By Guo Heng Chin

In Magic finance, you win some and you lose some, as with playing the game of Magic itself. Today, instead of foraging for undervalued cards, I am casting a retrospective glance over my three years of dabbling in Magic finance and dig through my speculation history for my hits and misses and the lessons I have learned from them.

Liquidity Matters

My first successful spec was Blazing Shoal during Pro Tour Philadelphia 2011, where Modern made its debut as a Pro Tour format. Blazing Shoal Infect was the breakout deck amid a field of turn three Storm decks; it was able to consistently win on turn two and was far more resilient than Storm. Blazing Shoal put Sam Black on the top 8 of that Pro Tour and if I recall correctly, he executed a turn two kill on camera, not something Wizards was particularly impressed with for a format they were trying to nurture.

I snagged a few playsets of Blazing Shoal online at near bulk before they ran out. I was ecstatic when they spiked 300% over the Pro Tour weekend. The cards arrived the week after and I started listing them on eBay.

It was my first time selling specs on eBay. I initially listed all of them under one listing with a set Buy It Now price. They did not sell well. I thought that due to the sheer number of available copies I listed, there were no urgency for viewers to buy them. So I took the listing down, and started listing my Burning Shoals as playsets with a seven-day auction. People prefer auctions don’t they? Then it dawned upon me that listing multiple playsets of the same card made me my own competitor and thinned out the list of potential bidders for each listing.

In the end I decided to list one playset per week. I did not get to my second playset when the banhammer fell upon Blazing Shoal.

Understanding your avenues for liquidity is as important as knowing when to move into a spec as it is the other half of the alchemic equation to transmute your specs into cash.  It is imperative to ensure that the the quantity of your specs correspond to your ability to move them.

Back then in London, there were not many local shops to buylist my cards and I was not aware of peer-to-peer outlets like MagicCardMarket.eu. The idea of sending my cards to major retailers in the United States did not occurred to me as well, the Magic finance noob I was back then. So I defaulted to eBay, which was probably not the wisest choice to move a large amount of cards fast.

What Jace Thought Me

Jace, Architect of Thought holds a sweet spot in my memory of Magic specs. Up till today, he was the only spec that made me money not once, but twice.

The first time Jace made me cash was down to some not insignificant amount of luck. I recall discussing Jace in my local Magic Facebook group when he was first spoiled. I was pretty bullish on him, my argument being that he is a mini Fact or Fiction on a stick and he protects himself. Others were not so enthusiastic, some even relegated him to the financial wasteland of being only playable in Commander (that was back before Commander were a driving force of card price). After all, his plus one ability gets better with more opponents, no?

I kept Jace on my eBay watchlist for a few days before pulling the trigger on a presale playset at $25 each, afraid that if I waited any longer, he will be start to spike, as with most presale cards. But four days later, Jace, who is now an architect rather than a sculptor, not only not see an increase in presale price, but is now available at $21.99. I bought another playset.

Less than a month later, when Return to Ravnica was barely legal for a week, Todd Anderson took down an StarCityGames Standard Open with UWR Miracles running a full four copies of Jace, Architect of Thought. The deck was a one-shot pony, but I am sure most of you recall the resulting spike where Jace shot up to $50 for a brief period of time. The nature of Magic price spikes is that it happens fast, but it takes a while to tank. It was not until mid-December before Jace fell below twenty. I cashed out my extra playset of Architect of Thought for $40 apiece, covering most of the cost of my own playset.

That was mostly luck; buying in at $25 hoping to make a profit will only work if the card spikes to $40 – 50, and I suspect Jace was only able to do that on the virtue of being a new card on top of being played as a four-of in the winning deck of the first major Standard tournament after the set rotated in. The more financially savvy me in 2014 would not advocate buying a presale Planeswalker at $25 as a spec (though Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker is wagging his dragon tail at my face for not investing in a few of him at presale price. A point of consideration: it might be worth acquiring marquee Planeswalkers at presale price for your own personal use. You would have saved quite a lot buying your personal playset of Elspeth, Sun’s Champion and Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker at their presale prices).

While the first time Jace made me some bucks could be attributed to a decent amount of luck, the second time Jace turned me a hefty profit was not.

About a month into Return to Ravnica Standard, a Japanese tech surfaced: UWR tempo running Thundermaw Hellkite alongside Geist of Saint Traft and Restoration Angel. Thundermaw Hellkite worked marvelously in tandem with Geist of Saint Traft: nine unstoppable damage in the air out of nowhere. Geist on turn three, Restoration Angel on turn four and Thundermaw for the lethal alpha strike on turn five happened quite a lot.

Shortly after that, in mid-November 2012, Jon Bolding and Tyler Lytle took down two Standard Grand Prix one week after another, both running BR Big Zombies featuring three Thundermaw Hellkites. The dragon has awaken.

