I bought into MTGO back in January and have tried to keep Jeskai, Paradoxical Outcome, Oath and Blue Moon up to date. I am really trying not to spend any more money but the value of cards keep falling. Is this normal for MTGO? I had to get Mox Opals back in March and those were $60 per now they are under $40 per. Most of the cards that I buy on MTGO fall and fall by a large margin. Most of my paper cards only go up in value. I am having a hard time understanding what is happening here and it is making me hate MTGO more than I already do. To me MTGO is just a necessary evil to allow people to play without buying in, but I have a hard time seeing how it encourages people to buy in.

On anther note, I usually buy most staples on paper for Vintage and Survival of the Fittest staples are crazy expensive. So, I guess we do need MTGO just to brew in some instances.

I think people are not super excited about MTGO these days because of arena. The more people sell out of mtgo the lower the prices get. I think there is a floor, but we haven't reached it. Some cards that are hard to find and old will still gain value over time, but "investing" in mtgo cards seems like a silly idea, since they can reprint anything at any time, and at some point, mtgo is going to go away.

I think it is fine to buy in to play vintage, but don't look at it as an investment.

@moorebrother1 All of MODO has been dropping in price because of Magic Arena.

Have you considered not owning multiple decks? Just sell what you don't currently have locked into a league to a bot, and when you want to change your 75 just buy what you need and sell what you aren't using to the bot. You'll still lose value over time but not at the same clip. A lot of competitive paper players only own cards because they want options, and when transactions take less than five minutes versus weeks or months it's easier to have options without ownership.

@el-scorcho I really may need to consider doing this. I usually switch up on decks because I get bored playing the same thing. I have tried to stick with decks that run Blue so I have a good range. I may just have to pick 2 like PO and Xerox or Xerox and Oath but I'm not a great Oath player, just an OK one.

I like the variety because decks rise and fall over time and it nice to just switch up after a losing streak. Picking one style of deck is probably the way to go or just narrow down to 2 arch types.

Since I already have what I have, I'll probably just keep the 3 and only update one. I'm into Blue Moon lately but I bought pieces to the Kaya deck and now I probably just have too many decks. But this is how I play magic.

This has always worked for me before on paper because I usually just buy all of the staples and I just need to add new cards when they are printed.

@moorebrother1 MODO is almost exclusively designed for players who want to play the game. Paper card finance has to take into account people who want to collect much like baseball cards can have collectability. What works in paper doesn't work in digital.

@moorebrother1 it is not that unusual that during the release of a new (hyped) standard set, prices of eternal cards are declining. Players getting out of their expensive staples to buy into drafting/the new standard meta. That + the EV of treasure chests and changing drop rates of those staples I think are more of a reason for the current prices then the whole arena debate (the price of standard on mtgo isn't that low at all).
collections on mtgo will probably decline in the mid to long term due to arena, but before that i think we might see rising prices on those staples again, for example when modern is the talk of the town again in spring. (excuse my bad english!)

On MTGO, cards finance is all about supply and demand. When some cards suddenly start seeing more use, it's normal that they go up in price. When they see less use, it's normal that they go down. I'm not sure when it happened, but I was looking at vintage price on MTGO and waiting for it to go down, before there was vintage league. I was almost buying vintage decks when suddenly they announced the leagues, then everyone wanted to get into it, and the prices spiked like 3x. Then as people also realized the prices were too high, they started selling cards, and then the price started getting lower and the VMA drafts were announced and the prices went back to where they were.

When VSL started, prices went up because people saw the games and wanted to get into it too. Now that it's ended, people are less excited and there are very few people playing vintage leagues. It does explain a lot the decrease in prices.

The prices oscilations in MTGO are insane, compared to paper cards, probably because of the bots, and it's a pretty good thing. I currently look up at 4 sites when I'm looking to buy expensive cards. The difference between the highest buy price and the lowest sell price is ridiculous. As it's all automated, they earn only a few pennies with each transaction. When I first began and didn't know about the bots system (didn't know where the good deals were), I lost lots of money and wasn't excited at all of changing decks. Now I'm changing decks all the time, going for a ride in modern, standard, legacy... If you buy a deck now, get a 4-1 in a league and then sell it, you probably will still make some tixes of it.

But of course, if you'd like to just get a huge collection and leave it there, you will lose money, in vintage. Unless you get good results in competitive leagues, then it will compensate.

And also there are the small things. When the boring kaladesh standard rotated out, a LOT of modern staples became cheaper, in one week there were cards losing half it's value. And then when people get bored of standard and go back to modern, those cards will get it's value back (partially, at least).

The same goes for treasure chests. It usually oscilates between 2.1 and 2.6 tix. After new sets are released, it goes up in value, and starts slowing going down. Then when another set is released, it goes up again, etc...

Well cheaper cards on mtgo must be a good thing right? I think vintage(at least mtgovintage) would be better off if people saw their card acquisitions as a sunk cost to play the format and not as investments. Even if my mtgo collection goes down to 1 dollar I wouldn't care, I bought vintage and I still have the (digital) cards. I did not make an investment.

I bought a new TV last week, the TV probably lost 25% of it's value as soon as I bought it, that does not make me hate the TV.

Besides, my mtgo collection is "worth" maybe 1% of my paper collection...

@mountain-goat and @GutoCmtt are correct.

The current dip is due to Standard rotation and Guilds of Ravnica. The barrier to playing a different format on MTGO is low so you have players selling "eternal" staples to buy standard decks or play drafts. Just look at Mox Opal's price history on MTGGoldfish:

You see that pretty much every set release is coupled by a significant set drop in Mox Opal's value. The exceptions I can see are Aether Revolt (Sram equipment was a huge thing back then if I can remember correctly) and non-standard legal sets like MM3 and M25.

This is a predictable financial fluctuation on MTGO and I know some players use this opportunity to buy Modern staples.

Still, I maintain that you shouldn't buy into Vintage on MTGO because you expect to make money off the cards. You should buy in because you enjoy playing the format competitively and want the ability to do so more frequently.