6 replies to this topic

[EeL]

How are these prices determined? By rarity, usefulness, demand or something else? I can understand how Kanan the Swordmistress is super expensive but over $100 is ridiculous when Tourguide used to be that much. This question kind of came up when I was looking to buy Dark Magician Girl, I thought she'd be cheap because no one runs her, her effect is crap in today's meta and she's an old card with multiple reprints. How is she over $40? The price for some cards just confuses me and I was hoping you guys could explain it to me, because I also think sometimes that I may be getting robbed or cheated at the price of cards. I only buy from Troll&Toad.

[Gunnybear]

DMG HAS had reprints, but not recently. The latest one was in DPYG and as a super rare in a Duelist pack it's fairly hard to pull. Still, the most expensive is a 1st ed Secret from Magician's force and I don't even see that at $40. All depends where you get your prices. That and the certain..."appeal" the card has for a lot of people...

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What?

[Jesse]

Demand and Rarity are the main determiners. If you compare the prices of Maxx "C" and Tour Guide from the Underworld, and then Heavy Storm and Monster Reborn, you'll get what I mean.

When it gets known that Maxx C and Tour Guide are tournament-winning cards, everyone wants them. Sure everyone wants Heavy Storm and Monster Reborn too, but there's one big difference. They're limited. When people buy Maxx C or Tour Guide, they buy them in threes. Or perhaps twos. That triples the demand for each player, making them more expensive to get. Heavy Storm and Monster Reborn are only bought in ones. Possibly twos, but you won't see much higher than that. And even though they also take place in tournament-winning decks, each player only needs one. So vendors don't sell near as much. That's why they put the cost lower, because they need to get rid of them, or it's a negative business.

Tour Guide is such a massive card, along with being slightly recent, so nobody had it either. The vendors not only had to raise enough profit to get enough of the cards to sell, but with such a high demand and many back orders, they raise the price up. People aren't going be able to get the cards anywhere else, so they know they can get away with asking for more money.

[EeL]

Well I know DMG has fan-boys drooling over her, but the one on TrollandToad 1st edition secret rare is $44. I get why Tour Guide is mega expensive, but Heavy Storm and Monster Reborn shouldn't be that much. They're constantly reprint, the only ones that should cost a ton are the holo/ultra rare versions. And I don't get how common cards are super expensive, that is, common reprints of amazing cards. Like the reprint of Tour Guide shouldn't be so much since it's fairly easy to get her from the Battle Pack.

[Gunnybear]

Generally for me, Trollandtoad is for buying cheap singles together (Staples) while expensive singles (DMG, TGU, Maxx C etc...) I buy from other players or on eBay. The most accepted market prices are eBay lowest buy it now, but I know a guy who has a whole procedure of like 20 steps averaging out prices from different sources. But yeah, Trollandtoad, TCGPlayer and the like aren't the best places to get prices from.

[EeL]

So Troll&Toad is a bad source for cards? I'm like buying whole decks from there, granted most of the decks I'm building aren't really from sought out cards.

[Gunnybear]

Not a bad source, just not the cheapest