By James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)
One of the most common misconceptions about folks involved in MTGFinance is that we are constantly manipulating the market and feeding players misinformation to help fuel achievement of our personal goals.It has occurred to us at MTGPrice that though we dole out a good deal of advice, most of you ultimately have very little insight into when and why our writing team actually puts our money where our collective mouths are pointing. As such running this weekly series breaking down what we’ve been buying and selling each week and why. These lists are meant to be both complete and transparent, leaving off only cards we bought for personal use without hope of profit. We’ll also try to provide some insight into our thinking behind the specs, and whether we are aiming for a short (<1 month), mid (1-12 month), or long (1 year+) term flip. Here’s what we we’ve been up to this week:

Buying Period: June 15th – June 21st, 2015

Note: All cards NM unless otherwise noted. All sell prices are net of fees unless noted.

James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

BOUGHT

• Iroas, God of Victory (Japanese) @ $2.30
• 4x Merrow Reejerey @ $5.00/per
• 14x Darksteel Relic @ $.80/per

Another pretty quiet week for purchasing on my end, as I’m gearing up to purchase a very large collection.  The Iroas pick up is consistent with my approach to purchase most of the Theros block gods at or around their lows as a long term holds. Merfolk made up 2 of the top 4 decks at GP Copenhagen this weekend, so picking up some staples from the deck seemed prudent. Darksteel Relic is an outsider spec based on a reported deck with Ensoul Artifact in Modern from Japan.

SOLD (Pucatrade)

• Command Tower (foil) @ $35.29 ($21 cost)
• Goblin Guide @ $29.31 (pack opened)
• Academy Ruins @ $11.16 (pack opened)
• Cavern of Souls @ $40.84 (pack opened)
• Meddling Mage @ $6.54 ($3 cost/per)
• 4x Razorverge Thicket @ $6.47 ($3 cost/per)
• 3x Sword of Feast & Famine @ $16.86 ($6.50 cost/per)
• 4x Sulfur Falls @ $9.28 ($4.50 cost/per)
• Sower of Temptation @ $25.84 (pack opened)
• 2x Magus of the Moon @ $17.86 ($4 cost/per)
• 2x Descent of the Dragons @ $2.10 ($2.50 cost/per)
• 2x Aven Mindcensor @ $10.37 (pack opened)

The recent modern spikes have been very kind to those of us already holding deep portfolios of staples. As you can see above, I’ve been able to continuously unload small clusters of cards from my collection through the use of the Pucatrade economy. Some of these cards (Sulfur Falls, Thicket, Academy Ruins) have some room to run, but I’m happy to lock in profits now in my pursuit of a larger deal. I’m now up to $1500 in Pucapoints and looking to complete a major transaction shortly.

 

Corbin Hosler (@Chosler88)

BOUGHT

• 20x Nettle Sentinels @ .90 apiece

 

Editor’s Note: This was a play on the popularity of the Elves deck in Modern.

Guo Heng Chin (@theguoheng)

• 3 x Risen Executioner @ $1.87 per
• 1 x Painter’s Servant @ $8.83
• 1 x Pact of Negation @$18.45
• 1 x Pact of Negation @ $16.05

Guo says:

“Risen Executioner was the pick of the week in a Brainstorm Brewery episode a while back. The Brew Crew thought the zombie lord was a good pick at its current price as the card has long-term growth potential from casual demand. The recurring zombie lord is also found in the sideboard of Esper Dragons as a hard to deal with threat brought in for grindy matches and the acquisition was also for my own use when I get back to playing Esper Dragons in Standard once the Modern PPTQ season ends.

The Painter’s Servant was for a fun Tron build I’ve been itching to try out for a while. Check out this funky Tron/Through the Breach build by Tani Chiharu which top 4ed a 43-player Modern event in Tokyo: http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=9272&d=253286&f=MO. Ugin and Painter’s Servant do a good impression of Obliterate, except that I would be left with a mighty planeswalker. I’m still looking for a couple of pieces myself, so I have yet to try it out, but I think it’s probably going to be a fun deck rather than a deck I would bring to events.

The Pact of Negations were for the sideboard of the deck I am running at FNMs and PPTQs and Grand Prix Singapore next week. Take a wild guess what deck it is. The second Pact was slightly cheaper courtesy of a friend.”

Note: The rest of the guys were quiet this week.

So there you have it. Now what were you guys buying and selling this week and why?

