By: Travis Allen

This week I’ll be discussing some recent Standard tournament results, as well as a few other items worthy of our attention.

@OwenTweetenwald’s win in Albuquerque gave him back-to-back GP wins, an exclusive club indeed. He took it down with Mono-black, which was a popular theme over the weekend. Paul Reitzel, who placed 8th, tweeted this on Monday afternoon. It was a good weekend to be putting swamps into play.

With a whopping four Mono-black decks in the top 8, alongside three Mono-blue, there was barely a Shockland in sight. What there was, though, was 46 Mutavaults in the top 16. That means that 71% of Mutavaults that could have been played, were played. This type of saturation of a single card in Standard is not common at all. I don’t even think Lightning Bolt reached that level of play when it was in M10 and M11 . Cards like Stoneforge Mystic and Jace, the Mind Sculptor reach 70% saturation rate. 

What that means for your weekend is that the roughly $20 price tag is going to be very stable going forward. The card is as legitimate in Standard this time around as it was last time, so don’t be afraid to pick up a playset. If this changeling presence persists, expect a price uptick in a few weeks when PTQ season starts in earnest, or possibly even sooner.

While not nearly as heavily played, but still pervasive, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx snuck its way into many of the Mono-X lists. Most were committed to the full set of Mutavaults, with a single Nykthos rounding out the colorless-land package. That is the current soup-de-jour, but could easily be turned on its head depending on how things shake out. A 4-1 split tells me the deck can support 5 colorless lands, and right now Mutavault is the better choice.

How much would it take to shift that? Anything that pushes the deck to go a little larger would probably want Nykthos more than Mutavault. Anything with an X in the mana cost would certainly accomplish that. Rakdos’ Return? Gaze of Granite? Debt to the Deathless? Immortal Servitude? Mind Grind?

Return lets “mono” black fireball out opponents, as well as apply heavy pressure in the midgame against control decks and attrition mirrors. As a mythic it is set up to see a healthy price increase should it become popular. Mind Grind is spicy, basically being lethal when X is around 15, an easy number for Nykthos-fueled madness to reach. Grind could conceivably hit $3, being that the card is still $1 purely on casual mill demand. This makes me think that Mind Grind may not be bad throw-in material. Even if it totally whiffs in Standard, Nemesis of Reason is a $6 card today.

Even if nothing within the current card pool pushes the decks to go heavier on Nykthos, Born of the Gods may very well provide us with the necessary ingredients. We’ve got a lot of devotion enablers to go, as well as 10 lesser deities to appease, which means you’ve got plenty to be faithful to. With Cavern of Souls having been $20-30 in Standard, and Mutavault solidly at $20 right now with an expectation of growth, there is precedent for Nykthos to climb. We’ll return to it a little later on. 

Beyond the Mutavault supremacy, what else is going on? Mono-blue is still packed to the gills with Masters of Waves and Thassas. Both have slipped in price recently, but I expect this to be temporary. I’m guessing one or both will be over $15 this time next fall, when Theros is no longer the current major set. I’ve started looking for Master of Waves in every trade binder I flip through.

Hero’s Downfall stubbornly remains at $10+. That a utility removal spell in a single format would command that high a price tag sort of amazes me, but I suppose when it’s the best removal in arguably the best color, it’s going to be more than pocket change. Perhaps I should be looking to Dreadbore to better understand how Murderbore will behave. Dreadbore has never managed to sink below $2-3, even with as close to zero relevant play as a card of that stripe could see. This would tell us that Murderbore’s floor should be about the same. If we think of Murderbore as having a floor of $3, then a $10 price tag while seeing play in nearly 50% of the top 8 decks doesn’t seem as unreasonable.

I advocated selling a few weeks ago when it was $15, but I think it’s low enough that you could trade for a set without feeling bad about it. Given that it’s only one color, and therefore considerably more versatile than Dreadbore, it’s possible the number we get aggressive is around $6-7. The number of Burning-Tree Emissarys in Standard necessary to make Murderbore bad would be quite high indeed.

The Naya deck in the top 8 showed that competitive Magic players haven’t forgotten about RtR block. It had a full compliment of a lovely singing voice, reminding everyone that at one point it may actually have been worth its current absurd price tag. At this point, if you still have any, I’d hold onto them. With the PTQ season around the corner, the card has a better chance of spiking again than fading away with no more price increases.

Advent of the Wurm was also four-of, a card I’m still carrying a torch for. Perhaps more interesting was the four Soldier of the Pantheon. Everyone has figured out by now that the card is good, but his price is pretty low all things considered. I’d be looking to snap these up in trade right now at ~$2. Champion of the Parish was $8 at one point, and I’d say Soldier has a better chance of seeing Modern play. 

