Here’s the scenario:

You hear about a run of boxes where every 8th pack, there’s a $50 mythic. You travel to where those boxes have been sent, and you head to the counter, and start counting. Every time someone buys packs, you keep track, you monitor when the money shows up and now you count packs, buying a pack after seven others have been purchased.

You’ll make a lot of money that way but every other person is gonna be pissed. That’s called a fixed-ratio schedule. Every X trials, a desired outcome happens.

Humans figure that out really quickly, and it’s not a formula for success. What we would get is the box mapping scenario, or the peeking at packs: Some people figure out where the money is and then sell the loose boosters at slightly less. In the case of Masters 25, if you opened six good rares/mythics and were about even on value, you could put the rest of the loose packs on eBay or Amazon for $5 or $7 each and clean up.

Gambling (and I’m including opening Magic: the Gathering packs here) works on a variable-ratio schedule. With every trial, there’s a chance of the desired outcome. Because it’s random, you might get two really good packs in a row, you might have 30 bad packs in a row.

Weirdly, the longer the run of negative outcomes, the more likely humans are to keep trying. WE ARE DUE. This works on video games, slot machines, booster packs, etc.

I bring this up because Masters 25 is shaping up to be a really frustrating set to open.
It’s a truism that you should never buy loose boosters. Box mapping, peeking, weighing, there’s a lot of margins that people can exploit. Don’t do it for those reasons, but also don’t do it because it’s just bad value.

For instance, Rest in Peace was just previewed for the set yesterday. Right now, it’s a $10 card. At MSRP, you need to hit that card to break even. You have about a 1 in 3 chance (at current prices/spoilers) to open a pack with a card that has retail value of $10 or more. That’s better than a lot of other sets. Some data:

These are only the cards that retail for the cost of the pack, so if we are talking about Eternal Masters, something worth exactly $10 (Maze of Ith) is as much as a win something going for $140 (Jace, the Mind Sculptor) and that brings us to how many we need to open.

You’ll have to open about five packs to get one worth $10, on average. You’ll spend $50 to hit one $10 card. At that rate, your numbers get much much worse. There’s only three cards in EMA worth $50, and that rate is so much worse.

Is there the potential for a three-Jace box? Absolutely. You might hit a Jace and a foil Force of Will, and you’ll feel like you hit the lottery, and it’s a great great feeling.

You’ll also open boxes with Balance, Worldgorger Dragon, and Sphinx of the Steel Wind, and which have foils of Nevinyrral’s Disk, Eight-and-a-half Tails, and Malicious Affliction.

That level of variance is a bad investment. It’s bad value. It’s not worth it, and Masters 25 is going to be worse, it seems. You will hear about amazing boxes, but people won’t be trumpeting their godawful mythic pulls the same way.

If there’s cards you want from Masters 25, just go buy them, about three weeks after the release. We haven’t seen the whole spoiler yet, but the early signs are that this set is going to smash a lot of prices.

Masters 25 appears to have a pair of card types getting a reprint: Multi-format staples whose prices will drop and slowly rebound, or cards which had a high price due to low supply, and those prices are going to fall off a cliff.

Sticky: Blood Moon

Blood Moon is a card that has had a lot of printings, including two Modern Masters printings, and it’s managed to remain a $20 card. That level of price retention is testament to its popularity, mainly in Modern as a backbreaking sideboard card in a lot of matchups.

Among the decks that get counted, this is the 12th most popular card in Modern, even though blessed few decks are playing it in the main. A full 1 in 5 decks has at least one copy in their 75, the average is between 2 and 3. That’s some amazing numbers, considering the popularity of Modern.

I wouldn’t be shocked if this trickled down into the $15 range, but it’ll get back to $20 within a few months. It won’t go higher and it won’t go lower.

Slider: Rishadan Port

Let’s be clear: Port is a powerful card in denial strategies. In the right deck, and god forbid in multiples, it can severly limit what a deck can do in Legacy matches.

Unfortunately, Legacy and Cubes are the only formats where this gets played. Yes, you can use this in Commander, but the benefit is pretty low, and a colorless only land has to be pretty awesome to be worth the addition.

Port is a 4-of in Legacy Death and Taxes builds, but not being Modern legal is a big knock. The only supply has been the original Mercadian Masques printing, and a recent judge promo. At a presale point of $50 it’s already lost nearly half the value. I don’t think the original will move much, but the new version will struggle to stay above $40, because not that many people need it.

Cliff is an avid Cuber and Commander player, and has a deep love for weird ways to play this game. His current project is a light-up sign for attracting Cubers at GPs, so get his attention @wordofcommander on Twitter if you’ve got ideas or designs.

