I think we'll have to agree to disagree there, nolight, er, noknife.
It actually CAN be a problem and HAS been a problem in the past. It's mostly a problem with Classic sets as it's easy to acquire a lot of those cards and not many more enter the system (and in the case of MED1, NO MORE enter the system).
To believe that it's impossible to happen is either extremely naive or an attempt to deflect perceived criticism.
actually, there is a huge reason to hurry up and sell them, the time value of money. If you are buying this as an "investment" then you are probably interested in taking profits. If the card sits in your inventory, even if the asking price is rising, you realize no gains until you sell the card for a profit. As it sits in your inventory it also ties up your money/tickets from being invested in some other card that you would like to make/take profits on. So the point of buying, hoarding, and holding, shouldn't really work, unless you have a limitless amount of money to invest, and even then it wouldn't really work that well, unless it was a card that was in extremely high demand (staple STD cards), which are coincidentally cards that are in extremely high supply from people drafting. These are not cards that are in fringe formats that have very few players, such as classic, where this can actually possibly be exploited due to the actual supply of the cards, but will ultimately backfire, because the demand for the cards just isn't there. Perhaps in some cases a hoarder will make a profit, but they could have done more with their money making many smaller speculative investments, more often than not they will break even or even perhaps lose money. This issue is a perceived problem, not a real problem
Usually it's not very effective as the market price will work itself out.
Sometimes, very effective, like in the case of Vampiric Tutor.
One problem is that someone can hoard a card and just sit back and wait. It's not degrading, taking up storage space, etc.
So if someone is for some reason hording Natural Order, there's no need to drop the price to hurry and sell them. They can just sit back and wait for enough people who want it at 3x the price they bought it for. It may take a while, but there's no reason they can't sit on the cards and wait it out. Like Vampiric Tutor.
This is really a problem with the automated pricing scheme though. Its not a problem with the market.
Either you just eat these types of losses because of the convenience yoru gaining in the automated pricing or you account for it in the automated pricing scheme or you stop automatic pricing.
I like the hoarding/speculating. If they get completely out of control yes I agree it can be bad. But these sorts of issues are exactly what make the trading part of this card game fun. Obviously we are talking about some extreme situations. As much as I love mtgotraders and the bot networks in general. It sure would be awesome to have a paper experience where I actually trade cards without an exchange of money. Right now, I only dump money in the system for new cards. I basically have no avenue to trade at all. Anyway I'm getting off topic.
My point is, I think that if bots were integrated into the system and everyone used them that it would be much more difficult to hoarde/speculate. People underestimate how many cards lay dormant on people's accounts that are never even on the market. I have meddling mages, force of wills, etc. and I've never once put them on the market because it would be a hassle. If it were simple and easy the people like me would come out of the woodwork.
There are tons of good ways to stop this from happening. Like I said, every stock market on earth works exactly the same way. Dynamic pricing could also change the sell price of a card on a per transaction basis. Also, why not make only 4X of a card available at a time. If what you are saying is true, then the bot owners will have to get more sophisticated with their buy/sell lists to protect themselves from pumping and dumping.
Good comments, but it's missing a little something.
You seem to be confusing the premise of hoarding and speculating. They're closely tied together, but they achieve different results.
In your example, an automated moving price list is extremely susceptible to being taken advantage of by hoarders (in fact, this has happened to bots in the past who used such a list).
I buy all 40 of your at 1.00. ($40)
You raise the buy price to 1.10 and get 20.
I buy all 20 at 1.1 ($22.00)
You raise the buy price to 1.5 and get 20
I buy all 20 at 1.5 ($30)
You raise your buy price to 2.00 and get 10
I buy all 10 at 2 ($20, total $112.0)
you raise your buy price to 2.5 and get none
you raise your buy price to 3.0 and get none
You raise your buy price to 4.0 and I dump a ton of the cards I bought to you and to every card bot that shares a list with you for a total of 280 tix, or 160 ticket profit.
This is real, and it does happen.
But like I said in the article... there's no real good way to stop it from happening.
I have had good results against affinity. I drop the Spark Elemental for Smash to Smithereens. Affinity is one of my happy matchups.
Fiery Temper is always playable against MBC. You go from "Discard a card" to here's a "Lightning Bolt, thanks for the help". My opponent was bummed when his Unburden caused him to lose 6 life.
