Cosmic shift was a crazy new concept. Like most new things, it had its ups and downs. The enigmatic cosmic shift has stopped buying up our cards, and I thought it would be useful to review what happened, provide a bit of a history, and see some of the hiccups along the way.
I. An old wallet repurposed as the Cosmic Shift Wallet
News about the Cosmic Shift began as a blog post. The blog left a rather obvious clue about the eth address "cosmicshifts.eth." GU later corrected the typo to "cosmicshift.eth" (only after someone bought cosmicshifts.eth!) A follow-up blog post came a little later.
Many of us made the (incorrect) conclusion that the information in the wallet was significant. Why else would they have pointed us to that wallet? Later on (way too late) GU would clarify that we shouldn't pay attention to the wallet until the start of Light's Verdict.
The wallet held assets from Guild of Guardians, specifically the hero Rei, some cheap assets from Planet Quest, alongside some random GU cards. I proceeded to buy the same assets because they were cheap. People started throwing Pray to Win cards in the wallet, which, aside from being hilarious also led to more confusion. Of course, in the end the contents of the wallet were absolutely irrelevant at that point in time, leading us all to wonder why on Earth they would send us there way too early.
II. The first actual Cosmic Shift clues
Justin Hulog and Chris Clay held an event on Twitch to discuss the launch of the new set. In it they said a few shrouded things about Light's Verdict and Cosmic Shift. First, they alluded to the fact that it would be beneficial to use the forge ahead of Light's Verdict. Second, Justin noted a bit more about Cosmic Shift; it would target certain cards based on a lore economy for purchase, that we should list cards in $Gods, and that it would target cards related to Thaeriel's "corrupting influence." (No, not the card "corrupting influence," don't be ridiculous!)
On twitter, GU posted that the final lore of the set contained a "Cosmic Shift clue."
I read through this post multiple times and didn't find anything, then this phrase stood out to me:
cracks rippled through the statues in the Sanctums; Thaeriel’s visage fell away, being replaced by the cracked symbol of something, someone, new.
I wondered, is there a card that features a statue of Thaeriel? Turns out there was:
I also jumped on buying Thaeriel's anvil after a Reddit post speculated why the price was jumping. I thought if any item epitomized Thaeriel's influence it was this.
I bought these in shadow because I thought somehow the "corrupting influence" would favor shadow cards. I also wondered if the hint to forge shiny cards meant the Cosmic Shift would buy shines.
I had more misses than wins. I bought a LOT of garbage for pennies, most of which is still in my wallet.
Why didn't the Cosmic Shift buy some of the seemingly obvious choices related to Thaeriel? Many expected Eucos in Eclipse, and other Thaeric cards to be purchased besides enforcer. Other purchases, such as reclaim, seemed only tenuously connected and not predictable from the clues provided.
III. Cosmic Shift starts to buy
50,000 $GODS loaded into its wallet, the Cosmic Shift goes on a shopping spree. The first clue comes out:
I was pleasantly surprised to see a few items sell that I had posted at high prices.
Encouraged by my victory, I waited for the next clue to come out. But then it didn't; because for the first week, basically all the Cosmic Shift did was buy the same cards over and over again!
(Credit to Fallen Nephilim for the list I relied on during the LV event) I trolled Twitter and imxtools for activity but ultimately sold relatively few cards from the Cosmic Shift pull, out of an incorrect assumption that they would quickly stop buying the same cards and move to something else, and because the meteorite prices never balooned like shine cards did. In the end, the shift bought most of the cards repeatedly throughout the event.
IV. Not Brink Watcher - LV Chase Cards!?
After the first week of Light's Verdict, the Cosmic Shift wallet reloads with a trove of $GODS and GU twitter finally sends out a new hint: Martyr of Whiteplain!
At first it bought a very limited quantity. I had purchased 30 LV packs and had two Martyrs, which I put up for sale at what I thought were ridiculous prices in the hopes it would come back around.
Then GU posted a seemingly obvious hint to put Brink Watcher for sale:
"Do you know which card the Cosmic Shift is targeting?" Well, it wasn't Brink Watcher, the card in the art depicted. Apparently the hint was the whiteplains, which is what the Brink Watcher was looking at. From my perspective, this kind of a misdirection was not a great idea where people are putting money on the line. Sorry to whoever bought this from me:
Later another hint came, this time about the Blade of Whiteplain.
The purchase of the already super-rare chase cards led to some angst among GU fans who were already a little dismayed buy the limited print of LV chase cards. I personally sold my martyrs for seemingly crazy prices (prior to the buy, they were trending around $55-$60). My Martyr that sold for 436 $GODS was literally the highest price and last buy of that card purchase. Phew!
I rebought my Martyrs for about $80 a piece and listed at similar prices hoping Cosmic Shift would come around again. It did buy again, but never bought as high the second time.
V. The end, and some obvious clues
Maybe because enough people had complained about prior vague hints, the GU Twitter closes Cosmic Shift with some obvious hints to list Over the Line, Line in the Sand, and Penumbra Howler.
Then, for some reason, Cosmic Shift buys 5 Thaeriels, more Blades and Martyrs, then doubles down on many prior purchases in the final day.
TL;DR and Summary
I thought Cosmic Shift was fun overall, and I appreciate the GU team for venturing into a new space of "lore economy" and giving some life to the marketplace. But there were some missteps to learn from:
- Better upfront communications. GU should have started with an empty wallet: pointing people with cryptic messages to a wallet with a history and assets in it was an invitation for people to buy the wrong things. Having upfront direction about the use of purchased cards would have also been appreciated.
- Clues started out too vague, and ended too obvious. Some cards with obvious ties to Thaeriel were not purchased while others had tenuous ties. Misdirection doesn't play well when people's money is on the line (Brink Watcher).
- The repetitive re-buying of the same assets led some people to speculate on cards for resale with an uncomfortable risk that Cosmic Shift wouldn't come around again. It would have been better IMO to issue new clues and buy new cards than to come back around to the same stuff over and over again.
- Buying ultra-rare LV cards was an unnecessarily controversial thing to do. It pushed the price for a few days and may have sold packs but disillusioned some players.
If a Cosmic Shift happens again, I'll definitely try to follow along, this time with some lessons learned, both for myself and hopefully by GU.