Category Archives: Casual Fridays

Casual Fridays, Uncategorized

What does it mean?

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So in case you missed it, we are back to one rotation a year, and that rotation will be in the fall, just as it used to be. But what does it mean? What cards and strategies are impacted? Should I buy now? Should I hold?

Well, it’s actually not that earth-shattering an announcement, considering that the old model didn’t have very long to take root. I freely admit that I don’t play a lot of Standard, so this decision was likely a reflection of conversations with R&D, vendors, distributors, local stores, and of course players. I don’t feel the need to parse the words of the announcement, but I do respect that they are listening to concerns and acting when they can.

A longer rotation means, for us, a return to what many of us consider ‘normal’ cycles with regard to the prices of cards. I have been watching Gideon, Ally of Zendikar for some time, and considering that a bellwether for what good cards should be expected to do financially. In this case, and in a lot of cases, cards aren’t spiking due to Standard demand. Cards were setting a price early and trickling downward, at different rates depending on how much it’s played.

Before the change, there was a point about one year after release when some middling to great cards would spike nicely. My favorite example from recent times was Hero’s Downfall.

downfall

Mmmm. Pure, undiluted value. That spike at the rise of Mono-Black Devotion. One of the things I love doing is hunting for the value that will be, and lots of us write about it.

With the 18-month schedule, it’s very difficult for that spike to happen. Cards are going to rotate out so soon, there wasn’t much time to enjoy your deck, especially for cards released in the second set.

Let’s look at Kozilek’s Return.

return

The power of the card, the need for a four-of, and that it was a mythic in a small set, all contributed to the gain in value, but I don’t think it went as high as it could have, because people knew they were getting a card just for the next few months.

Now, if you pick up some Gideons or Returns, you’re going to be able to play them until next October, making it a lot more palatable to drop the money on a playset.

Gideon is one example, and Return seems likely to pick up a couple bucks, but those aren’t going to grow a lot. I also think that while Liliana, the Last Hope is really well positioned against the swarm of aggressive and tiny creatures in Standard, being at $45 doesn’t leave much area for growth.

Ob Nixilis, Reignited – $4.90 – I know he’s an easily available foil in the Duel Deck that dropped in September, but this is a very cheap price for a strong mythic planeswalker. He does everything a control deck wants, and at worst, he’ll replace himself immediately before getting answered. Being in the Duel Deck is going to seriously cap his value, but cheap planeswalkers are always a solid investment.

Quarantine Field – $1.13 – It’s a bad deal at four mana, but good at six and game-breaking at eight. A dollar mythic is always going to get my attention, though I think Fragmentize puts a top on how high this can go.

Goblin Dark-Dwellers – $1.17 – This was the buy-a-box promotional card so there’s more of them, but this is a card good enough to show up in Modern. I’m a big fan of cards with nowhere to go but up, and we just got a good lesson in how good replaying spells can be, thanks to Torrential Gearhulk. Having flash makes the Gearhulk better, but I like this at a buck.

Oath of Nissa – $2.50 – It’s a rare from a small set that gets played as a four-of. I like getting these and waiting for them to go up to the $4-$5 range.

Cryptolith Rite – $1.37 – Have we forgotten how good these swarm decks can be? This is a real enabler of a card that has good potential to spike.

Declaration in Stone – $5.39 – An excellent candidate to go up now that it’s legal for six more months. If Prized Amalgam decks go up as well, then this or Descend upon the Sinful will really spike.

Ishkanah, Grafwidow – $8.41 – This is a very powerful card, and mythics from this set stand to do very well with the extra time in Standard. I’d look for this to spike by $5 or more when it hits big.

Tamiyo, Field Researcher – $11.41 – There’s two other mythics from this set that are $20+ and all it’s going to take is one good set of results at an SCG open or a GP for this to spike. The supply is rather low (remember, this lost time being drafted due to Conspiracy: Take the Crown) and this could easily be the third card to hit that price.

Casual Fridays

Don’t Chase Trends This Weekend!

So I’m going to be the contarian voice with the Pro Tour in Hawaii: I don’t think there is a lot of money to be made by trying to stay ahead of the spikes and chasing the new hot tech.

Actually, let me rephrase that: I don’t think there’s a lot of extra money to be made this weekend.

The Pro Tour this weekend is going to showcase the best of the best playing for a lot of money. Teams of professional players have been huddling and practicing for some time, getting ready, debating pick orders, choosing sideboards, etc.