Hamtastic i don't how you write this article i mean if you write it the Thursday and then post it the friday, but the problem is always that you post the article the prices from MTGOTRADERS are Updated like a weekly update, so some prices on your charts are outdated look at FoW now is in 70 for a single.
Hoarding and greed are the grease that makes a market go. If you are scared of hoarding, create a dynamic pricing system, as more people buy, the price goes up automatically, just like the stock market. When nobody is buying, the price drops. That is how every stock market in the world, which is a trade-able commodity works. There is literally nothing that you can do to stop people from hoarding, if they are willing to pay the price. That is how a market works, and to block someone from spending their money how they choose is basically impossible, and also runs exactly opposite to capitalism, which is the thing that every dealer and bot on MTGO engages in. As a positive note, there is an old saying "pigs get slaughtered", and that is what generally happens when people hoard any sort of commodity, sometimes its the opposite, but generally hoarding doesn't work out as a profitable move.
PS. I currently, nor never have, owned more than 4X of any card, other than commons from drafting. I just don't believe that this is a real issue, there is enough supply of almost any card to get a playset of anything if you are willing to pay the price. I have been playing the game since its inception, and I have never had a single issue buying any card that I have wanted, including daze, dual lands, force of will, orim's chant, and every other chase card that has existed over the years. Granted, I am willing to pay the price, and I have significantly more capital to invest than the average person playing the game.
Yeah. Those are the folks I'm largely talking about. It's one thing to pick up a few extra copies looking to make a profit if they increase. It's an entirely other thing to attempt to cause the increase in order to profit from a self-created lack of supply.
Alex is right - though I find that I'm not always curving perfectly as often as I'd like. You've also got Oblivion Ring to deal with Longbow, and your creatures (as I mentioned in my previous reply) have evasive measures to push through GE. It is still a tough matchup, but not unwinnable.
An open market (bots for all!) wouldn't really solve it. In fact, it might make it worse.
Right now, hoarders can only really raid automated places, like bots to grab all the low hanging fruit, as it were.
If all the copies of a card are easy to buy on a moments notice, I could see groups being able to easily corner the market on them. Or at least, much more easily than they do now.
Although I still think an open automated system for buying/selling would be an overall improvement, but I do worry about people being able to more completely corner a card out of the market. :(
Also, Speculation is a "good thing" in my book. It rewards some risk and mitigates costs for shrewd buyers. I actually speculate on cards on a fairly frequent basis, sometimes it pays off. Other times I break even or lose a little.
The hoarders I'm talking about are as hammy said buying 100's of the same card and artificially jacking up the prices. These are not just people buying 4 or even 20 of 1 card hoping they go up due to a new deck or something. These people also post fake buy ads on the boards to make people think a card has gone up in price so that everyone freaks out and raises their prices.
Against MBC you have 7-8 x Pro: Black guys between main and side. They're going to have a hard time of it as their best bet is to play 8x Sacrifice removal - but you can play around it by 'insuring' your Pro:Black men by dropping a secondary critter alongside them. Considering things like this it forces them to whipe the rest of your board to deal with these problems. If additional issues present themselves in the matchup you can always pull out the COP:Black, but I don't feel it necessary.
Grand Entrance is much harder. The reason is, like you say, their cards are higher quality. Combine this with the fact that WW, while agressive, cannot post the 4th turn kills that other aggro decks can. This gives GE the time that it needs to stabilize.
Many GE-type decks are now packing black for their removal. Pro:Black will shine here as well.
Though others remain blue/white or splash red. These cases will be harder, but you do have higher quality creatures than other aggro strategies. Leitbur is outstanding even when he's not dodging Black stuff. Shade is huge, and Razor Golem is top notch. Near all of your creatures can just beat through them (flanking / shadow - there are ways to surpass their defenses.) So while it will be a bit tougher, I do not feel that it is unwinnable.
I do agree with that. Its a risky call to run Burn in a more than 2 or 3 rounds Event. Its hard to pass by life gain and mostly in this kind of tournaments people come prepared for the default aggro or burn deck of the field. Yet it can be a good choice if the field is not that prepared to it. Its actually a judgement call allied with a gambling spirit xD
I think we'll have to agree to disagree there, nolight, er, noknife.
It actually CAN be a problem and HAS been a problem in the past. It's mostly a problem with Classic sets as it's easy to acquire a lot of those cards and not many more enter the system (and in the case of MED1, NO MORE enter the system).
