Category Archives: Corbin Hosler

Corbin Hosler, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Modern Masters 2015 Early Movements

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We’re just a week away now from Grand Prix Vegas and the Modern Masters 2015 onslaught that comes with it. I know I’m looking forward to it, and I’m not alone. We have a house rented in the city, and I’m looking forward to meeting both old friends and new ones while enjoying a great week in Vegas.

Of course, there’s another reason we’re there, one that isn’t a party. That would be Modern Masters 2015, and it’s looking to be a vitally important weekend financially. Much has been said already about the expected value of the set: complaints about it not being high enough or about it being too unevenly distributed. All may have some merit, but they’re also irrelevant at this point. As someone approaching this from a MTG finance angle, your goal should not be to discuss what should have been, but rather what is. And what “is,” means a set with some value at the top end and a pretty drastic dropoff after that.

 

Where Will Prices Go?

The million (or something) dollar question. I’ve been aksed this more times than I can count over the past month, and I’ve given a pretty consistent answer to it: I don’t know.

I realize as an “expert” in this field that’s not the answer people want to hear, but it’s being honest. When there’s no real precedent for this set given the much-smaller print run of the original Modern Masters, it would be incredibly disingenuous of me to tell you a month ago what Tarmogoyf will cost in six months. I don’t have any information to form an educated opinion, and I would rather say nothing at all than provide misinformation based on nothing but me wanting to hear myself talk about it.

My stance from the start was that we needed some empirical data before we could draw any conclusions, and that meant waiting, no matter how unfun that was.

Well, we’re finally starting to see some data, and so I think it’s time to begin analyzing it.

The Numbers

There’s this misconception that the first Modern Masters didn’t lower prices, or actually raised them, because, “Tarmogoyf, Cryptic Command, and Vendilion Clique!”

While didn’t-lower-prices complaint did hold true for those few cards, it’s far from true across the board.

Stonehewer Giant

Stonehewer Giant is just now starting to recover from Modern Masters, and it’s not the only card in this boat. So, before I go any further, let’s be clear about that. The vast majority of cards in Modern Masters 2015 are going to get rekt (I use words like that to sound cool. Bad idea? Okay, no more).

That’s not to say every casual or EDH card in the new set is going to tank and never recover. Doubling Season, for instance, has recovered very well from its printing in Modern Masters. But Modern Masters 2015 is going to depress them for a long time to come. That means something like Tezzeret the Seeker or—perhaps the best example—Creakwood Liege is going to tank and take a long time to recover.

Creakwood Liege

I expect Liege to tank down to  below $5 and sit there for a few years to come. This is all something we can determine just from comparing to the first set, and with the larger print run of Modern Masters 2015, this effect is going to be even more pronounced.

So that handles what will happen to the low-end, and that’s information we have access to and can easily extrapolate from. But it’s the high-end that everyone wants to know about, and it’s the high-end we’re just now beginning to see some data for.

The ‘Goyf Level

Tarmogoyf 2

Take a look at that Tarmogoyf chart. We’re seeing it predictably slide down. Compare to this chart from the Future Sight Tarmogoyf when the original Modern Masters came out on June 7, 2013.

Tarmogoyf 1

You can see there that the original Tarmogoyf not only didn’t drop, it actually rose in between the announcement of the set and its release. Viewed in that lens—a price increase despite a reprint incoming—it’s really not surprising that ‘Goyf spiked after the first GP Vegas.

Magic was growing very quickly around that time, and that growth makes sense. While Magic isn’t shrinking in 2015, it’s not experiencing the growth that it was then, either. Throw in a larger print run and the fact we’re seeing a price drop this time around, it makes a lot more sense for Tarmogoyf to fall lower in the coming months.

How low? I think that’s still to be determined, and what we see the price of the newest printing do in the next month is going to determine it. While I do expect a drop, I’m not quite sure I expect $100 ‘Goyfs, and I have a few reasons why.