We will get to watch them, and we will see immediate effects on prices. The important thing to note, though, is that value is only to be gained in one of two ways:

  1. Selling at a price before the price drops lower.
  2. Buying at a price before the price increases.

So if you’ve got TCG loaded and you’re ready to buy at a moment’s notice, I want you to stop for a second. How many are you going to buy? And how many are you going to sell?

Chances are, unless you manage a storefront, you’re not going to buy too much. The question also begs, why are you buying? If you’re trying to acquire a supply of a card (let’s use Fumigate as an example) in order to sell it at a higher price, are you ready for the associated fees and shipping and the time problems?

At this point I want to refer you to Travis’s awesome piece from more than two years ago, and it still holds very true: “My Spec Quadrupled But I Only Made 75 Cents Each” because he does an excellent job detailing the problems of cashing in when you hit it big.

Travis doesn’t bring up PucaTrade, which gives you an approximation of retail value, but in real terms, you’re going to have a very hard time making big money on stuff you buy, especially if you’re buying a lot of something. PucaTrade allows you to send out things before they crash, but it’s not an exchange built for speed.

Now, I’m not all doom and gloom. Being quick to act means you can get things cheap that you’re going to play with, and that is something I’m all for. It is a really terrible feeling, being keenly aware that this $10 card was just $5 a couple of days ago. That’s real money because it’s saved. We also have the officially-named ‘fear of missing out’ which means that we are anxious about not being aware of an opportunity, of not getting in quick enough.

So for example, if a White-Blue control deck goes on camera and wipes the floor with a Smuggler’s Copter deck, and the WU player has 4x Fumigate, then lots of people are going to play follow the leader and pick up a set of Fumigate, which will climb the price. Let’s say it doubles and hits $5.

Being early to act can be worth the $10 you just saved on a playset of Fumigate. Good job!

What I do not want you to do is be the person who is buying Fumigate during the spike at $4 or so. It’s not topped out, but it’s slowing and you want to get your set before it hits a higher price. In this case, I’m going to tell you to calm down. Almost all of the cards that spike during the Pro Tour will travel back down. Cards have to see a lot of play, too.

Think Kozilek’s Return. That’s kept a price. But so many other cards don’t keep the heights they hit, and go right back to a good level, especially the brand-new cards from the set that’s still being opened. For instance, the darling of PT Eldritch Moon was Emrakul, the Promised End.
emrakul

See that graph? It sure did spike in price for a couple of days…and then went back as more were opened. This is not a trend you want to be chasing.

It’s not impossible for you to make money this weekend. You will most likely gain value this weekend if you move fast on the cards that see a lot of play, but gaining value is not the hard part. The hard part is trying to make money off the continued climb. As Travis pointed out, you’re buying at a low retail price, but you’re probably not going to sell at a retail price.

So my advice to you this weekend is to sit back and watch. Don’t feel like you’re going to miss out. You can list those few cards on eBay. Avoid the fees, trade it away. Try to relax and enjoy the top 8 in Hawaii!

I don’t think you can gain enough value from high-speed trades and resales to make it worth your time. This puts me at odds with a lot of others, but it’s how I feel and I want you to take a deep breath and just enjoy the best in the world play this awesome game.

Casual Fridays

Go! Get (out of) The Copter!

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I don’t care if you’re tired of Smuggler’s Copter jokes. It needs to be done and I have to give a terrible apology if you hear the title in an Ahnuld accent.

So we missed the boat on the Copter. It’s $18 for an in-print Standard rare at week one, and while I know that the price is going to go down, how far can it go?

The answer is, pretty far. I want to examine some rares, not mythics, to see how far we can expect the Copter to fall.

Let’s start with Shadows over Innistrad, and look for commonly played rares. We aren’t going to look at Eldritch Moon, since that’s a small set and I want to compare apples to apples.

titi

One of the first rares to burst onto the scene, and one whose preorder price kept climbing upward, was Thing in the Ice. Since this has come out, it’s seen some play but not a lot, rarely being the centerpiece of a deck.

Yes, it was above $15 at one point at the beginning! The lack of play lowered the price, and then there was a time not too long ago where Blue-Red Thermo-Thing was popular, and that is why the buylist price bumped up a little.

But yikes. Fifteen bucks down to five, that’s a big loss…though the card isn’t terribly popular.

Let’s look at something that often got played alongside Copter: Declaration in Stone.

declaration

Two mana, exile a creature, and there are drawbacks in the form of Clues. Cheap, efficient, and powerful, and played a lot, though not as much as the Copter.