To believe that it's impossible to happen is either extremely naive or an attempt to deflect perceived criticism.
actually, there is a huge reason to hurry up and sell them, the time value of money. If you are buying this as an "investment" then you are probably interested in taking profits. If the card sits in your inventory, even if the asking price is rising, you realize no gains until you sell the card for a profit. As it sits in your inventory it also ties up your money/tickets from being invested in some other card that you would like to make/take profits on. So the point of buying, hoarding, and holding, shouldn't really work, unless you have a limitless amount of money to invest, and even then it wouldn't really work that well, unless it was a card that was in extremely high demand (staple STD cards), which are coincidentally cards that are in extremely high supply from people drafting. These are not cards that are in fringe formats that have very few players, such as classic, where this can actually possibly be exploited due to the actual supply of the cards, but will ultimately backfire, because the demand for the cards just isn't there. Perhaps in some cases a hoarder will make a profit, but they could have done more with their money making many smaller speculative investments, more often than not they will break even or even perhaps lose money. This issue is a perceived problem, not a real problem
Noknife
It varies.
Usually it's not very effective as the market price will work itself out.
Sometimes, very effective, like in the case of Vampiric Tutor.
One problem is that someone can hoard a card and just sit back and wait. It's not degrading, taking up storage space, etc.
So if someone is for some reason hording Natural Order, there's no need to drop the price to hurry and sell them. They can just sit back and wait for enough people who want it at 3x the price they bought it for. It may take a while, but there's no reason they can't sit on the cards and wait it out. Like Vampiric Tutor.
Well explained, thanks for sharing dude... Keep the good work!
This is really a problem with the automated pricing scheme though. Its not a problem with the market.
Either you just eat these types of losses because of the convenience yoru gaining in the automated pricing or you account for it in the automated pricing scheme or you stop automatic pricing.
How effective is hoarding anyway?
I like the hoarding/speculating. If they get completely out of control yes I agree it can be bad. But these sorts of issues are exactly what make the trading part of this card game fun. Obviously we are talking about some extreme situations. As much as I love mtgotraders and the bot networks in general. It sure would be awesome to have a paper experience where I actually trade cards without an exchange of money. Right now, I only dump money in the system for new cards. I basically have no avenue to trade at all. Anyway I'm getting off topic.
My point is, I think that if bots were integrated into the system and everyone used them that it would be much more difficult to hoarde/speculate. People underestimate how many cards lay dormant on people's accounts that are never even on the market. I have meddling mages, force of wills, etc. and I've never once put them on the market because it would be a hassle. If it were simple and easy the people like me would come out of the woodwork.
There are tons of good ways to stop this from happening. Like I said, every stock market on earth works exactly the same way. Dynamic pricing could also change the sell price of a card on a per transaction basis. Also, why not make only 4X of a card available at a time. If what you are saying is true, then the bot owners will have to get more sophisticated with their buy/sell lists to protect themselves from pumping and dumping.
Nice article. Great insight ;)
Why nobody made some forex-like system for cards buying\selling mechanism like on stock market. I think it is not so hard and can be very intresting.
It's hard to play the format you want when cards cost 30 tix each..
Great article. I had some questions on what deck should i choose to play. Now i believe burn is the best option.
I get my price list on Wed, write it Thursday to be posted Friday. It's the smallest runway I can have to get my article done on time.
Unfortunately, due to the speed of the MTGO economy even a two day old price can be vastly outdated. *shrug*
Good comments, but it's missing a little something.
You seem to be confusing the premise of hoarding and speculating. They're closely tied together, but they achieve different results.
In your example, an automated moving price list is extremely susceptible to being taken advantage of by hoarders (in fact, this has happened to bots in the past who used such a list).
I buy all 40 of your at 1.00. ($40)
You raise the buy price to 1.10 and get 20.
I buy all 20 at 1.1 ($22.00)
You raise the buy price to 1.5 and get 20
I buy all 20 at 1.5 ($30)
You raise your buy price to 2.00 and get 10
I buy all 10 at 2 ($20, total $112.0)
you raise your buy price to 2.5 and get none
you raise your buy price to 3.0 and get none
You raise your buy price to 4.0 and I dump a ton of the cards I bought to you and to every card bot that shares a list with you for a total of 280 tix, or 160 ticket profit.
This is real, and it does happen.
But like I said in the article... there's no real good way to stop it from happening.
