Market Chaos: Pergamon Crash, Leaderboard Mixup, and More!

A lot of chaos has happened in the cards community in the last week, so buckle up and get ready for this wild ride! Some quick terminology for the uninformed:

Pull Event - An event where people open packs when a card is on the market, in order to abuse what’s known on the as ‘The Cards Anti-Laundering System’(TCALS), which is designed to prevent excessive and easy transfers. In this system, the probability of pulling a card is higher when it is on the market. This system has only recently been more understood, as you will see through the course of this article.

Join the cards discord at this link to stay in the know and keep up with all of the action!

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Prologue
The North Pacific Cards Guild hosted a pull event with the Pergamon S1 card and Old Tyrannia S2 card in late March. The event was an all around success, with multiple pulls and no major issues. While the pull event seemed like the highlight of the day, perhaps the most important observation that came from Recuecn, who noticed the following:
At first, this claim was dismissed. However, it became more apparent that this may be true, as other pulls occurred as the auction began to develop into more than a pull event, with bids being matched and asks being changed. Throughout the following two weeks, this theory was put to test on multiple occasions.
One of these instances occurred on April 20th, with the season 1 card of Anime Daisuki. After a low ask was placed, Noahs Second Country overbid Koem Kab and decided to spam bids every 15 minutes, combined with opening packs rapidly following the bids. Surprisingly enough, 3 more copies were generated, 1 from Koem Kab and 2 from Noahs Second Country.

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April Pull Event Nominations
The April Pull event was announced to take place on April 26, with a slight reschedule to 7PM EST to accommodate for most time zones. Nominations took place without too many issues, and the clear nominees were Escade S2(Once valued at 25 bank, making it the most expensive S2 Rare) and S1 Soops, the most valuable card in the entire game. Both of these cards were a cause for excitement. Multiple farmers spent the next week cleaning out puppets, storing packs, and setting up for the event. As a result of Recuecn’s earlier observation and some limited evidence, an important change was announced to the event format:

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Pull Event Action
The April Pull event was the most successful pull event yet. While it didn’t last as long, Soops was found 37 times, by various nations, including 6 finds from Noahs Second Country, 6 finds from Feu de Glace, 3 finds from Destructive Government Economic System, 3 finds from The Northern Light, and various other finds by Pangurstan, The Unified Missourtama States, Refuge Isle and others. Escade was also pulled more than 50 times, by many of the same nations. The event was cut pretty quickly once it was realized how many copies were generated. In the Escade auction, matches worked out well, with no heist attempts or foul play. Jasminlandia, S2 Rares Collector, and Fauzjhia were all able to buy copies of the card for their collections. In the Soops auction, heist attempts by The isle of hockan were prevented by a trade initiated by Noahs Second Country, who traded 30 legendary cards for their copy of Soops. No further drama occurred during this event.

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Pull event 2???
Around midnight PST, it was noticed that two more cards were for sale, and being actively bid on. These two cards were Pergamon S1 and Mindless Contempt S1, the second and third most valuable cards in the game. It was later revealed that this event was coordinated in advance by 9003, Refuge Isle, and Feu de Glace. With the late timing and most people’s packs being exhausted from the prior pull event, there was significantly less participation and publicity. However, the event lasted much longer, and more than 100 copies of Pergamon were found, with multiple copies being found by 9003, The Tampa Bay Rays, Noahs Second Country, Refuge Isle and others. The finds and gains in value were, quite frankly, ridiculous.
At the same time, Mindless Contempt was also being found, though much less frequently. Regardless, it was still found 6 times by Feu de Glace, 5 times by Koem Kab, twice by Noahs Second Country, and a few more times by others. Refuge purchased an additional copy of Mindless Contempt for 1000 bank.

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Leaderboard Mixup
As a result of these 2 pull events, where 3 of the most valuable cards in the game were pulled, Feu de Glace, Greatest Chernobyl, Noahs Second Country, Refuge Isle, The Tampa Bay Rays, and 9006 experienced record setting growth.
For example, Noahs Second Country rose significantly, from around 30th globally to the top 10. This caused some confusion and anger from those who were unable to participate, especially since this is not the only case.

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Post Event Trades
Feu de Glace was the largest beneficiary of both pull events, however, most of the cards pulled were traded away in favor of Pergamon.
As a result, trades were made with multiple nations. Without going into too much detail, Feu de Glace now owns 77 copies of Pergamon.

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Pergamon Crash
This was inevitable. Pergamon peaked with a MV of over 1100, which was no longer sustainable with more than 100 additional copies generated. Shortly after the event, Rain Delay bid 823 bank, matching with an ask set by Greatest Chernobyl. However, Noahs Second Country, still having multiple copies of the card, wanted the bank and underasked. The situation quickly escalated as the asks kept dropping lower and lower, all the way to 99.
After a long auction Noahs Second Country decided to let Koem Kab take the bank of Big Shot, Wopruthien, and Rain Delay. However, Noah did match his two bids of 100 to temporarily save the card’s MV, as self matches are not factored into MV. This ‘save’ did not last long. Following this event, the card sold 6 more times, even at a price as low as 100 bank. Now the market value of Pergamon currently sits at 286.
At one point, with 77 copies of Pergamon, Feu de Glace was second in the world, however, after the crash they now sit at 4th with 60K less.

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NASTIC 2 Crash Part 1
If only the Pergamon crash was the end of things. Shortly after, Alia Atreides listed 2 copies of NASTIC 2, a card worth 300, at .01. This prompted a complex auction that ended leaving the MV at 59. Koem Kab cashed out while Noahs Second Country made a small net profit, with Alia Atreides taking a majority of the loss. It is also notable that quite a few more pulls occurred during the auction, hurting the card even more.

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Complete NASTIC 2 and Escade Crash
For unknown reasons, Alia Atreides decided to list 2 copies of Escade and 5 copies of NASTIC 2 at .01 each. As a result of the additional copies generated, and the generally low demand, the cards became a total loss. NASTIC 2 is now valued below 5 bank, as well as Escade.

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Conclusions
This is not a complete history, nor is it every event that has happened in the cards community lately, it is merely a summary. However, it appears that the cards community is at a crossroads, and I personally anticipate a bit of a culture shift surrounding cards with high MV. As we can see, the MV of Pergamon and NASTIC 2 were devastated by the number of copies generated. However, many believe that this is beneficial, as the cards are more accessible. Regardless, this is a polarizing issue and with our new understanding of the anti-laundering system, pull events may result in intentional MV crashes, secrecy, and general controversy going forward.

Thanks for reading! I wanted to archive these events for future reference since I believe that they are significant to the cards history, just as the Valentine Z auction. For corrections, clarifications, or confirmations please shoot me a telegram!

Noah