By: Jared Yost

The other day I was browsing around MTGPrice’s ProTrader Money board. A new addition to this tool is that it now offers buylist prices for all sets that there is data available. This piqued my interest and I decided that I would browse through some of the most recent sets to see who was offering the highest price for individual cards I was looking to buylist. Then I had an idea.

Having buylist data for thousands of cards offers us some insight into trends that appear for the vendors that MTGPrice tracks. By gathering the data and visualizing these trends we can better understand who offers the most for cards and how much we are leaving on the table when deciding to buylist.

I wanted to gather this information for Modern because it will be the most relevant format for all of us going into the summer. When the prices start rising up again and demand for Modern cards goes up, if you have a lot of a particular card and want to sell out buylisting is generally the quickest way to do this. However, as we’ll see sometimes creating eBay or TCGPlayer listings also have their rewards even if it may take longer to sell the item.

What I hope to accomplish by showing you these statistics is first and foremost the average buylist price by vendor. This will show us who on average will give you the most money for buylisting.

Secondly, we’ll want to see which vendor has the most cards listed on their buylist. If you’re going to ship a lot of cards you will want to know which buylist has higher odds of having more cards that you own and want to sell on it.

Thirdly, we’ll want to see the median and mode buylist prices for each vendor. This will give us a better understanding on who pays the most from a different perspective. The higher median price on average for uncommons and commons is important because it will tell us who has a higher range of prices for less valuable pieces of a collection. The mode for each vendor and rarity type will better tell us on average what you can expect to receive for any given rarity from a vendor.

Finally, the most important data point we’ll want to gather is the loss percentage (or money you are leaving on the table) for each buylist. This will indicate how much money you are losing compared to the MTGPrice fair retail value of card.

Data Collection Method

Before I show you the statistics let me tell you how I collected the data. The data set includes all non-foil cards from 8th Edition through Born of the Gods. 10,445 cards total are listed on the buylists. Not all of these will be used for the data analysis. Finally, we’re tracking all rarities from mythic to common.

• Buylists:
  • Fair – This is the MTGPrice fair retail value of the card. This is what you can expect to buy the card for at a retail site or the value it is worth when trading.
  • eBay – Though this is not a buylist vendor I wanted to include eBay because it is a good indicator of the market price for a card, more so than the fair price. This is one of the best ways to get a high cash value for your card.
  • TCGPlayer – Same as eBay, not a buylist but allows you to get a higher cash value for a card if you’re willing to wait longer to sell it.
  • CFB – Channel Fireball
  • ABU – Alpha Beta Unlimited Games
  • CCGHouse – CCGHouse.com
  • Hotsauce – Hotsauce Games
  • Strikezone – Strikezone.com
• All cards that were analyzed had a price of at least $0.01 on a buylist. The MTGPrice MoneyBoard buylist prices for some cards are $0 or blanks. I did not include these in the calculations. After taking these out of the calculations, here are the number of cards that were included to calculate the statistics for each buylist:
  • Fair: 10,058
  • eBay: 9,990
  • TCGPlayer: 9,872
  • CFB: 3,207
  • ABU: 3,578
  • CCGHouse: 1,739
  • Hotsauce: 1,488
  • Strikezone: 1,565

Calculations Explained

For the data itself, here is how I calculated each data point:

Average – Average price of a card on a vendor’s buylist. The average was calculated based on all the cards that you could purchase from the buylist. This is the average amount you would receive per card if you were to sell a lot of cards of varying rarities to the vendor.

Total Buying – The dataset of the buylist for the vendor. This is the total number of cards with a value greater than $0 (or not available to buylist) that was listed on the Money board for all cards on the buylist for that vendor.

Sum Total Prices – The sum of each individual card’s price on the buylist. This is useful to know to get an “index fund” view of the vendor to determine how valuable the vendor’s buylist is overall not taking into account averages. It is used in calculating your loss percentage for selling to that buylist.

Median – The mid value of the buylist. This is the price that is halfway between the buylist’s lowest and highest value.

Mode – The most common buylist value. This is the most likely value you will receive per card if selling to the buylist.

% Buying – Based on the total Fair prices available for cards greater than $0, this is the percentage of cards that you can sell to the vendor. In other words, based on the entire Modern cardpool this is the approximate amount of the cardpool you could buylist to the vendor at any given time.

Avg * Buy % – This is a more accurate representation of the average value per card you can get from the buylist. It is the average times the percentage of the Modern card pool that the vendor is buying. This price reflects an average based on availability for the vendor.

% Loss Total – The amount of money you are losing selling to the buylist. On average, if you sell a lot of cards to this buylist based on the fair trade value this is the approximate percentage per card you are losing buylisting those cards.

Real eBay – This is the real eBay value of all cards based on the eBay and PayPal transaction fee of approx 14% per sale.

Data Listed by Rarity

I analyzed the data according to rarity. I did this so it would be easy to see who offered the most not only on mythics and rares but also on commons and uncommons which is where you can make a surprising amount of money selling to a buylist.

I have a set of data for the following rarities:

ALL
MYTHIC
RARE
UNCOMMON
COMMON
NON-COMMON

I wanted to include ALL and NON-COMMON so that I could get a better picture of who in general offered better buylist prices.