I have had good results against affinity. I drop the Spark Elemental for Smash to Smithereens. Affinity is one of my happy matchups.
Fiery Temper is always playable against MBC. You go from "Discard a card" to here's a "Lightning Bolt, thanks for the help". My opponent was bummed when his Unburden caused him to lose 6 life.
Hamtastic i don't how you write this article i mean if you write it the Thursday and then post it the friday, but the problem is always that you post the article the prices from MTGOTRADERS are Updated like a weekly update, so some prices on your charts are outdated look at FoW now is in 70 for a single.
Hoarding and greed are the grease that makes a market go. If you are scared of hoarding, create a dynamic pricing system, as more people buy, the price goes up automatically, just like the stock market. When nobody is buying, the price drops. That is how every stock market in the world, which is a trade-able commodity works. There is literally nothing that you can do to stop people from hoarding, if they are willing to pay the price. That is how a market works, and to block someone from spending their money how they choose is basically impossible, and also runs exactly opposite to capitalism, which is the thing that every dealer and bot on MTGO engages in. As a positive note, there is an old saying "pigs get slaughtered", and that is what generally happens when people hoard any sort of commodity, sometimes its the opposite, but generally hoarding doesn't work out as a profitable move.
PS. I currently, nor never have, owned more than 4X of any card, other than commons from drafting. I just don't believe that this is a real issue, there is enough supply of almost any card to get a playset of anything if you are willing to pay the price. I have been playing the game since its inception, and I have never had a single issue buying any card that I have wanted, including daze, dual lands, force of will, orim's chant, and every other chase card that has existed over the years. Granted, I am willing to pay the price, and I have significantly more capital to invest than the average person playing the game.
Noknife
This is a great idea, and I think I'll start tracking something like that in the future! :)
Thanks for clarifying! I didn't know about the artificial buy prices, how sneaky of them!
Yeah. Those are the folks I'm largely talking about. It's one thing to pick up a few extra copies looking to make a profit if they increase. It's an entirely other thing to attempt to cause the increase in order to profit from a self-created lack of supply.
*grufumble*
Alex is right - though I find that I'm not always curving perfectly as often as I'd like. You've also got Oblivion Ring to deal with Longbow, and your creatures (as I mentioned in my previous reply) have evasive measures to push through GE. It is still a tough matchup, but not unwinnable.
An open market (bots for all!) wouldn't really solve it. In fact, it might make it worse.
Right now, hoarders can only really raid automated places, like bots to grab all the low hanging fruit, as it were.
If all the copies of a card are easy to buy on a moments notice, I could see groups being able to easily corner the market on them. Or at least, much more easily than they do now.
Although I still think an open automated system for buying/selling would be an overall improvement, but I do worry about people being able to more completely corner a card out of the market. :(
Also, Speculation is a "good thing" in my book. It rewards some risk and mitigates costs for shrewd buyers. I actually speculate on cards on a fairly frequent basis, sometimes it pays off. Other times I break even or lose a little.
Against MBC you have 7-8 x Pro: Black guys between main and side. They're going to have a hard time of it as their best bet is to play 8x Sacrifice removal - but you can play around it by 'insuring' your Pro:Black men by dropping a secondary critter alongside them. Considering things like this it forces them to whipe the rest of your board to deal with these problems. If additional issues present themselves in the matchup you can always pull out the COP:Black, but I don't feel it necessary.
Grand Entrance is much harder. The reason is, like you say, their cards are higher quality. Combine this with the fact that WW, while agressive, cannot post the 4th turn kills that other aggro decks can. This gives GE the time that it needs to stabilize.
Many GE-type decks are now packing black for their removal. Pro:Black will shine here as well.
Though others remain blue/white or splash red. These cases will be harder, but you do have higher quality creatures than other aggro strategies. Leitbur is outstanding even when he's not dodging Black stuff. Shade is huge, and Razor Golem is top notch. Near all of your creatures can just beat through them (flanking / shadow - there are ways to surpass their defenses.) So while it will be a bit tougher, I do not feel that it is unwinnable.
I do agree with that. Its a risky call to run Burn in a more than 2 or 3 rounds Event. Its hard to pass by life gain and mostly in this kind of tournaments people come prepared for the default aggro or burn deck of the field. Yet it can be a good choice if the field is not that prepared to it. Its actually a judgement call allied with a gambling spirit xD