Monthly Archives: January 2019

Jason Alt, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: Data > Not Data

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Readers,

I wrote an article where I talked about what I thought, as a person who thinks he understands this format of EDH (you agree because you’re reading my article) people were going to play in Teysa Karlov decks. I was mostly right. I mean, I was right right. I didn’t say anything I didn’t see in multiple decklists online. However, now we have EDHREC data aggregating the data for us and I don’t even have to guess half as much as I did before. This is a very good thing for everyone involved. Let’s go back over the data now that we have it and see if there is anything else we can coax out. I mean, I do, what, 5 picks? We can find 5 picks I missed, let’s be honest. If not, I’ll do 3 picks, change the by-line to “Travis Allen” and no one will even notice. This is where you say “SHOTS FIRED.” I kid, obviously. He’s in our top 3 writers, and if you read his article twice it’s like you’re getting 6 picks, which is more than I do.

So what makes me want to look at Teysa Karlov rather than the more popular Vannifar?

Did no one build Vannifar this week? Of course not. We’re just not getting the data in, yet, and Teysa Karlov being more popular than Atraxa and Muldrotha is kind of a big deal. Teysa was the #1 submission this week and 50 decks is plenty of data to look at.

While we’re looking at a complete dearth of Vannifar decks in the database, let’s address some concerns surrounding using EDHREC as a data source. Yes, I think it’s less than ideal that we’re not getting every possible deck from every possible database. No I don’t think that skews our data. I think incomplete data sets are not ideal, but I think what we’re doing is using the database to identify cards we may not have thought of on our own as inclusions and looking at the percentage of decks playing those cards. We can also look at their synergy score to differentiate between Orzhov staples like Mortify and Teysa staples like Requiem Angel. Our data isn’t skewed by being incomplete unless we’re somehow missing an entire demographic of EDH players and even then, missing their data doesn’t mean our conclusions are wrong, just incomplete. Missing something isn’t that bad. It’s better not to miss things, but it’s not a problem if you’re hitting other cards. We can’t buy everything, so as long as we can identify buying opportunities from the data we have, opportunities we miss aren’t a problem. My hit rate for specs went way, way up when I started using EDHREC data, not down, so I feel comfortable making recommendations based on getting a glimpse into what the masses are doing.

If you think 50 decks isn’t enough, I would say don’t use the 50 decks to rule out something you think is good in the deck, then. Something being missing from a small sample size data set doesn’t mean that thing won’t be in a larger data set, but it’s unlikely something will be over-represented in a smaller set to the extent that the card will be a bad buy, especially since those errors have a mechanism to correct themselves in the form of people seeing the card in the REC list and saying “I guess that goes in the deck” and buying it. More data will continue to trickle in, but until then, we can absolutely learn about how people are building this deck by looking at what we have so far.

What About Synergy, Now?

I have talked about this before but some of you are new and all of us could benefit from a refresher. If you look at a card in a deck on EDHREC, you’ll see two numbers. By “in a deck” I mean on the page for that deck’s commander. This is 101 stuff but it’ll go fast, I promise.

Click on this link and it will take you to Atraxa’s page.

Make sure you’re on “view as Commander” because that will show you the cards that are in an Atraxa deck. The cards you see are all average inclusions in Atraxa decks and they will have two numbers under them.

The first number is the raw percentage. Of the 5,369 Atraxa decks we’re analyzing, 42% of them run Biomancer. The +4% synergy score shows how unique to Atraxa decks Biomancer is. For most decks, Sol Ring will have a -1% or -2% score because it’s in almost every deck and isn’t an Atraxa staple. Cards very specific to Atraxa will have a higher number. The higher the number, the more it’s likely to only be in that deck.

2/3 of Atraxa decks run this card and the +10% synergy score indicates it’s more unique to Atraxa decks than Biomancer, which has more appeal in other decks outside of Atraxa than Cornucopia does. This is easy stuff but it’s worth defining and it will help us when we look at Teysa cards. Cards with a high synergy score are inclined to move just on the basis of that one new card and a high synergy score could indicate overlooked and underpriced cards that are inclined to move in price on the basis of not getting played much before. +10% isn’t a huge number, and the sheer variety of possible Atraxa decks makes it tough for anything to be an auto-include. Let’s look at something a little more “linear” to build.

