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I have spoken to numerous physical dealers who have been telling me lately that they can't even crack a box of cards and turn a profit in the current market. A big factor in this is the number of redeemed sets hitting the market in the US with redemption back. While the number of packs produced by Wizards heavily outweighs any number of cards pumped into the physical game through MTGO redemption, the bulk of MTGO redemption goes straight to retailers who resell singles. With the constant drop of prices in MTGO causing a constant drop of prices in MTG, it has hit a point where dealers can't profitably crack a booster open and resell the cards. This will trickle down to players reselling singles who can't afford to play anymore due to the poor resale of their cards.

As this all spirals downwards, we will see dealers consuming less, initially less boosters, then less redeemed sets, and then a direct impact on MTGO as the online marketplace becomes flooded with singles no one can use or want.

The general economy as a whole is incredibly inflated and the true value of most of the standard cards out there are half of what they are typically listed at due to the general supply and demand that exists.

Many are blaming this on the rules changes as it has caused tons of players to give the game up, both reducing the revenue many resellers would get from these players and increasing the number of cards in the available card pool.

Just so many negative factors to point to here and there are NO positives at the moment.

So before you go buying up tons of cards thinking, hey, I can always resell this later on and it won't matter, think of this quote by a very wise investor...

Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.

Anchorman wrote:

I have spoken to numerous physical dealers who have been telling me lately that they can't even crack a box of cards and turn a profit in the current market. A big factor in this is the number of redeemed sets hitting the market in the US with redemption back. While the number of packs produced by Wizards heavily outweighs any number of cards pumped into the physical game through MTGO redemption, the bulk of MTGO redemption goes straight to retailers who resell singles. With the constant drop of prices in MTGO causing a constant drop of prices in MTG, it has hit a point where dealers can't profitably crack a booster open and resell the cards. This will trickle down to players reselling singles who can't afford to play anymore due to the poor resale of their cards.

As this all spirals downwards, we will see dealers consuming less, initially less boosters, then less redeemed sets, and then a direct impact on MTGO as the online marketplace becomes flooded with singles no one can use or want.

The general economy as a whole is incredibly inflated and the true value of most of the standard cards out there are half of what they are typically listed at due to the general supply and demand that exists.

Many are blaming this on the rules changes as it has caused tons of players to give the game up, both reducing the revenue many resellers would get from these players and increasing the number of cards in the available card pool.

Just so many negative factors to point to here and there are NO positives at the moment.

So before you go buying up tons of cards thinking, hey, I can always resell this later on and it won't matter, think of this quote by a very wise investor...

Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.

I'm not sure if the irony was lost on you, but aren't you one of the largest redeemers out there? If you truly believe it's killing the MTG economy, maybe you should do your part and stop?

The fact is, it's always been unprofitable to crack a box and sell the singles (except during the first month or so a new set is out). This has absolutely nothing to do with MTGO redemption. If you track the paper prices of cards, they still follow the same devaluation schedule they always have, even before MTGO existed. It is just a fact that cards lose value as the "new" factor wears off. Also, the amount of sets entering the paper market through redemption is tiny in the overall supply of paper cards, so the effect could be minimal at best.

A better theory about why paper dealers can't make money from cracking packs, aside from the overall economy point made by ace above, is the existence of Mythic rares. The average rare value per set has gone down significantly since the introduction of Mythic rares (ALA, CON, and ARB all have much lower values per rare, including the Mythics, than the previous blocks did when they were still in Standard).

It's hard to say for sure if Mythics are the reason, or if it is just overall card quality in general (LRW/SHM block had way better cards than ALA block, though that doesn't explain Time Spiral block, which aside from Tarmogoyf was pretty mediocre). If I were a betting man, I would say it's the Mythics.

With the best Mythic in ALA being only $20 (the same price that Thoughtseize, Garruk, and Cryptic Command stayed for a long time), and the best non-Mythic being around $3-$4, it seems that the Mythics' extra rarity did not even come close to compensating for the significantly lowered price of the regular rares because they are much more common than rares used to be.

I apologize for going slightly off-topic, but I thought the Mythic effect needed a couple paragraphs to be fully explained. Whatever the reason is for the devaluation of cards in general, it is certainly not being caused by redemption. Redemption has been around for years now, and prices have been fine until recently.

Anchorman wrote:

I have spoken to numerous physical dealers who have been telling me lately that they can't even crack a box of cards and turn a profit in the current market. A big factor in this is the number of redeemed sets hitting the market in the US with redemption back. While the number of packs produced by Wizards heavily outweighs any number of cards pumped into the physical game through MTGO redemption, the bulk of MTGO redemption goes straight to retailers who resell singles. With the constant drop of prices in MTGO causing a constant drop of prices in MTG, it has hit a point where dealers can't profitably crack a booster open and resell the cards. This will trickle down to players reselling singles who can't afford to play anymore due to the poor resale of their cards.

As this all spirals downwards, we will see dealers consuming less, initially less boosters, then less redeemed sets, and then a direct impact on MTGO as the online marketplace becomes flooded with singles no one can use or want.

The general economy as a whole is incredibly inflated and the true value of most of the standard cards out there are half of what they are typically listed at due to the general supply and demand that exists.

Many are blaming this on the rules changes as it has caused tons of players to give the game up, both reducing the revenue many resellers would get from these players and increasing the number of cards in the available card pool.

Just so many negative factors to point to here and there are NO positives at the moment.

So before you go buying up tons of cards thinking, hey, I can always resell this later on and it won't matter, think of this quote by a very wise investor...

Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.

The only time that cracking has been profitable aside from release was during Future Sight when a high % of money cards had dealers/players cracking packs for a bit during Goyf's peak.

LoreBroker wrote:

I'm not sure if the irony was lost on you, but aren't you one of the largest redeemers out there? If you truly believe it's killing the MTG economy, maybe you should do your part and stop?

The fact is, it's always been unprofitable to crack a box and sell the singles (except during the first month or so a new set is out). This has absolutely nothing to do with MTGO redemption. If you track the paper prices of cards, they still follow the same devaluation schedule they always have, even before MTGO existed. It is just a fact that cards lose value as the "new" factor wears off. Also, the amount of sets entering the paper market through redemption is tiny in the overall supply of paper cards, so the effect could be minimal at best.

A better theory about why paper dealers can't make money from cracking packs, aside from the overall economy point made by ace above, is the existence of Mythic rares. The average rare value per set has gone down significantly since the introduction of Mythic rares (ALA, CON, and ARB all have much lower values per rare, including the Mythics, than the previous blocks did when they were still in Standard).

It's hard to say for sure if Mythics are the reason, or if it is just overall card quality in general (LRW/SHM block had way better cards than ALA block, though that doesn't explain Time Spiral block, which aside from Tarmogoyf was pretty mediocre). If I were a betting man, I would say it's the Mythics.

With the best Mythic in ALA being only $20 (the same price that Thoughtseize, Garruk, and Cryptic Command stayed for a long time), and the best non-Mythic being around $3-$4, it seems that the Mythics' extra rarity did not even come close to compensating for the significantly lowered price of the regular rares because they are much more common than rares used to be.

I apologize for going slightly off-topic, but I thought the Mythic effect needed a couple paragraphs to be fully explained. Whatever the reason is for the devaluation of cards in general, it is certainly not being caused by redemption. Redemption has been around for years now, and prices have been fine until recently.

(1) This is a great reply.

(2) This is just the normal, over dramatic, forum trolling, catastrophic topic we expect from Anchorman.

Please keep your posts respectful and on topic. Do not engage in name-calling.

Thank you.