By: Cliff Daigle

This is my Bloodstained Mire.

Looks pretty good, right? It’s Onslaught, pretty good edges, no real…wait.

Look closer.

Yup. That’s a bend. It’s not even an inch long but it’s enough for Star City Games to have marked it as ‘Damaged’ and sell it to me for about 50% of retail value. At the time, about three years ago, the Mire was $40 or so and I bought this for $20 for a Commander deck.

I remain quite pleased with this decision, and I’m going to encourage you to do the same.

Cards that have seen a lot of play occupy a weird place in our minds. They are functionally the same card, but they might have been washed, or played a lot without sleeves, or someone picked it up off a table and put fingernail marks on the edges. (I’ve done all of these things!)

The more that a card is marked, the less it is worth, since it’s no longer perfect, or close to that. Mint is a rarely found card condition, so Near Mint is what we mostly aspire to. Cards don’t always exit the pack as Mint condition, due to being off-center or slightly discolored.

While it’s true that those cards which are Moderately Played or Heavily Played are worth less in a retail setting, they remain the actual card and you cannot lose sight of that. Dual lands are still dual lands, on the reserved list, and there will not be any more of them printed. Even if they are messed up, they remain a rare card and something that you should want to acquire for the right price.

That price can be difficult to ascertain. Star City used to have displays with their damaged cards, cards which they didn’t list on their website because scans of each and every card is just not worth the time, aside from the most expensive ones like pieces of Power. I haven’t been to an SCG Open in years, mainly because I live on the West Coast and they don’t bother, unfortunately.

Other dealers will sometimes have the box or binder of damaged goods, and I’m telling you to always check such things when they show up, for two very good reasons:

1. Value or Budget – Look, we aren’t all big spenders. MTGPrice is not here to only for those who wish to spend several thousand dollars on speculative buys. We are also here for those who wish to stretch their budget on cards, and damaged cards may be the best way for you to do that.

For instance, if you have a large selection of Commander decks, you may get tired of paying full price on things over and over again because they are just so awesome in so many decks. How many Mikaeus, the Unhallowed do I need to trade for, after all? The lands needing to get moved around is especially egregious, and that’s why I got the Mire, to be in a second deck.

2. Trade Bait – This is about honesty. You’re going to buy a card that grades as damaged and yet is still very useable…just not for you. So when you keep this flawed card in your trade binder, you can have something that people want to trade for, but be honest with them about the condition. There are a lot of people that are going to want this card and will trade you at a surprising amount of value.

People build a lot of cubes and decks and don’t necessarily want to break the bank in order to get the cards they want. Using played/damaged cards is perfectly acceptable in a lot of groups, especially for rarer cards that are now twenty years old and exceedingly difficult to find in near mint condition.

When you acquire a damaged card, I implore you to not try to get every cent you can out of someone when you’re trading it away. Be realistic and be friendly, because that person will likely take more than one of your damaged cards. Having an out for such things will be very useful.

Finally, don’t be afraid of picking up a half-price old card because those older cards are surprisingly in demand, no matter condition. The “old-school” format of 93/94 and the collectors of Alpha and Beta are seriously warping the environment. Beta Chaoslace is $40!

Condition really matters when you want to max out on a card’s value, just think of Moxes and Library of Alexandria and such. There are a lot of times, though, where acquiring a beat up version of something is preferable. Keep an open mind!

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By: Cliff Daigle

I am pausing in the quest for another Gaea’s Cradle.

Like many people on PucaTrade, I’m a big fan of trading my current Standard cards at full value in order to work towards a larger-value card.

I’ve sent off random stuff that no one in their right mind would ever take in full value towards the Cradle. A playset of Kabira Evangel? New Drana, Liberator of Malakir back when it was at $17? Solid all the way around.

I was about to start sending off my leftover fetch lands when I saw on Twitter that people are buying PucaPoints at the rate of $0.67 per 100 points, or $67 for 10,000 points.

Now I’m quite concerned and I don’t think I am going to be a part of this economy for a little while.

