MTG Fast Finance is our weekly podcast covering the flurry of weekly financial activity in the world of Magic: The Gathering. MFF provides a fast, fun and useful sixty minute format. Follow along with our seasoned hosts as they walk you through this week’s big price movements, their picks of the week, metagame analysis and a rotating weekly topic.
Disclosure: Travis and James may own speculative copies of the above cards.
CEO of ShelfLife.net, The Future of Collecting, Senior Partner at Advoca, a designer, adventurer, toy fanatic and an avid Magic player and collector since 1994.
This is the third in my (now) four-part part series on making money on Modern cards in 2017. You can find the first part, covering the cards most likely to rebound from Modern Masters 2017, over here, and the second part here.
First off, let’s check in on the prices of the rares and mythics from Modern Masters 2017 to see how those potential specs are progressing.
As predicted, the shift in focus to Amonkhet and the continued availability of supply has lead to even the mythics that were rebounding demonstrating contractions since we last checked in. Tarmogoyf, LOTV, Cavern of Souls, Voice of Resurgence and Griselbrand have all fallen further and the mythics are, on the whole, down 15% since release. Even Snapcaster Mage is holding steady now in the low 40s. Same logic applies as before here: you can feel free to buy the highest demand cards at these levels, but there is no real rush on the rest and you can judge your entry point when you start to either a) see supply draining out or b) catch wind of additional supply entering the market.
MM17 rares have been following similar patterns, and they’re down an additional 2% in the last couple of weeks. Scalding Tarn, Arid Mesa, Phantasmal Image and Abrupt Decay are showing shallow gains with the rest of the rares either holding steady or falling off further. Most of the fetches, Blood Moon, Goblin Guide, Death’s Shadow (which is up despite my red coloring in the chat above) and Damnation all seem fine here if you need them, and otherwise you choose your entry point as with the mythics.
A (Further) Look at The Cards Not Printed
Last week we took a look at some of the format staples that were not reprinted in Modern Masters 2017 that are likely to show gains, or have already shown gains. Let’s polish off that list before we move on to newer cards that may yield further gains next week.
As per a recent video by Rogue Deckbuilder (found here), the above are some of the most expensive and/or most popular cards in Modern (and beyond, eg Doubling Season) that weren’t featured in Modern Masters 2017. Let’s explore some of our more interesting options here for the purposes of financial speculation:
Dark Confidant was nearly one of my picks on MTGFastFinance a couple of weeks ago, as a perennial staple that got printed twice in Modern Masters (2013) and again in Modern Masters 2015 but not in MM17. Since the release of the new set in mid-March, this Jund staple has moved up $10 from $38 to $48 or so, but there are still copies out there closer to $42 and those seem like a solid pickup. I would expect Dark Confidant will hit $60-$70 before it sees another reprint as NM inventory across the three printings is relatively low for a Top 40 creature in Modern. Not a huge home run, but a solid hold that you can play with while it gains value.
This card is one of the most efficient card selection spells in Modern, so long as you’re on the hunt for a specific colorless card. Between Bant Eldrazi and various Tron builds there is plenty of Tier 1 demand for full playsets, and Lantern Control also runs the card. I called this on MTGFastFinance to move from $5 to $10 this year when it wasn’t reprinted in MM17, and it briefly spiked, but as a common vendors managed to restock fairly easily, and we’re back to the previous $5-6 plateau for now with a 150+ copies in stock on TCG. That could take a while to drain, but if you felt like going deep because of the demand profile, you could make a dent. We’re unlikely to see a reprint until 2019 so the odds are solid we hit my target sooner or later.
Mox Opal is a central card in Affinity decks in Modern and has been for years. It also sees lesser play in Lantern Control and Puresteel Paladin builds, and most recently as a four-of in the new Scrap Trawler/Krark-Clan Ironworks combo decks. Since January Opal has moved from $40 into the $55-$60 range and the printing of the Masterpiece version in Kaladesh means it’s pretty unlikely we see this again until 2019. There is also the outside chance of a potential banning in Modern as a card that enables unreasonable mana acceleration, but I suspect there are higher priority targets this year. All of that being the case, despite the odds that you could squeeze another $5-15 from this stone, I will be staying away from regular copies. On the other hand Masterpiece copies are still available from some sources in the $90-100 range and I suspect that they will end up over $150 within the next 18 months so long as the card dodges the slight ban potential, as the inventory is already fairly low. I’ve picked up a few on that premise.
