All posts by Travis Allen

Travis Allen has been playing Magic on and off since 1994, and got sucked into the financial side of the game after he started playing competitively during Zendikar. You can find his daily Magic chat on Twitter at @wizardbumpin. He currently resides in upstate NY, where he is a graduate student in applied ontology.
City of Traders, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Left Behind

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By: Travis Allen

Over the last two weeks, we’ve looked at the complete Modern Masters 2015 spoiler. We explored lots of individual cards, what this printing means for their price outlook, and the texture of the set overall. I wanted to make sure we all had as much insight as possible into what was hitting the streets, so that when it does, we’ll all be ready.

 

One thing I didn’t cover yet that is quite important, like yin to yang, is not what’s in the set, but what’s not in the set. The absence of some cards will have just as dramatic an impact on the market as the inclusion of others will. After all, when Emrakul, the Aeons Torn was spoiled, prices didn’t crash overnight. Yet once the full spoiler hit and Inkmoth Nexus was nowhere to be found, it more than doubled in hours. Keeping tabs on what’s in the pipeline and not standing in the way when the reprint bus barrels down the street is a good way to make sure you don’t lose money, but if you want to make money, you need to be paying attention to what’s not showing up on time.

Today, we’re looking for the gaps and the omissions. Our goal is to understand some of the reasons some of these cards may not have made it in, where they may show up next, and what all of this means for prices over the next six months.

Serum Visions 

Visions is perhaps the most egregious offender in this roundup, with public discussion regarding its curious absence more prevalent than any other card. As a $10 common played in roughly one-fourth of all Modern decks, what could possibly be a better option for a reprint? Many, myself included, thought it was coming all the way back in September when the art for Omenspeaker was revealed independent of the rules text. When the Theros block, which even contained scry, came and went without Visions, we were all a bit confused. Expectations shifted, placing Visions in MM2015. It all felt a bit like I imagine a doomsday cult must feel when the day of rapture comes and goes without even thunderstorms. People mill aimlessly, dazed, lost. Where are the Visions?

My guess is that Wizards got  caught with its pants down on this one. About a year ago, Visions was about $6—expensive, but not yet out of control. A year prior to that, it was between $2 and $3, which is true of many commons and no cause for concern. It sounds as if R&D may have considered Visions briefly for MM2015, but after deciding scry wasn’t making it in the set, chose instead to print it as a summer FNM promo. They hoped that the FNM promo would be enough to keep the price in check, not realizing that the card was destined to gain another $4 to $7 by the time MM2015 was on shelves. Unfortunately, FNM promos almost never do much to prices. Supply is low and alternate art often drives those with existing copies to acquire the promo. The new artwork for Visions is dramatic, and the result is that many that already own playsets of the Fifth Dawn copies will want a new set anyway.

Wizards is now stuck. Visions is badly in need of a larger reprint and there’s nowhere for it to go. It missed Elspeth versus Kiora, it missed MM2015, it’s terrible in Commander, and no expansion sets will have scry anytime soon.

At this point, my thinking is that there are two potential lines for Visions to take. The first is that Wizards is going to make scry evergreen, as has been done with hexproof. It’s not a terribly complicated mechanic, and it provides an additional knob with which to balance spells. If this comes to pass, it could show up in any Standard-legal set. Is any of this likely? I can’t say that it is, but it’s one possible avenue.

The second possibility is that Wizards may shoehorn it into Zendikar versus Eldrazi or this spring’s planeswalker Duel Deck. Either would be an appropriate place to include it. We saw Remand included in Jace versus Vraska last spring, which was no different.

There exists an opinion that the absence of Visions indicates a banning on the horizon. There are a variety of reasons I don’t believe that to be the case. Rather than detail them all, suffice to say that it’s possible, yet I’m not operating as if it will come true.

Unless scry becomes evergreen and is printed in Origins, none of the reprint avenues will do much to dramatically reduce the price. Showing up in a Duel Deck will take a notch out of it, sure, but not down to $3 or $5 levels. Mostly, it seems like Serum Visions is slated for continued growth, with $15 or $20 possible this summer. I’m not saying it will rise that high, but with no extra copies on the horizon and a mild panic regarding its absence, it’s not outside the realm of possibility. I’m happy to take these in trade in the short term. Pick them up now, ride any gains we see through the Modern PreTQ season, and ship them if they ever hit $15. Keep a personal set, and see just how high a modern-border common can go.

Goblin Guide

As a contender for “card your opponent hates you most for casting on turn one,” Goblin Guide has been a tool of sadists in Modern since the birth of the format. With the recent “what the hell were they thinking” printing of Eidolon of the Great Revel, Guide has only gotten stronger. It spiked dramatically last summer, and lately has been hanging around in the $20 range. It’s possible that part of the reason it didn’t hang around closer to $30 was because people expected it to show up in MM2015. Now that it hasn’t, what’s the play?

My guidance is to stay away. When Visions didn’t appear in the full spoiler, everyone was left asking, “Well then, just where the heck are they going to put it?” and, “Why is Travis using so many fake quotations?” With Goblin Guide, though, it’s just been, “Oh, I guess it’s in Battle for Zendikar.” Guide can show up in theoretically any expansion set, so long as it’s balanced around its presence. With no keywords and a name that doesn’t tie it to a specific plane, it’s the closest thing Magic has to a free agent. Knowing this, if we own speculative copies, we’re going to be biting our fingernails about whether Goblin Guide is going to show up every single time a spoiler season starts. This isn’t a position I’d like to be in. Even if they don’t reprint Guide this year and it ends up at $40, we can’t feel bad about staying away. Remember, be process-oriented.

