Origins and Dragons pickups

It’s true confession time: I don’t like to do what everyone else is doing. I’m of the mindset that I prefer to not be with the crowd, and that’s both good and bad about myself. It’s a tendency that often serves me well in terms of Magic finance, because if I’m thinking about things that others aren’t, then there’s the potential for adding value.

This weekend, everyone is going to be agog about Eternal Masters landing and what will happen to those prices. My predictions from the last couple weeks feel okay, and at first blush there might be more of this printed than expected, so prices will be more likely to be low.

We are also about a month away from Eldritch Moon prereleases, so previews and spoilers will be rolling out soon, and that has lots of other people thinking about what will be good when that releases. (And if I hear ‘where Emrakul’ one more time…)

So what am I thinking about? The two other blocks, Dragons of Tarkir/Magic Origins and Battle for Zendikar/Oath of the Gatewatch. The former is going to rotate in about four months, when Kaladesh comes out, and the latter still has a year of legality left in Standard.

Today I want to cover the rotating sets, and next week I’ll give you my ideas on the still-legal ones.

Dragons of Tarkir

Collected Company (now $23)

A lot of Modern decks that used to use Birthing Pod have seemed to migrate over to this, and since it can hit any of the cards for the Melira infinite life combo, it’s a natural fit. The decks that play this almost never have less than a full playset, but there’s a lot of playsets out there. Don’t forget that this was in the Magic Origins Clash Pack, which also had a Dromoka’s Command and a Windswept Heath.

I have a suspicion that this loses a couple of dollars around the time of rotation but not much, and it’s so good in Modern that it’ll start growing before you know it.

September 2016: $17

September 2017: $25

 

Kolaghan’s Command ($13)

This is a card that Modern was made for. This plus Snapcaster makes Grixis a real and powerful deck choice, especially as a maindeck answer to Spellskite and other artifacts. It’s relatively cheap and very flexible, and it’s nearly impossible not to get two cards’ worth of value out of it. I’ve already made good money on this card, but what I can’t get past is that this is already all over Modern and Legacy, and barely there in Standard.

I think that this Command is going to stay stable through rotation and stays that way for some time. Picking them up won’t get you insane value now, but it will be stable and safe.

September 2016: $15

September 2017: $20

 

Atarka’s Command ($8)

There’s a lot of flavors of burn decks in Legacy and Modern. Most of them are no longer straight red, since adding white and/or green gives you extra angles of attack and better sideboard tools. This card can really pile the damage on in builds with multiple creatures, and again, this is a card already seeing a lot more play in non-rotating formats. I think that this starts trending upward very soon, but it’ll plateau because Naya isn’t the default deck.

September 2016: $10

September 2017: $13

 

Sarkhan Unbroken ($5)

The $5 planeswalker rule applies here. This also shows how prohibitive a mana cost can be from format to format, because Jund players were all over Broodmate Dragon, yet Sarkhan, who can make two tokens, saw zero love. I love picking these up now and just waiting. The growth won’t ever be sudden, but it will be there.

September 2016: $6

September 2017: $8

 

Risen Executioner ($4)

This is an expensive speculation target, but hear me out. It’s a mythic lord for Zombies, one of the top tribes for people to play casually. It’s also got built-in recursion, something that everyone enjoys. It’s $4 now out of pure casual appeal, and that is a flashing light signaling long-term growth to me.

I am not as high on the foils, but those are likely to be at least stable going forward.

September 2016: $6

September 2017: $10

 

Magic Origins

Pyromancer’s Goggles ($8)

This is another card that I’ve predicted would spike and made money from, and it’s almost back to those previous levels. It’s pure gold in casual settings, one of the best cards you could have in a Commander deck that likes casting red/multicolored spells. I think this is going to fall down a few dollars, and that’s when I’m going to jump in on them and just wait. Again.

September 2016: $4

September 2017: $6

 

Hangarback Walker ($5.50)

Oh how the mighty have fallen. It’s very hard for this card to not get value just by existing, though the presence of Path to Exile keeps it from taking over Modern. This was in the Event Deck, and that’s an extra few copies, but it’s a fantastic card in Affinity, and thatmight be enough to have it keep value.

I’m sad to say it’s not done falling, but I do feel it’s good enough to still see play, and that will buoy and maintain the price.

September 2016:$5

September 2017: $7

 

Alhammarret’s Archive ($5)

There’s no getting around it: This is seeing no Standard play, and this price is purely doe to casual appeal. As with the Executioner, I want to listen to what the trends are telling me.In this case, they are saying for me to spend $20 or $40 on spare copies, put them in bulk, and just wait.