ALL

Vendor	Average	Total Buying	Sum Total Prices	Median	Mode	% Buying	Avg * Buy %	% Loss Total	Real eBay Total	Real eBay Loss	% Loss Total Update
Fair	$1.29	10058	$12,960.17	$0.22	$0.14	n/a	n/a	0.00%	n/a	n/a	0.00%
eBay	$1.76	9990	$17,611.09	$1.00	$0.99	99.32%	1.75	35.89%	$15,145.54	16.86%	16.86%
TCGPlayer	$0.90	9872	$8,923.88	$0.10	$0.06	98.15%	0.88	-31.14%	n/a	n/a	-31.14%
CFB	$1.33	3207	$4,261.19	$0.10	$0.10	31.89%	0.42	-67.12%	n/a	n/a	-67.12%
ABU	$1.47	3578	$5,251.03	$0.21	$0.02	35.57%	0.52	-59.48%	n/a	n/a	-59.48%
CCGHouse	$2.06	1739	$3,583.09	$0.51	$0.10	17.29%	0.36	-72.35%	n/a	n/a	-72.35%
Hotsauce	$1.91	1488	$2,845.03	$0.45	$0.05	14.79%	0.28	-78.05%	n/a	n/a	-78.05%
Strikezone	$1.92	1565	$3,004.52	$0.47	$0.01	15.56%	0.30	-76.82%	n/a	n/a	-76.82%

MYTHIC

Vendor	Average	Total Buying	Sum Total Prices	Median	Mode	% Buying	Avg * Buy%	% Loss Total	Real eBay Total	Real eBay Loss	% Loss Total Update
Fair	$9.41	324	$3,048.12	$5.56	$1.30	n/a	n/a	0.00%	n/a	n/a	0.00%
eBay	$7.86	324	$2,546.42	$4.50	$0.99	100.00%	7.86	-16.46%	$2,189.92	-28.16%	-28.16%
TCGPlayer	$7.10	323	$2,292.86	$3.51	$0.60	99.69%	7.08	-24.78%	n/a	n/a	-24.78%
CFB	$5.77	229	$1,320.75	$3.00	$0.25	70.68%	4.08	-56.67%	n/a	n/a	-56.67%
ABU	$5.22	293	$1,530.92	$2.43	$0.06	90.43%	4.72	-49.77%	n/a	n/a	-49.77%
CCGHouse	$6.05	189	$1,143.37	$3.01	$3.01	58.33%	3.53	-62.49%	n/a	n/a	-62.49%
Hotsauce	$5.11	193	$985.33	$2.70	$0.59	59.57%	3.04	-67.67%	n/a	n/a	-67.67%
Strikezone	$5.49	152	$834.74	$2.70	$0.81	46.91%	2.58	-72.61%	n/a	n/a	-72.61%

RARE

Vendor	Average	Total Buying	Sum Total Prices	Median	Mode	% Buying	Avg * Buy%	% Loss Total	Real eBay Total	Real eBay Loss	% Loss Total Update
Fair	$2.83	2752	$7,800.37	$0.71	$0.38	n/a	n/a	0.00%	n/a	n/a	0.00%
eBay	$2.62	2746	$7,206.26	$1.00	$0.99	99.78%	2.61	-7.62%	$6,197.38	-20.55%	-20.55%
TCGPlayer	$2.02	2741	$5,548.69	$0.42	$0.25	99.60%	2.01	-28.87%	n/a	n/a	-28.87%
CFB	$1.71	1585	$2,711.00	$0.25	$0.10	57.59%	0.98	-65.25%	n/a	n/a	-65.25%
ABU	$1.64	2087	$3,423.47	$0.32	$0.06	75.84%	1.24	-56.11%	n/a	n/a	-56.11%
CCGHouse	$2.05	1095	$2,246.07	$0.75	$0.10	39.79%	0.82	-71.21%	n/a	n/a	-71.21%
Hotsauce	$2.25	733	$1,647.65	$0.68	$0.23	26.64%	0.60	-78.88%	n/a	n/a	-78.88%
Strikezone	$2.12	935	$1,986.63	$0.65	$0.14	33.98%	0.72	-74.53%	n/a	n/a	-74.53%

UNCOMMON

Vendor	Average	Total Buying	Sum Total Prices	Median	Mode*	% Buying	Avg * Buy%	% Loss Total	Real eBay Total	Real eBay Loss	% Loss Total Update
Fair	$0.44	3016	$1,325.46	$0.21	$0.17	n/a	n/a	0.00%	n/a	n/a	0.00%
eBay	$1.14	3002	$3,428.58	$0.99	$0.99	99.54%	1.13	158.67%	$2,948.58	122.46%	122.46%
TCGPlayer	$0.24	2985	$724.00	$0.10	$0.10	98.97%	0.24	-45.38%	n/a	n/a	-45.38%
CFB	$0.22	888	$197.96	$0.02	$0.01	29.44%	0.06	-85.06%	n/a	n/a	-85.06%
ABU	$0.31	794	$248.54	$0.03	$0.02	26.33%	0.08	-81.25%	n/a	n/a	-81.25%
CCGHouse	$0.65	265	$171.08	$0.15	$0.05	8.79%	0.06	-87.09%	n/a	n/a	-87.09%
Hotsauce	$0.55	324	$176.81	$0.14	$0.05	10.74%	0.06	-86.66%	n/a	n/a	-86.66%
Strikezone	$0.57	267	$151.47	$0.22	$0.01*	8.85%	0.05	-88.57%	n/a	n/a	-88.57%

*Only 15 uncommons on Strikezone’s buylist are $0.01. The buylist is actually quite diverse for uncommons. 35 cards on the buylist are $1 or more for an uncommon and there are plenty of 50c uncommons.