Here is Ancestral Statue in Animar decks. Clicking on this card will take us to the card’s page where, unlike viewing a Legendary creature as a Commander to see the cards it’s in, we’ll look at a card to see the decks that have it included. Clicking the Statue takes us to a page that shows us that Statue is very much a Animar-specific card.

This is Statue’s Top 3. It’s 22 times as likely to be in an Animar deck than in its second-most-common deck, Rakdos. That 41% synergy tells us as much without us having to click on every card and check our work like this. Do I know how the synergy score is calculated? No, and it didn’t occur to me until right now that I didn’t. I can find out, but since we’re mostly using it as a “is this number bigger than that number?” right now, it isn’t that important for you or even me to know how the sausage is made to that big an extent. If you want me to write a primer article on EDHREC data calculation, let me know and I can try and get the info. But if you’re like me, you just want to know you can trust a metric and I trust this metric.

A high synergy score may be a tad misleading when we have a small number of decks, but there is always risk in speculation and since we can cross-reference the inclusion percentage to “rank” the high synergy cards, we can mitigate that a bit. One lunatic jamming Sorrow’s Path in Atraxa will give it a high synergy score but low inclusion score. 1 inclusion won’t show up on Atraxa’s page with it’s 5,300 decks, but for 49, we may have issues. A high synergy, high inclusion card is going to be something we can say is going to have its price pegged directly to the popularity of Teysa decks and the more those get built, the more than card goes up. I think we can find a few high synergy, high percentage picks.

83% inclusion

+72% synergy

Foils of this card as hard to price because no one is really listing them on TCG Player. It’s clear the price is up but it’s to the point where the only listings are people charging $6 and people charging $0.50 with $4 shipping. CK has foils for $3.50 and that’s about what the TCG average is, but TCG only has 4 listings. TCG Prices are great most of the time and since there are a lot of data points, it seems “fair” to trust their market price, but situations like this are weird. If this gets used a lot, it could hit $5. Also, foil Revel in Riches, a better card, is like $4 everywhere. Does that mean buy foil Revel in Riches? I don’t know, how do you interpret a scenario where foil Pitiless Plunder is $3.50 and foil Revel in Riches is $4? One of those prices is bound to move. Or both? Does Teysa reward us for playing both of those cards (yes).

Foil Plunder is near a historic high and foil Revel is near a historic low but is rebounding. I think we have an opportunity on both of these cards. For the record, the score on Revel is not high enough to show up on Teysa’s page, but we said we wouldn’t let that bog us down, right? Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Now, Plunder triggers from YOUR creatures dying and Revel triggers from THEIR creatures dying but that doesn’t matter, Teysa doubles both. Grave Pact means it gets nuts. You sac a creature, Grave Pact triggers, Teysa triggers doubling Grave Pact, Plunder triggers, Teysa triggers doubling Plunder. Plunder resolves, giving you two treasure. Grave Pact resolves, two of their creatures die. Revel triggers, Teysa doubles Revel, Revel triggers again, Teysa triggers again doubling Revel. You add 4 treasures. You’re 6/10 of the way to winning the game. Revel will show up in Teysa lists. It already is. I wrote about it on Coolstuff this week and that gets a few eyeballs on it so people will see it in a list there, also. I think this is also a buy, and it probably has a higher ceiling than Plunder.

50% inclusion

+41% synergy.

Foil Drover is at its historic average. Those funky spikes are hard for me to explain and I won’t try, but I don’t like non-foil Drover due to the reprint. I also don’t like foils because I think EDH demand for foils is way overstated. That said, Drover is pretty damn good in Teysa decks. Sac a creature to Ashnod’s Altar and one to Phyrexian Altar. Teysa puts two counters on Drover. Use the mana to make 2 1/1 spirits and Drover is now a 2/2. Sac the spirits for mana, put two counters on Drover, use 1 to make spirits. Repeat until Grave Pact has wiped the board and Drover can 1-shot anyone at the table.