Jace did not do well in a meta where Thundermaw Hellkite was the king of the skies. It got worse when Tom Martell took down Pro Tour Gatecrash with The Aristocrats and the deck became a tier one mainstay for the rest of Return to Ravnica Standard. Turn four Jace, Architect of Thought was not impressive when your opponent followed up with a Falkenrath Aristocrat and/or Thundermaw Hellkite.

So Jace’s price tanked and tanked further. By April 2013, Jace hit rock bottom at $10. During the following months, I bought and traded for Jaces at $10 – $12 apiece. He was too good to warrant a price tag that low. Furthermore, Jace was the most played card in the top 8 of the Block Constructed Pro Tour Dragon’s Maze. That is some convincing data.

True enough, in October 2013 when the Hellkites and Aristocrats rotated out and Theros rotated in, Jace spiked. UW Control with four Jaces piloted by Max Tietze took second place at the first major Standard tournament. Pro Tour Theros that followed saw 16 Jaces in the top 8 decks.

Jace significantly subsidised my entry into Theros Standard. Trading Jaces for Stormbreath Dragons and Elspeth, Sun’s Champions allowed me to play most tier one decks during a period when I was unemployed.

The biggest take home message I got from my affair with Jace was to trust my own analysis of a card, even though it goes against the market sentiment, as long as my conclusions are derived from solid reasoning (as opposed to a hunch) and preferably, data. I know, it sounds like a protip, but it is not easy to pull the trigger on a card you know has potential to be worth more than it currently is when the market thinks otherwise.

My reasoning for Jace, Architect of Thought were as follows: He is competitively costed and protects himself. Sounds good. He is a versatile card with abilities you would like to have in both aggro and midrange/control matchups and are useful to catch up or to seal the deal when you are ahead. That makes Jace a candidate for multiple copies in decks that run him. I am getting convinced.

He is a mini Fact or Fiction on a stick.

Sometimes the market undervalues a card because the metagame is unfavorable to the card. Thundermaw Hellkite pushed the boundary for the acceptable power level of creatures (back in my days, you had to sacrifice two mountains for an undercosted dragon and you don’t even get Haste) but yet dropped to $10 in the first six months of its Standard legal life. No one wanted to tap five for a creature in a field of Vapor Snag and Snapcaster Mage for more Vapor Snag. Once Vapor Snag rotated out, it was only a matter of time before someone figured out that jamming multiple Thundermaw Hellkites in a deck was the way to go.

Another factor to keep in mind is that it takes a while for the Magic community to appreciate the power of new cards. Courser of Kruphix started out as a $5 rare even though it is a value engine in a single card at three casting cost. It took a month for Courser to hit $10 and three to hit $20.

I was a little late to the party, having bought my Coursers at $7. My arguments were that Courser has three useful abilities and is in a set that is not going to be opened a lot. Courser also had potential in Modern with its four toughness and synergy with fetchlands, Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant. So while people were still trying out Courser in both Standard and Modern, I was busy buying Coursers.

Eidolon of the Great Revel went through the same journey into profitabilty. It has a fairly unique ability, which made it hard to evaluate. I totally misunderstood the ability the first time I read it, before I realised the card has the potential to be absolutely devastating in Modern and Legacy where most cards cost three or less mana. But Eidolon of the Great Revel was not seeing any play at all. At least in the first few months of its existence.

The turning point for me to buy in was hearing Zac Hill discuss Eidolon of the Great Revel in a Brainstorm Brewery set review episode where he mentioned something along the lines of Eidolon of the Great Revel having a unique design and he has no idea how to price it. At that time, Eidolon was around $2. That is certainly not the price for as cross-format playable card with a unique design. I bought a few playsets at $2 and threw into the card three foil copies at $7 each.

In retrospect I should have bought a playset of foils instead of just three. Foils of Modern and Legacy staples are worth a lot I hear.

Wide Applications

Sometimes even though my analysis and playtesting showed that a card is more powerful than its market price indicted, there are still factors that could limit the growth of the card. Duskmantle Seer proved to be a beast during playtesting using the Sultai shell which briefly made waves when it was featured on the mothership after taking down a Brazilian WMCQ. Duskmantle Seer’s symmetrical effect was mitigated by the fact that you get to use the extra card first, and you could design your deck to have a lower curve to reduce the damage you take. His 4/4 flying body and ability to force your opponent to take damage off his Dark Confidant clause provided a good clock.

But Duskmantle Seer did not take off.

In retrospect, it seemed obvious why Duskmantle Seer had a narrow chance of spiking. His blue and black mana requirement greatly reduced the range of decks that could run him. I do not think that being multicolored made it a bad spec; Sphinx’s Revelation had an explosive growth. I think the death knell for Duskmantle was the fact that he was only optimal in decks designed to mitigate his Dark Confidant clause, thus further limiting the range of decks that runs him.