The first is the recent news that there won’t be a second print run of Modern Masters 2015. Wizards got a lot of heat over the print run of the first Modern Masters not being large enough since it didn’t drop prices as much as people would have hoped, but people have to remember WOTC’s goals here.

The goal isn’t necessarily to make Tarmogoyf a $20 card, or even a $50 card—it’s to make it more available. While it’s easy to conflate availability with price, it’s not the same. Yes, there may be enough demand that Tarmogoyf stays around $200, but there’s also the chance that a player might pull one from a booster pack. The median price on TCGPlayer may not move much, but that possibility counts for quite a bit.

People are going to always spend money on some sort of Magic product, and over the next few months that money will be on Modern Masters 2015. The whole, “You know what goes good with a Tarmogoyf? Three more!” makes sense, of course, but it’s always used to explain why the prices are still unreasonable. But looking at it in the context of completing a playset, someone spending their typical monthly “budget” of Magic money won’t be spending much more than they usually would, but when they open a Tarmogoyf the cost of completing a playset is no longer $800, it’s now $600. That chance of opening a ‘Goyf is something that wasn’t available to players before, even if the prices are the same.

That’s the difference between “availability” and price, and the goal of Modern Masters 2015 is to make Modern more available, not necessarily cheaper, even though there is obviously plenty of overlap.

So when we talk about the lack of a second print run, it means this opportunity is going to be available for a shorter window of time for most players, and there won’t be enough time for supply to really flood the market. That’s a recipe for some short-term price dips but long-term stagnation or even growth, especially combined with this second factor.

That factor is the apparent lack of movement from some of the cards. Sure, we’re seeing some drops from the original printings as we expected, but the versions in Modern Masters 2015 aren’t starting anywhere near as low as we may have guessed. Fulminator Mage, for instance, has always felt odd as a $30 card, and it made a lot of sense when the new version opened at $20 in preorders.

But it didn’t stay there. Those cheap copies went fast, and the next wave of preorders came at $30. It’s settled around $25, lower than the original printing but not anywhere near as low as we might have expected. This is a trend spotted in several places in the new set. Of course, this price will likely continue to dip once copies actually hit the market, but given the single print run, this dip may not be as much as expected.

Conclusions

I was reticent to offer opinions before we had any data, but now that we do, I’m starting to form some suspicions about where we’re headed.

To summarize:

  • Low-end cards, commons/uncommons, and casual-demand cards like Creakwood Liege are going to tank, and they’re going to stay tanked for at least 12 to 18 months.
  • High-end rares like Noble Hierarch and Cryptic Command will end up being down 25 to 40 percent. This means $30 to $35 Noble Hierarchs and $35 to $40 Cryptic Commands. This is, of course, still just educated guesswork on my part, but it’s a start to some theories that will be refined in the coming weeks.
  • The mythics will drop, yes, but not drastically. The most frequently played Modern ones like Tarmogoyf and Clique will hold up best, but as a whole, we’re looking at just 15- to 25-percent drops here. This will make these cards more affordable, but I really wouldn’t be surprised to look back at this set when Modern Masters 2017 comes out and see the prices right back where they started.

Thanks for reading,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter

Corbin Hosler, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: The Next Level of Modern

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Inkmoth Nexus was the first domino to fall.

And, to be honest, it’s not much of a surprise, is it? Mox Opal is reprinted and Inkmoth Nexus is not, that means it should go up, right? Of course. That’s the easy call, and as we know by how quickly this thing disappeared, there’s no money there.

But there is money to made with the knowledge we gained from Modern Masters 2015, and that’s what I’m here to discuss today.

Our experienced staff of writers has done an excellent job breaking down what’s in the set and how they expect the prices on the cards in the set to react over the next few weeks and months. I won’t say much more on this except to expect drops. The whole “But the original Modern Masters increased prices!” line is old at this point, and, more importantly, inaccurate. Yes, a very select few cards rebounded, but the vast majority were either significantly depressed or absolutely crushed of all hope to rebound any time soon (RIP Stonehewer Giant).