Aven Mindcensor

While Serum Visions is the most obvious missing common in Modern Masters 2015, I find Aven Mindcensor to be the most glaring omission in the silver slot. Mindcensor has been running around Modern and Legacy for years now with a peak price of $15 for nearly all of last year. That price has since come down to around $10, but without any extra copies entering the market, we may see that number climb back towards or even north of its previous peak.

Magic 2015 brought with it Hushwing Gryff, another 2W 2/1 flash flyer with hateful text. At first blush, it seems that Aven Mindcensor may be primed to take over that slot this summer in Origins. After all, like Goblin Guide, there’s no keywords or flavor on the card that would prevent its inclusion in a core set or other expansion.

And yet, I’m highly suspect of the theory that we see it in either Origins or Battle for Zendikar. Why? Well, part of the reason Mindcensor is so popular is that it hoses fetch land activations. When someone cracks a Scalding Tarn, you flash down Mindcensor in response, and then they can only look at the top four to find an island or a mountain. No luck? Too bad. It’s a way for hatebear style decks to restrict an opponent’s resources while simultaneously applying pressure.

My concern is just how powerful this effect can be. Modern is a faster format, where losing your third or fourth land doesn’t necessarily lock you out of the game. There’s plenty of powerful ways to answer Mindcensor, such as Electrolyze or Forked Bolt. It’s dead against some opponents, and a format like Modern typically punishes dead cards much harder than Standard does.

Mindcensor in Standard would be much stronger. Games go longer and average spell costs are much higher. Stopping someone’s fifth or sixth land in Modern is often irrelevant, but in Standard, it’s still possibly a completely backbreaking play. It effectively becomes an instant-speed Stone Rain for 2W that also leaves behind a 2/1 flyer.

So long as fetch lands are in Standard, I don’t think we’ll see Mindcensor. The effect is simply much stronger in Standard than Modern as long as fetches are running around, and it’s strong in exactly the way Wizards doesn’t want it to be. Perhaps next spring, when Khans and the fetches rotate out, we’ll see Mindcensor show up. Until then, assuming Wizards doesn’t want it in Standard, it’s in the same boat that Serum Visions is: the two Duel Deck releases and maybe Commander product. If that’s the case, the short-term outlook for Mindcensor is quite rosy.

Inkmoth Nexus

This would have been great to talk about if it didn’t spike within 24 hours of the full spoiler dropping. As is: sell extras, stay away.

Blood Moon

The land denial strategy of choice in Modern, Blood Moon has a whopping five printings in the wild, and still clocks in at $30 today. Advocates of format accessibility (AFAs) were desperately hoping to see some full moon action in MM2015, but alas, we’ve seen no such exposure. There’s little debate regarding this one, either. While BMing is satisfying, it’s simply not an appropriate thing to do at your card store every Friday night. Very few would consider this a reasonable card to print in Standard, so we’re exclusively looking at supplementary product for more copies. Once again, that leaves us with a short list: upcoming Duel Decks and Commander product. Blood Moon would be a rather odd inclusion in the DD series, and putting it in a product aimed at EDH players is sure to piss off a huge swath of kitchen-table players that just want to be able to cast their spells.

bm

We’ve seen consistent and unchecked growth on Blood Moon so far, and at this point I see no reason for it to abate. No more copies are on the horizon, avenues for reprint won’t bring many to the market anyways, and this card’s price ceiling is at least $10 away. I’m expecting $40 before the end of the year, possibly higher. Trade accordingly.

What Else?

The list of cards not in MM2015 is of course much longer than the list of cards above. I’ve captured several high-profile cards here, but I’m sure there are many more out there that stand to gain. Infect commons like Vines of Vastwood and Might of Old Krosa come to mind. What others have you noticed and think are ripe opportunities?

City of Traders, Modern Masters, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Modern Masters 2015 Review Part Deux

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By: Travis Allen

One thing’s for sure. The texture of Modern Masters 2015 is very different from the original Modern Masters. Modern Masters was a highly synergistic Draft format (which led to an atrocious Sealed experience, by the way) with money up and down throughout the set. Of the original release, a full one-half of the rares were good pulls. It’s tough to nail down exactly how many you’d consider worth the pack, as we each have our own personal metric for that, but if we consider a rare to have been a good pull if it was worth roughly at least as much as the pack was, there are about 26 good rares. In a set of 53 rares, that’s damned impressive. In contrast, Dragons of Tarkir, which also has 53 rares, only has about 10 good pulls.

 

Mythics in the first Modern Masters weren’t bad either. Twelve of the 15 were at or above the curve, which meant that 80 percent of the times you opened a mythic, you were pleased with it, or about four of every five times.

The commons and uncommons were quite rich, as well. There were 14 or 15 solid commons and uncommons, with all-stars like Path to Exile, Kitchen Finks, and Lightning Helix hanging around. Overall, there was a fairly robust distribution of value through a Modern Masters pack without even considering the foil slot. It’s not hard to see why packs regularly sold for over MSRP: there was a lot of cash jammed into each one, and simply finding them to purchase could be a challenge.