COMMON

Vendor	Average	Total Buying	Sum Total Prices	Median	Mode	% Buying	Avg * Buy%	% Loss Total	Real eBay Total	Real eBay Loss	% Loss Total Update
Fair	$0.20	3966	$786.22	$0.14	$0.14	n/a	n/a	0.00%	n/a	n/a	0.00%
eBay	$1.13	3918	$4,429.83	$1.00	$0.99	98.79%	1.12	463.43%	$3,809.65	384.55%	384.55%
TCGPlayer	$0.09	3823	$358.00	$0.06	$0.06	96.39%	0.09	-54.47%	n/a	n/a	-54.47%
CFB	$0.06	505	$31.48	$0.01	$0.01	12.73%	0.01	-96.00%	n/a	n/a	-96.00%
ABU	$0.12	404	$48.10	$0.02	$0.02	10.19%	0.01	-93.88%	n/a	n/a	-93.88%
CCGHouse	$0.11	183	$19.51	$0.03	$0.01	4.61%	0.01	-97.52%	n/a	n/a	-97.52%
Hotsauce	$0.15	238	$35.24	$0.05	$0.05	6.00%	0.01	-95.52%	n/a	n/a	-95.52%
Strikezone	$0.15	211	$31.68	$0.09	$0.01	5.32%	0.01	-95.97%	n/a	n/a	-95.97%

NON-COMMON

Vendor	Average	Total Buying	Sum Total Prices	Median	Mode	% Buying	Avg * Buy%	% Loss Total	Real eBay Total	Real eBay Loss	% Loss Total Update
Fair	$2.00	6092	$12,173.95	$0.39	$0.17	n/a	n/a	0.00%	n/a	n/a	0.00%
eBay	$2.17	6072	$13,181.26	$1.00	$0.99	99.67%	2.16	8.27%	$11,335.88	-6.88%	-6.88%
TCGPlayer	$1.42	6049	$8,565.88	$0.23	$0.10	99.29%	1.41	-29.64%	n/a	n/a	-29.64%
CFB	$1.57	2702	$4,229.71	$0.10	$0.10	44.35%	0.70	-65.26%	n/a	n/a	-65.26%
ABU	$1.64	3174	$5,202.93	$0.25	$0.06	52.10%	0.85	-57.26%	n/a	n/a	-57.26%
CCGHouse	$2.29	1556	$3,563.58	$0.75	$0.10	25.54%	0.58	-70.73%	n/a	n/a	-70.73%
Hotsauce	$2.25	1250	$2,809.79	$0.59	$0.23	20.52%	0.46	-76.92%	n/a	n/a	-76.92%
Strikezone	$2.20	1354	$2,972.84	$0.62	$0.14	22.23%	0.49	-75.58%	n/a	n/a	-75.58%

 

So, What Does This Tell Us?

This graph was created using the “Avg * Buylist %” column for each rarity type by vendor. This is a better representation of the average amount you will receive per card when selling to a buylist because it factors in how many cards are available on that vendor’s buylist.

The key to this graph is to look at the NON-COMMON data. Fair is hovering around $2, right? So why is it that on eBay you can get a higher value on average for your cards than the fair price? That seems strange considering you are supposed to be selling at lower than Fair since it is eBay right? Well, the retail sites aren’t buying all the random uncommons in your collection which could be the case on eBay. This is why you see higher averages for eBay than Fair, but good luck trying to sell everything through eBay alone. ABU appears to have highest buylist prices on average for non-common cards.

Looking at the bottom of the chart, the uncommons and commons don’t seem to even appear on the charts. It looks like eBay is the way to go if you need to get rid of commons and uncommons – look at how much higher on average you can get for a common/uncommon on eBay versus the other ways of selling! Of course, this could be a large margin of error on the price scraping tool’s part where it collects eBay auctions that are selling more than one copy of a common/uncommon. Still though if you have the drive and determination you could probably sell a lot of commons and uncommons on eBay even if the auctions are for playsets. You will get a lot higher than the $0.01 buylist prices of the retail sites.

Average doesn’t tell us the whole story, however. We should also look at it from another perspective.

It may be true that the shops are buying fewer commons and uncommons, and who can blame them since they are generally worth less than mythics and rares. Note that they still do buy these types of cards, and for some shops like CFB and ABU they are not an insignificant number. Just be aware that at some point the law of diminishing returns will come into play – how much effort do you want to make on buylisting a bunch of $0.01 cards?

CFB and ABU are buying significantly more cards than their competitors by looking at the total non-common cards that are on their buylists. This helps curb the law of diminishing returns. If you have a lot of cards to offload, it can be convenient to ship them all to one buylist and get paid all from one source. You will have a better chance of doing this through CFB or ABU for Modern cards. Not to say that you won’t get the best price, especially on a card by card basis. But on average you will be able to sell more to these shops and thus increase your chances of offloading cards that you may otherwise have to put more work into selling.

Let’s look at the data from more perspectives, the median and mode buylist prices per vendor.

By knowing the median price per vendor we can compare it to the average and see how far off the two are. If they are off by a large margin, that means that a few data points are skewing the average upwards or lower. Thankfully the average and median graphs are very similar looking which means that there aren’t any outliers on any of the buylists that are significantly altering the average.

The mode, on the other hand, tells us what the most common price per buylist we can expect for a rarity. The clear outlier here is CCGHouse – if you are in the market for buylisting mythic rares, CCGHouse is buying most of their mythics at $3. What CFB and ABU offer for the guy that wants to get rid of a large amount of commons and uncommons they clearly lack for mythics – most mythics on ABU’s buylist are less than $0.10. If you have a lot of mythics you should definitely check out CCGHouse because odds are they will pay the most for your mythic rare. Hotsauce and Strikezone pay more for mythics than CFB and ABU but they have significantly fewer cards on their buylist than the other stores. It looks like Hotsauce pays more per rare on average than other retail sites so if you have a lot of rares you may want to look at Hotsauce as your vendor of choice.

Seeing the eBay numbers for these graphs does make me suspicious. For commons and uncommons, I’ll guessing that MTGPrice counts a playset auction as one card sold which does skew this data in a big way. If the data was collected more reliably from eBay I would predict that it would have statistics similar to TCGPlayer.