The First Wave

As I alluded to above, the first wave is easy to tell. Basically everyone can figure it out, and sometimes those people even go and buy out Inkmoth Nexus. There’s nothing wrong with spotting this low-hanging fruit, of course, and I’d expect nothing less given how savvy the finance community has become over the last few years.

But the way I see it? Let others take this Level One approach. If you’re in early, then great. But if not? Let others chase, and move onto Level Two.

Once the low-hanging fruit is picked, it takes a little more work to find the good targets. And they’re going to, by and large, take a while to pay off. After all, if there was easy short-term money to be made on them, they would be Inkmoth Nexus and already be bought out.

When it comes to finding targets for something like this, the beauty is in how stunningly simple-sounding it is, as well as how much more difficult it is to actually pull off. Everything I’m going to present to you today can be found by anyone willing to put in the work. As the detractors of “MTG finance” like to claim, it’s not like we’re conducting rocket science here. And we’re not. But sometimes finding opportunity does take some legwork, and that’s not something everyone is either able or willing to do. And even if you have put in the work, you also have to know what you’re looking at, and nothing substitutes for experience in that regard. This list is by no means exhaustive considering just how many cards there are that see some amount of play in Modern, but this is wheat I’m working with over the next few months.

Anyway, let’s dig in.

Affinity

The plan today is to look at decks that will see a surge in play thanks to key reprints in Modern Masters 2015, and then evaluate how that could affect the market.

Mox Opal

Nothing rests higher in that list than Affinity, and it gives us a ton to work with. Robots are notoriously easy to pick up and difficult to master, and with the only truly outrageous card being Mox Opal, there’s every reason to believe we’re going to see a lot of new players picking this up. After all, Affinity has the ability to win plenty of games out of nowhere, even if you’re still new and not good enough to squeeze every percentage point out of the deck like some of the masters.

So, looking at the deck itself, we see a ton of stuff that’s being reprinted. Mox Opal, Etched Champion, Cranial Plating, Darksteel Citadel and even Thoughtcast are all being reprinted, so basically half an Affinity deck is being handed to players in Draft.

A few key cards are left off, though. Arcbound Ravager is already $20, but I have no doubts this could be $30 in three months. It’s already showing growth and is an auto four-of in any build of the deck. Glimmervoid also likely has some upside at $10.

Looking at a few more niche cards from the deck, Steel Overseer could have a little upside at $7 and Master of Etherium could also see movement. Neither are exactly cheap buy-ins, but I expect them to see incremental growth this year.

Next up is a card that has seen a lot more than incremental growth: Creeping Corrosion. The green Shatterstorm, we’re seeing great movement on this recent bulk rare. You can still get these for basically free at your LGS, and they’re easy to pull out of any random pile of rares. But this has $3-4 written all over it, which is great considering your buy-in is going to be under a dollar.

Creeping Corrosion

With Smash to Smithereens reprinted, the next sideboard card that could see some movement is Shattering Spree. A lot less appealing than Creeping Corrosion due to the $5 buy-in, this nonetheless stands to see some gains.

Burn

Nothing huge included in Modern Masters 2015, though we do get Lightning Bolt at uncommon. Goblin Guide is a huge hole, but I’m not sure how much upside there really is considering that Burn has been the best it’s ever been the last few months and already taken cards like Searing Blaze on a ride up.

That said, Goblin Guide has been moving, and is up to $22. This is one of those Level One cards I was talking about, and I’m not sure how much this is chasing at this point. Could it be $30 soon? Sure, but when you’re buying in at $20+ it may be better to park your money in other options.

Molten Rain is an interesting option, and could be a $4-5 common in six months. On the other hand, it could also fall out of favor and languish at $2. Considering its recent stagnation I think it may be too late on this one, though you should certainly keep an eye on for this one laying around.

