By: Cliff Daigle

GP Richmond is this weekend, and in case you hadn’t heard, it’s going to be the biggest Constructed event ever, and possibly the biggest Magic event ever. It’s closing in on the 4500 set this past summer at GP Las Vegas! That’s a ton of people coming to play, and if you’re going to it or some other large event, I’ve got some helpful ideas.

I’m always on a budget. I want to be on a budget for everything that isn’t cards, so I can go forth and buy the card that catches my eye. For instance, that sweet French Foil Angel of Despair, pimping out my Kaalia deck just a little bit more.

When you go to a big event, there’s a few tricks to keeping things at the right price, allowing you more time, money, and energy for playing Magic. Some of these are going to be self-evident, others might be things you haven’t considered. I offer this advice in the hopes that casual and competitive players alike can maximize their enjoyment.

Tip #1: Pack lightly.

If you’re going to a mega-event, the chances are that you’ll be there all day. You’re going to be hauling your backpack/duffel/luggage around for hours on end, so don’t overload yourself. Keep the binders and decks to a minimum. Unless you’ve planned to meet up with seven other people, leave the Cube at home. Bring three EDH decks, tops.

I’d also suggest that you make sure the things you need to play are easily accessible. Separate compartments, top-level organization, whatever method you use. Don’t be that person who sits down and then needs five minutes of digging to find your deck box for this event.

Tip #2: Bring your meals and drinks.

At GP Sacramento, the food inside the venue was around $8 for a sandwich and $4 for a bottle of water that is sold in packs of 36 at grocery stores. Large sodas, heavy on the ice, were $6.

Maybe you’re interested in losing an hour or two of side events and trading to leave the event and find a meal. Maybe you want to get away and take a break. Get a soft sided lunchbag, add a couple sandwiches, and go to town.

Preparing food and drink ahead of time is going to save you a lot of money and a lot of time. At a big event, every place within walking distance will have packs of players filling the lines and increasing wait times.

Tip #3: Security

It’s been said before and it bears repeating: you will have ZERO recourse if your cards are stolen. Unless you mark your cards with your name, Magic cards are less traceable than cash.

Everyone knows that Modern prices are going up across the board. It used to be that only Legacy and Vintage players had high-value cards, but pimped-out Commander decks have all sorts of goodies too.

Thieves know when they see a good target. When you play that foil Gaea’s Cradle, or flash a binder full of fetchlands, the mark is set upon you. Don’t engage in multiple trades at once. Don’t trade while playing a game. Don’t just hang your bag off the back of your seat.

It is cheap enough to look into renter’s insurance, especially through your auto insurance company. It’ll probably be less than $50/month, and you’ll need to update your card inventory regularly, but this is the only form of protection available.

Also: your car is not protection. There are many cautionary tales on various forums, Reddit and Twitter about thieves who broke into cars just for the cards. When one Modern deck can be worth $1000 or more, understand that a lot of people get very unscrupulous.

Tip #4: Pre-register

On-site registration is being phased out for GP-size events, but signing up ahead of time is a worthy option for many GP Trials and PTQs. You’re going to be doing a lot of waiting during events. Spare yourself the line at the beginning of the day.

Related to that is filling out your deck registration sheet ahead of time. It’s printable, available all over, and an easy way to prevent game losses due to sloppy paperwork.

Tip #5: Plan out your side events

I’ve never made Day 2 of a Grand Prix. I’ve made the Top 8 of a PTQ exactly once. So I’ve had a lot of chances to play in side events.  Organizers will usually publish the schedules ahead of time. You will be able to plan out how many sealed events, drafts, or other constructed events will be available to you.

The scheduled side events are always notable for the prizes, and the formats. This is where you can randomly win a Commander’s Arsenal, or black Comic-Con planeswalkers, or uncut sheets.

There are also occasions where it’s just good value. Channelfireball has done this at the last two Limited GPs, running a ‘second chance GP’ sealed for $20. It’s hard to argue with a good price.

I am addicted to any event where $10 drafting is available. I will rare draft like a fiend at these, no matter the deck or format. It doesn’t matter to me if the prize is packs or a free draft, it’s the most fun way to open packs.

Tip #6: Buylisting

I always browse the buylists of vendors before big events. I will be interested in unloading old cards, or accessories, or picking up/dropping off orders.

At this weekend’s GP, prices are going to move a lot. This may be a time for you to cash out, or perhaps you want to listen to Travis and actually pick up more Modern pieces.

I’m not good enough with this format to tell you what to do, but seeing all these prices go up, it’s hard for me to look at my EDH decks and not think about selling some pieces.

At a minimum, think about buylisting things you open in drafts and the like. If you do several drafts in a row, you can make back most of the cash you spent, or choose store credit and snag that sweet foreign foil you’ve had your eye on.

I hope these tips help you enjoy your GP, be it Richmond or anywhere!

By: Cliff Daigle

Journey into Nyx will have five more Gods, in color pairs that haven’t gotten their indestructible legendary enchantment creature yet.

Having seen what the first five multicolored gods can do, I feel this is a good time to take a guess on what their counterparts will do in the next set.

