The latest episode of MTG Fast Finance with myself and James Chillcott discusses the week’s biggest moves, our cards to watch, and Eternal Masters. Check it out here!
It’s been a wild two weeks, hasn’t it? I said in at least two mediums that Eternal Masters was a baseless rumor that sounded more like a Reddit pipe dream rather than an actual coherent business strategy, and then Wizards went ahead and announced it. The community was especially flush with drama regarding a few deepthroat-esque accounts regarding EMA, the full set list, and supposedly clandestine vendor operations. And to top it all off, a Maro Tumblr post sent pockets of the community into a tizzy with the perceived promise of a new constructed format.
Compared to June, when I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel for article ideas, this is great. So many topics worth discussing!
I’ll start with an amusing image I posted on Twitter this weekend:
What are we looking at here? Within the 24 hours leading up to that tweet, r/mtgEternal was the subreddit which had grown the most across all of Reddit. Someone made a subreddit not for Eternal Masters, mind you, but rather this imaginary constructed format called Eternal, and so many people joined it was the fastest growing subreddit. Why? Where is all of this coming from? Can we profit on it?
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I was on record being pretty displeased about Eternal Masters. The set basically threatens to tank a lot of Legacy cards that players had invested a lot of money in while simultaneously making Reserved List cards like Underground Sea unattainable. It won’t make Legacy more accessible but it will drain the value out of most of the cards in Legacy players’ collections and concentrate them in a few cards they may or may not own.
Last week we went over the cards that are EDH-playable and also on the Reserved List which therefore have a lot of exposure to upside. Some of the cards we discussed have started to go up already, namely Null Rod, City of Traitors and Serra’s Sanctum. They went up a lot. Legacy saw people start to jam Eldrazi in that format which is disappointing because it goes to show that WotC learned precisely nothing from the Affinity disaster over a decade ago. Cards that aren’t needed to fight Eldrazi will go up over time because Reserved List cards just tend to do that so I basically wrote an article where every shot I called will go up eventually and some have already spiked hard, making me look like a genius. If I get any better at this, I’ll be able to call cards after they go up and still have people congratulate me. What can I say? I’m that goulah.
No, I don’t know what the hell he meant
How goulah I am (very) aside, what do I talk about this week? It’s really hard to top an article where you got 100% of your picks correct (you know, eventually) and I don’t want to phone this one in, resting on my laurels. Maybe we should talk about a call I got super wrong. Namely, the time on Brainstorm Brewery (the podcast you should all be listening to every week) that I said Eternal Masters wasn’t really necessary because you could just do a second Conspiracy set this year and put more Legacy reprints in that set.
Was this not a fair assumption to make? We had alternated Modern Masters -> Conspiracy -> Modern Masters for 3 years and that’s enough data points to consider a trend. The announcement of Eternal Masters seemed to preclude another Conspiracy. After all, how could they do both in the same “slot” that was reserved for the summer set? True, we’re not doing core sets anymore, but we’ll still have Eternal Masters, Conspiracy 2, an FTV, Commander 2016 and Eldritch Moon in the same 3 month period. What are we supposed to buy? Well, Wizards is banking on people thinking “not everything is for me” and only buying what they care about. This is a silly way to stack sets – so silly that I absolutely assumed Eternal Masters was going to replace Conspiracy 2. And in a way, I think maybe it is.
What’s Conspiracy going to look like next year? We can start to look at some unsafe cards and shift our money elsewhere and we can start to look at which cards will get cheaper, enabling more people to access certain archetypes. There’s no question that cheaper Exploration helped EDH deck builders, for example, and there are a lot of ripples in the pond we can analyze from that one big splash. Let’s look at some numbers from the last Conspiracy set.
The last Conspiracy set had 210 cards and I expect a similar number of cards this time around. Of the 210 cards, 65 of them were brand new cards and 13 conspiracy cards. Of those 65 new cards, a whopping 20 of them were rare. Of the 10 mythics, 4 were new cards, all of them pretty saucy including Dack Fayden, a Vintage-playable card whose foil price is pretty bugnutty. If we can expect similar numbers for the next Conspiracy set, we’re in for some great new commanders like Selvala, Marchesa and Brago were last time around. That’s fun but not knowing exactly which new cards we’re going to get doesn’t tell us much. Instead, I want to look at what happened to the prices of the cards that were reprinted last time around to see if we can project the impact of a new Conspiracy set.
