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The New Power in Magic — the Legacy Dilemma

By Kelly Reid ⋅ February 4, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment ⋅ Print This Post

As a finan­cial colum­nist, it’s my job to cover break­ing news as it relates to card prices. It’s easy to just say “oh look, an expen­sive card” and issue a buy/sell/hold rat­ing like so many stock watch pages. In some cases, that type of analy­sis is appro­pri­ate and help­ful. In other sit­u­a­tions, such as the one in which we find our­selves presently, a more in-depth analy­sis is required.

To what sit­u­a­tion am I referring?

Well, if you keep up on the prices of older card, you’ll know exactly what I mean. If you don’t, well, check this out. Tar­mogoyf has done what no main­stream card has done in recent his­tory. At least one major site has raised their ask­ing price to the $100 mark. It’s hard to say how many other sites might list it at $100. Most of them haven’t even got any. This sort of pric­ing and scarcity have not been seen since the days of Leg­ends, home to such sta­ples as Mana Drain and The Taber­na­cle at Pen­drell Vale.

Does it seem odd to men­tion Tar­mogoyf in the com­pany of those two cards? How about when I tell you that Force of Will is now sell­ing for $50 on some sites? We’re finally see­ing a phe­nom­e­non I pre­dicted in the sum­mer of 2009. It’s been brought on by a mas­sive inter­est spike in the Legacy for­mat directly cor­re­lated to the Star City Games 5K series. Legacy used to be a niche for­mat, but by dra­mat­i­cally increas­ing the EV for play­ing the for­mat, inter­est has swelled.

What we’ve got here is New Power. Magic is an ever-evolving game, and the orig­i­nal power is so far removed from the lives of every­day play­ers. There was a time in the game where most play­ers could recall play­ing with Moxes and Lotuses and Ances­tral Recalls. That time has long since passed. The vast major­ity of Magic play­ers have prob­a­bly never seen Power out­side of a dealer’s dis­play case. That’s why New Power is com­ing to the forefront.

Magic play­ers are very much crea­tures of habit. While many will com­plain at length about expen­sive cards, elite rares have a cer­tain draw, much like that of the lot­tery. Every­one com­plains about Banes­layer Angel and Jace, the Mind Sculp­tor, but boxes of M10 and World­wake still fly off the shelves. Don’t believe me about World­wake? Try call­ing any top-level dis­trib­u­tor to set up a new account and get some World­wake booster boxes. Then call me when you’re sick of hav­ing peo­ple laugh in your ear so I can soothe your aching aural canals with “I told you so.”

There’s no doubt in my mind that Tar­mogoyf is essen­tially Power at this junc­ture. Force of Will belongs in the same cat­e­gory. The Taber­na­cle at Pen­drell Vale as well. As Legacy becomes more and more rel­e­vant in 2010, we’ll see the for­mat begin to con­geal and some “best decks” will cer­tainly rise to preva­lence. The life-cycle of the Magic rare is very strange. Cards lose a great deal of value when they rotate from Stan­dard, but if they start see­ing play in Extended, they can start push­ing their old limits.

Tar­mogoyf is an espe­cially amaz­ing card due to the sheer num­ber of prece­dents it’s set. When was the last time a card was $50 in Stan­dard? Clearly, Banes­layer and Jace are fol­low­ing the the foot­steps of giant green zombie-monsters, or what­ever the hell a Lhur­goyf is. Ask the Swedish. “Lhur­goyf” sounds Scan­di­na­vian to me. A card as dom­i­nant as ‘Goyf prob­a­bly deserved a $50 price tag, but the amaz­ing part is that it’s even MORE expen­sive now that it’s gone from the format.

Read that again.

Tar­mogoyf has dou­bled in price since it left Stan­dard. When, in the his­tory of the game, has that ever hap­pened? We’re at a point now where card avail­abil­ity is actu­ally an issue. Some cards sim­ply do not exist in quan­ti­ties nec­es­sary to sat­isfy the demands of the player base. Force, Taber­na­cle and Goyf are all in this cat­e­gory. The stag­ger­ing thing about Taber­na­cle is that it’s only used as a sin­gle­ton. Imag­ine if it was used as a quad. The impli­ca­tions of this price creep are com­plex and inter­twined. Legacy is still a nascent for­mat, and one with much room to grow. As new strate­gies are found and more of the game’s most ded­i­cated and tal­ented minds real­ize the raw growth poten­tial in the for­mat, don’t be sur­prised to see more spe­cialty cards like Entomb rise from obscu­rity to $30+ overnight.

