I’ve seen more than one person make this exclamation (not necessarily in those words, but the same sentiment).  Standard prices are out of control!  The price of 7 of the decks in the top 8 of the Pro Tour are between $675 and $800.  The one outlier is the “cheaper” atarka red deck played by Hall of Famer, Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa,  which still has a price tag of $375.  What changed?  Why is everything so expensive?

Mana

Most of the price of standard decks right now is the mana.  The deck that won Pro Tour Magic Origins had a simple mana base, 21 mountains.  When calculating the cost of a deck you can usually leave the basic lands off since they’re essentially free.  What does PV’s deck play? Only 9 of his 21 lands are basic lands.  The other 12 are rare lands, 10 of which are fetch lands.  With the 10 fetchlands being about $20 each on average and 2 battle lands at $7 each, we add $214 to the total cost of the deck before there are any spells in it!  This is obviously a pretty large barrier to entry but there is some icing on the cake.  You will be owning 10 of the best lands ever printed.  There is some value in knowing the fact that your Standard mana base won’t become worth a handful of nickels in the coming months.  Temples from Theros block are worth between $1 and $4 each now, a far cry from the $7-13 they had at their peak of popularity.  What does this mean for the future of fetch lands? It’s hard to predict.  Khans of Tarkir and Fate Reforged are scheduled to rotate out in April with the entrance of the unannounced block code named “Tears”.  Normally I would say that bodes well as their rotation will help ease some of the demand but that is only a few months before the start of Modern PPTQ season.  According to the 2016 PPTQ announcement, Modern PPTQ season starts July 16th (in conjuction with the release of the 2nd set of “Tears” block).  Will people sell their fetch lands only to have to rebuy them in 3 months?  If they do, does the price even budge or are vendors happy to hold them for 10-12 weeks?  There are too many questions that won’t be answered in this first rotation.

Mythics + Rares

Here’s a break down of Paulo’s deck by rarity:

• Mythics: 3
• Rares: 24 (12 lands)
• Uncommons: 23
• Commons: 16
• Basic Land: 9

36% of this deck is Rare or Mythics and the other 64% is commons and uncommons.  Let’s compare that to Pro Tour Magic Origins winning list by Joel Larsson.

• Mythics: 2
• Rares: 21 ( 0 lands)
• Uncommons: 26
• Commons: 5
• Basic Land: 21

This list is made up of 31% Rares and Mythics and 69% is commons and uncommons.  Even with less commons in this deck, at the time of the Pro Tour it was over $100 less.  What changed?  Rares that are eternal playable hold much higher values.  A lot of the creatures overlap in these lists (Zurgo, Swiftspear, Abbot of Keral Keep, and Lightning Berserker are in both lists), but the inclusion of eternal playable cards pushes it over the edge.  Atarka’s Command is a massive $16 now and Non-blue fetch lands average $15-20 each. That’s eternally playable rares!

Want to see what exacerbates this problem? Let’s break down Ryoichi Tamada’s deck from the Top 8.

 

• Mythics: 10
• Rares:  27 ( 17 lands)
• Uncommons: 21
• Commons: 12
• Basic Land: 5

 

His deck is made up of 49% rares and 51% non-rares.  The increased prevalence of Mythic rares that are played as 4-ofs increases demand and cost.  So despite Tamada not taking advantage of some more ambitious Jeskai Black mana bases his deck is just blowing away pre-rotation standard decks.  But it can’t be the rare and mythic count that is the entire reason that decks are so expensive, right?

Planeswalkers

I so solemnly swear that the Champion of Justice was a mistake.  Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is the real deal.  With 5 decks playing 4 copies it seems his price tag will only continue to climb as the week goes on.  He bears a striking resemblance to another white walker from a year ago.

Elspeth, Sun’s Champion was a dominant force during her stay in Standard and continues to define how good a 6 mana Planeswalker can be.  At the height of her popularity she was over $45 and I don’t expect Gideon to stay any lower.  She saw a decline with the dip ended at the end of December (remember this article: Grinder Finance – Winter is Coming ) and I expect Gideon to bottom out then as well.  What luckily kept Elspeth’s price in check toward the end of her life was the Elspeth vs Kiora Duel Deck.  Gideon probably won’t be in the next one (as it will likely feature 2 Planeswalkers from Khans of Tarkir block), I expect to see him in the following year’s deck.  What can we do now?  Not really a whole lot.  Hopefully people really like more cards from Battle for Zendikar and a second wave of box opening happens.  Unfortunately it seems like most of the innovation started in the SCG circuit and there’s not much innovation left for Standard at the moment.

