‘Ello ladles and jellyspoons! Today I want to touch on a concept that I have been meaning to for a while now. So pull up a chair and gather around because class is in session 🙂
*Before I begin let me be clear: I am by no means an expert on this nor do I claim to be. I’m just a dude making observations and putting 2 + 2 together.*
What causes price spikes/changes:
–Spoilers. When spoiler season rolls around players begin frantically spamming the page refresh button as they anxiously wait, foaming at the mouth as spoilers slowly trickle in from various sources per morning each day. Some times we don’t even need to see a spoiler before cards begin to spike. Like with this most recent set, Throne of Eldraine, all it took was being told that there was going to be Knights and Faeries in the set for cards like Bitterblossom to spike overnight in anticipation. Once a new card is spoiled it doesn’t take long for people to come up with completely new combos or just simply upgrade already existing strategies to cause cards (or a group of cards) that have been laying nascent to blow up overnight. Example: Saheeli Rai. She came out at 29.99$ then fell to 5.25$ and remained there until Felidar Guardian was spoiled.
I remember checking the stocks that morning and wondering, “Why is Saheeli up 476%?!?” I then headed over to MythicSpoiler.com, spotted the kitty cat, looked at the chatter in the comment section, and figured it out. Case closed.
–Hot New Decks. If the spoiling of a new card doesn’t cause an immediate hubbub, sometimes it takes a little while for people to brew up some crazy concoction and 5-0 with it before it bursts onto the scene. Example: Hollow One (the deck). It took some time for Hollow One to evolve into the menace it once was pre-Faithless Looting ban with people trying it in janky Vengevine shells and paired with Death’s Shadow before it became the established RB Hollow One list that everyone knew and feared. It was until then cards like Burning Inquiry, Flamewake Phoenix, and Goblin Lore only dreamed of being worth more than the dust that encrusted the shoebox that they had been long forgotten in. And just like that, WHAMMY! Goblin Lore goes from 0.30$ to 35.44$ and the rest is history.
–New Commanders. This category has elements of ‘Spoilers’ and ‘Hot New Decks’ but with a Commander twist to it. Examples: Feather and Prime Speaker Vannifar. When PSV was first spoiled EVERY card under the sun that was playable in her combo chain spiked before the card was even released and after that, she was never heard from again… Feather on the other hand, only caused a couple of immediate price spikes when it was first spoiled but it was in the following weeks after its release that RW cards continued to spike. I guess it took some time for people to discover less obvious synergies w/ Feather?…
–Organized/Artificial Buyouts. By now we have all heard about the famous Moat buyout by Craig Berry. (In case you haven’t: basically he was a dude who announced that he was going to buy out every copy of Moat and relist them for nearly double their purchased price. He did just that and people were mad. The end.) This will happen from time to time and usually, cards on the Reserved List are often targets of this sadly. Because cards on the Reserved List can never be reprinted, whoever buys into these cards are ensured that their “investment” will never depreciate in value due to this factor. However, a while back we did see someone during RNA spoilers try to buyout Thrumming Stone amidst the Persistent Petitioners hype. We saw the number of vendors dry up leaving only a couple of astronomically overpriced copies that no one would touch (not even the guy who did the buyout) allowing our guy to swoop in and relist his copies for 59.99$ each. The price couldn’t hold, he couldn’t sell his copies because the organic demand wasn’t genuinely there, and the price had to eventually give. Dropping over time until an equilibrium was met resulting in the 31.81$ we see today. This characteristic is a pretty good telltale sign of an artificial buyout. (If a real buyout occurs as the result of sudden organic demand we will see the graph spike and flat-line because the amount of organic demand remains constant and is able to maintain the new outrageous price.)
–B&R Announcements. This category is pretty obvious and should be pretty self-explanatory but for the sake of science and empirical rigor; let’s delve deep. With every B&R announcement, there is always talk surrounding the most eligible and “safe” unban candidates on the list. Most recently was Stoneforge Mystic and in the past, we have seen Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Bloodbraid Elf, and my personal favorite Wild Nacatl (PARTY CAT!!! :D). Every time that date marked on our calendar approaches, the prices of these cards begin to slowly creep upwards in hopes of being set free. Look at the graph on SFM, just about every little spike and gradual decline corresponds with a B&R announcement.
Obviously when a card actually does get unbanned the price goes crazy as you can imagine. “It’s not rocket appliance.” -Ricky.
–Pros, Streamers, and More. Streamers like Jeff Hoogland and Jim Davis or article and YouTube video creators like Saffron Olive and The Command Zone, etc. can cause a card’s price (even entire decks at times) to spike. There will be times when I can’t figure out why a card’s price spiked overnight and hours later someone will chime in on my post’s comment section saying, “So-and-so played that card as a spicy 1-of in their Legacy Sneak and Show deck last night on Twitch.” Other times a single card gets highlighted in a Command Zone video generating new demand for the card or an entire list of cards for a deck featured on MTGGoldfish by Saffron Olive. This category does have some overlap with the ‘Hot New Decks’ category because sometimes that’s just how some hot new decks are introduced to the world; by these people. While we are on the subject, shout out to one of my favorite YouTube content and deck creators: Magic Aids! He created Modern Humans as we know it and the Hardened Scales version of Affinity.
The purpose of this article wasn’t to get into the intimate details that drive the fundamental principles of supply and demand nor the psychological factors that contribute to man’s decision-making process to purchase and consume. No, rather the purpose was to merely list the major reoccurring themes and factors (based on my observations) that drive the prices of cards that you see me reporting on weekly.
Welp! That’s all for today folks! Class dismissed. Thanks for tuning in! 🤗
And as always, if you’re in the market for some snazzy new sleeves be sure to cruise on over to the shop and use my discount code MADMAGIC for 15% off on your next purchase.