PucaTrade has always allowed people to buy points from them, at the cost of $1 for 100 points, a very easy and direct conversion rate. Their card prices are usually within a few percentage points of MTGPrice’s Fair Trade Price, though they have their own system for establishing that value.

For example, Flooded Strand has a price here of $22.54, while it’s 2156 points on Puca. Seems legit enough, right?

If you have an Uncommon or Rare-level account, you can transfer PucaPoints to other users. This is useful if you want to advertise a bonus for Expeditions lands, or something along those lines. It also allows you to post on assorted social media that your points can be bought, and that is where I start getting concerned.

Let’s go back to Gaea’s Cradle, as it’s been a target of mine for a while.

It’s currently got a FTP of $182, and is worth 17336 PucaPoints. This is the magic and the promise of PucaTrade, because I could trade about 8 Flooded Strands from Khans of Tarkir for one Cradle and I would do that in a heartbeat. Puca has an issue of needing to wait for someone to decide to mail out that Cradle, but that’s not the focus today.

The possible trade of eight Strands for the Cradle presumes that everything is of equal value, but when cash is introduced, the values start to skew.

Let’s look deeper at the Cradle. It’s buylisting for $118 at best, and eBay auctions are closing at about $120, with some variation on condition or bidding wars. That’s very close to 66% of the card’s value when it comes to cash, and that’s in line with expectations. We accept that retail value in a trade is not the same as cash value, and it’s why you should generally run away from people who want to price your cards at buylist.

To a casual player, Puca’s philosophy is that you are getting full value, but if you can buy points at this rate (and it may have farther to fall!) then you won’t be getting the full return. This level of availability for points makes me very nervous. It’s inflationary, and I’m going to leave it to people more versed in economics to explain the cycle and the problems.

The short version is this: If I’m paying full price in trade, I am worried that someone is swooping in and paying two-thirds of its value. I don’t want to be part of this economy, especially if the points start to lower further in cash value.

I’m not calling for the end of PucaTrade. I’m saying that this trend of cash affecting the Puca economy as something that makes me very worried.

It’s true that this is more about my perception, my feelings, my concerns. Cash has always had a warping effect on the Magic economy, and points being sold for two-thirds of their value makes the Puca economy the same as eBay or TCGPlayer or buylists.

From the other end, though, I can’t argue with the value. If you want to acquire cards for less than retail, you’re going to have to pay cash. Buying points is a very easy way to get the points you want without a lot of the legwork.

It seems like such a hassle to me, though. Going back to the Cradle example, I’d need to spend about $120 to get the points I need, and then I have to wait. There’s only three people who want the nonfoil as of this writing, and only one person has the points and the desire for the judge foil version.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just hit up eBay at that point? If I want to spend the cash, then I should be able to get what I want that much faster.

I’ve never pretended to be a big-dollar spender. In fact, I’m quite the opposite. I try hard not to buy singles. It’s not hard for me to think that I spend less on Magic that any of the writers here. I have to say that PucaTrade’s model has been a great one for me, and I would hate to see it be warped and changed.

It’s entirely possible that I’m overthinking this. The sky isn’t falling, but I don’t like the look of the clouds. Please, add a comment below and tell me why I’m right or why I’m wrong.

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By: Cliff Daigle

You may or may not know this about me, but I have one foiled-out Commander deck. It’s tribal Vampires, Grixis colors (Garza Zol, Plague Queen), and I didn’t intend for it to be the all-shiny deck, but it is and it’s the only deck I aggressively chase foils for.

As you can imagine, the foil manabase has been an expensive proposition, to the point that I only have a foil Bloodstained Mire that I opened early on in Khans drafts. The deck really wants a foil Scalding Tarn and a foil Polluted Delta, and until recently I’d resigned myself to spending a little of my Christmas bonus, likely about $100, to get a foil Khans Delta.

Then Battle for Zendikar, and the Expeditions, landed. Now I had a new decision about which version I wanted and as I kept an eye on eBay, a strange thing happened:

The price on eBay has gone down by $20-$30 since Battle for Zendikar came out.

Now I’ll be the first to admit, I was telling you to get foil fetches when Khans block ended. That’s traditionally when the prices are lowest on things and that was certainly the case for the nonfoil fetches. Those have gone up significantly since, while the foil trends downwards.