Finally, I’ll show you the loss percentage per vendor when buylisting.

 

Disregarding the strange eBay results I was getting, here is the chart starting at 0%.

The reason that eBay was so high on the other chart is because I was getting absurdly high averages for common and uncommon cards that were “sold” on eBay. The most likely reason for this is because they are sold in playsets which means that if you have four of them you can probably sell them for a dollar through eBay. This is pretty decent considering how much lower buylists are. It is a lot of work to be successful at it though.

Looking at loss percentage for the retail websites, the clear winners are ABU, CFB, and CCGHouse. Your losses for non-commons that you sell to those buylists on average are going to be smaller than selling to Hotsauce or Strikezone. Generally speaking, the best way to go is eBay or TCGPlayer if you have the determination and time to get the most money but selling to stores is good if you are pressed for time.

One interesting thing to note is that selling through TCGPlayer does seem to have a much larger loss than I was expecting. For non-common cards in general, you are losing on average about 30% selling through TCGPlayer. This seems pretty high to me. One reason I can think it is so high is because MTGPrice may track all condition types – so MP, HP, and SP cards could be included in that loss. Even still, I didn’t factor in the additional loss you will encounter when listing the items – TCGPlayer charges an 8.5% TCGplayer fee + a PayPal / credit card processing fee (which I think is around 3%). So that loss percent would be even higher if I included that in the calculations. It appears that TCGPlayer is having a “race to the bottom” effect on prices where people are continuing to outbid everyone else on low prices. I wonder if this loss percentage for TCGPlayer will only increase going into the future?

Final Thoughts

So, I realize that this was A TON of information so I’ll try to keep this section short and sweet.

I learned a lot from this endeavor. I learned exactly how much I will be losing when selling to a buylist, but I also learned which buylists and websites I can expect to get a better price for mythics, rares, uncommons, and commons. I thought that analyzing the buylist data for all the Modern legal cards across several several vendors, eBay, and TCGPlayer would be useful for the community to make judgements about how they want to sell their cards. I hope you all can take something away from this like I did.

I would have loved to include data from more vendors (let’s face it, Starcity is out of the question however Cardkingdom is usually pretty competitive) to get a better market picture. I think that I’ve hit a lot of the big names though so the market data should be pretty relevant. Happy selling during Modern season! Also, a shout out to MTGPrice for scraping this data in their new buylist Money Board feature.

By: Jared Yost

At the time of each set release I like to review that set’s event deck to see if it is worth it for you to go out and procure that deck based upon the uncommons and rares that Wizards decides to design the deck around. You are not going to win many FNM’s with the deck but it is an easy way for you to boost your collection of more powerful utility cards that could see play in Standard or in other formats. Let’s take a look at Journey into Nyx’s event deck to see how much value it can provide you.

Decklist

Lands
9 Island
4 Izzet Guildgate C
12 Mountain

Creatures
1 Ætherling R
1 Battlefield Thaumaturge R
1 Chandra’s Phoenix R
3 Guttersnipe U
1 Ogre Battledriver R
1 Oracle of Bones R
4 Spellheart Chimera U
3 Young Pyromancer U

Other spells
1 Anger of the Gods R
2 Divination C
1 Fated Conflagration R
2 Flames of the Firebrand U
1 Harness by Force R
4 Lightning Strike C
3 Magma Jet U
1 Mizzium Mortars R
2 Searing Blood U
1 Steam Augury R
2 Turn // Burn U

Sideboard
2 Dispel C
2 Elixir of Immortality U
3 Essence Scatter C
2 Flames of the Firebrand U
3 Izzet Staticaster U
3 Negate C

Analysis

Let me say this right away – you are not buying this deck for the rares. The rares in the deck are very underwhelming. They couldn’t even include Temple of Epiphany or Steam Vents (I guess it was too much hoping for Mana Confluence) to help smooth out your mana? Lame. The wasted rare slot prizes go to Ogre Battledriver, Oracle of Bones, Fated Conflagration, Harness by Force, and Steam Augury. All of these rares can be had for $0.50 retail and are basically bulk rares on TCGPlayer.

The other rares, while nice, also don’t provide you much value. One could argue that Battlefield Thaumaturge is highly underrated right now and its price could go up in the future. Barring this, there is no single card in the deck that is worth more than $4. Mizzium Mortars has been printed in an event deck before (Return to Ravnica) so there are plenty of copies out there to suppress its price. Aethering is a cool, flashy card however it is never played as more than one copy and is barely breaking $1.50 retail. Anger of the Gods is a great Modern card but does it really need a reprint now at $2.50? Chandra’s Phoenix already has two printings in addition to this event deck so I’m not exactly thrilled about its inclusion even though it is $3 – let’s be real, the price wasn’t going any higher regardless of its inclusion in this event deck.

The heart of this event deck is the uncommons. There are so many juicy uncommons. I had to do a double take when I saw that they were including three Young Pyromancer and three Magma Jet and three Guttersnipe – each of these uncommons are worth more than half the deck’s rares. In addition to this, two copies of Turn // Burn and Searing Blood also looks appealing. Spellheart Chimera, Flames of the Firebrand, and Izzet Staticaster are all popular uncommons and the deck includes several of each. Elixir of Immortality is a popular casual uncommon but it has been printed several times already so it is the least exciting uncommon in the deck.

MSRP of the deck is $25. Based on the retail value of the singles, what is the deck worth?

