Pro Trader: It Don’t Look Right

Readers!

This week I was going to write about the specs that I think are likely to go up in price as a result of the Lord of the Rings 20 years too late to strike while the Mount Doom is hot edition giving us a true Saga Commander in Bomb Tombadil. Cliff scooped me by writing that exact article a day earlier and that means that we at least have a consensus as a writing team. We didn’t discuss this beforehand, if we had, I wouldn’t have to pivot to another idea at the 11th hour.

I’m not complaining, I was looking for inspiration and found some quickly- some of the prices don’t look right. Whenever I come across a price that looks wrong, I investigate and about a third of the time it makes me think about something I hadn’t been keeping my eye on. Other times it’s nothing. I’ll talk about what to look for and also pretend this is more art than science so you keep taking my advice. Job security an all that. Speaking of job security, did I tell you I never learned how to segue?

This card is literally the first card I looked at when I opened EDHREC today. That’s phenomenal luck for a guy who had to audible to a new topic – can you see what looks wrong to me? Apart from the 3rd price being MTGO, that is. Left is Card Kingdom, right is TCG Player. That’s right, the price is higher on TCG Player than on CK. That’s unusual, and we should verify that the cards got scraped correctly. Sometimes the price is lower because they sold out and the scraper hits an art card or an oversized Planeswalker card or something. Sometimes the price is lower because CK hasn’t noticed the card is going gangbusters on TCG Player and no one bothered to scoop up the copies on CK. How many copies are we talking, anyway?

When it says “8 available” it means “8 minimum.” Card Kingdom has it set up so the Jasons Alt of the world don’t buy 300 copies and then tell them “You can hang onto those and just give me whatever you’ll be paying on your buylist next week.” How many EX copies, though?

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ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

Tom is going to be the Bomb!

Earlier this week, we got our first taste of the Lord of the Rings set coming this summer. The One Ring has made Mind over Matter spike, there’s other combos coming, but for my money, this might be the best value-add in the set:

Tom Bombadil <showcase> [LTR]

Some cards have started to grow as a result of Tom’s preview, but there’s still a lot of planning that can be done and profits to be made when Saga-related cards start spiking in June.

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expensive cards ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

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.

Pro Trader: The Best Bad Color

Readers!

Welcome to another installment of the series “Jason writes an article.” Sometimes it is on here, sometimes on other sites, but always article. This is the 541st article I have written on MTG Price, and if that sounds bonkers to you, it is to me, also. Today I am not going to do my normal article from my perspective, fearing it might seem exactly the same from your perspective and that I have been overthinking it for 540 articles, and that’s just this site. What I think I am doing differently is that I’m going to talk about a color then the cards in that color. I don’t always do exactly that. It’s different. Shut up.

What’s the worst color in Commander? That’s right, Red, and it isn’t close. But a few years ago, people would still have said Red. But a few years before that, probably still Red. The point is, White has almost always been the second worst color, some argued the worst, because it didn’t mana ramp as hard. We have seen every possible variation on Knight of the White Orchid and by now there are two or three Archaeomancer’s Map-tier cards in White that make it keep up nicely with the Green-based ramp decks. I have seen a Demonic Tutor used as a Farseek more than once, but, sure, White is the worst at it. Black has Cabal Coffers, Green has mana dorks and Cultivate, Blue has mana dorks and Cultivate if you built correctly and added Green, and Red has Seething Song. What does White have? Well, lately, it’s had everything.

I wasn’t even going to write this specific article until I decided to look at the most-played cards in the, well the set that has most recently been fully-spoiled, I guess. We have 8 cards revealed from March of the Machine, the perfect amount of cards to have revealed before you reveal a million-dollar one-of-a-kind collectible card and a White Remand. And let’s be clear about something else – I just found out about the White Remand because I was procrastinating on twitter between paragraphs – I had no idea White got a Remand, a card that’s basically good everywhere except for EDH, until after I had started my “White gets everything these days, huh?” article. White IS getting a lot, if not everything, and one trip to EDHREC will bear that out.

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ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

Oil-Slick for Fun and Profit

You may or may not have noticed that a certain subset of Phyrexia: All Will Be One cards has been lighting it up lately: the Oil-Slick foils, available only in the special boosters found in the Compleat Edition Bundle.

That bundle came with one special pack, along with 12 Set Boosters. That special pack is what I’m focused on right now, and let me explain why I’m starting to buy cards much earlier in the ONE cycle than I would have otherwise.

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To learn how ProTrader can benefit YOU, click here to watch our short video.

expensive cards ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

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