Reprint Awareness, Part 2

May 19, 2016 Cliff Daigle 4 Comments

So a bunch of new things are coming this year, and as I said last week, there’s a lot of cards that I would be worried about. These are cards that I do not want to have extras of right now, or even if I do keep some, I do so knowing how easy these are to reprint.

Reflecting Pool ($8): It’s been printed three times, and has two foil versions. But it’s ridiculously good in multicolor decks, and four-color Commanders are going to make everyone want one of these. I will be ready to order a ton of these if we get the decklists and this hasn’t been printed again, as a spike to at least $15 seems reasonable.

Doubling Season ($40): Oh, this is scary. The good news, though, is that every time it’s been printed (Judge version, Modern Masters 2013) it’s eventually rebounded. I think this gets printed before the Commander decks, and if it goes as low as $20 I will be picking some up. It’s just too good in the long term with tokens, planeswalkers, counters, etc.

Path to Exile ($11-$13): Seven printings! Including an FNM version, as an uncommon, and yet here it is. I stand by my thinking, though: This is easy to print, a powerful yet balanced effect, and if it dips down to $5 it’ll be an attractive buy target. I would not be holding spare nonfoils.

Akroma’s Memorial ($16): I’ll be honest, I love cards like this that just end the game of Commander. Drop this down and immediately remove someone from the game with your hasty, vigilant, first striking army and don’t be afraid of any retaliation. This is a very high price for such a casual card, though, and a reprint is going to bite deeply into its value.

Cavern of Souls ($54): This is the new Damnation. We know it’s going to get reprinted. It’s an amazing card in Constructed for uncounterability and in casual formats for tribal color-fixing. I would call this somewhere between scorching and radioactive, in terms of how this would be burning a hole in my binder to get rid of it. I’m actually hoping for something with better art, because the foil isn’t all that pretty. Get rid of every copy you have, as I will be stunned if this makes it to New Year’s Day without a reprint.

Blood Artist ($4): As an uncommon from one of the worst Limited sets in recent memory, it’s surprising to see this be worth so much, but the effect is bonkers in a lot of settings. A reprint will tank this hard and you should move these out now.

Rune-Scarred Demon ($6): I don’t think Dark Petition is going to get a reprint this year, but I do believe that seven mana for a 6/6 flyer and a tutor is awesomely good enough to see a new version in one of the sets we get this year. I couldn’t say which, but I wouldn’t keep any of these around.

Oblivion Stone ($30): Big-mana strategies are in vogue and this hasn’t had a printing since 2011. There’s a lot of casual players who would love to have one of these, and you should move your extras out pretty soon. This could literally be in any set.

Champion’s Helm ($10): One of the underrated cards from the original Commander, this is one of the best ways to keep your general safe for a low cost. Lightning Greaves is the gold standard, but this is not far off. However, it’s only had the one printing, and a new release will really impact the price.

Consecrated Sphinx ($26): It’s due. It’s so due. It’s also an excellent candidate for a banning in Commander. I would let go of every copy that wasn’t in a deck right now.

Darksteel Plate ($8): It’s hard to grasp how long ago this got printed, and it’s had no additional versions added to the supply. Get your extras out of your binder and avoid the price loss that will happen.

Asceticism ($12): If you’ve never had the honor of playing with this, it’s even better than you think it is. Pinpoint removal is no good, and also it regenerates when needed. It’s also no mana to protect your creatures, and it’s a popular card in green Commander decks. This is rather expensive for a rare from a big set, and adding to the supply is going to torpedo the price.

Genesis Wave ($7): Speaking of Scars of Mirrodin! This card pops up from time to time when a ramp deck wants a big finisher, and this is ridiculously awesome in Commander games. I expect this to get printed again, losing at least half of its value when it does.

Steel Overseer ($19): I would imagine that one of the new Commander decks will be artifact-based, likely the one that isn’t green. This card would be fantastic in that set, and if it’s not printed, will likely go up by $5-$10, and drop by at least that much when printed.

