Core sets have always been Wizard’s way of introducing Magic to new players and trying to reel them into the game. They’re generally unthemed and use more basic cards and abilities compared to regular sets, and contain a bunch of reprints. Wizards tried to do away with them back in 2015 with Magic Origins supposed to be the last core set (if I’m remembering that correctly), but they then brought them back with M19 in 2018 (yes, the numbers don’t line up with the years and I hate it).
Anyway, there’s no Care Set 2022 scheduled, but instead there’s the Dungeons & Dragons crossover set lined up where M22 would be. On top of that, we’ve just had the announcement that we’re also getting Lord of the Rings and Warhammer 40k crossovers as well, and so it may well be the case that these IP crossover sets are replacing Core Sets as a new way of getting some fresh meat into Magic.
This over-long introduction is my lead into saying that Core Sets (or certainly the last few, at least) have had some great spec opportunities in them, and there’s still money to be made. They’re underprinted compared to the Fall sets that follow them, and have some hidden (or at least undervalued) gems that I’m going to take a look at today.
The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.
David Sharman (@accidentprune on Twitter) has been playing Magic since 2013, dabbling in almost all formats but with a main focus on Modern, EDH and Pioneer. Based in the UK, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.
Right now, presuming the Collector Booster is $20, there aren’t a lot of cards that you can hit to make it worthwhile. I’ll give you the list in a moment, but first let’s talk about what to do when a set isn’t being opened very well, and the opportunities that represents. Plus, some cards that you ought to have in reserve for later.
The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.
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.
This week, instead of giving you a bunch of picks and letting you figure out which one you want to buy, I’m going to… give you a bunch of picks and let you figure out which ones you want to buy. Yeah, halfway through that sentence I realized I actually was doing that thing, but with extra steps which is the best way to say you’re not doing something but actually do exactly the thing you said you weren’t. I thought I wasn’t going to do a normal article, and I’m not, but I realized that you can approach the rest of what I write the way you approach this one and have a very high success rate. So, rather than give you 5 picks I’m medium-to-high on, I’m going to give you a bunch of candidates for a future slam dunk and let you figure out what’s what. Sound complicated? It’s not, I promise. I’ll walk you through it.
As the title indicates, I want to talk about Tatyova, and, with any luck, figure out the next Tatyova while it’s still cheap. “But Tatyova is cheap” I can almost hear you thinking before you double check, glad you didn’t blurt it out for everyone to hear.
This is NOT cheap. This is an uncommon from a recent set that hit $3 AFTER it was printed in Mystery Boosters. Will there be another Tatyova ever again? Maybe, maybe not. I’m going to identify a few potential candidates and kick myself for not going deeper on foils when Dominaria just came out.
The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.
To learn more about being a ProTrader, click here to see all the benefits.
Last week we had a Banned & Restricted announcement that gave a colossal shakeup to four different formats (plus an unban in Vintage). We had fifteen bans across Historic, Pioneer, Modern and Legacy, and a lot of those bans have opened up opportunities within each format for both new and old decks to be played again. With so many bans it can be difficult to figure out what’s a good pickup and what isn’t, but I think that I’ve identified a few good targets here for you to have a look at.
Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath
Price today: $20 Possible price: $40
Uro has finally been given the boot in Modern, Pioneer and Historic, and I’m half surprised that they didn’t kick it out of Legacy too, just for good measure. It’s a card that has been incredibly dominant for far too long, because Wizards just can’t resist printing busted Simic cards but then want to wait long enough to ban them that their sales don’t get impacted by it.
Anyway, the point is that although Uro is gone from almost all competitive play now, it’s still an absolute powerhouse in EDH. At 671 decks as a commander it’s the fourth most popular general from Theros Beyond Death, and comes in at a medium eighth place for top cards from the set overall. It’s never going to be as ubiquitous as something like Dryad of the Ilysian Grove or Thassa’s Oracle, but the advantages it has over those is that it’s a mythic not a rare, and the fact that it’s now banned everywhere means that it’s incredibly unlikely to ever be reprinted in the next however many years.
People have been dumping their copies into the market post-ban, and you can now pick regular versions up for $20. For a card that flirted with $50 not too long ago, I think that this has a reasonable future ahead of it. It’s going to be a longer hold but I definitely don’t mind grabbing a few copies under $25, because there aren’t actually that many copies before the ramp on TCGPlayer hits $30-35. Given a year or two I think that this is a great gainer.
Lurrus of the Dream Den (EA) – Arbitrage
Price in Europe: €15 ($18) Price in US: $27 Possible price: $35
The only unban last week was Lurrus of the Dream Den in Vintage, and although Vintage might not drive prices like other formats do, FEA Lurrus was on the way up anyway and with last week’s announcement it popped to $100 and has stayed there. There are only 13 foil listings on TCGPlayer and I don’t think that they’re a great buy right now (although I hope that you were in on them at $30 when I called it in my article back in September), so now I’m looking at the non-foil EAs instead.
Lurrus is still the best Companion for competitive play, and is a big role-player in Modern and Pioneer. Non-foil EA copies have seen a bump along with the foils, and will now set you back around $27 or more. What’s more, supply is looking very low – only thirteen listings on TCGPlayer with a steep ramp, and not much resupply on the horizon.
Over in Europe you can still pick up a load of copies at around €15, which seems like some very solid arbitrage to me. If you’re able to grab these in Europe for sale in the US then go right ahead, because you’ve already got a safe backing with CardKingdom offering $20 credit for them, and TCG prices will be well above that. You could flip these quickly or sit on them a little while, but I think it’s a great opportunity if you have access (see my arbitrage article for any help with that).
Force of Negation (Foil) – Arbitrage
Price in Europe: €160 ($195) Price in US: $250 Possible price: $300
Okay I can’t resist another arbitrage pick, because I haven’t done any dedicated arbitrage specs in a little while (I think?). With Mystic Sanctuary being banned from Modern you might think that the stock of blue control decks would go down, but in fact the opposite has happened. Azorius control decks have been at the top of the Modern metagame for the past week, opting to play more Snapcaster Mages again now that they don’t have access to Mystic Sanctuary.
Force of Negation has been a staple in Modern blue decks since it was printed in Modern Horizons, and I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon. It’s also in over eighteen thousand EDH decks listed on EDHREC, and foils are in very scarce supply. With only thirteen NM foil copies on TCGPlayer, and only half of those under $300, the €160 copies in Europe are a tasty target.
This could see a reprint in Modern Horizons 2, but that’s not coming out until Q3 this year and so I think you’ve got plenty of time to arbitrage some copies of Force of Negation before then. It’s not one to go deep on but if you can grab a copy or two under $200 in Europe then you should do just fine to sell close to $300 in the US.
David Sharman (@accidentprune on Twitter) has been playing Magic since 2013, dabbling in almost all formats but with a main focus on Modern, EDH and Pioneer. Based in the UK, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.
MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY
