EMA Reveal Fallout - Trading and Vendor Insider Info

[Remillo]

Hey guys, just gonna make an announcement here for those of you who buy, sell and trade cards -

With the announcement of Eternal Masters, prices of Reserve List staples of Legacy will be going up and the prices of potential reprints (staples that are NOT on the reserve list) may begin to fall.  If you're going to be dealing with these cards, be sure that your trade partners are trustworthy, and make sure you know how to spot counterfeit cards.  Take a Jeweler's Loupe (x10 Magnification) with you, and know what to look for:  Different layers of printing, dot patterns, etc.  Try to have a cheap card from booster pack prints of the sets in question to compare to.  Just be sure that you are 100% sure of a card being real before committing to it.  If you have reason to believe a card is fake, simply have it excluded from the deal.  Now is the prime time for people trying to pass counterfeits as real, so be prepared!

For more information, and to read the post I shamelessly paraphrased from, check out this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/463694/psa_protect_yourself_when_buyingtrading_for/

Now for the juicy part:

Over the past few months, there have been several reports at larger events like GPs of Vendors apparently having information regarding the existence and contents of Eternal Masters well before the general public.  These vendors would offer good prices on some Legacy staple and work towards buying as many as possible.  Of course, the goal of this would be to stock up on as many cards that will increase in value after not being reprinted, and buy cards that WILL be reprinted at lower prices because the retail price would drop.  What this means is that these vendors did actually have insider knowledge, and used that knowledge to game the market and screw over consumers.  Investigation is being conducted into the source of these leaks and the identities of the vendors that have this information.  A person on the insider of all of this, known only to twitter as "MTGDeepThroat" (@VendorLeaks) has provided information to the public, and more importantly WotC, to help shut down this conspiracy.  The current going price to retailers for the Set List for Eternal Masters is reported at a huge $25,000, which could easily be made back in the coming month by abusing the secondary market and the hype for EMA.  The information is reported to be for-sure held by three or four vendors, with screenshots of chats going back as far as confirming early knowledge of the contents of Modern Masters 2015.  @VendorLeaks has confirmed that WotC has responded to his information, and his identity will eventually be revealed when all of the information goes public.

What does this mean for you?  Well, until the Vendors with Insider Information are made public, be wary of selling your Legacy staples, especially at large events.  Pay attention to their buylists.  If some cards are being bought for a very good price, and others for lower than usual, don't sell to them, just hold on to your stock.  Don't let the people who manipulate the market for greed manipulate you.  Stay informed.

[MuggyWuggy]

Can't + you anymore

[MuggyWuggy]

Now looking back at vendor buylist at gps: many of them were buying many legacy staples aggressively

[blackychan1]

MTG Deepthroat has said that SCG isn't in on this, which is a relief. I've been watching this for some time (over 4chan), and didn't realize that Reddit was talking about this too!

[blackychan1]

Hot off the presses. http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/statement-about-eternal-masters-card-list-2016-02-16

[Sto5rm]

Taking this to post on a few mtg groups

Thanks so much for this +1 for days

[Thefluffymacheen]

Thanks for the information!  Also, spot on X-Files reference by MTGDeepThroat (If you haven't seen it, go watch the first season and you'll get it).

[blackychan1]

This thread has some pretty odd screenshots that were hastily deleted from the Twitter though.
https://boards.4chan.org/tg/thread/45484744/the-vendor-leakening-part-2

[Remillo]

To elaborate on that -

@VendorLeaks has come out to say that this investigation was based on misleading screenshots provided by a vendor that had reason to want to implicate other vendors of having stolen information to have them shut down by WotC.  Apparently most of the comments of having leaked info or selling the Master List were made in jest, and these jokes were handed to @VendorLeaks in an attempt to pass them off as serious.  They were taken as such and submitted to WotC, and have now been revealed (by the same person who sent them) as false, along with a public apology to those that were implicated in the screenshots, and a promise to move forward with legal action against those that tried to pass off the information as true in order to shut down the others.

That is the information we have for now.