Aether Vial is consistently a four-of in Merfolk decks in Modern and Merfolk has been putting up reasonable numbers for a couple of years now despite many players looking down their nose at the deck. The card also shows up in Eldrazi Death & Taxes (my current deck) and GW Hate Bears, and it’s a four-of in those modestly played decks as well. Despite that, it’s barely a Top 100 card in the format, though it does boast some additional demand from Legacy Death & Taxes. This card is up a couple of bucks since the MM17 list was revealed, but inventory is not under much pressure, so it may be that Aether Vial needs another prominent home to drive the price towards $60 before a likely reprint in 2019. I’m not in a rush to get in on this action, but the Masterpiece versions around $90 are a bit more tempting, since they are likely to drain in fours (as opposed to something like Sol Ring) and should end up over $130 down the road.
Crucible of Worlds has been experiencing an upswing in play in Modern lately with many decks looking to generate value engines using Ghost Quarter to keep Tron lands and creature lands in check. Eldrazi Tron sometimes runs it main, or has a single copy in the sideboard. GW Value with Renegard Rallier, U/W Control and Lantern Control also make use of it, but not in much greater quantity. As such, most of the $60 price tag is being propped up by the fact that we haven’t seen a regular printing yet of this card in any of the Modern Masters sets. It was a Fifth Dawn rare, reprinted in 10th edition, and the Masterpiece in Kaladesh was the first new printing in years. The regular copies could edge up higher between now and Modern Masters 2019, where it is a likely inclusion, but it could also show up randomly in some other supplemental product in advance and the demand profile is too shallow to get me excited. The Masterpieces in the $90-$100 range are a good bet to beat $130 at some point, which is a solid return, and inventory is already low so if you like this, maybe you’d be better off looking at that version.
If you’re looking for a low value target with solid upside, you could do worse than this automatic four-of mythic rare that has earned a permanent slot in the Merfolk decks. Supply is still pretty deep because this was a fall set mythic, so there isn’t any rush here, but we’re not likely to see this again for a while. No deck but Merfolk wants it, but you only really need 50-100 new Merfolk players over the next year or two and some speculator activity to push this into the $6-10 range. There’s also the fact that the fall set this year, Azatlan, seems to carry a strong merfolk theme, which one would imagine might give this deck a boost.
This is a $50 uncommon featured in a deck that many see as too powerful to be allowed to be left unscathed by the ban hammer. Either a reprint kills this, or a banning does, because I can’t see this card surviving as a spec long enough to show worthwhile gains from this point on. If you had these sitting around and sold already, they likely paid for your Coldsnap boxes back in the day but I don’t want to be holding or acquiring a card this dangerous right now. Move along.
This is an odd card to be at $50 given that it doesn’t even crack the Top 100 most played cards in Modern. When it is played it’s usually in Grixis or U/W Control shells, but those decks haven’t been at the top of the metagame for years, and blue decks in general feel like they need a bit of help to break through. Sentiment seems to be warming to reintroducing Jace, the Mind Sculptor to the format, but that could easily fail to materialize. Then of course, As Foretold was revealed this week and brewers start wondering if casting this immediately off that slow (yet powerful) enchantment might be enough to kick of a dazzling display of control. All that aside, this is another price tag that is mostly propped up by limited supply, and only the suspend mechanic really holds it back from popping up randomly in a product release. That being said, supply is shallow enough that there is a chance the card could hit $70-80 on increased play, so your decision to move in is really a bet on success before a reprint.
Join me next week when we look at some of the up and comers in Modern that might make us some money if they can break through to the top ranks.
CEO of ShelfLife.net, The Future of Collecting, Senior Partner at Advoca, a designer, adventurer, toy fanatic and an avid Magic player and collector since 1994.
MTG Fast Finance is our weekly podcast covering the flurry of weekly financial activity in the world of Magic: The Gathering. MFF provides a fast, fun and useful sixty minute format. Follow along with our seasoned hosts as they walk you through this week’s big price movements, their picks of the week, metagame analysis and a rotating weekly topic.
The Call: Confidence Level 8: $7.50 to $20.00 (+12.50/+167%, 0-12+ months)
Disclosure: Travis and James may own speculative copies of the above cards.
Segment 3: Topic of the Week
The guys got nasty over the recently revealed Amonkhet Masterpiece card frames.
CEO of ShelfLife.net, The Future of Collecting, Senior Partner at Advoca, a designer, adventurer, toy fanatic and an avid Magic player and collector since 1994.
