I Want My MTG
Price alerts are one of those features that sound great until you turn them on for fifty cards and start ignoring every email. The trick is being picky. Here are the situations where an alert earns its keep, and the ones where it does not.
How alerts work in the app
Open any card’s detail page and you can set an alert: a price you care about, in either direction. When the market price crosses that line, you get a notification in the app (and an email, if you have those on). Alerts fire once per crossing, not every day the price stays past your threshold.
That last detail matters. You will not get spam if a card sits at a new high for a week. You will only hear from us when something changes.
Set an alert when
A card you own is approaching your sell number. This is the strongest case. If you have decided you will sell at $40 and the card sits at $32, an alert at $38 gives you a heads-up to actually act instead of finding out three weeks late. The alert is doing the watching so you do not have to.
A card you want is on a downward trend. Same logic, other direction. If you have a target buy price, set the alert at the price you would actually pull the trigger at, not the price you wish it were. Wishful alerts never fire.
A reprint is coming. Reprints usually pull prices down for a few weeks. If you own a card that was just announced for a Commander deck or a Masters set, a downside alert near your floor gives you the option to sell before the dip and rebuy later. (Whether you should is another question.)
A card is rotating in or out of a format. Standard rotation, a Pioneer ban, a new Modern Horizons set: these are catalysts that move prices fast. An alert on a few format staples you care about is cheaper than checking prices every morning.
Skip the alert when
The card is a bulk rare. Anything under a couple dollars is going to move by cents, not dollars. Alerts on bulk are mostly noise.
You are not actually going to do anything about it. This is the honest one. If the alert fires and you would shrug and close the email, you did not need the alert.
You set it at a number that has no relationship to your plan. “Tell me if it moves 10 percent” sounds smart, but 10 percent on a $4 card is forty cents. Set thresholds based on a number you would actually trade at, not a percentage that sounds reasonable in the abstract.
A reasonable starting setup
If you are new to alerts, try this:
- Pick your five most valuable cards.
- Set an upside alert at a price you would genuinely consider selling at.
- Pick three cards on your wishlist.
- Set a downside alert at a price you would genuinely buy at.
Eight alerts is enough to learn the rhythm without flooding your inbox. Add more as you figure out what feedback is useful and what is not.
When alerts fire
You will see the notification next to your username in the navbar. If you have email notifications on (your account page lets you toggle that), you get one there too. Either way, the alert moves into your notifications list with a link to the card, so you can act on it immediately.
Alerts do not auto-disable when they fire. If you want them to keep watching, leave them. If you have decided one way or the other, delete the alert so it stops watching a price that no longer matters to you.