By: Cliff Daigle

A Pro Tour is in the books and I’m not going to regale you with tales of cards spiking out of nowhere.

In fact, if I could, I try to pull you away from such a quest. There’s a lot more to be made in the search for stability than the excitement of being in the middle of a spike.

Trying to ride the surge of a card is a terrible, terrible idea. It is fraught with pitfalls and problems, and you’re rarely going to make much.

Let’s get into an example.

Amulet of Vigor

Putting two decks into the top 16, a lot of words have been written about this little artifact. It’s been the turd in the punchbowl when it comes to opening Worldwake packs for a while, and buying a pack for $20-$30 and seeing this as your foil rare will just make you cry.

Then again, if you’re wasting money on buying random, old, box-mapped loose packs, you should be crying more. But I digress.

Amulet has two spikes that you can see on the graph. It’s also got a lot of falling. To make money on this card during the spike, you needed to be among the first to buy it so that you can get it sold ASAP. That’s one of the big issues with buying cards mid-spike. If they aren’t in hand, you can get very burned.

Did you order your cards that Thursday or Friday night? If you’re lucky, and spent extra on shipping, you’ll have them in hand for the beginning of next week. Then you get to send them out again.

Especially once shipping and fees are taken into account, it’s very difficult to acquire and then resell cards during the spike of an event. So how are we to make money?

Primarily, you’re trying to acquire value. You’re buying the cards from a website/vendor before they have a chance to adjust their prices upward. Hopefully, this means you pick up Azusa at a price under $30, when she’s now closer to $40.

What you’ll be trying to do is resell or trade the card at the new value, having only spent a fraction of that value in cash. This will likely rule out buylisting, unless the card settles at a new price more than double the old price. Vendors and stores are slow to raise their buylists, especially online.

Why are they slow to raise their buylist prices?

Scion of the Ur-Dragon is why. If you’ve been following this card, you’ve seen it take a huge rise in price…and then a large fall. It turns out that the pool of people who need a new EDH general is relatively small. 

I told you a month ago it was a good buy at $2. It spiked up into the $20 range, and now it’s settling in around $10. Buylists, though, have it for under $5, except for one vendor. Stores and vendors do not want to get caught buying into the hype. They are content to sell into it and wait for the price to settle before getting more.

You want to be very, very cautious about buying a card that has started to rise. Sure, if you can get in at the early price, that’s fantastic. But if you’re buying Scion when it’s already gone up to $10, then your margins are significantly smaller.

Also, there’s the problem of sellers who don’t ship. This is more of a problem when there’s a Banned/Restricted announcement, but if the announcement happens and you’ve still got Worldgorger Dragons listed at $3, you’re obligated to send them or face the negative feedback. Some sellers are willing to take a negative hit there in order to get more money for their cards, and if you buy from one seller, then immediately list that card on eBay with a Buy it Now, you’re passing along that obligation while still being responsible.

So what do I think you should do?

First of all, listen to writers and players who you trust. Go with those who have experience, or who explain their thoughts well, or who have been right, or just the ones who you like. Whatever the case may be, that’s telling you what to get while things are still calm.

Do keep in mind, even the best of us are often wrong. If you’re buying things at a good price, the next step is to be patient. Lots of cards have gone up, and some have hit it huge. That is where you’ll make consistent gains in value, with good planning.

Second, when a card is spiking, sell what you have and don’t try to be a hero on getting every single penny. Get your profit and get out. If you hold it too long, you’re running the risk of a letdown, such as what Amulet and Scion have had.

As part of this, keep your collection organized enough that you can find your bulk rares as they become needed. I like to keep my rares separate, but if you can sort your cards by set, then color, then rarity, you’ll find it works well without needing to alphabetize.

Finally, keep track of what you do. It’s possible that you can just remember the values you got cards at, but when it comes to tracking your profits, it’s very useful to know what price you got in at, so you can make a profit without trying to remember all the values.

Hope this helps. Happy trading!

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By: Cliff Daigle

At GP San Jose last weekend, I took some time away from going 3-3 and talked to some of the vendors present. This being the beginning of the new set, I was curious what they were experiencing. I asked everyone the same set of questions, and while some vendors didn’t have much to say, I found them to be very helpful and incredibly well-informed.

