Category Archives: Uncategorized

Pro Tour Shadows Over Innistrad: Day 2 MTGFinance Coverage

April 23, 2016 James Chillcott 3 Comments

Our Top 8 for Pro Tour Shadows Over Innistrad has been made official:

1st, Jon Finkel: B/G Control (Dark Petition, Seasons Past, Hissing Quagmire)
2nd, Seth Manfield: Esper Control (Dark Petition, Narset, Ascendant, Ob Nixilis)
3rd, Brad Nelson: R/G Goggles (Pyromancer’s Goggles, World Breaker)
4th, Luis Scott-Vargas: B/G Aristocrats (Collected Company, Cryptolith Rite)
5th, Shota Yasooka: Esper Dragons (Dragonlord Ojutai)
6th, Steve Rubin: G/W Tokens (Nissa, Gideon, Avacyn)
7th, Luis Salvato: R/W Eldrazi (Thought Knot-Seer, Archangel Avacyn, Nahiri, The Harbinger)
8th, Andrea Mangucci: Bant Company (Collected Company, Archangel Avacyn)

It’s worth noting that with eight entirely different decks in contention, the finals is likely to be the final word in which of the cards listed above make a move or hold their gains. The cards with the most copies across all Top 8 decks seem to include Archangel Avacyn, Dark Petition, and Collected Company. I would expect that Pyromancer’s Goggles will cement a price tag over $15, and possibly over $20 if it makes the finals. Cryptolith Rite looks very real, and should be able to hold any price below $10 easily. Tune in tomorrow for Top 8 coverage!

—————————————————–

Seth Manfield wins his match. He is a lock for Top 8, and Narset Transcendent has a chance to gain some ground, especially if he makes the finals.

Round 16: Luis Scott-Vargas (G/B Aristocrats) vs. Chye Yian Hsiang (White Humans)

Faced with dangerous tie breakers and successive rounds of opponents that need to win to Top 8, LSV finds himself needing to win his final match to make Top 8. In Game 1, early pressure from Hsiang is met with a mid-combat Collected Company, helping LSV turn the corner and stabilize against the aggro deck. With Westvale Abbey in play and a Zulaport Cutthroat on the table, LSV looks for a gap to drive home the demon prince. Knocked down to three life on the next attack, LSV finds another Collected Company off the top to nab a 2nd Cutthroat and a Catacomb Sifter, giving him a large enough army to claim the game off of multiple drain triggers and a high flying demon attack.

Game 2 runs much the same way, with early pressure shrugged off by drain life gain via Cutthroat and LSV manages to combo his way into his seventh lifetime Top 8!

Deck Tech: G/B Control (Reid Duke)

Reid explains that black has the best removal, green has the best ramp spells, and the Dark Petition/Seasons Past combo is too strong to ignore. Notable that the deck only runs two copies of Seasons Past, which may limit price movement, depending on how the deck finishes in the Top 8. Deck also runs Infinite Obliteration as a single copy, and two copies each of Transgress the Mind and Duress. Obliteration has the potential to recursively remove all remaining threats in an opponent’s deck if the game goes long enough. Ruinous Path is a three-of. Two copies of Kalitas, and four copies of Languish, a card that could easily hit $5 if that number becomes common. Hissing Quagmire is a four-of as well, and interacts well with Ruinous Path. This land could easily double up this week to $6 from $3.

Round 15: Jon Finkel (B/G Control) vs. Luis Salvato (R/W Control)

To be this deep in the tournament and still seeing hot new decks at the top tables is pretty insane. Slavatto is running a build with Thought-Knot Seer, Chandra, Flamecaller, Goblin Dark-Dwellers, Fall of the Titans, Lightning Axe, Pyromancer’s Goggles, Secure the Wastes and Westvale Abbey. Goggles seems destined to top $20 this week as a card that is being abused in at least three viable color combinations.

The players split the first two games. Late in Game 3, Jon has a full grip, but Salvatto manages to get in a big hit with seven Secure the Wastes tokens, and takes a Languish with his Thought-Knot Seer. Sitting at nine life, Jon has fourteen lands in play but no immediate answer to the token army and is forced to lay Kalitas and pass. Salvato decides to cash his army in for Ormendahl, and falls into a waiting trap with Finkel taking down the profane prince using a double Grasp of Darkness.

Salvato attempts to rebuild with Nahiri, the Harbinger, but Jon starts in with the Dark Petition/Seasons Past recursion and Salvato extends the hand. Finkel stands all alone at 14-1 surveying his kingdom at securing the top seed in the Top 8.

