Readers!

On the Brainstorm Brewery podcast, we do 2 segments because, like an invertebrate, we would literally collapse without the structure they provide. In the first, we highlight a card that’s worth around a buck but people don’t think to pull from bulk, or it’s a card we find out later was worth money and we’re 100% sure we bulked out and we’re mad about it (Well, DJ and I bulked it out, Corbin probably left it in a 5 row in his office and it was destroyed in a flood). The other is where we highlight a card we think could go up based on knowing how MTG Finance works and assuming our audience would rather reserve the mental effort that we put into learning that stuff for teaching their kids to read or getting some of the new BS words the New York Times started putting in Wordle.

Sometimes I conflate the two and pick a card in bulk that I think will go up. That’s me doing both segments wrong, but am I doing the audience wrong? I maintain it’s a service to tell people not to bulk out a card that could potentially go up 10,000% and to make sure they have them set aside for when people first want them. Some picks are easy – Chain of Acid when Chain of Smog went up. Some are less obvious but I think I have the justification for about 5 of them here today.

I am pretending to think you want to know “Jason, what if I don’t have bulk laying around, what good is it to tell me to pick bulk I don’t have?” and my answer to that is to check LGSes. If you try to get a $0.05 Whip Silk, they’re going to look it up on TCG Player and be cross with you for trying to “get” them, but if you pick up Mourning, a card for the same deck, you’ll get them for 9 cents. Is Mourning as good? No, but a lot of people play both and with Mourning being less obvious, there is time to snag them. Do they have the same trajectory? I doubt it, especially with Green being played more in Enchantress right now than Black, even with Tatsunari being so popular. That said, I think less-built Kami commander decks and Street Fighter decks are likely to do some predictable things to literal bulk. The obvious ones have popped, so let’s look at less obvious.

Card – Viridescent Wisps

Culprit – Blanka

I’d like to look at a card that also goes in Blanka and has popped previously for other decks like Zada.

We had a short window to get literally $4 for our 5 cent card, but with other Wisps, we can buy in at a dime and wait a while for Street Fighter decks to actually come out. Will Blanka be as popular as Zada? Is Feather helping Crimson Wisps? Those aren’t the questions – the questions are whether you want to buy a pile for a dime and buylist for 58 cents whenever the Street Fighter decks come out to Card Kingdom and buy a Tropical Island.

Card – Crown of Flames

Culprit – Kaima

A lot of trash could go up on the basis of Kaima, but this could be the set that makes Crown of Flames start to do a bad impression of Whip Silk. A bad impression is all we need.

Crown of Flames is also in Tempest so there is more supply, but not as much as you might think. Non-Green enchantment-fall cards don’t have as much pressure on them, but there is pressure, if only from Kaima.

Kaima is also responsible, I hope, for this beauty.

Even older than the second Crown of Flames printing, Bequethal saw a bit of a boost to 80 cents last year. It’s still gettable in bulk and once that wall on sites like Coolstuff evaporates, there’s money there. You’d need a more sustained push than it got last time, though, since the buylist price merely doubled (“merely”) though.

I have less confidence in Bad Rancor over here, but it is similar to the cards I am more confident about.

Card – Blood Speaker

Culprit – Unnanounced new New Capenna Demon

I don’t know anything you don’t, I just assume there will be demons.

This feels a little like cheating, but if Bequeathal wasn’t, then neither is this potential second spike. You can’t scoope these for bulk necessarily unless your LGS doesn’t own a computer, but if you have Kamigawa bulk, you have copies of this card so yank ’em.

That does it for me this week. I think there are likely to be more “penny stocks” like this and if this is well received, I could consider doing this again in the future. If you think I should not, tell me that, too.

That does it for me – until next time!