 

While Gideon looks like he’s giving a heartfelt apology, Jace’s smirk implies something else.  Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy is the product of a whirlwind of beat beats to leave him the most expensive card in Standard in years!

Problems:

• He’s from a Core set which are traditionally under purchased
• He’s played as 4 copies
• He’s played in eternal formats
• Modern Masters 2015 was released a few months before his set

The end result is not enough people had money to buy Magic Origins product and Jace and Hangarback Walker continue to prop up the set from the bulk bins.  Given the fact that Mark Rosewater has stated the extra costs associated with printing double-faced cards means they are unlikely in supplementary products, I doubt Jace sees any real reprieve from this price point.  I expect Jace to be $100 at Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch unless something odd like a Standard banning happens.

This is not the first time a core set Planeswalker has held an unreasonably high price.  Nissa, despite being mostly a sideboard card that is played 1-2 copies was a solid $20-40 card for most of her time in Standard.  Jace being playable outside of Standard means we will likely not see any price drops.

Where do we go from here?

Well, you can play Atarka Red on a budget but it’s unlikely we will see any significant decreases in the price of Standard decks while 8-12 fetch land mana bases are popular.  The icing on the cake is a lot of this money is going toward cards that don’t immediately plummet in value after rotation.

Closing Thoughts

Snapcaster Mage was announced as a the RPTQ promo which means basically nothing will happen to it’s price.  It’s new art (which has been receiving mostly negative feedback) was expected. They have not reprinted any Invitational cards without new art except for time shifted cards (Avalanche Riders and Shadowmage Infiltrator). I expect non-foil copies to only quiver for a moment and foil copies to not budge.  Your Snapcaster Mages will be safe for another year.

Speaking of promos, why do we still not know the GP promo for next year?   I want to remain optimistic but  I feel like there is some weird reason we don’t know it yet.  Maybe there won’t be one?  I don’t know for sure.

Don’t have your Khans of Tarkir fetch lands yet?  What are you waiting for?  I don’t expect to see any drop in price when they rotate in April.

Currently played KTK cards are on the rise.  I would look to move anything you’re not planning to use in the next few months now.  Notable increases to the price of Wingmate Roc, Crackling Doom, and Mantis Rider.

Next week I’m planning an article to maximize your Pucatrading.  If you have any questions or concerns please leave them in the comments below or tweet at me @Phrost_ !

No matter who you are or what your eventual end goal is, you are limiting your options by not knowing how to properly ship a Magic card.  Now there are some things you can do to make a package special.

The most important thing is to make sure you are shipping something that doesn’t damage the cards.  Too many times I’ve received very makeshift packages that people got lucky and survived the mail system.  While some of these points will be specific to people living in the United States, packaging is something that is universally lacking.

 

What do you need?

Ostensibly, you need a lot of things to mail a good secure package but the reality is that it’s not nearly as much as you think.  Here is my basic set of tools to send out cards.  A box of envelopes, a scissor, a bubble mailer, team bags, penny sleeves, stamps, toploaders, and the card I’m mailing.  Depending on where you purchase all of these things, you shouldn’t end up paying more than $20 or so to start up. I’m sure some people are familiar with most of these things, but not with mailing best practices.  Let’s take it from the top.

What do I do?

I prefer to buy size 6 3/4 envelopes (9.2cm x 16.5cm) due to their size.  They are large enough for a few cards to fit comfortably but not too large that a loose toploader will move around a lot and rip the envelope. Outside of this there are many varieties of envelopes but the most basic security lined envelopes cost you somewhere in the ballpark of $0.03 each.

Penny sleeves, as the name implies, are usually about 100 for $1 (or $0.01 each) and are where the process starts.

The first step is for small orders (1-2 cards) put the cards upside down into the sleeve.  Theoretically which side is up doesn’t matter that much but it makes it easier to explain the later steps.

After you put it into the sleeve, fold the open side over to create a small flap.  Penny sleeves should be larger than your card and if you can’t make a nice fold then there are probably too many cards in the sleeve.

Put the sleeve into a toploader with the folded side entering first.  This will ensure the card doesn’t move around much in the sleeve and get dinged up by the toploader.  It also provides some tension to keep the card from sliding out of the toploader after being mailed.

After you finish you should be able to shake the toploader and see little to no movement in the card.  Now you may also notice the fit is pretty tight.  You probably can’t fit a whole playset of cards into this, so what do we do?

Start the same way, put the 4 cards into the penny sleeve upside down.  But here’s where this mysterious “team bag” thing comes in.