Round 15: Steven Rubin (G/W Tokens) vs. Yuuya Watanabe (Mono-White Humans)

Both players are on 11-3 and need a win to guarantee Top 8 access. Rubin takes the first game with his token deck configured to tackle the expected white weenie strategies at the tournament. In game 2, Watanabe gets stuck on land, and Rubin puts the match away to put Hangarback Walker, Nissa and Gideon into the Top 8.

Deck Tech: G/R Goggle Ramp (Pierre Dagen)

Dagen outlines that beating Collected Company decks using Goggles to go over the top in lieu of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon resulted in the genesis of the deck. Deck runs three copies of Pyromancer’s Goggles and Traverse the Ulvenwald. Magmatic Insight and Tormenting Voice provide ridiculous card draw with Goggles, and early game card selection options. Four copies of Fiery Impulse and Kozilek’s Return are complemented by three copies of Fall of the Titans, which has been delivering massive kills out of nowhere all weekend. Three copies of World Breaker are more likely to drive price gains than the single Dragonlord Atarka, I would think.

Away from the feature match area, a match is being covered that includes a W/R Goggles deck and a Sultai Control brew. The W/R Goggles deck looks likely to make Top 8.

Round 14: Jeremy Dezani (Abzan Company) vs. Seth Manfield (Esper Control)

The players take a game each to set up a match maker. Just a regular old battle between the reigning World Champion and the winner of Pro Tour Theros. With Narset and Kalitas on board, Manfield is able to push through and take the match. Narset is likely to Top 8.

Jon Finkel goes to 13-1, beating a mono-white humans deck off camera.

Round 14: Lukas Blohon (Jund) vs. Oliver Tiu (Grixis Control)

There are a full eight copies of Goblin Dark-Dwellers between these two decks. At $3, GDD could be set up to double up. Both decks are running grindy control strategies. Oliver fields an early Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy, showing off the card of the year in yet another deck shell. Oliver takes game one with a well defended Kalitas. In game two after some back and forth, Blohon resolves Dark Petition, putting the card back in the spotlight, finds a Ruinous Path and dispatches a threatening Kalitas from Oliver. The effort is for naught however, as Oliver is able to get in for lethal and get ever closer to his first top 8.

Deck Tech #2: Matt Nass (B/G Aristocrats)

Deck progenitor Matt Nass outlines the thought process behind the development of the sexy deck that LSV and Team Channel Fireball are on. Duskwatch Recruiter with a Cryptolith Rite on the board is highlighted as an amazing card draw engine. Decks runs four of each of Cutthroat, Sifter, Husk and Collected Company, as well as two of Liliana, Heretical Healer. Also, three copies of WestVale Abbey and four copies of Hissing Quagmire.

Round 13: Jon Finkel (BG Control) vs. Jeremy Dezani (Abzan Company)

We come into this match with the players tied at a game a piece. Taken down to five life before getting off a massive Seasons Past, Jon Finkel gets back a pile of ramp and creature kill, and sets up the Dark Petition/Seasons Past loop establishing a full on lock against the creature focused Dezani. Seasons Past ends up returning eight cards in two turns and sets the card up to post a Monday morning price over $10. Facing massive card advantage from Jon, Dezani extends the hand, and sets up a Top 8 including two of the most storied members of the Hall of Fame in Finkel and Luis Scott-Vargas.

Round 13: Brad Nelson (G/R Goggles) vs. Seth Manfield (Esper Control)

Seth takes Game 1, on the back of having all of Narset, Jace and Ob Nixilis in play at the same time, with just World Breaker providing pressure from Brad. Nevetheless, Brad wins out tough games two and three, to likely join a star studded Top 8.

Ruinous Path is all over this tournament, and can still be found for $1. May be a decent target if it figures prominently in the Top 8.

Round 13: LSV (B/G Aristocrats) vs. Steve Rubin (G/W Tokens)

LSV only needs to win this match to lock up a Top 8, as he is one of the few remaining 11-1 players with four rounds of Standard left. LSV mulligans Game 1, and Rubin puts Hangarback Walker back on camera, alongside Oath of Nissa and Sylvan Advocate. By turn 5, both players have a copy of Westvale Abbey in play, opening the potential for dueling demon princes.

LSV is able to establish a strong board presence, while Rubin gets Gideon, Ally of Zendikar into play and struggles to keep it there. A top decked Avacyn, cast during combat against a pair of Nantuko Husks does force LSV to bin a fair chunk of his creature force, but a Cutthroat in play drains Rubin to 13. Nevertheless, Avacyn is found unopposed in the air, and manages to take Game 1.

