Monthly Archives: April 2019

Jason Alt, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: Can’t Keep Sol Ring In Stock

Readers!

Today I want to talk about a commander that has far less impact than another but is an interesting case study in cumulative effects. If a commander isn’t as splashy as others but demands finite resources already in use, will enough people build the new deck while keeping the old deck together that a deck with lower individual demand can surpass another deck due to the nature of cumulative demand? Can we even measure that? We can try!

It’s no surprise that this flappy girl is flapping into the top spot in decklists. It’s powerful, obvious and gives Boros something it never had – tools to deal with usually falling way behind in card advantage. The numbers bear this out.

Second place for the week before the card even comes out is pretty strong, I think you’ll agree with me there. However, there’s a commander that didn’t even make the list, coming it fewer than Alesha’s paltry 37 lists this week that I think is more of the same and therefore isn’t as exciting but which could be a real boost to cards that already spiked once.

Roalesk’s 8 entries aren’t setting the world on fire, but with a few unique twists on the classic Simic “Here’s some +1/+1 counters for your creatures, you ugly idiots” scheme that we’re all used to, this could be a deck people build and, more importantly, don’t cannibalize their other decks to do it. If there are cards that are in a greater variety of decks that are very different and less likely to be torn apart, isn’t that information worth having, also?

We can’t really quantify how many people aren’t tearing their decks apart, but what we can do is see how many copies of a given card they’d need if they built every similar deck. Do people do this? Yes. I have Vorel, Pir and Toothy, Kydele//Thrasios and I’m building Roalesk. I also have Riku and Maelstrom Wanderer. You know how many FNM Coiling Oracles that is? A lot. Me needing one Aurelia’s Fury ever is good to know but me needing 5 copies of Inexorable Tide is worth looking into as well.

This is the first in a series where I start to set the record straight about EDHREC data. As the person who was the first one to use the data in MTG Finance analysis articles and also the person who feels compelled to clean up the mess when other writers use the data irresponsibly or capriciously. I’m not going into a ton of depth today but I will say that anyone who says “This card is in 4,000 decks on EDHREC” and leaves that out there like it means something probably don’t know what they’re doing, they just saw me work for 5 years developing an analytical method and summarized it as “say how many decks a card is in” which is flattering because at least they’re thinking of me. The raw number is almost meaningless on its own and I’m going to spend the rest of this series talking about how much more analysis goes into my picks than that throwaway bit of ex post facto justification.

If someone is a lunatic like me, how many decks are going to run their staples? I’m going to look at the Simic decks someone may have and if they have more than one, cards they’ll need spare copies of if they want to build Roalesk.

Fake FAQ Time

Q: What about people who proxy cards and keep one copy, jamming it only in the deck they’re playing at the time?

A: Don’t care, can’t measure that.

Q: What about people who take their decks apart?

A: Don’t care, can’t measure that.

Q: Why are you doing this if you can’t quantify it?

A: Do you think the number of people who will buy a new Doubling Season for Roalesk if they already have Pir and Toothy built is 0?

Q: … I guess not?

A: Are we good here?

Q: That wasn’t an answer, that was a question?

A: Oh, right. OK. We’re good here. Period.

Before I get into the stuff that’s in every Simic counters deck, I want to throw a few Roalesk-specific cards in so it’s enough like a normal article that you’re still glad you’re a Pro Trader getting this early.

Looking at CK prices, this is down from its all-time high, and wouldn’t you know it, that peak was when they printed Commander Anthology 2. Anthology really undermined the confidence in the price and it’s beginning to recover, especially buylist price with a potential arbitrage opportunity happening recently. Blade is a really good Roalesk card because the Legend rule gives you a ton of proliferate triggers and the ETB triggers are pretty sexy, too. In short, Roalesk is the best Blade of Selves deck in history. These aren’t going to be easy at all to reprint and if they dodge a printing in Commander 2020, which I think is likely, this is a $15 card. Easy double-up here at least if you can scoop the $5 copies.

Roalesk is the best Blade of Selves deck ever which makes it the best Sage of Hours deck since Ezuri. Are you going to take Ezuri, a different deck that has its own unique quirks, apart to build this? You might, but I’m not going to and this demand could be cumulative if enough people don’t. Even if it’s 1% of Roalesk builders, it’s still more powerful than people using Aurelia’s Fury for the first and last time, and those people buying Fury are less likely to buy multiple copies for future decks the way Simic players have begun to become conditioned to.

I need to learn to have more faith in my picks that take a minute to get there. I used to look at the price of Regal Behemoth when it was like $1 every few weeks and it wasn’t moving and I said “I guess I missed on this one” and that was dumb. Behemoth got there. This will, too. After all IT’S IN 9307 DECKS ON EDHREC!!!!!!!111eleven

Now that I’ve written what amounts to an entire article, I need to quickly get to my thesis before your eyes glaze over.

When you look at a card on EDHREC, if you’re not sure what to look for, it’s easy to fixate on the number at the top of the page –

And ignore the numbers lower down on the same page.

It’s important to look at how the copies are distributed and whether someone is likely to take apart an old deck to make a new one. Someone who has a copy of Doubling Season in Pir and Toothy might just take that whole deck apart to build Roalesk but someone with doubling season in Rhys is unlikely to scrap the Rhys deck to build Atraxa. If a new deck is functionally different from the old one, the odds that someone will buy a second copy rather than repurposing the one they already have goes up.

Also, there is a bit of an age bias here. Players have had much longer to build Rhys than they have Roalesk so newer decks won’t show up on the top. It’s been a pretty long time since anyone built a new Marath deck, for example. The best bet if you’re going to look at the cumulative effect on similar decks is to manually go to each commander’s page. It takes a minute but it is worth it to gather the data we need.

Here’s Vorel and Ezuri.

Here’s Pir and Toothy and 118 more decks, almost half of the ones in the database.

Here’s Zegana.

Here’s Experiment Kraj.

A lot of these decks are pretty similar in build and it’s likely a lot of them were torn apart when a newer, more exciting +1/+1 counter commander came along.

Our experience with Doubling Season has shown us that there is quite a bit of demand across a lot of very similar decks and it pales in comparison to the demand from just Atraxa. If someone tears apart Experiment Kraj to build Roalesk, you’re not creating new demand for Doubling Season, but who’s tearing apart Atraxa for Roalesk? Or Trostani?

Doubling Season is a card that is more likely to experience renewed demands from the printing of Roalesk because a lot of Doubling Season’s copies are not in Simic decks. The opposite kind of card? How about the card I clicked on to get a list of all of the Simic +1/+1 counter decks because I knew it would be in all of them?

That’s right. I am talking about this buffy boi.

In 7,411 decks, you can see the distribution above if you zoom in. If you’re reading this on a phone like a lunatic, I’ll tell you that while Atraxa is #1 and the combined pile of Ezuri runs half as many copies but the rest of the decks are all pretty close in number. Master Biomancer is going in basically every Roalesk deck if the person is smart, but is anyone going to leave a very similar deck together to make Roalesk? They’re not tearing apart Animar or The Mimeoplasm, but Ezuri and Momir Vig are less safe. Bear that in mind when you look at the number of decks a card is in and think you get to stop there.

That does it for me this week. I’ll try and do another hybrid “Here’s how I used EDHREC for this new commander” and “Everyone else is using EDHREC data wrong” article. Join me, won’t you?

 

Watchtower

The Watchtower 4/22/19 for ProTraders – Plan Your Specs

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.

MFNF, which isn’t a metal band but was in fact Magic Fest Niagara Falls, went well enough. Players showed up, played Legacy, sold Magic cards, and ate chicken wings. On that note, I did manage to get our good buddy Corbin in front of some genuine Buffalo chicken wings, although they weren’t at one of the local hotspots. I have to advocate for attending GPs in your backyard, not that most of you will need that pressure. Having been one of the most active players in the city some 12 or 13 years ago, but less so in the last few, it was something akin to a high school reunion to attend. When the GP is within 20 minutes, players that would never bother to drive two hours to a major city still find their way. It’s a lot of fun to see faces that you remember from your LGS from seven years past. Given that the most lasting appeal of Magic is the community, this is where the true dividends lie.

Boros Signet (Foil)

Price Today: $1.50
Possible Price: $8

It’s been a week and Feather is still a popular and exciting commander, despite not having arrived in anyone’s hands yet. Official release is next Friday, May 3rd, so we can expect people to begin building the deck in earnest through late spring and all summer. Note that it’s possible that the activity on new EDH cards may be slow over the summer, as many college aged players may find themselves in home towns that lack the Magic peer group. Once September rolls around and these players are back at the dorms, the impetus to build that new EDH deck will grow.

Boros Signet isn’t a new card of course, with its original printing in Ravnica. Just, Ravnica. It’s shown up quite a bit since then, with something like 10 or 11 total printings. That’s a lot of dang printings, right? No surprise, as it’s a necessary mana rock for the most mana-starved color pair in the glorious worker’s format. Amongst all of those printings there are only two foils though, the original copy, and the latest run from Modern Masters 3. And before you bring it up, no need to worry about getting hammered by Modern Horizons – as Boros Signet is already legal in Modern, it won’t be appearing in Horizons.

With Feather a few weeks from release, players are going to have newfound reasons to sleeve up a Boros Signet. Of appeal here is the “recently reprinted EDH staple” effect. I, for instance, don’t own a foil Boros Signet (I think). I do have a few decks I may want to put it in, but I’ve never bought one, because I’m not paying $15 or $20 for a Ravnica foil copy. Now that Feather has been printed, I’m looking into the card again, and finding it was reprinted in MM3. Great. Rather than buy one copy for Feather though, I might buy an entire playset. Even though Feather is just one commander, a cheap reprint of a formally expensive card could lead players to buy several copies. In this way, we can see how a new commander can drive demand for several copies of a single card.

Anyways, foils from MM3 are maybe $1.50 or $2. Supply isn’t too deep, with less than 40 or maybe 50 copies floating around on TCG. A few players deciding to pick up a playset for Feathers and any other decks they have are going to drain that supply rapidly, and I’d expect to see foils pushing $6 or even $10 by the time fall hits.

Sphere of Safety (Foil)

Price Today: $7
Possible Price: $15

Tuvasa the Sunlit popped up this week as a popular commander, and is in fact hanging in there on the last 30 day tracker. I assume he showed up on Command Cast or something to that effect. There’s a spike in popularity now, and that will wane, but enchantments and enchantments-matter themes are always popular in EDH, will always have a place, and will get a new commander once or twice a year.

Players love Propaganda and Ghostly Prison. Look at the EDHREC numbers on those. Nearly 30,000 decks for each, making them some of the most popular cards in their respective colors. Sphere of Safety plays that game too, just bigger and badder. Where Propaganda is always going to add a two mana speed bump, Sphere of Safety can generate a brick wall. Sure maybe your opponent can pay the two mana to let their 50 power unblockable hexproof commander through the door, but can they pay 14? That’s an easy target to hit with Sphere of Safety, especially when you’ve got another Propaganda effect or two in play, a few land enchantments, and an enchantment clone or two.

Tuvasa or not, Sphere of Safety is a worthwhile inclusion quickly. Enchantments are absurdly powerful in EDH, and it doesn’t take much to power up Sphere. You don’t need to take my word for it, of course. While it’s no Propaganda, you’ll find it in over 17,000 decks in EDHREC’s database.

How about the card itself? There are currently 12 foil copies on TCG Player, with no more in the pipeline. SCG has less than a playset. At a $7 buy-in, this is an easy double up.

Sorin, Grim Nemesis

Price Today: $8
Possible Price: $17

This isn’t the first time you would have seen Sorin’s name, whether here or on Fast Finance. He’s a surprisingly popular planeswalker — 7,300 decks on EDHREC at the moment — from a set several years old, with distribution numbers that are lagging at this point. There’s only one printing still, and as an Orzhov card, has limited applicability in Commander precons.

Looking through planeswalkers in EDH, you’ll see there’s occasionally derivations from a familiar price pattern. Several walkers hold price tags far north of Sorin, yet aren’t any more popular than he is. I consider these wrinkles aberrations that are likely to self-correct eventually. If you’re like me, you’ll occasionally find a card that, despite your best research, shouldn’t be as cheap as it is. Those are opportunities, and eventually they straighten out. Sometimes it’s quick, within a few days or weeks. Other times it’s a bit more of a drag, and takes months, or even years. Yet there’s a reason you identify them as incorrectly priced, and the market will have its way, whether it’s today or tomorrow.

Supply is decent, with about 65 vendors holding copies. (There’s no CFB wall of 50 copies, for what that’s worth.) We don’t need to see the inventory sell out before they’re more than $10 though. As players begin building planeswalker centric decks and go looking for other inclusions, Sorin will be there, and players will pick up cheap copies. Existing vendors will notice, and minimum prices will be raised as copies are purchased. It’s a bit more of a sleeper than something like Sphere of Safety, but with the attention paid to planeswalkers right now, I’m happy to be in the market for a popular, underpriced one.

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.

Brainstorm Brewery

Brainstorm Brewery #335 Ice Cream!

http://traffic.libsyn.com/brainstormbrewery/Brainstorm_Brewery_335_Icecream.mp3

DJ (@Rose0fThorns), Jason (@jasonEalt), and Corbin (@CHosler88) fresh off the newly recorded wife cast (releasing to non patrons later this month) and are ready to talk about War for the Spark Spoilers, Springtime growth, Giveaways and Bolas.

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

TeeSpring:https://teespring.com/shop/bsbTshirt18?aid=marketplace&tsmac=marketplace&tsmic=search#pid=2&cid=2397&sid=front

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

Casual Fridays, Uncategorized

ME3 and Me!

2 Comments

I was having a relatively normal preview season, enjoying the story aspects, reading through cards and looking forward to the War of the Spark novel, when they dropped the Mythic Edition 3 bomb on us.

Frankly, I haven’t recovered.

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Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, 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.