Serra Ascendant ($19): I don’t think this would be in the Commander product, because it lacks the modern template of Chalice of Life and different playgroups have different ways they want to handle this card. The price, though, is going to drop like a rock, since this was a rare in 2011.

Captivating Vampire ($9): Sees no competitive play, one of the top tribes in Magic, five years old. It’s an excellent target for one of these supplemental products and won’t be even $5 after a reprint.

Linvala, Keeper of Silence ($52): This is another card that keeps dodging a reprint and I’m more and more surprised each time. If I had any extras, I would be very nervous. She’s continued to creep upward in price and kudos to you if you want to keep walking the tightrope with her.

Nirkana Revenant ($22): Everyone loves this effect in casual circles and it even comes with something to do with all of that mana! It’s a mythic from forever ago, though, and the supply is tiny. Expect this to drop to a third of its value.

Master of the Wild Hunt ($14): Another ancient mythic, this is really more and more amazing with all the new wolf creatures and token makers. Trade these away freely.

Conjured Currency, Douglas Johnson

Blueprinting 102

May 19, 2016 Douglas Johnson 11 Comments

Written By:
Douglas Johnson @Rose0fthorns
__________________________________________________

Next Semester’s Lesson

I find it just a little bit ironic that I’m naming my articles after college entry level courses immediately after I graduate. Anyway, let’s get right into the finance stuff. We skipped a week of blueprinting to talk about the financial tips and tricks for your next Grand Prix, and I hope that I’ll see several of you at Grand Prix Charlotte to take advantage of some of the suggestions I provided in the article. I’ll be on site Friday morning doing the same thing I did last time, so be sure to click the twitter link at the top of the article if you want to stay on top of the finance game this weekend.

On a semi-related note, here’s the list of vendors that are going to be on site at Charlotte: Hareruya almost always pays the best on NM competitive staples, and Tales of Adventure is where you want to bring your casual eight costing rares and mythics that are worth money because Commander players say so. I’ll be posting hotlists and such on Twitter as well!

Alright, now back to the bulk. We had a really great series of questions from TheBrownNote about the specific details of my setup, and I’d like to get all of those uncertainties cleared up before we start sorting and organizing everything.

1. How many BCW trays do you need to sort by set? Did you group duel decks together as one?

This is my current setup downstairs, although it’s not quite complete. All of the boxes on the top shelf are empty (otherwise I would probably be buried alive in cards right now), and you can see each of my set sorting trays spread out across the lower plastic tables. I used about six trays in total to cover all of the sets, from Unlimited until Shadows over Innistrad. This year I’ll need to have room for several more products that were announced on Monday, but you can read anyone else’s articles about that. Here are some close-ups of the chronological order of each tray, with Duel Decks and supplementary products earning their own trays.

With the Planechase: Anthologies and Commander 2016 sets coming up, I’ll need to make some room. I have a few spare trays leftover, so I’ve got some wiggle room. Just don’t order *exactly* enough trays to cover all the sets and supplemental product, then be sad when you don’t have enough sorting trays to cover the next set.

2. Do you sort out NM vs Played when you initially sort? You said you pulled damaged cards, wasn’t sure if this was a category you made for all NM.

You probably noticed that I left the four deep pockets in each of the sorting trays blank. You can customize them to be whatever you want, but I like to leave those four slots on each tray open for sorting random foreign cards, foils, basic lands, or damaged goods. If it’s a non-NM card that’s complete bulk (Grizzly Bears, Vampire Noble, etc), then I just put it in a pile to throw away. I don’t like putting MP true bulk in my boxes that I sell to casual players, because I try to keep them looking as professional as possible. While it’s okay if a few of the cards have a little bit of wear when selling on Craigslist or something similar, I try to avoid serious marks or damages.