September 2016: $6

September 2017: $9

PROTRADER: Grab Bag, EMA Edition

This week is going to be Grab Bag style, since there isn’t any one major thing to talk about.

ETERNAL MASTERS RELEASE NOTES

I am about to do something that I never thought I would ever do. I am so, so sorry.

Please forgive me.
Please forgive me.

And yet, Magic’s equivalent of ‘Family Circus’ makes a pretty valid point. Eternal Masters does some things to help promote Legacy (more than this and other, related strips would have you believe), but it also makes sense to broaden our understanding of what ‘Eternal’ really means. Technically, Pauper isn’t a supported paper format (at least, not as much as it is online), but it’s a huge gainer with this set release (there are Pauper staples at Common, Uncommon, AND Rare in EMA!).

We still don’t know what the final numbers are going to look like for distribution, but early reports have been considerably mixed. I’ve heard of some stores only getting half of their requested allotments, while others have had the opportunity to increase their orders. Because this is a distributor/store interaction (WotC has already sold off all of their stuff, and it sounds like stores will be unable to get more from them directly), the results are expected to be different based on geography and involved parties. In this instance, however, knowing what exists in your local market is likely to create some favorable short-term opportunities- if you feel the opportunity to leverage a trade premium in your favor, don’t be afraid to do so.

It currently looks like the money is made in the foil slot- there are a high number of cards with significant foil multipliers across each rarity, so make sure you are price checking anything you aren’t 100% sure of.

As a quick (and compiled) reminder, here are my top picks for cards that I expect to be gainers following EMA:

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Dimes to Dollars 102

Written By:
Douglas Johnson @Rose0fthorns
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It’s no secret that I absolutely love bulk rares. I’ve written multiple articles on the subject, and I pride myself on having a pretty solid niche in a community with so many prolific writers. If you’re interested in a couple of primer articles on what I’ve already talked about before we delve deeper down the dime ditch, you can find a piece on “Bulk Rare EDH“, and one on the difference between what I’ve deemed to be “true bulk and fake bulk.”  We’re going to touch on a little of both today, in addition to another project that I’m going to be undertaking.

Building with Bulk

The last time I wrote about Bulk Rare EDH was almost exactly one year ago, and I’ve since taken apart that Tasigur list. It ended up being too frustrating trying to play three colors with next to zero playable mana fixing, since we were locked out of effects like Cultivate and Chromatic Lantern. Half of the deck’s games were lost to mana or color screw, and most of the other half were lost because I was spending the first six turns casting cards like Eye of Ramos and Into the Wilds just to try and find a certain color of mana.

I still loved the concept of Bulk Rare EDH though, even if I found out after a quick google search that I wasn’t the designer of the format.

seconded

So what to do now that Tasigur was a dud? Well, I decided to cut my old rule of excluding the Commander from bulk rare status. That was only a personal exception because I wanted to build banana-man anyway. I also decided to clean up the cut-off point for cards at $1.00 TCG mid, for consistency’s sake; I just promised myself that I wouldn’t use *too many* cards from the dollar box, whatever that meant. So this time, the goal was to focus on a deck with only one or two colors, for consistency’s sake. Thankfully, one of my “Maybe one day” Commander prototypes on Tappedout.net was already being led by a bulk rare, Heartless Hidetsugu. While I didn’t exactly have anyone else who was following my personal rule restrictions, I still wanted the deck to be able to scale with the level of the playgroup to some extent. Hmm… I should definitely trademark that. Maybe call it 76% or something like that?

Anyway, this is the first draft that I ended up coming up with:

heartless1

Heartless Hidetsugu Bulk Rare EDH 1.0

heartless2
Ruination is right beneath Red Sun’s Zenith in the sorcery section.

We can punish those richy-rich folk who want to crack fetchlands thanks to Ankh of Mishra, and Burning Earth will barely affect me considering I’m playing 30something Mountains and only a select few nonbasics. I think my favorite combo will end up being From the Ashes with Ankh of Mishra to kill someone outright after a Hidetsugu activation. While some might complain to me that ending games on turn 6-7 isn’t in the “spirit of Commander”, the upside is that we get in three times as many games! The curve is kind of awkward at the 3-4 drop slots, but c’est la vie.