2010 is going to be a very inter­est­ing year, and it’s already been a prof­itable one for spec­u­la­tors who keep an eye on the for­mat. For my part, I’ll be doing my best to stay on top of Legacy and to grow with it. It’s a mas­sive amount of cards to keep in one’s head, but it’s my job as a Magic jour­nal­ist to do so. I’d been say­ing that Tar­mogoyf would hit $100 in 2010, but I wasn’t plan­ning on being right so soon. I’ll close out this week by say­ing this: Tar­mogoyf is one of the first, not one of the last, to make such an unprece­dented rise. Keep your eyes and wal­lets open, since there are going to be a lot of opportunities.

Kelly Reid, editor of financial news site http://www.quietspeculation.com, has been playing Magic the Gathering since 1994. With 15 years experience in the game, his goal is to teach others to fund their gaming through proactive speculation and intelligent trading.

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Comments

  1. I feel pretty lucky to have picked up my Goyfs and Forces at the begin­ning of year for $50 and $25 respec­tively (thanks wife a truly fan­tas­tic birth­day present).

    But mana drain now looks fur­ther and fur­ther out of reach. Break­ing into a for­mat has never been more difficult.

    Neale | February 4, 2010, 12:40 am | #

  2. You’re think­ing what I’ve been think­ing: soon there’s going to be a new “Power 9″ in Magic. So far you’ve got Taber­na­cle, Force of Will and Goyf (it depends if Banes­layer or New Jace will go along these lines in dif­fer­ent for­mats).
    It’s amaz­ing that one day we might com­plain about Magic being too many play­ers. It’s because of all these newer play­ers that all of these prices are spi­ral­ing out of con­trol (Remem­ber, Price = Sup­ply + Demand). If Wiz­ards aren’t print­ing enough for the newer play­ers who want the cards, then the price goes up. Of course, this goes for the num­ber of peo­ple now inter­ested in Legacy due to a series of tour­na­ments.
    Yes, print­ing more cards in cur­rently printed sets will help bring down prices (See Fallen Empires as an exam­ple). But that doesn’t help for out-or-print sets. How do we fix that? Some­thing to Pon­der (still only a $1. For now)

    MtGColorPie | February 4, 2010, 2:35 am | #

  3. The inter­est in legacy, as you stated, surely increased the price of the card, but don’t for­get that it also is used in the Extended sea­son which is under­way. This is a for­mat where the card WILL rotate. This will lead to a drop in price. Call­ing this card new power while it is still using some of its draw in non-eternal for­mats to fuel it’s price seems pre­ma­ture. Will it be in this JV team of new power? Most likely, but if we are using prices and it’s use in mul­ti­ple decks to deter­mine this we should wait to pass judg­ment. Cur­rently we can say that it is used in a great many num­ber of decks, so it passes that test, but I’m unsure it will be main­tain­ing price wise come rota­tion. There will be some amount of decline, and I’m curi­ous what it will be.
    While force of will is a second-string power 9 card I agree with, taber­na­cle just doesn’t fit the bill. The power 9 see exten­sive play, and I would posit that most eter­nal decks are run­ning 4–5 pieces of power now. Taber­na­cle doesn’t see that kind of play in legacy. It is merely an expen­sive card in legacy, not a multi-deck won­der phe­nom­e­non.
    I also am skep­ti­cal of using the prices of the most expen­sive sup­plier as a means of deter­min­ing the value of the card, which it seems like you are doing. I can still find them at $60 of that value con­sis­tently. Since you do state that you do plan to try and play the card mar­ket, it’s hard for one not to con­sider briefly that you or some­one else was hop­ing to profit off of this article.

