Category Archives: Casual Fridays

Casual Fridays

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: The Early Rounds of PT HOU

The Pro Tour is eight rounds old when this goes up, and I freely admit that I’m not young enough to stay up all night to see all five rounds of Standard.

Being on PST, I do have an advantage of a few hours, though, and there’s some early cards to note from the Standard portion of the Pro Tour. So let’s get to it!

I’m not going to go round-by-round, but this is an amalgamation of three rounds of Standard and the deck techs, discussion, and decks on camera.

 

Glorybringer is a card that everyone will have to be accounting for during the next year, and there is no good, easy answer. Harnessed Lighting needs help, Grasp of Darkness is tough on the mana, it’s too big for Fatal Push, etc. Five bucks is too low for a card seeing this much play, and I’d be picking up a few to unload in six months.

Abrade is everywhere. Artifacts are not safe, and it seems like $2 is about right, especially with a Game Day promo still to come. It’s not going to be Fatal Push, but it promises to be a very commonly played card while it’s legal, and I wouldn’t be too shocked if it crept up to $3 by New Year’s.

Kari Zev, Skyship Raider is fifty cents and seeing play as a two or three-of, though the red decks are favoring haste. With a Pirate set coming up, she seems like a real sleeper and a low cost to get in on.

Imminent Doom on a deck tech! The pilot, Valentin Mackl, was 0-5 when the deck tech went up, which just seems cruel. It’s an intriguing card, but I want to see someone do well with it. Streamers are likely going to try to make it good, and that bump is unlikely to hold. I would not be buying this card, even though it’s only a quarter and it’s open-ended and oh god I’m talking myself into it. It’s just so much work! See if you can get it at six for a dollar, as bulk mythics are just long-term holds.

Kozilek’s Return is very well placed right now, being able to be cast after your opponent has played their hasty creature, and at only $5, it’s intriguing. It’s rotating out in three months, though some of these on-camera blowouts could make it rise up some. I think this would be the third spike for the card, which might be a record.

Hazoret the Fervent is looking good on camera too, and it is being played in high numbers in the most popular deck. This could be the biggest gainer on the weekend. I wouldn’t be shocked if it hit $10 or $15 by Monday, and if the deck does well, $20 or more is in play. 

Hour of Devastation wasn’t featured early but has been popping up in the featured matches and has sometimes been great and sometimes been depressingly weak. There’s a lot of camera time left to go, but I’m content to hold at $8 currently. I’m hoping for a deck with the full set to do well, though leaving behind Vehicles is a real drawback in some matchups.

Hour of Promise is the backbone of the ramp decks, and at only $2, it’s doing a lot of work. First one gets your Deserts, the second one gets some Shrine of the Forsaken Gods and now you’re in Ulamog territory. World Breaker is going to hit $5 by the end of the weekend, but again, it’s about to rotate out and you’d have to turn that card around fast.

It’s worth noting that Ramunap Ruins, a four-of in the most popular deck, can be had dirt cheap. Playsets can be had on eBay and TCG for a buck, and if you like a cheap spec, there it is. It’s lightly in the ramp decks too, but if the red decks keep getting there, this might be another premium uncommon out of the set.

Zombies is the #2 deck by numbers, and while I can’t recommend Dark Salvation at $2, I do like Liliana’s Mastery at under $2 and Ammit Eternal at about $2. The Ammit is just so undercosted! The undead are really performing well when shown on camera, and while the deck loses at lot at rotation, being a top-tier deck for three months is going to cause some rising prices.

Just enough Rhonas the Indomitable in assorted decks to keep the price high, but not more than a two-of, so I think that price will stay under $20.

Looking at decklists, there’s more than a few running a couple of Blossoming Defense, and considering the upside in Infect decks, I’m interested if I can get copies in the seventy-five cents range. TCG doesn’t have many in that price range, but you can find a few on eBay. Jensen’s Electrostatic Pummeler deck is a blast to watch, and a bold choice with so much Abrade in the room.

