The 'spiky' characteristic (as I imagine it to be) refers to the distribution of card value across the set. A spiky set will see a few very expensive cards, with the majority of the cards in the set being low-value, where a 'flat' set would see many more card values being closer to the average price. Let's start off by comparing M13 to Avacyn Restored.
AVR's mythics were, from a value standpoint, pretty solid in my opinion. The following mythics are either playable in a relevant constructed format, big casual favorites, or both: Avacyn, Bonfire, Entreat the Angels, Gisela, Griselbrand, Sigarda, Tamiyo, and Temporal Mastery. (Bruna, Tibalt, and Craterhoof are not terrible pulls either.) If there are eight out of fifteen mythics you're happy to pull, that's above-average. By comparison, ISD had three: Garruk Relentless, Geist of Saint Traft, Liliana of the Veil. Sets rarely have eight mythics worth more than $5 or $6 a month after release, so AVR is definitely doing well on that front. Additionally, all of the rares that I would consider opening in AVR: Cavern of Souls, Restoration Angel, Silverblade Paladin, Terminus, Vexing Devil, Wolfir Silverheart, and Zealous Conscripts. Seven rares is not spectacular, but it's not atrocious either. (There are maybe four rares you would be happy to see in an ISD pack, and that's pushing it. That does not include the land cycle, because lands are always a stronghold of value, and there is no land comparison in AVR.) In total, that puts AVR at eight mythics and seven rares, for fifteen total rare-slot cards you would be happy to pull.
Looking at mythics for M13, we get nine: Ajani, Akroma's Memorial, Garruk, Jace, Liliana, Nicol Bolas, Sublime Archangel, Thundermaw Hellkite, and Vampire Nocturnus. That's higher than AVR, but remember that AVR has been out for about 3 months now, and M13 hasn't even officially released yet. In a month, I wouldn't be surprised to see half of those cards drop into the 'I wish this was a different mythic' category. That's obviously speculation, and hard to quantify, but perception of value is just as important as the real value (and one could argue that 'real' value is just the aggregate of 'perception' value, but that's a whole other discussion). Onto the rares: Gilded Lotus, Master of the Pearl Trident, Talrand, Thragtusk, and Yeva. That's five, and I feel like most are already on the cusp of wishing they were something else.
So in total, that is fourteen cards in M13 we're happy to see, compared to the fifteen in AVR. Factor in where M13 may be in a month, and my rough guess puts it closer at six or seven to fifteen. Why does it seem like M13 will be so low in a month though?
The largest factor is reprints. The set of lands is on their fourth printing. They may be spectacular for the game and exactly the type of land that standard needs, but even the revised duals couldn't sustain much value if you printed them in four core sets in a row. Three planeswalker reprints, of which only one has ever been relevant. Gilded lotus, a casual/EDH favorite, is on it's second printing. Intrepid Hero: fourth print. This is Mutilate's third time around, Quirion Dryad's third, Redirect and Reverberate's 3rd and 4th, Serra Avenger's 2nd, and Silklash Spider's third. That is a lot of extra copies of those rares in circulation that is definitely suppressing their value. Those reprints I listed are just the cards that I feel MAY have had value if it was their first time around. There are other reprints as well, but I don't think they would have been worth much even if they were brand new.
That is only half of the spiky factor, though. The other half is the few cards that may be all-stars in constructed formats, and generate a great deal of demand. The banner card at this point for prospective long-term value and playability is Thundermaw Hellkite. A lot of people have talked about how good the card is, so I won't discuss that. I simply want to recognize it as what could likely be the most valuable card in the set in three weeks time. What does that have to do with price spikiness, though? Well, if there is only two or three mythics that are any good at all, and the rest of the set has had it's value massively suppressed by reprints, it means a lot of value is going to get pushed upward. When a fat person puts on a girdle, it doesn't get rid of the fat, it just pushes it elsewhere. In this case, it's going straight up. If an AVR box and an M13 box are both $90, then the market is going to try it's damndest to set the average value of both sets as close to each other as possible. When 95% of the set is incapable of holding any real value due to reprints, that leaves only a few places to put the weight of that $90 box: squarely on the shoulders of Thundermaw Hellkite and maybe two other mythics. The reason Griselbrand isn't a $40 mythic is because he's surrounded by a lot of other playable/popular mythics that help prevent him from climbing like a rocket. (Bonfire is currently $30, but I believe that is a short-term high, and it will drop closer to $18-$25 in a few weeks.)
As I write all of this, I realize a source of tension I hadn't considered in this light before that Wizards has to deal with: reprints. Reprints may be fantastic for the actual gameplay (such as the M10 lands), or they may be casual favorites (Battle of Wits, Gilded Lotus), or they may be utility cards (Mutilate). Whatever they are though, their value is constrained by the number of copies in the world, and they will find it impossible to climb much in value. The tension for Wizards is that they may really want these cards in a core set, but the grim reality is that they are going to actively drive down the value of packs. Of course, as players, we feel the outcome of their decision. Standard is a better format, but my 40 M10 lands just dropped $2 each. I'm really happy I can finally pick up a Gilded Lotus for my EDH deck, but my friend's foil copy just halved in value. Reprints are really, really tricky: Everyone wants them, and they typically contribute to the health of the format, but they're almost never worth any money.
At the end of the day, Thundermaw Hellkite has the potential to be a price spike. He could hit $40 as a four-of in many standard decks, which is a losing proposition for everyone, and starts drawing comparisons to Baneslayer's first visit to standard, or a smaller-scale JMS. Nobody wants $50 and $60 cards in standard. There is no real way to stop it from happening, unfortunately, unless the set the card is in has a more evenly-distributed value. Which means very few reprints. Which means not giving players what they want, and not being able to use core set space for exactly what it's intended for. I don't know the solution to the problem, and I'm not sure Wizards does either.
Nice game. Do you recommend Nvidia card for it?
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