Unlocked Pro Trader – The Time to Panic

Readers!
Typically I don’t like to talk about cards that are in the middle of spiking because that is very stressful. I think a lot of people who pass themselves off as finance minds call stuff while it’s spiking and get a lot of credit because, wow, they nailed that “prediction” and I want in one some of that sweet action. You mean to tell me I can make a prediction that’s not going to be wrong and be heralded as a genius? Yes, I’m all about that. Also, you may be able to snag a cheap copy and avoid overpaying later. Check downstream – TCG Player and Channel are bought out first, but other stores are still HODLing. Check page 3 of your google search results. TCG Player says Wayfarer’s Bauble is $4 but Card Kingdom’s 20+ copies (the max they list is 20, they have more) in all of its 5 printings for $0.99 says otherwise. Let’s do the panic thing and talk about the slow movers next week. This will be a short one but it will be dense with value. Now is the part where non-Pro Traders get cut off and I’m sorry about that. Pro Trader is like $60 a year and I’m about to make people way more than that.

Morophon is doing thangs and that’s good. He’s the variable commander people have been waiting for and he’s already caused some cards to pop, which I’ll mention in case your LGS has copies, and more cards are about to pop. Basically anything that says “choose a tribe” is going to go off, even if Morophon isn’t good (he probably isn’t).

Fist is sold out everywhere for like $15. Despite just getting a reprint in the Dragon deck, it’s getting paired with Morophon. Fist makes your spells cost WUBRG and Morophon makes them cost WUBRG less if they’re of the chosen tribe. Do you dump a bunch of Eldrazi? Slivers? Humans? Is this combo good? Maybe. It’s popular, though, and Fist is sold OUT. If you have these, sell into hype. If your LGS has these for $3, buy them for $3.

Ditto on Jodah. CK has $0.50 non-foils, but foils are to the moon, probably forever. I don’t know if this combo is good but it’s happening. The thing about Morophon is that decks that already have a good commander like Dragons and Slivers won’t want him in the 99 and decks that don’t have a good commander will have fewer creatures than they think. Getting free creatures is cool but I think this is mostly hype. Feather maintained its hype for a few weeks, we’ll see how Morophon does.

Same deal here. You can check the Reaper King page on EDHREC to see if stuff like Scarecrone is where you want to park money, but Morophon makes you able to blow up a ton of stuff for every changeling you play for free. Is that good? Maybe. But everything is good in EDH.

Stuff that hasn’t popped yet is more interesting.

This was touted when first printed but never really went anywhere. I think it could have upside if you have to play creatures like Beast Whisperer in the deck to get a combo off. This is a low-risk bulk rare and since a bunch of tribal decks that never had a commander before are about to be 5 color decks if they want to be, go nuts.

Ditto for this guy. Gettable for like $4 most places, this is going to get slammed in a lot of decks with no lords and with no reprint in site, this second spike is bound to be heavy.

This is expensive but it’s also down from its historical high. If you’re playing creatures for free, you need to replace them in your hand. This is a no-brainer.

I left in the vendor bar to show that sites that had this cheap are selling out already.

Honestly, all of Commander 2017 is in play if you ask me.

That’s Morophon. Let’s talk about the other card.

Urza is pretty nuts. A mana generator AND a mana sink? I must be dreaming. Why they would make a commander that perfectly lines up with Paradox Engine like this, I’ll never understand, but let’s look at Engine.

Neat. Remember when I said to buy these for $5 if they didn’t get banned 6 months after it was printed? Well, I bought like 3 total, so even I don’t listen to me. This was already expensive before they printed a Tolarian Academy on a body that can play all of your spells for 5 colorless, so RIP this card’s price. Can they print this again to lower the price? It will be hard, I don’t see how. Try to find these on obscure sites and at the LGS. This was a $40 foil like 2 weeks ago. RIP.

This is recovering from a reprint, very good in the deck and still in play. Go get you some.

Hi. I tap for mana, now.

Hi. I tap for mana, now, and you only need 4.

Hi, I make Moxen, now. I’m also a $5 foil.

I think the Urza deck will make a lot of utility artifacts go up more slowly, but this article was meant to go out quickly while there is still time to buy some of this, so, go buy stuff. Later.

The Watchtower 5/20/19 for ProTraders – Plan Your Specs

By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin


Don’t miss this week’s installment of the MTG Fast Finance podcast, an on-topic, no-nonsense tour through the week’s most important changes in the Magic economy.


Now is what we’ve all been waiting for. War of the Spark was a fun diversion, what with the story culmination and pile of planeswalkers, but we all knew that was the appetizer. WAR was for cosplayers and kitchen table games. Modern Horizons is the entree, the real meat and potatoes. 254 cards are about to get dumped into Modern, and what sets this apart from every Standard set is that those 254 cards are specifically for Modern. Not “we crafted this Standard set and also the cards are legal elsewhere,” but “here are 254 new tools chosen exactly for this specific format.” Modern is in for an upheaval, and it’s going to be fun. (Especially if they reprint Upheaval.)