Collected Company decks are noted on screen as having exhibited relatively poor results this weekend. The B/G Aristocrats deck advanced 90% of it’s pilots to Day 2. Cryptolith Rite could easily settle above $10, at which point it is almost certainly a sell.

In Game 2, Rubin finds himself holding three copies of Tragic Arrogance and an Archangel Avacyn, but stuck on three lands. LSV, with enough creatures to drain Rubin out via Cutthroat/Husk earns a mid-game concession.

In Game 3, Rubin manages to hold off early pressure and set up shop behind a wall of tokens, Sylvan Advocate and Hangarback Walker protecting Nissa and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. With Lilianna, Heretical Healer in play however, an attack into Blisterpod, flips the Planeswalker and Duskwatch Recruiter leverages Cryptolith Rite to find another Husk, a Sifter and floods the board with enough creatures to drain Rubin from 19! LSV moves confidently into Top 8 position at 12-1 and virtually guarantees a strong finish for B/G Aristocrats.

Deck Tech: Andrew Brown (Esper Control)

Narset Transcendant is on screen, as a 3-of, alongside Jace, Unraveler of Secrets as finishers in this classic control build running many removal spells, sweepers (4x Languish, 1x Planar Outburst), four copies of Anticipate and two copies of Dark Petition. Narset could be a card to watch here as World Champion Seth Manfield is on this deck, and is in Top 8 contention. Narset likely to top $15 in that case.

Round 9: Brad Nelson (G/R Goggles) vs. Jon Finkel (B/G Control)

Finkel takes Game 1. In Game 2, Finkel starts his engine with Nissa, Vastwood Seer, ramping a bit to fuel his mana hungry deck. Nelson meanwhile ramps early with Nissa’s Pilgrimage into Goblin Dark Dwellers, casting Pilgrimage immediately for free. What a ramp curve! He then answers Kalitas with his first copy of Pyromancer’s Goggles. Jon casts Transgress the Mind, and finds two copies of Chandra, Flamecaller and a Tireless Tracker. Taking one, he follows up by casting Naturalize to remove the Goggles. Nelson responds with two copies of Tracker, and swings in with Goblin Dark Dwellers, past Nissa and Kalitas. Randy Buehler calls out the Finkel deck as having the better late game vs. Goggles.

Finkel’s first Season’s Past returns four cards, but several turns later, the card advantage from another Goggles on Brad’s side finds Finkel left with just an Ultimate Price and a Infinite Obliteration to answer a Den Protector, GDD and Dragonlord Atarka. With match time an issue, Finkel moves on to Game 3.

In the final game, an pair of Duress in early turns forces Brad to discard Magmatic Insight and Hedron Archive respectively, leaving Brad with limited action. Finkel fields Kalitas on Turn 4, and follows up with Read the Bones into a tapped Hissing Quagmire. Down the road Finkel gets the Dark Petition/Seasons Past loop going and Nelson extends the hand, putting Finkel at the top of the tournament, and leaving Nelson with two losses, both to Jon. Finkel is now very likely to Top 8, which should push Seasons Past over $10.

Shoota Yasooka called out as being the only player to win a single game with Esper Dragons this weekend. LSV is at 11-1 after going 2-1 in his second draft this morning with an amazing UR deck featuring three (!) copies of Fevered Visions.

Setting Up Day 2

After 8 surprising rounds on Friday, including three rounds of draft and five rounds of Standard, a mix of known and established decks have kept the tournament on it’s toes.

So far however, the top table hype has largely been about three new decks:

G/R Pyromancer’s Goggles (Ramp/Control)
G/B Aristocrats (Creature Combo)
G/B Control (Grindy Control)

At the end of Day 1, only two players stood alone at 8-0, having 3-0’d their drafts and boasting a perfect 5-0 record in Standard play. The first Friday hero was Luis Scott-Vargas, beloved Hall of Fame member and pivotal team mate on Team Channel Fireball. Both LSV and some of his teammates were on a post-Rally version of G/B Aristocrats that aimed to take advantage of the low potential to interact and disrupt found in the prevalent Bant Company and Wx Humans builds. The deck functions by dumping a pile of small creatures into play, often accelerated by the mana producing abilities of Cryptolith Rite, and quickly finds the Zulaport Cutthroat and Nantuko Husk, sacrifices the team and drains out the opponent. In longer games, Westvale Abbey provides reach by presenting a must answer flying, indestructible demon threat.

Our other 8-0 player coming into the second day of the tournament is Brad Nelson, SCG alumni and former Player of the Year, sporting an innovative GR Pyromancer’s Goggles build that leveraged cards including World Breaker and spells like Fall of the Titans, copied by Goggles to finish off opponents in style.