James Chillcott is the CEO of ShelfLife.net, The Future of Collecting, Senior Partner at Advoca, a designer, adventurer, toy fanatic and an avid Magic player and collector since 1994.

ADVERTISEMENT: Get the Cube Starter Bundle with the 3rd Edition Grimoire Deck Box, the brand new Grimoire Deck Box designed specifically for the red mage in you.

 

By James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

One of the most common misconceptions about folks involved in MTGFinance is that we are constantly manipulating the market and feeding players misinformation to help fuel achievement of our personal goals.

It has occurred to us at MTGPrice that though we dole out a good deal of advice, most of you ultimately have very little insight into when and why our writing team actually puts our money where our collective mouths are pointing. As such running this weekly series breaking down what we’ve been buying and selling each week and why. These lists are meant to be both complete and transparent, leaving off only cards we bought for personal use without hope of profit. We’ll also try to provide some insight into our thinking behind the specs, and whether we are aiming for a short (<1 month), mid (1-12 month), or long (1 year+) term flip. Here’s what we we’ve been up to this week:

Buying Period: June 7th – June 14th, 2015

Note: All cards NM unless otherwise noted. All sell prices are net of fees unless noted.

James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

BOUGHT

Modern Mid-Term Plays

• 4x Dark Confidant @ $40/per
• 2x Modern Masters Booster Boxes @ $180

Quite a quiet week for me, as I was pretty busy with work and was on the road. Dark Confidant is one of the only Jund cards that hasn’t popped yet, and just reasserted itself as Top 8 worth with an appearance at the top tables of GPCharlotte. As such, Dark Confidant should easily regain $60 before the end of the year, so long as the deck keeps doing well or it finds a home elsewhere. In a meta where card advantage and low casting costs spells can get the job done,  you can’t ever count Bob out of contention.

Dealers got to order one last whopping order of MM2015 last Friday, and now the product is officially OOP (Out of Print). Many dealers have overstock at present, and with a baseline cost of around $145-150, they may be willing to slide you a box under $190 if you don’t make a lot of noise about it. From here on out these boxes should start to regain ground slowly towards MSRP, and I fully expect them to be minor wins by Christmas. 2016 will also be a solid time to be selling them but only if we don’t see a MM2016 announcement around the end of the year (I’m betting we won’t.)

 

Corbin Hosler

BOUGHT

• 8x Night of Souls’ Betrayal @ $3
• 12x Eternal Witness @ $3
• 12x Glistener Elf @ $.30

SOLD

• 4x Serum Visions (PucaTrade)
• 4x Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver @ $12
• 2x Sylvan Caryatid @ $8
• 5x Courser of Kruphix @ $7

Corbin says:

“Just clearing out some rotating Theros stock and some excess Serum Visions to lock in profits. Night of Souls’ Betrayal is making moves in Jund, and Witness and Elf are both steady risers.”

 

Note: The rest of the guys were quiet this week.

Bonus Tips:

• Despite all the prices increases lately, there are a bevy of great cards from MM2015 that are still available at attractive prices including Leyline of Sanctity, Splinter Twin and Spellskite. I expect all of these staples to regain lost ground by end of year.

So there you have it. Now what were you guys buying and selling this week and why?

James Chillcott is the CEO of ShelfLife.net, The Future of Collecting, Senior Partner at Advoca, a designer, adventurer, toy fanatic and an avid Magic player and collector since 1994.

ADVERTISEMENT: Get the Cube Starter Bundle with the 3rd Edition Grimoire Deck Box, the brand new Grimoire Deck Box designed specifically for the red mage in you.

 

After an exciting and diverse Day 1 at our latest Modern format Grand Prix, plenty of big names are in the running.

Here’s our coverage from Day 1.

According to the official stats, Grixis Twin, Affinity and Jund are all topping the metagame with around 10% of the field, but a full 15+ archetypes make up the rest of the field, including Merfolk, Naya Burn, R/G Tron, U/B Faeries, Goryo’s Vengeance and Amulet Bloom.

One of the more interesting decks arrived in the hands of Shaheen Soorani. Blink Riders looks to work a mana denial angle to go after the big mana decks with a vengeance.

See more details on the metagame here.

Here’s what’s developing at the top tables in our final day:

Round 11

In this round Korean national Nam Sung Wook brought the heat by tabling Thunderbreak Regent in Modern and taking down long time pro Willy Edel on Abzan.

