Grinder Finance – Looking into the Expedition effect

So how many of you realized how cheap Standard is right now?  Did you know every single one of the best decks can be built from scratch for less than $500?  What’s causing all this?

 

Zendikar Expeditions

Have you looked at the expected value from a box of Battle for Zendikar if you don’t include expeditions?  It’s miserable compared to Shadows over Innistrad and Dragons of Tarkir.  Is it a surprise that Battle for Zendikar boasts the most expensive expeditions by a long shot?  I don’t think so.  We saw a similar effect on the Khans of Tarkir booster box expected value.   5 rare lands (the fetch lands) were often 5 of the 6 most expensive cards in the set for much of it’s lifetime in Standard.  Now the Zendikar Expeditions are playing a similar role taking almost the entire expected value of a box of Battle for Zendikar and shooting it into the floor.  The only difference this time is the most expensive cards are not Standard legal or necessary to play Standard.  What this leads us to is Gideon, Ally of Zendikar (the most played card in Standard) being a mere $22 despite being played as a 4 of in about 55% of decks.  You know what happened the last time we had a card this dominant in Standard?  His name was Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy.  Maybe you remember him.

 

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Emphasis on lower rarities

These are the top 10 most popular cards in Standard:

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Sorted by rarity we have 2 Mythics, 6 rares, and 2 common or uncommon cards.  As far as rarity break down is concerned, that’s pretty awesome for the players.  Rares appear approximately twice as often as mythics on print sheets so there is approximately twice as many of them available for players to use.  Just off this list are some of the most powerful creatures in Standard, Reflector Mage and Duskwatch Recruiter at uncommon.  This level of power in the lower rarity cards hasn’t been seen in a long time.  It almost reminds me of the days of U/G Madness where a top tier deck was dirt cheap to build.   You can build the white humans deck (which won the last SCG Open) for under $200.  In October of last year I wrote this article about the insane price of Standard.  Only two sets have rotated since then and we’re looking at some of the lowest card prices in years.

No Eternal Playability

Compared to the Khans of Tarkir Standard, there are almost no cards now that you can play reasonably in Modern and Standard.  The Atarka Red deck from last year was a few Goblin Guides and Lightning Bolts from a servicable Burn deck.  Although some people have tried to play G/W tokens in Modern, it hasn’t caught on with the same fervor that would insulate the cards against price drops.

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Nahiri was arguably the best card to come into Standard since Dragons of Tarkir or Magic Origins and it still can’t hold it’s price.  Some of it was being high demand for a few weeks and some of it was just under performing.   The other part of this problem is Nahiri really isn’t performing at the numbers necessary to carry the price tag.

None of the top 10 most played cards in Standard are seeing any kind of widespread play in Modern.  They’re not as ubiquitous as the fetch lands and as such don’t issues maintaining a reasonable price.

You could make an argument for Collected Company but that card doesn’t see enough play in Modern to warrant a large price tag.  It’s currently not the best strategy in Standard so it has a reasonable price point.

Faster Rotation means faster sell off

People are getting rid of Dragons of Tarkir and Magic Origins cards quicker than I could have ever imagined.  We have one more Pro Tour where they will be legal but some cards are falling off a cliff far before their time.  Dromoka’s Command and Collected Company would extremely expensive if they were not printed in a Clash pack and also going to rotate in the fall of this year.  Faster rotation means there is slightly less time to play with some cards but it means more overall time where they’re at a lower price. In years past, the “older block” cards became more valuable up to a point (approximately 6 months before rotation) where they would start to drop off.  Since every rotation now is 6 months before the next rotation, people are selling off quicker and making it cheaper for people to buy in for a few months.

Final Thoughts

  • Pay attention to SCG Orlando (and no, not because I’m going to win it – obviously) because this is one of the last big Standard events before Pro Tour Eldritch Moon.  There are 2 Standard Grands Prix (Pittsburgh and Taipei) on the same weekend and two SCG Opens (Columbus and Baltimore) before the Pro Tour.  Both of the opens are after the release of Eldritch Moon but before the Pro Tour so they will be valuable for seeing what is “good”
  • Modern PPTQ season starts with the release of Eldritch Moon.  I know I’ve been harping on it but don’t keep waiting to finish your Modern deck.
  • Eternal Masters supply is too low.  We likely already saw the prices bottom out as people are buying into singles.  Don’t wait if you need any.  It’s unlikely they get cheaper.