    Jordy | February 4, 2010, 11:42 am | #

  4. If you plan to ques­tion my motives, please doso openly and don’t make a thinly veiled attempt to do so. I know of no one who would ques­tion my integrity, despite the fact that I could osten­si­bly pump and dump to my heart’s con­tent, and the mar­ket reac­tion would basi­cally ren­der my pre­dic­tions “cor­rect”. There’s a rea­son I don’t do that, and choose to instead MISS calls. It’s called ethics, and it’s some­thing my momma taught me. It’s not nego­tiable nor is it questionable.

    FULL DISCLOSURE: My store, Drag­ons Den, owns FIVE Tar­mogoyfs, not like, 200. We stock 0 Taber­na­cles and 0 Forces of Will (although I do keep one set aside for my per­sonal col­lec­tion). And no, I’m not in the pocket of CFB, SCG, Cool­Stuff, or any other dealer beyond the com­pen­sa­tion I receive for pro­duc­ing con­tent for them. Now that we’ve cleared up that crap —

    I am not sug­gest­ing that $100 Goyfs should exist, or that they should go higher. I’m just report­ing on the facts. CFB has theirs at 100. Star City has theirs at 90. You CAN find them else­where, but the larger deal­ers are what we’d call “mar­ket mak­ers” in the finan­cial indus­try. They move such quan­tity that they can, to a rea­son­able degree, dic­tate the price of the most in-demand commodities.

    The point of this piece was to draw atten­ton to the MASSIVE effect Legacy is hav­ing on older card prices. Tar­mogoyf is, as you may have read, a “per­fect storm” card. The fact is, we’ve got years until it leaves Extended, by which point even more Legacy play­ers will have joined in the fray. IT’s a “keeper” card, which means that peo­ple amass play-sets and DO NOT SELL THEM. This is pretty awful for the game, espe­cially if the flag­ship aggres­sive crea­ture of a for­mat is $100+. The price might well die down after the PTQ sea­son, but just the fact that it’s reach­ing such new highs in the same era that Force of Will starts see­ing $50 car­ries with it tremen­dous impli­ca­tions for the game of Magic long-term.

    We have to fig­ure out where it’ll stop, because this kind of infla­tion is NOT good for the game. Tar­mogoyf was the first card to set the prece­dent, and Banes­layer Angel and Jace TMS have fol­lowed suit. I think Mythic rares are hor­ri­ble for the sec­ondary mar­ket, but I can­not deny that they sell packs like no other. That’s a piece for another day.

    Kelly B Reid - www.quietspeculation.com | February 4, 2010, 1:59 pm | #

  5. I’m sorry you con­sid­ered it a veiled accu­sa­tion, as I didn’t intend it to allude to any­thing more than what I had stated. I state that it was briefly con­sid­ered. Note I didn’t say that I con­cluded you were a cal­cu­lat­ing and uneth­i­cal per­son try­ing to sway the masses through your read­er­ship. If I thought that, I would state that. Cool your jets, man.

    Thanks for your response in regards to the “mar­ket mak­ers” idea, since I feel that that was more at the heart of what I wanted to know with that last bit: Why use $100 card prices when they are far from the norm? I was skeptical/confused why you used that num­ber, and you gave me the answer.

    Jordy | February 4, 2010, 2:54 pm | #

  6. I liked the arti­cle and the idea of a 2nd string Power 9(that might not have 9 cards yet) start­ing due to legacy’s rise in pop­u­lar­ity, I know I have recently started get­ting inter­ested in legacy.

    I don’t think Jordy was accus­ing you of ‘Pump and Dump’ing. He was say­ing that account­ing Goyfs price jump to Legacy is incor­rect. Yes it prob­a­bly did jump due to some demand for Legacy but Goyf is a pow­er­house in Extended with more and more decks run­ning him. And now that we are in the mid­dle of the Extended PTQ sea­son it most likely had more of an impact on Goyf’s price than any demand that Legacy is putting out.

    Sean | February 4, 2010, 3:22 pm | #

  7. I find Kelly’s arti­cle cor­rect. Whether or not its healthy for the for­mat is sub­ject to what lens you choose to view Magic. As the for­mat evolves and more play­ers begin enter Legacy, a top tier of cards will emerge. Most Legacy play­ers who where play­ing prior to recent level of atten­tion that Legacy has received have known about the cards to have in the format.