On the other hand, we have non-NM cards like Browbeat, Blighted Agent, or Piracy Charm. Cards that are technically still worth something to someone, but we can’t in good conscience ship them off to a buylist due to significant wear. Personally, I usually just keep them in the same lot as the rest of the NM cards up until the point when I’m actually shipping out the buylist, at which point I make sure they’re not getting shipped out. Remember that once this project is done, ALL of our bulk will be set sorted and alphabetized, making it much easier to fill orders for locals who want to build decks. Being able to find the playset of HP Browbeats and sell them for $2 total instantly is better than the ten cents you’ll get from any other buylist.

3. Noticed your BCW order had the tall card dividers, these only work on the 2 piece boxes, right? since 1 piece boxes are horizontally loaded instead of vertically.

Yeah, you’re correct. These dividers won’t allow the 5k boxes to be completely closed with their original lids. The box lid will still cover the cards, but I wouldn’t put any pressure onto it with other 5k boxes filled with cards. You can still leave the box open though, and the dividers will leave enough room poking out for you to be able to see what you wrote/stickered them with. I’ve actually considered trimming up the bottom of some of the dividers with scissors to see if I could get them to fit inside the 5k while being able to close it completely with its’ original case, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. If you don’t need to write the set/block names on the dividers and you’d rather just color code or something, that might be a solution that works for you. Here’s an example of what one of my current boxes looks like.

If you’d rather not order a thousand dividers and you’re planning on working a smaller operation, the dividers that come from the holiday gift boxes are an almost identical height, just a couple millimeters taller and wider with rounded corners on all sides. If you buy and sell collections even semi-regularly (or if you have friends and family who buy you a holiday gift box), then you probably have some of those dividers kicking around. In short, I don’t think you’ll need to buy nearly as many as I did, if at all.

4. Was debating a card tower from BCW, seems like a waste of money though. What do you think the best card quantity boxes to purchase based on my collection size?

Hmm. I’m not entirely sure what you mean by a “card tower”. This is the closest thing I could find on BCW, and it’s not something I would really ever be interested in buying. The only thing close to that I have is a card house from BCW, and it holds 12 of the 1K boxes that I know and love. I really only use it to house the cards that don’t get touched very often, but it’s stuff that I want to have close by just in case someone wants to pick through it. BFZ/ZEN full art lands, my spec boxes, bulk foil commons and uncommons, that kind of stuff. You might be able to make use of one, but I wouldn’t buy the one on top because it just looks way too bulky. The bottom picture is what you’re looking for. Just one at most should be fine, since you said that you’re only working with around 10k in cards.

5. Thoughts on the foam partial box fillers BCW has?

Hmmm. I’m not really sure what you’re referring to here either. I wouldn’t personally spend more money on foam filler just to make sure the cards are stable, as there are a bunch of other ways to do that without spending money. Tissue paper works fine, as does using a much smaller BCW white box for the remaining cards so that there’s no wiggle room. This question actually reminded me that I have a ton of pick/pluck foam in my basement that came included when I bought my Pelican luggage case, so I might end up using that one day if I really need to make sure some cards are perfectly set up in a box without room to move. Overall though, I wouldn’t spend money on foam.

Hopefully that cleared up some of the lingering questions from before. I’m always happy to answer more on Twitter or Facebook, and I’ll see some of you at Grand Prix Charlotte! I won’t be playing in the main event, but I do hope to play some Commander in between the finance stuff. Thanks for reading!