Boros Reckoner has been on a roller coaster ride lately. It was as high as $20 what feels like a week ago, and copies are available for under $11 again. I have to imagine this gets close to $20 once more before we sunset RtR. If you can trade for them at retail go for it, but good luck convincing someone they’re that cheap again.

Over on the Starcity side of things, Matt Costa rose to the top of the field piloting a Jund deck. Reaper of the Wilds as a three-of immediately jumped out to me, proving its capability as a strong midrange card. Both Pat Chapin and Kibler had mentioned it recently, but without tournament results it was hard to know if it was real. I doubt the card is going to reach $10 or anything, but $4-$6 doesn’t seem unreasonable. (Were you aware Cyclonic Rift is now $4?) This is another one that I wouldn’t dish out cash for, but you should be able to steal copies in trade for $1 or less. Look for an article in the future about how to turn small gains in trade binder value value into real profit.

Abrupt Decay was also out in full force. Can this card break $10 during Modern season? It may be tough, as the Standard PTQ season will have ended, and many will be willing to liquidate their inventory. Next Modern PTQ season should be a good time for Decay though. A few months ago I predicted that foil Decay would be $60 within one year of RtR rotating. Do you have your set?

Back to Nykthos, last week I talked about a Modern Mono-green deck that looked awfully spicy. It was even one of LSV’s daily decks recently. Included in that same link from Bing Luke was a Mono-Black deck. Since then, Phyrexian Obliterator has increased about 25%, and common sentiment is that it probably isn’t done yet. Apparently, the Magic community is willing to consider Nykthos a real thing in Modern.

With that in mind, I want to look at the green deck a little more closely. It’s got a lot going on we can be interested in. What stands out most to me is four Genesis Wave. Wave is about $2 on its own merit, with no competitive interest, putting it in a low tier of “casual cards with enough demand to raise the price above bulk.” If the deck catches fire, Wave could easily hit $5-6, and depending on how wild the speculation is, $10+ is possible, although that would be a very short term price unless the deck puts up results.

That brings me to an important aside: cards spike all the time. The ones that stay high are the ones in decks good enough to be worth it. If a card like Genesis Wave spikes, sell immediately. The likelihood that the deck is good enough to support whatever number it reaches, rather than being a flash-in-the-pan that trickles to $3 eventually, is very very low. 

Beyond Genesis Wave, there are three copies of Primeval Titan. He’s sitting at around $6-$7 at the moment. Seeing play in a deck like this could bump him up closer to $10, and with Nykthos in the format, he may eventually become a little more of a mainstay. Fetching Valakut is typically a better use of his trigger, but remember that having Valakut in your deck doesn’t get P Tats into play any faster, while Nykthos does. Maybe we see a Valakut/Nykthos deck? Who knows.

Cloudstone Curio is a big part of the deck as well, at $5-$6. The card popped to over $10 early this summer, so there’s precedent on a jump. I’d try and grab your set soon. Garruk Wildspeaker is also a major component, but he’s been printed six times, which will help suppress his value. He may see a small uptick, but with that much volume available, it will be tough for him to move too far.

Before I go, check out this completed eBay auction. How many of you even knew these existed, much less cost that much?

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone.

Nothing has really struck me this week as a topic I want to devote an entire article to, but I’ve got a few small ideas floating around and some short-form questions on Twitter to answer. So today is the first in what will likely be an infrequently recurring series that are a collection of mostly-disparate topics.

True-Name Nemesis

As was expected, TNN put up solid results at Grand Prix DC this weekend. He was all over the winning grinder lists and X-0 day one records, with 9 copies in the Top 8 and 3 in Owen’s winning list. Not surprisingly, his price has now reached a comfortable $40. Remember last week when he was ~$33 and I told you not to sell until after DC? Hey, well look at that! 

He’s absolutely the real deal, so don’t expect him to fade away anytime soon. Demand from Legacy players will persist, and he’s a three-of or four-of type of card, which helps significantly. I doubt he gets below $30 anytime before a second printing, and I would guess $35 is a soft floor. Copies are still flowing from people that snatched up cheap decks at Target which will keep him from inflating too much in the coming weeks, but after a few months there will be a far less liquid supply. At that point, his price will begin to rise more reliably once everyone that wanted to sell theirs has. If you want to profit, feel free to sell, as his price may slip a bit in the short term. Don’t feel bad about holding on though, especially if you may actually play with him, as I don’t believe we’ve reached his ceiling yet. A limited-run card that’s a four-of in Legacy with tremendous casual appeal (protection from players is a really nifty ability) is a conflux of valuable factors.