The five Gods in Born of the Gods have the following abilities: UW draws cards, UB mills, RG grants size and haste to one creature, RB makes them sacrifice or take damage, and GW ramps. Those seem like abilities natural to that color pair, so I’m taking a guess based on what the other five pairs are traditionally good at.

There is value to be gained in planning ahead here, because if we can anticipate what pairs well with those gods, we will be able to sell into the hype when those cards spike. For example, see this graph for Trostani, paying attention to the spike right around when Karametra’s card was spoiled. Trostani’s price has only come down slightly since.

These are not going to be long term targets. I am planning on selling or trading most of these right when the hype is at its highest. These are not the only cards that might spike, but I’m looking for ones I can pick up relatively cheap in trade, and then sell when their price goes up.

Let’s start off with a standard combo I might actually sleeve up:

R/W: Iroas

Spec: Aurelia, the Warleader

Backup: Assemble the Legion

Aurelia plus the Boros god is a combo I can’t wait to play, and it doesn’t matter what the god’s static ability is. Aurelia does 80% of the work for devotion, and the only thing better than attacking with an indestructible creature is doing it twice in a row. Aurelia has that magic fourth toughness, meaning Bile Blight or Lightning Strike won’t cut it. I suspect that Iroas will cost four, but if it’s at five because of an awesome ability it creates a sweet five-into-six mana curve.

My guess is that this God will grant a bonus to attacking creatures, à la Orcish Oriflamme. Iroas has been called the God of victory, though, so there may be some kind of bonus when you destroy somebody else’s creature, or something with fighting.

G/U: Kruphix

Spec: Prophet of Kruphix

Backup: Prime Speaker Zegana

Before Born of the Gods was spoiled, I was telling you to pick up Prophet at two dollars. It’s gone up nearly 50% since then. I’m still on board for picking it up around three dollars.

I devoutly hope Kruphix will do something with +1/+1 counters, like double the counters on target creature at the beginning of combat. It’s more likely to do something tricky, like tap or untap a permanent at the beginning of each upkeep something along those lines.

Prime Speaker is not the combo you wanted to be. Because its ability checks as it comes into play and the god’s devotion checks only after the permanent is in play, Zegana will not draw cards from the god’s power. That’s not going to stop people from wanting to try the cards together, though, and you should be ready to move a few of them when there is demand.

R/U: Keranos

Spec: Ral Zarek

Backup: Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius 

This color combination likes spells, but we haven’t seen much to give us a frame of reference. Ideally, it would be cheap and give a bonus to spells. If it cost 1UR and made all instants and sorceries cost 1 less, that might be too good in Modern Storm. We haven’t had many copy effects; maybe this one will be three mana to copy any instant or sorcery.

I would really like to see something amazing, like having it deal damage to a creature or player.

I suspect that this card will be a bit more control-oriented, and in a slower deck Ral and Niv-Mizzet might be quite the thing. History tells us that spell-centric decks (outside of Delver) aren’t usually good enough in Standard, and so this is the speculation I’m least enthusiastic about.

G/B: Pharika

Spec: Lotleth Troll

Backup: Vraska the Unseen

We don’t know much of what she will do. It’s likely that there will be interactions with the graveyard, my guess is that we will see something that brings back creatures from the graveyard to the hand. It’s a reasonable combination of these colors, and not an overpowered effect. Pharika might also do something that echoes being the god of gorgons, perhaps destroying anything that blocks one of your creatures.

Lotleth is heavily dependent on which ability Pharika has, because pitching cards to the troll and bringing them back is an insane loop. It’s a very cheap pick up right now so you’re unlikely to lose. This card would be a lot better if Detention Sphere were not seeing heavy playing in most Azorius builds. With the addition of the G/B scryland and Pharika, people are going to want to build those decks and take advantage of Vraska, as well as Abrupt Decay, a card I like to go up a lot over time. Be prepared.

 W/B: Athreos

Target: Obzedat, Ghost Council

Back up: Whip of Erebos

A lot is going to depend on how much this god costs to cast. If it is four, then the Ghost Council is going to blow up. There’s already a combo with the Council and the Whip, and it seems like Athreos will fit right in.

My prediction on this god’s ability is that it is a reprint of Sanguine Bond, only better in multiplayer. I think it will cost five though, and that will make it slightly more awkward to cast on a curve. An ability of “Whenever you gain life, each opponent loses that much life” would be very strong in casual and constructed alike. Another strong contender for Athreos’ ability would be Syphon Soul on upkeep, very straightforward and again, scaling well in casual play.

I do not think that Blood Baron will go up significantly, regardless of Athreos’ ability or cost. It’s already fairly high-priced, mainly because of the set is in.

There you have it, a set of three-month targets. I’m looking forward to seeing what these Gods do, and seeing how close I was to the finished product.

Happy Trading!

By: Cliff Daigle

I do not consider myself proficient at very many things, but I am very good with the concepts of EDH: the methods of deck construction, the spirit of the format, and the wide range of things that are allowed in the search for fun. 

Any financier, casual or professional, has to understand the casual formats in order to grok why on earth some cards have the price they do. It’s important to understand that while Magic has all sorts of constructed awesomeness, it’s still mainly a friendly, casual, kitchen-table game. In fact, that’s been the key to its success: appealing to such a wide swath of players. Constructed formats cause price spikes, while casual stars see slow and steady growth.

Today, I want to help you understand a little more about EDH and its principles, so you can see why the Rules Committee bans and unbans what it does. I gained good value picking up Kokusho before its unbanning, and I made a little selling into the Staff of Domination hype at its unbanning.

At its heart, Commander is all about interaction and experience. It was put together by judges who wanted to play swingy, splashy, uninhibited Magic. It is a way to unwind and to explore the quirky side ideas that have come up in this game.

There are some common tropes. Every EDH player considers a tribal deck at some point. Every player thinks about random deck ideas: an all-creature, or no-creature, or only certain sorts of art, or a deck designed to win via infinite combos. We often give thought to foiling out a deck, or making it all foreign, or if you’re Judge Emeritus Sheldon Menery, you embark on a foil Italian deck.

I would be remiss if I didn’t include Cube players with EDH players. There’s a lot of similarities, from the number of certain cards needed to the desire to make your interpretation unique.

One of the key features of Commander decks, and therefore a financially relevant idea, is that all sorts of play styles are possible. Are you a griefer? A combo savant? Do you only cast spells that cost more than eight mana? Whatever you’re into, EDH can provide. The founders recognized that fun is defined very differently from person to person, and don’t try to legislate that. 

What they do legislate is imbalance, but they do so very selectively. Primeval Titan and his cousin Sylvan Primordial allow for huge mana gains, and are easy to abuse.

The issue that comes up when there’s a banning in EDH is this: they don’t try to ban infinite-combo cards. There’s no way to ban all of those without a banlist a mile long. Plus, they want to allow you that way of playing, if you and your play group enjoy that. What they tend to come down on are cards that are impossible to use ‘fairly’.

Allow me this example. Before PT got banned, it was in most green decks. As was Green Sun’s Zenith. I know that I would cast GSZ for three and get Sakura-Tribe Elder, or scrape by until I got to seven mana to get the Titan. It was simply the best thing I could do, and everyone at the table knew it. Getting the Titan or the Primordial out is such a huge swing, and sets up “waiting to die” board states.

Whenever a card is banned, the refrain goes up. “Why wasn’t [CARDNAME] banned too?!?!” Very often in forums, the cited card is Palinchron. This thing exists for no reason except to generate infinite mana. All you need is one land that generates two or more mana, and you’re infinite. It is not banned because infinite shenanigans is part of the game. Plus, with Palinchron, an instant-speed kill spell with the untap on the stack will solve the problem. There’s too many infinite combos to hate them all away. (Hi there, Kiki-Jiki!)

So what’s the financial bonus to knowing how these casual formats work?

The most relevant idea is that these players aren’t getting cards to trade. We trade for or buy a card in order to put it in a deck and keep it there. This cuts down on the number of that card in circulation, and inflates the price.

Case in point: the San Diego Comic-Con Planeswalkers. There is no hard data on the number made available, but those who got them either flipped them for immediate profit, are holding them to get more money later, or kept them for decks. It’s possible that some are simply showpieces in a collection, but these are not going to be found in random binders. 

If you have one, you’re either playing it or keeping it until you’re ready to sell it. There are very few out there to be had. I’ve got an SDCC Garruk, and it’s in a deck and it’s staying there until I am desperate enough to sell pieces from my favorite EDH deck.

Another salient point is how often we build random casual decks and then just keep them in a box on a shelf. It’s not always worth the hassle to take decks apart. The high point for me was 15 EDH decks and that’s a lot to deal with. Several just sat unused for months at a time–few of us will get to play 15 Commander games in less than a month.

It’s a phenomenon not limited to Commander, though. We have a habit of putting old decks aside. I have a deck I built in 1999, jokingly called Turbo-Thallid, using those Fallen Empires cards to great extent, and using Earthcraft and Wild Growth and Fungal Bloom to power out lots of Saprolings. Thallids have gotten much better since, but I haven’t updated the deck in fourteen years. It’s a pet deck, and how would I even try to explain what format it’s for to new people? It’s not even Legacy-legal!

Rest assured, though: Earthcraft will eventually get unbanned in Legacy, and I’ll be happy to sell into that hype.

Where EDH shines as a format is when people find a common power level. If all of your friends enjoy counterspell wars and copying Time Warp, more power to you folks. If your Commander games end up as Giants vs. Faeries vs. Elves vs. Beasts, that’s awesome too. There’s no one way to play it.

What surprises many tournament players is how often Commander decks are deliberately underpowered. It’s more than skipping dual lands and fetch lands. It’s about leaving out cards that end the game abruptly, or lead to twenty-minute turns. In my Experiment Kraj deck, I don’t have any abilities that tap to add mana, because I have lots of untapping abilities. It’s no fun to me if I deliberately and consistently go infinite.

These games are not always about winning. These games are about the experience and the interaction. Mr. Menery said it best: “The secret of the format is not breaking it.”