I tried my best to approach when business was at its slowest, usually mid-round. I did notice that if you go in to do some major selling, you want to do that when everyone else is playing. More than one vendor had serious haggling going on because they had no other customers at that moment.

So let’s dive into the vendor’s-eye-view!

What was selling well?

There were two categories that were selling well: Modern staple cards like Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Thoughtseize, Liliana of the Veil, etc. and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon’s alternate art. The vendors I talked to consistently reported that since this was a Limited Grand Prix, they weren’t expecting to do as much business in the staples of Constructed. One vendor reported selling more than 40 Drown in Sorrow at $2 each just before GP Denver. That’s never going to happen at a Limited event. 

What does happen, though, is that vendors are able to target artists’ cards for the events that are coming up. Having a section for each artist (and then going and getting the card signed) was said to increase sales of such cards in a real way.

In talking with vendors, there’s a lot of varying opinion on reprints in Modern Masters 2015. If Dark Confidant and Tarmogoyf are there again, those values will take a hit, but not too big. If they aren’t reprinted, the prices will go very high…which is what Modern Masters is trying to keep in check.

Everyone understands that reprints are coming, and it’s rare to have a big stock of anything just sitting and waiting. Keep in mind that vendors are people too, and not above the occasional speculative buying spree.

What were vendors buying a lot of?

There was one card on everyone’s mind: Tasigur, the Golden Fang. Even though we were at a Limited Grand Prix, word filtered around quickly that Mr. Banana was putting up results across formats, and vendors were picking him up for $8 cash. No one had offered more by the end of Saturday.

This is important to note: Please don’t think that vendors aren’t up-to-speed on prices and trends. Often, you’ll see buy prices written on a dry-erase board, simply because those prices change over the course of a weekend or even a day. Even if a vendor isn’t on Twitter for every hour of every day, all it takes is two people in a row asking for the same things to get the antennae up and investigate.

Snapcaster Mage was a card cited as due for growth, and buy prices were creeping upward. Since he’s not going to be in MM2015, you might have room to make a profit now if you buy in at his current tag of about $35, he seems a good bet to hit $50 before next summer.

Several other merchants mentioned that things were in line with their expectations, especially at a Limited GP. For people who make a living buying and selling, it’s nice to have things go the way you believed they would.

What prices were most in flux?

Tasigur started Thursday being bought at $4, and as mentioned, was being bought for $8 by Saturday night.

Liliana of the Veil was creeping upward, and even Steve Argyle was said to be buying them for $65, just so he could alter them. She’s too new to be in MM2015, and the foil versions being given out at Regional PTQs is not scaring people away.

The alternate art of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon kept getting increased, on the buylist and on the retail, and it didn’t stop people from buying this up. There’s a level of perceived scarcity at work, and even though it’s not foil, it’s still gorgeous. The other cards from the Ugin packs are worth nearly nothing, so don’t expect a premium to be attached there.

These promo editions are having semi-predictable effects. Liliana’s promo version isn’t budging her price, but Griselbrand’s GP foil has kept that card under $20. It’ll be interesting to compare where these all end up.

One vendor reported that Omniscience was getting bought up at $12, and that’s a card which is overdue for a spike, considering its power level in Legacy and casual formats.

What other surprises were present?

The vendors I talked to were pleasantly surprised at the demand for the oldest cards. Not just duals or Power, but there were several who mentioned that they had moved a lot of Alpha/Beta/Unlimited cards which had been in stock forever.

You may have heard about Tiny Leaders, and its effect on some prices, but there’s a lesser-known format called 93/94 that requires you to have cards from only the original expansions up to Fallen Empires. These niche formats will never have to be too big to affect prices, because Alpha cards are getting more and more scarce due to collectors anyway, but this format offers a unique combination of rarity and fun. If it gets big, expect the oldest cards to get even more valuable.

There were more than a few Europeans selling Power in order to take advantage of the exchange rate right now. It’s not clear how much Power has gone overseas over the years, but the allure to cash out is a powerful one.

What effect did the recent Banned/Restricted list have on these vendors?