Pro Tour great Jon Finkel was on the GB Control deck, managing to pilot the deck to a 4-1 finish after 3-0’ing his draft. This deck leverages the much maligned SOI mythic Season’s Past, alongside Dark Petition. Combined the two cards can recursively generate massive amounts of card advantadge, providing their pilot with additional chances to cast the likes of Duress, Transgress the Mind, Ruinous Path and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet.

Other decks in top table contention include Mardu Control, Esper Dragons, Jund and Abzan Collected Company builds, and UR Goggles.

The financial stories of the weekend thus far mostly revolve around the stampede to buy out cards from the new archetypes that were put on display on camera at the top tables on day 1.

Here are the cards that showed significant movement Friday as speculators moved in on the hot new tech.

Cryptolith Rite: $3.50 to $7 (+100%)
Dark Petition: $1 to $5 (+400%)
Seasons Past: $2 to $8 (+300%)
Pyromancer’s Goggles: $8 to $14 (+75%)
Demonic Pact: $1.50 to $2.50 (+40%)

The themes here are twofold: underrated build around rares and mythics, and to a more limited extent, rares and mythics from Origins that were previously price suppressed by the presence of Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy in that set. With spikes this large, selling into the hype is the best possible advice, with only Goggles in position to top $20 if it makes another Top 8. The rest of these cards are likely to slide back 20-50% over the next week or two unless they claim a Top 8 finish on Sunday. For that to happen, their pilots will likely need to go 5-2-1 or better today.

Follow along with us as we follow along with the final 5 rounds of constructed play before the cut to Top 8 and the establishment of the new Standard metagame.

James Chillcott is the 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.

Uncategorized

Pro Tour Shadows Over Innistrad (Draft/Modern): Preview

April 22, 2016 James Chillcott 1 Comment

In the stunning city of Madrid, Spain an excellent weekend of Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour action is in motion. Coming off the results of the last couple of weeks on the SCG circuit, the pros have been tasked with addressing a Standard metagame that has so far been dominated by Wx Aggro and Bant Collect Company decks. Quick starts, and curve toppers Archangel Avacyn and Archangel of Tithes have made answering the aggressive decks difficult, as has the lack of definitive and timely sweeper spells. Nevertheless, after weeks of secretive testing, the top pro teams from across the globe have gathered for another epic quest to take home the trophy. With over $250,000 USD on the line, and the winner taking home a hefty $40,000, players will be hard pressed to overcome the deep pool of talent.

The Pro Tour, of course, requires players to succeed in a mixed schedule of booster draft (SOI – SOI – SOI) and constructed play (Standard in this case) with 3 rounds of draft Friday morning, followed by 5 rounds of Standard starting around 7am EST.

For the MTG Finance community, the question of the day is which decks will rise to dominance today in a field that has seemed close to being solved fairly early on.

Will any of the pros find a way to unlock a new archetype with game against the known field? Will an underplayed deck from the previous weeks results suddenly end up perfectly positioned after adding a few new pieces of tech? Will there be a chance to get in on a must-have card that shows early promise or will the hype train leave the bandwagon speculators out in the cold without buyers come Monday morning?

Thus far Shadows Over Innistrad has behave a bit oddly vs. other sets from the last few years, with a full ten rares and mythics holding price tags over $10 a couple of weeks after the set first hit the streets. Archangel Avacyn is the current queen of the format, commanding a consistent $45 at retail, and showing up as a 2-of to 4-of in many of the best performing deck lists. Declaration in Stone is going for $15, an incredible value for a rare kill spell in this format. Meanwhile, much hyped rares Thing in the Ice and Westvale Abbey have peak in the high teens only to fall back towards $10.

Let’s take a look at some of the cards most likely to make a move this weekend.

Cards to Watch

With many Shadows Over Innistrad cards already commanding unsustainable price tags, most of the speculation potential lies this weekend should reside in cards that have yet to make an impact. Here are a few of the interesting cards on our radar this weekend:

Arlinn Kord: Stuck on the bench?

Despite plenty of early excitement from the Werewolf fans, Arlinn has mostly been left out of the action thus far at the top tables of Standard. With white set up as the de facto best color in the format, and other top decks configured to run Bant or Izzet color schemes, the green/red planeswalker has struggled to make an impact. The winning GR deck at the SCG Standard Open last weekend failed to field a single copy of Arlinn. At $20, a failure to make waves this weekend should set Arlinn on a path to collapse back towards $10. Plan accordingly, but keep any eye out for a list in the top ranks that runs multiple copies, perhaps in the form of a Jund mid-range list alongside the Gitrog Monster ($6), which could likewise top $10 on a successful showing this weekend.