Finally, I want to point out a couple of cards that I haven’t seen in lists yet, or on camera, that deserve some thought.

Hour of Revelation needs some attention. Vehicles and Planeswalkers are common, and this just gets rid of all your problems, unless that counts creaturelands. The prevalence of haste threats makes this card less appealing, but I would love to have a couple copies in the sideboard. Getting in at $1.50 is interesting, as it’ll take just one good result on camera to double or more.

Another sweeper that isn’t seeing play is Yahenni’s Expertise. This card hasn’t had a chance to shine yet, and not answering Glorybringer is a real drawback, but it will decimate a lot of decks on turn four. It’s around a dollar right now, and it would have to see widespread inclusion for it to climb to $3-$4 and hold that price. It’s a small-set rare, but it was the foil Game Day card, so there’s a few extras out there.

Cliff has been playing Magic since the halcyon days of Revised and the packs with Islands as rares. His glory right now is Cubing, but the love of his life, format-wise, will always be MoJoSto over on Magic Online. Find his articles every Friday here on MTGPrice, or on Twitter @WordOfCommander.

Casual Fridays

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Week One of HOU

We’ve had one weekend of Hour of Devastation being legal for Standard, and there are some cards at surprising prices. I want to go over a few with you today and see what these trajectories tell us.

Something to note that’s a bit different about this set, as opposed to most other sets that have come out in the past few years: This set was regarded to be a little clunky when it was first revealed to the world, a bit underpowered as compared to what was already legal for us to play in Standard.

This led to some impressively low pre-order prices, and starting out that low has put more cards than usual on an upward trajectory.

On to the biggest gainer of the set so far, a card no one predicted would be selling for $4-$5 on eBay a week after release…

Fraying Sanity (up to $5 now, from a low of about $1 in prerelease season): So far, I’m super wrong about this card. People can’t get enough of it right now! It’s astounding, even though I know full well how popular mill cards are with the casual set. Yes, it’s an auto-win with Traumatize.  I was heavily dismissive of the card, I sold one for fifty cents on Cardsphere on prerelease weekend, and I told you to dump it at $2 a week ago after it had gone up from $1.

I cannot find records of a mill deck getting there in an event or even on a stream so far. I can see no shortage of people posting decks that might be good with it, and Startled Awake is riding a big bump because people want to mill 26 cards, but the card hasn’t gotten there yet. This level of interest is pretty unique, and I don’t know who is buying this at $4. Every other card with a similar focus got cheap and stayed there for a while, though I honestly don’t recall how cheap Glimpse the Unthinkable got to. It was 2005, so it couldn’t have been too pricey?

There are going to be lots and lots and lots of this card out there. It’s not going to keep this price. I reserve the right to be shocked, but buylists are taking this at $3 right now and I don’t even know what to say.

Are we witnessing mass speculation at work? Are we seeing what happens when literally every FNM player decides to play the same wonky deck? I don’t know. I was comfortable getting my fifty cents, and I’d be comfortable getting $3 on a buylist right now.

Champion of Wits (up to $3 from about $0.75): This is what an on-camera spike looks like. The card fits very well into Emerge, and is showing a healthy bump due to helping two different players make the top 8 last weekend. So far it’s only shown up in this one style of deck, but it might keep this price. If there’s anything going on with graveyards in the next couple sets, this could spike again, though likely not above $5 or $6, even in a year.

Crested Sunmare (now at $5, up from $3.50): Yes, it’s fun to do silly things with this card, and there will always be people trying to make something like this work, but I’m going to blame this bump on the streaming effect and move on.

Solemnity (Still about $5): I’m actually very impressed at the price stability of this card. We haven’t had a Modern event where it makes waves yet, but it’s another combo piece that’s hard to deal with. The preorder price has proven sticky, and that’s a relatively rare feat.

Hour of Devastation (up to $8.50 now): I think that not only does this keep Crested Sunmare decks in check, it’s going to define the Standard format quite well. There are very few decks that can take this hit and act like nothing happened, though Vehicles are the card type that can keep on chugging. I still like this to be a $10 card at the release of Ixalan, and tick up from there.

