Category Archives: Casual Fridays

Casual Fridays

Rares of Kaladesh

Didn’t we just do this? We just had a new set, right? It feels like this has been a lightning-speed summer, with set after set after set. We also have the news about the Masterpiece series, a set of chase reprints that will help hold down values, as people crack boxes to get these absolutely gorgeous foils.

I love what the Inventions offer, and I want to reiterate what this means for the rest of the set: lower prices. Battle for Zendikar had very few pricey cards, because the Expeditions were in such demand and lots of product got opened. We are going to see this at work as well in Kaladesh, pushing all the rest of the set downward financially. My picks today reflect that; I don’t see a lot of value in the gold symbols. We haven’t seen it all, but so far, I like some foils and I expect a lot of cheap cards.

Kaladesh has had two more spoiled mythics, so let’s jump into those before I discuss the rares that are worth it.

Combustible Gearhulk – Big and packing a giant zap, your opponent should never let you draw three. I’ve played Browbeat, and your opponent will always take the damage. I love that this combos with Eldrazi Displacer to make someone very sad, but since no one will ever let you draw three, this will be about $4 tops.

Dovin Baan – This into Fumigate is going to be the control deck’s dream for the next eighteen months. This card does everything that deck could desire, drawing and life and delaying. It’s going to see a lot of play, but I think that the Inventions keep this under $20, but above $15. He’s not going to see as much play as Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, and that’s a best-case scenario for a big-set planeswalker.

Now, the rares!

Panharmonicon – This is likely the best long-term hold in the set, but it is also the most reprintable. Wizards keeps finding ways to reprint stuff and I think that I’m going to pick up lots of these as they approach $1 for the regular, but this is going to have a big foil multiplier, I suspect between $5 and $10. No matter, as the foils are going to be an excellent way to retain value going forward.

Animation Module – As the rare of this cycle, it’s got the most potential, especially in foil, but that’s a lot of hoops to jump through. Barely above bulk.

Aetherflux Reservoir – What’s not to love? This is a fantastic way for lifegain decks to have a plan to win the game. It’s also instant-win to get played alongside Exquisite Blood, gaining 50 each time you deal 50. This is going to have a similar trajectory as Panharmonicon, with an impressive foil multiplier and a card I want to have many of when the set is done.

Metalwork Colossus – Nonartifact creatures means mana rocks. Plan accordingly, but keep in mind this lacks trample or anything like it. Likely a bulk rare.

Padeem, Consul of Innovation – Four mana is a lot, especially to not get the extra card for a whole turn, but I think the casual appeal will keep foils well above bulk rates.

Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter – I want the regular copies to keep their price, but that won’t happen. She will be about $1, with a foil that jumps dramatically, past $5. She’s amazing in all the Doubling Season decks.

Insidious Will – I love this card in Commander and Cube. I don’t think this is good enough for Standard, at least not more than one or two for decks, but I think this will be a pretty foil and be able to ask at least $2-$3.

Fumigate – I have looked high and low and I can’t find a wrath that could gain significant life. I t suspect that it’ll see a lot of Standard use, but I’m sort of excited about the foils too. I can easily see a board wipe gaining 10 or more life, with the potential to be really disgusting. Foils should end up about $3-$4.

Casual Fridays

The Mythics of Kaladesh

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Oh that new set smell!

Right now, we know almost all of the mythics. As of this writing, there are still two to go, and I’ll add those in next week. It’s a curse, having the Friday article!

I’m going to go over these thirteen cards and give my predictions of what it’ll be when Aether Revolt is done in six months, when supply on these will be at their maximum.

Saheeli Rai – Preordering for $20 or so, and that sounds about right. She’s cheap at three mana, and we keep having to learn this lesson about three-drop planeswalkers. However, while I like what she does, I don’t think she keeps this price. She doesn’t defend herself at all, but is fantastic when you can keep her safe. She also requires a deck with artifacts in order for her ultimate to be good.

That being said, I have to add a caveat: red-blue artifact shenanigans made Dack Fayden good enough for Vintage play, so that’s on my radar. I freely admit that I don’t know enough about that format, but I do know that Commander demand alone will keep her price above $10, though not to $15.

