One Magic: The Gathering player decided that they wanted to redecorate their game room wall with 1,400 Llanowar Elves, so they bought out every listing on tcgplayer, promising to keep buying them as they pop up, and this has meant that, overnight, its value has shot up.
As reported by MTG Rocks, this increase in value is likely to stick or continue growing as Reddit user llanowarelvesftw continues to buy them, permanently reducing how many there are in circulation. Already, some are being listed at incredibly high prices, though these don't look like they're actually selling. The ones that are tend to be under $20.
"I Plan to Cover one entire Wall in my gaming room with [these] elves," llanowarelvesftw said in their post. "To Reach my Goal i Need about [3,600] elves. But since i gathered [2,200] elves over the last 5 years the supply seems to dry Out. I will Post the gaming room Wall once its [finished]."
While this seems like a mostly harmless project to celebrate one's favourite card by decorating their game room with it, not everyone is convinced, with some speculating that it's "someone trying to spike the market to get a better price to sell his own spec". Others in the thread were less skeptical, and offered to sell their collection of Llanowar Elves cards to help speed up the project, asking that he share a picture of the wall when it's all done.
However, he only wants Unlimited Llanowar Elves, an older set marked by its white border. Some who offered to sell revised versions were shot down, as llanowarelvesftw is sticking rigidly with the classics.
Those who do believe it have some concerns, however, with one user asking, "Why can't you just proxy this instead of setting 1400 unlimited llanowar elves on fire?" By proxy, they mean using fake cards, rather than taking real ones out of commission entirely, keeping the market from hiking. llanowarelvesftw, however, only replied to correct them on the amount, "3600 elves".