Current Price: $20
Predicted Price May 1st: $14
Odds to Top 8: 20 to 1

Nahiri, the Harbinger: Time to Shine?

On the other side of the numbers we have a planeswalker that may turn out to be much better than anticipated. Already popping up in lists like KikiChord in Modern as a 2-of, there is every reason to believe that there may be a configuration in Standard that wants to run multiple copies into a trophy position. If that were to go down, Nahiri could easily swap prices with Arlinn Kord and provide savvy speculators with a potential double up.

Current Price: $10
Predicted Price May 1st: $14
Odds to Top 8: 6 to 1

Sylvan Advocate: Ubiquitous on 2?

Once available for $2, many players utterly missed how powerful and important a 2-drop that became a Tarmogoyf in the mid-game would be in Standard. The bonus this elf gives your creature lands is just the icing on the cake. This Oath of the Gatewatch rare has already topped $5, but a dominant showing in 50% of the Top 8 decks might be enough to push demand up towards $10 as players conceed to the necessity of running three or four copies.

Current Price: $5
Predicted Price May 1st: $8
Odds to Top 8: 4 to 3

Jace, Vrin’s Prodigy: Can He Hold the Line?

Player consensus a few weeks into the new Standard seems to be that Jace isn’t as good in a format without fetchlands and without popular decks capable of filling graveyards quickly. That being said, he is still showing up in both UR Goggles builds as well as in some Bant Company lists. The real question however is whether Jace will be able to hold a $70 price tag heading into rotation in the fall. My gut says the card will fall to $40 or so in late summer, bouncing back over $50 within the year. As such, if you have non-foils you aren’t playing, you may want to think about trading out now, and getting back in down the road. Foils may also show weakness this year, but as the card is playable all the way back to vintage, you can likely hold those for the long term without much fear.

Current Price: $70
Predicted Price May 1st: $65
Odds to Top 8: 5 to 1

Archangel Avacyn: Still Flying High?

Avacyn has started this season off as the most feared creature in the format, a flying beater that can mess with combat, save the team, clear the board and certainly finish the game. At $45, she is certainly priced for continued success, so if the metagame managed to swerve around her and keep her from the top tables, her price would be prone to a slide. Given what we’ve seen so far however, white is the color of the season, and the odds are very good that Avacyn will earn her keep in the Top 8.

Current Price: $45
Predicted Price May 1st: $40
Odds to Top 8: 3 to 2

Demonic Pact: Ready to Rogue?

This card has jumped by 100% this week on Magic Online, and rumor has it that an Esper enchantments list running four copies of this powerful mythic alongside multiple copies of Starfield of Nyx has been testing well. I would be surprised to see more than a handful of notable pros run a deck like this, but no one saw UR Eldrazi coming at PT Oath of the Gatewatch either. As a $2 mythic, strong performances into Day 2 on camera could easily trigger rampant speculation, pushing this card over $6. Starfield of Nyx is available under $3, and is an easy favorite to top $10 down the road on casual demand in enchantment flavored decks. I like Starfield as a pickup immediately, and will be ready to move in if Pact shows up on camera this weekend.

Current Price: $2
Predicted Price May 1st: $4
Odds to Top 8: 20 to 1

Stay tuned for Round by Round MTGFinance coverage of Pro Tour: Shadows Over Innistrad all weekend!

James Chillcott is the 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.

Conjured Currency, Douglas Johnson, Uncategorized

Mayor of Wrongsville

March 30, 2016 Douglas Johnson 7 Comments

“Haha DJ! You were wrong about Mayor of Avabruck! You broke the cardinal sin of Magic finance, and underestimated the demand of casual players. I’m never going to trust you for financial advice again!” – Me

Yeahh……. This one’s on me. Sometimes you’re the Spawnsire, sometimes you’re the Zendikar. On the bright side it hasn’t increased by a billion percent, so anyone looking to buy their copies to play with still has a chance to buy a playset for $10-12 and avoid any further risk of the card becoming $5. I’m accepting the fact that I missed the train, so I’m not buying in at all at this point. By the way, are there any actual non-competitive players who read my articles? The kind of players who actually buy copies of Mayor of Avabruck to play with? I’m curious, because I tend to throw around the “there’s still time to buy this card if you want it to play with, but I don’t think you should buy in for profit” line a lot, but I’m not sure if that suggestion actually holds any value for you guys and gals.