Magic the Gathering Offline

The MTGO partial shutdown will have far reaching ramifications that will take months to unfold and see the full implications of. I will try my best to make a guess at what the immediate impact will be though.

That tweet is showing the prices to complete a full set (1x) on MTGO before and after the announcement. At this point, there has been a 10-20% drop in prices on Theros and RTR block cards. Players apparently don’t expect premier constructed events to be returning in a week or two, which is why prices are taking such a hit. If the expectation was that events will only be gone for a few weeks, then prices wouldn’t have seen much of an impact. But with the announcement about how long of a downtime to expect not being promised until sometime before the end of the year, it’s safe to assume that this is a several month – or, Worth forbid, a several year – project.

With a significant drop in value of cards online, as well as the upcoming Standard PTQ season in meatspace, we may see an above-average amount of redemptions occurring. This means a greater number of Standard cards becoming available in paper, suppressing card values in the real world by some amount. I would especially expect a greater supply of RTR block cards relative to Theros, as Theros will remain relevant beyond the summer, while RTR mostly will not. It’s also worth noting that apparently cards for Modern, Legacy, etc have not dropped much/at all in value, meaning players don’t expect this to be the death of MTGO, but rather a medium-term disruption in service. They may not know what Standard format we’ll be in when dailies return, but they know Modern ones won’t have changed much.

As per how much redemption will occur, we really don’t know, and Wizards won’t be in a rush to tell us either. I don’t expect it to have a severe effect. A (very, very) rough guesstimate is that the extra redemptions may account for a percentage point or two of additional product in the real world, but I wouldn’t fault a knowledgeable party for expecting the impact to be ten times that. It’s just very difficult to get a bead on it.

An interesting side effect of all of this is that RTR block cards may hold their value quite well on MTGO going long. If a large percentage of RTR cards get taken out of MTGO during this period, in two years there will be a lot less digital Supreme Verdicts, Abrupt Decays, and Deathrite Shamans running around.

What Happened with FTV:Twenty?

When FTV:20 was announced, preorders were in the ~$150-250 range. That was typical for a new FTV. Hype was high, as this FTV had five extra cards compared to previous years, as well as an air of excitement surrounding it, as players were eager to see what the 20th anniversary of Magic would bring. We hadn’t seen much marking this year as a celebration, so players were hoping FTV:20 would be something special.

I don’t recall at which event Jace was spoiled, but I seem to remember he was among the first three cards. Imagine the excitement at the time – three cards into twenty, and Jace is in there?! Preorders skyrocketed to $450. Who cares what else is in the other 17 cards? They can’t all be bad, and Jace! Don’t you understand? JACE! JAAAAACE! JAAAAAASGghghhhhhhh 

Then the other 17 cards trickled in, and whoops, turns out they’re all boring. Which other cards were people supposed to get excited about? Kessig Wolf Run, a $2 land that was just in Standard? Or perhaps Char, which approximately zero people have cast in 2013? The third printing of Cruel Ultimatum not doing it for you? Well, check out Dark Ritual! Sure, it’s had roughly 80 printings, was foil twice, and this is terrible art, but DARK RITUAL! Guys? Where are you all going?

FTV:20 preorders hit $450 on a swirling mixture of hype, expectations, and the thrill of the unknown. Once the veil was parted, all of that dissipated and we were left with Jace and 19 other cards that were mostly entirely unexciting. By the time FTV:20 finally hit shelves, it was maybe $150. Today, sealed copies can be had for ~$125 on eBay, and Jace:20 is about $90, $10 less than WWK Jace.

What’s going to happen with Jace in the long term? Well, probably not a lot. His peak came and went this past summer. The amount of play he is seeing hasn’t increased at all, he’s absolutely not getting unbanned in Modern, and a slew of new copies were added to the market for anyone that really wanted them. Pack foils will stay absurd as a collector’s item, but that’s about it.

What Standard playsets should I pick up now?

I can’t tell you every Standard card you should own today, but I can give you a few pointers.

Master of Waves

Our new Merfolk overlord has proven he’s here to stay. Variants of blue devotion continue to put up strong results week after week in Standard, he’s revitalized merfolk in Modern, and I’ve even seen him pop up in Legacy. Despite all of this, he’s snuck down to ~$12, and I spy a few retail copies for under $10. I would not hesitate to trade for this guy, and don’t be afraid to pick up more than just a playset. His floor can’t be much lower than $7 or $8, and his ceiling is in the ballpark of $20-$25.

Chandra, Pyromaster

Immediately after release Chandra burned all the heretics at the stake, but since then has been relatively quiet. Devotion decks and various forms of control have taken the spotlight, leaving Chandra without much to do. She’s now around $20-25, nearly half of what she once was.

I’m optimistic about Chandra’s future. Keep in mind that she’s got two red symbols in her mana cost, which is good for Nykthos fans. That middle ability also plays well with Nykthos, as generating big mana is a lot easier than it used to be. We certainly haven’t seen the last of her.

Pick up a playset, but don’t go much deeper than that. While $20 is close to her floor, breaking $30 again will be very tough. She’s also as close to a guaranteed reprint in M15 as a card could be at this stage (along with Garruk), so you don’t want to end up too deep when the inevitable price drop comes. Pick up your four ahead of PTQ season, but remember that any you keep past March will become a liability.

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

Have you figured out this land is legit as hell yet? Because it is. It is legit as hell. Wizards has been telling us for years that they want us to play on the board, not on the stack, and Nykthos pays you hard for doing such. There are plenty of adorable combos floating around out there that haven’t broken into the mainstream yet either, meaning there is a lot of untapped (heh) potential in the card. Just this week MTGO personality Bing Luke (@prolepsis9) linked an event with Nykthos in Modern doing dirty business with Genesis Wave, which I can absolutely get behind. MTGPrice is showing the card around $10, and there are a few purchasable copies out there for under $9. Any that you can pick up in trade under $10 should be golden. Nykthos feels like a $15-$20 card to me.

By: Travis Allen

The PTQ season change next year is going to have a direct impact on the pacing of Magic finances. I’ve discussed this change briefly before, but now we are very close to actually experiencing the new market.

Previously the Standard PTQ season occurred over the summer, around the release of the spring set. This helped keep Standard staple prices from crashing too low in the spring during the lead up to the PTQ season, and also meant that soon-to-rotate staples such as Thragtusk kept their value far, far longer than they normally would without the demand from grinders. 

The new world awaits us on December 7th. On that day the Standard PTQ season begins, and will end on March 9th, 2014. And then…that’s it. By March (or really, mid February,) the demand for many Standard staples will completely bottom out, as only GPs and FNMs will exist to drive players to own and acquire Standard cards.

With the prior structure, the promise of the impending PTQ season during the summer meant that players didn’t have to feel bad about holding onto senior Standard cards through the first third of the year. Even if you weren’t using a card at that moment, you knew it would be relevant again before finally rotating out. In the new schedule, though, this promise of future utility will be gone. Once March 9th rolls around, it will be a free-fall for Ravnica block cards that don’t see heavy Modern or Legacy play. However, there is another byproduct of this change – demand will spike much sooner.

By the end of this month players will be gearing up for PTQs, a solid six months ahead of prior years. Because the season starts so close to Christmas I wouldn’t be surprised to see the demand stagger a bit until after the first of the year, but once we pass the holiday season, the dreary early winter months will hold nothing but PTQs for the ice mage. Demand will be at its peak in early to mid January, as Santa has come and gone, the end of the PTQ season is not quite on the horizon, and winter-set fervor hasn’t yet gripped the community.

What does this mean for the savvy trader? It means don’t trade those Advent of the Wurms, Aetherlings, Blind Obediences, or Angel of Serenitys quite yet.  It means now is when you should be acquiring Standard staples as aggressively as possible, and once we hit January, severely reduce your acquisition. (At that point, start grabbing safe Modern powerhouses ahead of that particular PTQ season.) It also means that we have a very clear window of opportunity for cashing out of any stockpiles you may have. This is the time to finally sell all your Ravnica specs that haven’t quite panned out for the best value those cards will likely see for years. 

Here’s your rule of thumb: If a card from Ravnica block spikes after December 9th, get rid of it and don’t look back. Lotleth Troll hit $4? Ship it. Exava reaches $5? Trade them. Advent of the Wurm climbs to $6? To eBay! If you trade Advent at $6 and then it hits $8 two weeks later, you have no reason to feel bad. The alternate universe where you hold out for another $1 and Advent instead crashes to two bucks is never more than a butterfly away.