Even so, it’s gone from a high of $17 down to its current plateau of $4. It’s got Kaladesh and three more sets before it’s out of Standard, so there’s room for it to fall more or perhaps to creep upward. As a rare, there are a whole ton of these out there and that’s why the price has fallen has far as this. Removal this good should hold a price, and it’s actually not the usual thing for a rare to hold a price above that of a booster pack.

Shadows over Innistrad has three: Thing in the Ice, Declaration in Stone, and Tireless Tracker.

Maybe what we should also do is look at Battle for Zendikar, because that has Expeditions to goose people to buy more packs. The data doesn’t lie, either: it’s very difficult for rares to keep value. From Battle for Zendikar, the only rares over $3 are lands: Cinder Glade, Prairie Stream, and Shambling Vent.

My point is that the price on the Copter, and a lot of other rares, are about to start dropping as Kaladesh gets opened in earnest. There’s a big Limited Grand Prix this weekend, and that’s going to be a huge injection of supply into the market.

If you’re hellbent on playing Standard this weekend or next, you can go ahead and buy your playset for $70 or so, and play it for quite a while. It’s possible–possible!–that the Pro Tour next weekend spikes it even farther, but I can’t even remember the last $20 rare we had in Standard.

It’s going to be fascinating to watch.

Think of it like Aether Hub. Sure, it’s a four-of all over the place, and it’s a good card, but people, it is an uncommon. An in-print uncommon has an eBay price of $9-$10 a playset!

This first weekend of prices is crazy. The play is heavily to sell. SELL. You can buylist the Copter, a rare, for $9. You can get $10 for Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, and that’s a four-of mythic.

I’m trying very hard to bring up all the evidence that I can to convince you that if you’re buying a Copter right now, it’s to play it for the next 18 months. Please don’t buy it now, hoping it goes up more. Don’t chase the tail end of this. Wait. Be patient. The prices will drop, and you’ll lose money if you buy now and hope to sell the Saturday of the PT.

Casual Fridays, Uncategorized

Expeditions Begetting Inventions

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So I have to say that the Invention series is gorgeous. I am entranced by all of them and I want to pick up all of them. Mostly. I don’t have a use for the mana accelerants, but they are all beautiful and shiny and really appeal to the showing-off aspect of playing Commander.

I have many direct wants for different decks when it comes to Inventions, and I know that right now is not the time for buying Inventions. Supply is too low, demand is sky-high. They are getting opened in droves, which means volatility in prices.

What I want to do today is look back at the Expeditions and see if there are price trends that I should be paying attention to. I wrote a year ago about what to do if you opened an Expedition, and while the principles still apply, I want to focus on the Expeditions and how they relate to what I think will happen in the end with Inventions.

Let’s look at one of the high-end Expeditions: Scalding Tarn.

tarn

So it started CRAZY high, at $450 when this was first introduced, but it swung down to nearly $200 and then back over three, which is about where it’s settled in now.

This graph makes a lot of sense. We didn’t know how many of these there would be, and we didn’t know what the pricing would be. As the numbers came out (more copies than expected) the price dropped, but recovered well. Most importantly, it’s been relatively stable for this year, and that’s what I want to know.

How about a mid-level Expedition? Here’s Steam Vents:

vents

This is an interesting graph as well. We have the same fluctuation at first, but there is a distinct downward trend. It’s a slow trend, but it’s there, with the drop in buylist pricing is there in July for almost all of the Expeditions, even if the price is creeping upwards.

How about the low-end ones? Cinder Glade:

glade

These are also trending slowly downwards, and that’s important to note with the Gearhulks and whatever the newer Inventions will be. When Aether Revolt lands, I will look at those Inventions alongside the Oath of the Gatewatch Expeditions.

So in general, these have trended downwards slightly. That’s super important to keep in mind going forward, indicating that patience is my keyword when it comes to the Inventions I want.

It’s not universal, though. For one, Overgrown Tomb has gone up, perhaps matching the recent rise of Abzan decks in Modern. Not every Expedition has followed the same track, and it’s worth noting that there were no first-time foils in the Expeditions, where we have our first foil Mana Vault.

Other writers have noted that the presence of Inventions will lower the price of every other card in the set, and that looks true for Battle of Zendikar. Prices for that set are extremely low, even considering that the set only has six months to rotation. In general, I expect all prices to drop over time, but what I want to know, and what only time will tell me, is how patience will pay off for the Inventions as well as the Expeditions.

Full disclosure: I’ve put a couple of Inventions on my Puca want list, with a bonus of 15%, and I am confident that I’m going to get at least one of the ones I want. I know that a lot of people are down on PucaTrade at this point, so I want to be clear that I still have points and I still have faith.