Total value of cards individually:

1 Izzet Guildgate C @ $0.26 each
1 Ætherling R @ $1.67 each
1 Battlefield Thaumaturge R @ $2.12 each
1 Chandra’s Phoenix R @ $3.24 each
3 Guttersnipe U @ $1.06 each
1 Ogre Battledriver R @ $0.44 each
1 Oracle of Bones R @ $0.42 each
4 Spellheart Chimera U @ 0.30 each
3 Young Pyromancer U @ $2.58 each
1 Anger of the Gods R @ $2.34 each
2 Divination C @ $0.13 each
1 Fated Conflagration R @ $0.45 each
4 Flames of the Firebrand U @ $0.17 each
1 Harness by Force R @ $0.53 each
4 Lightning Strike C @ $0.45 each
3 Magma Jet U @ $0.95 each
1 Mizzium Mortars R @ $3.06 each
2 Searing Blood U @ $1.12 each
1 Steam Augury R @ $0.44 each
2 Turn // Burn U @ $0.50 each
2 Dispel C @ $0.19 each
2 Elixir of Immortality U @ $0.40 each
3 Essence ScatterC @ $0.22 each
3 Izzet Staticaster U @ $0.26 each
3 Negate C @ $0.19 each

Total Value: $39.89

This Seems Wrong…

This value is very misleading even though technically it is correct according to retail. Many of the cards in the deck are commons and uncommons and could probably be picked up for way less than the retail price that MTGPrice reports. If we look at just the rares they add up to only $14.71. Desecration Demon and Hero’s Downfall, when they were reprinted in the Born of the Gods event deck, were together worth more than all the rares in this deck combined. That tells you a lot about how terrible most of the rares in this deck are. This also means that the uncommons and commons add up to $25.18 retail. It’s pretty sad when an event deck’s commons and uncommons are worth more than its rares.

This deck is way less powerful than its Born of the Gods counterpart. I included every card in the deck barring basic land, even the cards which would probably be considered bulk and valueless, and it still didn’t even come close to the value of the BNG mono-black event deck. Sure, if you were to buy each individual part of the deck retail it would cost you more than if you just bought this deck as a package at $25 MSRP. However, most players are looking to pick up event decks so that they can get some of pricier Standard rares while also being able to pick up any chase commons or uncommons from the newest set. Here, you’re only really getting good uncommons, which unfortunately I’m guessing that anyone who plays Standard already has. It’s really aggravating to think that there aren’t even any Journey into Nyx uncommons in the deck which are what people need to pick up when the set comes out, another blow to the deck’s already terrible build from a financial perspective.

Regrettably, when uncommons are reprinted it is much more devastating to the price than rares. Since there are already tons of Young Pyromancers, Guttersnipes, and all the other uncommons in the deck out there already, adding more of them to the pool will suppress their prices. This makes me think that the retail value I calculated above for the uncommons will only go down over time since so many of each are included in the deck. You really only want to buy the deck if you don’t have the uncommons and I’m guessing most players already have them. This is a disappointing event deck.

By: Jared Yost

There has been a lot of buzz going on in the Magic finance community over the past few months. It all started with Modern. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve noticed that Modern card prices have gone crazy – and will continue to go crazy throughout the summer PTQ season. Then, all of sudden everyone had an interest in Legacy cards. Starcitygames and others have been upping their buylist and sell prices on format staples like dual lands and other cards like City of Traitors, Sneak Attack, Wasteland, and Stoneforge Mystic have all increased significantly in price. Like others have pointed out, this is most likely because people saw that they could trade away or buylist their Zendikar fetchlands for a hefty credit towards the rarer Revised dual lands for Legacy or Commander and decided it was a no-brainer to pick them up.

Speaking of Commander, the most recent buzz surrounds casual cards. That’s right, cards from the very first release of the Commander products (called just Commander) are now starting to see new highs. Let’s check out the current prices on the first Commander set:

All Cards in Set (with Fair Trade Price $3 or more)

Card Name	Fair Trade Price	Best Buylist Price
Flusterstorm	$42.63	$30.0
Kaalia of the Vast	$27.86	$17.01
Stranglehold	$16.16	$9.45
Edric, Spymaster of Trest	$14.98	$9.45
Damia, Sage of Stone	$14.42	$8.82
Animar, Soul of Elements	$13.99	$9.3
Hydra Omnivore	$11.87	$8.0
Scavenging Ooze	$11.64	$7.01
Grave Pact	$11.32	$8.09
Oblivion Stone	$11.23	$6.0
Ghave, Guru of Spores	$9.48	$5.0
Chaos Warp	$9.1	$6.3
Garruk Wildspeaker	$8.98	$5.88
Path to Exile	$8.71	$4.62
Tariel, Reckoner of Souls	$8.67	$5.24
Riku of Two Reflections	$7.82	$4.7
Ghostly Prison	$7.79	$4.01
Spell Crumple	$7.14	$4.0
Sol Ring	$6.86	$4.01
Austere Command	$6.76	$4.01
Karador, Ghost Chieftain	$6.76	$3.75
Basandra, Battle Seraph	$6.74	$5.5
Skullclamp	$6.49	$3.5
Lightning Greaves	$6.33	$3.5
Mother of Runes	$6.21	$4.51
Akroma, Angel of Fury	$5.59	$3.0
The Mimeoplasm	$5.57	$4.0
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave	$5.43	$3.0
Sewer Nemesis	$5.16	$2.74
Homeward Path	$5.05	$2.41
Hornet Queen	$5.01	$3.0
Angel of Despair	$4.89	$4.63
Aura Shards	$4.82	$2.54
Champion’s Helm	$4.82	$2.62
Solemn Simulacrum	$4.32	$2.0
Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter	$3.77	$2.0
Dread Cacodemon	$3.68	$1.75
Eternal Witness	$3.52	$1.0
Command Tower	$3.49	$0.5
Mana-Charged Dragon	$3.42	$2.14
Nin, the Pain Artist	$3.23	$1.5
Avatar of Woe	$3.14	$1.51

If I would have told you one year ago that Stranglehold would be the third most valuable card from this expansion I’m pretty sure I would have been laughed out of the room. Yet, there it stands at ~$16 trade value below Kaalia and Flusterstorm.