Rashmi, Eternities Crafter – This is a crazy good card. At worst, she adds ‘reveal and draw a card’ to all spells. At best, she gives every spell cascade. I can’t wait to jam her into every Simic deck, and the card advantage she offers will keep her right between $5 and $10, though I suspect the foils are going to be quite pricey, likely $30+.

Skysovereign, Consul Flagship – A very powerful card, especially since you get the three damage on the first cast. It’s preordering for around $5, and I feel that’s a pretty stable price range. It might go down a buck or two, but it’ll see just enough play to keep this price.

Angel of Invention – I love an instant army, and it’s great to have the flexibility of counters or Servo tokens. This is also in the $5 range, and I actually think it’s going to creep upward in price a little as these are fantastic in multiples. I don’t think it’ll be breaking $10 though.

Metallurgic Summonings – Hang on to your hats, I think this is one of the most impactful cards in the set. It offers spell-heavy decks an incredibly powerful benefit. It’s five mana, meaning it might not make Legacy waves. It would be amazing with just the ‘gain some tokens’ ability, but it also offers the mega-Regrowth effect once you’ve cast enough spells! This is going to jump into lots of Commander decks, and the foil is going to be $20+ easily.

Demon of Dark Schemes – Fantastic card, but tough to cast and slow and grindy. The definition of an awesome Commander card, and one that will hold its $3 price pretty well.

Chandra, Torch of Defiance – There’s no doubt the card is flexible and incredibly powerful. What’s in doubt is this price tag. It’s preordering for fifty, even sixty dollars, and that’s too high. She’s going to have to prove herself in Modern and Legacy to have a prayer of holding that price, as she’s a big-set mythic. Liliana, the Last Hope is going to stay high as a small-set card, but Chandra is going to have a much greater supply. I think she’s going to drop significantly, and will be between $20-$25 when we are done with this block.

Nissa, Vital Force – Sure, she’s able to ultimate the turn after you play her, and that’s nice, but it doesn’t affect the board. Her plus ability does let you accelerate a turn of mana, and getting things back is nice, but she’s five mana. I think she’s going to follow a path like Sorin, Grim Nemesis, and drop a bit below ten bucks.

Cataclysmic Gearhulk – If your biggest problem is a swarm of creatures, this is amazing. If you’re dying to one big flier, this does nothing. It’s not a wrath, and don’t confuse it with one, because their best creature is staying. As a result, I don’t think this will see a lot of play, and drop into the $2 range.

Torrential Gearhulk – Snapcaster Mage is better, let’s get that out of the way. It’s relatively rare to have hugely expensive instants that need to be recast. Gather Specimens? This is a fun card, and can be built around for value, but I don’t think it’ll ever be unfairly powerful. Most likely scenario is blue-black, casting this to recast a removal spell. The quality of instants directly affects the quality of this card, and I expect this to drop to below $3.

Noxious Gearhulk – This is a great big awesome creature, catching you up on the board, gaining you life, and requiring two blockers. Really impressive, and something that is going to make people figure out how to do this and Eldrazi Displacer in the same deck. It’s preselling for about $6, and I don’t see that falling more than a buck or two.

Verdurous Gearhulk – Another great Displacer target, this is, at worst, five mana for an 8/8 trample. It’s preselling for a couple bucks more, but because it can’t do much on its own, I expect to see the price tumble significantly, landing below $5.

Casual Fridays

Learning from Past Conspiracies

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Good lord, I can’t draft Conspiracy: Take the Crown enough. Did two drafts in a row on Friday, one more Sunday, and I’d be up for drafting it any night of the week. The combination of valuable cards AND messing with a draft AND incredible multiplayer mechanics and gameplay is just breathtaking. This set is a jewel and I strongly encourage you to go experience it.

An aside: If your LGS doesn’t know how to do this, allow me to give a plug to mine. Eight people draft, break into two four-player pods. Two games will be played, with prizes to first and second place for each game. The second game is to mitigate from mana problems, and it takes a truly busted deck to win two games. More often, the person who won game one will get hated out early in game two.

My ravenous joy in this set is tempered by my experiences with the original Conspiracy set. I’m treating Take the Crown as though it’s the original set. There’s four things I learned from last time around, and I’m taking those lessons to heart.

Lesson #1: Stuff is cheap!

Exactly ten cards are worth more than a pack at $4. That’s a terrible ratio, and all of the special schemes are less than a dollar in nonfoil. Truly, that’s atrocious. Conspiracy is not a place for long-term value, and there’s a consistent graph of reprints tanking in value.

So I’m not looking for value in these, and in fact, I think that right now, you should be avoiding Take the Crown cards, as they have farther to fall. Likely around the release of Kaladesh, I’ll be prowling these cards for the best value, as supply will be maxed.

The impact of this being a print-to-demand set is real. Take the Crown is in the big-box stores, and there is no limit to the supply, aside from when people stop asking. Do you know when they stop asking? When your local store is stocked up and actually has more than they want! I’m hoping that my store and my peers want to keep drafting this until Kaladesh shows up.

Lesson #2: Except for Foils!

As I pointed out last week, there are some amazing foil multipliers at work in original Conspiracy, and there are some amazing ones already at work in Take the Crown. Leovold, for instance, is multiplied by seven. Kaya’s alternate-art foil is about ten times more expensive. Marchesa is fifteen times more pricey, to get the foil!

I’m all about shiny cards. I am absolutely that kind of magpie person, who needs to have the new one be shiny and new and some of these cards are calling to me. I want to let the initial rush fade, and be patient in my pursuit of these cards. I’m hoping they come down some in the second and third weekend of release.

Lesson #3: Sealed Product

While the original Conspiracy is a lot of fun to draft with friends, it’s not a place to park value. I refer you to others who have kept more sealed product around, and the short version is that there isn’t value in it. Even now, I can get a box of the original on Amazon for less than $100 shipped.

The value in long-term holds of sealed product is the value of the cards, not the worth of the experience. This has Berserk, and Show and Tell, and some other fun things, and the end value of those cards will determine the long-term value. I’m inclined to say no, nonetheless.

Lesson #4: Draft-specific cards don’t hold value

Allow me to give you the benefit of my ill-spent money. I went after the assorted ‘draft matters’ cards in foil, spending some significant amounts.

I bought early, and set them aside, thinking that as people build Cubes, they will need Cogwork Librarians and such. But they don’t. They absolutely don’t. So while you might really want that foil Sovereign’s Realm, you should get one for yourself and don’t try to corner the market.

My $20 foil Worldknits are just going to sit here in a corner and weep silently. Don’t join us.

Casual Fridays

Conspiracy 2 and You!

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Two years after the original Conspiracy, the sequel is here and it looks badass. I’m super stoked to draft a bunch of it, and add some new sweet cards to all sorts of decks.

From a finance standpoint, I want to make something clear: While Kaya, Ghost Assassin took out Brago, King Eternal in the storyline, Conspiracy: Take the Crown is going to assassinate prices.

Here’s the current prices for the original Conspiracy. Plus, if you’re into that sort of thing, here’s the foils. Looking at these two lists, I want to bring up some data points that will inform my purchases for Take the Crown.

First of all, some of those foil multipliers are outlandish. Dack Fayden’s foil is thirteen times more expensive, and that’s even after being in Eternal Masters! Dack is one of the most powerful cards in Vintage and in Cube, so his price isn’t too shocking. Marchesa, the Black Rose is more than ten times as pricey in foil. Scourge of the Throne is big, as are lots of others. This tells me that the casual demand is pretty high for these cards, or in some cases, the Legacy/Vintage demand.

I do expect the foil demand to be high again for Take the Crown, and mostly, I’ll be going after foils for myself and for long-term value. Note that the value of Conspiracy foils have stayed pretty stable since about January 2015, so I don’t want to get foils right freaking now OMG shiny!! I do want to get them before Christmas. Generally speaking, the time to get cards in one set is after the next set has come out.

The print run of original Conspiracy was big enough to torpedo prices. Here’s the graph of Urza’s Saga Exploration:

Exploration

Note the dip around the time before/during Khans of Tarkir being released. The card was $50, and has stayed stable at $10-$15.

This has all the ingredients of a card that should be $50 or so. It’s a four-of in a powerful and effective Legacy deck (Lands) and only has two printings. But because one of them is a modern-day supplemental set, the price is quite reasonable. This loss of 75% of value is repeated elsewhere in the set. Misdirecton went from $30 to $5. Mirari’s Wake dived by half. Hydra Omnivore went from $15 to $3. And so on.

I’m going to treat Take the Crown as something that’s going to be printed a lot, and opened a lot. This has a lot of valuable cards, at a regular booster’s price. You cannot expect a Modern Masters-type effect here, you can only expect prices to take a bath. A big one.

With that in mind, here’s my list of things you need to trade away right now, send out via Pucatrade, whatever the case may be. These are going to fall and fall hard. I’m focusing today’s picks on the nonfoils, and I’ll be interested in seeing how the foil prices fluctuate.

Ghostly Prison – How much do we love these effects? This has been printed three times, plus a FNM promo, and still it’s this high. Granted, those three printings were Champions of Kamigawa, Commander 2011, and Planechase 2012, which are all three possibly not going to add up to the number of these that will be put into circulation. These will be lucky to keep half their value and likely end up in the $3 range.

Hallowed Burial – About to be a dollar rare.

Pariah – Buckle up, because you’re headed for the bulk bin.

Desertion – $6 for a foil or $9 for the Commander’s Arsenal version. Either way, this will hit $2 and stay there for a while. It’s an awesome spell and has long-term potential, but the market is about to be flooded.

Kami of the Crescent Moon – Smug little smile, less than a dollar in price.

Serum Visions – This might stay at $1.50, but that’s the highest. Again, we are about to get a big influx.

Show and Tell – This was $80 before the announcement. It’s not done falling, not nearly. I suspect that $30 is reasonable and $20 is in play. I don’t know if it has enough Commander appeal to soak up extra copies. Side note: I like picking up Griselbrand and Omniscience as the best things to put into play. More Show and Tell cards may lead to more Show and Tell decks.

Inquisition of Kozilek – Possibly the banner card for reprinting, It’s already down to $10 and I will be surprised if it stays above $5. I think two or three bucks.

Phyrexian Arena – Six printings, and three of those had foils too! It’s just so good in just about any deck, though it’s too slow for Modern or Legacy. The casual crowd is going to soak up a lot of these, and when it’s down to $2 or so, I’m going to start buying them.

Burning Wish – The demand for this card just isn’t very high. I think this struggles to stay above $4.

Gratuitous Violence – One of my all-time favorite cards, now destined to be bulk. People just don’t have the intestinal fortitude for this.

Kiln Fiend – I look like a genius, because two weeks ago, I sent out a dozen of these on Puca from old draft boxes. This price was due to scarcity, and it will be at a quarter, maybe fifty cents.

Beast Within – This has had a lot of supplementary printings, but those weren’t high volume. The volume of Take the Crown is going to be much higher, and it’s an uncommon, dropping it to a dollar or less.

Birds of Paradise – Doesn’t matter how many you print. This is going to fall, and then creep up over time. Again. Notably, this hasn’t been printed at all since Magic 2012 five years ago. It’ll fall to $2-$3 and stay there for a long while.

Berserk – Can you believe this is in the set? I still can’t. Printings are Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, FTV:Exiled, and now this. That is a tiny, tiny supply, and I suspect that a lot of Commander games are about to be ended by using this on someone else’s creature. I think the market gets pretty flooded, and this stabilizes around $25 in two weeks, but it could go lower.

Burgeoning – Exactly the path of Exploration. Huge hit to its value, likely to sub-$5.

Forgotten Ancient – We made this card! We will also see it hit bulk.

Platinum Angel – This mythic has been resilient to reprints, and I’m reluctant to forecast too much of a hit. Down to the $5 range seems about right.

Did I leave something off? Let me know in the comments or in the forums!