Weekly Winners (3-2016)

Another week with a lot of movement on the secondary market. This week we have seen some very interesting -and strange-spikes, that beg for some explanation. So, once again, I present you the cards that will be the talk of the town tonight.

 

#1 Mindslicer +570.5% ($9.32)

Mindslicer's spike is the most strange spike I have seen in a long time. Not because it is part of a new deck that top 16'd a major tournament, or because it is part of a new combo. The reason this spike is so strange (and interesting) is because of the way it took place and the implications it could have on the secondary market. 

The Buyout

Overnight, somebody bought out all copies of Mindslicer. Almost all copies. Nothing strange here, because this happens regularly, but this time was different. In one store, there were two copies left, with a price of $100+ dollar. I even heard rumors that there was a store that listed the card at $9999, but I was unable to personally check this, so let's call that a rumor. The point is: when there are only high costed copies of a card left, the TCG MID price is adjusted accordingly.

TCGPlayer has all prices indexed and out of this, they calculate the MID price. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand that when there are very few copies left, and some of them have ridiculous high prices, the MID price is influenced by this. In the case of Mindslicer, it's TCG MID price was $50,80 on monday.

And every day, MTGStocks imports all card prices from TCGPlayer, based on TCG MID. Cards that have dramatically increased or decreased in price become visible in the interests, where you can see the changes in price in the last day and week. As you might have noticed (and I hear it every week), when a spike is visible on MTGStocks, you are almost always too late if you want to get the card for its old non-buyout price.  When cards have a more 'natural' and gradual price increase, you can use our prices to be ahead of the curve, which is also nice sometimes.

The Fallout

The spike of Mindslicer caused some panic and a lot of discussion on several MTG messageboards. The fallout of this buyout was a discussion on the way prices are calculated, corrected and published by several sites, including MTGStocks, MTGPrice and PucaTrade. I think it is very important to keep discussing on how buyouts impact the secondary market. Sometimes MTGStocks is criticized, with the reasoning that with our site we give people the information to base their buyouts on. You know what, it is true. What's also true is that through MTGStocks (and other price indexing sites) and through the Weekly Winners, we aim to give you total transparency on what is happening. Buyouts are always visible, crazy spikes too. That same information people use to base their buyouts on, is the same information you can use to not fall for it.

Our aim with MTGStocks is to make price changes visible, transparent and (also with the Weekly Winners) understandable. To this aim, we use external price data to draw graphs and calculate the interests. MTGStocks does not 'set' a price, we don't change prices, we simply report to you what prices changes have happened in the past 24 hours.

The Rumors

A second, very important result of Mindslicer's spike, was the big amount of rumors that were spread on social media and messageboards. One very disturbing rumor revolves around the way this spike influenced the prices on PucaTrade.

Another rumor I'm concerned about is how easy it can be for a singe online magic store to influence the MID price of a card. It takes only one store to list a crazy price to influence the MID. I've seen it happen many times before, and it will happen again. In all those instances, the buyout itself was regular, and the 'strange' price was the result of a very understandable typo. Cards sometimes get listed as $52,10 instead of $5,21. It happens all the time, and only when a buyout occurs this becomes visible. 

In the case of Mindslicer, the rumor is that the $100+ price tag was a deliberate action to manipulate the market to make a profit. It could be true. I looked into the spike of Mindslicer in detail and malicious intent is one of the ways to explain the spike. On the other hand, it could have been a typo too. 

What remains is the fact that prices in a single store can have an extreme effect in a case of a buyout. All I can say is that I will be keeping a very watchful eye out for these kinds of spikes, centered around overpriced cards in a single (or a few stores). Because when these kinds of buyouts are done intentionally, I want to know it is happening. And if I know, you will hear it from me. 

 

#2 Boom // Bust +284.2% ($8.99)

Boom // Bust spiked hard, and in this case with a solid reason. Last week, Boom // Bust drew attention because of two things. One thing was the decklist of Jason O' Neil, he won a SCG Invitational Qualifier with a new deck containing Boom // Bust. A single deck, winning a single tournament is not always reason for a card to spike. But this article on ModernNexus also drew the attention of players and traders.

As always with spikes based on single decklists and articles, it is hard to say if the price will stick. If the deck (of decks) prove themselves and if Boom // Bust keeps being a piece in the deck, the price might stay high.

 

#3 Palinchron +152.8% ($29.75)

Palinchron's spike is also the cause of a buyout. The card sees little or no play outside EDH and kitchen table magic. With the release of OGW, new tech has become available that has synergy with Palinchron. You can use Eldrazi Displacer to go infinite. On top of that, Palinchron is on the reserved list. Since it won't be reprinted, it is a safe investment. The supply is low and the card is hard to find. In other words, a prime candidate for speculation. Although the new tech gives Palinchron a push, the spike to way to steep for an increase driven by real demand.

The price tag on Palinchron will fall in the coming days, but will remain higher than the pre-spike price. 

 

Oath of the Gatewatch Expected Value

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