None of the vendors I talked to had a big position on the cards which got banned, no one had a stack of Russian Foil Treasure Cruise or anything. Mostly, they saw it coming, even though some felt that the format had not yet been given time to adapt. It seemed to be a banning due to the number of people playing it, not necessarily the card’s power. Why fight it with Rest in Peace when you can cast the Cruise?

All of them were happy to be picking up Birthing Pod at a low price, due to its power in Commander. Lots of Pod foils have also been injected into the market as a result of the banning, since Pod was a deck people had been playing for years there were lots of players who foiled it out. Multiple vendors pointed to Linvala, Keeper of Silence foils as one that was declining in price.

For the individual, if you’ve wanted that foil Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, the time may be now. Twin decks might have a great chance to come back and crank those prices up.

Has Legacy grown, compared to a year ago?

Interestingly, even vendors who aren’t based in an area with a big Legacy scene have increased their Legacy business online. More than one vendor had players selling out of Modern and switching to Legacy, simply from faith in a more stable environment. You may hate the Reserved List, but it’s respected as a promise to players.

Commander and other casual formats are unlikely to see such major shifts. Movement on that front is often murky, not many saw the Trade Secrets ban coming.

Vendors are happy to pick up the non-blue dual lands, simply in anticipation. It doesn’t matter that Plateau isn’t big yet, because it’s extremely unlikely to go lower in price. Nowhere to go but up!

Cards that they can’t keep in stock

This was alternate-art Ugin’s party. As mentioned, the buy and sell prices just kept climbing through the weekend and they are going higher still this week. At this point, I’m not sure if it’s from actual demand or from speculative purchases.

Berserk was also in high demand this weekend, as befits one of the best spells in Tiny Leaders. It’s a high cost to get in on this card, but if you’ve thought about getting one, now is the time as demand starts to drive the price higher and higher.

Other Interesting Tidbits

The future of foil Treasue Cruise was predicted to mirror foil Mental Misstep by one vendor. I’m not sure I agree with the scarcity, since it’s third-set uncommon vs. big-set common, but vendors were still buying foil Cruise at around $3, just on value. Drawing three cards for a single mana, Delve or not, is always going to be good. 

Mindslaver was mentioned as a ‘vendor spec’ in that one vendor was buying the stock of other vendors. It’s a candidate for MM2015, it’s been in two sets already, and it’s barely $4. I don’t see how it’ll take off, unless a new supply of Academy Ruins soon makes that combo more of a presence.

Vendors are waiting to see if Tron decks replace Ugin with Karn. It’s not clear if the extra mana is going to be a huge difference, because the ability to play Ugin and then exile just about everything is awfully appealing. If Ugin becomes the new card to rap towards, expect his price to gain significantly.

While Valorous Stance has been pointed out as a card with an amazing set of modes, note that point removal (outside Standard) is much, much better. Path to Exile is one less and ignores the protection mode of Stance. Keep this in mind when you’re considering buying a foil for $10 each.

One last warning: This set isn’t a new Dragon’s Maze, but it’s getting close. There’s only three cards worth more than ten dollars, and to buy a box is to chase the ten cards worth more than the cost of a pack at retail.

I’d like to thank Damyan Brunson of Tier 1 Games, Dustin Ochoa of Amazing MTG, Ben Huang of Gray Ogre Games, Michael Lim of Battle City Games, Jordan Woo of Magic Stronghold, Kyle Lopez of Aether Games, and Jameson Reeves of MTG Card Market. All of these vendors were kind enough to take a little time and talk to me while other players clamored to buy and sell.

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By: Cliff Daigle

For a week now, we’ve been able to buy Fate Reforged cards. The week between the Prerelease and the actual purchase of cards is when the values are at their greatest. Now, prices are going to start falling and it’s going to be interesting to see these trajectories.

Remember, we’ve got two seasons (that’s what I like to call them, I’m not sure if we have actual names) of FRF-KTK-KTK and then FRF-DTK-DTK, so we’re never going to have a huge influx of Fate Reforged cards. Instead, we’re going to get a trickle of them that for most of these cards, will slowly lower the price over time.