Finally, I want to call your attention to the uncommons that are making a financial splash and are worth snagging for the next few weeks at low prices or from draft chaff.

Supreme Will ($1): UR Control is going to be a good deck for a while, and this is exactly the sort of card that a permission deck loves to have. Normally, if someone leaves up three mana, you’re careful to play around this (or Metallic Rebuke or Cancel) but if you don’t make a play, their counter is now a card selection spell, getting what they need most out of the top four.

Abrade ($1.50): Flexibility is always something a card benefits from, and the heavy foil multiplier on this card indicates that it’s got some legs in the casual community. It was in a lot of the best-performing decks this past weekend, and while it’s going to be the participation promo for Game Day on the first weekend of August, I like this to be one of the most played cards from the set while it’s Standard legal. (Kaladesh and its Vehicles will rotate out along with Hour of Devastation in September 2018.)

Claim // Fame ($2): This is the one that I’m a little less enthused by. Yes, it’s amazing next to Snapcaster Mage, and Death’s Shadow, and on and on, but it’s not going to be a four-of. I’d be surprised if it was more popular than Kolaghan’s Command, a card with even more flexibility. I want to let this one cool off a little bit, let the foils get to the $7 range. Right now people are too eager and that doesn’t appeal to me.

Cliff has been writing about Magic in some format or another for six years now, a terrifying length of time. He has two kids, a full-time job, and an endless sense of humor about the fact that these pieces of cardboard keep being worth money! His goal is always to buy low and sell high, and is an avid user of Cardsphere. Follow him on Twitter @wordofcommander or tune in every Friday here on MTGPrice.

Casual Fridays

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Price Movement on HOU

6 Comments

Hello and welcome to the new world of super-cheap cards that aren’t worth the cost of packs or boxes!

Well, that was at the beginning of this week, anyway. Not a lot has changed, either, but there are some cards that have changed price in surprising ways over the past few days, and I want to look at what’s happening.

A note: I’m not always sure why a card is moving, as we don’t have any tournament data to look at yet. We have a very small amount of 5-0 results from Magic Online, but the saga of Wizards and data suppression is its own lengthy article.

Still, price movements online and in paper can tell us some things, and I always like a clue on the first weekend.

The Scarab God ($15 now, up from $9 this week): Can we take a minute and reflect on how silly it is that no one bothered to give these Gods names? Is that part of the appeal or something? A testament to the power of the Moriarty-Dragon? It’s irksome to me, but I’m old and a curmudgeon.

The card has crept up about 50% this week probably because it’s a brutal EDH card and it doesn’t take much to have this be a game-defining effect. The ‘each opponent’ clause is pretty darn fantastic, and having a relevant graveyard ability is important in Commander as well. I think this price bump is not here to stay, as people will get their copies and the price will trickle back downwards.

Neheb, the Eternal ($4.50 now, was $2.50 this week): I cannot imagine a world where people are playing this over Glorybringer in Standard. Same mana cost, but one is far more impactful immediately than the other. I suspect this bump is due to the casual market as well, I’ve seen people trading for it at this price, and I’m staying away. Show me the combo in Standard, I know it’s capable of dumb things in Commander.

Razaketh, the Foulblooded ($6 now, was $10 a week ago): First off, the foil multiplier is nearing four on this card, so you can imagine it’s tearing up Commander games. I haven’t seen it in action myself, but it seems pretty degenerate and worst of all, it’s lots of tutoring and can be done at instant speed. I was really in on Griselbrand when it was printed, and that banning took a whole cycle to happen. If Razaketh survives the first banlist update from the EDH Rules Committee, then I’ll be listening, but for now, I’m staying away.

I don’t want to hear about reanimator decks playing this in Modern or Legacy either. The requirement of an additional creature just costs too much when you’re playing this on turn one. Griselbrand gets your seven back immediately.