After all, a card’s price is a function of its playability.

Future Sight

While it’s painful to get burned on a spec, they provide valuable data we could use to fine tune our approach to reduce our failure rate in future specs. Of course, no one could predict for certain what card will spike next. The best we could do is position ourselves to have the best chance of striking it, very much like playing competitive Magic.

And maybe hope a little.

---

 

By: Guo Heng Chin

Welcome back readers! This is the second part of the Hunting for Commander Foils series where we evaluate foil Commander staples to see if they hold any financial potential. You can find the first part here. Today we shall continue where last week’s article left off, shiny artifacts.

Taking into account the comments I have received for the first article in the series, I am going to slightly alter the format of the discussion. The first article was written in a pseudo-set review style in an attempt to cover as many cards as possible by working down the list used to rank the popularity of the cards. While I eschewed foils that are too expensive (no point harping about a $118 foil Sensei’s Divining Top if the majority of readers would not be willing to spend that much for it) or are stagnant price-wise, I covered foil staples that are already relatively expensive like Solemn Simulacrum.

My intention were to evaluate if it is worth acquiring your personal copy of those cards even though they may not be good spec targets anymore. However, it gave the impression that the article was discussing ships that have already sailed. Plus it seemed that a set review style would be too long-winded; last week’s article barely made its way down the top ten cards.

So I am opting for a more succinct approach this week: I shall focus only on the foil Commander staples on the list that are undervalued, a topic I think readers of this column prefer.

Before we get to the cards for this week, an obligatory shout-out to the super useful database in which we will be extracting our cards from:

The list comes from an extensive Commander statistics database created and maintained by MTGSalvation.com EDH Primer Committee member scoeri. Every month, scoeri runs a script which trawls mtgsalvation.com for user-posted Commander decklists and breaks them down into various categories, giving an invaluable snapshot of the Commander metagame. You can find the lists here under the forum post Statistical Breakdown of the Commander Metagame. The database was last updated on 31 October 2014 with 3023 decks from 1473 users (decks posted or updated from 31 October 2013 – 31 October 2014). I am indebted to scoeri for the awesome database.

As with last week, we will be using the colorless list for the purpose of this article as the list includes artifact creatures while the artifact list only contains noncreature artifacts. Last week, we made our way down the list to Expedition Map. This week, the criteria will be stricter and we shall only discuss artifacts that possess financial potential. We will be skipping over popular, obvious and already sailed artifacts like Chromatic Lantern and focus on foil staples that are still cheap like this sacrificial deer:

Hart of Gold

Foil Theros: $1.12

Number of Foil Printings: 1

The humble draft mana fixer, Burnished Hart has been getting a lot of love on the EDH subreddit and it is easy to see why: most Commander decks would like to have access to mana-fixing, and a double Rampant Growth on a bear (bear-hart) that fits into decks of any color has the making of a Commander staple, if it is not already one. Though more expensive than Armillary Sphere in casting and activation cost, the fact that Burnished Hart is a creature gives it synergy with a wider range of strategies: besides the usual artifact recurrence with Academy Ruins, it can be reanimated,  pulled out from your bottom (of your deck, hopefully most of the time) with Grenzo, Dungeon Warden, it triggers Sidisi, Brood Tyrant (which by the way has been growing in popularity as a Commander) and many more interactions a humble Armillary Sphere is not capable of.

Theros is still a Standard-legal set, but going for slightly more than $1, I see only upside for foil Burnished Hart. While I do not think foil Burnished Hart will grow to the double digit price of other common artifact mana-fixers like Dimir Signet and Azorius Signet due to the significantly larger print run of modern day sets like Theros, I am confident that foil Burnished Hart will exceed the price of other common rarity foil artifact mana-fixers on the top fifty list like Wayfarer’s Bauble, which is already less popular than Burnished Hart as of writing and is going for $3.81. The shiny fawn will take a while to become a full-fledged hart, get it now when Theros is abundant in supply and foil Burnished Harts are aplenty in bulk foil boxes before it becomes a $4 – $5 card. I know I am getting some myself.

Trading Cards in a Game of Trading Cards

M13 Foil: $2.79

M14 Foil: $1.98

Number of Foil Printings: 2

Trading Post is the Batman’s utility belt in Commander. Need to block a rampaging 12/12 Hydra Broodmaster? Here’s a goat. Need more lands? Sacrifice that goat of yours who is going to die anyway to get back your Wayfarer’s Bauble. Need more gas? Sac that worn out Worn Powerstone to further fuel your conquest. Life’s got you down? Toss away that 10th land you drew for 4 life.

Trading Post feels a bit like a Planeswalker in the sense that it generates incremental card advantage once per turn when it hits the board. Of course, I’m not claiming that Trading Post is anywhere near the power level of a Planeswalker (maybe except Tibalt) but it ekes you advantage over a prolonged game, and most Commander games tend to go long.