This is the second in my three part series on making money on Modern cards in 2017. You can find the first part, covering the cards most likely to rebound from Modern Masters 2017, over here.
First off, let’s check in on the prices of the rares and mythics from Modern Masters 2017 to see how those potential specs are progressing.
Most mythics are still on the decline since the release of MM17.
There was some chatter online last week that the set was rebounding, but as the charts above show, this is clearly not the case overall. MM17 mythics are down nearly 50% on average from Dec 1st, 2016 and
Nearly all of the MM17 mythics are either holding steady or have continued to fall, down an average of 12% from their release day pricing. Some very good deals were found during opening weekend, and momentum from those couple of days likely accounts for the few rebounds. The exceptions along those lines so far are Liliana of the Veil, Cavern of Souls and Snapcaster Mage, all of which are of course very popular staples in both Modern and Legacy. LOTV currently holds one of the shallowest listings on TCGPlayer.com, which could indicate it could regain $90-100 within the next few months, pending information on further set inventory.
Tarmogoyf has also been relatively consistent in the $85-90 range. As frequent 3 or 4-ofs in multiple decks, many players have had their eye on these cards looking for a solid entry point, and were likely impressed enough by the large discounts vs. prices from last fall to move in. It’s possible that some dealers and speculators have also taken up some of the inventory slack in hopes of future profits. From here on out, I would expect the cards that have been holding stead or rebounding to continue along similar lines, but whether this stays the case will depend heavily on how much more inventory shows up. Now that we’ve moved on to Amonkhet spoilers, the shift in focus back to Standard may redirect player funds and chill the rebounds as well. That being said, there really aren’t that many listings for the mythics at present, so if inventory is choked off faster than expected, further gains on the popular cards are likely.
Rares also continue to fall.
MM17 rares have been following similar patterns, with the average rare down a whopping 63% since Dec 1st/16, and nearly 19% since release day. If we ignore the most popular handful of rares, many of the other rares are down over 80% (!) since December. Some of these cards are now so cheap that waiting for further discounts is largely unnecessary. If you need play sets of Terminus, Pyromancer’s Ascension, Thragtusk, Scavenging Ooze, Phantasmal Image, or Abrupt Decay a further 10-20% decline won’t make much difference either way.
The most resiliant rares have so far proven to be Scalding Tarn, Verdant Catacombs and Stony Silence. Most of the other fetchlands are so far holding steady, with shallow gains or losses, but I don’t think you need to be shy on getting in on them at this point, at least for your first playset. I’d like to spec on some of these, but for those purposes I’m willing to hold off until I understand inventory flow a bit better. Death’s Shadow got as low as $4 at one point during release weekend, but as one of the most important creatures in Modern right now, it didn’t take much for people to scoop them up and push the price back towards $8. If the card stays popular, and doesn’t get banned out of the format this year, these could end up close to $15 and may still be a solid speculative pick.
Cards like Damnation and Basilisk Collar, whose prices were largely supply side driven, have taken a serious pounding, with $20 Damnations now available, representing a 67% discount vs. last fall.
A Look at The Cards Not Printed
Now let us turn our attention to the important Modern cards that didn’t make it into Modern Masters 2017, investigate their recent price trends and try to identify our best targets for further gains.
As per a recent video by Rogue Deckbuilder (found here), the above are some of the most expensive and/or most popular cards in Modern (and beyond, eg Doubling Season) that weren’t featured in Modern Masters 2017. Let’s explore some of our more interesting options here for the purposes of financial speculation:
Noble Hierarch is one of the top ten cards in Modern by play pattern, and as a staple in Abzan, Bant Compay, Bant Eldrazi, Infect and Bant Spirits we have every reason to believe it will continue to occupy that position. I wouldn’t hold your breath for a better mana creature either as Hierarch already pushes the envelope pretty hard. This card peaked near $80 last fall, only to fall to $60 on reprint fears. Now that we know it isn’t likely to be reprinted this year (other than potentially as a Masterpiece) it has regained a few dollars and could easily top $80 again before a near certain reprint by Modern Masters 2019. This isn’t a card that is going to demonstrate fantastic % gains, but it is a consistent staple that could earn you $40/playset after fees before the end of the year, so there’s relatively little risk on getting in on a set to play with or speculate on.