What About the New Modern Masters?

This time around, things are quite different. On the mythic side of things, Modern Masters 2015 hits a lot harder. Now a full 14 of the 15 mythics, 93 percent, are excellent pulls. Not only is all but one mythic a good pull, they’re good pulls. Ten of those 15 mythics clock in around $30 or more right now, with several in the $40 to $55 range. Compare that Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre to Keiga, the Tide Star or Sarkhan Vol and you can see how much better the mythics are in Modern Masters 2015.

When we move over to the rares, things swing hard the other way. Where MM13 had a full 26 solid rares, MM15 has maybe 13. Part of that is that the pack MSRP is a full $3 higher, which means cards in the $7 range don’t justify the cost of an MM15 pack in the same way that they used to justify a MM13 pack. The result here is that while half the rares you opened last time just about covered the cost at MSRP, this time only a quarter of them are going to. That puts us a lot closer to the Dragons of Tarkir ratio than the Modern Masters ratio.

The commons and uncommons are weaker this time through, as well. Remand shows up, which is great for sure, but then after that, the goodies fall off quickly. Instead of multiple uncommons worth around $2.50 to $3, there’s only the one now. Electrolyze is back, which is fine, but it’s not covering half the value of the pack like it used to. Lightning Bolt is certainly no Kitchen Finks when comparing dollar signs. Eldrazi Temple is cool, but copies are already down below $3 and MM15 hasn’t even hit shelves yet.

What Does It All Mean?

Let’s boil this all down for analysis. The mythics in Modern Masters 2015 are better than in the original run. There’s more of them we want to see, and they’re individually worth more money, as well. Only a quarter of the rares are valuable enough to cover the pack’s MSRP in MM2015, as opposed to half of them originally. There’s some decent commons and uncommons in the new set, but overall not quite as many, and aside from Remand, they’re less strong individually as well.

All of this leads us to a few conclusions. When the top end is top-endier and the dregs are unequivocal gutter trash, as we’re seeing now, prices are going to remain much more stratified than they were in Modern Masters, a far more egalitarian set.

We can look back at a past discussion of box prices to understand how we arrive at this conclusion. The long and short of it is that a $240 MSRP box needs to be worth $240 somehow, and if people aren’t paying eight bucks for Comet Storms or six bucks for Mirran Crusaders now, they’re not going to start when more copies hit the market. All of that value is going to exactly three places: good mythics, the absolute best rares, and some of the foils.

 

This is in contrast to the first Modern Masters, where the $168 MSRP boxes had far more configurations to get you your money back. With so many valuable, in-demand uncommons and rares, and a less heavy top end, there wasn’t as much pressure on individual cards to carry the weight of the box.

At a per-card level, we can make two predictions. Rares that aren’t currently worth much are going to be absolutely pummeled by the MM15 printing, while cream of the crop rares and nearly all mythics are going to see way less of a drop in price than some may have hoped. Gone, for example, are my expectations that Tarmogoyf may finally have his price cracked and end up south of $150 for an extended period. With the amount of work the mythics are going to have to do carrying this price tag, we really can’t expect that much of a loss in value.

In fact, I’d venture that we see maybe a 10 to 20 percent loss of value on the mythics, and maybe not even that much on some of them. Kozilek has dropped from a fair trade price of $53 about a month or two ago to $46 today. I’m dubious that he’ll ever get below $40, and if he does, it won’t be by much, and it won’t be for long.

I’m going to extend my predictions here beyond the immediate price drops as well. If the mythics have to work hard to support box prices, they’re not going to see a deep loss of price, and it’s not going to last too long, either. They won’t dip deep, and they won’t dip for long. When they begin to rebound, we could see them rebound quite hard—potentially above where they were before the reprint, perhaps within six months to a year.

Why is that? Well, this was it. Modern Masters 2015 was the chance to make these cards more affordable and available. Prior to the release of MM15, there was this dark cloud hanging over the head of all of these cards. Even before the announcement, it was assumed that MM15 would happen and that cards like Fulminator Mage and Spellskite would be in it. Now that cards not in the set no longer have the immediate fear of a reprint over their heads, we may see prices surge. In three months time, we’re going to be saying, “They just reprinted Emrakul. They’re not going to print him again for at least a year or two.” That will be right about the time copies start hitting $70 and $80.

magic the gathering eldrazi rise of the eldrazi emrakul the aeons torn 1920x1080 wallpaper_www.wall321.com_22

Knowing all of this, it will be important to react quickly during the coming months. The good stuff won’t have far to fall, and when it gets there, it won’t be there for too long. Maximizing profits will require identifying when cards have stopped dropping and moving in within what will probably be a window of only a month or so. What cards, that I didn’t already talk about last week, should we be considering?

Well, first of all, basically all of the mythics. I don’t like Comet Storm at all, of course—stay the hell away. Primeval Titan isn’t exciting to me, either. This is its umpteenth printing, and without terribly strong demand backing it, I don’t expect it to rebound from all of this nearly as well as some of the other orange set symbols. Tezzeret the Seeker isn’t anything I want to be a part of, either. With zero competitive demand and only mild casual appeal, there’s nothing here that really excites me.

elesh

Other than that, all the mythics are good. You’ll notice that prior to MM15, Elesh Norn was climbing. Despite everyone being aware of her potential inclusion in the summer’s Modern product, we saw her price climb from $30 last November to $40 in early April. This tells me that there’s real and powerful demand for her, which will support her price considerably as we get a few months past the MM15 street date. This demand, combined with Wizard’s hesitance to reprint iconic legends, has me looking to trade for copies when prices bottom out. I’ve never been able to keep an Elesh Norn in my binder longer than a few days.

