crazy. i am not sure this hurts huge mtgo bots as much as wizards intends. looks like you just force the smaller guys out by making it too expensive for them at a smaller scale. in any case it is bullish for paper and bearish for digital at first glance.

They’ve come out and explicitly said that Modern Masters would not be redeemable. Cards from this set will see some decline in paper, but on mtgo, these cards are going to tank hard.

I agree, the $20 increase seems steep. But, if redemption activity is as large as is alleged, then maybe WoTC felt it was necessary to correct a (from their perspective) market imbalance.

Thanks for reading and commenting.

I think what you say about accepting the margins, at least temporarily, is quite likely among the better-established or larger redeemers. A very small increase followed by gradually pushing the margins to find the eventual equilibrium is probably the best business play long-term.

Also, I think the WotC hike is a little steep. They couldn’t have just made it a flat $20? Just my gripe.

This is not only possible, but likely in my opinion. As an initial guess, I think we’ll see the price for digital sets fall by 10-15 tix on average, and we’ll see a corresponding price increase in paper.

It’s possible there will be a period of adjustment among the redeemers too where their margins are reduced as they figure out the changes to the market. In that case, some of the changes in price will be absorbed, at least temporarily, by redeemers accepting lower margins.