Karn Liberated doesn’t even crack the top 50 cards in Modern, but it is a fixture in both Eldrazi Tron and GW/GB Tron Variants, where they run anywhere between two and four copies, depending on the build. The card is also iconic and splashy enough to enjoy solid casual demand, but it has already popped from $45 to $65 on the news that it wasn’t included in MM2017 so it’s not clear how much meat is on the bone. If the Tron lands ever get from Modern, this card withers instantly, and that’s not an impossible scenario. There may be a few more dollars to be made here, but I think I’ll steer clear and focus on higher yields.
Doubling Season is distinctly not a Modern card, but it was last printed in a Modern Masters set (2015) so it was fair game to see a reprint this winter on the strength of it’s EDH/casual play and it’s steady price gains since the last reprinting. At this time last year Doubling Season was a $40 card that used to be $15 back in 2014. Now it retails consistently around $60 as a staple in Atraxa, Ghave, Rhys and Marath decks in Commander, including over 8300 lists found on EDHRec.com. That’s a strong demand profile, and the inventory is relatively shallow no matter where you look. These are all conditions for further gains, but I’d guess that $80 might be the max for this one before it gets nailed by a reprint, which could come as soon as Commander 2017 next fall. If you can glean some copies closer to $50 and aim to exit near $70, you might be ok, but you’re tying up just as much capital as with Noble Hierarch hoping that demand keeps pushing it up the curve.
Fulminator Mage is an increasingly useful card in a meta where Tron lands and ambitious mana bases abound, hence why we see it in lists from Death’s Shadow Aggro to Grixis Delver and Jund. Last seen in Modern Masters 2015, the land hating shaman didn’t make the cut this time around, popping from $20 to $30 on the news. There are now very few copies out there under $40 and this looks like a solid option on the premise that it is a Top 10 card in the format and could breach $50 before seeing a reprint or an unlikely replacement (since WoTC rarely makes new land destruction cards with Modern playable casting costs). Getting in close to $40 will likely pay off.
Chalice of the Void is another Top 50 Modern staple that we got in an earlier Modern Masters (2013), but not since, though in this case a Masterpiece edition was printed in Aether Revolt. The value of this artifact floats relative to how good shutting down one drops is and whether mid-range and control decks can work around that stipulation in their own lists. The card most often shows up in Eldrazi Tron, Valukut Breach or W/R Prison as of late, Chalice enjoys the added benefit of being playable in both Legacy and Vintage. Chalice of the Void was already at $45 heading into MM17, and has since popped to $65 or so, with very shallow inventory under $80. I can’t see another reprint any time soon, so I think $80 is a definite possibility, which could be worth $40 a set on a $260 investment. That’s not amazing, and Noble Hiearch’s strong overall demand profile may mark that as the superior play of the two. If you’re already holding, there’s no rush to unload, so check back in a few months.
Living End is worth noting because as of today we now know that Amonkhet is bringing back cycling as a mechanic. This means that we may be about to get a bunch of creatures with cycling that could add some power to Living End. Early speculation on that basis has already pushed this card from $8 to $12 today and inventory is now low enough everywhere that the price could settle anywhere between $10 and $20, depending on whether a stronger version of the deck emerges or not. Now on the one hand, this card has only ever seen a single printing and that was over a decade ago. Because Living End has the Suspend mechanic, it can’t just be thrown into any old product release, but on the other hand it doesn’t feature any specific narrative cues that prevent it from being included alongside a return to suspend as a mechanic. There is also the possibility that Living End decks suffer from too much incidental graveyard hate in Modern overall, and just aren’t positioned well to gain fresh traction. There are still some scant few copies floating around at $10 or less, and under $12 I’m be fine picking up a few playsets to roll the dice.
Eldrazi decks in various flavors are putting up solid numbers in Modern, largely because they get access to this clearly overpowered land. You would think that as an uncommon that has seen multiple printings in the last few years, this would be a card that was resistent to strong growth, but we’ve already seen this Top 15 land in the format go from $2 to $10 during Eldrazi Winter (2016) only to fall back to $5, and then hit $12 just recently on renewed use in Eldrazi Tron lists. At this point inventory is shallow enough that I’ve moved in on several fresh play sets aiming for a $20 exit. Within the year I think we’ll get it.
Ok, so we’ve covered a lot of ground but I’ve got at least ten more cards I think we need to discuss. Join me next week when we pick up this thread and continue exploring ways to make money on Modern this year.
CEO of ShelfLife.net, The Future of Collecting, Senior Partner at Advoca, a designer, adventurer, toy fanatic and an avid Magic player and collector since 1994.
MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY
