MTGFinance: What We’re Buying/Selling This Week (April 11/15)

By James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

One of the most common misconceptions about folks involved in MTGFinance is that we are constantly manipulating the market and feeding players misinformation to help fuel achievement of our personal goals.

It recently occurred to us here that though we dole out a good deal of advice, most of you ultimately have very little insight into when we actually put our money where our collective mouths are pointing. As such we’ve decided to run a weekly series simply breaking down what we’ve been buying this week and why. These lists are meant to be both complete and transparent, leaving off only cards we bought without hope of profit, where appropriate. We’ll also try to provide some insight into our thinking behind the specs, and whether we are aiming for a short (<1 month), mid (1-12 month), or long (1 year+) term flip. Here’s what we were up to this week:

Buying Period: April 5 – April 11, 2015

Note: All cards NM unless otherwise noted. All sell prices are net of fees unless noted.

James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

BOUGHT

  • 5x Eidolon of the Great Revel @ $6 per: Mid to Long
  • 3x Deathmist Raptor @ $15 per: Short to Mid
  • 1x Japanese Scavenging Ooze @ $6: Mid to Long
  • 1x Japanese Wooded Foothills @ $13: Long
  • 1x Flooded Strand (KTK) @ $11: Long
  • 12x Den Protector @ $1.25 per: Short

Pucatrade SOLD

  • 4x Den Protector @ $3.00 ($1.50 cost)
  • 1x Blood Moon (Chronicles) @  $21 ($11 cost)
  • 1x Sword of War & Peace (New Phyrexia) @ $19 ($7 cost)

Trades

  • 1x Dragonlord Ojutai (Out) for 1x Bloodstained Mire + 1x Thunderbreak Regent (In)
  • 1x Grove of the Burnwillows (Out) for 3x Stormbreath Dragon
  • 2x Haven of the Spirit Dragon (Out) for Dig Through Time + 4x FNM Squadron Hawk (In)

The Den Protectors were an opportunistic play after my early identification of the card as a major force in the early rounds of Standard at Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir yesterday. The card spiked hard towards $5 from $1.50 and I’ve already managed to flip most of the copies through Pucatrade. The rest of my purchases were just cards on my acquisition list that I snag whenever the opportunity arises.

Most of the rest of my activity was just a few minor value trades, as I am ramping up funds to jump in on some boxes of MM2.

 Guo Heng (@guoheng)

Bought (MTGO)

  • 4x Dragonlord Silumgar on MTGO for 4.39 tix per.
  • 7x Atarka’s Command. 3x for 2.59 tickets per, 4x for 2.69 per.

Bought (Paper)

  • 1x Dragonlord Silumgar for $4.64 from player.

Trades

  • Traded 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier (Out) for 1x Dragonlord Silumgar (In)
Guo says:
“Red aggro decks splashing green exclusively for Atarka’s Command was the most popular deck at the Pro Tour. There’s potential for a quick flip after the Pro Tour weekend, if a Red Aggro list top 8s. “
 Danny Brown
Bought (MTGO)
  • 36 packs of Khans of Tarkir (MTGO) at 1.3 tix each.
Bought (Paper)
*These are cube pickups:
  • Strip Mine (Fourth Edition) for 456 points
  • Thirst for Knowledge (Mirrodin) for 49 points
  • Tezzeret the Seeker for 1542 points
  • Mind Twist (Revised Edition) for 322 points
  • Lightning Berserker for 78 points
Bought (Pucatrade)
  • 2 Dack Fayden at 2496 points each.

 

Danny says:
“I started buying the KTK packs six at a time at 1.38 tix each. The bot I was buying them from lowered the price almost every time and I ended up paying 1.27 tix each by the last six. This left my total buy-in at 47.28 for the 36 packs, or 1.3 per pack. This pack price was completely driven into the ground due to oversaturation of the market by giving out KTK as prizes for the last six months. Now, though, Dragons of Tarkir is the prize pack for Constructed events, andKhans is a set with fetch lands. I haven’t done a lot of MTG finance-style activity on MTGO, but 1.3 per pack seems like a fine buy-in, and these tickets were just sitting there anyway.”
 
Foil Dack Fayden currently has a 10 times multiplier, which is probably appropriate for a powerhouse Vintage and Cube card. That said, Conspiracywasn’t widely opened, and unless Dack is reprinted somewhere, I can’t see this price doing anything but going up. It briefly flirted with a negative spread last week, but now it’s down to a more normal 28 percent. At the very least, I don’t see myself losing money here, especially since I used PucaPoints, and I don’t think it will be that hard to convert these points into cash on a 1:1 basis (meaning I believe that eventually a buylist will pay $25 for this). 
 
As I focused on in my introductory article, you’ll notice that I am using the non-cash resources at my disposal to pick up cards.  If you leverage your collection in the right way, you can be active in MTG finance while rarely spending actual money. I didn’t spend a dime on the game this week, but I expect to be able to profit of Magic anyway.
 
Lightning Berserker was 100 points last week, and will likely continue dipping until 25, but again, I embraced a lack of patience and went for it. Tezzeret could go down if reprinted in Modern Master 2015, but that seems like a longshot to me. All the other cards here shouldn’t be moving in one way or another and are good to have on hand for the format.”

 

Travis Allen (@wizardbumpin)

Bought

  • 20x See the Unwritten @ $3

“Card is looking good after taking the top slot in the rounds leading to Top 8, and should be good in the fall.”

So there you have it. Now what were you guys buying and selling this week and why?

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.

ADVERTISEMENT: Get the Cube Starter Bundle with the 3rd Edition Grimoire Deck Box, the brand new Grimoire Deck Box designed specifically for the red mage in you. 

5 thoughts on “MTGFinance: What We’re Buying/Selling This Week (April 11/15)”

  1. Lol….just noticed that all of the Dragonlord Silumgars on StarCity sold out, as well as all of the lower buy it nows on eBay. Somebody made a run on both foils and non on TCG as well. Price is rising.

  2. Watched some coverage this weekend and saw a few copies of Dragonlord’s Prerogative make top 8. After seeing the decklists, I counted 3 copies in the top 8. Does this look like a card that can go from under 50 cents to a couple dollars to anyone?

    Also, I picked up MORE then a playset, and some foils.

      1. I believe UB will be a force for a while with the playable dragons giving blue a UU counterspell. That said, I’m glad I bought into UB, because Icefell Regents (only got 2 playsets) just spiked.

Comments are closed.