MTGFinance: What We’re Buying & Selling This Week (Sep9/15)

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 has occurred to us at MTGPrice that though we dole out a good deal of advice, most of you ultimately have very little insight into when and why our writing team actually puts our money where our collective mouths are pointing. As such running this weekly series breaking down what we’ve been buying and selling each week and why. These lists are meant to be both complete and transparent, leaving off only cards we bought for personal use without hope of profit. 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 we’ve been up to this week:

Buying Period: Sep 1st – 7th, 2015

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

James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

BOUGHT

  • 3x Monastery Mentor @ $13

SOLD

  • 28x See the Unwritten @ $7.50/per (Cost: $3/per)

Monastery Mentor is a Legacy and Vintage playable card with an absurd power level that hasn’t quite found it’s deck in Modern. Once it does, I fully expect the card to top $30 as a small set mythic that was supplanted by Dragons of Tarkir on shelves only 6 weeks after it debuted. I’ll be acquiring more copies under $16 accordingly.

See the Unwritten was already seeing play in versions of Green/Red dragons in Standard when it spiked off late summer Battle for Zendikar Eldrazi hype. I’ve been selling through a variety of channels, and the price has been sliding but I’m still coming out up over $10/set on average, with additional upside on my remaining 20+ copies if the card finds a deck in the new standard or an obvious search target appears.

Douglas Johnson (@roseofthorns)

BOUGHT (Pucatrade)

  • 15x Spawnsire of Ulamog via Pucatrade at 329 points each

SOLD

  • 3x Shaman of Forgotten Ways at $6/per

Douglas says:

“At only $3, I really like Spawnsire of Ulamog as a pickup. It has dodged being reprinted so far, it makes a lot of mana dorks, and the last activated ability is perfect for both Timmys and Johnnys to get excited about. The annihilator 1 is pretty irrelevant, but who cares? We’re casting every Eldrazi ever. Spawnsire gets a whole lot of new tools with this set, and I don’t think he needs to see competitive or EDH play to get up to $6 or $7 on casual demand alone. SCG is out of stock on NM copies at the moment, but has plenty of SP/MP. eBay is practically dried up of non-foil copies, and there are still quite a few on TCGplayer. Maybe this doesn’t pick up until casual players start cracking packs and building decks, but this is a card I’m very bullish on. You don’t see me pick out spec targets very often, but this is one of them.”

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.

7 thoughts on “MTGFinance: What We’re Buying & Selling This Week (Sep9/15)”

  1. Very quiet this week,
    Bought:
    12 Tasigur, the Golden Fang $7 each
    My last splurge on Tas before rotation.
    I think after rotation he could climb to over $10.
    Sold:
    20 Animist’s Awakening $2 each, buy-in $1.25 each.
    I kept my other 20 copies for post rotation and the hope it finds a deck.

  2. Aussie Timetraveller here….

    Travelled 15 minutes back in time and bought 10 Shaman Forgotten Ways at $4.50 aud per (approx $3.21 usd) after they spiked, outted on puca at 8xx points per, bonus that our mail is basically overnight 99% of the time (kangaroos can actually fly, this is why they only made rabid wombats, or green would dominate).

    Small fries but covered the year’s site access more or less 🙂

  3. Not sure if the See the Unwritten hype is over. I sense one more spike to happen as we enter a new set with people trying out new decks.

    I guess taking profit is always a good thing. Any great channels, James, where we can offload a large amount of this card?

    I am estimating an out between 10$ US to 15$ US, all depending on whether something good gets spoiled in BfZ.
    If not, then buylist credit or an out at 7$ US.

  4. I still don’t understand why See the Unwritten spiked at all.
    The first spoiler should’ve been a sign to everybody that the Eldrazi aren’t typically worth cheating into play via StU.
    All the Eldrazi worth cheating are keyworded “once cast”… Why is this card seeing so much attention?

    We’ve had Atarka for months, it doesn’t really get much better than that for StU… Why now? It’s just going to result in an influx of control decks to control the green decks once again and aside from sheer creature value, there’s no synergy with the Eldrazi.

    Am I missing something?

    1. It spiked originally because people expected huge eldrazi, and now it’s coming down slowly due to price memory and people holding out hope that there is something worth cheating into play.

      1. Big eldrazi are always worth cheating into play. Yes, the CiP effect is not happening anymore, however, a 10/10 indestructable and milling effect will still be notable.

        That StU becomes a staple for a good deck or not is irrevelant; hype is there for those who believe and we should be there to sell into this hype.

  5. StU peak will hit first week of release prior to major event coverage. Mark my word. People will use it as a stop gap for lack of any better idea. That’s where you’ll see it as a 4x in bad decks and a 3x in reasonable decks.

    Sylvan Caryatid did the exact same thing during Khans release week and I outed them nonstop at 20per until I owned zero.

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