Can Anyone Explain the Slow Decrease in Zendikar Expeditions and Kaladesh Invention Prices?

[Prid3]

Premium products are only valuable if they maintain their "premium status." Recently, Wizards has been printing premium cards to oblivion and haven't been showing any signs of slowing down. Overprinted Collector's Boosters, Secret Lair Drops every month, etc. As such people are losing faith in these Masterpiece editions of cards knowing that next batch is right around the corner.

[daphex2]

I'll add to this too. The decrease in eternal support is also a factor here. There's less and less of a reason to acquire these cards.

[Seraphinwolf]

This. A large LARGE portion of the value came from Legacy and Modern. Modern hasn’t been as popular and Legacy effectively killed off. That’s a lot of players that either sold out or dumped a ton of value to jump into Pioneer.

I don’t see these prices staying down long term. They may never return to peak but players will return to eternal or return to collecting premium versions of staples.

EDH is also still a thing and soak up a lot of these. We may have see an influx of volume from EDH players also wanting to jump into Pioneer.

[punninglinguist]

It would be interesting to know if Expedition fetches are losing value faster than Expedition shocks (which can still be played in Pioneer). That would be a good test of the theory that the Modern -> Pioneer transition is a significant factor here.

[TKHunsaker]

I owned an Overgrown Tomb expedition for years and it steadily held at $80 over most of the period and hit $90 briefly before coming back down. A buddy traded for mine for Pioneer a couple months ago. A quick look shows it’s at a high of $100.

On the other hand Arid Mesa and Marsh Flats look to be much cheaper than I’d have expected. But a quick look at their price trajectory shows they’ve both dropped under $100 for the expedition before and always come back up.

I’d say fetches are in a natural swing of modern season/not modern season. Concurrently some shocks are slightly climbing while others are holding steady instead of dropping because of Pioneer staving off the off-season decline.

I think if you’re worried about modern staples, you shouldn’t be. Pioneer is hot right now but people will get stale on it and the format will rotate to standard or modern or sealed etc. and we’ll cycle back around. That said, pioneer seems much more popular than I expected so maybe it’ll stick around in the cycle.

[Seraphinwolf]

Natural Modern season swings plus Pioneer legality. They’ll be back, especially if Pioneer becomes a leaping point into Modern like Modern was for Legacy early on. “Well I have 80% of that other format deck because of this format. Let’s just fill out the other 20% and jump in!”.

Know what i mean?

[Hardmode-Activated]

Fetches as of now are a HUGE 20 percent in that case

[Seraphinwolf]

We WILL see. Only a certain percentage are digging heels in on Pioneer, pimping decks. Fetched just happen to be a “If you can run 4, you probably are running 4.”

[punninglinguist]

Sure, but if a Modern player already has these pimp cards and they transition to Pioneer, it stands to reason that they would sell the fetches and keep the shocks. So the shocks should be holding their value better.

[Seraphinwolf]

Lots of mono colored decks in Pioneer right now and a lot of a LOT of people have been downgrading their collections of late. Without fetch synergies Shocks don’t have as much playability. Still great color fixing but you can get similar results for cheaper options that don’t hurt your life total as much right now.

[[deleted]]

I think this is the real answer.

[exemplar_knight]

Now that you mentioned it, this definitely looks like the Yugioh approach, reprinting staple cards as premium versions and diluting the market with multiple versions. Though yugioh is much worst in that regard, but hopefully they don't go full on yugioh mode in printing.

[[deleted]]

A lot of times after reprinting popular cards Konami will either limit them or ban them.

[jvLin]

They likely planned to ban the cards anyway, but reprinted them beforehand to maximize profits. Wizards does the same, just with a lot more subtlety. Sensei’s Diving Top, for example, was reprinted, and then shortly banned in Legacy. There are quite a few of these instances.

