MVP doesn't encourage anyone to do anything. This has everything to do with the market, as you have stated. And it's a market you also willingly participate in. If MVP is going to test run Watts in Proton but only 3/10 were viable (just an example, I have no clue why they had that limited run available) and the other 7 were waste product then they have two problems. They may have a couple hundred proton watts laying around while also having to back to the drawing board to figure out the molding issue they had.
You must be new to MVP and not actually followed much of it.
MVP made a huge stint a few years ago about never again enabling people to scalp discs with limited runs and all this other stuff. It was a really really big deal as they were trying to get admins to ban people from groups even and do some other weird stuff. That was mainly... 1 person I think pushing that, cause he's a dumbass, and gone now thank god. But they made this huge huge huge huge huge, i cannot stress how huge of a deal it was that they would do everything in their power to eliminate scalping and basically the collectors market to make all discs affordable to everyone. This is why they made like 10 billion of the holy shot envys.
Then on the other hand have turned around and noticed that if they stamp "prototype" on a disc, people will instantly buy it from the "pro shop," another thing they litterally swore they would never do.. I digress.
So historically, special runs were kind of slipped out randomly into the world with a stock stamp on it. I have a bunch of original prototypes here in my collection. They look no different from other discs, you had to discover them. It was cool. Lucky people who found them had a prize and it was great.
MVP grew and this practice sort of died off, not 100%, but a bit. Such as I have a stock stamp neutron entropy, but its actually plasma. ... They hadn't ran or thought of running the plasma entropy yet. Same with the Proton. I have proton LE/SE stamp entropy. There hasn't been an "official" run of proton entropies yet.
Most of the discs around then and after that which were prototype, or test runs and what not if they did leave were given a "lab second" stamp and shipped out into the world. So thats why we have cool things like Fission Defy's. Well, that's obviously a prototype/test run. Prototype really does mean something completly different, but MVP figured out they could slap prototype on some of these discs over the years and have basically went almost exclusively to doing this. Which there is generally 100-500 of those discs ran. Which makes them very rare.
They post them up on the pro shop now and they are instantly bought by scalpers who are looking to flip them for huge profits, because people want them. Because there is no official release of it, nor might there ever be an official release of it.
This enables and encourages the market as people flip these discs without any issues and MVP is setting them up to do this. It's not them doing SE variant stamps anymore where they sneak some out. They actually dont even really do that much at all anymore.
The OTB stuff is some sort of special deal they got going on, and its a cool and smart one. and they upped their production from it this time and expanded who could order. Our local store here wasn't on the "order" list, despite being one of the largest brick and mortars in the country sales wise. So.. .. Meh.
Yeah it especially annoys me the old stuff isn't more valuable and they are stupid about what people figure is a "variant" colour
. I'm glad they shoved lizotte hexs down everyone's throat and dropped the value on them. In my view people are collecting the wrong stuff but if they just got into MVP in the last two years that's their marker to what they know. I was trading a trance for a detour and the guy asked me about a watermelon envy, I said yeah I haven't thrown it maybe I could let it go... $35?..
I explained they hadn't been made in 10yrs and it would take $100 to get it off my shelf.
I'm with StrunkFlugget on the resupply, I barely snatched a single OTB soft tempo a day after release, looking forward to throwing that, it pains me to think more than half of those are probably in plastic bags.
100 for envy? More like 150-200.
And of course those are going hot again right now. Especially the watermellon pyro, they going for 80 suddenly. Nobody wanted them a few years ago, we all traded them in secret santa. If you gave yours away you were getting one from someone else, it was THAT unwanted. Now everyone wants one. haha.
I also want MVP to get their consistent molding mojo back. Particularly Waves. The domey-topped ones from the last few years are either too beefy (Neutron) or too flippy (Fission).
Bring back the magic flat-topped Waves!
I have no idea what crack they are smoking over ther.e The full automation they are trying for is great. and its really neat. But the problem is with all this new technology they have going on that their QC has went into the bucket.
LIke.. Bro's, you're releasing thousands of discs that are so wrong they are not even in the same ball park of what they should be.
Okay, you dont wanna waste them, that's fine. Put a special stamp on them so people know its a dud, maybe people will like it, but dont put an orbital stamp on a disc that is more overstable than a wave.