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MTG Fast Finance: Episode 7

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by Travis Allen (@wizardbumpin) & James Chillcott (@mtgcritic)

MTG Fast Finance is a weekly podcast that tries to break down the flurry of financial activity in the world of Magic: The Gathering into a fast, fun and useful thirty minute format. Follow along with our seasoned hosts as they walk you through this week’s big price movements, their picks of the week, metagame analysis and a rotating weekly topic.

Show Notes: Feb 26th

Segment 1: Top Movers of the Week

Chandra, Flamecaller (Oath of the Gatewatch)
Start: $9.00
Finish: $19.00
Gain: +$10.00 (+111%)

Petrified Field (Odyssey)
Start: $4.5.00
Finish: $12.25
Gain: +$7.75 (+172%)

Hall of the Bandit Lord (Foil) (Champions of Kamigawa)
Start: $33.00
Finish: $100.00
Gain: +$67.00 (+200%)

Thorn of Amethyst (Both) (Lorwyn)
Start: $4.00
Finish: $15.00
Gain: +$11.00 (+275%)

Peacekeeper (Weatherlight)
Start: $3.00
Finish: $13.00
Gain: +$10.00 (+333%)

Shatterstorm (10th Edition)
Start: $32.00
Finish: $200.00
Gain: +$168.00 (+525%)

Oubliette (Arabian Nights)
Start: $15.00
Finish: $100.00
Gain: +$85.00 (+566%)

Brindle Shoat (Planechase)
Start: $0.50
Finish: $4.00
Gain: +$3.50 (+700%)

Segment 2: Cards to Watch

James Picks:

  1. Shambling Vents Foil, Battle for Zendikar, Confidence Level 7: $10 to $20+ (+100%, 6-12+ months)
  2. Assorted Battle for Zendikar Mythics, Confidence Level 6: $2 to $8 (+60%, 6-12+ months)
  3. Sanctum of Ugin, Battle for Zendikar, Confidence Level 7: $1 to $5 (400%, 12+ months)

Travis Picks:

  1. Kozilek, the Great Distortion, Oath of the Gatewatch, Confidence Level 9: $7 to $15 (+115%, 0-12+ months)
  2. Oath of the Gatewatch product, Confidence Level 6: $80 to $120 (+50%, 6-12 months)

Disclosure: Travis and James may own speculative copies of the above cards.

Segment 3: Metagame Week in Review

Even Legacy isn’t immune to the Eldrazi menace. Two copies made it into the top eight of SCG Philadelphia, alongside three Delver decks. What’s this event tell us about Legacy, Eldrazi, and the Reserve List?

Segment 4: Topic of the Week – MTGO 101

James manages a portfolio of roughly 10,000 tickets on MTGO. Travis takes some time to ask him basic questions about basic MTGO investing principles, the difference between online and paper, and where to look for profits.

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.

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MTG Fast Finance: Episode 6

8 Comments

by Travis Allen (@wizardbumpin) & James Chillcott (@mtgcritic)

MTG Fast Finance is a weekly podcast that tries to break down the flurry of financial activity in the world of Magic: The Gathering into a fast, fun and useful thirty minute format. Follow along with our seasoned hosts as they walk you through this week’s big price movements, their picks of the week, metagame analysis and a rotating weekly topic.

Show Notes: Feb 26th

Segment 1: Top Movers of the Week

One With Nothing (Saviors of Kamigawa)
Start: $2.00
Finish: $4.00
Gain: +$2.00 (+100%)

Null Rod (Weatherlight)
Start: $15.00
Finish: $40.00
Gain: +$25.00 (+166%)

Adarkar Wastes (All)
Start: $3.50
Finish: $14.00
Gain: +$10.50 (+300%)

Firestorm (Weatherlight)
Start: $6.00
Finish: $18.00
Gain: +$12.00 (+200%)

Arboria (Legends)
Start: $4.00
Finish: $20.00
Gain: +$16.00 (+400%)

Thorn of Amethyst (Lorwyn)
Start: $3.00
Finish: $15.00
Gain: +$12.00 (+400%)

Scorched Ruins (Weatherlight)
Start: $3.00
Finish: $20.00
Gain: +$18.00 (+566%)