On the Other Brighter Side

That was some sort of joke about the full moon being bright, so there’s a brighter side because foil Moonmist jumped, and… you know what? Forget it. I’m not being paid to be the comedian here. I’m being paid to tell you that I have no idea which psychopath felt the need to bathe in foil copies of a green common from Innistrad. All of the historical evidence points towards casual 60-card players being hesitant to foil out decks, and I never would have suggested this as a pick based on that evidence. If you happen to have foils of this card stocked away with a pile of other bulk foil commons, I highly recommend releasing them back into the wild and getting whatever real dollars you can.

Undead Perspective

Okay, so let’s forget about werewolves for the moment. Let’s talk about a more proven tribal archetype, and some of the cards that I’m fairly bullish on. I’ll channel my inner Jason Alt, maybe fart out some fart jokes, and talk about why old and dusty Innistrad cards are probably going to see a few percentage point increases thanks to an old pair of pals.

Grimgrin and Friends

Thrax and Friends

Grimgrin is no longer a bulk mythic. He’s been a fairly popular Commander for a while, at least according to EDHrec. He just barely misses the top 25 Commanders of all-time with 278 decks as of 3/29/2016, and is easily in the top 10 two-color Commanders. Thraxi is almost certainly doomed to the bulk bin, considering he was caught in the True-Name Nemesis crossfire of 2013.

Do you see that $.04 increase? Obviously that means the card is going to be $6 in a week, so you should all mortgage your homes and buy into Rooftop Storm. There will literally be thousands of Zombie Commander players (one might say there would be Endless Ranks of these players at your doorstep), and you’ll be able to afford every Legacy deck you could ever want. All thanks to non-foil Rooftop Storms.

In all seriousness, this is not a card that will be going anywhere soon. Similarly to how I thought Mayor was a trap, this will be an open grave for anyone who tries to walk into it. There are over 220 copies on TCGplayer alone, and its’ a bulk rare that I’m happy to shove in the “four years from now” box on the happy occasions when I pick up a few at a time for a dime each. Oh, but did you know foils have a billion percent multiplier?

Yeah, so that’s a thing. I wonder if Geralf can build a time machine so I can go back like four weeks and tell you all to buy foils. Anyway, let’s go back to me being at least somewhat useful and suggest cards that I actually believe are a solid buy at the price point they’re at now.

Unlike our six-drop blue enchantment, Endless Ranks is a bit more versatile in 60-card land. You can actually play multiples without feeling like a fool, and there’s the insane art synergy between this and Relentless Dead. Add in a few Shards of Broken Glass and just wait six more years for stained-glass tribal. We’ll get rich from that eventually. I do think Endless Ranks is a strong buy at $3, and that you can expect to unload these by the end of SOI block at around $6-7. I’m in for about seven copies, and I expect to move these by throwing them in the display case and listing them on TCGplayer.

As much as I want to tell you all to buy eighty copies of this card, I can’t do so in good faith. While I picked up a few dozen at $.25-$.50 each, I’m accepting the fact that it will take at least a couple more years to creep up to the $4-5 range that I think it deserves. My personal love for this card continues to try and distract me from the fact that it suffered the same fate as Thraximundar by being in that deck, and my win-more stories of how I combo it with Phyrexian Altar are not going to push the price any further. The card is freakin’ sweet, but just throw them in the $2 box and nod at the people who buy them and call you an idiot.

End Step

Remember how Avaricious Dragon was going to be a big deal? It turns out that Fiery Temper was the only real card worth casting off his discard trigger, with Avacyn’s Judgment being the next at bat. I’d sell out of the dragon at this point and be happy with my triple up to $3, and save the next harrowing spell of disappointment for the next guy. If you’re a gambling enthusiast, go ahead and hold onto them and prove me wrong.
The Battle lands (I swear to god if I see the word “tango” used in a Magic context one more time..) popped up on the Interests page, all showing between 10-15% increase over the past week. This is your last warning at this point; buy them if you need them for Standard, or eat a $10 bill for each one you failed to purchase in two months.

Advertisement: Thousands of Magic cards in your collection? Don’t know which cards you own, or where they are if you do? Use OzGuild to catalogue and organise your collection online. Scan in your first deck for free!

Uncategorized

Flavor Town

March 16, 2016 Jason Alt 4 Comments

Let me start out by saying that I’m very uncomfortable with how much Guy Fieri with a normal haircut looks like me. 10 years ago, looking anything like him was not a crime, but he’s so legitimately awful that he’s basically ruined even looking like him a little bit. He’s also made it so I say things like “Flavor Town” whenever I think of the word “flavor” because he ruins basically everything he touches. Seriously this guy is the worst.