Trading Post is a Swiss Army knife that most Commander decks could find use for and yet foils of it could be acquired for less than $2. Granted M14 has just rotated out and being printed in both M13 and M14 created a huge supply. Nevertheless $2 is pretty close to bulk for foil rares, what more for a popular Commander rare. I suspect foil Trading Post will become one of those foil rares that surprises people when they look up its price a few years down the road. There’s always a risk of reprint, but at $2, how much can you lose? Plus foils do retain their value better than normal copies.

Foil Trading Post have a lot of room to grow, though I doubt it will be able to hit foil Staff of Domination prices due to Trading Post’s higher supply and the fact that Staff is ran as a one-of in Legacy and Vintage MUD decks (not that Vintage counts for much). However I do think that foil Trading Posts could hit $8 – $10 in the coming years.

Trading Post is also a pretty fun card to play, and its appeal as a ‘one-stop shop’ probably contributes to its popularity among the casual crowd. Did I mentioned, Trading Post has synergy with the artifact creature Burnished Hart too?

Signets That Shine

Ravnica Block Foils: $2.51  – $14.58

The cycle of signets from the original Ravnica block are some of the most popular artifact mana fixers in Commander, with four of them in the top fifty most played colorless cards list (five if you refer to the artifacts list).

But their prices are starkly different. You have foil Dimir Signet at $14 and foil Azorius Signet at $10. Foil Izzet Signet is around $7 and the rest are under $5. A foil Gruul Signet is a measly $2.51 and foil Selesnya Signet is no better at $3.16. They all have seen the same number of foil printings. So why the huge price gap between the most and least expensive signet?

The price pattern shows that the signets with green in them are the cheapest of the lot. Perhaps already having access to plenty of mana fixing, green-based decks do not run signets as much as the non-green decks do.

A quick glance through another database by scoeri breaking down the statistically average composition of the decks of the top fifty commanders validated the hypothesis. The green-based decks rarely included signets in their list, while the non-green decks often ran all the signets their color identity allows. Furthermore, the four signets in the top fifty most played colorless cards list (and the fifth signet if you count the artifacts list) are all non-green.

That makes the green-based foil signets a bad investment, regardless of how cheap they currently are. However foil Rakdos Signet and foil Orzhov Signet seem to be significantly lower than the other four non-green signets; they the only non-green foil signets available for under $5 but they see similar amount of play with the two most expensive signets, Dimir Signet and Azorius Signet. Boros Signet sees less play than both Rakdos Signet and Orzhov Signet and is $6.

Check out the top fifty most popular commanders over the past year, from the same database referred to by this article:

As mentioned above, most of the non-green decks run all the signets their color identity allows.  From the list we can see that popular non-green decks running Dimir Signet and/or Azorius Signet tend to also run Rakdos Signet (Nekusar, the Mindrazer, Jeleva, Nephalia’s Scourge, Marchesa, the Black Rose) and Orzhov Signet (Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, Sydri, Galvanic Genius, Kaalia of the Vast, Sharuum the Hegemon).

These Ravnican guild signets did not appear in Return to Ravnica and each signet bears the name of their respective guilds, so it is highly unlikely for the signets cycle to see a foil printing outside another visit to Ravnica, which probably would not happen within the next five years or so, a.k.a. a long, long time. So far they have been reprinted in Commander and Archenemy, both non-foil supplementary products.

I am of opinion that Rakdos Signet and Orzhov Signet are mispriced and are due for a market correction.

Closing

With the signets, we conclude the artifact segment of Hunting for Commander Foils series. Do comment on if you’ve enjoyed the approach I took for this article, and any suggestions for future articles are more than welcomed. You can find me @theguoheng or just drop a comment here.

Join me next week as I discuss the epic fails (and whatever little wins) I have experienced throughout my time in Magic finance and the lessons I have learnt from them. In the mean time, I can’t wait to finally unpack that Built from Scratch deck I have purchased over the weekend but have yet to find time to bring it out for a test run. Artifacts for the win!

---

 

By: Guo Heng Chin

Commander 2014 is dawning upon us in just a few days, and it is exciting times for Commander players. While the new Commander cards have been discussed extensively, Commander is a deep format and there are a treasure trove of potentially undervalued cards in the format. Welcome to the first article in the Hunting for Commander Foils series. The series will comb through some of the most popular Commander cards to discover undervalued Commander foils.

Why Foils You Say?

Besides, foils provide an extra layer of insulation against reprints. Take Solemn Simulacrum for example: the artifact incarnate of Jens Thorén was printed three times but the original Mirrodin foil with Jens Thorén’s face on it still demands a hefty $26.78, while the faceless art foil from M12 is currently at $15.15.