This means that for your casual deck, be it Cube, Commander, Rainbow Stairwell, whatever, you will be able to get what you want for less if you’re willing to wait.

This is especially true for foils. Look at these prices! They are so high right now because almost no packs have been opened. If you need a foil (I need a few myself) it’ll be more cost-efficient to wait.

Let’s talk about a few cases from Fate Reforged.

The Rare Dragons (Silumgar, Atarka, Kolaghan, Dromoka, Ojutai) 

Your value is not here. Even foils of these are not good to trade for, as demand is at the peak. Casuals want this RIGHT NOW to add to their Dragon decks. These will never be good enough in Standard to be a four-of, which is what a rare needs to be to hit a high price. Think of Hero’s Downfall or Eidolon of the Great Revel.

Being an occasional one or two in just a few decks will keep prices under $1.

As for foils, there’s no way these stay at $10. If you opened one, dump it posthaste. These will be $5 foils within a few weeks.

Shamanic Revelation

This is the Buy-a-Box foil, and that is bad news for the value of this card. This has great potential in casual games, as it can be an enormous Sphinx’s Revelation and it’s the epitome of a win-more card. The good news is that casual players love this effect and this slips easily into any creature-themed deck.

It’s currently at 66 cents for the nonfoil, an indicator of presale demand that is about zero. The foil is about $4 right now, and with the promo foil an option, I don’t expect it to go up.

Humble Defector

There are a number of people excited about mixing this card in Modern with Jeskai Ascendancy and some instant-speed cantrips. The way this card is worded, you put the ability on the stack, and only when it resolves does an opponent gain control. So if you can untap the creature at instant speed (say by casting Lightning Bolt or something like it with Ascendancy out) you can draw four or more before having to give it over.

It’s an uncommon, yes, but the split on foils is worth paying attention to. Right now, foils are $10. I do not think they can hold that price, but I think that if a deck uses it to draw six or more cards, it might have legs. This is also a nice card in Commander games, where you can use something like Homeward Path (a terribly underplayed card!) to get it back before your opponent can use it.

Frost Walker

I have to admit that I had my head turned by this card. Two mana for four power is extremely rare, and the drawback on this card is not that big a deal. It’s very fragile anyway, but James (@MTGCritic) pointed out on Twitter that JP foils of this are going fast and hard due to Legacy implications.

In Legacy, if you’re a blue card, you have a leg up on all other cards. Blue cards fit in with the best color in Magic’s history, and if you can be pitched to Force of Will, that’s going to make it easier to play. Legacy has a lot of point removal, and almost no free targeting. Even Forked Bolt can’t get it for free, at least one damage has to be assigned. People are ready to kill Tarmogoyf, so the Walker is going to get killed.

Right now, people are making sure they have green mana in order to play the ‘Goyf, but relatively few other green cards. Tarmogoyf can get to five power in some games, but for the same two mana, you have an immediate four power without adding another color of mana.

It’s important to note two interactions: First, no Equipment, specifically Umezawa’s Jitte. If you’re running a Stoneforge Mystic package, you may or may not care about this problem, since Batterskull is the star. Secondly, it doesn’t matter if you counter the spell that targets the Frost Walker, because the trigger happens when it’s targeted.

English foils are currently running at about $2, and I agree with James that picking up a few is a relatively safe bet. But if they spike, move fast to get rid of them.

Temporal Trespass

Oh goodness, do people playing outside Constructed love taking extra turns. There’s no real reason for this to be a $33 foil right now. If you crack one, move it immediately. This is going to fall into the $10-$15 range by the time Dragons of Tarkir comes out, and probably even lower when it’s time for Magic 2016.

The nonfoils are also a trap right now. I’m in on getting them for under a dollar, as this is one of the worst extra turn cards around. Relatively few Commander decks want to Delve, since the graveyard is a reusable resource. Still, extra turn cards are always going to have a certain cache, so picking them up on the cheap and then being patient is the way to go.

Final note: I’ll be playing in GP San Jose this weekend, so if you see someone with a sweet MTGPrice mat, that’s me! If you want your own mat like this, check out the Kickstarter link.

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By: Cliff Daigle

Magic has a lot of formats. Some of these are sanctioned and approved and have products released just for that crowd. Others are fleeting and ephemeral, gone almost as soon as you heard about them.

This is just another reason why Magic is going into its third decade: the structure of the game allows us to use our creativity and our skill to build new ways to play with the same cards.

Not every format has a financial implication for those of us that seek to increase the value of our collections, though. Horde Magic is a good example of this, since you’re just using whatever deck that you want vs. the Horde deck. Sure, some tokens might go up in price, if someone decides they suddenly need 75 Wurm tokens, but mostly that format utilizes decks people already have, just in a new way.

Cubing has a restriction stopping it from being the most popular format of all: consistently getting eight people together for a draft. What do you do when a ninth person shows up? Ten?

Cube, and its smaller cousin Battle Box, is tricky to find financial examples for, because almost all the cards that are good in Cube are good in lots of formats. Cube is one of two major formats that asks for one of a card, though, and that leads to premiums on foils. An example of Cube’s effect on a price is Generator Servant. The regular of this common is less than a quarter, and yet the foil is $3. It’s too small an effect for EDH (I’ve got two creature-focused decks that could use it and yet I don’t) but it is great in a lot of ways for a Cube.

Commander is the prime example of a casual format that has had profound and lasting effects on card prices. It combines several traits that have led to a sustained price increase.

First, it’s got a relatively small banned list. You can play almost any card that has ever been printed. EDH came along at the perfect time to make old collections useful again, and in a casually exciting way.

Commander games are built for the long haul, with bigger decks, bigger life totals, and splashier spells. You occasionally see Standard decks casting Genesis Wave or Villainous Wealth, but those are outliers. Constructed decks aim for consistency, while Commander’s deckbuilding restrictions make it difficult to have games play out the same way over and over.

Finally, the H in EDH is for Highlander, meaning “There can be only one! (of a card)” and that contributed to a huge demand for foils. If you can only have one of a card, might as well make it foil!

The Tiny Leaders variant of Commander is the newest format to shake up our decks and our viewpoint on what a card ‘should’ be worth. Tiny Leaders is not Commander, don’t make that mistake. TL games are meant to be shorter and faster, and are duels. It’s true that there’s already an ‘official’ 1v1 Commander variant, but Tiny Leaders imposes a new restriction in mana costs and that bypasses a lot of current Commander decks. You can tweak an existing EDH deck for the 1v1 style, but you have to build a whole new Tiny Leaders deck.

Since you care about the financial implications, think about what new formats mean: New decks being built. On MTGO it’s only necessary to have four of a card and you can have unlimited decks with that playset, with no logistical nightmare of moving cards from deck to deck. I’ve tried doing that and it’s awful. Maybe it’s not so bad moving your set of Polluted Delta from your Legacy to Modern to Standard decks every other week, but when you’re changing a Verdant Catacombs and a Twilight Mire from one deck to another and then back over the course of a casual Magic night, you’ll want to pull your hair out.

One of the great lies of Commander is that you only need one of a card. You’re going to build decks in overlapping colors, and when you do, you’re going to end up getting several of the same cards, especially lands.

When a new format like Tiny Leaders begins to take off, there’s an opportunity present for you to be ahead of the curve. I’m not saying you invest heavily in every new format, but think about how much you would have made if you’d bought Gaea’s Cradles in 2012 when they were $60 or so. No single event made Cradle spike, but it’s one of the most amazing EDH cards around. Elves in Legacy wants this card, but not so many as to cause this growth.

In order for you to make money/value off of a new format, you have to understand what the format is doing and how it plays. Berserk, for example, has gone up $10 in the past three months, after being stable for years. I can’t say for sure that Tiny Leaders is why, but it fits the format perfectly: Low mana cost, intended to end a game fast, just need one, etc.

I’m not here to say that Tiny Leaders is the next big thing. We all have our formats that we love and those we abhor. But if you get to know each format, whether or not you enjoy it or even play it, you’ll have a more complete understanding of how to value cards for it. That will lead to you making better financial decisions with these cards.

Do a little research. Follow the links, click the hashtags, read the articles. People love to talk about their variant or their brainchild, and you’ll be that much more informed.

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