Returning to the Fold – A Grand Prix Columbus Floor Report

*click*
Radio searches through a few stations. After a moment of static – it clears to reveal Steven Tyler belting

“I’m BBBAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCKKKKKKK. Back in the saddle again.”

Welcome!

Let me say hello! How long has it been? Has it been that long? Huh. You don’t say? 18 months? Maybe even two years?  Well, fantastic.  Just enough time to make it worth while to start all over. Now, shall we begin?

For those that know me – or have an idea – let me say hello. I am back, to bring you my varying degrees of insight, easy going banter, and strong belief that you have what it takes to make the most out of what you have. Not terribly long ago, I would bring you my thoughts on Magic based Finance. After much relocation, settling in the bright city of Dallas, Texas and a return to traveling the US (& eventually the world) for Magic – I have returned to having my hand on the wrist of Trading.

The fine folks here at MTGPrice have decided that you should hear me. Let’s not waste that with pomp and circumstance. This week, I will bring you what insight, thoughts, experience, & ideas I have to give you the best tools to prepare yourself for your next Grand Prix Vendor experience.

Approaching a vendor booth is a key component of any Grand Prix. To make the travel, the cost, and the excitement all fit in with your budget, means, and obligations – it is best to occasionally liquidate cards, locate much coveted new beauties, or fill in that last gap for your 75.

The fastest way to do that will always be with a vendor.

I, myself, am a Floor Trader. I pride myself on turning cards you do not need into cards you do. But a booth is a completely different & exciting animal compared to any trade. They have paid for the right and the power to give you not only exactly what you need – but the choice of how you need it. It also can be very intimidating. Why? Because you have no idea where to start. There’s numbers everywhere. Pretties to distract you. Amazing cards you may have never seen to lure you away. And even more – there’s always the fear you’re paying too much and getting too little.
This weekend was Grand Prix: Columbus. Uniquely situated between the Midwest and the Northeast, the GP itself drew a lot of the best talent in the Vendor world.

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This weekend I primarily dealt with three vendors. Adem Hotza @Hotsauce. Jeremy Muir @SavageTCG and Paul Morelli @MTGCardMarket. Surprisingly, most of the published buylists from the variety of booths were all roughly the same. As I get back in the swing of things – in the future, I’ll have a more in depth analysis of where best to spend your money, or get the most out of your cards.

This week, I want to talk first about a couple of key points of what your Vendor relationship needs to be. While there are some unwritten rules, mostly it just hasn’t been thought to be said out loud. As a financier, or someone simply interested in getting the most out of your cards – these points can vastly change your approach to the weekend and how you cash out or trade up. As well as your preparation going in.

1) Online or in person.

While dealing with SavageTCG, the discussion went down the progression of “How has business been.” Every booth has different needs and usually that is going to be reflected greatly in their buylist. When business is good – buylists tend to stay even keel around the room. When it’s volatile is when you will see the differences. Another way to maximize your Grand Prix, then, is to first bring needs.

As with anyone – as the Owner of SavageTCG – Jeremy loves card that will sell quickly or be gone that very weekend. When in person,  it’s very easy and quick to let the vendor cherry pick your collection. While this may not solve your instant needs – getting the ball rolling for yourself and then later matching a smaller list to the greater collective of “Who has the higher buylists” can net you the greatest balance of time spent vs. making your dollar go farthest.

This was my first stop of the weekend and that was my intention. Clearing out a long list of highly needed middle to low range but high demand Legacy/Modern playable Commons/Uncommons. With my organized list now shorter, and one 1,000 count box much lighter, the following day would be my next stop of the weekend.

2) “Picking” your bulk.

At my stop with Adem Hotza, owner of Hotsauce Games a very interesting point came up. I was there to acquire a NM/LP+ Moat for a trade. A young gentleman made it a point to acquire one that weekend – and I love sourcing cards for players that will actually love the cards they play. I had already done a lot of trading on the floor, thus some of my bulk was going to be included in acquiring this for him. Hotsauce had a gorgeous Moat at a great price and we got, again, talking about business.

Something that never had occurred to me is the practice of the Bulk traders using the Vendor booths as the manual labor to pick their $.25s & $.50s from the $.10s. Frankly – us as a collective can do better.

The Grand Prix floor should not be the time you sort those cards out from each other if you are about maximizing your buylisting. Definitely not when you’re dealing with a Vendor. If you’re not worried about the quarters from the dimes, do everyone a favor – just hand a stack and expect to have the whole thing priced as one “unit.” All dimes or all quarters, etc. If you are worried about it – then take it home. Compare buylists online. Send them in properly sorted or wait until the next event, after you’ve had time to seperate into appropriate piles. The week leading up to or the time before going to a booth really should be about maximizing your profit. On the floor is about maximizing your time – and theirs. 