Some of the cards were reprinted last time because their prices were out of control from speculation (Edric) or were high because of a ton of EDH use (Exploration) or high because of a decent amount of use in Legacy (Stifle, Misdirection) or for weird, nostalgia purposes (Spiritmonger). Honestly, the set was weird and weird isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
How much Legacy needs to be in Conspiracy 2? They knew they were doing Eternal Masters at the same time they knew they were doing Conspiracy 2 (I have to assume since they’re coming out at the same time and it usually takes a given amount of time to make a set) so they had to know that Eternal Masters could take a lot of pressure off of the Legacy and Vintage cards they’d need to put in Conspiracy. This doesn’t tell us as much as you think because the Commander 2016 sets coming out not long after these two sets will remove some of the impetus to reprint Commander cards. What to make of all of this? Will there be more casual cards that don’t have an obvious home like Spiritmonger and Mirari’s Wake? Will we have a Conpsiracy set that’s very similar in scope and composition to the last one? Will Eternal Masters have any EDH-playables like Modern Masters did or will it focus on Legacy and Vintage staples? All of these are great questions. The only thing I do know is what happened to the cards that were reprinted last time around, so let’s look at those.
Before I remind you when Conspiracy 1 was printed, see if you can guess by looking at the graph. I bet you can guess.
June of 2014. The price drop was pretty profound, which surprised me a tiny bit seeing as how fugly the art on the Conspiracy copies is. Brought down from nearly $50 to its current $13ish, this was a major casualty. Somehow not on the Reserved List (they needed to make room for Zephid and Herald of Serra, I guess) they were free to reprint this card and reprint it they did. This was good for EDH players and good for people who like to sell cards and didn’t have any of these in stock. Reducing the price to a third of its former glory but giving us a foil copy in exchange which is merely twice the cost of the Saga non-foil (could that be the correct multiplier? ) this reprint was pretty bloody but ultimately pretty satisfying for people who wanted to give this a try in EDH. It’s also in Legacy Enchantress but I doubt that was as much of an impetus for the reprinting although overlap is always good for price recovery. I would put the odds of this being in Conspiracy 2 pretty low but nothing would surprise me. Being able to ramp in a 4-player free-for-all can be the difference between life and death.
Possible Conspiracy 2 Analog
This is roughly the same cross-format overlap (although Summer Bloom’s nerfing makes this less applicable in Modern – but did they know that when they made this set?), does roughly the same thing and is at roughly the same price point as Exploration was. Whether they’re going to want to shift the reprint toward spells because they’re printing a lot of new creatures, I can’t say. If I were designing this set, though, I’d probably jam Azusa in there. I doubt Eternal Masters wants a Modern/EDH card like this, I doubt they want a $40 card in the Commander 2016 decks and I doubt I’m right about this being in Conspiracy 2. Still, this feels analogous and I really wouldn’t be surprised. They’re at their peak in price but not desirability, so this slight chance of a reprint is just reason number, like, 480 to buylist these if you got in before the major jump.
How did they see this price spike coming? It started basically when they started work on the set and this card got ridiculous before the end. A $50 sideboard card isn’t good for any format and this reprint pulled the pants off of Stifle. A reduction in demand probably had a bit to do with the decline, but this is still a very powerful card. Canadian Thresh decks which basically became RUG Delver were maindecking this card for a while because it was a stone rain against fetches and stopped all kinds of nonsense from their delver flipping to modular to their Jitte getting counters. It’s less useful now and there are a lot more copies out there. Stifle took a beating from this reprinting – you can get the (ugly) Conspiracy versions for like $3.
Possible Conspiracy 2 Analog
This doesn’t do close to what Stile did in terms of how the card plays, and this isn’t a $50 card like Stifle pretended to be for a while, but Bribery is about the price Stifle was when they got to work on Conspiracy. This sees less Legacy play but this is very good in 4 player Limited, it’s great in EDH, it’s not as likely to get printed in Commander 2016 since they’re doing multicolored decks this time around and this card is VERY blue. $16ish isn’t super oppressive in terms of price, but if these were $5 I’d buy $30 worth for my decks and I won’t spend $30 on two of them, now. The price isn’t going down any other way and EDH will always love this card. Again, this is just the card I’d put in if I were making the set. I’m not saying hurry up and sell these if you have them, but the price isn’t going up soon but could go down. I don’t like the risk.