The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.

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  ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.


Travis Allen has  been playing Magic: The Gathering since 1994, mostly in upstate New York. Ever since his first FNM he’s been trying to make playing Magic cheaper, and he first brought his perspective to MTGPrice in 2012. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.


Brainstorm Brewery #339 Mail Time

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Sparking Up

We’ve had War of the Spark in our hands for a couple of weeks, and while a lot of attention is rightfully on the ME3 fiasco, uncut apology sheets, and alternate art, we would be remiss not to take a look at what is making waves in assorted formats.

Unbelievably, we start Modern Horizons spoilers on Sunday, so prepare for two weeks of absolute madness and rushing to buy things before other people realize what’s going on.

Just so we’re clear: I don’t want you to get caught up in buying hype. It’s very difficult to buy a card while it’s in the process of spiking and still make money on the transaction. If you find some cards at your LGS before they can catch up, that’s fine, but the Internet is about to become a wild-ass place with each previewed Modern Horizons card.

Your best bet is to stock up on staples of Modern now, and make sure your collection is organized enough that you can raid it as needed.

Teferi, Time Raveler ($13)

Teferi’s newest incarnation has been just the super-irritating thing that a lot of control decks want: an early way to ensure they get to do what they want. It breaks the mirror open quite well, and has a great game against Nexus of Fate decks, which aspire to abuse the end step.

The price is on the rise from his low of $9, but considering that the price at the start of the format was $20, there’s a lot of room left for him to move. I’m definitely going to want to have some of these before they go back up to $20.

Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God ($22)

Someone else with a whole bunch of cards named after him, Nicol Bolas’s (hopefully-but-I-doubt-it) final form is tough on the mana but is awesome on the field. His price is going down, though there’s a Grixis control deck that’s stubbornly playing the full four copies. The choices are many for the other planeswalkers you can have in play, and you get to pick the flavor(s) that you like best.

The ‘have all the abilities’ clause is pretty amazing. Note that he’s currently legal with Jace, Cunning Castaway, so if you really want to go hog wild, you have my blessing. The Commander demand would be higher if he could fit into Atraxa Superfriends decks, but really, there’s a lot of ways to tackle this. The price of the Dragon-God ought to stabilize right around $20, so no buying quite yet unless you want to play the deck a bunch.

That deck is also playing four copies of the M19 version, Nicol Bolas, the Ravager, and with that card hitting $35 you need to sell, sell, sell. I even went so far as to take copies out of Commander decks and ship them off. At worst, I’ll rebuy them in October (at rotation) for $15-$20 ish, and have an extra $20 in store credit per copy.

Ral, Storm Conduit (now $2.50)

Given that there’s an infinite combo in Standard with Ral, Expansion // Explosion, and some other spell, you’d think this would be higher. Problem is, countermagic is everywhere, and if you’re not playing Negate or Dovin’s Veto, you’re likely playing a red or white aggro decks and killing the poor durdler.

I’ve got Ral pegged as someone to buy once we’re all buying Modern Horizons. Ideally, I can get in under $2 and just be patient. At a price that low, I don’t need him to win games on stream (nice as that would be) because I’m very unlikely to lose out. Almost no planeswalkers are $1, but that doesn’t account for their presence at rare and uncommon.

Narset, Parter of Veils (up to $2.50, foils $30, and the JP alternate art foil is $250-$500 on eBay)

I think this is going to be one of the first new cards in Oathbreaker to get banned, as Narset + Windfall (or some variation thereof) is disgusting. Leovold is extremely powerful in Legacy, and now we have this easier-to-cast version!

Narset’s price has gone crazy in these two weeks, as Modern and Legacy and Cube and Commander players try her out and find that it’s just plain silly. Spirit of the Labyrinth is symmetrical and that’s why it’s not busted. Narset plainly is, and is even in the color with the most versions of a ‘we all draw’ effect.

You can imagine that I’m trying very hard to build some form of Narset/Notion Thief deck, playing all the Vision Skeins. Heck, in Standard, we have Emergency Powers and that’s super tasty indeed.

God-Eternal Oketra ($14)

You may or may not have seen it, but two weeks ago, the first streamed SCG Open had two Bant Aggro decks, nearly the same 75 but both with three copies of this card. Oketra is pretty bonkers, even one more creature gives you an extra 4/4 and that tussles with just about everything in the format currently. For extra spice, pair with Vivien, Champion of the Wilds and get bananas at instant speed.

It’s hard to feel like this isn’t a buy right now, but I’m being patient. Yes, it’s $2 more than it was a couple of weeks ago, but it’s an all-star in Commander and if you made me choose between this and Lyra Dawnbringer at the five-spot for White Weenie decks…I don’t know where I’d land.

One more good on-camera performance and this is a $20 card. The casual market is soaking up spare copies and preventing a lot of them from going into the greater market, a force we can’t quantify but we can notice by observing how the price doesn’t go down.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY