Monthly Archives: August 2020

Jason Alt, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro trader: Free Money

I love reprint sets.

I don’t have to do things I don’t like doing when the cards are all reprints. You know what I hate doing? Going through 300 new cards and finding the one card that isn’t preselling for enough money and pointing it out to people. I hate that. People argue with me because they have their own pet card they’d rather see hit and if I’m right, they don’t remember and if I’m wrong, they bring it up in an unrelated argument 5 years later. I’m not complaining about the job, per se, rather I’m relishing that I get to do something I like a lot more – telling you where the free money is.

When Iconic Masters came out, there were plenty of cards that dropped to around $1 that rallied hard and made people a lot of money. A few of them are in Double Masters, and while that’s not great, it does mean we have about 2 years to make money on cards with which we’re assured to make some money. That seems like plenty and instead of keeping you from my spicy picks any longer, let’s get into the thick of it.

Reprint sets mean we already have adoption data, and years of it to boot. We already know what the most-used cards in the set will be, and EDHREC ranks them by the percentage of eligible decks using them for us. All we need to do is go down the list and figure out what’s going to rebound. Sounds easy, right? Well, actually… yes, it is. I’m going to do it for you because you paid to read this article or waited patiently to read it later and either way you deserve something for that. Besides, I care about EDH so you don’t have to and that’s taught me a thing or two.

They say failure is the greatest teacher but, I dunno, I feel like it was pretty instructive to make a bunch of money on this card when it was in Iconic Masters and got real cheap.

IM copies STARTED OUT at $4 on CK and were even cheaper on TCG Player. The price shot up precipitously over the years, because of course it did. This card is played a ton and there really isn’t better mass removal in White and it’s hard to imagine there ever will be. Lorwyn block was fairly slow and the decks that beat the Merfolk and Kithkin beatdowns didn’t run removal as expensive as Austere Command because Firespout existed. I don’t know if Standard will ever be slow enough again to make a 6 drop sweeper like Austere Command, and a better one to boot, so either it’s a Commander exclusive or Austere Command continues to be the king. I’m betting this is reprinted in 2 years and no card better comes along by then. I’m betting you can buy in at its current $3ish and make money on it. I’m buying in, personally.

I’d like to see if this gets any cheaper before I buy in, but as much of a slam dunk as Austere Command was when Iconic Masters was out, this is in more decks. It has cross-format appeal, so the real X-factor here is whether Legacy returns in full force. I DO NOT ADVOCATE buying cards that are not EDH-only right now in paper. I think there are better sweepers that don’t need another format to help them grow and justify a high buy-in price. Instead of Deluge, buy Eviction.

The smallest amount this ever grew by over a 2 year period was 100%. The most it ever grew over a 2 year period, and the most recent period of growth, saw it grow 200%. This is going to get near bulk and, if left alone, could flirt with $5 in like 3 years. I don’t give this the same odds I give Austere Command, but this is in a full quarter of the decks that contain Black and White and it’s one of the scariest cards in EDH. Bet money this bounces back.

This went from $5 to $10 in 2 years. A reprinting knocked it back down to $5 and then it climbed to $20 in 2 years. Could this go 2 years without a reprinting again? Maybe. But this card is one of the best Green creatures in all of Magic and we’re getting lands matters stuff in the next set so I bet every Green EDH deck brewed with a commander from return to return to Zendikar will want one of these. I also think this is not likely to be in the Commander decks that come out around return to return to Zendikar. If it is, we get blown out pretty hard. If it’s not, this card has shown you what it can do.

This flirted with $20 and when it gets under $10, which it should, it could suddenly become an option for players who didn’t want to shell out $20. This peaked at the time when decks like Kalamax were printed which meant players didn’t necessarily want to shell out $20 for an uncommon, but as this approaches $5, a price we’ve seen it historically recover from easily, this flirts with $15 soon and likely goes at least 2 years without a reprint. Wait for peak supply, which should take a couple of weeks, and snap them up. This is currently cheaper on CK than it is on TCG Player and I can’t imagine that holds. My money is obviously on TCG Player’s price going down.

The money I have made on just Exploration and Burgeoning alone is astounding. It’s really too easy. They’re not seemingly willing to print this into powder and if they do print this again in the next 24 months, I’m betting my own money that it will be a premium version that won’t really affect the price of the non-premium versions. Wait for peak supply and grab twice as many of these as you think you need.

Cards that are probably dead

There are a few cards that I think have been reprinted so aggressively that even if the price recovers, it will do it so slowly that it will get reprinted again before you can really make any money. These are good cards that I like but won’t buy.

Two reprints in a year? Ouch.

Unless you get this as a bulk rare, you’re not likely to get back out clear of what you’d lose to fees. This is a price predicated on scarcity rather than EDH play and it got downshifted from Mythic to Rare. RIP in Peace.

Penny Stocks

There are some cards that will likely be good buys under a buck.

The rarity downshift hurts this to the extent that it basically counts as 2 reprints in a year, but I think this is less likely to get reprinted subsequently which is what I think separates this from Champion of Lambholt, a card I hope I’m wrong about. I like this near bulk – this card does work and it gets better as creatures do.

Conjyclos’ wants its money back, too, and I bet it gets it. It’s been a long time since this got a reprinting and it might be a long time before it gets another one. I’m betting this goes near bulk and people come off of these for a dime or quarter locally.

I have made a lot of money on this card over the years and I do not intend to stop now. It’s not reprinted as often as people might think and it does a ton of work, especially since WotC is accused of making Boros boring and almost every attempt to make it not boring loves this card (except Winota which broke every format in Magic, nice work).

That’s what I think is fit to print. You’re welcome to look at the whole set yourself on the EDHREC page sorted by inclusion percentage to get a sense of what’s played more – it may help you a lot if you only look at sets sorted by highest price. If you have any specific questions, hit me up. Thanks for reading – until next time!

Watchtower

The Watchtower 08/03/20 – Twice the Price, Double the Fall

Double Masters releases this Friday, and so although the best prices for the new (although they’re not really new, are they?) cards won’t hit us for a little while yet, I wanted to spend today’s article talking about some of the cards that I think are going to fall the hardest, but pick back up again the most quickly. I was thinking of doing six picks instead of the usual three today, because you know, Double Masters, but I ended up talking too much about these three cards too much to fit anything else in. And it would’ve been super cliché anyway, right? Definitely not my style…

Sword of Feast and Famine

Price I want to buy at: $30
Possible future price: $50

As far as EDH is concerned, Sword of Feast and Famine is the most popular of the colour-hoser sword cycle by a considerable margin. EDHREC has it at almost 14k decks, with the next most popular being Fire & Ice at 7400. I’d bet good money that Feast & Famine would be in a lot more decks, too, if it hadn’t been $60 before this Double Masters reprint. The card had been steadily growing in price for the past four or five years – in fact, it’s been over six years since this card was last printed (not counting the Invention printing (or the Grand Prix promo that barely exists)). It took a steep hike from $40 to $60 when Stoneforge Mystic was unbanned in Modern last year, and has sat around there since.

I think that this reprint will bring the regular copies down quite a bit. Although preorders are currently scarce on TCGPlayer, they’re going for €23 on MKM, and I think that that’s indicative of much lower prices to come in the US. Stateside prices could well hit lower than $30, but I think that calling this from $30 to $50 is pretty reasonable. A lot of people that were priced out of the card before will be able to buy it, and a lot of people will probably be picking up multiple for different EDH decks, so don’t expect the price dip to hang around for too long.

Exploration (Box Topper Foil)

Price I want to buy at: $35
Possible future price: $70

We’re in a really weird situation with Double Masters box toppers, in that because the foils are only available in VIP packs, and non-foils only in booster boxes, you need to buy a whole booster box (~$330) to get 2 non-foil toppers, but only 1 VIP pack (~$90) to get two foil box toppers. This has meant that preorder prices for the non-foils are way above foil prices, which might seem absurd compared to what we’re used to, but makes sense in this situation. Interestingly, this isn’t actually the case in the EU, where non-foil prices are at the normal, expected levels. I’m not sure how this will pan out over the next couple of weeks, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Regardless of what weird things non-foil prices are doing, we’ve been given Exploration for only the third time ever, with the regular version using the same art as the Conspiracy printing but a stunning new art for the box topper. It’s in over 16k EDH decks on EDHREC, and the Conspiracy foils are around $70 (with no foils from Urza’s Saga). Although I’m sure some people will prefer the old version, I think that this art and borderless treatment is clearly superior if you’re in the market for pimping your deck out.

Again, prices are pretty uncertain here but there are foil copies preordering on TCGPlayer for $45, so I don’t think that $35 is an unreasonable estimate for this to hit when people start undercutting each other. Conspiracy foils sustained $70 so I’m putting that as an out target here; it might take a little while to get there but I think that these are going to be very popular. Even people that didn’t want to pay $45 for a regular copy before might be enticed by this box topper foil at such a low price, so I don’t think that it’ll be too long before the price starts to climb again.

Land Tax

Price I want to buy at: $15
Possible future price: $30

How many EDH decks do you think Land Tax is in? I’ll give you a clue: you’re probably underestimating it. At over 18k decks and 10% of all decks including white, it’s in the top 20 white cards of all time, and the price elasticity we’ve seen backs that up. The Battlebond reprint of this card took the price down to around $20, with 4th Edition copies even hitting $15. But lo and behold, Battlebond copies were back up to $40 earlier this year.

At a cursory glance, Land Tax has a lot of printings, but three of those are foreign language (and not the desirable ones), another three are white bordered and then you’re just left with Legends (very small supply and hard to find in good condition), the Judge promo (also low supply and expensive), and Battlebond. So the vast majority of people are going to be buying Battlebond and Double Masters copies, and I think we can relatively safely set aside the other versions for the purposes of our discussion here.

It’s being printed as a mythic again, same as Battlebond, and with the superior art (yes, you heard me), rather than the, uh, classic one. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a downshift to rare here, but the fact that it remains a mythic means that the price will bounce more quickly than otherwise. Preorders on TCGPlayer are around $23 for now, but I expect that to drop a bit further after release. They’re down at €12 on MKM ($14), and I could see US prices getting down to around $15 in a couple of weeks too. We’ve seen it happen before and I think we’ll see it again; this card is going to be $30 again before you know it.

David Sharman (@accidentprune on Twitter) has been playing Magic since 2013, dabbling in almost all formats but with a main focus on Modern, EDH and Pioneer. Based in the UK and a new writer for MTGPrice in 2020, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.