Believe it or not, it’s time for another preview season.

Masters 25 lands in about four weeks, and if that seems like not a lot of time since Rivals of Ixalan was first introduced, you’d be right! We’re at a point where about every two months, there’s a new group of cards for us to deal with and decide on, and I haven’t yet decided if that’s a good thing.

I first got into this game heavily in 1995, and the summer of that year had three major releases in a four-month span: Fourth Edition, Ice Age, and then Chronicles. Needless to say, I didn’t have much spare money that summer.

I used to think we would never return to that point…but really, we aren’t far off. We got Rivals on January 13, Masters 25 prereleases are March 16, Dominaria is April 21, and Core Set 2019 is July 7. That’s four in six months, and the first three are in a four-month span. We are back! RIP wallet.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that the turnover, the churn of new cards and product, is very real. We’re about done drafting the Rivals/Rivals/Ixalan format, and so it’s time to think about the Rivals of Ixalan cards that are at max supply, and therefore lowest price.

Dire Fleet Daredevil ($4 nonfoil/$12 foil)

I like this card for a lot of reasons. Being able to raid your opponents’ graveyards is an amazing trick, and while Snapcaster is a more reliable play, this Pirate is seeing a bit of Modern play, and it’s a useful card against Blue Commander decks that are going to abuse their graveyard. The foil multiplier is exactly where you’d expect it to be, so the casual demand isn’t there…yet.

All of today’s picks are small-set cards, meaning that the supply is impacted noticeably, and with the added pressure that is Masters 25. We should be opening Rivals until April, but we are going to lose a few weeks of these cards being added to the worldwide supply.

What I really love about this card is how it’s popping up as a fun-of in Vintage lists, since being able to play the other player’s Time Walk and Ancestral Recall is just the nicest spice you ever sampled.

This is unlikely to see play as a four-of in any format, it’s just too inconsistent. But a card making waves across formats and with excellent casual potential…I want a couple copies on hand. It’s not big in EDHREC yet, only 96 decks, but the plethora of great spells makes me want to snag foils for relatively low cost.

Blood Sun ($4/$20)

First off, that’s a heavy foil multiplier, especially for a card not heavy on Commander play. In fact, this isn’t seeing a lot of play in many formats, though Legacy is trying its hardest to break the card by using two-mana lands to cheat it out as early as possible.

This card had a tremendous amount of hype, and caused some other cards to jump very high very quickly, but hasn’t made much impact yet.

I strongly suspect that people who bought this for absurdly high preorder prices are refusing to cut their losses and let go, especially on foils. I feel like the price is low for the power that the card offers, so I’m on board for a few copies and holding patiently. This is probably never going to be a standard player, though the prevalence of utility lands in the current format does make it a tempting sideboard option.

Warkite Marauder ($2/$6)

Yes, it’s an aggressive blue card. This is rarely a dominant archetype, but every time I look at the Favorable Winds lists floating around, this is the one that stands out to me. It’s quite powerful, difficult to block, cheap to play, and the best news is that when you want this cart, you’re in for the full four copies. No one is going to play two or three of this, and so when a deck does well, you’ll see the available copes get snagged quite quickly.

Ravenous Chupacabra ($1.50/$7.50)

I know, I know. It’s an uncommon. Hear me out, though. It’s seeing play across a lot of archetypes, just for the sheer value it represents. It’s a fantastic creature even in control decks, because it gets value and then trades or chump blocks. It’s mostly seeing play as two or three copies, which makes sense. We have Vraska’s Contempt at the same mana cost, eclipsing what it’s capable of.

It’s a $1.50 uncommon while the set is still being opened. It’s going to be in Standard for another 18 months, and that’s a long time for this to see a lot of play. I’m not going to be shocked when this is a $3 card, and I won’t hesitate to buy these at $1 right now and trade them away at $3 in a few months.

One thing to add here: this foil price might be confusing you, but you’re underestimating the number of people who play Commander more casually. If you want this effect, you’re spoiled for choices if you poke through Magic’s history. This is the cheapest ‘destroy target creature’ effect, one with no drawbacks, and what I think is happening is that newer players are just not letting the foils get into circulation. Heck, there’s only ~330 total copies on TCG right now, combining foils and nonfoils. That’s less than a lot of the rares, and for comparisons’ sake, there’s 239 listed copies of Azor, the Lawbringer on the site.

Journey to Eternity ($2.50/$10)

I sort of wish there was a promo version of this too, because this is a super-solid pick for long-term casual growth. There isn’t an EDH deck that doesn’t want this effect, and enabling it isn’t hard. You have to dodge the exile effects, or stuff in response, but you’re going to see a lot of Meren decks go turn two Sakura-Tribe Elder, turn-three this, and then that’s all she wrote.

Barring FTV: Ixalan’s Secret Locations or some other type of set, this is going to make you some great money going forward.
 

Cliff is an avid Cuber and Commander player, and has a deep love for weird ways to play this game. His current project is a light-up sign for attracting Cubers at GPs, so get his attention @wordofcommander on Twitter if you’ve got ideas or designs.

The unbannings were Monday and lots of people have churned through lots of cards as a result. Liliana of the Veil has shot up, but Dreadbore/Hero’s Downfall haven’t yet. I like Dreadbore a lot, and it’s in the process of climbing pretty hard.

You’re welcome.

There’s something else that I’ve been noticing, though, and that some people have been mentioning briefly. We keep getting distracted by new spoilers or art or unbannings, but here’s the reality:

Core Sets are back, releasing Magic 2019 in July of this year. It’s been quite a while, all the way back to Magic Origins in 2015. Three years doesn’t seem like that long a time, but think about all the changes and especially all the reprints we’ve been through with the growth of assorted Masters sets.

It’s entirely possible that the Core Set is one of the main relief valves in Standard, but what we can’t overlook is the possibility that lots of our favorite casual cards or Modern staples might get reprinted.

Let me show you some examples.

Goblin Piledriver, with one printing in Onslaught, was $15 when he got reprinted in Magic Origins. It’s got the same art, but a new frame, so you’re free to have a preference. Briefly, he hit $30 on pure speculation that people would build Goblins in Standard but that never materialized and the price never recovered. Now you can get the original for $4 and the Origins version for $2.

How about Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth?

This card went from $40 to $10, and while it bounced back to $30 during Eldrazi Winter (allowing Eye of Ugin to tap for mana) it’s back to $20. That’s a lot of value eliminated and from a card that wasn’t seeing a lot of Modern play.

From the same Core Set, let’s look at Chord of Calling:

Even with Chord being a card used in an infinite combo strategy in Modern, even with the number of Commander decks running it, the card can’t even get to half of where it was.

I could go on. Preeminent Captain, from $6 to $1. Darksteel Forge, from $8 to $2 (but back up to $10, as it hasn’t been printed since 2013). Sanguine Bond from $10 to $3, and hammered again and again, frankly.

This is going to happen a lot more, and there’s little we can do about it. Wizards is unlikely to print something in Standard as strong as Thoughtseize again, but there’s an awful lot of cards percolating in the $10-30 range that would give punch to a Core Set, an excitement, and then lead to some very low prices.

Foils aren’t safe either, so don’t go kidding yourself about that. It’s some protection if you’ve got old-border (or Future Sight) foils, as those tend to bounce back easily, but every reprinting hits hard.

So what are we to do?

As they have said, they aren’t going to do the most powerful Modern cards. Thoughtseize warped Standard for two years. Fetches did much the same, and I highly doubt we’d get those in the Core Set. I also don’t think we’re going to get the filter lands, as those do’t carry enough drawback. Wizards is trying to play it safe on fixing.

What we will get are fringe-like cards, casual gold, cards that are high in value because they haven’t been printed in a long time. Here’s a few examples.

Patriarch’s Bidding ($17/$40 foil): A whole lot of people have written a whole lot of words about how badly this needs a reprint, and here we are, with no extra copies, ever, in the last 16 years. The only thing from keeping this being a lot more expensive is that only tribes with black can take advantage. Yes, it’s crying out for a reprint, and when it comes the damage will be severe. If you’ve got extras, move them out for just about anything else.

Rest in Peace ($7/$24): This has all sorts of pressure on the price, but the key thing here is that the card is five years old with no reprints at all yet, for perhaps the best graveyard hoser ever. If you want to make the case about Leyline of the Void, I’ll listen, but I think this is better. It’s something you ought to be playing more in Commander, and it’s gaining popularity over time as sideboard card in Modern and Legacy:

Graphs do no just go up up up and never stop. This is the perfect sort of card to put in at rare in a Core Set and while it’ll bum Limited players out, the formats need cards like this to keep all the other silliness in check.

Craterhoof Behemoth ($13/$22/$40 for AVR foil)

First of all, this just got a reprint in Modern Masters 2017 last year, and observe what happened to the price!

That’s a big hit but it’s also a mythic from a $10/pack set. Now that this is a $13 card, it’s prime bait to be a mythic that becomes a sub-$5 card when put into a Core Set, and sadly, Wizards needs cheap mythics as well as pricey ones. I understand that the card is busted, but it’s also 8 mana, and if you wanted to tell me it’s fairer than Bonfire of the Damned in Limited…no.