Most popular Commander cards are at risk of being reprinted in the now annual Commander preconstructed decks. The Commander preconstructed decks will not contain any foils, so your foil Solemn Simulacrums have a better likelihood of retaining their value compared with their non-foil versions.

Artifact Power

I for one am excited for the red deck from Commander 2014, Built from Scratch. It is the most artifact-centric deck of all five Commander 2014 precons and I have an affinity for artifacts due to the nostalgia they evoke: I first picked up Magic during Urza’s Block, the era when artifacts were broken. That was the time of Kai Budde’s explosive Mono Red Artifact Wildfire deck that exploits the likes of Grim Monolith and Voltaic Key to generate insane amount of mana before locking out your opponent’s lands with Wildfire and Mishra’s Helix. A bit selfish, I know. But hey, there can only be one winner in every game of Magic. Oh, the deck beats its opponent to death with a dragon as well.  It couldn’t get any sweeter than that.

The following year featured two Mono Blue Artifact Tinker decks in an epic World Championship finals showdown between Jon Finkel and Bob Maher. Their decks ran a similar artifact acceleration package and land disruption as per Kai Budde’s Mono Red Artifact Wildfire, except they win via Tinkering for Phyrexian Colossus or 19/19 Phyrexian Processor tokens.

While I started kitchen table Magic during Urza’s Block, my foray into Magic beyond the kitchen table began during Mirrodin. I have fond memories of splurging out my hand on turn one with Affinity. I never won much though; mirror matches were particularly difficult for a newbie like me. Its complicated board states and mind-boggling combat math with Disciple of the Vaults, artifact lands and Atogs were just too much to handle. And there were a lot of Affinity mirror matches. However, playing aggro never felt better than the few months Skullclamp was legal. Fair enough, the Affinity era was not the epitome of a healthy competitive metagame, but it sure ranks as one of the most overpowered meta in Magic’s history.

Wizards has gotten better with their balancing act these days but artifacts still evoke a sense of forlorn in me, as a subset of cards that used to possess so much power, but is now powered down, nullified in the modern era of Magic. Nevertheless artifacts still play a crucial role in Magic’s most popular casual format, Commander. By virtue of their colorlessness, artifacts fit into any Commander decks, providing a slew of off-color abilities like ramp, card selection, life gain, sacrifice outlets and now even taking extra turns to decks that usually do not have access to them.

Today’s article will discuss the financial potential of some of the most popular artifacts played in Commander. MTGSalvation.com EDH Primer Committee member scoeri have been running a pretty nifty script which trawls the site for user-posted Commander decklists and breaks down most played cards in various configurations. scoeri shared the list under the forum post Statistical Breakdown of the Commander Metagame (highly recommended for anyone interested in Commander stats). The database covers decks from the previous twelve months and is updated monthly, with the last count taking place on 31 October 2014. The database currently contains 3023 decks from 1473 users (decks posted or updated from 31 October 2013 – 31 October 2014). Shout-out to scoeri for the awesome database.

Here’s a snapshot of the top 50 colorless cards most played in Commander.

I chose the colorless list rather than the artifacts list as the colorless one includes artifact creatures. The list is exhaustive and for the sake of space and brevity, this article will cherry pick cards which financial relevancy could be discussed. While Sol Ring tops the list, there is not much to say about it as Sol Ring was reprinted to death in every single Commander decks Wizards release. Gilded Lotus and Darksteel Ingot are both in the top 10, but they are relatively cheap and stagnant over the years for the same reasons. The cards discussed are also preferably legal in both Multiplayer Commander and Duel Commander so there is a larger market for the foil version of the card, but exceptions could be made for extremely popular cards in either format.

Lastly, the foils discussed are still within affordable range for most players to acquire: Sensei’s Divining Top is the fourth most-played artifact, but a foil Champions of Kamigawa copy has a price tag of $118 and a From the Vaults: Exiled foil sets you back $53. There is not much point expounding the virtues of a foil that only a small segment of readers could afford.

The Top Dogs

Mirrodin Foil: $26.78

M12 Foil: $15.15

No. of Foil Printings: 2

The second most popular artifact in the list, lagging behind only Sol Ring. While the foil price for the original Mirrodin version have been stagnant, the foil M12 copy have been slowly trending up in price since the start of 2014. Originally a blue-green card, Solemn Simulacrum gives decks access to two important abilities which are almost universally desired by any Commander decks: blue’s cantripping, and green’s mana ramp and color fixing. It comes with no surprise that Solemn Simulacrum is played in 32% of the Commander decks tallied by scoeri.

Verdict: $15 is a bit steep as a spec target. However I would like to get my own foil copy or copies at $15. I personally would not get the $27 Mirrodin copy, but I am sure there are some diehard pimpers out there who would prefer the original art.

Mirrodin Foil: $19.41

FNM Foil: $17.99

No. of Foil Printings: 2

Third down the list, being played in 31% of the decks counted, Lightning Greaves is a staple in Commander decks built around a Commander that attacks, have an activated ability that requires tapping or is a combo piece.

Verdict: I do not like like Lightning Greaves as a spec or acquisition at $18. Lightning Greaves would be hard pressed to see another foil printing as Wizards is replacing shroud with hexproof. Furthermore, players unwilling to splash $18 – $20 for a pair of shoes might just opt for a pair of $5 foil Swiftfoot Boots.

Darksteel Foil: $16.76

From the Vault: Exiled Foil: $14.98

No. of Foil Printings: 2

Skullclamp is one of the reasons why I love my Purphoros, God the Tokens and Prossh, Kobold Babymaker Commander decks. One mana, sacrifice a token, draw two cards ranks as one of the best guilty pleasures of running a tokens deck. While not nearly as ubiquitous as Solemn Simulacrum, Skullclamp is played in 25% of the Commander decks counted.

Verdict: $15 is a steep entry for a spec, but unlike Solemn Simulacrum foils, we are unlikely to see another printing of foil Skullclamp. Skullclamp was a mistake and is extremely unlikely to see another reprint outside the Commander decks, which contains no foils. Darksteel’s print run is likely to be significantly lower than the current print run of Standard sets, and FTV:Exiled is a limited edition product.

Also unlike foil Lightning Greaves, there is no other card that achieves the same effect (or even close to) as Skullclamp. If you can get any copies at $15 now, go get it.

Zendikar Foil: $13.35

No. of Foil Printings: 1

Expedition Map grants the power to search for any lands to any deck. And its pretty cheap to activate. Most Commander decks run utility lands, be it Cavern of Souls to make your Commander uncounterable, or Academy Ruins to recur incessant artifacts. Expedition Map is a $13 foil common, a price also buoyed by Modern Tron.

Verdict: Unlike the other cards discussed above, the price of foil Expedition Map is at risk of being tanked by a reprint. It is a common, which means a reprint will see a larger influx of foil copies than the cards discussed above. Lightning Greaves and Skullclamp are uncommons but their ability makes unlikely to be reprinted, while Expedition Map’s ability could fit anywhere. Its status as a Modern Tron staple is double edged: while it keeps the price high, it also means that foils of the card could be reprinted en masse not just in normal sets, but also in Modern Masters II.

We are just scraping the tip of the list, stay tuned next week for the second part of Hunting for Commander Foils: Artifacts.

---

 

By: Guo Heng Chin

Have you heard of the new turn 2 kill in Modern? Well, the Narset Combo deck is probably not news to most of you anymore. But for those who haven’t heard of it, it is a deck that exploits Goryo’s Vengeance to cheat in the hexproof Narset, Enlightened Master and chain a series of attack phases which results in Enter the Infinite and Omniscience being ‘casted’ with Narset’s ability. It is a Johnny masterpiece designed by Gabriel Jones who handed the list to Travis Woo for maximum exposure. You can read more about it and see it in action here.

The Narset deck may be a bit too wombo combo to be tier one, but it reminded me of a theory proposed by a friend and fellow Magic finance enthusiast about Goryo’s Vengeance while we were discussing if it was worth investing in our own playset of Goryo’s Vengeance:

Goryo’s Vengeance gets better as more legendary creatures are printed. 

Back then in 2012,  when we bought our playsets of Goryo’s Vengeance, it was a $4 card.

Today I am going to discuss how the theory could apply to other cards in similar veins to Goryo’s Vengeance, cards that allows you to cheat-in creatures. This is the Increasing Savagery theory and credit goes to Reza Baharin (@rezaaba on Twitter) for coming up with it. The theory is named after Dark Ascension’s Increasing cycle of cards that get more powerful as the game progresses; likewise the cards the theory attempts to explain increase in potential as more Magic sets are released.

A Lannister Always Pays His Casting Cost. That Doesn’t Means You Must.

Magic is an ever-growing, ever-changing game. When I first started Magic back in the late 90s, a four casting cost 5/5 creature came with a drawback, your opponent’s lands were legit targets and spells were king. In 2014, we have a four mana 5/5 creature with added gatling gun and the majority of Standard archetypes are creature-centric. Meddling with your opponent’s mana base is a no-no, because allegedly land-sadists are in the minority.

Through the years, Wizard’s design paradigm shifted towards encouraging interactivity and board-based game states and creatures are bestowed with a higher power level than those of Magic of yore. Regardless of the changes in Magic’s design priorities, one aspect remained the same throughout Magic’s design history: there are always splashy creatures.

Splashy creatures are monsters that shout ‘Wow!’, be it because they are a big flying spaghetti monster, or they possess some insanely cool ability (double cascade anybody). Splashy creatures usually come with a prohibitive mana cost, for great power is a reward deserved only by those who goes through the pain of assembling the required mana.

Or to those who prefer sneakier methods.

From Lord of the Pit of the days of yore to Eldrazis of today, splashy creatures remain the mainstay of Magic. Their sheer size makes Timmies shudder with excitement, their unique abilities rev up the brew engine of Johnnies and occasionally, reaches through the breach from kitchen table play to the competitive tables of Spikes.

Legendary creatures add to the lot as well. While Wizards does not specifically design legendary creatures in normal sets to appeal to Commander players, legendary creatures are designed to be cool. Plus, the legend rule allows Wizards to push the power level of legendary creature. Characters in Magic’s storyline manifest themselves in cardboard form as legendary creatures or Planeswalkers, and as every Magic set comes with a story, it is a pretty safe assumption that most sets will contain legendary creatures.

Thus the first premise of the Increasing Savagery Theory: the number of splashy and/or legendary creatures increases with the number of Magic sets.

The next premise the theory rests on is that Wizards’ design and development teams are continually inclined to push boundaries for creatures they design, so as to keep players excited for new cards. Sometimes this manifested itself as an undercosted creature. Other times this manifest itself as a creature with an awesome ability counteracted by a prohibitive casting cost, a la Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, Griselbrand and Avacyn, Angel of Hope.

So we can also safely assume that we will continue to see powerful creatures with prohibitive mana costs and this forms the second premise of the Increasing Savagery Theory.

The third premise is pretty straightforward: cards like Goryo’s Vengeance and Through the Breach are only as good as the fatties you can cheat into play with them.

Put all three premises together and you get:

Cards that allow you to circumvent a creature’s casting cost gets better as more Magic sets are released.

Counter Arguments

The counter argument to this theory is that new big game-breaking creatures will displace the current targets for the cheat cards, making the demand for cheat-into-play cards remain relatively stable. Those decklists are tight, and there is no reason to play the old fatties if the new ones are strictly better.

While it is true that better win condition targets would replace the incumbents, the replacement itself could potentially bolster the existing archetype. Prior to Griselbrand, Legacy Sneak and Show decks were running Progenitus alongside Emrakul as Show and Tell fodder five to seven. While Emrakul is susceptible to Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Progenitus to board wipe, Griselbrand provided a strict upgrade to the deck as the big bad demon technically possesses an ETB ability as he grants an extra seven to fourteen cards upon touching the board.

While Show and Tell was already an expensive card at $40 prior to the adoption of Griselbrand, it spiked to mid-$60s in July 2012 when four-of Griselbrands propelled Sneak and Show decks to the next level.

Modern Goryo decks could benefit if a more efficient fatty were to be printed in the future. Say a fatty that comes with a game-breaking enter-the-battlefield ability that does not require you to pay seven life. Modern players take a lot more damage from their manabase compared to Legacy players and sometimes cheating a Griselbrand into play is not enough to turn the board around. Perhaps the a new splashy creature were to be printed that conveniently stays in the graveyard for reanimation purposes.  Perhaps a new fatty negates the need for Fury of the Horde as a win condition, freeing up four slots in the deck for cards to improve the deck’s resilience.

The other counter argument is that the Achilles heel of Modern Goryo decks is the decks’ susceptibility to discard and countermagic rather than a lack of creatures to cheat into play.  That is an issue that the printing of new fatties would not shore, but the printing of new spells might. For example, the addition of Izzet Charm injected an extra dose of consistency into the Griselbrand Reanimator by giving it more dig spells, discard outlet and counter protection.

Furthermore, new fatties or legendaries could instigate new archetypes or twists on existing archetypes; both could potentially increase demand for the cheat-into-play cards that are key to making those decks work. A breakthrough or a bust, the Narset Combo deck supports the Increasing Savagery theory in that it creates another deck that relies on Goryo’s Vengeance. Who knows, perhaps sometime in the near future, a Todd Anderson might pilot a tuned Narset Combo into 11th place at a Grand Prix, or a Jan van der Vegt might add on a few copies of an old, forgotten card and make that deck the talk of the Grand Prix.

Now to the Financial Side

While there are a plethora of cards that allows you to circumvent pesky casting costs, the cards I am going to discuss in this article are cards that are themselves costed low enough to be considered cheating a creature into play (sorry Omniscience, Tooth and Nail) and is not too conditional (sorry Summoning Trap), and Modern-legal (the Legacy ship for cards in this category has long sailed, adios Show and Tell!).

That leaves us with pretty much the cards that are used in the various incarnations of Modern Griselbrand Reanimator: Goryo’s Vengeance, Through the Breach and Fist of Suns. And the oft-overlooked Quicksilver Amulet.

Pros: The card that inspired the Increasing Savagery theory and one of the most powerful cards in Modern, Goryo’s act of revenge is the reason why Modern Reanimator decks can execute turn two kills. It is key to the archetype and is likely to be the first card brewers turn to when a new splashy legendary creature is spoiled.

The card contains “Goryo” in its name, is an Arcane spell and Champions of Kamigawa’s popularity mean Goryo is probably not coming back for a vengeance anytime soon.

Cons: Goryo’s Vengeance is the cheat-into-play candidate with the highest chance meeting the banhammer. It also has a pretty hefty price tag at $11. Goryo’s price didn’t really sink the way Fist of Suns’ did when the deck that ran them didn’t top 8 the Grand Prix they were causing so much furore at.

Pros: Through the Breach  has a flavor-tied name and is also an Arcane spell,  giving it a low chance of being reprinted. It is also ran as a two-of in Legacy Sneak and Show sideboards, which could be another factor pushing its price.

Cons: Like Goryo’s Vengeance, Through the Breach is not exactly cheap to buy in at $11. Well, at least its unlikely to face the hammer anytime soon, so its got that goin’ for it, which is nice.

Pros: $5 is a pretty good buy in after its precipitous drop from $12. Fist of Suns is a card that is begging to be broken. It ‘casts’ your fatty as well, so brownie points for synergy with Emrakul.

Cons: Fist is more vulnerable compared with Goryo’s Vengeance and Through the Breach, mainly because you don’t often cast Fist of Suns and use its ability on the same turn, making it susceptible to artifact removal. Plus resolving a Fist does not guarantee the resolution of your beast. Unless it’s Emrakul.

And you’ll need all your colors to abuse this one.

Pros: Featured in the latest iteration of Griselbrand Reanimator by Tatsushi Tsukamoto who finished 23rd in the recent Grand Prix Kobe. It is the only truly colorless route to summon a creature without paying the creature’s mana cost. The amulet is currently at $7 and is slowly trending up.

Cons: Probably the weakest cheat card of all the cheat-into-play cards. The Amulet does not grants haste (though you could technically drop the creature at the end of your opponent’s turn) nor does it casts the card, thus missing out on Emrakul’s Time Walk trigger. Quicksilver Amulet also does not see much Commander play. Amulet it may be, but with two printings, this card may not have much room to grow. Nevertheless, I am still surprised to see this once bulkish rare trending at $7.

The Supreme Verdict

The cards that subscribe to the Increasing Savagery theory are long-term investment targets rather than fodder for quick speculation. We do not know when the next innovative tech will emerge to trigger another spike in the price of those cards, but we know that every new set adds to the chance of a breakthrough innovation happening. The Modern cheat-creatures-into-play archetype is one breakthrough away from being tier one.

Goryo’s Vengeance and Through the Breach at $11 are steep, however those cards are likely to increase in value over time as more fatties and legendary creatures enter the card pool. Securing your own playset of those cards now would seem prescient when their next spike comes with the next breakthrough tech. They are cards you could probably take your time to amass rather than going all out right on acquisition now. I would prefer to trade for them rather than buy them outright.

While I am comfortable holding Through the Breach for a long time, I would be inclined to sell Goryo’s Vengeance the next time it spikes. Goryo’s power level is sitting on the borderline of bannable and shall the next iteration of Goryo decks prove to be more resilient than the current lists, the next spike might just be Goryo’s last. Taking a leaf off Travis Allen’s recent article, being too greedy might just result in missing the Treasure Cruise.

If there are any cards on the veins of the Increasing Savagery theory that is worth buying now, it would be Fist of Suns at the paltry $5 it is valued at as of writing. It is a card that is begging to be broken, plus unlike the rest of the Increasing Savagery cards, Fist of Suns could cheat in any spell. Any spell.

While Quicksilver Amulet is just $7 and is gradually climbing in value, I am skeptical about picking it as a good target mainly because it sees little to no play in Modern and casual formats and has multiple printings.

Bonus

Wizards designs cards to synergise with upcoming sets. Mutavault in M14 supported mono-colored Devotion strategies in Theros, and Courser of Kruphix in Born of the Gods works in tandem with Khans of Tarkir fetchlands.

Could you see what the future holds for See the Unwritten? Outside of Hornet Queen and Ashen Rider, there aren’t any good See the Unwritten targets in Standard right now. Even Hornet Queen and Ashen Rider are decent targets at best. Powerful, but not Tooth and Nail into Darksteel Colossus powerful.

Dragons of Tarkir is potentially the third set of the Khans block. Call me an optimistic Timmy, but that name sounds like a set that could bring us some sweet, maybe-even-legendary flying fatties. Going back to a time where dragons are aplenty in Tarkir fits right into the time travel story of Khans.

Currently valued at $4.50, See the Unwritten holds a lot of potential. Don’t wait until the dragons return before you see the unwritten value of the card.

---