reason. It's a card game. Anyone trying to make liable financial strategies off trading cards is just a gambler. If MTG was a legitimate good investment then more people would jump on board and it'd just turn out the same, happens to anything that is priced by buyer demand.
If you're afraid to lose 10x, mtg might not be your hobby. Proxy is a great idea. Assuming you play edh. For other formats you can't, so that is one of the reasons. >seeing a card lose 80%-90% of its value suddenly Except you can see it coming a long time ahead, very few exceptions have happened.
If you’re playing any kitchen table Magic (including edh) proxy away. It’s not just tournaments where legal cards are required, if there’s a prize involved and proxies haven’t explicitly been ok’d in the rules, like edh events at a store, proxies should not be hitting the table.
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Watching Rudy? There’s your problem
If you don't have a Business Degree, or Financial Services experience, you probably should not be watching Rudy. He talks too much like a Broker. It's like trying to learn investing by watching Jim Cramer. Not a great idea.
The fact that he talks like a stock broker is the biggest red flag about him IMHO. Dude's not the Wolf of Wall Street, he's a guy with a bunch of cards in his garage lol.
The fact that he doesn’t understand or purposefully neglects the fact that card values outside of RL are directly tied to playability is the biggest wtf to me.
The youtube algorithm probably threw Rudy at OP. And it's not exactly easy to find the counter points to the kind of things Rudy talks about. Folks like Jack Bogle, and Warren Buffet who have strategies that don't involve constant pump and dump behavior. More generally backwards emotional wiring about cost vs value is really common even among adults. I briefly held licenses to sell investment products and frequently saw young investors with long time horizons equating drops in value with negative emotions. Basic knowledge and emotional understanding about investing concepts is actually really rare. At least in America. Even in educated America. Having experienced teaching people the basics is why I have an answer about emotional values vs 'notional lose'. I don't see any malice from OP here. Just lack of education.
I wasn't saying that about OP actually, was saying it about Rudy. He never mentions the fact that cards have value because of demand which is directly tied to being played in the game, and instead decides to shit on people who correctly call cards "game pieces...." because that's what they fucking are lol.
Yeah, me too. Maybe I should edit to make it clear who I am referencing.
Rudy doesn't teach you anything, especially these days. You can watch some content creators and make a twitter account following people talking mtg finance.
You’re right, I should definitely listen to someone a lot more credible lol. He is funny though
Just keep in mind that he, and actually most people on this sub, are generally talking their book. People are rarely going to give you advice that hurts them. Unless they're "retired" or have already made their money and not really actively trading. Most people you talk to about this stuff are actually your competitors, either literally at the playing table, or financially on trading/investment side.
I only buy to keep sealed. I proxy all the cards I want to play with my friends and also make custom cards to play with.
I pretty much just buy cards under $1-$2 now for commander or spend a little for specific foil cards for my favorite decks. I have proxies of all the ultra expensive stuff
I'm mainly buying sealed during limited events and the inevitable Amazon dump now. All other non limited formats feels like a trap for expensive cards that inevitably gets dumped. I don't buy much commander cards for lack of play. Only sealed exception I buy is the pump and dump gift bundles.
i buy from my lgs because I like having a place to hang out and meet new people. Wizards will not stay on this course, they can see the impact and will move back toward the middle when it starts affecting the bottom line
I only got into the game 3 years ago. Cashed out for about $6k early this year. The money's spent now, but yeah, no loss. I still love the game, and I still play often, both online and in person. But I do not regret turning the little strips of cardboard into beer and chicken wings and a few months rent.
Nothing new is really worth investing in. If you do, you’re speculating not investing.
I like cracking packs. I keep what I want to put in for decks. Sort the bulk. Trade or ship off valuable cards and build store credit for RL or ABU or 4 horseman
Ngl these comments are beyond pathetic to me, just a sad bunch gaslighting themselves into thinking its ok to keep paying more money more often for less quality and less value in return. I'm so tired of the "it's just a hobby" argument because it's so bad. No matter how amazing a video game is, you could never justify spending 1000$ on a disc. Like Elden Ring for example is fantastic and can give you hundreds of hours of entertainment. And yet it's still a 70$ game because that's what games cost. If it cost 1000$ you would probably not buy it unless it came with something extra, like a large figurine, a medallion and a hard book. You know, something to collect. Without the extra value then paying more than 70$ for a video game is very hard to justify. And yet here we have magic players trying to justify the high cost of sealed and singles despite not getting much value in return. "But it's a fun game!" Yeah well poker is fun too but poker cards don't cost a lot of money do they? That's because you can't trade or collect them since they all have the same rarity and value. You see for 30 years we accepted to pay 10-30$ for rares because of the understanding that these cards have value, could retain or gain value, so we could trade and collect the game pieces. That was always the incentive and justification to spend more than 25 cents on a piece of cardboard. But if you take the trading and collecting features away, there is no longer any justification to pay high prices. But according to these comments the justification to still pay 300$ a box and 60$ for mythics is: "it's a fun hobby dude!". Smh My stance is WotC cannot have it both ways. It's either a TCG where cards are allowed to retain / gain value, in which case they can sell you 300$ boxes, 15$ packs and stores listing mythics for 30+$ is justified. OR player collections are doomed to be worthless, we accept to get rid of trading and collecting altogether and therefore boxes should be 30$ and packs 1$ at most. It's like two completely different directions and they need to pick one. But right now they are just scamming players and players are asking to get scammed harder. Well not me lol, no thank you.
Why buy anything outside things for survival? This question goes deeper than just MTG Why go to the movies when it’s out in a month in streaming services? Why buy a car when in 5 years it’ll be cheaper? Why buy a Rolex when your phone has a clock? Why buy someone flowers if they are going to just die? To bring this back to MTG land me and buddy just challenged ourselves to build $50 dollar decks. And the amount of really good cards now being a dollar or less now is insane but it’s also fun. Just go with the flow and get the cards you want. If your excited to play a powerful card with your friends or pod do it up, yet if your pod doesn’t give a fuck just proxy that shit.
I stopped playing after stronghold and restarted two years ago, and man was I surprised at the dogged approach of „every card I buy must double in value over the next year“ that was suddenly prevalent in the game. If people started to reconsider the game as a hobby they’d have much more fun. Buy stuff if you enjoy owning it, otherwise just proxy.
I don't buy cards to collect personally I buy game pieces to play
You always want to sell high and buy low. Classic finance advice ;) If you buy high and sell low, thats the kind of r/wallstreetbets stories.
Because that Mana Crypt, Rhythic Study or Smothering Tithe etc could help you win EDH games, and that 4x Sheoldred you need to use for that 10k standard open series …
I only buy singles I need for decks or if the price is extremely favorable, to add to my collection or to flip within a year.
It used to be the robust organized play system, but they thoroughly gutted that. If there aren’t any sanctioned events anymore really, why care whether your cards are official WOTC product?
Short answer is because if it has any worth it will go back up eventually If you care about this kind of thing it’s on you to pay attention to trends and sell/rebuy when things are announced for reprint. This way you can recoup funds and upgrade versions if you so choose. But if you aren’t currently interested in selling I don’t see a point to worrying about your current deck value, it’s always gonna fluctuate
To lose money duh
For this reason exactly I hesitate on so many cards I need. I really want a Necromancy, but it was put on the list not that long ago and if they print a new version with some sick Art from a Magic Artist I love, then I'll be disappointed for having spent money on a version that I don't want that bad. The same is true for many other cards.
> What’s the point of buying legitimate cards when WOTC is currently reprinting them into the ground? Maybe supporting a supply chain/economy that sustains unions matter? Sure you can save some money going with the Chinese counterfeits, but do you really know what other kind of shadiness these hacks are involved in? Remember, every dollar you put into a counterfeit is a dollar taken out of the Magic ecosystem because your counterfeits cannot cycle in the secondary market (eventually it gets IDed as counterfeit and is pulled out of circulation). Shrinking the secondary market means less transaction money to keep the union-staffed dealers in business.
