By: Cliff Daigle

I know that we’re drooling over the trickle of information regarding Battle for Zendikar, but this is the time to look at Magic Origins and see how prices have changed.

The first thing I want to look at is if boosters are worth it now. They usually aren’t, but I always like to make sure. You never know…

There are 71 rares and mythics in the set, and only eighteen of them are worth more than the $4 cost of a pack. That’s only a 25% chance of making your money back, and I leave it up to you if you’re comfortable at that level of risk.

In case it hasn’t been made clear, unless you’re getting boxes for about $75, which comes out to about $2 per pack, don’t open packs for value. It’s just not there. Go buy a playset of whatever you need, if it’s Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy or if it’s Demonic Pact. You’ll spend less on the singles and still get your value directly.

I also want to look at the trajectory of some cards, since we don’t have that much longer. Once Origins is no longer opened, the prices will mostly stay where they are, except for the ones that spike due to new interactions with new cards.

Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy

Jace has gone up more than $10 so far and he might not be done. It’s been a long time since there was a cheap, playable looter in Standard and there are a lot of interactions that aren’t fully utilized yet. For instance, Jace is pretty amazing in a Jeskai Ascendancy deck, though those decks haven’t broken out yet.

Snapcaster Mage has taught us the value of adding flashback at no cost, and Jace has popped up in a couple of Legacy events already. At $25, I feel this is a nice stable price, but it woin’t take much for that price to bump higher, especially if Jace demonstrates he’s worthy in eternal formats or combo decks.

Liliana, Heretical Healer

Liliana is seeing less play than Jace is but her price hasn’t really come down to reflect that. She’s not in high-finishing decks, and she’s not played as a four-of. Her price is too high and I expect it to travel downward.

Hangarback Walker

The only decks that shouldn’t play this are the ones that are trying to play an aggressive strategy. This is phenomenal when trying to grind card advantage, or even when deployed on turn two to be a 1/1 and then a 1/1 again, purely for blocking and delay purposes. If given the chance it’ll simply take over the game.

It’s at $18 right now after solid growth and I think that it’s probably hit its height. This is a great candidate for Event Decks or a Clash Pack, something to push more copies out there because the casual demand is also quite high.

Exquisite Firecraft

A rare sorcery-speed burn spell is nearly $10?!? I’d be selling these hard and fast. It is flexible, yes, but it’s only getting played in aggro red decks and it’s at the post-PT high point. When it gets back to $4-$5 then I’d like to pick them up again.

Abbot of Keral Keep

Another card that’s heavy on the post-PT hype, notice that the card isn’t seeing play outside of one archetype so far. It hasn’t been added to Legacy or Modern yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Until that happens, though, I don’t like speculating on a card with this high a price. I’m a seller at $9-$10.

Day’s Undoing

So this was one of the biggest preorder prices of the set and the card has been falling since. It’s still $10 despite seeing almost no play. It has showed up in a couple of Legacy decks, mainly as a three-mana ‘draw 7’ effect which isn’t really breaking it. Price memory is keeping this where it is. Get out for the best price you can.

Thopter Spy Network

This card is pretty amazing, especially with Darksteel Citadel in the format. Once that’s gone, and the ‘free’ artifact isn’t an option, I expect there to be a lot less decks playing this enchantment. Sell all the ones you don’t need, right now.

Woodland Bellower

I think this card is intriguing. Right now, it’s mainly searching up something like Courser of Kruphix, Invasive Species, or my favorite use, Reclamation Sage. What I’m thinking about is that every nonlegendary green creature printed in the next year makes this card better. I’m also looking hard at the foils, because Commander loves this card so very much! I’m hoping the foils trickle down to the $10 range.

Don’t lose sight of the uncommons, specifically Sphinx’s Tutelage and Whirler Rogue, because we only have five weeks until the Prerelease. Orgins is a little blah to draft, so I imagine that there will be almost no stores choosing to open Origins at Friday Night Magic once Battle for Zendikar is out.

By: Cliff Daigle

I imagine that most of the people reading this have, at some point, carried around a binder full of unneeded Magic cards and have traded some of those cards for other cards which you did need.

Ideally, you found a partner, both of you found some cards you wanted, you agreed on values, one of you added or took away from the pile, there was an agreement, perhaps a handshake, and you both walked away happy. That is how most trades go. It’s why I love trading! I get rid of what I don’t want and get what I do want!

Unfortunately, as much as it pains me to say it, trading Magic cards with someone else can also really suck.

Let’s talk about some of the behaviors that can not only make a trade difficult to complete, and in some cases, can prevent people from trading at all.

If these are behaviors that you exhibit, don’t worry, I’ll help you change your terrible ways.

Symptom #1

You have lots of cards in your binder that are not for trade. 