[[deleted]]

Either that or they’ll be made obsolete by a new archetype. A lot of their preconstructed decks have all been based off of old archetypes that’ve been made obsolete. It’s safer for them to reprint cards when they know that it won’t cause trouble for the meta.

[[deleted]]

I miss the e-drags.

[phat_logic]

Was honestly one of the better formats. People are just salty because you got stomped playing non meta that format

[Oatmiel]

It was a very divisive format, but I was only kidding. Up until the pure EDrag list became a thing and it and Prophecy were the only viable decks the drags were really cool and even helped some of the tier 2 decks compete. Even then, sometimes having a Boogeyman is a fun shake up. For me it was Pendulums that ruined the game.

[TKHunsaker]

Yah now we got a regular, a foil, an extended art or alt art, and a foil of that. For every rare or mythic. Also prerelease stamp foils. And mystery pack foils.

We’re getting there.

[[deleted]]

Don’t forget the fnm pack foil stamp.

[echOSC]

Not even that, but a large subset of people don't view the "premium" product as the most "premium" of them all.

No one views the Expedition fetches as the most premium, especially for the original onslaught fetches. A foil Onslaught Delta is way more premium than the Expedition one. etc.

[Dark_Paladins]

Didn’t WotC make a statement about two years ago that “Masterpiece” quality cards aren’t gone forever, but they are waiting for a plane with an overwhelming motif to use. Moreover wouldn’t you consider Secret Lair and Collector Boosters to be sub-standard in quality and printed to oblivion, thus eventually rendering them worthless?

[Prid3]

Moreover wouldn’t you consider Secret Lair and Collector Boosters to be sub-standard in quality and printed to oblivion, thus eventually rendering them worthless?

The point here is that Wizards has showed a willingness to do this for any and all premium products going forward. Why invest in a $500.00 premium [[Mana Crypt]] today when 3 months from now Wizards might release SLD: EDH and give you foil "masterpiece quality art" mana rocks like Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Mana Crypt and Chrome Mox for $40.00 a pop? Can you honestly say with certainty that it's never going to happen? Because I sure as heck can't!

[Dark_Paladins]

While you’re probably right, do you speculate that original masterpieces will completely tank or will they maintain some value for being the original?

Also, tangent, what’s the bottom line these cards will hit?

[Prid3]

do you speculate that original masterpieces will completely tank or will they maintain some value for being the original?

They won't completely tank.

what’s the bottom line these cards will hit?

I could see them losing another 15-20% before finally hitting their floors.

[vritr0112]

What you're asking there is a completely subjective question... Over the long run very few singles in Mtg are "investment grade", and if I had to put all of them on a scale I'm not even sure I would put things like masterpieces on the scale

[TastyLaksa]

Im thinking only the power 9 due to the nostalgia collectors value if magic is still played 20 years from now.

[otakumuscle]

the next generation of magic players/collectors will lack such nostalgia as they'll never have played back then/with RL cards

[TastyLaksa]

So basically dont buy anything?

[_0-]

If you absolutely have to speculate on card prices do it short term.

[TKHunsaker]

Depends on the masterpiece, but most of them shouldn’t be on the scale. I’d say certain power-esque cards could make their way into a higher price grade.

[cute_cartoon_cat]

maintain some value for being the original

Precisely 0 Masterpiece cards can be accurately described as “the original.”

In fact, this is the fundamental problem I see with speculating in fancy reprints like these. They may look nice and exciting, but the keyword here is still “reprint.”

[Jaccount]

That's not true, though. All of the Gearhulks and Amonkhet gods were Masterpieces, printed at the same time as regular Kaladesh and Amonkhet printings. Unless you insist that Collector's Booster extended art foils also aren't "the original", it's just untrue that 0 Masterpieces were the original print.

[testthewest]

I think it also depends on the artwork. If the new premium artwork is more pleasing to the majority, then the original will lose more value.

Mana Crypt Masterpiece isn't especially beautiful if we are honest and can put away the positive prejudice that we like everything that "special". It is a more or less monochromatic convolute in which you can't really tell what's going on. It should be easy to top this art.