I personally have a pile of foil Loxodon Smiters I grabbed during SCG’s back to school sale, when the price was lower than any other I could find on the internet. They haven’t doubled from what I paid like I hoped they would, but the PTQ season will give me my last chance to see a profit, or at worst, recoup some losses. If they haven’t jumped by the middle of January, I’ll be selling no matter what the price. If I have to lose $1 on each copy, that sucks, but it would be far better than stubbornly holding onto them only to realize I’m out $5 each in July. I’ve also got a fair bit of Detention Spheres whose intended sale was delayed by the event deck, several playsets of Supreme Verdicts, and some other odds and ends.

What you shouldn’t sell is cards already at their floor though. Don’t trade away Deadbridge Chants at $1 just because they aren’t lighting up the tournament scene. The card can’t get any lower, and while the general amount of value in Standard cards will be less post-PTQ season, it won’t be completely devoid of the occasional breakout deck jumping a random card by several dollars. Keep in mind too that towards the end of the PTQ season, Born of the Gods will be released, and bring with it new Scrylands, new enablers, and new decks.  

You also don’t need to be in a rush to divest from multi-format staples. What I wouldn’t be in a rush to ship are cards like Abrupt Decay, Deathrite Shaman, and so forth. These are cards whose value is mostly determined by Modern and Legacy, and while the rotation of Standard will count against them, it won’t be long before the interval since their printing will outweigh the loss of that format’s demand.

The takeaway from all this is that you absolutely need to be aware of PTQ seasons in order to get the most out of your cards, and to make sure you don’t get caught holding the bag. Outing cards from the senior set in the middle of the relevant season is often your best chance to hit cards at what will be their highest peak for years. Take the profits where you can, swallow your pride if you need to sell for a loss, and stay a constructed format ahead of the grinders.

Weekly Roundup:

-I’ve mostly kept quiet about Commander 2013 and True-Name Nemesis relative to other financial talking heads, and that is because I haven’t felt like I’ve had anything useful to contribute to the conversation. I’m pretty comfortable at this point claiming TNN as a soft hold though. The release date of C13 was November 1st, and in the twelve days since then, he has shown up in the Top 8 of every Legacy and Vintage event I’m aware of. Most knew TNN was legit, but not many expected him to be this good.

The TNN quagmire is that we still don’t have a lot of reliable data about the printing of the Commander decks. We know Wizards has no intention of turning this into a Commander’s Arsenal, but honestly, I feel like they undershoot demand every single time on non-expansion sealed product. There’s also been a lot of swirling rumors about their printing intentions. One day you hear that they’re going to print these things until you could use them for shelter, then the next you hear that there’s only one more shipment and some guy named Bob who you don’t even think plays at your store already preordered and paid for them all.

Mark Rosewater said that Wizards doesn’t plan to continue printing individual decks, which is particularly important. It means that even if Target has no copies of the Grixis deck in stock (Mind Seize), the piles of Marath and Oloro they have will prevent them from ordering more. This all adds together for a reasonable conclusion that while supply overall isn’t constrained, any particular deck could become tough to find.

That obviously bodes well for TNN. He slipped to about $26 on eBay a week or so ago, but he’s since started climbing again, and honestly, I don’t see a reason for him to drop yet. Legacy players across the world are realizing this guy is legitimate, and the supply is not going to get significantly larger anytime soon. With Grand Prix DC this coming weekend being Legacy, it’s a high-profile event that could see True-Name Nemesis break out even harder. It’s hard to say what this guy’s possible ceiling is, but if the Grixis deck is shaping up to be as tough to find as it seems, and TNN being even better than we thought, $40 almost seems like a low ballpark. $50? $70? Who knows. He’s unprintable in Standard, so when they decide to add more copies to the market, it won’t be in a large volume. A judge promo is the most likely path Wizards would take. When he finally does start to fall, there won’t be enough copies entering the market to precipitate a rapid loss of value. Descent will be slow. For now, feel free to hold onto copies and ride out the wave.

-Brian Kibler’s article this week featured his latest Standard brew which contained 4x Reaper of the Wilds and Lotleth Troll. I’m not on board with buying into Trolls, but you’ll recall that I spoke highly of Reaper in my Theros set review. You can definitely find these as throw-ins right now, although I’ve noticed people were a bit more reluctant to trade these this past weekend than they were around release. I can’t recommend dumping cash into…him? but I would be more than comfortable picking up any that I could in trade.

–Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is hovering around $10. I am a firm buyer at that price. Ok maybe not buy with cash, but definitely trade for. Nykthos has proven itself week after week since the Pro Tour, and it’s the type of card you build a deck around. It couldn’t really get much lower than $7-8, and the ceiling is definitely over $20, especially with any Modern performance. Cards that get silly with Nykthos: Ral Zarek, Master Biomancer + Master of Waves.