You know what isn’t the worst? Casual Magic players. When I say “casual” I’m not talking about EDH – not really. EDH can be casual but a lot of EDH players would take exception to being lumped into that group and rightfully so. There are EDH players that are just as competitive as the spikes in any other format. In the Competitive EDH subreddit just today I saw a guy unironically offer a primer on his “budget” Boros deck. What’s “budget” to them? $200 or less. “I want to play this fun format and do it on a budget but I’ll switch over to Yu Gi Oh before I play a budget deck that doesn’t get a Turn 1 Mana Crypt at least 14% of the time! I’m on a budget, not a savage.”

It gets so much more casual than EDH players. Some finance advice I used to give back when trading wasn’t entirely killed by every jackass installing a cellphone app that makes every trade take an extra 10 minute while they type every card in then try to get an internet signal in a gigantic convention center thinking they can’t be sharked when they can totally still be sharked, was to find casual players where they live. Smaller LGS locations in your area. Community Colleges. Their home kitchen tables. Actually, that last one is a little tough. You can just knock on every door in town hoping to find a game in progress but your odds off success are going to be really low. I used to have a Craigslist ad looking for casual Magic players but after one too many unsolicited dicktures, I took the ad down. The point is, once you find casual players, you should trade with them because it’s literally the best.

I Feel Like This Will Get You On a Tangent, but Why Trade With Casuals?

Because the stuff they value is unlike anything other groups value, the way they value it is unlike any way other groups value it and they’re always happy with every trade. You could pull a casual player’s pants down for $50 on a trade and they will do a cartwheel for joy and you will feel bad for ripping them off and you’ll feel even worse for not being as happy as they are. Don’t rip people off. It’s not worth it and you don’t even need to do it. If a casual player is happy to trade you a Verdant Catacombs for a Ludevic’s Test Subject, why not give him a Verdant Catacombs worth of weird octopus crap? It’s clogging up your binder and you’ll make his entire day.

Now this is not to say all casual players are durdles or don’t trade cards by monetary value or that they’re easy marks or anything derogatory. The simple truth is that people who play Magic casually have more fun that you ever will because the things you have been conditioned to think are important don’t matter to them for the most part. Their octopus and sea monster deck only has to be good enough to beat their friend’s Thallid deck roughly 50% of the time.

There are people out there who don’t quite understand why everyone acts like Tarmogoyf is such a good card. Find that guy. Spend time with that guy. He will teach you how to enjoy building decks and playing for no prizes. He’ll teach you to enjoy this children’s card game that you have ruined for yourself by treating it like a commodities market, you cynical, money-hungry fun-hater.

Casual players by different cards and they buy the same cards differently when compared with an EDH player. I’m not saying that they buy differently because they bust hella packs at Walmart trying to get a card instead of paying a quarter as much money and just buying the card on TCG Player although that does happen. I’m not saying they say “I went to BOTH card stores in town and neither one had it. Now what am I supposed to do?” although that does happen. I just mean they tend to buy playsets of cards and that means cards with casual appeal can spike four times quicker than a card with equivalent EDH appeal only. That’s fairly obvious, but it’s worth reminding ourselves of every once in a while because while it seems trivial that people buying cards four at a time can spike a card four times faster, we don’t always stop to consider which cards can shoot up in price on this principle. We should. When you consider how easy these things are to see coming sometimes, we really, really should.

What do Casual Players Like?

First of all, casual players like slow cards. Until EDH became a thing and insane mana ramping plus people leaving each other alone for 5+ turns became a thing, casual players were the only ones playing slow enough game for big, huge durdly creatures to hit the battlefield. You’re going to die to 4 tokens and a Hellrider on turn 5 with that Palladia Mors still in hand at FNM but at home on the kitchen table, he’ll live long enough to get suited up with all 4 of your Armadillo Cloaks before you decide to attack someone with him.

Again, casual players aren’t all durdles but that isn’t to say they don’t like durdle cards. I mean, we as EDH players like durdle cards, too so let’s not pretend we can pass value judgments. If it weren’t for EDH and casual, only like 100 Magic cards would be worth money and the rest would be junk. It’s not Modern players making Glimpse the Unthinkable do this.

Which brings me to the next thing casual players love – Mill.