This was the second reprinting this card got and it was enough. The price was cut in half. I like the original art the best but no one else seems to care as much because the Shadowmoor and Tempest versions are nearly identical in price. This might have climbed some more and seemed to have mostly recovered from the Shadowmoor reprinting. EDH demand is going to increase on this card based on the new rules changes but we’re not expecting to see a jump anytime soon. Besides, this could get another reprinting which basically doesn’t matter at this point.
Possible Conspiracy 2 Analog
This one’s ballsy
This would likely be thrown in at mythic, but I will be very surprised if we go through Eternal Masters and Conspiracy 2 and don’t see a reprinting of Cavern. It’s a card that needs to be inexpensive and it’s just as good in casual as it is in competitive. This is a card I went after very hard for $20 when it was first printed and expected it to hit $50 and was very pleased when it finally did.
This is a card that needs a reprinting and is going to get one, soon. This is when you sell these and if you’re still holding these when it’s reprinted, you’re going to be sorry. I don’t like holding onto this hot potato and I urge you to ship.
This was a brutal reprinting and no one ever really talked about the price trajectory here. We saw a profound drop over 6 months but it seemed relatively unperturbed initially so everyone thought this wasn’t quite the slaughter it ended up being. P Deed is around $5 which is great for EDH players and bad for people who had money tied up in P Deed. Are you good with the amount of analysis I did here?
Possible Conspiracy 2 Analog
This is already on its way down, but it’s still a little pricey for EDH players for what it does and it could be a staple removal spell because it solves every problem. Ayli and Daxos are very popular EDH Commanders right now, and a $5 Vindicate seems good. Unmake is getting play and Vindicate being a sorcery hurts it a bit, but being able to get rid of Reliquary Tower or Serra’s Sanctum seems worth it. P Deed is an old school card that solves EDH problems and Vindicate feels like it could get that spot. The declining price of Vindicate right now is as much an impetus to sell quickly as the reprint risk, however. I’m just picking analogous cards, not trying to tell you how to manage your collection.
Conspiracy 2 is going to be a good set. It’s going to give Cube players nifty cards that affect the way players draft, which is amazing. It’s going to give us new EDH generals and staples, which we appreciate. It’s going to reduce some high-priced cards the way the first Conspiracy did. Most of all, it’s going to give my critics another thing I got wrong to point to. I’m fine with all of that
Innistrad is—rightfully—among many players’ top sets of all time. I count myself among those players. Between the mechanics, the Draft environment, the powerful Constructed cards, the top-down flavor, Magic‘s growing playerbase at the time, and more, everything came together in a big way for what is arguably Magic‘s first successful flavor-based design.
It’s also coming up on being five years old. As such, former bulk rares like Laboratory Maniacare all of a sudden becoming worth money, and we’re going to have to start worrying about some of the most expensive, powerful cards seeing a reprint soon. As such, this seems like a fine time to cover some of the notable cards in the block while considering the same fundamental questions as withReturn to Ravnica last week: if we’re trying to build a Cube (or Commander deck) for the lowest amount possible, which cards should be prioritized and which cards should be avoided? These questions get even more interesting when we consider that Shadows over Innistrad is looming, as well.
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Yeah I don’t know if I agree with that idea. Eldrazi are like a cold front that rolled in for a month or two and will probably roll out when Shadows over Innistrad comes out in April. But in the mean time, you can play this sweet Standard format, right?
Standard hasn’t been a featured format on weekend coverage for 3 weeks so not much head way has been made in the largely Rally dominated format. That being said, there are still plenty of things we can do to prepare for the next format.
Generally at the start of Standard formats (ie right after a new set has come out) decks will add new cards to an already existing archetype until someone comes along with a completely new look at the format. We can take a look at some of the most popular standard decks right now and see which largely survive rotation as those will be ready to go out of the box.
Witness the End by Igor Kieryluk
Dead
If you play 4 Color Rally, Mardu Green, Jeskai Black, or any flavor of Abzan your deck will likely not survive in its current form. Without the powerful 3 color cards and Khans of Tarkir fetch lands it’s hard to see any world where they could. If you want to avoid the Eldrazi Winter in Modern I don’t suggest building these decks unless you already largely own the deck. Personally, I decided to play Rally since I owned all of the cards for the deck except for Rally the Ancestors and Grim Haruspex.
