For those unaware, Magic: the Gathering recently banned several expensive cards ($100 and $2-300) from the game's most popular way to play (Commander a.k.a. Elder Dragon Highlander). This is after one of those cards was put in a recent set that was a selling point for lots of people. Wizards of the Coast knew about this ban from an independent group of organizers almost a year ago, but went ahead with the printings anyway.
So now some people have cards they bought for over $100 plummet to prices below $50 (and continuing to drop) since this one type of play is the only place these cards were used. Foil versions were once going as high as $800 to $1,000 but are now dropping to $200.
The thing is, these cards were never on Magic's "reserve list," cards Wizards has promised to never print tournament-legal versions of. The last cards added to the list were in 1999/2000. Cards after that can be printed into the ground. Anyone who pays attention to Magic prices knows cards not on that list can have their prices gutted overnight. You shouldn't be investing in collectables, anyway. But especially Magic cards and especially not ones that can be reprinted.
We now have this situation where capitalists do what they do and a bunch of people, including Tim Pool, are flipping the fuck out after getting scammed by Wizards of the Coast and their owner, Hasbro. Older players warn people about this all the time that WotC will print cards they know they're going to ban, then wait until those cards have been sold off before pulling the trigger. They win either way. Whales who must always buy new thing before getting hyped to buy the next new thing fork over their money trying to get ahead of everyone else. Players wanting a balanced and fair game are happy because the problem cards are gone (and thus not quitting).
"""""Investors""""" have been a blight on TCGs from the get-go. A lot of Magic's recent problems have been from the feedback loop created by Commander/EDH (a whole other can of worms I'm not getting into in this post). So it's doubly hilarious when the overlap of EDH players who treat their decks like an investment get burnt. Especially since their format isn't a tournament-oriented one so you can just use proxy/fake versions of cards and anyone who cares is someone you can ignore.
Vintage and Cube players continue to win bigly since we own these cards because we actually play with them, so their value is irrelevant.
Huh, the broken clock is right once a day I guess. Not for the right reasons anyways; personally the ban just doesn't make sense. I say this because for the reason they banned Lotus and Crypt; plenty of others make the cut too for the same reasons. It's the end result of a bunch of investor-ghouls running a third party rules committee that has "plausible" ties to Wizards so when shit like this happens Wizards can just shrug or keep it secret.
The Lotus ban didn't make sense and as someone said; it's likely to drive speculation in private interests. Mana Crypt didn't make sense because there are far, far worse combos in terms of mana-ramping. Their excuse was they "didn't want explosive turn-2 combos" and banned that when I can get a turn 1 voltaic key, turn 2 Sol Ring and have more mana without possibly losing 2 life from a coin-flip. Or using voltaic/manifold on mana vault and others like Basalt Monolith or Grim Monolith. Even if I don't draw them first turn, I can just slap Trophy, Trinket, etc mages into the deck and guarantee them at some point.
Or using Krark Ironworks, Nuka Cola Machine and Manufacturer's Academy for infinite life AND mana before turn 5.
Or banning Thassa's Oracle. Plenty of cards that could make the cut under the same definitions and I have quite a few in mind. The One Ring is still around, which is broken in 1v1 games lmfao.
At the end of the day, while Vintage and Cube has it's own fun; there's a certain satisfaction walking into a LGS with a cheap Malcom, Pirate deck and blowing out 600+ dollar decks with my funny birdman. Collectors have always been a scourge and their massive money-drops don't exactly help them get much farther if you know what you're building. That's why Vintage and Cube has it's own fun though, you don't need to be a super-duper deck master that can see every connection in your deck at once. It's just good fun.