Infect

Noble Hierarch makes this instantly more available to play, and several other Phyrexian Mana spells being included makes it that much easier to put together. As we already know, Inkmoth Nexus gained big, Spellskite is being reprinted and Might of Old Krosa continues its crazy run from bulk three years ago to $7 today.

Is it worth buying into at that price? While it’s likely to continue climbing for awhile still, I’d rather sink my money into other pieces of the deck.

Two of them in particular, that is: Glistener Elf and Blighted Agent.

If you haven’t seen Glistener Elf as a money card yet, I hope you’re ready to change your mind. It’s well on its way up, and has doubled since 2015 began. Yes, we’re only talking about going from a quarter to 60 cents, but this is exactly where Serum Visions began. Where Gitaxian Probe was a year ago. Where Might of Old Krosa once was.

Glistener Elf

Glistener Elf will be our next $3-4 common, and Blighted Agent will trail a little behind. The promo version of Glistener Elf is likely the best buy at $3-4 given how very few there are in stock on TCGPlayer, and this could easily be $10 this summer.

The last piece is Wild Defiance, which has already seen astronomical growth. I don’t mind picking these up at $3, though I suspect it won’t go much higher than $5-6.

Elves

This doesn’t benefit so much from Modern Masters 2015 as it does from Collected Company. That said, we’re seeing the little green men popping their heads up all over Modern, even if it’s flown under the radar a little.

We actually saw large parts of this deck reprinted in Commander 2014, which limits the upside on some pieces like Joraga Warcaller (which despite multiple printings probably is still a safe pickup at its current $3).

But there are some pretty good picks here. One is Chord of Calling, which is super cheap since its reprint and is extremely good in these decks. While we’ve sometimes seen Elf decks go the combo route with Cloudstone Curio, the latest builds have been more of the face-smashing type. Craterhoof Behemoth and Regal Force are too expensive at $15 to be super attractive, but Heritage Druid is going to move from $5 to $10 very quickly. Even better could be the near-bulk Nettle Sentinel, which again is more of a volume play than anything else given it’s available at 50 cents a copy and 0 cents a copy in bulk bins everywhere.

…

There are, of course, plenty of other cards in Modern that see play that haven’t been reprinted. Restoration Angel, for instance, sees play across archetypes but hasn’t moved in price for awhile. But I believe giving too much information can be as paralyzing as too little, and naming every card in Modern that might go up isn’t particularly actionable. Instead, I tried to hit upon some of the cards that are impacted by recent events and are on my shortlist of cards to keep an eye out for at my store. Remember, when everyone else is worried about Modern Masters 2015 you want to be the guy worried about what isn’t in the set.

What do you think? Anything along these lines that is also a great target right now?

 

Thanks for reading,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter

Corbin Hosler, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Casual Hits of 2015

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By: Corbin Hosler

Hello, everyone! I appreciated the response to my article last week, which I think exemplified one of my core tenets when it comes to MTG finance: playing it safe.

There is plenty of money to be made in this game with proper planning and timing. What isn’t needed is speculation-fueled buyouts, huge positions in Standard cards that may take off tomorrow, or supply-side buyouts.

Why go through all the trouble of that when there’s so much easy money waiting to be made, assuming that you have a little patience?

As I explained last week, that’s why I love casual cards, and it’s why I focus most of my speculation decisions around that. I’m not the guy glued to Pro Tour coverage to see what gets mentioned early Friday morning and buying out whatever that is. I’m the guy playing Commander at the LGS and finding out what cards are going to still have demand for them in two years.

Of course, with such a long time frame on these cards, it can be easy to forget about some of the good targets in this category and lose yourself in the Standard or Modern happenings. That’s why one of the things I like to do every so often is centralize all of these will-be targets in once place.

Almost six months into 2015, now seems like as good a time as any. I’m sure I’ll revisit this at the end of the year with an update, but now represents basically the optimal buying opportunity on some soon-to-rotate cards, so this should be helpful in the short-term as well.

Last week, I added a list of some cards that fill this category that were already seeing movement. I’ll repeat the list here for convenience.

  • Akroma’s Memorial. The Magic 2013 version is at an all-time high of $12, and this was a $20 card before the reprint. It’s going to get there again.
  • Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is on a tear, and is almost $9. Again, we have what was a $20 card before a reprint. This has seen a lot of growth already this year, so it’s not quite as attractive, but this is going to continue to climb.
  • Door of Destinies is at an all-time low of $3.50, and this will continue to climb back toward the $8 it was before the reprint.
  • Rise of the Dark Realms sits at $4.50 after some momentum, and as a mythic, this one should rise at a faster clip than the others.
  • Gilded Lotus is also at an all-time high of $6.50 (noticing a theme of “casual reprints in Core Sets?” and will be $10 within in a year.
  • Looking further ahead, Darksteel Forge has three printings and hasn’t shown much momentum this year, but it fits the exact same mold as Gilded Lotus, and Darksteel versions of this used to be $12.
  • Dragon Tempest and Dragonlord’s Servant are both on their way to bottoming out, and once they hit near-bulk status they become very good long-term players.
  • Adaptive Automaton is showing some steady progress over the past three months, and is likely due for a correction upward within the next year.

What do all these have in common? Besides being sweet casual cards, they also have all already seen at least a little movement, and in some cases more. While this is a great sign of things to come and represents a reason to get in, it also necessarily means less upside. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, and all those are picks I like moving forward, but we’re not exactly getting in at the very bottom, either.

Today, I hope to shed some light on those cards that are actually near the bottom. Getting in at the valley may mean a longer timeframe to cash out, but it also means maximizing profit.

So let’s dig in.

foodchain

2014

I know I said I was going to focus on 2015 today, but I can’t help but look back to last year as well. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it brief.

Gods

Basically, I’d be remiss to talk about casual cards and not mention gods (holy crap, these are actually from 2013, huh? Getting old, here). Either way, these are basically mini-Eldrazi that will see growth over time, even if it’s not the momentous growth that Emrakul and friends saw.

Of these, the mono-colored five are certainly good, but I feel like the upside may be more in the Born of the Gods and Journey Into Nyx copies that were opened much, much less. You already know the score on these, so I won’t dawdle.

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

This bottomed out back in February (when it was my Pick of the Week on Brainstorm Brewery), but since then it’s climbed back to $6. I expect this will have to wait until rotation to go lower, but it’s well worth picking up then.

Prophet of Kruphix

It’s hard to know what the right call here is, but I imagine it’s the alternate-art printing, though neither is expensive and regular foils are trending toward $5. This thing is straight bonkers in Commander, and I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon.

Dictates

Specifically, Dictate of Erebos (especially the foil) and Dictate of Kruphix (Game Day promo). These are solid Commander playables, and while they’re certainly going to take some time to move up, move up they will. Grave Pact is $8 after six printings. Dictate of Erebos has huge long-term upside.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Again, a card that’s not cheap enough yet. It’s $9 but was $20 before the reprint. Standard play likely props this up a little, so if this settles down by rotation it will be a great pickup.

The biggest reason? How nicely it plays with Cabal Coffers, forming the most dangerous combo of any black deck in Commander.

Sliver Hivelord

I’ve talked about this several times, but for good reason. Every other five-color Sliver bomb is at least $15. This will be too.

Crucible of Fire

Again, a long-term gainer here. But Dragons, yo. People like them. This was $5 card before the reprint.

Clever Impersonator

Phyrexian Metamorph is $5 with one printing and a promo. Impersonator isn’t exactly that, but in practice it comes pretty close. On top of all that, it’s a mythic. As we’ve seen with sets like Zendikar and Innistrad, coming from “the most-opened set of all-time” isn’t the drawback you might expect. At $2 there’s a lot of upside on the Impersonator.