Despite lukewarm Modern performance, Bitterblossom has sustained a surprising price tag. Tokens has evergreen appeal, even in competitive formats, it seems. With the Modern event deck last year being BW Tokens, there’s probably quite a few people out there looking to start or finish their sets of Blossoms.

As for the big colorless three, Battle for Zendikar is going to bring us additional enablers for Eldrazi, which will only make them more playable in more formats. It’s not unreasonable to imagine that BFZ may bring us just enough to push multiple Eldrazi into a competitive Modern deck, which would be a tremendous boon for their price tags. Imagine some sort of deck that runs eight to 12 big, honkin’ Eldrazi, Temples, Urzas, and a few Eyes to hurry them out, Sylvan Scrying and Maps to find lands…could it be real? I don’t know. Depends on what we get. I’m just daydreaming now. Let’s move on.

Dark Confidant may not fare all that well once the dust settles. While he’s currently one of the better mythics to open, his price is supported fully by the competitive scene—a scene which has been sorely lacking any Confidants for some time now. Neither in Legacy or Modern have we seen much confidanting, really. Even though MM15 is poised to do a great job supporting the prices of its mythics, that relies on the assumption that those mythics are still desirable to their respective crowds. I’m probably staying away here, actually.

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker won’t drop dramatically, but his will be one of the slower ascents. Like Dark Confidant, he just isn’t making the rounds quite as much as he used to, which means we’re combining a reprint with an overall loss of demand. He’s still an extremely powerful card though, both at the kitchen table and the feature-match table. If a Modern deck pops up that needs Kiki-Jiki rather than Splinter Twin again, he’ll move fast.

How about the rares? What looks exciting to us?

  

 

I didn’t intend to choose these such that they represented all five colors and an artifact, but here we are. That’s balance for you.

These are the rares that are best situated to rebound after the set hits its price floor. Each enjoys a strong competitive demand profile, which bodes well for rapid recuperation of price. A lot of people are still missing their own copies of these, especially Cryptic Command, Leyline of Sancity, and Fulminator Mage.

A year or two ago, I had given up on owning Fulminators until they were reprinted. I have been completely removed from the market for Fulminator Mages. If you counted all the people worldwide that needed Fulminators, I wouldn’t have been included. Now that they’ve got their second printing, this is the cheapest they’ll be for a long while, basically until they completely fall out of the format or they get reprinted again (and again.) Because of that, I’m now coming into the market looking for a set. I’m an example of how a card that has been reprinted can see its price rise rather than fall, because total demand can increase faster than the number of copies on the market.

All of these cards are capable of that behavior. Anyone that plays Modern regularly will be looking for their own copies, and many personal playset binders are missing these. I’d expect each of these to possibly double from their floor within a year, depending on how far they end up actually falling.

Hot News

  • Serum Visions has been confirmed for the August FNM promo (with Path to Exile coming one month before it.) The increased supply isn’t going to be enough to lower prices, especially with art that cool, because even those that already own sets of Visions may want this promo (like me.) I’m thinking Wizards got caught with their pants down on this one and didn’t expect Visions to be $10 ahead of Modern Masters 2015, and now there’s no way to get more copies into the system for at least six or nine months. I’d expect an overall increase in price on Visions, possibly north of $15. I wouldn’t want to be holding copies past the end of the year, though.
  • Completed listings for Tarmogoyf are in the $140 range. This strikes me as a reactionary or fire-sale price. It may slip lower yet, probably about two weeks to a month after the GPs when supply is extremely high, but I don’t believe its price will remain that low. It’s too good in too many formats, too iconic, and these packs are too expensive for it to suddenly lose $40 to $60 in value.
City of Traders, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: A First Look at Modern Masters 2015

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By: Travis Allen

Clack-Clack-Clack-Cla

This article will have been the most fun I’ve had writing in months, possibly ever. I say this without any consideration for the content within. What am I talking about? I recently purchased a mechanical keyboard, and ho boy, let me tell you. This thing is amazing. Every key press is simultaneously a musical note and a distinct tactile sensation. Typing is akin to receiving a massage, and each muscle plays it’s own sound when relaxed. You see, most keyboards, such as those on your laptop or the one many of you are using on your desktop, use a series of rubber membranes underneath the keys. You push a key, some rubber moves, an electrical circuit is formed, and the computer registers a key press. On the surface of the board the keys are independent, but the inner workings beneath the keys are all connected.

Mechanical keyboards, on the other hand, hearken back to a time before advanced manufacturing techniques had turned its eye toward computers, before capitalism drove down both the cost and quality of everyday keyboards. Each key on the board is completely independent of the others, and they use a fully self-contained mechanical process to register key presses. (This website does a good job of illustrating the function, as well as educating you on which type you may want to invest in. I chose Cherry MX Brown switches, and I’m quite happy with them, though they don’t have the same distinct tactile bump mid-stroke that the Blues have. I’d be happy with either.) The end result is a wildly satisfying typing experience that I can’t recommend strongly enough if you spend any appreciable time at your computer. Be forewarned, though. If there are any light sleepers in your home they will be immediately aware of your new purchase.