Magmatic Force (Commander)
Start: $1.50
Finish: $10.00
Gain: +$8.50 (+566%)

Meditate (Tempest)
Start: $3.00
Finish: $40.00
Gain: +$37.00 (+1233%)

Segment 2: Cards to Watch

James Picks:

  1. Phyrexian Dreadnought, Mirage, Confidence Level 6: $15 to $30+ (+100%, 0-6 months)
  2. Phyrexian Tower, Urza’s Saga, Confidence Level 7: $25 to $40+ (+60%, 0-6 months)
  3. Avaricious Dragon, Magic Origins, Confidence Level 4: $2 to $5+ (150%, 0-3 months)
  4. Endbringer (foil), Oath of the Gatewatch, Confidence Level 7: $3 to $8+ (166%, 0-6 months)

Travis Picks:

  1. Kozilek, the Great Distortion, Oath of the Gatewatch, Confidence Level 9: $7 to $15 (+115%, 0-12+ months)
  2. Chandra, Flamecaller, Oath of the Gatewatch, Confidence Level 5: $10 to $20 (+100%, 0-3+ months)
  3. Goblin Dark-Dwellers, Oath of the Gatewatch, Confidence Level 6: $2 to $5 (+233%, 0-6+ months)

Disclosure: Travis and James may own speculative copies of the above cards.

Segment 3: Metagame Week in Review

The SCG Modern Open in St. Louis this past weekend was dominated with Eldrazi decks once again, constituting not just half the top 8, but half the top 32 as well. As the menaces of the blind eternities continue to ravage constructed Magic, can we as players see a light at the end of the tunnel?

Segment 4: Topic of the Week – Should Wizards of the Coast test Modern?

Given the state of Modern, should Wizards make an effort to test new sets for the format in order to prevent these warped metagames? The guys also touch briefly on Conspiracy 2 and what it means for Magic’s financial health.

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.

Casual Fridays, Uncategorized

The Safety in Shiny Things

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I love foils. I’m not shy about it. I am constantly looking for foils to go into my Commander decks, and that’s proven to be a sensible financial investment.

In the last couple of years, we’ve had some notable foil versions of lots of cards, and I want to examine what the long-term prospects of those cards are, because it seems likely that we’re going to get more and more of these.

For a long time, the usual special release of a card was a Judge Foil. This was a slow-but-sure way to get reprints out there or to put out foil versions of a card that had zero chance of being foil. Flusterstorm is an example of this.

flusterstorm

The Commander version has been ticking upward since its release in 2011, primarily due to Legacy play, but its power in any format cannot be overstated. The Judge Foil has consistently stayed more expensive, but not to a major multiplier. We don’t have exact numbers of how many Commander versions there are and how many Judge versions there are, but a multiplier of only 1.5 is surprising.

Should Flusterstorm be reprinted, what would happen to these prices? Well, it depends. Are there foils of the new printing? Is it in Conspiracy 2: Conspire Harder? Eternal Masters? Another Judge printing?

Normally, the most valuable printing of something is the original foil. In these cases, new versions, even in foil, aren’t going to ding the originals or even will increase the values.

For instance, Damnation. The foil has stayed consistently in the $100-$120 range for the past couple of years, despite the presence of an MPR version and a Judge Foil in 2015. The foil has stayed stable, even with the foil judge version coming out. That’s what we want from our high-end cards: stability.

A big factor, though, is the art and the look. Let’s look at a case when the new art can blow the old versions away: Hanna, Ship’s Navigator.

Hanna

Hanna’s pack foil lost about a third of her value, dropping from $55 to $35 at the beginning of 2015, with the release of a Judge Foil featuring gorgeous new art from Terese Nielsen. In this case, the original took a hit but that’s quite rare. Mostly, old foils and especially those in the old frame, are immune to losing significant value.

There’s another example in recent times of a card that’s been given multiple printings and what the prices can do: Polluted Delta, along with the other Onslaught fetches.

The original Onslaught foil of Polluted Delta is at a little under $400, but two years ago it was about $100 more. In 2009, there was a Judge printing of those lands, and that helped keep prices reasonable, if not quite affordable in terms of the foils. We’ve gotten two new printings of the card, though, in Khans of Tarkir and as a Zendikar Expedition.