3) “Mutual Beneficiality”

Yes. It’s a made up complete butchering of beneficial.

My last stop of the weekend was with MTGCardmarket. Paul & I haven’t had many occasions to deal with each other, but I have with Cameron. Most Vendors LOVE $5-$10 retail price cards all day long. For us, they can do wonderful things like trade into bigger items and net a consistent build up, but even better is the cash power to buy those large collections. Any time you can get past a certain dollar amount that others are just not able to deal with, you gain power. The people that can and do buy $3,000 collections weekly are few and far between. You want to be one of those people. And they will always nets you more than $5 bills will. Cashing those out will get you larger transactions, more flips, and better outlets for your cards.

However you do it – the best thing you can do is give any Vendor the best balance struck of what they need versus what you can leverage. This generates a mutual benefit and gives you the priority over even the most alluring offers. While talking with Paul – he paid me a great compliment. He wanted my cards over another sell that was trying to come in. A fully foiled out Legacy deck.

What you may not know – most Vendors do many Grand Prixs back to back to back. Some times – four shows in – cash flow can be a little hard to come by. Not just a difference between Friday & Sunday, but a complete paradigm shift from what the would normally buy and the much leaner “focusing on needs.” If you want to give yourself the edge – and also make sure what you are liquidating will always be bought – don’t just bring corner case expensive cards that, while having great upside, will sit in their display cases for weeks.  It’s not making it someone else’s problem to deal with. It’s bringing them items they just can not buy. Bringing the things that will sell day in and day out can and will bump you to the top of any shortlist a Vendor loves to deal with.

In closing – these three points can really improve your selling experience with Vendors. Each Grand Prix isn’t just about who’s buylist is best. Often – if your relationship is built with a Vendor – not only could you received priority treatment but getting the inside track can easily make you the person everyone wants to deal with.

In the future – I will be modulating my Grand Prix reports to bring you a mixture of insight, cool deals, price points to pay attention to, and items of note on buylists. This decision to bring me back on board was made late in the game, so this week’s report is focused on highlighting the points that made the most difference this weekend. With the Grand Prix in the rear view – these deals I made with these particular Vendors absolutely raised my Grand Prix from “Well played” to “I still had all deeze.” Incorporating a wonderful Vendor or LGS relationship into your Finance game is a key cog in the cycle of buy/trade/sell. I plan on showing the way to make this one you can maximize for yourself, if you choose.

Trading and Finance is not just about maximizing one card and riding it to the finish line. It is also about bettering the experience of the players you trade with. It’s about providing the cards the stores need to keep providing playing & trading space. It’s about getting you into the right situation and raising the tide. After all, the tide raises ALL ships. If you have not realized that – take a closer look at what you are doing. It really is that simple.

You can follow me on Twitter @dylan_beck or @Dylan Beckham on Facebook.

PROTRADER: A Unique Grand Prix Finance Report

The premise of the “GP Floor Report” has become widespread in the MTG finance community.  Players and speculators around the world benefit from the most up-to-date price action at these significant events.  Last weekend was no exception – Grand Prix Columbus was filled with Magic vendors eager to acquire key cards to add to inventory.

There was one distinct difference this time: I was there.  This is truly a rare occurrence, as my travels to large events are often severely inhibited by adult life.  But with a Legacy Grand Prix exceeding 2,000 players less than two hours away, there was little to stop me from attending.  And while I’m sure many of you would be thrilled (more like entertained) to read about all the misplays that contributed to my woeful 2-4 record, I think there’s a different priority worth focusing on: the finance.

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Once a Cheater, Always a Cheater

Go read my article from last week if you haven’t already. I’ll wait.

Also, what manner of lunatic are you? I realize that we’re getting new readers all the time, I guess, but what are the odds that the very first article of mine you’d ever read is the second part of a two-parter unless you’re wearing your underpants on your head right now. If you read it last week and could use a refresher, I linked it above. I couldn’t make it easier for you. Actually, yes I could – I’m linking it again so you don’t even have to move your mouse up. I’m assuming you read by dragging your cursor along so you know which word to read next. I mean, not YOU, you’re cool. But someone reading this. Probably.