Modern Reforged

What does this have to do with our topic for the week? Nothing, really. I just wanted a chance to type more words on this thing and I thought I’d take the opportunity to share with you all this nifty new device I’m enjoying. As far as content goes, I had planned on starting this week off by continuing from last week’s topic—that is, what cards to trade for heavily over the summer as Khans of Tarkir block prices fall.

After pulling up Fate Reforged, though, I find really only a single card that looks to be immediately underpriced: Tasigur, the Golden Fang. He’s making waves in Standard, Modern, and Legacy right now, quickly cementing his place as a stalwart eternal staple. With FRF feeling under-opened, I see non-foils cresting $10 to $15 this fall, and foils are an absolute slam dunk in the $25 to $30 range. Realize that foil Abrupt Decay, another recent eternal staple, is nearly $70.

Beyond Tasigur, there isn’t much in Fate Reforged I’m too excited about right now. I do believe that Ugin, the Spirit Dragon will ultimately rise, though I’m not entirely sure of exactly how his price curve will play out over the next several months. I believe that it’s highly likely we see him above $50 before the end of 2016, though that doesn’t mean that this August is necessarily the best time to buy in. And if we’re looking for places to stock up on cards that will be rising this fall in order to cash out, Ugin may not be the best choice with both a high barrier to entry and uncertainty about when exactly he’ll reach his full price potential. There’s also the looming specter of the spring’s Duel Deck, for which Ugin is a serious candidate. Should that come to pass, it will add another year at least to his growth cycle.

I’m a big fan of Monastery Mentor, as well, especially foils, though again, with such a high price tag already, it’s going to be hard to build up too much of a portfolio this summer. I would recommend trading for all three of these FRF cards as much as possible over the coming months, and for any other cards you want to park value in, refer to what I wrote last week.

Just the Thing

While staring at the Fate Reforged price list and wondering what the heck I was going to write about this week, I noticed that Modern Masters 2015 official spoilers began today. Well, hey, that’s something people care about, right? Perfect. We’ll look at what’s official up through Tuesday, May 5.

It won’t be too surprising to learn that most cards in MM2015 are going to drop in price, at least initially. Our goal isn’t to just guess at which direction everything is going to go, but rather, to understand how far it will drop and consider the point at which we want to buy. Having said that, there is one culprit that may once again escape the pitfalls of reprint.

I had two reactions to the official reveal of MM2015. First, that Tarmogoyf was going to be in, and second, that its price would finally fall. Finally, I reasoned, supply would begin to outstrip demand.

In the intervening months, however, my opinion has wavered. I am no longer so sure that the amount of Goyfs introduced to the market will be enough to satiate public demand. My fellow writer, James Chillcott (@mtgcritic), has been trying to hone in on the number of copies that will be introduced relative to the existing population of Goyfs, and I’ve got to say, it’s less than I would have initially expected. When you consider just how few people out there actually own sets, it’s easy to see how this could once again fail to slay the green monster. Next time you’re at Modern or Draft or FNM, ask around and see how many players actually own playsets. Almost everyone that isn’t a die-hard Spike won’t own any, and even among the competitive players, I’m guessing you’ll find perhaps a 25 percent ownership rate. If the printing of MM2015 creates more players that are seeking playsets of Tarmogoyf than playsets themselves, demand rises, and so too will the price. My estimated price on Goyf right now for the initial months following the release of MM2015 is somewhere between $160 and $190. Time will tell, I suppose.

tarmogoyf

Mythics

How about the rest of the spoiled cards? Let’s start with some big ones. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn was spoiled very early, and as a result, he’s dropped from $60 all the way to…$50. There will be further loss here, though don’t expect prices south of $30. He’s still the preeminent reanimation and cheat-into-play target in every format where he’s legal, and is a casual all-star to boot. Our best course of action here is to wait for Emrakul to hit his floor, and as soon as he begins to rise again (likely sometime this fall), begin scooping up copies like mad. We won’t see him again for quite some time after this, and I’ve no doubt he’ll return to $50 within a year or so of his appearance here in MM2015. The only way he doesn’t climb back up to that price is if he’s somehow trumped in Battle for Zendikar, which I consider highly unlikely. Right now, Emrakul is a prime target to trade all of your Siege Rhinos and Rattleclaw Mystics into this October.

Kozilek returns, the last of the three to receive a second printing, and boy did he need it. He’s been more expensive than Ulamog for quite some time, despite the fact that Ulamog is fringe-playable in any big mana deck and Kozilek is resigned to casual-oriented formats. That his price stayed that high without a modicum of tournament success tells us just how much casual demand there is for this guy. The only reason I see his price suffering much at all this year is because of just how packed with value the mythic slot is this time around. Kozilek will be another excellent trade target as MM2015 prices bottom out in several months.