PD Foil

The price on this flinched slightly, about 15%, when Khans came out but didn’t budge at all when the Expeditions became known. This tells us that the sheer number available as an in-print rare matters a lot more than the presence of the Expeditions version. There’s not many of the pack foils, and they are going to stay rare and expensive. You now have four choices for the foil in your deck, though, and all four have different looks and different frames and different prices. It’s totally up to you what you like vs. what you can afford.

The Judge Foil version of Polluted Delta took a little bit of a hit as well from the one-two punch of Khans and then Expeditions. I expect the price to recover, though, as the supply has maximized and people are getting the foils they want. There’s almost a glut on the market, though only two of these are printed in the last five years.

What does this mean going forward? It means that I love picking up the Expeditions edition filters. There’s one version competing, the original pack foil. These Expeditions will not go down in price once Oath of the Gatewatch stops being opened, and the relatively smaller print runs mean a smaller supply.

The pack foils from Shadowmoor and Eventide did not change in price when the Expeditions were announced, and that is telling. I think it reflects the relatively small print run of those sets more than anything else, and it’s entirely possible that there’s more Expedition Cascade Bluffs out there than Eventide foil versions.

These Expeditions are in a strange place, as some of them are more expensive than the pack foil, and others are cheaper. I am a fan of getting these, and other foil lands, as safe to hold their value for years going forward. If you want them for your Commander deck, your cube, or just to bling out any deck, I suggest you get them now.

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MTG Fast Finance: Episode 4

by Travis Allen (@wizardbumpin) & James Chillcott (@mtgcritic)

MTG Fast Finance is a new weekly podcast that tries to break down the flurry of financial activity in the world of Magic: The Gathering into a fast, fun and useful thirty minute format. Follow along with our seasoned hosts as they walk you through this week’s big price movements, their picks of the week, metagame analysis and a rotating weekly topic.

Show Notes: Feb 13th

Segment 1: Top Movers of the Week

Worship (7th/8th)
Start: $2.50
Finish: $20.00
Gain: +$17.50 (+700%)

Eldrazi Obligator (OGW)
Start: $0.30
Finish: $2.25
Gain: +$1.95 (+650%)

Angel’s Grace (Foil)
Start: $8.90
Finish: $48.00
Gain: +$40.00 (+500%)

Endless One (BFZ)
Start: $1.00
Finish: $5.00
Gain: +$4.00 (+400%)

Simian Spirit Guide (Foil, Planar Chaos)
Start: $20.00
Finish: $80.00
Gain: +$60.00 (+300%)

Descendants’ Path (AVR)
Start: $1.50
Finish: $6.00
Gain: +4.50 (+300%)

Death’s Shadow (Foil)
Start: $8.00
Finish: $30.00
Gain: +22.00 (+275%)

Painter’s Servant (Shadowmoor)
Start: $12.00
Finish: $30.00
Gain: +$18.00 (+150%)

Segment 2: Cards to Watch

James Picks:

  1. Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, BFZ: $20 to $40+ (+100%, 0-6 months)
  2. MIrrorpool, OGW (Foil): $13 to $30+ (+130%, 12+ months)
  3. Sea Gate Wreckage, OGW (Foil): $8 to $20+ (150%, 12+ months)

Disclosure: James is only holding copies of Ulamog from this list.

Travis Picks:

  1. Arboria, LEG: $3 to $25 (+700%, 6-12+ months)
  2. Spike Feeder (Foil), TSP: $9 to $20 (+100%, 6-12+ months)

Disclosure: Travis is holding copies of Arboria.

Segment 3: Metagame Week in Review

James and Travis reflected on the absolute dominance of the Eldrazi decks at Pro Tour: Oath of the Gatewatch, noting that 75% of the Top 8 decks were various flavors of the archetype. Affinity made up the other two decks. Team East West Bowl was called out as the most “tech” team of the tournament based on their brilliant UR Eldrazi build designed to give the deck game against Affinity and in the mirror.

Segment 4: Topic of the Week: Interview with Pro Tour: Oath of the Gatewatch Top 8 Competitor Andrew Brown (UR Eldrazi)

The guys had a good chat with Andrew covering the genesis of the Blue/Red Eldrazi deck, the community reaction to the deck. the financial impact of the decks’ success as well as the likelihood of a related ban in the near future.

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.