Why is it so important to re-familiarize yourself with the piece from last week? Well, it wasn’t the cleanest of breaks, frankly. Sometimes when I do a multi-part series, I have a plan going in. Maybe an outline written on paper, telling me which points to make in which sections. Maybe colored tabs for organization. Other times I start writing and eventually I figure out the topic I want to write about only sometimes I run out of space and I hit my word count without necessarily making all of the points I wanted to make. I talked about having two theses last week and I feel like I covered the first thesis pretty well. Pretty well. I don’t think that anymore, though. The benefit of reading your comments and tweets and the intervening week has made me realize I have basically two choices at this point.

What happnened was I discussed my first thesis – people will build new 4-color decks. That’s a good thesis. Come on, I can say that. That’s no like an ego thing – that’s a legitimately good thesis because like all good theses, it’s built upon a very obvious point. Of course people will do that. The second thesis, if you couldn’t guess, is that people will use the sweet new 4-color goodies and build 5-color decks. The second thesis was likely to take an entire article because I wanted to talk about all of the ways people were going to cheat stuff into play with five-color decks. Are you starting to see the problem?

I left a bunch of stuff out of the last article. Some of that was for obvious reasons – it wasn’t appropriate for the first thesis but was for the second. Why write about Fist of Suns last week when it can’t go in a four-color deck? Also, I plan to write about Fist of Suns later so when I do, act surprised. Seriously. I’ll know if you don’t. What, are you too good for a little whimsy in your life? If I can act surprised after getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the new Star Wars movie and overhearing some dude in a nacho cheese-stained homemade Jedi robe talking about how Han Solo “HAD TO be the one who got killed” and then go back to my seat to watch the rest of the movie with a pretty huge plot twist spoiled for me, you can act surprised when I talk about Fist of Suns later. And if I just spoiled Star Wars for you, that movie came out 6 months ago, what were you waiting for? For George Lucas to release a special edition where Han shoots at Kylo Ren first? Act surprised when you see the movie you were clearly dying to see because that’s how it happened to me.

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So basically I feel like I needed an article-and-a-half for the first thesis and like, half an article for the second one.  Basically, how about we just mention the second thesis and then just talk about all of the cards I think could have upside, including stuff that could go in a five-color deck first and then just gradually listing stuff that could easily have gone in last week’s article if I’d had room? Just kidding, I’m going to do it anyway because this is my article.

Thesis the Second – Fist of Suns

People are going to use good four-color spells and creatures and mana fixing and they’re going to build five-color decks with them. And why not? They can mix and match the new decks and use any card from any of them. Now, could they have done that before, like when Commander 2014 came out? Could they have added a Scrap Mastery and a Containment Priest and a Cyclonic Rift and a Song of the Dryads and a  the black deck was terrible? Sure, but when there is an actual impetus to do something like I feel like Commander 2016 is going to present, people will do it to a much larger extent and that’s important going forward. I think with new mana fixing possible, new spells that are going to be powerful because how else do you justify making them so hard to cast and as many as 15 new four-color legendary creatures, any one of whom could pair very nicely with a commander like Child of Alara or Progenitus, we’re bound to see new 5-color decks in a big way. There are a lot of cards that specifically pair with 5-color decks but not 4-color ones.

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Remember this card? No, not from earlier in the article, I mean from 2014. Remember Travis Woo put this in a terrible deck and then someone on coverage said “OMG SOMEWUN IZ 5-0 with teh best deck everz” despite that person having 3 byes and then every dipshit PTQ grinder bought a playset and then those same people complained about how speculators are ruining Magic when the price went up? Remember that? This card is good enough to cheat Emrakul into play in Modern, it’s good enough to cheat… well, not Emrakul, but something either big or hard to cast in EDH out. If you’re playing 5 colors and you have anything big or hard to cast, this is your guy.

Since we had an initial spike, the copies are concentrated in the hands of dealers. We always talk about how second spikes are harder. If this gets any additional play, people are going to have to buy at retail because their LGS and friends’ binders are stripped because this card flirted with $20 briefly. Always pay extra attention to cards that spiked once already. Extra attention is going to drive his up sharply.

Fist pairs nicely with this other card.

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This card doesn’t cheat per se but I did run a playset of these back in the day in a mono-black deck that ran four copies of Last Stand. That was a fun deck. I found that deck and its 4 copies of Crystal Quarry and four copies of Cabal Coffers in an old deckbox at my parents’ house not too long ago. Finance genius.

This card is pretty flat so I feel like more 5-color decks could give it a boost. At the very least it’s worth knowing about. I feel like this gets reprinted if they do a 5-color EDH deck, but we’ll know about that before we know what’s in it, giving us time to sell if we need to. I like this as a pickup.