Mill’s not great in EDH. Liiiiiiike at all. I have seen some pretty funny Phenax mill decks with cards like Eater of the Dead but for the most part, you don’t want your opponent starting out at 92 life, I don’t care if your damage spells do 10. Mill cards are expensive, though. Really expensive. Before Modern Masters, Mind Funeral was actual dollars. Why is that? Well, it’s not EDH players doing it and it’s not competitive players doing it. Who does that leave? Lots of unsleeved copies of Glimpse the Unthinkable are getting pulled off of a topdeck and getting pointed at 73 card decks. Milling is fun but it’s not very often all that competitive. Playing Magic for fun like we should all be doing but refuse to means you get to play fun cards like Glimpse the Unthinkable and even if you’re a casual player that doesn’t mean you’re a poor. They get a few bucks together and they buy Glimps the Unthinkable and it does the Unthinkable. It ends up worth more money than Glare of Subdual and Concerted Effort and Doubling Season and all of the cards that EDH players think are so much better. EDH can do a lot of things, but it can’t make this card nuts. But casual can.

Finally, casual players love tribal stuff. EDH players do, too, but a casual player won’t let a little thing like “There’s no Legendary creature that buffs these guys” stop them from building the deck. Casual players didn’t wait for General Tazri to come out to build an ally deck. Oh you best believe they had an ally deck.

How does knowing this help us get ahead of spikes? Well sometimes playability is only half the battle. Sometimes cards go up strictly based on their flavor. Yes, I waited 1300 words to get to my thesis. Chill, you had an enjoyable journey so far.

I Has a Flavor

Two players see the same card. We’ll call the first player “player C” because he’s a competitive player. Player C looks at this card and he’s blown away by its playability.

“Holy zombie balls,” says player C, “this card is busted. You can recur him for as cheap as Gravecrawler without the requirement to have other zombies in play. And you can bring back other zombies, too? This is amazing. I want this in a dredge shell, or maybe paired with Goblin Bombardment in something. This is going to be $20+ easy.” Player C is understandably very excited by this card and he saw everything he wanted to see.

Another player is casual so let’s call him “player C” because he’s a casual player. Player C says “Do you see the background of this card? It’s clearly a few minutes after the art from Endless Ranks of the Dead! The zombies are all climbing into the church and this one is leading the way! How cool is that, closing the loop on this years later? Did they plan it, or did they revisit the old art when they got the new assignment?” Player C is very excited because the art from another card is represented on this one. Something curious happens.

The price of a card that isn’t Standard legal starts to climb and it’s in no small part due to people being reminded that it’s a card because a new card has its art on it. It may be a bit of an oversimplification to say the art connection is the sole impetus for the increase but it’s a factor. EDH zombie decks aren’t getting much so far from the spoilers we’ve seen so there’s no real reason EDH players are going to run out and buy a ton of copies of this. Yet the price jumped and it hit a historical high and this card isn’t done growing yet. I think Army of the Damned showed how devastating a reprint can be for a card like this, but I think the reprint risk is lower here and even though EDH players aren’t going to make Endless Ranks climb, casual players are not done spiking this.

So how do we get ahead of what’s going to go up? It’s fairly simple. You already know what casual players like because there is a casual player in the heart of us all. Vampires are in this set, so any older relevant vampires are worth a look. Do we have a vampire lord? We do?

And it’s at a historic low? Will the non-foil versions be held down by the price of the foil media inserts? Maybe. But casual cards tend to not follow traditional rules and usually whichever copy is chepest sells best. Am I investing a ton of money into Nocturnus? No, I tend to speculate on EDH cards. But this isn’t exactly a tough spike to predict, is it? New Vampires means old ones get a look. Old ones like this other one, also.

Casual players like good cards, guys. That’s what we need to remember. Captivating Vampire is a good card. Vampire Nocturnus is a good card. No one is really playing those cards because they don’t have much of a home in EDH, Standard, Modern, Legacy or Vintage. Even though I listed basically all of the formats, casual isn’t a format, it’s a lifestyle. This lifestyle is all about spiking Captivating Vampire up to $10 while everyone was distracted debating what a second Modern Masters printing was going to do to the price of Tarmogoyf.

Look at spirits. Vampires. Werewolves. Zombies. Chances are there are a few cards with upside. While I don’t think EDH is a primary driver here and I cautioned against throwing too much money at Mayor of Avabruck last week because we can’t really quantify how popular werewolves are going to be using tools like EDHREC, there are cards that historically go into casual decks and it would be silly if we ignored casual as a format just because it isn’t one.

Keep your eyes peeled for cards like Immerwolf and Drogskol Captain moving forward. If you made money on Drogskol Captain in 2011, thank Jon Finkel. If you make money on it in 2016, thank a casual player. They’re the only ones who even get on the bus to Flavortown anymore.

MTGPrice Blog