So if you’re ever been flipping through a binder and you see something you’re interested in, you should ask about its availability. It’s okay if that card is not going to be part of a trade…to a point. I can understand if you are thinking of building a deck, or it has sentimental value, or some other reason it’s not for trade. But please, please, please, I beg you, don’t keep them mixed in with the cards you do want to trade. About the third time you tell me something isn’t for trade, I want to slam your binder closed and hurl myself through a window.

I will still respect you if you don’t want to trade that card for the measly pickings in my binder. I’m an adult. I can handle being told “There’s nothing in here I’d trade my foil fetches for.” That’s perfectly acceptable. That’s honest and clear. Don’t use “That’s not for trade” as a euphemism for your lack of interest.

The cure: Get a different binder, and put the special cards in it. It’ll be up to you if you want to bring that binder around. Turn the special cards upside down, or put them all in the last page of the binder behind a spacer page, clearly marked as NFT.

Symptom #2

You don’t look up prices or get impatient with those who do.

Though I’ve been writing here for a while, I don’t have every price of every card memorized. Therefore, I look up prices! I imagine almost all of you do. But if you did bother to memorize every price in Origins in time for the prerelease, don’t expect me to take you at your word. Prices change, people want to be sure, and if you’re in a hurry to close a deal it can look awfully shady.

Generally speaking, people are cool with trade partners checking a price on their phone but I’ve met some who aren’t, and that’s someone I don’t want to make a deal with.

The cure: Learn to be patient. Even professionals have to be patient when dealing with amateurs. Understand that no one wants to be taken advantage of.

Symptom #3

You fixate on one card.

The worst offender in this category is the person at your LGS who fancies himself the next great financier by only trading for fetchlands right now. You want his Obelisk of Urd, he picks out your Polluted Delta, and then it’s off to headache-land because he won’t consider small trades. It’s really easy to burn someone at your store by being relentless about these things, and you have to remember that you are making an impression with every interaction.

It’s fine if you need that Polluted Delta and the Obelisk is the starting point, but needlessly escalating a trade is something that will turn everyone off from you rather quickly.

The cure: Be okay with small trades. Recognize that you’re building valuable friendships. The Delta might not be traded today, but there’s always tomorrow.

Symptom #4

You try to set up both sides of the trade.

Let’s go back to that guy’s Obelisk and your Delta. You say “You don’t have enough that I want to trade away the Delta,” a perfectly reasonable statement. He says, “don’t be silly. I will add a playset of Hero’s Downfall and now it’s a dollar in your favor! Are we good?”

Did you ask for the Hero’s Downfalls? If you didn’t ask for that card, why is he proposing this? If you’ve ever worked at a restaurant, you know that the chef’s special is something that is about to go bad and the kitchen needs to get rid of it. In this case, the Downfalls are about to rotate out and it sees almost no Legacy/Modern play. This guy is trying to move cards he knows are going bad for a card that has nowhere to go but up.

The cure: Let people decide what they want. You’re allowed to propose things, especially if you’ve established that there’s a certain deck being built. Don’t offer cards they don’t need just because the numbers theoretically line up. You’ll build a reputation as a shark and someone to avoid.

Speaking of people to avoid…

Symptom #5

You have ever been a ‘Value Trader.’

There have been more than a few infamous people who wear this label with glee. Because you have a card someone else wants, you feel privileged enough to ask for more than that card’s value. This is much more than asking for a markup when trading your dual land for their Collected Companies and Siege Rhinos. This runs a wide range of behaviors, from the slight one of always making sure your side of a trade is $3-$5 more, to the extreme, of putting their values at buylist while yours are full retail.

I’m sure you have a thorough rationalization as to why it’s okay for you to do this. The worst excuses are that you can get any card; that you are the one people come to for all sorts of cards. Maybe you’re trying for a pack to power, or whatever goal you have. Maybe you trade cards as a business to pay your rent.

I would probably sit through it and then excuse myself. Who will trade with you twice when you do such unfair things? I’d rather deal with actual buylists than your amateur behavior.

The Cure: Understand that at this moment, everyone’s cards have value. Theirs are not worth less just because it is currently in their binder. You are not a special and unique snowflake who gets to rip people off. Learn to trade for future value, and grow your binder that way instead of making uneven trades today.

By: Cliff Daigle

I have spoken before about my love of not only foil cards, but foreign language foils. You may not agree with me, but I am really in touch with the collector nature of my soul.

Until relatively recently, I had two options when it came to picking up foreign foils. (Busting open foreign boosters does not count.)

1) Browse eBay continuously. I admit, I have a number of weird alerts set for eBay. There are probably not five other people on this earth who have a alarm set for when a French foil Vindicate shows up on eBay.