If I was a fan of foil fetches before, am I a bigger fan now? Mostly, yes. Personally, I feel that the Onslaught versions are more aesthetically pleasing, but more on that in a moment.

Other writers, on this site and on other sites, have pointed out that we are reaching the floor on the Expedition lands, and that if you want them, you should get them relatively soon. I agree with this viewpoint, and if I wanted Expeditions, I’d buy them now. We will have a small amount added during Oath of the Gatewatch, but the draft format is going to be Oath/Oath/Battle so it’s not a large addition, especially at Sealed events.

Also worth noting is that the rush of players who HAVE TO HAVE THE NEW SHINY has passed, for the most part. You can see the effect of these types of acquisitions on Blade of Selves, a card I mentioned last week, as it started low, spiked massively as players flocked to get the new toy, and has come back down to earth.

This is what happened with Expeditions, as players out of the gate wanted these and wanted them badly. Prices were insane, the frenzy was real, and thankfully the hype has died down.

As part of that hype, though, a secondary effect took hold: players spent less on the other versions, especially the Khans fetches. The foil versions of shocklands are due to go up too, but the Expeditions have sucked up a lot of the money that would have gone into Return to Ravnica or Gatecrash foil shocks.

With the extra supply of Expeditions, there’s simply more to choose from. A lot is going to depend on a player’s personal taste. Are you into old-frame foil fetches? Maybe judge foils catch your fancy? Perhaps the three-quarter-art or the kooky border on the Expeditions make it worth your dollars.

It’s interesting to watch how Expeditions have helped keep the prices lower on the included cards while adding a new version of those cards.

One other factor to note: It appears vendors are cutting their buylists on the Khans foil fetches across the board. All five fetch lands have a decrease in their buylist price recently, indicating that they have a full stock and don’t feel they need to pay more.

The buylist dip is also an indicator of retail demand. People aren’t buying as much of this version anymore, and that’s a chance for us to move in.

If you want to have foil fetch lands, do it relatively soon. I’m placing strategic eBay bids and being patient, because I’m sure I can land a foil Delta at $60 on eBay, unless one you of you sniples it from me.

I also want to give you a caveat: the presence of Expeditions is probably going to keep the prices of the regular foils down. Expeditions are something different and unique, qualities that Magic players love to have in their Cubes and Commander decks. The more foil versions there are, the less chance that all the money will be concentrated. Players have a variety of ways to invest their foil dollars, and that will keep all of them pretty stable in the long run.

So if you pick up some foil fetches or shocks or battle lands, don’t expect a huge return anytime soon. I do think they will slowly go up in value, but this injection of supply will keep prices low.

One more thing about Expeditions: There are more yet to come. Speculation remains rampant, but most agree that the 20 Expeditions of Oath will be the new five battle lands, the ten filter lands, and then five more. Those other five might well be the Scars of Mirrodin ‘fast lands’ like Seachrome Coast, since it needs to be a cycle of five. Regardless, I’d expect the pre-existing foils to take a hit on their prices, so if you’re sitting on a playset of foil Twilight Mire, you might want to think about selling high.

By: Cliff Daigle

So the sets are on the shelves and wow it’s underwhelming. Nothing is Legacy gold–yet–and while I’m hesitant to say never…it doesn’t look good.

Today I want to look at the new cards in Commander 2015 and decide how much I’d pay, in trade or cash, for these new toys. Some of these I am dying to get, and others I’m going to be patient on.

 

Blade of Selves ($14)

I started writing this on Sunday, when the price was $6:

“This is going to be the most expensive card from this set by summer. It works beautifully with effect like Doubling Season and if you can copy the Blade then that’s amazing too. Note that this does not play the way you want with Nacatl War-Pride.

I think this will be in the $10 range because it’s universal and powerful. Commander decks tends to be packed with creatures that give value of some sort right away, and this gets you three more of those. There are very few decks that don’t want this effect, so the demand will always be there. I also appreciate how this is only relevant to original-format Commander. It’s worthless in 1v1 or Tiny Leaders. ”

This card is now at $14, and a big part of that is what I identified: It’s bonkers. Three Eternal Witness triggers? Don’t mind if I do! Thank goodness the tokens are exiled, but all it takes is a fun sacrifice effect to get some leaving-play value.