End Step

Golgari Grave-Troll took off, to the surprise of that one guy living under a rock. TCG mid hasn’t quite updated yet, but the cheapest NM copies online are $6 at the time of writing this article, an easy double-up from less than a month ago. If you know me, I’m a fan of cashing out and enjoying the sweet gains while I can. Even if the card caps out at $10, I don’t want to be one of hundreds fighting to race to the bottom, or risking the desk not putting up anymore results.
Steamflogger Boss is a Magic card. Someone bought a Steamflogger Boss for $5 and change on TCGplayer. Yep, that actually happened.The “argument” for it is because Kaladesh has been shown to be a steampunk/artifact plane, so why wouldn’t Wotc go back to Future Sight and develop an entire set or block mechanic around a card that is literally a joke? Apparently this is what #mtgfinance is nowadays, and I personally find it hilarious. While this is another tally mark for the “Buy bulk rares” club, I don’t actually own any Steamfloggers, nor do I own any Contraptions. Do you really need my advice to sell these?

ADVERTISEMENT: OzGuild makes organising your Magic card collection simple… Scan your cards into a digital catalogue using your smartphone, it’s fun, fast and easy. Scan in your first deck for free!

City of Traders

PROTRADER: Inaugural Announcement Day

May 18, 2016 Travis Allen 7 Comments

By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin

I wasn’t sure what to write about this week, and then at 10:40am Monday morning, Sam Stoddard rolled this gem out.

Announcing! Quite a lot, actually… https://t.co/b5jmlprczz

— samstod (@samstod) May 16, 2016

Six new announcements! That’s a lot of hoopla. Let’s run through them one by one.

The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.

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

ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

Jason Alt

Prescience – Discussing Commander 2016

May 17, 2016 Jason Alt 8 Comments

I make a lot of predictions in my articles as a matter of course and sometimes I really nail it. I don’t like to toot my own horn because I feel like that’s a sign of insecurity. When you point out all the calls you got right, you’re hoping you can distract everyone from the calls you got wrong. I’m not like that, you guys – you all read this column and you notice all the times I nail it.

Still, sometimes it’s worth reminding everyone of the really good calls you make so that they understand why you’re someone they should listen to. If you can demonstrate your usefulness and almost uncanny ability to predict the future, you can build an audience. It is in that spirit that I write this piece today.

In which I demonstrate my predictive powers

Until this week, there wasn’t much known about Commander 2016. We knew what had been in previous sets so we could pretty safely rule out them repeating color combinations before they had exhausted all of the existing combinations. The only two left were four-color decks and the remaining five, two-color (allied) decks. Monday came and buried in an avalanche of announcements was a blurb about Commander 2016.

Did you miss it? Apparently WotC decided that using their website that people check regularly to make announcements at a steady pace is for losers so they are going to make their announcements quarterly to throw the finance markets into turmoil and have us get all of our excitement out of the way 4 times a year so we can spend the next three months noticing some random twelve-year-old kid opening Hearthstone packs on Twitch is getting 10 times as many viewers as the Magic Pro Tour.

Apparently we get things we long clamor for. Commander 2016 is going to feature four-color decks. Do you know what this means?

I totally nailed Commander 2017. While everyone was trying to figure out what was going to be in Commander 2016, I already got started with a series of articles delving into the implications of the allied, two-color decks in Commander 2017. I realize it was incredibly prescient of me to start talking about something that’s 15 months in the future, but how are we supposed to make any money if we don’t look ahead? When you fail to plan, you plan to fail, and I am planning years into the future and sharing those insights with my readers. You heard it here first – Commander 2017 will be allied-color deck combinations. You can even read about what is likely to be in the Azorius deck right here on MTG Price. I’ll try to avoid re-posting those same articles in a year.

My brilliant deductions aside, let’s speculate a bit. I’ll open the floor to pretend questions.

“You biffed it pretty hard on predicting what would be in Commander 2016.”

That’s not a question. Next question.

“You biffed it pretty hard on predicting what would be in Commander 2016, didn’t you?”

I mean, I guess. Was it a 50/50 call that I got wrong? Yep. Did anyone lose money? No. Did I say anything that we can’t act on next year? Probably not. Is it still super early? Yes. What I wanted to do was help us think about how to get ready for Commander 2016 and while I didn’t get confirmation that the assumptions I’ve been operating under were correct, I came to a conclusion based on logic, and no one made a compelling case that I missed something major or was thinking illogically. No one challenged my assumption because it was both logical and kind of unimportant. Now we know more information and we can operate under a new assumption. Every time we get more information, we can get more specific in our actions. While I called the coin flip the most wrong you can call it, I’m just too excited to be getting four-colored decks to even give a crap about that.