Karn should follow a similar path as Emrakul as a giant, colorless, awesome card. In fact, Karn seems even more resilient here than Emrakul is. He was just about $50 before he was officially revealed in early March, and he’s still about $50 today. He won’t be able to sustain that price, as the market always seems to react rather slowly to reprint news like this, but like Emrakul, I’d be surprised if he made it under $25 or $30. I’m less bullish on scooping up copies of Karn this fall, though. While very cool, he’s not actually played in nearly as many places as Emrakul is. There’s clearly appeal from casual players, EDH tables, and cubes, but he isn’t a mainstay of combo decks in both eternal formats in the same way as Emrakul. You could do worse than picking up Karn this fall, but he won’t be my first choice.

While we’re talking about colorless cards, Mox Opal is yet another high-profile colorless mythic, though unlike the Lovecraftian horrors detailed above, is vulnerable to corrosion and violent storms. Another $50 to $60 mythic before its announcement, Opal too hasn’t budged much yet. The path for this will be similar to Emrakul. It will drop into the $30 to $40 range, then given its utility in various formats and status of being a Mox, will only stand to gain once we get past the initial supply glut.

I’m a bit surprised to see Iona here, as she was widely expected to show up in the upcoming From the Vault: Angels. Given that she’s so casual-oriented, she makes sense in an FTV product, while Linvala was expected here in the competitive product. With Iona in MM2015, did Wizards switch things up on us and put Linvala in the FTV? It would seem that way for now.

As for Iona, the hits at the mythic slot just keep on coming. There will be an interesting tension between this many high-demand mythics and $10 pack prices. Looking at Swords of Fire and Ice and Light and Shadow from the first time around, I see the Darksteel copies losing about 15 percent  after the reprint. Given that Iona is similarly a casual-oriented card with a very minor competitive play profile, I’d expect something similar here. She’ll probably dip below $25, but don’t expect anything south of $20 unless the whole set drops more than people expect.

If we divide the mythics into “better than average” and “worse than average” piles, I’m putting Bitterblossom in the worse half. The current price tag of $40 is based entirely on scarcity. While a mythic run in MM2015 isn’t going to add “one in every box of Cheerios” quantity to the market, it’s going to add quite a few copies of a card that is relatively unpopular right now. Add to that the same artwork, and there’s no reason to believe this will fare well. With the uncontested popularity of so many other mythics, Bitterblossom’s outlook is not great here. Could we see prices south of $20?

Vendilion Clique is probably the worst positioned mythic at the moment. The trio is competing against a slew of useful rares that plenty of players have been waiting ages to pick up, as well as several high-profile, heavily-played mythics, all while losing competitive ground in both Modern and Legacy. I picked up a small stack of these about a year ago at around $50 because I anticipated they would reach $90 to $100, as Dark Confidant had done, but they just never saw enough play to get that high. It seems they’re not used any more today than they were then, and if anything, it seems like I see them less often, particularly in Legacy. With another printing increasing both availability and competition among expensive cards, Clique could end up being one of the mythics with the furthest to fall.

Primeval Titan was shown off on Monday by perennial green mage Brian Kibler, and while the price hasn’t dropped much yet, expect it to in the near future. This will mark the titan’s fourth printing, and even with Amulet Bloom running rampant in Modern right now, it still hasn’t been enough to push its price much past $15. With so many other, more desirable cards in the set, things don’t look good for Primeval Titan in the near future. Given how long it took this to rise in price the last time, unless we see PrimeTime in the sub-$4 range, I’ll be inclined to stay away. This goes doubly so for the rest of the cycle, which all have far fewer competitive applications than Mana-Hulk.

Rares

On the rare side of things, the reprint everyone saw coming before MM2015 was even announced, Noble Hierarch, is going to present a lucrative opportunity. Its price will crash hard, with Jason (@JasonEAlt) and James looking for prices in the $10 to $15 range. I’m right there with them, and I’m also in total agreement that this is an excellent long-term gainer. Hierarch is all over the place in basically every format, including the kitchen table. They even printed Llanowar Elves in the most recent Commander product, which means that mana dorks can find a home just about anywhere. I’ll be looking for as many copies of Hierarch as possible this fall when she’s at her lowest, and hopefully she’ll climb all the way back to $40 given a year or so to grow. It took less than a year for Cryptic Command to go from under $20 to $55, and I expect the same here.

Fulminator Mage is likely to end up in the top five or ten most useful rares in the set, but that won’t save its value. I expect the price to take a nasty hit, just as Hierarch will, though the rebound should happen slower and softer. Hierarch is on the whole much more popular across a wide spectrum of players, while Fulminator Mage does exactly two things: fills out Modern sideboards and annoys people at kitchen tables. Mostly the former, I’d guess. In any case, I’ll be glad to finally have a set back.

Spellskite should fare as well or better than those two, given its ubiquity in Modern. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it being one of the top ten or even top five best rares in the set. Still, we’re going to see more of a drop from the current price tag of about $25. I’d anticipate prices in the low teens,  perhaps even below $10 depending on how great supply actually is, and what the rest of the rares look like. I certainly like Spellskite at its floor in a few months. It isn’t seeing any less play in Modern than it was, and will be good for at least 50 percent profits a year from its lowest point.spellskite

Splinter Twin is going to eat it hard. There’s exactly one deck that wants copies anywhere in the world, and even then, it doesn’t even necessarily run four. I don’t like it as a gainer, either. Once the boost in supply drives the price low, there won’t be sustained illiquid demand to drive it back up.