I stand by my earlier thoughts: This will be a $10 card in the long run, but this initial rush is from the people who don’t want to be patient. They want the new toy and they want it now. There’s a rush on these because I don’t think many people want to buy a deck and extract value from the singles. I’ve told you not to do that, but the Boros deck is tempting! I already have a home for the Blade and the Magus of the Wheel, and I think Oreskos Explorer has some potential…but that’s sort of it. There’s only three sellers on TCGPlayer with this card, and a total of 22 copies available. The demand has been real! We might even see it ride the wave up to $20 within the next week,

I’m going to watch this price closely. How many people buy this deck and crack it open? It’s no True-Name Nemesis, and right now the Blade is about double the next most expensive card. The value isn’t there for the entire deck, especially if lots of people start trying to do it!

On that note, TCG does have some people selling the sealed deck for under $30….

 

Mystic Confluence ($9)

If this were four mana, it would be in the conversation for “counter unless they pay 3, draw two cards.” I do not think this goes higher and I’d expect it to drop to $5 or so. Conditional counterspells have to be cheap, and while this has a delightful flexibility, it’ll never be expensive.

That doesn’t mean it’s the same thing as bad, though. There aren’t many other cards that offer this flexibility, but it lacks the raw power of some other blue instants.

 

Ezuri, Claw of Progress ($4)

Along with Bloodspore Thrinax, there’s some awesome combinations of cards to be had in the Simic deck. Ezuri is icing on the cake, though, and really gets busted depending on the theme of the deck you built. At his worst, he’s buffing himself and that’s not what people want to be doing.

He’s also fragile, but all it takes is one or two activations of his ability to get out of hand quite quickly. Master Biomancer is the popular choice, but let’s not overlook what Ezuri can do with something like Wild Beastmaster! For sneaky fun, add him to Cauldron of Souls and keep the fun flying.

Ezuri is in a color combination that’s all about fun interactions, but the price isn’t going to go too far up or down.

 

Meren of Clan Nel Toth ($5)

I’ll be honest, I thought Pharika, God of Affliction was going to have an ability like this, and I love the nature of this ability. Stuff dies all the time, and your opponents need to be able to respond during your turn for you to get no value off of her ability. It’s true that they could just untap and wipe the board, but the potential is certainly there. I think her price will go down a little, but I want to put an idea in your head: She only needs one or two counters to be powerful in a Legacy deck. She would absolutely be a surprise fun-of, a creature that every turn got back a Tarmogoyf or Young Pyromancer or Deathrite Shaman.

 

Magus of the Wheel ($5)

I was hoping for a new Magus cycle but this is a phenomenal card in any setting. I’m surprised that it didn’t show up in any Burn lists but it being three mana, even for a 3/3, is a little pricey.

I think this is another one that will creep upward in price, but not by much. It’s really hard to cost three mana in decks so light on lands, even Browbeat isn’t good enough.

Allow me to recycle a phrase from last year, too: This is very good with Nekusar, the Mindrazer.

 

Oreskos Explorer ($1)

This is not going to have legs. It’s not going to spike. It’s worse than Knight of the White Orchid in 1v1 games. Keep the optimism in check.

 

Scourge of Nel Toth ($1.50)

The reanimation potential is there. Sacrificing Bloodghasts or other reanimation creatures could really be amazing at some point, but Legacy reanimation is much more powerful in the payoff. This doesn’t hold a candle to Griselbrand, or Iona, or whatever is the target.

 

Dread Summons ($1)

It’s a mill card with defense potential. It does mill yourself as well, so it’s not the best finisher in an infinite-mana deck, unless you plan for it with Gaea’s Blessing or an Eldrazi.

I think this Commander series is much like the last two years: The decks are well-built, lots of fun synergies, with just the right level of being deliberately underpowered. They also are not going to have a lot of financial relevance, even with the current spike on the Blade of Selves. Be patient and you’ll get great value.

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