Other recent price corrections that have occurred put Edric and Damia in the top five. Edric doesn’t seem very surprising to me because in Legacy he seems like he could provide a lot of benefit to the correct deck. But Damia? That correction was purely from casual demand.

Even cards like Ghave are not safe. Two weeks ago he was $2.50 and now has spiked up to $10. Well, spike isn’t the correct term in this case – it really is a price correction based on market demand as more casual players try to build additional Commander decks and stores have followed suit.

This makes me wonder what else from the first Commander release has a lot of potential? I’ll separate my cards to watch into several categories to let you know where I think each will fall in the long term.

Most Probable for a Price Correction

Animar, Soul of Elements
Chaos Warp
Riku of Two Reflections
Karador, Ghost Chieftain
The Mimeoplasm
Nin, the Pain Artist

I think that out of all the cards that haven’t corrected in price those listed above are next in line. Most of the cards in this list are legendary creatures from the original Commander precons that were created specifically for that expansion. Outside of future Commander products these cards are very hard to reprint because their lore is so specific. Until new Commander products are released that utilize the wedge colors again I don’t foresee these cards coming down in price. In fact, I can see them continuing to go up due to the rise in popularity of Commander as a format and the fact that they haven’t seen price corrections for quite some time.

I put Chaos Warp in this list because I feel that for a removal spell this strong in red, a color that basically has no way to deal with enchantments outside of colorless spells and Chaos Warp, it really has nowhere to go but up. I especially like foils from the Commander’s Arsenal at $25. The only caveat I would give here is that this could possibly be printed in Conspiracy. Judging by the power level of the recently spoiled Dack Fayden I could totally see Chaos Warp being in that set just to get more copies out there. Nin could also be a potential inclusion as her ability is very political.

Solidly Trending Upwards

Hydra Omnivore
Grave Pact
Tariel, Reckoner of Souls
Spell Crumple
Basandra, Battle Seraph
Akroma, Angel of Fury
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave
Sewer Nemesis
Hornet Queen
Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter

Already experienced major price increases yet still apply to this category:

Flusterstorm
Kaalia of the Vast
Stranglehold
Edric, Spymaster of Trest
Damia, Sage of Stone
Ghave, Guru of Spores

The cards here have corrected in price or are already fairly pricey, though now they are at a price where I don’t think they will double up again in one shot. I think they will now slowly creep up over time.

Some cards in this category don’t scream “Price correction!” to me but I believe still have a good shot of increasing in price over a longer period. Cards like Tariel, Basandra, Skullbriar, Vish Kal, and Sewer Nemesis are good examples – these are all great casual cards yet they are on the weaker side of the card pool from the first Commander products. I think it will take them longer to reach a higher price than they are currently selling. 

On the other hand, cards like Akroma, Hornet Queen, Spell Crumple, Grave Pact, and Hydra Omnivore are all solid casual cards that may not see exponential growth (outside of being featured in an eternal format top 8 decklist) yet still have some room to grow in the long run. The reason I don’t think they will price correct as fast as the first category is because Akroma has two printings, the other cards I mentioned aren’t build-around-me cards, and they all require solid commitment to their colors to be included within a deck that utilizes them. Akroma has been seeing some hype recently due to her potential Modern applications, so it could double up just based on that. In the long term though, I believe the price of these cards will have a relatively stable upward trend.

I’m also including the cards here that are the most expensive from the set because, frankly, they can certainly get even more expensive. However, due to many of them already increasing in price substantially fairly recently (or already being expensive) they’ll probably take longer than the first category to experience another shoot up in price. Be on the lookout for them to be sure, as most are fairly hard to reprint, though also keep in mind these could take longer to go up again.

Will Trend Upwards but Fear the Reprint

Scavenging Ooze
Oblivion Stone
Garruk Wildspeaker
Path to Exile
Ghostly Prison
Sol Ring
Austere Command
Skullclamp
Lightning Greaves
Mother of Runes
Homeward Path
Command Tower

All of these cards are great casual targets. They all have decent trade value because casual players love to use these in their decks. However, I would be hesitant to pick up extra copies of these cards because they all have seen at least two printings, with a few seeing several, which means that Wizards has no problem reprinting them to get more copies out there. They are also more generic than legendary creatures and can be more easily included in new casual products or future sets. I would only acquire the copies you need and not try to hold onto these in the long term.

Scavenging Ooze may be the only exception to this rule as it sees heavy Modern play. Though it is played in 30% of the decks in Modern, it usually only averages about two copies per deck so that could stabilize the price a bit. I thought picking up Scavenging Ooze at around $11 was a good idea and have yet to recover from that (thankfully, I also picked up a ton of Mutavaults at $11 so I guess I’ll take the bad with the good.) I still have hope that Scavenging Ooze can trend upwards in the summer. I will wait until then to see if I can get a better price. If I can, that’s good and I will sell out of my stock. If not, I still plan to sell out because if they don’t rise for Modern this summer it is going to take a while for them to reach $15 or higher. In that time, Wizards could decide that the ooze needs another reprint in Modern Masters 2 or a supplementary product. I want to minimize that risk as much as I can.

Final Thoughts

Looking at the highest priced cards from the first Commander precon set we can see there are a lot of cards that deserve further analysis for future price trends. Trying to predict casual all stars can be hard at times, as casual players usually like cards that I as a spike can sometimes overlook. (Consuming Aberration was pointed out recently to me by Travis.) Who would have thought Stranglehold would be so valuable? I try not to get frazzled by these sometimes capricious prices for casual staples but that is something I am looking to improve upon by writing articles like this. Think I’ve got something completely wrong? Think I’ve missed anything that is less than $3 retail that is poised to go up over time from the original Commander set? Please, leave me a comment. The more we all know the better we can get at seeing what exactly casual players desire from their cards.

