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Mana-Charged Dragon Spike on TCGPlayer: $15 of Wishful Thinking

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Just quick morning update here, folks. Looks like someone went buy-happy on TCGPlayer last night. The target was Mana-Charged Dragon. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.

Mana-Charged Dragon, 4/14/2015
Mana-Charged Dragon, 4/14/2015

The utter lack of buy price movement tells me that merchants aren't selling through these, nor are they having much trouble restocking. I'm always very dubious of sell-side-only spikes; they usually represent an individual (or small group) opinion of a card, and are generally compounded by small or limited print runs. Perhaps someone is making a bet on Commander or Casual Dragons as a result of DTK, but I remain unconvinced this is a card worth caring about.

"Legitimate" price changes are driven by true demand, and we have seen, time and time again, that buy prices are usually leading indicators of demand and are predictably followed by sell-side growth. That's not the case here, though we may see a buy price increase. Frankly, with this card TCG-midding at $15, I would not be shocked to see a bunch of people pull them out of binders and rapidly undercut one another.


Kelly Reid

Founder & Product Manager

View More By Kelly Reid

Posted in Finance, Free, NewsTagged

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3 thoughts on “Mana-Charged Dragon Spike on TCGPlayer: $15 of Wishful Thinking

  1. Kelly,

    I really enjoy these new “on the spot” updates you’ve been pushing out as of late. Keep up the great work. I feel the exact same way, though in these instances there’s always a few dollars to eek out of these “sell side spikes”. While I personally don’t like chasing the white rabbit, I can understand financiers hedging bets on pre-spiked prices.

    We saw the same exact thing with the Conspiracy Mythic Scourge of the Thrones, it still maintained a new price.Coordinated buy-out? Maybe. Dragon hype? maybe. The only justification here, is supply. Rarely do these cards ever go back to pre-spiked prices when something like this happens.

    The other one that is trending as of today, is Shere of Resistance, which I’d be much more inclined to purchase. It’s actually a card that’s used in Legacy, with Lands becoming more popular to play.

    Again, enjoy these new updates.

  2. Yeah, I noticed Sphere too and was going to be making a post about it shortly 🙂

    I’ve noticed that these cards tend to settle almost exactly half-way between their pre- and post-spike price (regardless of true demand). Buy list prices dont move with nearly as much magnitude.

  3. Is it just me, or are we seeing more frequent buy-out spikes on random cards in the last few months? It feels like people started talking about Tiny Leaders and suddenly everyone with $100 in their pockets is tossing money at buying out something or other based on tea leaves.

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