I am a father, teacher, cuber and EDH fanatic. My joy is in Casual and Limited formats, though I dip a toe into Constructed when I find something fun to play. I play less than I want to and more than my schedule should really allow. I can easily be reached on Twitter @WordOfCommander.
Try out my Busted Uncommons cube at http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/76330
A lot of us use the TCGPlayer site to buy and sell cards, frequently reselling cards on that site that we bought from them. Their fees are not unreasonable, and while some of us are exclusive to eBay for selling, it’s generally true that the more people who see your item, the more likely it is to sell. (Presuming that it’s priced at a level where it would sell, anyway.)
However, TCGPlayer has made some specific choices in their user interface that lead to less people seeing your item, and we need to be aware of these cases. Not just because it costs money, but because these might be cases where selling on a different platform is a much more profitable choice.
I’m not saying this to denigrate TCGPlayer or the service it provides. I use them a lot, both for buying and selling, and I appreciate the task they are facing. Hundreds of thousands of cards, frames, foiling, and conditions, plus the vagaries of shipping, taxes, and the Direct service…it’s a tremendous logistical challenge! I also really like their new data, for 1M/3M/6M/12M and knowledge of copies selling per day. These are things I wish they would improve, for everyone’s sake.
So let’s get into three big things you need to be aware of with TCGPlayer, which might be costing you profits.
The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.
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.
Innistrad Remastered has been fully revealed, and the set is a combination of amazing frames, needed reprints, and underwhelming choices. We’ve been semi-promised no Masters/Remastered sets after this for a while, but nothing is locked in. Wizards is free to do what they want, even if there was no particular demand for most of these cards, they really wanted to do the Dominaria, the Ravnica, and now the Innistrad Remastered.
Wizards made some choices here, and while I would have made different ones, I’m not in charge. So let’s review what is going on, and we can make some choices about this set, as well as some plans.
Let’s start with my favorite thing about this set: The Borderless Movie Poster Frames.
These are gorgeous and then some, and while some of these treatments have languished after Secret Lair printings, the layout and design here is top-notch. These range from popular Commander cards (Cathars’ Crusade at 128k decks on EDHREC) to Modern archetypes (Through the Breach) and even Griselbrand, who gets reanimated now and then.
What I don’t like here is how often some of these have gotten reprints. Avacyn has a borderless foil from Double Masters. Gitrog has a Judge Foil and a Secret Lair version. Griselbrand has had a couple of special printings despite being banned early on in his Commander career. It’s one thing to cash in on reprint equity, but they are hitting these cards hard.
Also, as a personal note, I tend to concede when the Crusade comes down. I anticipate death comes soon after, but it’s the ten minutes of adding counters I can’t stand. Play it on Arena or MTGO sure, but if it’s not automatic, I no longer care.
There are other Borderless cards in the set, but I feel it’s important to go over the math on those and the Movie Posters too.
Nonfoil cards:
Foil cards:
Like I said, compared to other recent sets, INR has relatively easy pulls. You need to open ten times the packs needed to get a Fracture Foil compared to a Movie Poster!
The only things harder to pull than a Movie card are the six mythics: Borderless Temporal Mastery, Borderless Cultivator Colossus, Borderless Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord, (who is banned in Pioneer), Equinox Arlinn Kord, and Fang frames for Edgar Markov and Bloodline Keeper.
It’s also worth mentioning that one of the most popular casual cards in the set is Infernal Grasp, and we can bring up that math too: 2.5% to get a foil borderless, 5% to get a nonfoil. That’s 1/40 and 1/20 chances at the Infernal Grasp, which is in 185k Commander decks online.
The Retro Frame cards in this set are neat, but that treatment is a bit underwhelming. If the card is already popular, that’s good, but I have a hard time seeing most of the INR cards holding a price. For comparison, in Ravnica Remastered, the only retro frame nonfoils with a price above $10 are the ten shocklands, Cyclonic Rift, and Bruvac the Grandiloquent. I do not have high hopes for INR’s retro foils.
Underwhelming is really the keyword for a lot of this set. For instance, the slowlands from MID and VOW are mega-popular in Commander, but those got no special treatment at all. Just regular and foil, not even a retro frame. Sure, they already had sweet versions in the original set and in Double Feature, but if you’re a reprint set…use your reprints!
These packs are going to be tremendously swingy, as several people on the ProTrader Discord have pointed out. Movie Poster Emrakul in foil will be an impressively expensive card, but that same slot might get you a showcase Arilinn Kord for $5. I always advocate against buying single packs and opening them, even with the dopamine high that you get. This set is going to be one of the strongest examples of the phenomenon, given that the packs are more expensive than usual.
It’s well known that Ravnica Remastered did not sell up to its expectations. Innistrad Remastered has pretty low expectations, and seems to be selling decently. We’ll see what these prices do, but around the beginning of summer, I’ll be on the lookout for a few specific cards:
Foil Borderless Rooftop Storm: As a Zombie enthusiast, this enchantment is one of the best things you can be doing. I want a big stack of these for when Zombies have their time in the sun again.
The Slowlands: These were expensive during their heyday in Standard, and the premium versions still are. I’d be looking to get a few of each when the regular nonfoil is at its lowest price, just for the Commander appeal.
Movie Poster Hermit Druid: The combos are many, and they are deadly. This will get impressively cheap in the regular frame, but considering the combo players, I’ll want a few of these in reserve.
Foil Borderless Conjurer’s Closet: Commander players love a good flicker, putting this in 100k decks. This is clearly the best version, and should get impressively cheap.
Finally, I want to go over a few Vampire specs that have potential right now. We saw Dragon cards spike somewhat when The Ur-Dragon was made cheap, and we’re about to see that with Edgar Markov, one of the top ten all-time Commanders.
Edgar, Charmed Groom – I especially like the Dracula version here, because he’s a lord, he makes tokens, and he’s tough to kill. Should be one of the first Vampires to pop off as people get their hands on a cheap copy of Edgar Markov and get to building.
Malakir Bloodwitch – I own a few foils from before VOW was printed, and I bought in at much too high a price. I’ve played enough Vampire decks to know how good this effect is, and if you can copy it, even better. What should Gray Merchant have all the fun?
Vampire Nocturnus – A big throwback, this card is unfairly fun even if it’s only active something like 40% of the time.
Elenda, the Dusk Rose – There’s more than one special version to choose from, but you’d have to have an odd build of a deck to leave her out. Grab what’s cheap while it’s cheap.
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.
It’s the New Year, and it’s time to look at what I actually bought into during the calendar year. Some of these are specs, some of these are related to picks I’ve made, and plenty are Secret Lairs. I want to be as transparent as possible, and if you want to see all that I’ve done, this is your time.
The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.
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.
It’s the end of the year, and so it’s time to look at a year’s worth of written predictions and see how I did.
I do this with grace and humility, because I have to be kind to myself when I do badly, and not overly celebrate when I get it right.
I’m focusing just on the things I picked in my articles, because we’ve got a whole separate show on MTG Fast Finance where we talk about our picks this year.
Let’s get into it!
On 1/12/24 I wrote about Ravnica Remastered, and some things I liked long-term. I did pick Guardian Project to go all the way down to $5, and the regular versions are up to $8. They would be higher, except for the Fallout reprint that I didn’t see coming. (One of my takeaways this year: All bets are off when it comes to reprints!) Brudivac almost got down to my pick of $10, but he did get to $13 and now he’s back up to $25, a solid profit. I would unload if you got in cheap. I was also right about Cyclonic Rift going under $35, it went all the way to $26, and there’s multiple versions between $30 and $40. Crypt Ghast got some borderless reprinting, but the base version did sink down to $5, and is now $8.
Then on 03/01/24 I put together a list of Assassin-related specs, and those have mostly done very well. I identified the SL version of Thraximundar (He Who Paints The Earth Red!!) to double up, Callidus Assassin surge foils to go higher ($3 up to $11) and Unliving Psychopath foils in NM condition were $2 and are now $10. Garza’s Assassin did not grow, that half your life is a whole lot, and Kiku, Night’s Flower has ticked up just a little to $8. If she gets reprinted she’s going to drop like a rock, so I’d be hesitant about holding on too long.
Next up, on 03/29/24, I wrote up a whole a bunch of Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds specs. Seemed like it would be a popular commander, because token themes are big and Naya likes doing stuff like that, but Ghired has only 2500 Commander decks on EDHREC, good enough for 12th place from OTJ. Obeka was the big winner of that set, people registered four times as many decks for her!
A similar pattern on 04/19/2024, where I thought Gonti, Canny Acquisitor would take ‘steal your deck’ decks to new heights, but nope, missed there too. Deck theft is a theme I enjoy, with Gonti and cards like Tasha, Witch Queen, but the greater public has no appetite for that as yet.
The writeup for the first Miku Superdrop came along, and this was a mixed bag. I was right about the Miku drops, as the EN lairs are going for $90/$70, while the JP versions are near the original cost still. The rest of the drop I felt better about, but none of them have been solid growers in the time since.
When Modern Horizons 3 came out, I wrote up a list of early specs on 6/14/2024, most of which have shows growth since July but non better than Fanatic of Rhonas, which has doubled up since that writing. Things like Springheart Nantuko, Medallions, and Wight of the Reliquary have gone up by a dollar or two, forecasting good things for that set as time passes.
The Summer Superdrop has a writeup I published on 06/21/2024, where the Miku drops have done the same (English go up, JP at cost) and the rest of the drops in that group have not had the same growth. I’m okay being patient with SLs at this point, I’m rarely in a hurry to resell at minor losses after taxes and shipping.
On 7/12/24 I planned out what a Zinnia, Valley’s Voice deck would want, because copying value creatures sounds like every Commander player’s dream, but she’s turned out to be middling as these go, with only 6900 decks. Bello, Bumbleflower, and Baylen were all bigger hits, and Bumbleflower is the biggest surprise to me, as Commander players generally hate giving other players cards.
After that, Monty Python was previewed, and on 07/26/24 I wrote up why you should buy. Hope you did, that’s done very well and it still might grow. If they make a vol. 3, 4, or more, this first one should go off like a rocket.
One of my biggest misses of the year was in the D&D Superdrop on 08/23/24, when I was middling on Astarion and Karlach. The other drops seemed more appealing, and I vastly underestimated what these two characters would do for a drop.
I wrote up my thoughts for the third Miku drop on 9/27/24, and after the zeitgeist did so well for Monty Python, I was convinced that Ghostbusters and Chucky drops would sell like hotcakes. I was tremendously wrong about that. Miku’s planeswalker drop should grow over time, but in the three months since, it hasn’t done much. The other drops have really languished, but perhaps they will grow over time. I think my takeaway is that even if something is popular, it’s not always collectible. The Ghostbusters hit me in the nostalgia, and Chucky movies have always been marketed at the same group of people, over and over.
Most recently, on 10/25/24, I wrote up the Marvel superdrop, and I’ve been right about those cards, the order the drops were in, and most of the picks for the decks have seen a little uptick as well. Marvel is also likely to keep paying off into the summer, as more MCU cards are released and people want to build The Avengers deck, or some variation thereof.
Hits and misses, to be sure, but if I was perfect I’d retire from everything else. The things I’ve been right about were easily able to pay off the misses, and that’s why we diversify.
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.
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