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Rasputin Dreamweaver

Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 11:41 am
by folding_music
been noticing one of my favourite cards has been dipping in price and I can't work out why - it's still reserved, I don't think there's been a recent ruling to change the nature of his ability, etc. I have no intention to sell mine and im not a trading business so it doesn't really affect me in teh end, I just want answers :3 thanks to anyone who can illuminate!

Rasputin Dreamweaver

Re: Rasputin Dreamweaver

Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 1:42 pm
by Legend
Over the previous 2-3 years, prices of reserve list cards were artificially inflated due to greedy buyouts rather than actual demand. Earlier this year, the hype plateaued for most cards and has since been declining for many. Many, if not most players (especially new players), simply don't value old (reserve list) cards because:
A. In most cases, more affordable, reprintable cards outclass reserved cards.
B. Reserved cards are often viewed as historic novelties rather than contemporary necessities - "dad's cards".
C. Some players boycott reserved cards because they resent the reserve list.
D. Many playable reserved cards are banned in the formats that would otherwise permit them.
E. There isn't enough [play value : monetary value] in many reserved cards due to the resulting lack of players of the formats that permit them. In other words, what good is it if you're the only person in town with a set of dual lands and power nine?

Re: Rasputin Dreamweaver

Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 3:45 pm
by The Fluff
E. There isn't enough [play value : monetary value] in many reserved cards due to the resulting lack of players of the formats that permit them. In other words, what good is it if you're the only person in town with a set of dual lands and power nine?
this is one of the main reasons I sold all my original duals and wasteland. No one to play them with. Better turn into cash while they have some value, so I can use for other things // other cards that I need.

Re: Rasputin Dreamweaver

Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2019 9:06 pm
by Pip_Maxwell
folding_music wrote:
4 years ago
been noticing one of my favourite cards has been dipping in price and I can't work out why - it's still reserved, I don't think there's been a recent ruling to change the nature of his ability, etc. I have no intention to sell mine and im not a trading business so it doesn't really affect me in teh end, I just want answers :3 thanks to anyone who can illuminate!

Rasputin Dreamweaver
Lets take Rasputin Dreamweaver as a fine example of this.
https://www.mtgstocks.com/prints/11689

Just read the price history and you will see the story it tells with him actually getting artificially inflated around 2012, 2013, 2017, 2018. As the first telltale sign of a buyout is a card spiking up in price. Then the secondary ones are any Plateaus, Downard Slopes, or Downward Spikes created. Which as you can see tends to happen to him a lot as he actually goes at a snails pace with natural growth. And since he is currently on a downward slope, it wouldn't be too unlikely to see him artificially inflated again.

Re: Rasputin Dreamweaver

Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2019 1:02 pm
by SquirrelToken
Legend wrote:
4 years ago
Over the previous 2-3 years, prices of reserve list cards were artificially inflated due to greedy buyouts rather than actual demand. Earlier this year, the hype plateaued for most cards and has since been declining for many. Many, if not most players (especially new players), simply don't value old (reserve list) cards because:
A. In most cases, more affordable, reprintable cards outclass reserved cards.
B. Reserved cards are often viewed as historic novelties rather than contemporary necessities - "dad's cards".
C. Some players boycott reserved cards because they resent the reserve list.
D. Many playable reserved cards are banned in the formats that would otherwise permit them.
E. There isn't enough [play value : monetary value] in many reserved cards due to the resulting lack of players of the formats that permit them. In other words, what good is it if you're the only person in town with a set of dual lands and power nine?
This seems at least a bit disingenuous to me. You have some valid points but there's definitely some correction needed.

A) That's very much untrue. Yes, there are some new cards that are better than RL cards. However, there are some cards that are simply irreplaceable. Growing Rites of Itlimoc is not a good replacement for Gaea's Cradle. Rasputin in particular (since we're talking about him here) has no modern analogue - his effect is entirely unique.
B) I've never encountered this view, but I'm willing to admit that it might be out there.
C) This one, absolutely. I definitely know some of these people.
D) This point is entirely incorrect. I'm going to ask for examples here. Sure, a bunch of RL cards are banned in Legacy, but that's to differentiate it from Vintage. And other than Power and a couple dexterity cards, there are only about three RL cards banned in EDH. This is, in fact, THE ENTIRE RL PROBLEM - people want to play with these cards. They want to jam Tundras into their EDH decks and Mox Diamonds into their Legacy decks. Please, what cards are you referencing that are "playable reserved cards banned in the formats that would otherwise permit them"?
E) I'm not really sure where to start here. Again, while Legacy may be a relatively small scene, EDH is definitely not. We're discussing a unique EDH general in this thread, and I'm sure that the OP could walk into ANY lgs anywhere, plop down a deck with Rasputin on top, and be able to get a game in.

While you are correct that calculated buyouts were the cause of many RL cards rising sharply in price, and that the market is correcting for it, that's not always the case. Look at the most recent spike - that's right around the time that we got the C18 announcement. We were told that we were getting an Esper flicker deck - well, Rasputin loves to be flickered. We see this effect a lot - new Commander decks are announced/cards are released, and a bunch of older cards spike because they work well with the new cards/decks. Varchild's War-Riders went from nowhere to $20 because of the printing of General Varchild. Now it's on a long coast back to obscurity because it's not really that good and doesn't work too well with other generals. It's most likely that the same thing happened with Rasputin - WOTC announced a flicker deck and everyone bought him out. Then the deck showed up and people decided "Eh, I don't really want to run this card" and gradually offloaded copies, depressing the price.

Your thesis seems to be "Many, if not most players (especially new players), simply don't value old (reserve list) cards", and that's just demonstrably false. Yes, there are "joke" RL cards like Marjhan that everyone recognizes hold no actual value, but to say that RL cards hold no value to most players is a dangerous assertion that needs correction.

Re: Rasputin Dreamweaver

Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2019 9:16 pm
by drmarkb
There are two knids of price spikes- organic, and artificial.
A number of RL cards have had many of bith types.

As a suggestion I would say for artificial, check out Pyramids.
Dual lands have had artificial and organic price increases, but the thing is they ultimately settle near market value- after each buyout they drop back, normally not to the previous price, although in some cases certain duals have been underpriced for their play- Trop often being a case, so they should never have dropped back all the way anyway.
Organic rises are easy to spot and explain, the current Oko rise since the banning is an organic spike, as people thought it would be banned in multiple formats and it was not, just Std/Brawl.

Your card is an artificially priced one, they won't move at that price.