1000% Growth (kind of)

While I was fishing through my bulk boxes to find cards for Hidetsugu and my cube, I decided double up by also pulling out all of the MP, HP, and damaged cards. Some had imperfections that I didn’t notice when putting them in the boxes, but others were damaged by customers not taking very good care of my cards when rummaging through the boxes. I have a setup where I can’t keep an eye on people because my bulk rares are at the shop, but I highly recommend doing so if you have a fat pack or so that you let people skim at FNM. There’s also the whole “theft protection reason”, but if you’re stealing bulk rares than you probably need them more than you need to read this article.

I also happily found a large chunk of cards whose prices had increased from the dime and quarter status into the $1, $2, or $5 range. I hadn’t really pawed through this bulk in the past six months (at least), so I was happily surprised that there weren’t any finance hungry sharks who stripped it clean on a weekly basis.

I know that the subheading says 1000% growth (implying that I bought all of these at 10 cents each and would sell them for a dollar each), but that’s not always true. It’s not exactly like I plan on being able to sell a dozen copies of Conjurer’s Closet over the next week at $1 each, even if I jam them in my dollar box. Most of the readers of this column don’t have a display case-esque situation, so those readers will likely be hoping to buylist the cards in the below pictures. Even in that situation, you’re still making 300-400% as long as you stuck to the rule of “Buy or trade for English, Near Mint bulk rares that have a gold symbol for ten cents each”.

dollarstuff
dollar stuff
$2+stuff
$2-$5 stuff

Mentor

Mentor didn’t exactly have a singular reason to go up, it’s just that people like drawing cards for cheap; mana and money. When a bulk rare lets you flood the board with tokens, use up extra mana, and draw cards, that card usually doesn’t stay bulk for long. While you might be mentally responding to this paragraph with “something something Bygone Bishop, I’d still stay away. Remember that Mentor took multiple years to pick up, it works on Tokens, and you only have to pay one mana per draw. I don’t actually like Bishop (Well, I like every rare at a dime, but some I like better than others.)

Impostor

I personally play Dark Impostor in my Marchesa, the Black Rose list and am usually satisfied with how effective he his in the late game. Stealing activated abilities is usually just icing on the cake, and the +1/+1 counter subtheme helps with Marchesa. However, I expect the real demand to be coming from casual vampire tribal, where players are always happy to steal abilities from other creatures and where removal is more scarce.

alchemist

Zombies. Innistrad. Return to Innistrad. Zombies. Need I say more? Oh, right. Mill. Three things combined into one card. Tokens. Four things. While I’m happy selling these out of my dollar box, I don’t fault you for wanting to eek a few more pennies out if you feel like throwing playsets in the spec box and waiting a while.

captive

While Mayor of Avabruck was the main Werewinner out of the SOI release (and one that I’ll always feel a pang of regret about when typing), several of the other previously bulk rare Werewolves suddenly transformed into $1 bills.

Shape Anew

This jumped a few months ago from a silly Modern deck that tried to put Blightsteel Colossus into play. It didn’t work out, but Modern brewers will always tinker (heh) with this kind of effect, and we could see some interesting new artifact mechanics out of Kaladesh. I’m happy with my large percentage jump, but there’s very low risk in holding onto these.

End Step

  • River Kelpie‘s movement has become much more vertical than the previous week’s MTGstocks interests have been showing. While it finally joined the dollar rare club, I don’t think this is a card that continues to sit at $1 for much longer. It’s main use is in Marchesa lists like my own, and there’s the looming likelyhood of a new Marchesa in Conspiracy 2.  Read River Kelpie a few more times and tell me why it’s not already $4-5.
  • I didn’t get the chance to write about my other bulk rare project, but don’t worry. Next week, I’m going to focus more on my experience foraying into building my first Cube! You get one guess on what the theme is.

 

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PROTRADER: Summer Medley

By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin


Don’t miss this week’s installment of MTG Fast Finance! An on-topic, no-nonsense tour through the week’s most important Magic economy changes.


Some weeks are easier than others. There are periods where I’ve got multiple articles in the chamber, and I end up waiting a month or two to finally get through them all. Other weeks…well… My article idea list has got a good 10 or 15 bullet points on it, but all of them require a considerable investment of time, something I have in short supply this week. After turning to Twitter for any suggestions and getting several that are not-quite article length, I figured I’d address several at once. You guys get lots of information, and I don’t need to be creative. Works for everyone!

A quick note: you won’t see any content out of me for awhile. I’ve got a long vacation planned, and then return to two busy weeks at work. I’m not setting any hard dates, but I probably won’t be writing here or participating in the MTG Fast Finance podcast with James for a few weeks. (Though he may grab someone to fill in for me.) I’ll be back eventually, probably before August. Don’t think I’ve abandoned all of you; I’m just on vacation.

Ok, onward to useful discussion.

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ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.