Team bags are pretty large self sealing sleeves.  They’re called team bags because sports stores use them to make bags of the same team.  Rocket science, right?

Well it’s nice because it snugly fits all of our cards and our toploader without having to squeeze them into it.  Team bags allow you the storage of a large plastic sleeve while keeping the rigidness of a toploader.  I recommend this for 4-8 cards.

Now to finish it all off, put a Post-it note on the sealed team bag with your order number or PucaTrade number and you have one nice package.  For single toploader envelopes, you can fold the post-it over the open end of the toploader to keep the card inside.

What is the point of all these weird procedures? To minimize the amount of tape you put on everything.  It’s a pretty big waste most of the time and gets the toploader all sticky for the next person.  Ideally you will reuse the toploaders you get sent to save money and I’d rather my recipient to not need to clean off the tape after they receive my card.

After you’ve finished packaging your envelope you can address the front and slap a Forever stamp on it and it’s ready to be dropped into a local mailbox.

Damage on the Stack

What’s the total damage?

• Envelope               $0.03
• Penny Sleeve      $0.01
• Team Bag              $0.03
• Toploader            (Free)
• Forever Stamp   $0.49

Theoretically, the cheapest you can send a card is $0.53 to $0.56.  That’s pretty cheap but sometimes you want more protection for a valuable card.

Most bubble mailers can be available for $0.50 but the real extra cost here is in the shipping and time commitment to go to the post office to get tracking.  Unless you use the fantastic Paypal shipping service.

Cheat code shipping

Here is a link to the Paypal shipping service.  It allows you to pay with your Paypal account (you must have a Paypal account to use this service) for a label that you can print out and tape to the bubble mailer.  This saves money (it’s actually cheaper than the Post Office) and tons of time (you don’t have to go to the Post Office to mail it).  I generally choose to ship the cheapest way with tracking.  This is USPS First class thick envelope that weighs 3oz.  That’s typically enough for a small bubble mailer and packaging for up to 10 cards in a team bag.  Shipping this way ends up costing $2.04 for shipping inside the US plus materials ( ~$0.56).

Where do I get this stuff?

I’m glad you asked reader!  Well I’ve got another cheat code for you, enter Potomac Distribution.  Unfortunately this site will only ship products within the US but you can save a ton of money by buying in bulk.  You can find smaller quantities for close to retail but you start saving a lot once you hit case size quantities.  While this is not an option for everyone if you do decide to get into Pucatrade or selling on TCGPlayer you can save a lot of money by buying in bulk.  Unlike food, sleeves don’t spoil.  You can also find cases of KMC and Dragonshield sleeves for much cheaper than usual.  Splitting a case with friends can yield up to a 30% savings.  For smaller quantities, you can find singleton packs of these sleeves at your LGS or on Amazon.

 

Final Thoughts

• While I didn’t plan it this way, Oblivion Sower is probably a card to be on the look out for.  Contrary to what the note I received was, I requested these Sowers 3 weeks ago.  After our roving reporter in the field, Jeremy, reported yesterday, a buyout is indicative of probable Pro Tour play.
• Expeditions are probably nearing their lowest price unless we see Pro Tour decks with 8+ Mythics from Battle for Zendikar.
• Crackling Doom will probably have a weekend price of $4
• Unless something usurps Mantis Rider, I expect the same of it this weekend.
• Dragonlord Ojutai saw double digit growth over the weekend ( I literally bought one for $15 on Friday and cant find one less than $30 right now) despite a poor showing at SCG Atlanta.  I am curious as to why that is.  Maybe he will be a Pro Tour powerhouse.
• Dispel is a maindeck worth card in Standard.  I would look to powerful sorcery speed removal for the future.

With the Battle for Zendikar pre-release on the horizon the most asked question on the internet is “what do I do with my cards from the pre-release?”  There are a few groupings of cards and only a few things that can happen with cards.  Some cards go up, some cards go down, and some cards stay the same.  That’s pretty obvious, right?  What do we do to figure this out?

Mythic Rares

Mythics usually fall into 1 of two camps.  Either they’re over-priced and going to slowly dip starting shortly after the release of the set, or they’re priced correctly and will spike as soon as demand increases.  You should look to trade away all mythics you don’t intend to use in your decks the weekend of the pre-release or the weekend after the Pro Tour.  Some flashier mythics like planeswalkers can see steep spikes the weekend of the Pro Tour if they see a lot of camera time. Personally, I’ll be looking to hold Gideon, Kiora, Ob Nixilis, Undergrowth Champion, Drana, Ulamog, and Oblivion Sower until after the weekend of the Pro Tour.  I’ll be pretty excited if I can trade my Part the Waterveil, Akoum Firebird, and non-foil copies of Omnath, Locus of Rage at the pre-release.  These mythics have little upside from their current pre-order prices.  If you are not Pucatrading, you should look into it!  You can sign up for it through my referral link here.  Although your local play group might not have a guy that collects phoenixes, there are plenty of people on Pucatrade that will be happy to receive your Akoum Firebird.

