All posts by Sigmund Ausfresser

ProTrader, Sigmund Ausfresser

PROTRADER: Mitigating Modern Losses

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Last Saturday, numerous Magic players woke up to surprising news: the sudden release of the latest Banned & Restricted announcements. The story goes that the MTGO Beta team enforced these updates, yet they hadn’t been announced yet on the Mothership. With the internet being what it is these days, it took all of a few milliseconds for this information to hit Reddit, then Twitter, and then the world.

Wizards had no choice but to acknowledge the mishap by reporting the changes. Talk about impactful!

banned

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Sigmund Ausfresser

PROTRADER: Lingering Thoughts From All the Hype

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I want to kick off this article with some impressive numbers from the MTG Stocks Interests page.

  • 10: the number of cards that have more than doubled in value since last week
  • 21: the number of cards that have risen by at least 50% in value since last week

Next, I’d like to break that group of 21 cards a different way, attempting to categorize them by format. I’ll admit I’m making assumptions here but for the sake of discussion, this should be accurate enough.

  • 13: Modern cards
  • 6: Commander cards
  • 2: Old School cards

These numbers alone could be the basis for a multitude of articles. One could discuss the sheer number of movers and shakers on the MTG market. Someone else could write about the top Modern movers and highlight what they think is coming next (essentially what I tackled last week). Others still could focus on Commander, sharing their thoughts on the recent surge in prices of certain cards and relating this to the newest set of Commander decks that have now saturated the market.

And don’t worry, I don’t plan on dwelling on about Old School MTG except for one thought worth your attention: when I uncheck Alpha, Beta and Unlimited from set exclusions on MTG Stocks, I see an additional four Old School cards that have increased in value over 50% last week. The format’s impact is real even if you don’t believe the format itself is worth considering.

So What Is the Topic?

So much has been going on in MTG finance lately, and I have found myself chasing numerous buyouts and speculation opportunities. Someone will observe a card with low stock on TCG Player, make a comment, and suddenly the card will blow up in price. This is essentially what happened to Spellskite, and the rapid rise in top buy list price suggests this surge is here to stay for at least the short term, though a small pullback is likely.

Spellskite

The same goes for Inquisition of Kozilek ($12 buy price at Channel Fireball) and a number of other Modern staples.

As I scramble to keep up with this volatile market, two things linger in the back of my mind. It’s these two murmuring thoughts, which I believe many will overlook, that make up the subject of this week’s article.

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ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

Sigmund Ausfresser

PROTRADER: Modern Season Is Upon Us

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The Modern hype is here and it’s very much for real. I am embarrassed for even momentarily suggesting Modern may be hitting a plateau as far as interest is concerned. Last week I went as far as to use wishy washy language surrounding my prediction for how Modern cards would perform come 2016. Clearly, Modern season is going to offer up significant opportunity. And with record breaking Star City Open attendance in Cincinnati this weekend (1,022 participants) it’s clear there’s more growth ahead.

All that said, it’s really interesting to see which cards have already began ascent and which have remained stagnant. Even with some metagame evolution, a large portion of the mainstays of Modern should still be relevant – Affinity, Tron, Splinter Twin, Infect, etc. Yet when I review the top movers so far in 2016, I’m seeing almost all the growth thus far occurring with Eldrazi cards, presumably due to the current block.

Eye of Ugin

Despite being narrow in scope, I believe the data out there is strong enough to conclude Modern will once again be a lucrative format to speculate on. But the train is already leaving the station – in fact, it’s already nearing its final destination on stuff like Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temple. With that in mind, I’m going to look to a couple ideas that are still worth pursuing as the Modern hype rapidly approaches its peak for the first half of 2016.

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ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

Sigmund Ausfresser

PROTRADER: A 2015 Year-End Review

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Many will look back at 2015 with shaded glasses, unwilling to think critically about the data that now lies behind us. Money can no longer be made in 2015, so it’s easy to strictly focus on what’s ahead, ignoring valuable lessons from behind. It is certainly easy to do so – humans are creatures of habit, and our conscious mind is inherently lazy. That’s all right, don’t feel bad, my mind is lazy too.

But this morning, as I ponder the most important trends to me throughout 2015, I force myself to think critically about where I am today and where I want to focus next year. So at the risk of giving you yet another cliché “year in review” article, I think it’s important I share some really impactful observations throughout 2015. These five trends will be based solely in data, and require heightened scrutiny next year as I continue to strive towards my MTG financial goals – a full tuition for my son’s college education.

One day at a time.

Observation # 1 – The Impact of Fetches and the Super Mythic Rare

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ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.