 

By: Jared Yost

All of Journey Into Nyx has been officially spoiled so l want to identify cards that have received a fair amount of buzz from the set, what the preorder price of those cards are, and what I think will happen in the future once the cards start seeing Standard (or other) play.

GODS

I think that Athreos is the most powerful god in Journey Into Nyx. He will fit well into future B/W/x aggro strategies and will make your opponent think twice before wiping the board. At three mana he is the cheapest of the gods along with Pharika. Is he worth it at the current preorder price of $20? Unfortunately, after much consideration I can’t say that I am comfortable with a $20 buy in and my advice is to wait this one out. I don’t foresee him becoming a format staple like Sphinx’s Revelation across multiple deck archetypes or providing the signficant backbone of several decks like Domri.

Athreos is not going to drop much (or even at all) as many people see the power that he offers Standard. However, Standard is going to need a shakeup before the Athreos will see gains in price. In the mean time, I recommend that you look into other potential pieces of the Athreos deck and see if you can’t get them for cheap:

Obzedat, Ghost Council
Xathrid Necromancer
Imposing Sovereign

I am thinking Keranos will see Standard play in U/R/x builds because he gives you incremental advantage every upkeep which is exactly what control decks are looking for. The closest comparison I can think of is when Staff of Nin was in Standard. That card saw play as either one or two copies in control decks and I can see Keranos filling that same role especially because his ability interacts so well with scry. You can really take advantage of his ability and have more power over choosing whether you want to deal damage or draw cards if you can scry for two or more (Prognostic Sphinx anyone?).

Preorder prices are averaging $13 for this god which I believe is accurately assessing his power level and the amount of play he will see. I don’t think he can go much lower than this so trade for your copies if you know you want to play him. His ability is powerful but I doubt that any player will need more than one or two for their deck as he is rather expensive and doesn’t have an immediate effect on the board. He doesn’t have much room to drop and growth could be substantial if he is adopted across several archetypes. Foils of this will be sought after.

Iroas really excited me the first time I saw him. It’s basically a combination of Gruul War Chant and Dolmen Gate that is indestructible!? Sign me up. This guy is going to be awesome in R/W aggro builds that want to take advantage of his ability. The only downside is he is really just a win-more card. He can’t help you against control decks but can be insane as a finisher card in an aggro deck.

At the current average of $14 I would wait a bit to purchase him even though his abilities are really powerful. I would be looking to pick him up over the summer in anticipation of seeing him in Theros-heavy aggro decks during Standard rotation at the end of the year. Until then I don’t think his $14 price tag is worth the preorder price.

At first I wasn’t very impressed with this god. I was expecting something a bit more overtly powerful but I reassessed the card and realized that Kruphix is a deceptively powerful god. Being able to float any of your mana, whether from lands or mana rocks, is a crazy powerful ability in Commander. Also having no maximum hand size is great for casual formats since blue based decks generally draw lots of cards and can’t use them fast enough. I would expect foils of this to command a premium.

Kruphix is preordering for $9.50 which is close to it’s real price but I think there is still room to drop. In Standard he just doesn’t offer enough to command a price near $10. I think that $6-$7 is where Kruphix will end up and that you want to be on the lookout for copies once it starts dipping down in price.

I had such high hopes for the B/G god that cost only three mana but we only got a card that is marginally worse than Scavenging Ooze which sees play in only about 12% of decks. Making deathtouch snakes is a pretty cool effect for casuals and Commander but Standard will not drive its price very far at least for now. Stay away and wait for her to drop into Karametra range before picking up.

DICTATES

    

I like the dictates for what they offer in casual and multiplayer formats but I don’t see them making a big splash in Standard, except for maybe Dictate of Heliod as one or two copies in an aggro deck. I’ve noticed a lot of sellers offering Dictate of Heliod at around $0.35 to $0.50 preorder – this is really low for a potentially game breaking effect. Certainly trade for these if you feel that you will be playing a white based aggro deck in Standard.

LANDS

  

Mana Confluence is a powerful land that will have an impact on Standard throughout its life. No more does the two color aggro strategy need to hope for the perfect draw of colored lands or tapped fixing in order to play out their hand – City of Brass 2.0 comes into play untapped and lets you execute whatever plan you need based on the cards in your hand.

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding Mana Confluence’s price. Some think that it will break the $20 barrier and stay there for its entire life in Standard. Some say that it is clearly overhyped to the max and will drop down to a more reasonable $7-$8 while it is in Standard because control decks clearly don’t want to play this and aggro won’t be so keen on having to keep pinging themselves in order to cast their spells.

It is currently preordering for $17-$18 without much wiggle room between vendors. I think a lot of people are going to scramble to pick up this land right away because they feel they will need it in Standard. Due to this mad scramble, I honestly think this land won’t be dropping below $15 for the entire time is in Standard. If you need them, they will only go up as we approach the fall rotation because mana fixing is going to be even harder once shock lands rotate out of Standard.

As for the new scry lands, I would pick them up if you need them but otherwise stay away until the summer. The U/R scry land in particular will be be a good pickup for the future because I foresee Keranos getting some play if not in this Standard season then definitely next year.

First Green and White Planeswalker!

Though in my opinion the laziest ultimate of any Planeswalker, I still think the first two abilities are solid since they are both +1 effects that enable G/W decks to accomplish amazing feats. Pumping up your creatures permanently or searching your deck for auras, creatures, or planeswalkers are powerful effects. At five mana this version of Ajani is pretty pricey but since he is in green I could see him coming out a turn earlier quite often. Starting at four loyalty is a nice bonus as well.

