Why are Modern Horizons cards so expensive?
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I have been building decks and making adjustments. I bought 2 boxes of Modern Horizons for paper and I just recently started looking at MTGO. The prices for Modern Horizons cards and some War of the Spark cards on MTGO is crazy.
Does anyone know why? Will these prices go down?
I am not willing to invest in cards at those prices on MTGO. So, I may just stop playing MTGO.
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@moorebrother1 said in Why are Modern Horizons cards so expensive?:
I am not willing to invest in cards at those prices on MTGO. So, I may just stop playing MTGO.
MTGO is also a more fixed market. MSRP is fixed by the seller and there is no opportunity to undersell by taking a cut in profit from a wholesaler.
I don't think war had as big a draft window as other sets on MTGO either, at least it felt that way.
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They set the pack price because they are direct sellers and outside of someone trying to sell winning packs at a loss for drug money you basically cannot get most packs cheaper when they are in rotation.
It's not even a suggested price in this case, they are setting the baseline, it's just the price.
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@moorebrother1 You really shouldn't consider MTGO a long-term investment. There is no reserved list and cards are continuously being pumped into the economy. Basically, use the same logic as a Standard player...
@Protoaddict And how is that any different from previous sets...
Arena has poached limited players, WAR had an incredibly high number of Eternal playables while not being the best limited format (from what I heard), MH1 has a high cost of entry for phantom events, M19 has high redemption rates and competition from MH1, and many of these cards aren't in Treasure Chests.
There are many factors, here.
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@mike-noble said in Why are Modern Horizons cards so expensive?:
@protoaddict said in Why are Modern Horizons cards so expensive?:
They set the pack price because they are direct sellers and outside of someone trying to sell winning packs at a loss for drug money you basically cannot get most packs cheaper when they are in rotation.
It's not even a suggested price in this case, they are setting the baseline, it's just the price.
So a secondary market for Modern Horizons packs doesn't exist?
No, a post wholesale market does not. That pack was either paid for at full price or won in an event where the cost of entry was such that is basically makes it cost that price.
Where as I was able to secure boxes at 180 online from someone who purchased cards wholesale and then undercut the assumed MSRP in order to undercut the market for faster returns, theres is no way for packs in MTGO to enter the market for any price other than the ones they set. One price which is a fixed store price which also translates over to ticket price, and the other is based on the rewards structure of an event which they fully control.
Yea, if someone wanted to they could buy packs full retail and sell them at a loss, I don't see many people driving that into popularity.
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It's also not helpful to explain "Why are Modern Horizons cards so expensive?" (and War and M19...) simply as such because the price and prize structure have predated Modern Horizons for years.
To answer your question, will these go down? Short-term, no. No new supply. Longer term, yes. New supply from treasure chests, potential to fall out of favor in relevant formats. I don't think WotC wants any card from a non-draftable format to stick at those prices indefinitely. That's kind of the purpose of Treasure Chests. Look at True-Name Nemesis which was around 60 tix near WAR (highest price 90 around DOM) and has now fallen to 9 tix for the promo). This is why I recommended that you not view your purchase an investment. I have a large collection and I do not consider it an investment.
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@mike-noble said in Why are Modern Horizons cards so expensive?:
@protoaddict said in Why are Modern Horizons cards so expensive?:
No, a post wholesale market does not. That pack was either paid for at full price or won in an event where the cost of entry was such that is basically makes it cost that price.
Where as I was able to secure boxes at 180 online from someone who purchased cards wholesale and then undercut the assumed MSRP in order to undercut the market for faster returns, theres is no way for packs in MTGO to enter the market for any price other than the ones they set. One price which is a fixed store price which also translates over to ticket price, and the other is based on the rewards structure of an event which they fully control.
Yea, if someone wanted to they could buy packs full retail and sell them at a loss, I don't see many people driving that into popularity.
Your argument loses sight that Play Points, a currency that can pay for a MH1 draft in its entirety, is itself a part of the Treasure Chest lottery system. You can’t equate the fixed store price with the price of drafts unless you want to also argue that there is no such thing as a secondary market at all on the client.
Play points are also highly controlled. For the users it is a lottery but wotc has a fixed amount per 1000 chests they award. Chests are a function of events with controlled price points. Play points cannot be traded nor can you use them on sets not running events.
Literally every mechanism in the game is used to control currencies in a controlled, formulaic fashion. Wotc 100% can steer prices in the system where they want with far more control than an open market. There is no counterfeiting or theft either. Thus, call it msrp or not, the prices are far more dictated on that closed system than an open one.
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@chubbyrain I play online off and on and I typically buy paper. I will spend $100 - $200 to update my online collection but the cost to get Force of Vigor, Force of Negation, Wrenn and Six, and Uzra is very high. I was also looking at buying Teferi which is also high.
The post was to ask people who buy cards regularly online if this is just a blip or real prices.
Looks like I'll pick very carefully and wait on the rest.
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@moorebrother1 said in Why are Modern Horizons cards so expensive?:
@chubbyrain I play online off and on and I typically buy paper. I will spend $100 - $200 to update my online collection but the cost to get Force of Vigor, Force of Negation, Wrenn and Six, and Uzra is very high. I was also looking at buying Teferi which is also high.
The post was to ask people who buy cards regularly online if this is just a blip or real prices.
Looks like I'll pick very carefully and wait on the rest.
You named the staples in those set, and more so the rare and mythic staples. Staples retain value better than other cards, so I do not expect them to drop much at all, perhaps Wrenn because he is so very high right now but maybe that is justified. Things from MH1 will likely always carry a high price tag if only because the set is double the price of a standard set.
In a year from now if anything gets reprinted in MH2, then expect the prices to drop precipitously. but other than that they likely do not fluctuate too much.
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@mike-noble That is what I am going to do this time around. It limits some of my ability to brew but I can do that on paper then see if it is worth making the investment online.
Thank you for the suggestion
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I'm not sure what you mean. The only really expensive card is Wrenn, and to a much lesser extent is Force of Negation. Are those two cards inhibiting your deck construction?
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@mike-noble The reason behind the price shock was deck building. I am trying to build a bant deck and I also wanted to play around with Wrenn and Six.
The most shocking cards are Teferi and Force of Negation, because they cost more digitally than they do in paper. I’ll have to pick a deck to play and just spend the money or not play.
On a side note, I know Magic is expensive. I buy paper cards regularly. MTGO offers a way to experiment with cards but the investment is higher than I think some of you are acknowledging here. It’s all fine and good this is a game and this is another way to play it but it was shocking to see those prices.
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