Temporal Trespass

This isn’t one I’m as hugely excited about, but it will certainly make its way into plenty of Commander decks over the next few years, and importantly, it is a mythic. It’s essentially a “dollar rare” these days, and it’s hard to lose at that price.

Soulflayer

Again, not one I completely love, but it’s worth noting that Cairn Wanderer is $2 so this could end up there one day, too, especially since it’s ostensibly better.

Dragons

Of course, this encompasses a lot. Looking at Dragons of Tarkir, I see a lot of cards that need to drop quite a ways before I get particularly excited about picking them up.

That said, some are head and wings above the others when it comes to the long-term. The Dragonlords, especially Silumgar, Atarka, and Dromoka, are good casually. Ojutai is just plain good, but I can’t foresee this hitting a price that makes it worth picking up until at least rotation. Thunderbreak Regent is actually the clear winner, though again, it’s too expensive right now to want in on. But it has so many things going for it, not least of which is just being red and therefore more flexible, that it’s hard to not see this as the best long-term pick.

I’m interested to see what happens with the Game Day promo of this card, because that’s definitely the most attractive version, as Guo Heng Chin touched on earlier this week.

Haven of the Spirit Dragon

This definitely competes with Nykthos for the title of “best casual land currently being supported financially by Standard,” and it may actually surpass Nykthos in that regard. I hope every day that this gets cheap soon, because it’s just such an appealing target if it hits $1 to $2, even if we have to wait for rotation to get there.

Sidisi, Undead Vizier

As sweet as the other cards in this set are, this may actually be the best in Commander. It’s finally starting to fall, and I can’t wait for this thing to bottom out.

Risen Executioner

Rounding out our list today is a pretty solid zombie, which has both the benefit of being cheap and being mythic. Lord of the Undead is $8 after several printings, and while Executioner may not be that good, it’s still an extremely-solid zombie lord. Lots to like here.

mysticspeculation

And that’s my list of casual targets for the past 18 months. There are a few lesser ones that are interesting, but this represents the best of the best. Until next week (when we have a full Modern Masters 2 spoiler), keep it casual!

 

Thanks for reading,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter

Corbin Hosler, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Why I Love Casual Magic, and Why You Should, Too

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Tell me, what do you consider the best spec right now?

Is it Rattleclaw Mystic? After all, the little thing could go nuts if Birds of Paradise isn’t reprinted.

Is it Abrupt Decay? It’s safe from Modern Masters 2015 and could easily go to $20 by this time next summer thanks to incoming product.

What about Flooded Strand or Polluted Delta? Both are great fetch lands, and will be around forever. Staying with Khans of Tarkir, what about Siege Rhino? Surely it’s bottomed.

All of those are good answers, and all of those are varying degrees of good specs. But they’re not the answer I came up with.

My money is on Phenax, God of Deception. Or Kruphix, God of Horizons.

kruphixgodofhorizons

In a Magic world full of Spikes, it’s Johnny that holds my heart.

The Table… You Know Which One

The mythical kitchen table. The place where epic battles are fought and technically terrible games of Magic are played. The place where no one cares about the latest tournament results or that Ulamog costs a million mana, because they will cast him, darn it.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re on the spikier side. By that, I mean you’ve played Friday Night Magic. You may have even played in a larger tournament, or at least watched the coverage of one. You know the value of your cards and you keep them carefully sleeved.

But the truth is, we are the minority. The majority of players who spend money on this game are more interested in the cards their buddy is playing against them at home than they are in what LSV is sleeving up at the latest major event. People come into my store all the time who have never played outside of their homes. They have no interest in showing up to a tournament—all they want to do is crush their friend’s angel deck at home.

But don’t make the mistake of equating “casual” with “cheap,” because that’s just not the case. In fact, I sell more cards to these “casuals” than I ever do to tournament players.

It’s no surprise, then, that I say I love casual Magic. And so should you.

Casual What?

Before we any further, what exactly defines a “casual” card?

There is no hard-and-fast answer to this question, to be honest. A lot of times people conflate “Commander card” with “casual card.” And while the reality is very different and so are the market ramifications, the truth is they behave similarly pricewise. They’re dirt-cheap when they’re in Standard and typically grow from there, following the opposite path of most newly printed cards. So while I’m not calling them the same thing in theory, the truth is there’s not much difference in reality, at least when it comes to our strategy on them. That said, I’ll let Jason’s series fill you in on the Commander targets, and I’ll take care of the casuals.

Keep in mind everything can be a “casual” card, from the gods I mentioned earlier (I like all of these in the long-term, but especially the two I mentioned since they’re from small sets and are cheap right now) to the random lifegain cards that pop up from time to time. But I’ve done what I can do present at least some general guidelines.

Mill

Archive Trap is nearly $5 and still rising, while Glimpse the Unthinkable is the poster child here at $25. Hell, even Memory Sluice, a random trash common, is 50 cents. These cards are played in zero competitive decks, but still hold their value.

The reason? People love their mill, man. It’s a terrible strategy, but it never goes away. I (gently) tried to explain to a player at FNM last week who tried to convince me that playing one copy of Mind Sculpt in his Magic 2015 flashback Sealed deck was a good idea because, hey, you could mill their good cards!

It doesn’t make sense, but whatever. Just roll with it, and grab those Increasing Confusions as throw-ins or out of bulk piles while you still can. The card has languished for the last two years but has shown a little growth this year, and history tells us it will be $4 to $5 eventually. Obviously you’re looking at a long-term mover here, but it costs you nothing to hoard some of these and forget about them in the spec box.

Angels/Dragons

Without a doubt, these are the two biggest tribes when it comes to casual players. I’ve had people come in and literally say, “I want to buy every angel you have.” In fact, his buddy was with him and then said, “I want all your dragons.” If I didn’t see these two guys with my own eyes, I would never have believed this type of person existed.

But we need look no further than Dragons of Tarkir to the proof of this. Dragons from all over have gone crazy this year, from Scion of the Ur-Dragon to seemingly-random stuff like Utvara Hellkite and Scourge of Valkas. If it’s a dragon, it rose in price this year, and that’s not an accident, nor is it a coincidence that Wizards always includes one or two of these in each set.

There’s a big dropoff after that, but vampires and hydras have also done well historically. Captivating Vampire is $7 despite being in an Intro Deck.

captivatingvampire

There’s one other tribe I have to mention: the little green men. It’s not at all surprising that Wizards stuffed the mono-green Commander deck last year full of elves like Immaculate Magistrate and Imperious Perfect. Even the thrice-printed Elvish Promenade is worth a few bucks. People like their elves.

Lords/Tribal Cards

As much as I wish I was talking about Lord of Atlantis, I’m only doing so in the general sense.

People like to build linear decks at the kitchen table, and often that means tribal. I’m no different: I have a sweet Tribal Treefolk deck that I bust out for 60-card casual rarely, and I love my $4 Dauntless Dourbarks and $8 Timber Protectors.

The reason cards like Timber Protector and Elvish Champion ($4 despite numerous printings) and the aforementioned Captivating Vampire speak to this phenomenon. I’m not saying stock up on Rageblood Shaman (remember when people thought this was a good idea? Ew), but I am saying that stuff like Sliver Hivelord and Sliver Hive are good bets to steadily rise long-term. And I’m absolutely in love with Haven of the Spirit Dragon once it settles down a bit in Standard and falls to $2 or so.

Okay… but Why?

I’ve named a lot of good casual specs so far in this article, but the more important question is… why? What makes them better than speculating on a Standard or Modern card? After all, when those go, they tend to go big.

A few reasons.