Devour in Flames by Svetlin Velinov
On Life Support
Atarka Red is a deck that is losing a lot of its support for “go wide” strategies and its combo kill. Monastery Swiftspear, Hordeling Outburst, Become Immense, Temur Battle Rage, Wild Slash, and their heavy fetch mana base are leaving. While most of those cards are not particularly expensive the deck will need to find a way to replace those token makers or give it a lot of raw power to keep competing. I won’t say the deck is dead but I wouldn’t invest a ton into it expecting it to be a player in the next Standard.
BR Dragons is a deck that while is only two colors has some pretty heavy color requirements. Grasp of Darkness and the double red creatures are not very easy to cast with only 2 lands for fixing. This deck is definitely going to be more alive than Atarka Red due to the raw power of it’s cards but it may be a misstep to play a deck without any of the manlands next Standard.
Bant Collected Company decks might seem like a weird deck to put here. Its heavy reliance on a fetch and battle land mana base to support it’s 3 colors makes me question how easy it will be to cast Deathmist Raptor along side Reflector Mage in April. This deck might morph (no pun intended) into a deck closer to a G/X deck with a light splash. I wouldn’t be surprised if it dropped most of the white spells in favor of being the only Jace and Collected Company deck. With that in mind, I’m not super interested in buying into the Deathmist Raptor part of the deck. If there are very strong graveyard decks it is likely that there will also be very strong graveyard removal cards (which we currently don’t have). On the flip side, if we get more cards like Satyr Wayfinder again, it makes Deathmist Raptor a lot better. I think you should go with your gut in this instance because I’m not sure which is right.
Best Value
Ruin in their Wake by Jason Felix
Standard in April will have 4 sets from the current Standard. Two of them (Dragons of Tarkir and Magic Origins) will rotate out in September with the release of the unnamed next block. The other two sets (Battle for Zendikar and Oath of the Gatewatch) will survive until the following April. There is one deck that is reasonably good in Standard now that is largely made up of cards from the most recent block.
G/x Eldrazi ramp decks ill be good in some flavor. Maybe they will be Red and play Chandra, Flamecaller and Kozilek’s Return. Maybe they will be green and colorless using Wastes to power out Ruin in their Wake. Either way the bulk of the core of the deck survives for some time. The exception to this, being Nissa’s Pilgrimage and Explosive Vegetation which leave in September. This deck is pretty heavy on Mythic rares which means it could become VERY expensive if it is a clear leader in the next Standard. World Breaker is a very affordable $7 on TCG Player right now and will likely be a key part of anything Eldrazi. If going a little bit bigger is more of your thing, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger can be found for $19, Oblivion Sowers are under $5, and Kozilek, the Great Distortion is a surprisingly low $7.50. Now that I think about it, I’m almost interested picking up Kozilek at $5 cash purely to hang onto for a few years.
As far as rares, it seems like the base of Sanctum of Ugin and Shrine of the Forsaken Gods will be good for 15 months. I’m finding it hard to figure out a better way to spend $8 than to buy those two sets of lands. The worst case scenario is you lose $8 but we can see from battle lands and manlands (like Shambling Vent) that Battle for Zendikar rare lands can support a higher price tag.
Oath of Nissa by Wesley Burt
Oath of Nissa is another card that might be poised for a big up tick in play. It’s legendary which means the 2nd one you play puts an enchantment into your graveyard. This is relevant for the new Delirium cards. The other thing it does is make it a lot easier to cast Planeswalkers. Right now mana is really good so that doesn’t matter that much but when our mana gets much worse it may be relevant. All 7 of the Standard legal planeswalkers from Dragons of Tarkir, Battle for Zendikar, and Oath of the Gatewatch have 2 colored mana symbols (with 3 of them being different colors). While I won’t say you should buy out your local shop of Oath of Nissa, I would advise getting a personal playset before they get too expensive.
While there are not many Zombies in the last year, Risen Executioner and Sidisi, Undead Vizier are two cards I would look at if there are Zombie tribal themes coming out of Shadows over Innistrad spoilers.
If I was a betting man, I would say we will see Eldrazi Temple on the Modern banned list in April.
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