Daybreak Coronet was spoiled with a worse border and less interesting art, and like Adarkar Valkyrie and other casual cards, should suffer greatly. Boggles is hardly a major component of the competitive Modern scene, and beyond that, demand for Coronet exists only in casual circles. It will join the ranks of the slaughtered rares with nearly no hope of recovering. It won’t be the only white rare down there either, as Mirran Crusader will be joining it.

Another casual all-star, All is Dust, maintains a $20 price tag despite being GP promo’d. A rare printing is going to hurt like hell, though. Adarkar Valkyrie dropped dramatically when it was reprinted, from double digits to under $2, and I don’t expect other expensive casual rares will fare much better this time around. I can see Dust dropping well south of $10.

Next week should bring us quite a bit more to discuss, although there’s no way the density of absurd mythics can continue at this rate. There’s been a sort of semi-unofficial spoiling of Dark Confidant and Tezzeret via an MTGO announcement, so I’m assuming we’ll see those, as well as the rest of the Titan cycle. Probably a great deal more rares, as well, which I’m quite curious about. Once we have the full spoiler list in, we can begin turning our attention to all those left behind. Until then!

City of Traders, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Safety Deposit Boxes of Khans of Tarkir

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By: Travis Allen

After Modern Masters hit the streets not quite two years ago, I started acquiring Modern cards as much as possible. Anything that wasn’t printed in MM was fair game, especially anything with keywords. Spellskite? Scoop ‘em up. Snapcasters. Fast lands. Goryo’s Vengeance. Various other cards that I don’t recall at this point. Suffice to say, I spent well over a year trading for as much Modern product as I could. With the format growing in popularity and the big reprint vehicle in the rear-view mirror, I wanted as much of my stock as possible to be Modern staples. And that’s what I did for months and months.

Not that long ago, my consideration of that format as an iron-clad storage chest for Magic value began to wane. Modern Masters 2015 had been announced, and the number of places reprints were popping up was beginning to outnumber the amount of cards needing reprints. We’re now firmly amidst a sea of reprint avenues, each representing a potential hemorrhaging of value. I’ve been forced to stop stockpiling generic Modern staples and instead have been driven to find greener pastures in which to park my Magic value.

Standard card prices rise quickly and fall off almost as fast. Changes occur on a weekly basis. The entire market is far more nimble and lean than Modern or Legacy. And while nothing is as safe and effortless as plenty of Modern cards are, there’s definite money to be made. I can’t park a few hundred bucks in Spellskites anymore, but as long as I’m paying attention, I can probably make more money. The trick is not to chase weekly tides. Rather, I want to look at long cycles, and get in while they’re at their floors. Today we’re going to talk about Khans of Tarkir, a set that is rapidly approaching its local value floor, and where to put your MTG funbux for the next six months.

AAA Stocks

If you read my article last week all about rotations and pricing trends, you would know that Khan’s price peak should be some time in mid to late October, and that its floor should be between July and August. As good financiers who pay attention to the details though, we may notice that Khans is a little different than other sets . Whereas most fall sets are drafted through the spring, KTK is not. Once Dragons of Tarkir hit the market, KTK packs left the drafting economy. Is this enough to impact the price behavior?

Let’s do some homework and find out. After all, perhaps the most important skill to cultivate in this field is doing your homework. In order to make wise decisions, you need to ask questions, and you need information to answer those questions. And no, bugging myself or Corbin or whomever on Twitter doesn’t count as doing your homework. Check price graphs. Find cards that are similar and note their behaviors. Look back through older sets for comparisons. Without all of this effort, you’re not doing anything other than making wild guesses.

Alright, aside aside, we know the last time a set behaved in this fashion was Innistrad back in 2011. Once Avacyn Restored hit, Innistrad and Dark Ascension dropped out of the draft. Here’s INN’s price graph.

INN

Looks like the price floor is right where we expected it to be; between July and August. Excellent. Right now we’re six to twelve weeks from hitting the floor. How much further of a drop are we talking? Well, between today’s date in 2011 and the absolute floor that summer, Innistrad dropped about 18%. So we haven’t completely bottomed out yet, but we’re close. What we want to be doing now is identifying which cards we think will do the best through the fall rotation, and begin moving in on those. Starting now gives us a chance to decide our best course of action early, and time to start acquiring. Unless our plan is to just dump hundreds of dollars all at once on August 1, starting to trade today is a wise decision.

Today I’m going to start with Khans, and touch on Fate Reforged another week.

People have forgotten about Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker by now, given Stormbreath Dragon and a general preponderance of dragons in Standard. It may feel surprising today, but there was a time when Sarkhan was being compared favorably to Stormbreath, and he had a price tag to match.

Capture

While I’m not holding my breath for $50 again anytime soon, I do think that $8 is much lower than he can and should be. Admit it, you probably thought he was $10 or $12, right? We’ve collectively forgotten about him, and subsequently didn’t realize how cheap he’s gotten. His power level is undeniable though. He’s a five mana hasty 4/4 indestructible flyer—immune to cards like Ultimate Price, mind you—that can alternatively come down and nuke a tapped Ojutai. He’s a premier planeswalker from Khans, and when the index jumps 80 percent this fall, he’s going to be a big part of it. At the very least, we should see a price of $10 to $12, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him climb above $15 at some point in October. There’s few safer bets in KTK than Sarkhan.