Craterhoof is the type of card that I don’t ever want to be deep on. It’s got too much appeal and it’s been reprinted once, indicating that Wizards will get to it again eventually. It’s great trade bait, you’ll never keep a single copy in your binder for long, but do not get caught with a stack of these when the reprint hits.

Cliff is an avid Cuber and Commander player, and has a deep love for weird ways to play this game. His current project is a light-up sign for attracting Cubers at GPs, so get his attention @wordofcommander on Twitter if you’ve got ideas or designs.

I like to plan ahead.

Figuring out the cards to pick up in anticipation of a rise in price is a combination of luck and experience. On MTGPrice, we try hard to present our ideas and our rationales behind those ideas.

When you’ve been at this for a while, you get a sense for what the predictors are for future demand. It’s not always a question of rules, it’s got to be a combination of things that will catch your attention and say, “Get this while it’s cheap!”

Today I want to review some of the cards that I want to get now, or in one case, that I’d wanted to get, and the historical examples.

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Search for Azcanta ($17 regular, $32 foil, $40 buy-a-box promo)

I’m very high on this card, I have to be honest. It’s not often that I like picking up all available version of a card but I absolutely do, for a host of reasons.

Nonfoils: I think that this card is the backbone of a control deck in Standard, and it’s proven useful in any shell with blue. The only problem is that it’s not a four-of, more often a two- or three-of in such decks, and that might stop it from hitting $35.

Foils/Promos: This is popping up in both Modern and Legacy, in control and Miracles lists, and it’s going to stay a useful card there. Jeskai, UW, Esper…all the decks are playing at least one now, and some as many as three. It doesn’t give you an immediate advantage, but if you can live long enough to flip it, it’s acceleration or it’s finding the next answer. Let’s not rule out that this is a very strong card in Commander or Cube formats, and those are soaking up a certain amount of available copies.

If there’s a chance that you’re going to build a control deck in the next 18 months, get your copies now. The set after Dominaria is about when I’d expect this to pop up to at least $25 nonfoil, and $30 is reasonable.

The foils (and especially the promos) are a great pickup now too. Promo versions under $40 should be snapped up and set aside with the proper amount of patience. That will pay off.

Vraska’s Contempt ($12/$15)

I studiously avoided mentioning this card until we were done opening it, and unfortunately, the cat is out of the bag. I’d really been hoping that this made it all the way down to $5, but it’s recently doubled from its low of $5.50. I’ve used this card as an example of the rise and fall of prerelease pricing, as it could have been had at $4. Hero’s Downfall or Abrupt Decay have graphs worth looking at.

When it was in print, it was relatively cheap, but after it wasn’t being opened anymore, the popularity grew and the price doubled.

Vraska’s Contempt was going to be on this exact same track, with the price dropping and dropping until it wasn’t in print and then it would start climbing. The problem is, Contempt is a fantastic answer to two powerful and prevalent threats in Standard: Hazoret the Fervent and The Scarab God.

Let me contrast Contempt with another card that does 80% of the same work: Hour of Glory.

That price graph tops out at fifty cents. Hour of Glory hasn’t even been a sideboard card in its lifetime. A big part of that is some unfortunate timing: Hour of Glory was released in Hour of Devastation in July 2017, where Vraska’s Contempt came out three months later. There’s a chance that these cards were planned to be in different blocks, with 18-month rotation or rotation every set, but the threats have never been severe enough to warrant playing Hour of Glory.

Contempt has popped since it’s become the go-to spell for removal, as it can answer a Planeswalker effectively. I really wish there was time for it to fall back down, but I imagine that the price will stick at around $10 for about the next 12 months.

Hostage Taker ($5)

Remember when this was $12? It wasn’t that long ago.

The Taker is seeing a fair amount of play in Standard, and popped up as a singleton in the sideboard of Traverse Shadow decks at the Modern Pro Tour. It hasn’t stopped being good against the cards that need exiling, and I have to admit that being able to exile their Death’s Shadow and then replay it yourself is an amazing 2-for-1.

What makes this extra appealing is the timeframe. It’s got a whole year, several big sets to work with. I can’t imagine that there’s a better enabler of this effect than Panharmonicon, but who knows? It’s a Pirate, a tribe that’s unlikely to be better with these other sets, but the color combination has always been excellent when it comes to control decks. I don’t think this is going to be a big player when it comes to casual play, but seeing the price it was at before, this seems like a very strong candidate for popping back up to $10 anytime in the next year. Snagging these at $5 or less right now is pretty amazing.

Cliff is an avid Cuber and Commander player, and has a deep love for weird ways to play this game. His next project will be a light-up sign for attracting Cubers at GPs, so get his attention @wordofcommander on Twitter if you’ve got ideas or designs.