Bontu’s Last Reckoning ($4.50 now, was $3 last week): Is this worth it? There is not a comparable card to look at, oddly, but I’m cautious. I suspect this is going to be a card that gets more play than we are first expecting…for the first couple of weeks. People are testing this card, and the price is going up. Usually that means it’s going to get played this first weekend, so I’ll be keeping track of events to see if it’s pulling its weight.

Fraying Sanity ($2 now, was less than a buck a week ago): You’ve heard it from a million writers: casual players love their mill cards. The list is long yet not consistent, though. Sure, Consuming Aberration is $2, but Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker is still $1. I would be dumping Fraying Sanity at $2 right now, in trade or in what you can get in cash.

That’s my plan for right now. I’m expecting this card to drop like a rock, it ought to be fifty cents or less in a month. I don’t think the foils will ever drop below $5, though, and that’s where I would prefer to be. I get it that the effects stack, and the second is quad damage…but I can’t deny this:

Sometime in the next 18 months (this set rotates out in September 2018) there will be a mill deck featured someplace and this card will spike. I would plan on selling into that hype.

Hour of Devastation ($8 now, was $3 a week ago): This is the card that I first thought of. We already have some pretty good UR decks, and now those decks get a sweeper that can even deal with planeswalkers! This is going to make a big impact early and alongside Abrade, makes UR able to deal with the vehicle/walker cards that are usually so resilient to wrath effects.

I think this isn’t done going up. It’s going to break $10, and might even get close to $15 in the early hype. It won’t stay there, as this is too mana-intensive to be a four-of in the decks that want it, I’m expecting it to be a defining card of the format for some time, though. I’ll say that this stabilizes at a solid $10.

Ramunap Excavator (Now $7, was $4): Being the release weekend promo means that there will be more foil copies out there, but this card is just amazing in a format with fetchlands. I’m not sold that it’s Legacy-worthy, but I can see the appeal. Playing this alongside Wasteland is a repeated kick in the teeth. Yes, it’s amazing with Glacial Chasm too.

The thing is, though, I have a hard time believing that all the cards in this set are super-low-priced. Most cards are trending down, as they should, but it’s clear that the Excavator is getting enough value to invite purchases. I just can’t justify buying a promo rare at this price. I would be shocked if it bumped to $10, because it would have to start trending down from there.

The counterpoint is Sylvan Caryatid, a card which had a high points above $15 and is still $2. If the Excavator has legs in the eternal formats, that’s a possible price.  We will have to wait and see what the early adopters do. I won’t be shocked if it’s showing up in the eternal formats, and I won’t be shocked if it sees no play.

Cliff is an avid Cuber and Draft enthusiast. He believes in keeping one, maybe two playmats max and tends to enjoy the side events more than the main attraction at a GP. Ever since getting his first Revised packs in 1994, he’s sold cards for a new transmission, a sweet bed, and even the security deposit when moving into a new place. Find him on Twitter @wordofcommander or Fridays here at MTGPrice.

Casual Fridays

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: How I’m using CardSphere

1 Comment

Here we go, prerelease weekend! I’m planning on attending a midnight prerelease, because I am indeed crazy like that. I hope yours goes amazingly, you open well and play better, and that you trade everything away as fast as you can this weekend.

That’s basic advice that I give every time a new set comes around, and it remains true. Some of the Hour of Devastation cards are going to spike, eventually, but I am bad at that guessing game.

I know prices are at their max for most of these cards, and they are going to fall. I’m looking to out them pronto.

Which leads me nicely into today’s topic: Cardsphere, and why you should be using it too.

Full Disclaimer: I am not an employee of CS. I am going to give my experiences and my viewpoint. I have bought value on this site, I have sent and received cards. I’ve been a user for about six weeks. I advocated for Pucatrade, and I’m advocating here too. Your experience may be different than mine, and I hope you have as good an experience as I have had.

Now, I want to refer you to an interview that MTG Fast Finance did with the founders of Cardsphere a while back, but that was before it went into public launch. The interview is worth a listen, for the philosophy and the backstory, but let’s get to how you should use it and what is happening there.