Safety

Like I said before, these are almost always cheap at some point. They offer a super low buy-in point, and as such if they go nowhere or are reprinted into oblivion, you’re not losing much. On the other hand, they typically represent very steady gains every year. I know people refer to original duals as the “blue chip stocks” of Magic, but solid casual specs fill that role just as well while also having the advantage of starting out as penny stocks.

Predictability

Casual cards aren’t subject to the whims of the tournament crowd. We’ve all made lots of solid spec calls on competitive cards that never panned out for whatever reason (yes, this is where you remind me of my 94 Splinterfrights). Rattleclaw Mystic, for instance, could be a great spec heading into rotation. On the other hand, if Birds of Paradise is reprinted in Magic: Origins, then the Mystic isn’t going anywhere.

Casual cards don’t behave like that. Haven of the Spirit Dragon isn’t going to be made obsolete any time soon. And even if something similar and maybe better did come along, people are likely just to play both. After all, they can play as many cards as they want in their decks, so why stop at 60 if you have more sweet cards?

Ease of acquisition

As I spoke to above, these cards are not hard to find. Tournament players literally give away these cards or leave them on draft tables. If you want to be the guy grabbing all the Increasing Confusions at your store, no one is going to stop you. You can get these as throw-ins all day long, and no one will care.

And this even works with the obvious ones. I was all over Chromatic Lantern the minute it was printed, and despite it being such an obvious call at $2 people still threw these at me all day long. As we know, Lantern is at an all-time high of nearly $7 and is showing no signs of slowing. And I have a giant stack of these acquired solely through trades. This is not a humble brag: it’s proof of concept. Even when these things seem “obvious” to those of who care about finance, the truth is most players just don’t care.

Buylist Value

This may be a bit more anecdotal, but some of my best experiences buylisting cards comes when those cards are casual ones. Outside of the flavor-of-the-week Standard card, dealers usually have plenty of stock of something. They don’t need another Siege Rhino from you right now, no matter how busted the card is.

But they may need those Timber Protectors or Chromatic Lanterns. After all, the most common way for dealers to buy cards is from players at tournaments, which by default usually means tournament players. Those same players who threw all the Lanterns at me years ago and who don’t have any now.

To get the cards the casual players want to buy from them, stores often pay more on casual staples than they do random competitive cards. This is my experience and is not based on any empirical data, but it’s also how I operate when I buy cards. I have much more confidence in paying a good price for an Asceticism ($7 retail) than I do for a $7 Standard card that may or may not sell and may or may not stay $7 for long.

Keep It Casual

I love casual Magic. You should, too. And before I go, I have a few casual cards I haven’t yet called attention to.

  • Akroma’s Memorial. The Magic 2013 version is at an all-time high of $12, and this was a $20 card before the reprint. It’s going to get there again.
  • Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is on a tear, and is almost $9. Again, we have what was a $20 card before a reprint. This has seen a lot of growth already this year so it’s not quite as attractive, but this is going to continue to climb.
  • Door of Destinies is at an all-time high of $3.50, and this will continue to climb back toward the $8 it was before the reprint.
  • Rise of the Dark Realms sits at $4.50 after some momentum, and as a mythic this one should rise at a faster clip than the others.
  • Gilded Lotus is also at an all-time high of $6.50 (noticing a theme of “casual reprints in core sets?”) and will be $10 within in a year.
  • Looking further ahead, Darksteel Forge has three printings and hasn’t shown much momentum this year, but it fits the exact same mold as Gilded Lotus, and Darksteel versions of this used to be $12.
  • Dragon Tempest and Dragonlord’s Servant are both on their way to bottoming out, and once they hit near-bulk status they become very good long-term players.
  • Adaptive Automaton is showing some steady progress over the past three months, and is likely due for a correction upward within the next year.

That’s a lot of picks, and truth be told I could go on. But then again, I love casual Magic.

 

Thanks for reading,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter