Hot Specs: Early August 2017

By: James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

Hey folks. I know what you’re here for, so let me cut out most of the preamble and share some of my most recent targets for reasonable gains as of early August, 2018.

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James Chillcott is the CEO of ShelfLife.net, The Future of Collecting, Senior Partner at Advoca, a designer, adventurer, toy fanatic and an avid Magic player and collector since 1994. He is also co-host of MTGFastFinance, our weekly MTGFinance podcast.

18 thoughts on “Hot Specs: Early August 2017”

  1. Something appears to be wrong in the formatting department-I cannot read any part of the article at all.

  2. Are you ever going to fix your price guides? They take waaay too long to load, AND Hour of devastation is still not up. Come the hell on. You guys are really falling short of your priorities.

    1. Keith, I’m guessing the answer is “not for a good while”. The tech is overloaded with things that need doing, and hiring additional full time help is not sustainable, according to James and co. It’s definitely on the decline, especially since the promised tech related overhaul from several weeks ago is still not there yet.

      1. Another good question. At this point, this site doesn’t really offer much and certainly doesn’t encourage users to pay $5 a month to enjoy their so called benefits (which do not seem to pay off according to what I’ve heard from others).

      2. Plenty of problems remain with the site, but we’re making big moves in the background to position ourselves for a major overhaul this fall. In the meantime, a steady stream of podcast content, weekly picks and links to Vendor Team pricing easily justifies our tiny annual membership cost for those that appreciate the early access. I get thanks for making & saving folks money several times per week. If there are specifics you need to max your value, feel free to share in productive fashion and we’ll add it to our to do list of considerations.

      3. If you are referring to the podcast, its posted every week in the pro trader forums. If you are referring to something else, then I have no clue what you are referring to.

      4. One thing I want to put out there.

        I notice that it is fairly popular to come to the comments section for the articles to make grievances about the site. If what people want is to have their complaints ignored, or not even seen, then please continue. I’ve not seen where many people are getting any satisfaction from the MTGPrice crew by doing so.

        On the other hand, I have experienced myself, and have been told by others, that if you contact James directly, he deals with the problems quickly, or at least has an answer one way or the other.

        I am 100% serious and am not trying to be a dick to people who are frustrated. I understand and agree with most of the reasons people are frustrated about.

        If anyone said to me that things should work differently on this site, I would totally agree. The fact is, things haven’t worked that way since Alistair abandoned the site, and things will continue to be wrong for an indefinite amount of time.

        So, if the question of getting ones moneys worth is causing aggravation, it may be wise to consider the above paragraph, because, for anyone who chooses to stick around and is already frustrated, its going to be status quo for quite some time.

      5. Eric is on point here. Much easier to reach me via Twitter most days, and I’m the most likely to provide insights or a fix if you’ve got a membership related issue. Alasdair has’t abandoned the site, he’s just stretched thin working at PokemonGo and the site is much more complex that it may seem to the average user. That being said we have strong upgrades coming in the next couple of months, which will be announced via an article asap.

      6. When did they announce that change? Did management decide that it was no longer beneficial to release it to the public after 48 hours or so? This is very bad form, as they are taking away the already few (if any) hooks to Protrader membership.

      7. The fast finance podcast-earlier this year, you stated that people needed to wait at least 48 hours before releasing it. I hope you get back to your previous schedule in the fall, responding to the bottommost comment.

      8. MTGFastFinance is published weekly, with early access in the Pro Trader forums and has a growing user base. If you’re referring to the show notes articles, those are schedule dependent for me, and this summer has been busy. Will be staying on top of those with greater regularity heading into the fall.

      9. I’m guessing you are referring to the tech related overhaul regarding the collection interfaces and so on? You said through Reddit that this is what you are working on back in July. Need clarification here on what exactly is being focused on at present. Thanks.

      10. Most of the issues with MTGPrice functionality and price displays are actually Crystal Commerce issues related to multiple vendors reliance on that platform and their poor interactions with our pricing scan techniques. We are pushing past all of that by offering next gen price data handoffs to our vendor partners, by working closely with Crystal Commerce, and by adding additional price sources and changing how our Market Price is calculated. It’s a big project, but once complete, our price data will be the new industry standard.

      11. Yeah, I am NOT a fan of crystalcommerce, as the issues there have caused too many headaches to be a benefit at present. This is a very ambitious project that you’re working on (and one that could pay off in spades if launched correctly). I hope that in the meantime though that more time is hopefully allocated to addressing some of the issues that currently exist on this site, as that would bring a lot of the confidence that was lost from 2016 and the first half of 2017.

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