83% inclusion

+72% synergy

These numbers will shrink when we get more decks in the database but for now, WEEEEE.

Teysa is good in this deck, obviously, and I think having the option to get the “oops, I win” combo with Darkest Hour and Blasting Station but with the added benefit of having a better commander than Teysa, Orzhov Scion is. Stay away from the $39 foils, probably.

67% inclusion

+60% synergy

This is a pretty cheap foil. Non-foils got a reprint but I think given the foil is near a historic low and this card is pretty damn good in a Teysa deck (don’t forget, Teysa also gives token creatures Lifelink and Vigilance, because of course she does) I could see this getting a bump. When there isn’t much difference in price between foil and non-foil, sometimes people buy foil because why not, and the prices diverge a lot. Also, foils sell out faster and easier. This is 6 mana, but a deck with both Ashnod’s and Phyrexian Altars won’t mind. This is a good pick imo. Or not. What do I know about foils? I’m just using the metrics I set out for myself.

In conclusion, there is money to be made as a result of this deck and I wouldn’t have picked any of those 5 cards and in fact did not on the basis of what is “Intruder Alarm” obvious. This one could be controversial – argue with me in the comments if you want. Until next time!

Uncategorized

The Watchtower 1/21/19 for ProTraders – Plan Your Specs

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By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin

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

In an effort to be more proactive, Wizards has seen fit to remove Krark-Clan Ironworks from Modern. Reviewing the precedent set with past combo bannings, such as Second Sunrise, this is certainly a decision made sooner than may have been anticipated. This could point to a desire to more quickly shuffle cumbersome combo decks out of the format in the future. We’ve no doubt that they came down on KCI much quicker than other decks that were more pervasive but less “tournament-unfriendly.” We’ll be wise to keep that in mind in the future should any other of these strategies arise.

Krav, the Unredeemed (Foil)

Price Today: $8
Possible Price: $17

I’d love to detail all sorts of Modern specs that have been given new life by KCI’s departure, but to be honest, there isn’t anything terribly clear or obvious. Other combo decks may show up in greater numbers again — Tron comes to mind — but any price activity is likely to be shallow enough to not represent a worthwhile investing opportunity. So instead we’ll think about Ravnica Allegiance today, and some of the new commanders that set has brought us. To begin, we’ll look at Teysa Karlov.

Teysa decks are in their infancy, but that doesn’t mean we can’t begin to see where the strategy is going to head. Athreos’ spike a week or two ago means other people are figuring it out already as well. There’s three basic levels to Teysa. Level one, cards that reward you for things dying. Level two, ways to sacrifice those creatures. Level three, card draw to make sure you can keep doing those two things, since by it’s nature the deck is going to cannibalize its own board. Krav sits comfortably in both levels two and three.

On-demand sacrifice effects are often underappreciated in EDH. Their utility extends to an untold number of corner cases. Drawing cards and gaining life are of course both great as well, and need no championing. If you’re building a Teysa deck, it’s tough to imagine Krav doesn’t make it in.

Krav is of course from Battlebond, which means a single foil printing. Supplies are mediumish, with less than 50 copies on TCG, and basically none in stock at sub-$12 prices at direct vendors. Should Teysa prove to be a popular commander, I expect the supply on Krav to run low quickly. We’re looking at a summer set, that didn’t have excess demand to drive multiple print runs, that’s been out of the public eye for awhile. Inventory is latent, but new demand will drain it quickly.

Lifeline

Price Today: $15
Possible Price: $40

Another Teysa hit, Lifeline is a very old rare, all the way back from Urza’s Saga. (One set before foils, unfortunately.) Lifeline’s text is a tad clunky, which may be why adoption rates to date have been relatively low. Basically, if any of your creatures die and there’s still A. Lifeline and B. another one of your creatures on the battlefield, the dead creature is reanimated at the end of the turn. What this means for you is that you can do things like use Yahenni’s ability to make him invincible, sacrifice your entire board to various value effects, and then return them all back to play at the end of the turn because you have A. Lifeline and B. indestructible Yahenni. You can certainly get blown out, but even still, it’s a powerful line. It’s even sillier with something like Grave Pact or Dictate of Erebos in play.

As I said, Lifeline hails from the time before foils, so that’s not an option in this case. We’ve got different assurance though, as Lifeline finds itself on the reserve list. Normally we like foils for EDH since they can’t show up in precons, but in the case of RL cards, that’s not an issue, so the foil isn’t quite as important.

Lifeline’s biggest issue is that to date it’s not a wildly popular EDH card. That’s a bit surprising, as I’d imagine there’s a series of commanders that could make good use of it, but litigating whether a card should or shouldn’t be good in EDH doesn’t mean anything for it’s price. If it’s not seeing play it’s not expensive, no matter how good we think the card is. (I’m looking at you, 200 copies of Marton Stromgald.)

Still, a new commander that specializes in death in a way no other commander really has could be just what Lifeline needs to go from virtually nonexistent to niche gem. That’s not a recipe for booming demand, but when we’re talking about a card that’s what, 21 years old, supply and the ravages of time are on our side. Like Krav, we’re not likely to see movement if Teysa isn’t popular, but if she is, this could be a major component of aggregate decklists.

Vizier of the Menagerie (Foil)

Price Today: $8
Possible Price: $20

We’ll wrap up by looking at a different Allegiance commander, Nikya of the Old Ways. Nikya wants you to play absolutely nothing but creatures, and rewards you by functioning as a walking Mirari’s Wake. How do you make the best use of this? By putting yourself in situations where you can cast hordes of creatures fast and hard. Lucky for you, Vizier does just that, as every creature on top of your deck is akin to drawing a card.

Unlike Lifeline an Krav, Vizier already has a base in EDH, with over 4k decks registered with a copy. That’s not remarkable in its own right, but it does give us an idea that there’s already a segment of players generating demand. A new commander that is definitely going to be after this effect stands to accelerate drain on a surprisingly limited supply.

Checking in on TCG, there’s roughly 30ish NM foil copies, starting at $8 and ramping to $10, and then $15 quickly. Other vendors are already out of stock, or are priced north of $15. Even without Nikya I’d like this as a spec, although admittedly it looks like it may be a slow burner. Hopefully Nikya drives a few people to to snag their copies and accelerates the drain on the existing supply, which would position you to turn a 12 to 24 month spec into a 3 to 4 month spec.

Travis Allen has  been playing Magic: The Gathering since 1994, mostly in upstate New York. Ever since his first FNM he’s been trying to make playing Magic cheaper, and he first brought his perspective to MTGPrice in 2012. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.

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Brainstorm Brewery

Brainstorm Brewery #322 Electrodominos

http://traffic.libsyn.com/brainstormbrewery/Brainstorm_Brewery_322_Electrodominos.mp3

Corbin (@CHosler88), Jason (@jasonEalt), and DJ (@Rose0fThorns) welcome team Lotus Box member Kat ( ) from the SCG Tour and VClique podcast https://soundcloud.com/vcliquepodcast on to the cast to review Ravnica Allegiance (RNA).

Make sure to check us out on Youtube because everything is better with video. https://www.youtube.com/user/BrainstormBrewery

Need to contact us? Hit up BrainstormBrew@gmail.com

Casual Fridays

First Week of Allegiance!

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Ravnica Allegiance has some amazing cards, some busted cards, and we’re already getting some interesting price movement on these cards.

Let’s not waste any time, and look at what’s jumped and what’s tripped over, fell into a hole, and rolled over to fall into an ever deeper hole.

As a bonus this week, there’s some extra-interesting Guilds of Ravnica cards that I think are excellent pickups, since they aren’t rotating out of Standard for another 21 months.

Before we get into these too deeply, let’s keep in mind that card prices right now are at a volatile place. This is all pre-order hype, we haven’t opened any packs yet, and at this point in Guilds of Ravnica Arclight Phoenix was a $5 card. There’s plenty of time for these to spike higher or drop lower.