Round 13

Ken Van Sciver (Infect) vs Darien Elderfield (Ad Nauseum)

Here we have a battle of two fairly non-interactive style decks and a rare appearance by the Ad Nauseum deck. Darien takes game 1 by going off smoothly and killing Ken with Lightning Storm. In Game 2 Darien casts a spicy Darkness to buy some time to set up his win and take the match, moving to 12-1 and putting himself in position to qualify for the Pro Tour.

Round 14

Paul Reitzel (Naya Collected Company) vs. Ben Wincorp (Bant)

Rietzl on a mid-range zoo build that leverages Collected Company without any combo elements to just overwhelm opponents. Both players at 10-2 and in Top 8 contention if they keeping winning.

During his Dech Tech Reitzel explains that Wild Nacatl is the 2nd best creature (by rate) in Modern, and bolsters Collected Company as a great backup plan against grindy decks. Scavenging Ooze looked great in various matches as well.

Patrick Chapin (Grixis Control) vs. Alexander Hayne (Amulet Bloom)

Chapin takes down Hayne on the back of Shadow of Doubt and a small run on the card just went down.

Top 8

So after two long days where GR Tron and Amulet Bloom were the decks to beat, neither deck has showed up in the Top 8. Instead we’re facing the following decks as potential champions for the GP:

The expected Top 8 buyouts have already started with Nourishing Shoal, a new piece of tech in the Goryo’s Vengeance deck, disappearing across the online vendors.

Wesley See takes down Sam Pardee in the mirror match with the help of Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir into the Splinter Twin combo. Ad Nauseum takes down the Vengance deck, throwing the Nourishing Shoal spec into shadow, and Affinity takes down Abzan Company.

Here’s our Top 4:

Elves vs. Twin in the finals! Elves wins it all! Look for Foil Collected Company to make another potential move.

James Chillcott is the CEO of ShelfLife.net, The Future of Collecting, Senior Partner at Advoca, a designer, adventurer, toy fanatic and an avid Magic player and collector since 1994.

ADVERTISEMENT: Get the Cube Starter Bundle with the 3rd Edition Grimoire Deck Box, the brand new Grimoire Deck Box designed specifically for the red mage in you.

Nearly 4 months after Pro Tour: Fate Reforged and a lively Modern metagame, here we are at the doorstep of another epic battle between top Magic: The Gathering pros from across the continent as GPCharlotte puts the focus back on Modern cards just a week after the SCG Invitational and Open did the same.

Coming out of last week, the top decks included 2 copies of Amulet Bloom, a resurgent Jund build, a fairly stock Merfolk deck, Grixis Twin and two copies of R/G Tron, with the latter taking down the tournament.

For the MTG Finance community, a plethora of spikes this week on cards that weren’t included in Modern Masters 2015 may have exhausted a lot of the spike potential for the weekend. And yet, some of the reprints from MM2 have strong potential for a rebound on the back of a fresh Top 8.

First off, here’s a couple of Buylist boards from the vendors, as reported by our readers:

Channel Fireball

Aether Games

Derek from Aether Games reports:

Now, here are some early stories worth paying attention to:

Dark Confidant

Sitting at a 5-year low of $40-45, Bob is in position for a strong rebound if it can find a Top 8 in the company of a Jund build or something fresh that demonstrates the power of drawing extra cards every turn. Just a year ago it would have been unthinkable that Dark Confidant would swap price points with Snapcaster Mage but here we are with this former staple struggling to find a consistent home. While it’s true that the card has been reprinted twice in the last three years, those printings were more more uber-mythic than true mythic given the short run nature of the sets, and I have the card on my radar to regain ground to $60 if it manages a strong finish at this tournament.

 

Snapcaster Mage

From $20 to $80+ in a little over a year makes for some very nice returns for those of us that have been hoarding copies waiting for this day. As a flexible spell l retrieval unit, complete with a low and splash-able casting cost, Tiago Chan’s invitational card may still have room to grow if it can find a Top 8 via the success of a Jeskai Tempo, Grixis Twin or Grixis Control. A reprint is unlikely prior to 2017 as this card bears a strong mark as an MM3 target, so there is definitely room to run.

Amulet of Vigor

With a 2nd place finish at Pro Tour: Fate Reforged in February and two copies in the Top 8 last week at the SCG Invi, scrutiny is now squarely on the deck that allows for some of the fastest kills in the format. Another win at this tournament could easily trigger a tactical banning, which should have owners of the deck feeling fairly nervous.