Take everything I said about Sarkhan and apply it to Sorin, Solemn Visitor, only slightly less so. His price spiked less hard at release, only cresting $30, and he hasn’t fallen as far, with a current price tag of $10, but he’s still a powerful planeswalker that is trading well below his future value. What makes Sorin particularly good is that while Sarkhan is mostly sitting on the sidelines right now, Sorin is still getting in game wins here and there in various stripes of Abzan decks. We know beyond a doubt that Sorin is strong enough for a high-powered Standard format such as this, and when we suddenly lose half the available cards, his relative power level will spike. There are plenty of decks in the format where your opponent casting a Sorin and activating the first ability it is essentially game over. We even see Sorin pop up in Modern decks occasionally, which is a testament to his strength. I can’t get enough Sorins right now.

I’m struggling to reconcile Siege Rhino’s price with everything I know about Magic finance. We have a premier-level threat in two formats—Standard and Modern—and I can currently buy multiple playsets on TCGplayer for $4.25 a copy? What? Yes, it’s a fall set rare, and that means there is no shortage of copies on the market. But so what? Abrupt Decay was a fall set rare and was $10 while in Standard. In fact, it was in the same set as Deathrite Shaman, which was also at least $10. Oh, and both of those were also in the same set as shock lands.

My point is that while fall set rares tend to be suppressed, especially when good lands are in the set, I don’t believe that it’s enough to stop tier-one grade-S staples from hitting high prices. Nearly every year I’m impressed by how valuable some rare manages to be despite being a fall set rare. This year around that card is going to be Siege Rhino. I expect it will at least double to $10, and I think $15 is within the realm of possibility. We’re talking about what is arguably the best card in Standard and is also a full playset in one of the best Modern decks in the format. In fact, my goal between now and July is to sell some excess stock I have and buy up Rhinos in anticipation of this fall.

I was lukewarm on See the Unwritten when Khans was spoiled, but I didn’t know the next set was Battle for Zendikar, either. After BFZ was spoiled at PAX, Unwritten jumped from around $2 to around $6. It’s since pulled back towards $4, which is great for us: the lower the buy-in, the better. As soon as the first Eldrazi is spoiled, Unwritten is going to jump towards at least $8 as people get hyped to flip gigantic otherworldly monsters into play. Let me be clear here: Eldrazi don’t even need to be legal yet for this to double in price. At $3 or $4 in trade, this is a spec that will be profitable on hype alone.

If it’s actually good, we’ll see prices well into the double digits. See the Unwritten is a popular card across several demographics and formats, such as kitchen-table Magic and EDH, so any Standard demand whatsoever is going to push the price very hard. I’m in for seventy copies or so right now and I’ll be looking to expand that investment through trade binders this summer.

We’ve all come to take Sylvan Caryatid for granted. It’s been so long at this point it feels like a permanent fixture. She’s (they?) are on her way out though, and we’ll need something in her stead. Enter Rattleclaw Mystic. There’s really no other comparable mana fixer in Standard right now. It’s possible we get Birds of Paradise, which would be awesome, but I’m not holding my breath.

As a buy-a-box promo, we already know that Rattleclaw Mystic is slated to be a serious Standard contender, just as Sylvan Caryatid was. It plays extremely well with the Deathmist Raptor/Den Protector synergy that is likely to be the backbone of many Standard decks over the coming months, allowing them to splash into red or blue. Battle for Zendikar will have all sorts of cool things to ramp into. What’s not to like here?

Notable Exclusions

While Wingmate Roc performed admirably earlier in the season, I’m not particularly excited about it this fall. Our embarrassment of riches in the DTK dragons is my primary reason for doubting the return of the bird. With so many powerful flying threats such as Ojutai and Atarka, it’s going to be tough to find a reason to play a card like Roc. Does this mean the card has no future whatsoever and is total bulk? No, absolutely not. It could very well come to transpire that Roc ends up being a relevant component of the metagame this fall and hits $10 again. I’m not writing this article to look for “maybes” though. While you could do worse than Roc, I’d much rather put my Magic dollars into what I feel are basically home runs, such as Siege Rhino and Sarkhan.

I’ve been hemming and hawing over what to do with Dig Through Time while writing this article, and I finally realized that my indecision is exactly my issue with the card. Could DTT hit $15? Aaaabsolutely. No question. Is it a 100 percent slam dunk the way I consider these other cards to be? Not at all. It’s banned in Modern, which cuts a big chunk of potential demand out from under it. It sees some light play in Legacy, but rarely as a full playset. Browsing the EDH stats over at MTGS, Dig Through Time isn’t even a top-50 blue card in the format.

Perhaps my biggest concern with Dig Through Time is that it’s already a $6 card. That’s a tough number to make profit on when we’re talking about a rare rather than a mythic. When Siege Rhinos are $4, Dig Through Times at $6 are simply less appealing to me.

I fully understand if some of you out there want to go deep because you expect DTT to hit $15 this fall. It’s definitely a possibility. It’s the strongest blue card draw spell we’ve seen in ages, and it’s clearly eternal playable. It comes down to a matter of opportunity cost. For every Dig Through Time you buy, it’s one-and-a-half fewer Siege Rhinos available to you. At the end of the day, I’m more comfortable with Rhinos than Digs, though I can respect those of you that opt to pick up copies.

What do you think about the opportunities out of Khans?