Early Gainers

Hydroid Krasis (up to $20 from $12) – I said last week this would be $20 at next Christmas. I still believe that, but as you can imagine I’m not high on buying this at $20. I played the hell out of Sphinx’s Revelation, and the secret to that card was the first cast for X at two or three, which found you that bit of gas you needed to get to the backbreakers.

Mana acceleration isn’t great in Standard right now, and casting this early hurts. Four mana gets you a 1/1 flier. Six is a 2/2 and one card and one life. Still not great. I don’t think this is Standard gold, but this is the be-all and end-all of what Commander players want to be doing. You’d have to have a very clear reason not to play this in your 99, right? Maybe you run zero creatures?

Judith, the Scourge Diva (up to $8 from $2) – She’s a tough act to follow, but her path is clear: all aggro, all the time, and if you wipe the board you’ll pay a price for that too. “Any target” is great, but are we going to see decks with four of her? I get that if she’s staying in play the useless copies in your hand aren’t as awful (and playing the second one means two pings, FWIW) but it’s going to stand in the way of her going much higher.

Smothering Tithe (up to $5 from $2) – Your guess is as good as mine. I can’t figure it out. This is Rhystic Study’s less annoying cousin, and while I suspect that the Commander implications are better than they seem, I still don’t know why people are going into a tizzy here. Is it good against control? I suppose more mana is good, but they can pay if it turns into a problem. In four-player pods you can drop an eight-mana bomb on your turn five, but I need a dedicated strategy for this card to make my deck. When you figure it out, let me know.

Early Losers

Repudiate // Replicate (down to $2.50 from $8) – I don’t think this was ever going to be an amazing card, but this was a super-high preorder price and it’s a card that’s going to be tough to use in Standard effectively. You want your modal (or split) cards to cover a wide range of cases, but this has two niche abilities that don’t always fit the same deck.

Kaya, Orzhov Usurper (down to $9 from $13) – I wrote last week that I thought she’d stay around $13, and that seems a touch optimistic right now. Looks like she’s going to level out a little lower than I’d expected.

Benthic Biomancer (down to $1 from $4) – If a Merfolk deck is going to get there in Standard, now’s the time. The looting doesn’t happen on using the Adapt, it happens when you get the counter, and handily, Merfolk has no shortage of that. There’s a chance, but I’d like that chance a lot better if the UG Merfolk decks could still run Heroic Intervention.

Mostly, cards in the set are down across the board, and that’s to be expected. Preorder prices are educated guesses, and a set doesn’t keep a huge number of $5 rares around for long.

Guilds Quick Hits

Chromatic Lantern is at $5/$10 nonfoil, and that’s a full $5 cheaper on the new foil vs. the old foil. It’s a card that ought to get reprinted every few years, so I’m bigger on buying the foils now that they are cheap. Remember how high this got right before the reprint?

Even with a Masterpiece floating around, the RTR foil was $30 this summer before the reprint hit. Get your foils now while they are cheap, both for your decks and to trade away when it’s $30 again, because it will be and Commander players will always want them.

I’ve written before about Dream Eater as underpriced and underplayed, an opinion I still hold. I’m buying them off eBay for about 75 cents each when I go after them.

Arclight Phoenix has also taken a lot of words from me, but please, listen and buy your playset now, before they are $40-$50 this summer. It’s too good in all formats to stay this low.

Divine Visitation foils are $13 right now and this is a silly low price for the card that token decks most want in Commander. I even think it’s better than doubling effects, if we’re measuring head-to-head.

Experimental Frenzy at $3/$8 foil is good things waiting to happen. I’m about to go on strike, so my card buying is turned off right now. If that were not the case, I’d be hip-deep in these foils especially. It’s going to get broken. Thousand-Year Storm, at the same set of prices, is an ‘I win’ card in the Commander decks that can use it, and the foils here are super tempting, as a mythic even!

Cliff has been writing for MTGPrice for five years now, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.  Follow him on Twitter @WordOfCommander