Ajani is currently pre selling for around $24, which is very surprising as I think he is much better than Kiora which is still around $20. Still though, at $24 is he worth it? I would say – not yet. There isn’t an established G/W deck that is currently rocking Standard, so if you do buy in at $24 and the deck doesn’t appear until next year you are sitting on Ajani for quite a while when instead you could be picking up unrealized Modern potential. Also at five mana I can’t see him being played that much, but again I was wrong about Elspeth, Sun’s Champion so this could indeed see a lot of play inside a Junk or Naya shell. At least he will retain the appeal of being the first G/W planeswalker.

Godsend

This equipment is pretty crazy, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think we’re quite on the level of Batterskull here. I see this card being very powerful in Legacy where True-Name Nemesis is all over the place and this equipment makes their TNN unable to successfully block any of your guys. It also prevents them from casting future TNN’s if they do decide to block.

Unfortunately, this equipment does not offer any type of “real” protection (as in, protection from a color, hexproof, etc.) nor does it have an immediate impact on the board state once it hits the battlefield. It also is restricted to white, so again unlike Batterskull the applications are more limited in formats like Legacy and Modern.

In terms of Standard, I can see it making an impact in white based aggro strategies but right now those strategies are suppressed by more dominating decks. I would wait until summer to get this equipment as I don’t think its current average of $13 is worth buying in. Once more aggro decks are present after Return to Ravnica rotates then it will be in higher demand.

Enchantment Creatures

   

All of these enchantment creatures, while having unique and somewhat powerful effects, all say “almost” to me.

While Eidolon of the Great Revel seems like it would be good in Legacy, its older brother Pyrostatic Pillar sees almost no play currently. Storm decks have been nerfed over the past decade by more powerful creatures as the game starts to stabilize itself as a creature based rather than spell based game. While Eidolon of the Great Revel is a step in the right direction I don’t think it will make a significant impact on eternal formats outside of being played in Legacy Burn. For Standard, I don’t think it will be played much either because you really want this in a control deck but control decks aren’t casting early creatures just to wipe them out later.

Eidolon of Blossoms has a sweet Constellation mechanic, probably the most powerful in a bottle from Journey, but being printed as the buy-a-box promo does stabilize the value significantly. In addition, its sisters Enchantress’s Presence and Argothian Enchantress are strictly better in the the Legacy Enchantments deck. Verduran Enchantress has existed for a long time and has never seen Legacy play so I don’t think this one will either. Whether or not it is played in Standard remains to be seen but I think if it goes below $0.50 you may want to pay attention to it.

Master of the Feast is a bigger body than Herald of Torment, but I think that the card advantage this offers your opponent is too much over the course of the game. I don’t think this will enable it to see top table Standard or other format play.

Aegis of the Gods grants you hexproof, which is nice, but like True Believer and cards that have come before it this is a sideboard ability at best. It is a Soldier, which puts it in a better creature type, but most of the time this guy won’t be any better than Goblin Piker until the right matchup comes along.

Other Goodness

  

Deicide is a great removal option for the plethora of gods that Standard will eventually see. A cross between Erase and Memoricide/Cranial Extraction for gods, I have a feeling that this will see a lot of sideboard play in Standard. However I do not think that being a sideboard card warrants it to maintain a price above $3. It is currently preselling for about $3.20 so I would wait a bit for this one to drop in price. Sideboard cards usually wind up in the $1-$2 range before going back up if they are really important against a particular strategy. Trade for them when they get close to a $1 because I feel they will see plenty of Standard play. See Grafdigger’s Cage as a prime example. It only recently started trending upwards in price. During its time in Standard it was around $1.

Prophetic Flamespeaker is quite interesting. It has double strike and trample, a combination never seen before on a card. It also allows you to cast spells whenever it hits a player and even potentially play a land and cast a spell. At first I thought the spells were free, and if so then I would be all over this guy. Alas, the spells are not free. Yes if you hit your land drops accordingly and the spell is on curve you could play it but you otherwise need to have enough mana to cast those spells. Being a 1/3 for three is also pretty marginal without any kind of evasion. You really need something like Madcap Skills to make this work, which I think is starting to ask for a lot when trying to build a strategy around him in addition to not playing your lands or saving mana for spells he will reveal. Wait this one out. I have a feeling he will either stay at his $8 price due to untapped potential or coming further down in price if he sees no play.

Battlefield Thaumaturge is pretty amazing with Fireball and its cousins like Comet Storm. This makes it awesome casually but is this ability enough for it to see Standard play? It makes your removal cost one less when targeting your opponents creatures which is cool. However, Standard removal is already pretty efficient for the colors it needs to be so I don’t really see this mattering much in Standard. Giving itself hexproof until end of turn is nice but I don’t think it really makes it that amazing when you have to cast a card to make that happen. He is currently preselling for $3 which I think is too high. I would wait for this one to drop a bit more before picking up.

Summary

Journey Into Nyx shares one similar characteristic to Born of the Gods which is that I’m not advocating that you preorder anything from the set, at least from a Standard perspective. This isn’t that surprising though because 99% of the time preordering cards for profit won’t work. Casually the set is filled with all stars and the casual cards have a significantly higher power level than Born of the Gods. If you are looking to pick up cards for casual purposes there are plenty of fairly priced preorders for this because in the far future many of the cards will still hold casual appeal and the price should reflect that.

Heading into the near future the cards to watch are:

Athreos, God of Passage
Iroas, God of Victory
Dictate of Heliod
Mana Confluence
Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
Godsend
Eidolon of Blossoms
Deicide

You want to keep an eye on Temple of Malady and Temple of Epiphany as well in the summer so that you can pick them up on the cheap. Then trade them later when Return to Ravnica rotates out of Standard.