Splinter Twin

Whether it’s being on display in UR Twin, RUG Twin with Tarmogoyf or the more recently debuted Grixis Twin, this format defining combo card may be safe from a banning due to it’s recent reprinting in MM 2015. As an auto 3-of or 4-of in all variants of the deck, this card has fallen 50% or so since the reprinting, but could stand to gain ground before end of summer on the back of another strong finish at this tournament. Absent a ban, I can easily see this card topping $30 before end of the year so I’ve been picking up copies.

Kolaghan’s Command

Overlooked when first spoiled, this Command may well end up being the best of the five for Modern play. With the ability to handle small creatures, key artifacts in Merfolk, Tron and Affinity, return relevant creatures or force a discard at a key moment, the versatility of modal spells is being proven out yet again. Foils have already doubled up but I suspect they have further to run should they take a trophy home.

Deceiver Exarch

Despite a reprinting in Commander 2013, this banner uncommon often found as a 3 or 4-of in Twin variants has spiked hard this week, with a buyout driving the price from $1.50 up to $4. A good showing from one of the Twin decks could cement the new price.

 

Round to Round Coverage

Round 1

Ali Aintrazi (R/G Tron) vs. Robert Rankin (Infect)

Aintrazi steals a surprise Game 1 victory on the back of two copies of Pyroclasm.

Round 3

LSV (Grixis Twin) vs. Christian Calcano (Grixis Twin)

This match puts the focus clearly on the key cards from the latest incarnation of Splinter Twin decks, including: Kolaghan’s Command, Splinter Twin, Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Thoughtseize, Snapcaster Mage and Cryptic Command.

Collins Mulen (Burn) vs. Justin Cohen (Amulet Bloom)

Former Top 8 Bloom player, Justin Cohen is back on camera at 3-0 with the deck he helped bring into the spotlight. Destructive Revelry in the hands of Mulen takes out the Amulet of Vigor that Cohen needed to go off, and Burn steals the match.

 

Round 6

Patrick Dickmann (Temur Twin) vs. John Runyon (Grixis Twin)

Dickmann takes Game 1 relatively easily. A flurry of remands in Game 2 underscores the importance of this card in Modern and serves as a reminder that the recently reprinted uncommon will likely regain lost ground within the year. A pair of Deceiver Exarchs put away Game 2 for Runyon to even things up and reinforce the price spike on Exarch this week. Dickmann snags a last turn win off of a top decked Cryptic Command to steal the 3rd game in extra turns!

Dragonlord Ojutai has been called out as a key card in a deck tech with Matt Sperling to air shortly.  A couple of Jund decks are 7-0 in the hands of players like Owen Turtenwald and Andrew Boswell.

Round 8

Huang Hao-Shan (Burn) vs. Aaron Barich (Infect)

Infect takes game 1 and beats a great hand from Hao-Shan to take the match.

Patrick Chapin (Grixis Twin) vs. Grant Knierim (U/R Twin)

Gurmag Angler and Jace, Architect of Thought getting some camera time in Game 2. A rare appearance by Countersquall in Game 3 as Chapin picks up the pace in a plodding control mirror in danger of hitting extra turns. Kolaghan’s Command on display again as a key new staple in Modern. Chapin plays tight and gets the win he needs to make Day 2.

Deck Tech: Adrian Sullivan (Esper Control)

Dragonlord Ojutai being put to use as a 4-of as a central pillar of the deck. Running two copies of Nameless Inversion to turn on Silumgar’s Scorn. Also running Careful Consideration, Tolaria West, Minamo, School at Water’s Edge, and Calciform Pools.

Round 9

Ben Stark (Abzan Company) vs. Patrick Dickmann (Temur Twin)

Hall of Famer Ben Stark is putting a strong spotlight on Collected Company’s future in Modern, take on one of the best decks and players in the format on camera. Scavenging Ooze and Voice of Resurgance both looked great, but Dickmann goes to 8-1 moving into Day 2.

 

James Chillcott is the CEO of ShelfLife.net, The Future of Collecting, Senior Partner at Advoca, a designer, adventurer, toy fanatic and an avid Magic player and collector since 1994.

ADVERTISEMENT: Get the Cube Starter Bundle with the 3rd Edition Grimoire Deck Box, the brand new Grimoire Deck Box designed specifically for the red mage in you.