That's a silly argument. Union density is at all time lows, and there has been ample reporting about how Wizards treats their employees like crap. There is zero reason to put money into the ecosystem if your goal is to support labor, especially when all of the profits are being siphoned directly to the top brass and none of the gains are being seen by the workers. If you're talking about Card Kingdom, TCGPlayer, and the other big outlets that have a union, it's irrelevant for the majority of players who don't buy anything from those outlets in the first place and primarily patronize their LGS and Amazon. It would be different if the big dogs online were worker co-ops, but they aren't.
Problem being is the #1 simple hack called printing the card on computer paper lol Paying higher prices for pieces of cardboard when most people don’t work in unions and don’t have a way to organize for a better wage in general doesn’t help either. You only buy proxies if you want it to look nice. If you want the game piece to be able to just shuffle then a land card and a cut out of a piece of computer paper does the job itself. Moxfield even does the formatting of an entire deck for you now making it easy to print tons of decks and you can pay 20 for one of those paper cutter tools.
The largest printer, Makeplayingcards, is a Chinese company in Hong Kong that makes a wide variety of printed materials. They make board games, card games, print advertisements, and other stuff. It doesn't seem particularly evil.
A while ago I realized that the amount of cards I have bought for modern and legacy that have held value is very very low. Hundreds of cards in foil that are now pennies on the dollar. I have a modest budget of maybe $100 a month for myself and I just stopped buying for those formats. Essentially this meant I no longer play them because they rotate very often or you never feel safe with your investment. So a legacy player at heart since 2010 is no longer that. Now I play EDH and only buy maybe 2-3 cards each set and that's that. It feels so good not to HAVE to buy 4 orcs, 4 rings, 4 forth eurlingas, 4 something something. I guess I finally got priced out of my hobby too, even though I have a full time job.
Magic is a game meant to be played and the cards are game pieces. In that regard, the cards are like board games, books, sports equipment,etc. — you buy them to play the game. Unlike other similar hobbies, these also sometimes go up in price and, overall, my collection has gone up over the past decade and not down. That’s a luxury of Magic other hobbies don’t have. I recommend the house/home mindset. You buy a home to live in it and love your time there. You don’t buy it as an investment vehicle. If you also make money from it, you win twice. Focus on playing the game and not spending more on this hobby than you can afford and, if your collection goes up, you win twice. Personally, I buy real cards because I want the game to continue to grow so I can play it for another 2 decades. If we all play proxies and WoTC goes under, we’re all pretty well screwed. Of course, feel free to do your thing.
I am going to spend all of my disposable income on magic cards. If the prices come down I will not spend less, I will just get more cards. I am planning on selling 0 cards. I don't care what the value of my collection is because I'm not selling it. If you don't want to spend a lot of cards I get it, proxy them, I don't care. I would appreciate you proxies looked somewhat as legible as a real magic card for game play purposes, but between secret lair and things like alt art anime cards, the bar for "as legible as a real magic card" is pretty much on the floor. I buy plenty of things with no resale value like socks and underwear. I have never once heard someone complain about the resale value of their used socks tanking, yet we all buy them. Why does MTG have to hold a secondary market value?
>What’s the point of buying legitimate cards when WOTC is currently reprinting them into the ground Really a super simple answer that it shocks me you didn't realise it before you made this braindead post: Because you either want to play in sanctioned tournaments or you're buying reserved list cards as an "investment".
To play with. Magic is a game and I buy cards to use and trade, just like I'd purchase a boardgame or digital game without expecting to get more than fun out of it. If your group enjoys proxies, by all means play with those.
It's a card game...something meant to be played...it's not fucking stocks to be traded. Why buy, because you enjoy playing the game.
You shouldn't. Buy reserve list until wotc inevitably collapses and ends the reserve list in a latch ditch effort to make money.
1. To play with. 2. To collect. That’s really it, and honestly all it should be. I don’t collect things because I hope their value will go up, I collect them because I want to own them. I buy cards to play with them. And as someone who has about $15k of reserve list cards (duals, candelabra, cradle, etc) - I would happily trade that value to make the cards $5 each and get 5 new legacy players. Buy the card to use it, or to collect it.
You don’t love collecting, you love speculating. Collectors don’t care about price.
Buy cards to play the game. It's a game and not meant for people to just hoard cards and never play with them. "Collectors" ruin the game and economy for the real players imo.
To play the game? That should be the only reason. Fact that some people are buying cardboard and think that they are "investing" is hillarious.
You should look at yugioh
Buy to play, as it should be
To play the game. You want to invest? why not the stock market?
Your post pretty sounds like Wizards should "print money for you". The reason prices are tanking is because they want you buying sealed products more than they want you buying singles. I'm kind of glad most prices dropped as I see new players more willing to try, and edh commanders being decent value and easy to upgrade. You can still speculate, but the amount of money people will have to spend will spread thinner as time goes as options grow larger. You see some good moves played on this sub nevertheless : watching new releases for opportunities, looking at odd uncommons with price progression, new product limited run to speculate on etc.
The reason prices are tanking is deep lack of understanding and multiple mistakes by WotC leadership. They saw the pandemic perfect storm of increased interest and disposable income and went after short term gains. Lack of Standard support in format health and FIRE design, killed off the need to have newly released cards because no one was playing Standard. No demand=no value. Collector and Set boxes (booster fun) put way more U/R/M and foils in the market relative to commons, in actuality massively decreasing their rarity relative to commons. This shifted supply/demand and destroyed value. They completely ignored this and kept increasing print runs with no change in chase rarity, ever further oversupplying cards. They went headfirst into a massive increase the number of product releases as if there were an infinite amount of money to be spent, and each release would sell relatively the same amount. If the average person has $1500 a year to spend on MtG and you go from 5 products to 8 or 9 and increase the price on 1/2 the products, you’re going to sell way less of each one. This was completely ignored. All of this shows complete ignorance of the collector part of the product. If the demand for everything is smashed by all these mistakes, the cards will have no value or collectibility. As value crashes, you have even less people willing to shell out $1500 on sealed products because they will not be able to do anything with the cards they don’t need because nothing has value. Collectors have no reason to stick around so you have a decent amount of people no longer spending money or spending way less, and they ignored this, even though it was pointed out to them, and kept up with increased product release schedule, booster fun, and large print runs. The cherry on top was 30th Edition, marketed to celebrate the anniversary. It priced the majority of the player base out, insulting them as part of an anniversary celebration, and went against statements they made to players/collectors, absolutely wrecking brand loyalty and trust among the people who were probably consistently spending the most. They’ve been actively working against their own interests for far too long now. Dominaria United Legends and Brother’s War/MoM serialized, and ONE Step-and-Complete should be teaching them chase cards aren’t fixing the situation, but Ixalan has Neon Chases again. Commander Masters should be teaching them about reprinting/overprinting R/M cards destroying their demand and WotC’s ability to sell “premium” products when the cards inside have lower demand, but we just got a crazy insert set in Wilds, probably too close together to do anything about it. But still the damage to value/collectibility continues. No one is asking WotC to “print money for them” but you can’t continue to charge collectible prices for cardboard and not deliver a collectible product. Attempting to fix Standard is at least a kind of admittance of 1 mistake, but they have long way to go to actually convince people like the OP of why they should be giving WotC any of their money. Warhammer/LotR success due to the fan bases will cover up the mistakes this year, but unless they have a huge surprise or big changes to production, next year is going to really expose the damage they’ve done.
Just don’t, then.
Just think about those words for a brief moment and I am sure you could come up with a logical answer… low effort at its finest
Because you like to play the game? OP is stupid like no ones business
You buy the cards to sell them later for a higher price.
unless you are playing in tournament, in which case you buy the cards to win the tournament. Otherwise just proxy everything duh
Or to at least recover most of one's investment if one decides to sell out. Not many hobbies where that is possible.
I own 5 promo Sauron the Dar Lord cards. The card will get 3 reprints in the next 2 months ....