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This is a nice, steady gainer and has real upside long-term. The reprint prospects are fairly limited and that is perhaps the best thing this has going for it. Cascade is a very good way to cheat, especially with a passive trigger that will let you benefit from every spell you play. Notice it says “Each Turn” meaning you can really get a lot of advantage the more players are at the table. This is a high buy-in but this could easily be a $20 card with a little more adoption and this is likely to get just that.

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This is a little easier to reprint than Maelstrom Nexus but, don’t worry, they didn’t do it in FTV Angels. This has upside from being an Angel and from being a sweet 5-color deck card that lets you cheat your ass off when you hit them with it. This would be more expensive if it were legendary, but we can’t always get what we want. This has plateaued so it’s unlikely to move in the next 12 months without some help, but I feel like this only needs a little nudge to get moving. If you think you’re going to build 5 colors, you want this.

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I feel like this is the first half of a U-shaped graph that will cause some people to say in a few years “When was that ever $1?” Well, it’s $1 right now and it’s likely to be more, later. This card is good in multiple formats and when it’s gone from Standard, I think it has some upside. It’s certainly very good in decks that are four or five colors and that’s kind of the point of the article. Get these as throw-ins to shore up trades and make a big stack in a box, forget about them and then be glad later. Turn a pile of other bulk rares that won’t go up later into these on PucaTrade. Burn a big pile of them. All are legitimate strategies.

Do you see what I mean about there not really being enough 5-color-specific cards to really necessitate its own article? I can go back over the stuff that works in either four or five-color decks that I missed and which bears discussing.

Thesis the Third – There Are Cards I Missed Last Week

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Every now and then I get a little bit worried that the price is going down. Every now and then I get a little bit tired of losing to this in EDH games. Every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of this card’s years have gone by. Every now and then I get a little bit terrified when I look at this card’s declining price.  I think it will turn around. There’s nothing I can do – I like Defense of the Heart.

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Someone (And in under 5 minutes I could get on twitter and scroll back a few days and check but I’m not super inclined, sorry, whoever!) asked about this card on Twitter. I think it’s really cheap for what it does, but I also think that if you’re going to devote a whole card to this effect, it should do more. How many multicolored cards have that much colorless in them that this feels like cheating? It certainly helps us ramp a bit, or buys us one free trip out of the Command Zone, I guess. Four-color decks could use this, theoretically, but five color decks could have all along and aren’t. I never thought this would be cheaper than cards like Tsabo’s Web or Teferi’s Response (Sold out on SCG) but that’s the world we live in.

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It’s goofy to see this card on the decline. This was considered a staple at the advent of EDH and its popularity is seriously waning. I think there’s decent risk of a reprint in Commander 2016 but I think more people focusing on multicolored decks that have hard-to-cast creatures should give this a second look. This reminds me of Duplicant in that its usage has really waned compared with how ubiquitous it was at the beginning of EDH as a format, and the recent Duplicant reprinting shows that WotC may be printing based on an outdated paradigm (Duplicant shows up in only 3,000 decks on EDHREC despite being colorless removal and a body) which means they could reprint Arch in a precon. I’m calling this high reprint risk, but so few people seem to care that I doubt the price spikes if they announce the lists and it’s not in it. Risk seems moderate but with a lower upside, moderate may be too much for me. It’s certainly very good, though, so its decline is a bit puzzling. 5 new 4-color decks could be the paradigm shift this needs.

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Legacy was big on this plus Conflux for a hot minute. Remember what I said about watching for a second spike? This could certainly get a second spike based on how good it is in multicolored decks and cheating in those decks. It’s underplayed in EDH but I feel like stupider cards from the same era having hit $20 with basically way less justification. A little nudge makes this $20 practically overnight. It’s a highish buy-in but the spread is so low that it makes me think dealers are waiting for something to happen here, too. In fact, outside of when it was spiking, the spread has never been lower. Watch this card for sure.

Are there more cards? Certainly. If we don’t start to get spoilers soon, I may have to dig a little deeper but then we risk hitting cards that see even less play and therefore have even less potential upside. I have a decent amount of confidence in a lot of these cards unless I said otherwise so these were the ones I deemed worth exploring. Got any other ideas? Hit me up in the comments or on Twitter. I may even remember your name (sorry again) if you do. Until next week, where I’ll be discussing a different thing or maybe not or maybe we’ll have previews. Give me something. A conspiracy spoiler, something from a duel deck, anything. I’m getting antsy in my pantsy. On that note, I bid you all a fond farewell.