“You CLEARLY did not have insider information. Did anyone?”

I don’t think so, but there is some evidence that would suggest otherwise. Travis Allen expressed his opinion as succinctly as is possible.

I am not so sure people knew, or at least that they knew we were getting four-color decks. It’s always possible that the people who bought hard into the Nephilim were simply speculating. However the price rises are all pretty significant and we need to ask ourselves what they knew and what could happen, here. There are a few scenarios.

The Nephilim are in the decks
The Nephilim aren’t in the decks
The Nephilim are in the decks and whoever is buying knew that
The Nephilim are in the decks and whoever is buying didn’t know
The Nephilim aren’t in the decks and whoever is buying knew
The Nephilim aren’t in the decks and whoever is buying didn’t know

We can discount a few. If you know the Nephilim are in the decks, you’re not going to buy knowing they’re getting a reprint. Is this a case of insider info or just a spec that looks prescient in hindsight? Whoever they are, they’re going to be hard-pressed to find buyers right now. No one is going to buy these copies before they know for sure they’re not in the decks if they’re an EDH player, so they’re hoping to find a greater fool to dump the copies to. This looks like a really bad spec under those circumstances. Do other speculators even have any money left after they spent all of their capital making Steamflogger Boss spike to $15?

What I will say is that we can figure out how high the Nephilim can possibly go if they’re not reprinted.

This is every card in Guildpact that is worth more than $4. There are still a lot of the lesser Nephilim available but Yore-Tiller, arguably the best one (arguably) is sold out under $3. How high do we see these going? Are you going to be happy you bought in around $3 if they don’t exceed Ghostway, Ghostway being a card that spiked because of Modern and not EDH like everyone thinks. I’d say $8 is a safe ceiling if they’re not reprinted.

If they are reprinted, the money is going to be in the foil copies, but EDH players don’t really foil stuff out like the myths about EDH players would like everyone to believe. Your Commander still won’t be foil, and the rest of a four-color deck is going to be ridiculous to foil out. Sure, you snapped up that sweet $4 Witch Maw Nephilim with your inside info/ballsy gamble. Good luck on the foil Chromatic Lantern and Coalition Relic. I think the odds of getting blown out on a reprint are much greater than your odds of doubling up. If you can’t get in at a low-risk buy like $1 (and you’re not doing that online, but locally is still an option) stay away. Original printings aren’t coveted over new printings in EDH the way they are in Legacy or Cube; the cheapest version is.

“What are we going to do for mana?”

The question on everyone’s mind is about Chromatic Lantern. It is ridiculous at turning mana issues into “I’m just going to tap the number of lands this spell requires” and that’s a great feeling. Lantern is a big unknown right now.

This spiked to $10 when they announced you could pay mana of a color not in your deck in the corner cases where you’re playing your opponents’ spells. It was already a card that would have been $10 eventually and a small amount of people saying “We should look at this” gave it the nudge it needed. People are buying these at the new price even if vendors haven’t caught up in raising their buylist price quite as quickly. If they do, this could be potentially very bad for the price. A second spike would be higher and harder because there aren’t loose copies in binders to soak up the demand like there are during an initial spike and dealers holding most of the copies means there is less of a race to the bottom. If Lantern is confirmed not in any of the decks, we could see it flirt with $20, which seems absurd for a recent non-mythic, but, have you read Chromatic Lantern? It’s so good.

The bad news is that if Lantern is in one deck, it probably won’t be enough to do much to the price.

This is after 6 printings, 5 of which were in supplemental product. I see three scenarios for Lantern.

It’s not in a deck and it hits $20
It’s in one deck only or maybe two and stays around $10
It’s in all 5 decks and comes down a bit

Before we conclude that there is a 66% chance you make money or break even buying in at $10, we should weigh the probabilities. I don’t think it will be in only one deck, personally. The other decks will have identical mana issues. Does one deck get lantern, one get Coalition Relic and the rest get something like Commander’s Sphere? I feel like Lantern is going to be in most of the decks or none of them. There is always the possibility that they print a new card that’s even better than Lantern and is specific to Commander, but even that wouldn’t make Lantern obsolete. I see a lot of scenarios where you lose money waiting and not too many where you lose much buying now. I hate to say it, but my analysis is maybe don’t wait on Lantern. That said, know that if you don’t buy now, you’re going to get something to help out with your mana issues. It may be a new card, it may be lantern or relic, there will likely be a land to help, too. Help is coming.

“Are the commanders going to be 4 color or mono-color with off-color activations?”

That’s half of what I think is the eternal question. The other half is “are we really getting 15 brand new four-color legendary creatures?” In the past we have gotten two new commanders and one reprint of a legendary creature in those colors who could sub in for the other two to take the lead. Are we getting three commanders per deck? 2 commanders and a reprinted Nephilim that can’t be the commander unless you play with a cool playgroup? Will they errata the Nephilim? Because they said they never would.

Fifteen new Legendary creatures would be just so many. 10 is a lot, but 15 is 50% more and that’s a lot of work for them. The good thing is that if we just have 5 more mediocre ones that usual, the people who want to build that deck can and it won’t affect much. Build your Arjun the Shifting Flame deck, kiddo. But if there are more good commanders than normal, that could have implications if more decks are built than normal. I honestly think that won’t be too much of an issue – the market can withstand a little pressure from more decks being built, otherwise The Gitrog Monster (which seems like it could have been designed for Commander 2015 but not fit in) would have spiked the price of Sol Ring or something equally silly. So when people ask if we’re getting a 4-color creature or a mono-colored creature with off-color activations making it four-color via the Thelon of Havenwood rule, I say I think we’re getting both. One of each, and I think maybe a second of one of the two or maybe only two new commanders. It’s hard to know, but we’re looking at broad strokes right now.

“What else are we going to do for mana?”

Really quickly, pop on EDHREC.com and look at what goes in the mana base for a 5-color Commander because I bet people use something similar to solve their mana issues for 4-color decks.

Check out Reaper King, for example.

I see Vivids, which makes sense since they’re free. I see tri-lands, which have their own challenges vis-a-vis a three color deck. If you’re 5 colors, you can run every tri-land. If your deck is every color but red, you run every tri-land that doesn’t have red in it. Well, only 3 don’t have red and the same obviously goes for every other color. You’re limited to three tri-lands but this should still put some pressure on those prices. If you’re a three color deck, you can only run one tri-land, so in a way, a four-color deck is three times as effective at pulling tri-lands off of store shelves. Reflecting Pool, City of Brass, Mana Confluence all have upside, but they all also have reprint risk, especially as cheap as cards like Exotic Orchard are. Shocks and fetches have some upside, but other formats need those and the blip from EDH demand shouldn’t move the needle on those.

Stay away from Nephilim
Maybe get your Chromatic Lanterns, and maybe your Coalition Relics, too. If you can’t live without them, that is, and if you’re ruling out the possibility we’ll get something better.
Mana bases need help. They’ll get help, but a lot of the lands we already have could help out.

I think I am going to look more in-depth at what I expect to see in the decks and now that they’ve revealed this much, I expect to see a bit more revealed in the weeks to come. They need to hurry if they’re going to be at all gradual in how they give us information. Still, I’m happy we’re getting four-color decks, if only because it allows me to show off how good I am at predicting the (distant) future. Until next week!

MTGPrice Blog

Monthly Archives: May 2016