    If one is look­ing for invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in Legacy, I would take the analy­sis from Kelly’s arti­cle and com­bine it with the real­ity of what the sup­ply is in the sta­tus quo. As coun­ter­in­tu­itive as it may seem, there are a lot of mono color decks that match up well with the top tier decks. Fish, Burn, Drag­on­stompy, Stax, Dredge (LED or LED­less) are among some the bet­ter decks in the for­mat and don’t require invest­ment beyond $500 (with the pos­si­ble excep­tion of Stax). Tech and niche cards such as Trin­i­sphere, Chal­ice of the Void, Back to Basics, Engi­neered Explo­sives are all great invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. Addi­tion­ally, I would sug­gest that the more play test­ing and cre­ativ­ity added the for­mat will cre­ate some new sta­ples. Addi­tion­ally, as with most for­mats, there will be the decks to beat and then there will be the responses to those decks that approach the meta game in an alter­na­tive and uncon­ven­tional way with out­side the box cards. Drag­on­stompy & Mer­folk are the per­fect examples.

    Patrick | February 4, 2010, 5:49 pm | #

  8. Tar­mogoyf has been a force in Extended for quite some time now, so I’m not buy­ing that argu­ment right now. He’s only really used in Zoo decks, which have been pop­u­lar for at least a year. We had an Extended PTQ sea­son last Win­ter too. Goyf was not $100. The only ratio­nal expla­na­tion is Legacy. I’m game to hear other argu­ments but at this point, it seems clear why it’s rock­et­ing up in price.

    As some­one influ­en­tial in the MTG finan­cial mar­kets, as silly as it sounds, I have to be very wary of being labeled uneth­i­cal or hav­ing my ethics ques­tioned in any way. My entire body of work is pred­i­cated upon my abil­ity to judge these trends on their own merit, with­out bias towards my own finances. As such, I’m very con­sci­en­tious about main­tain­ing a rep­u­ta­tion of hon­esty :) Hope you guys can appre­ci­ate that.

    Kelly B Reid - www.quietspeculation.com | February 4, 2010, 6:17 pm | #

  9. Its totally under­stand­able that you need to be wary.

    I wasn’t play­ing Extended last time it rolled around for a PTQ so I can’t com­ment on his price now vs back then but he is ran in more than just Zoo. Right now the only one I can think of off the top of my head is RG Scapeshift and some­times in the SB of Dredge. Also fac­tor in that Zoo is the most played arche­type (since there are quite a few dif­fer­ent Zoos).

    I agree Legacy is effect­ing Goyfs price, by a decent amount too, but I believe (and could be totally wrong, I don’t run a web­site about Magic) that Extended has more of a tug on its price than Legacy. Once the Extended PTQ sea­son is over then Legacy will dic­tat Goyf’s price (and God I hope it isn’t too much)

    Enjoy­ing the dis­cus­sion BTW.

    Sean | February 4, 2010, 7:41 pm | #

  10. I don’t see the price of Goyf drop­ping as a result of the Extended hap­pen­ings. Even as the sea­son comes to a close or in the future when the set leaves extended, I don’t fore­see there being a large drop off in the prices. The jus­ti­fi­ca­tion is based on other sta­ples in the Legacy for­mat that have left extended and the result­ing price changes that have occurred. Pol­luted Delta is a per­fect exam­ple of this. Dur­ing the last part of its tenure in Extended, it was priced at roughly $20. Post rota­tion, it dropped to its low­est price at $16. Since the announce­ment of the 5K’s the price has gone up to $18.5 and is trend­ing up. The dif­fer­ence with Goyf is that now peo­ple know it will retain its value post rota­tion so there is no incen­tive to sell it off. In fact, as Kelly sug­gested, there is only an incen­tive to keep them since the price is climb­ing (I believe the term was “Keeper” or some­thing). At any rate, the prices of those cards like the fetch­lands that have rotated out will likely only con­tinue to rise.

    At worst, the recent influx of inter­est in Legacy and the sta­ples asso­ci­ated with it makes it com­pletely unpre­dictable to guess about what will happen

    Patrick | February 4, 2010, 8:03 pm | #

  11. Kelly, what Legacy cards do you rec­om­mend pick­ing up for short or long term gain?

    thehordling | February 6, 2010, 12:58 pm | #

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