Bulk Rares

Generally anything less than $1 is the kind of bargain bin stuff you’ll not need to keep.  For every sub $1 card that you keep past the pre-release instead of trading it for $0.50 – $0.75 worth of value is one more you are likely to only be able to sell for $0.11 to a buylist.  There are some exceptions to this idea, but generally you will lose a lot more if you hold these cards than you miss out if you don’t.

Low range rares $1-4

Some of these are criminally under-priced.  Do you remember Hangarback Walker’s pre-order price? $1.99 at most online stores.  Occasionally these cards can break out and become a force in standard but I like to trade them away because their price point likely can’t be sustained after the release date.  I recommend trying to pick them up in December for $0.50-$1 each.  Again, Pucatrade is a great way to spend your Monday after the pre-release to get some value from your winnings.

High end Rares $5-10

A lot of these cards are likely to become format staples.  Right now, the only cards in this category are Ruinous Path (our Hero’s Downfall replacement), and lands.  Lots and lots of lands.  There are 7 dual lands and they’re all probably going to go spike once new decks start showing up but they will level out just like temples.  I expect most of these cards to movement during the Pro Tour weekend so at this point they aren’t a terrible thing to pre-order for your week 1 standard deck.  I wouldn’t want to trade these cards until the weekend of the Pro Tour.

Power Uncommons

Most of the $0.75-$1.50 uncommons will be valuable until they get printed as a FNM promo.  I would either trade them away immediately or hold them until Pro Tour weekend.  I’m really interested in picking up people’s extra copies of Crumble to Dust, Retreat to Coralhelm, Trangress the Mind, Statis Snare, Titan’s Presence, Zulaport Cutthroat, and Herald of Kozilek.

Foils

Foils can very hit or miss.  Honestly, if you find anyone interested in trading for your foils at a reasonable price it’s hard to fault you for getting rid of them.  There are a lot of foils that will not maintain their price (usually on mythic rares) after Magic Online redemption starts.  Standard legal foils are also a lot less likely to move up with the same speed and multiplier on standard only cards.  This is pretty evident on a card like Deathmist Raptor which at the time of this article has a fair trade price of $21.08 for non-foil copies, but only a price of $30.98 for foils.  A meager 1.5x multiplier on a foil Mythic Rare does not reflect the actual rarity of the card.  It is strictly a product of the extremely low demand for foils.  Cards that generally carry much higher multipliers are legendary creatures and lands.  If the multiplier on that foil you open is especially low you can consider holding it.

Pre-Release Foils

There are going to be a ton of different pre-release promo foils this time.  Every rare in the set is eligible for a foil printing.  This means less impact on the set version of the card but some of these pre-release foils are going to be extraordinarily rare.  I would hang onto any Mythic pre-release foil as there are a lot of collectors that will want it.  I know many people that collect every promo and some that only collect every pre-release promo.  Their has become a lot harder these last few years but they persevere.   I personally was able to trade a pre-release copy of Alhammarret, High Arbiter for $3 on Pucatrade.  That’s a ton for a card that is as bulk as bulk gets and has a $1 foil price.

Zendikar Expeditions

Yeah I know, you were all waiting for this at the end of the article, right?  Zendikar Expeditions are going to absolutely rock your local pre-release.  The first guy that opens it is going to hoot and holler and it will be a spectacle to see!  But what do you do after the initial shock wears off and it’s sitting in a perfect fit in your binder?  Honestly, I don’t know.  I would keep tabs on twitter and see how people are reacting to the surprise.  We don’t have enough information on store pricing or availability and we have no idea how common or rare they are.  A lot of theory crafting has gone into predicting the price but it won’t mean anything if our assumptions are wrong.  The only way to find out if they are correct is to open booster packs!  Personally, I will be looking at twitter and trying to gauge how often they are being opened.  If it seems like there are 2 or more per pre-release event, it may be time to dump them quickly.  If we hear about entire stores not opening a single one, well then it’s time to frame that beauty and put it on the mantle.  Zendikar Expeditions I expect will be the quickest moving commodity this weekend and the only way to stay ahead is to stay online.