If you’ve used Pucatrade at all in the past couple of years, the idea is the same: It’s a trading environment. You send off your cards for currency, and you can get cards for that currency. The primary difference is that the currency in CS is straight cash, US dollars. You can get your dollars out of their system and into your account, for a fee.

Otherwise, it’s a similar economic system. Because it’s in real dollars, the offers tend to be adjusted downwards, where they were going up and up and up in Pucatrade, since that was in a currency locked into their system. It’s an interesting flip: On Puca, the question was ‘How many extra points do I need to offer for someone to send me this card?’ On CS, it’s ‘How low can I go with my offer and still get the card I want?’

Philosophically, the experience with CS is that you’ll have to decide how far off of retail you can go. You’re setting your own wants, and how much extra you’ll give/take away. Then, when sending cards, you decide how much you want to get.

Right now, here’s what is happening. Granted, this is only my experience. I’m not trying to trade up for things (yet) but I have been getting cards for my uncommons Cube, building a Standard deck, and building a new Commander deck.

The experience has been amazing.

I am someone who did very well off of Puca in the salad days. I bought low, sold high, accumulated points. I got SDCC walkers, I got a Gaea’s Cradle, and a judge foil Sol Ring. Future Site hit, and the values tanked. Inflation is going mad there. I’ve gotten myself down to 92 points there, and while I’m monitoring the site and the subreddit to stay informed, I’m no longer putting cards or a subscription into that economy.

I say this so you’ll get what I mean when I say that the CS experience is wonderful. I can’t keep credit for more than a day or two. I have had a range of wants filled, and while I haven’t chased any foils, or any high end cards, I’m having a steady churn and it’s fun. I’ve been asking for uncommons and commons at about +20%, to make it worth sending, and most of my wants for Commander are between 0% change and -20%. I got a Deadapult for +50%, because that’s a crap rare and I wanted to make someone feel good about sending it.

I am seeing that there are two categories of offers on CS: The full-value (or nearly) or higher, for people that want to get stuff right away, and there’s the lowballers, the ones who are literally offering buylist prices plus ten percent. I’m finding that the offers at 90%-110% get filled fast, and the 60% and less offers take a lot longer to be sent.

Which is fine and the freedom of the platform, quite frankly. I would surely have a standing order to buy foil Thought-Knot Seer at $15 if someone wanted to sell them at that price, and then that person pays for the shipping to send it to me? Done and done.

Cardsphere is also doing an excellent job with transparency and feedback. The founders and other admins are very active on Discord and Reddit, the home page shows exactly the userbase and flow of cards, the most wanted and most traded, plus weekly updates on how cards are being traded. Here’s an example post. (It’s Reddit, while this post is safe for work huge swaths of the site aren’t, be forewarned.)

This image shows the quartiles of the trades being made, by % of value, for the month of June. Someone listed a card that was a dollar or less and put it at 224%. Someone else sent a card at 21% of that value. Hopefully that was part of a package. Someone listed a $5-$10 card at 7% of its value…and someone else sent the card at that price.

Where I feel really great is that last column. Of the $25-$50 cards traded, there’s a real packing together. Nothing under 71%, nothing over 110%. Should I decide to go for higher-value cards, it’s nice to know they will be there.

Cardsphere is growing slowly but surely. They have increased membership by more than two thousand users since they went live on May 27 of this year. As I said before, I put in $40 at the beginning and it’s given me a bit better value than I would have gotten on eBay or TCG, but the ability to send out stuff and get stuff back…I’d forgotten how much fun it is. Go try it! Costs you nothing but a stamp.

I’m going to be sending out all I can of Hour of Devastation on Saturday afternoon. See you there!

Cliff is an avid believer in saving money for stuff that isn’t Magic, and his goal is to enjoy this hobby without paying cash for individual cards. Drafts and other events are fine, but buying singles stings. It’s just cardboard! Nothing has the EV of Cubing, though, so that’s a solace to his cold, Scroogelike heart. Find him on Twitter @wordofcommander and tell him about the three ghosts that will be visiting him.