I Met The Man Who Manipulated The Price of Sovereign A/T's.
Here's My Story:
Every now and then we meet someone we can’t quite forget. If you’re anything like me, these unforgettable people are typically insane. That southern Mississippi gas station attendant who kept bopping his head and hollering gibberish? Unforgettable. The lady who always mumbled sayings like ‘I already told you, I can’t die’ in her sleep? Yep… Unforgettable.
Today, I’d like to share a story of the guy who inflated the price of an Import rarity wheel in Rocket League. It isn’t often that I experience shameless price manipulation in a Video Game. Unforgettable. My gut tells me you’re probably curious, too.
“Why are Sovereign A/T’s so valuable?”
I hear questions like these a lot. Normally, I would just shrug it off and say the item in question looks nice. Not today. I know exactly what happened.
To be fair, Sovereign A/T’s do look nice. They’ve got a nice gritty tread with a radiant glow. The sleek metallic plating gives off a lustrous sheen. They’re bladed in an aesthetically pleasing way, with slight overlap to help give an added layer of depth.
Still…
They aren’t particularly rare. I mean, they’re somewhat tough to come by. There are much bigger oddities in the mystical wonderland of Rocket League cosmetics. Sovs are an import, for christ’s sake!
Gather ‘round the campfire, my dear car soccer fanatics. I’ve got a story to tell.
The Man With The Plan:
There once lived a man on PS4 who went by the name of SilkyHands. I like to imagine he had a thick French accent and battered his living room walls in exquisite artwork. Maybe he wore a monocle. Who knows. Internet people can be pretty dang mysterious. Spoiler: Silky was from New Zealand, but I’m going to milk this affluent Frenchman thing.
Anyway, this guy was uncommonly smart. He leaped into the RL trading scene with a clear and definite plan. SilkyHands wanted to commit a mass buyout of everything related to the Beach Blast crate.
Why?
Summertime events are always the most fondly remembered in Rocket League. School is out. The kids get to sleep in after grinding for better ranks late into the night. The adults aren’t caught shoveling snow in the early moments of sunrise. Dad gets to watch his kid become the ultimate 2’s partner… Life is good.
The Beach Blast crate had some dazzling time-gated items to catch our eyes, too. Great looking items. The types of items that make us salivate uncontrollably in the preview screen.
So, Mr. Silky-Pierre-Von-Profit-Trader made several accounts and snatched these items up in secret. He got his friends involved, too. He also wasn’t afraid to bend unspoken trading rules.
He was particularly fond of Sovereign A/T’s. I think it was because they’re a distinctly premium-looking variant of the Sovereign Pro LAN attendance rewards. RIP. Let’s dedicate a quick moment of silence for all our boys who wound up with a set of Sovereign Pros.
How I Met This Madman:
I first encountered SilkyHands on Reddit. I was scrolling through trade lists, searching for exciting new certified items to spice up my inventory. I fumbled across a set of Tactician Black Sovereign A/T’s. As a fan of Sovs myself, I leaped into the fray and offered 1100 credits for them.
The seller said, “Sweet! I’ll be on at XX: XX!”
I’d been looking for black Sovs for a while. I was pretty stoked.
When I contacted him again, my heart sank into the deepest cavity of anguish imaginable. He said, “Oh. This is awkward. You aren’t SilkyHands?”
Uhhh…
That little swirly-moustached Frenchman sniped my trade! Gah! Internet people are the worst people! Not to mention, Silky put me on a spreadsheet – tracking people who were interested in items he was collecting. I didn’t know about the tracking list until much later.
Anyway, I did what any rational human being would do. I hopped into a game of casual 2’s and went on a maniacal demo spree. You know how it goes. The quick chat looked something like this:
“Whoops.”
“Sorry!”
“Sorry!”
A few months passed, and ol’ Silky started gaining a reputation. On Reddit, he had a high profile in the r/rocketleagueexhange community as yeetersmadeline… or something of that nature. Emboldened beside his name was a flair “Sovereign King!” surrounded in a bloody sea of crown emojis because… why not?
Silky was a monster. The reincarnation of the legendary eight-headed dragon Orochi from Japanese legend. No. Silky was worse than Orochi. He was an eight-headed Rockefeller-tycoon wannabe. He bought every pair of Sovereign A/T’s at the seller’s requested price, no questions asked.
On the trade forums of Rocket League Garage, Silky had cleaned out the entire supply of Sovereign A/T’s. If that wasn’t enough, he put up a few fake listings. The listings all asked for massive overpay. Still, if you were desperate enough to reach out to him, the listed items were always ‘sold’ when you messaged him.
You guessed it, my sorry butt learned from experience.
Eventually, those hefty prices became the norm.
Let’s fast-forward another month. One day, Silky approached me. He had apparently backtracked a set of striker pink Sovs to me. For weeks, he would throw down more and more insane credit offers. He sent two offers a day, followed by dozens of messages where he was begging as if he were a prisoner standing before medieval gallows. Naturally, I ignored him.
After all, the little je-ne-sais-quoi punk stole my wheels!
I did what any rational human being would do. I hopped into casual 2’s and chased extermination titles. I pretended I was on a demolition squad with Rocket Sledge himself.
Eventually, Silky pitched an offer over 8000 credits, and I couldn’t ignore him any longer. I said, “Fine. Throw in a set of tactician black Sovereign A/T’s and we’ve got a deal.”
He tried telling me he didn’t have them. The nerve! If I were a cartoon character, my ears would have gone full-blown steam engine and the cap of my head would have come unhinged to let loose a screeching train whistle.
But, I’m not a cartoon character. I think you can guess my real reaction:
I had an easy fix. I sent him screenshots of the trade he sniped.
Scratch that. Easy fix isn’t the right phrase. I dug through my phone for hours to grab those screenshots. Mr. Bartender, I’ll order another round of demos. please!
Anyway, the wheels magically showed up on his “friend’s” account an hour later. I’m a sucker for poetic justice. Also, I was finally getting my wheels!
I sold the pink Sovereigns, no questions asked. A few weeks later he started pulling striker wheels of any color for 10k a pop on Reddit. Silky was committed, if nothing else.
A few months passed, and he sold them off as certified sets… for entire inventories.
Then he liquidated his entire Rocket League inventory and quit the game altogether.
Although, SilkyHands did repent to me before rambling off into the sunset. He held coveted items hostage for traders who hit me with last-minute price hikes. He literally hopped into parties with me and would flex hundreds of striker items.
An unsightly string of drool always draped from their mouths. They resembled a starving pack of Bulldogs… But Silky was the real Bulldog.
His reply was priceless:
“You can’t have them unless you sell to my boy for the agreed price”
After I sold Silky my Pink Sovereign A/T’s, he always asked me about my day. He partied up with all the whales and always knew who had what. He took pleasure in playing matchmaker for collectors all across the PSN platform. In a way, it felt like I was part of a secret Rocket League mafia for a short while. We were part of the Don Silkatore family. We meant business.
Maybe Silky and I got off on the wrong foot. Maybe I just wanted to make excuses to slam demolitions in casual games.
This little rant does have a moral:
Your instincts may be to push away those crazy straight-jacket collectors who constantly outbid your offers. The people who sell their items way over ticket price might make your skin crawl. You want to loathe them. I get it,
If you want to have an inventory worth flexing, keep them close. Yes, they’re insane.
The truth is, we’re all mad here. We’re all unforgettable… in someone’s eyes. Turns out that floaty purple cat had the right idea all along.