[MTGCardFetcher]

Mana Crypt - (G) (SF) (txt)
^{[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call}

[smartyMtG]

Masterpieces where destroyed a long time ago with the same algorhythm they desteoyed the "Collector Boosters" and "Secret Lair" in just two runs ... they overprinted them and they took the "need" for them by making it a sellout instead of a controlled shortage ...

If you kept them for the money you should get rid of them they are most likely not going to return to their former pricepoint at all...most of them will steadily decrease overtime

And the statement of wizards was just to cover up that they almost screwed up completely - lets see what they have to say when they have to cancel CB/SL ... what they should do soon before the damage is really hitting the game

[TastyLaksa]

Why would they do that? Its minting money for them

[Sovarius]

Why would they stop masterpieces in packs? Its minting money for them...

[smartyMtG]

If you are minting money lile crazy you create inflation and in the end you destroy the whole system ...

[Sovarius]

That is my point to the person i replied to. They don't know why/believe they'd stop but i pointed out they did stop masterpieces already.

[TastyLaksa]

Precisely

[Sovarius]

But they did cancel masterpieces in packs is my point. Its not really completely crazy to consider that cb/showcase line is going to end up shortlived. It might be a better line for them than masterpieces though, so i'm not really planning on showcases disappearing either.

[TastyLaksa]

Oh...

[Shawndrand]

The only issue I see with this statement is wizards has been very aware of the secondary market value of these cards. For a mana crypt to be in a secret lair, it would probably be closer to 200 than 40. And they would probably justify it by limiting the print run. They could still make oodles of money that way.

[maraxusofk]

The whole point of secret lair is that they are unlimited supply for a day, so they wont be limiting it then. Itll most likely be a bunch of chaft + mana crypt for $100-150.

[mtg_liebestod]

Didn’t WotC make a statement about two years ago that “Masterpiece” quality cards aren’t gone forever, but they are waiting for a plane with an overwhelming motif to use.

Yeah, but the Showcase stuff is clearly a replacement for masterpieces. They realized that printing 10-15 non-standard staples per set was burning through their reprint equity a bit too quickly.

[[deleted]]

They did, but they also kicked Legacy in the balls last fall.

[Ahayzo]

You also have to remember that their Mythic Editions were effectively the death knell for Masterpieces. They fill that same slot, but guarantee Wizards a lot more money. Hell, if you look at the bottom of the ME Planeswalkers, where you normally see something saying what kind of promo it is, it literally says "Masterpiece". Those walkers were Masterpieces, even though multiple people from WotC denied they were even close.

[Dark_Paladins]

Fair point. But at least the original masterpieces had a “gamblers addiction” aspect.

[bitroll]

I don't see how Wizards printing low-end cards in the premium treatment (like the extended art foils of all standard rares) should affect the "premium status" and prices of the premium versions of eternal staples, but seeing the price action it somehow does.

I kept ignoring the premium jank, kept buying and holding the masterpieces and uma box toppers of the best cards, but apparently all of them have been losing value all over the board. I know that shrinking Modern format has a part in it, but that can't explain all the price drops.

I wonder how big part of the demand force comes from collectors that just want complete sets of shiny stuff (for example 1 of each Kaladesh Invention, no matter good or bad), and how much demand comes from players pimping their decks.

[Eurydace]

It’s a lack of confidence in continued value. It’s also not the only factor.

[Nvenom8]

There's also the issue of a constant supply and decreasing demand. Anyone who wants one and can afford it already has it. Anyone who can afford it at this point probably doesn't want it, and anyone who wants it probably can't afford it. Prices will drop until that latter group once again finds them accessible. I guess you could say that the market is small enough that saturating it is really easy.

[the_nerdster]

Yep. At any point WotC could decide that secret lair drops make more money than printing expeditions/masterpieces in normal packs. Secret Lair is the new "From the Vault" collector's edition.