I have been known to lose a lot of time in the evening just clicking through the many pages of four and offerings on eBay, with some bids and purchases making Commander decks a little more exotic.

2) Magiccardmarket.eu and its sellers. For quite some time, this was the only organized way to look for non-English cards. Star City would list when they had such versions of a card, but it was very hit-or-miss. MCM runs much like a TCGPlayer for Europe, allowing players to sell cards at a price of their choosing, and taking a cut of sales.

There was a big problem, though. Shipping was pricey, yes, but international shipping will never be easy. MCM did not allow for American residents to join as buyers or sellers. Instead, you had to sign up with the admins and basically pay shipping twice. Once for the seller to ship to the admins, and then they would send to you, for an additional percentage.

I went through this process once, and while I got the cards I wanted, I paid a significant markup that left me unwilling to do it twice. I argued, unsuccessfully, that they were losing out big time, but they wanted to remain Euro-centric.

TCGPlayer now allows sellers to list foreign-language cards, and this is amazing for those of us with a magpie’s eye. It also offers a unique opportunity to test the presumptive value of the individual languages.

It’s been said by myself and others that Korean, Russian, and Japanese are the more expensive languages, with Italian, French, Spanish, and other Continental languages often going for less than English.

Many sites don’t bother with foreign cards, but with many individuals able to list their singles, TCG offers a marketplace more defined by what people will pay, as opposed to what some think a card ‘should’ be worth.

I’d like it best if TCG offered a version of eBay’s ‘completed sales’ but that’s me being greedy.

Let’s get to an example. I want to use a recent card (higher supply) that gets Modern and Legacy play (greater demand for exotic foils) and compare what the sites offer. Monastery Swiftspear makes for a useful comparison point.

First up, magiccardmarket.

208 foils! I can, with a couple of clicks, narrow that to non-English ones…still five pages of listings! So here, for comparison’s sake, are the first page and the last page.

Look at that selection. Lots and lots of shiny Swiftspears, in just about any language.

Sure enough, Spanish and French foils set a low bar.  Eight Euros is less than $10, but we will get to the conversion rate and why it’s important in a moment.

Let’s jump to the end.

Japanese, Russian, and Korean top the list, though there’s a wide range for any of the languages. Still, that’s what we get when we allow people to set their price.

Now, TCG’s low on foils.

Now, the cheapest English NM foil is $14, noticeably under the cheapest foreign foil…though that’s a Spanish foil, not really the chase version.

Let’s uncheck the English box…

Wow. Only three non-English Swiftspears on TCG. That’s a surprisingly low amount of stock. Or is it?

There’s a problem with my method, in that I can’t tell if TCG just moves more cards. This is a snapshot, not a documentary. I don’t have access to the sales that have happened. It could be that people have simply bought a lot more of these cards from TCG than MCM. It could be that the prices were better. I wish I could make a definitive statement about why MCM has more than a hundred available, and TCG has three. Note that TCG doesn’t currently have anyone selling Spanish, Italian, German, or French foils, but I can’t say why.

Just for the comparison, let’s look at eBay.

One sold listing for Russian foils, six weeks ago.

Korean had one in June, Japanese has six in the last two months.

If you can find it on eBay, you’re likely to get a better price than TCG, but hopefully that’s not news to you.

So what can we take away from all of this?

First of all, if you are in Europe or have a friend that is, you should be on MCM. If I had someone I trusted on the continent to be my letter drop, I’d do that in a heartbeat. The selection and price are the best you’ll find, most likely because of the additional costs and headaches of being an American or Canadian buyer on the site. Because they have limited their market, there’s more available at a lower price.

It bears mentioning that the euro has fallen dramatically against the dollar recently. Just a handful of months ago, it took $1.40 to get one euro. Now it’s down to $1.10, a price that means conversion gets us more.

For example: there’s a Korean foil Swiftspear for €60 listed. Forgetting shipping and admin costs, that would have cost us $84 at the beginning of the year. Now it’s $66, just because of the fall in conversion rates. That $18 is a big fall as exchange rates go, so this might be the lowest point for currency exchange, but that’s not my field of expertise at all.

Second, the price hierarchy for the assorted languages is still holding even when marketplaces are at work. People are paying more for some languages and less for others, even in the absence of hard data about the print runs. I’d love to dive into that information. Does Portugese really outsell Spanish? Are there that many more German cards than Russian?

Finally, TCG is apparently a more popular method of moving non-English foils than I thought. Looking at other cards, there aren’t many with a huge selection of languages, but again, I’m not sure if that’s a lack of supply or cards getting snapped up as soon as they are listed.

So if you see what you want on TCG, you should get it. Stuff isn’t staying there for long. Get out there and buy some foreign foils!