By: Travis Allen

It’s nice and toasty here in Las Vegas, and the cards on the floor are not much different than the weather. With a good twenty vendors or more spanning the hall, cards are moving fast and furious. There aren’t many booths where you can just walk up and sit down with the buyers, and some have lines that last upwards of thirty minutes! I’m hearing that some vendors have already spent nearly (or above) $200,000!  This is just the beginning too. The hall is noticeably busier than yesterday, and it’s still not anywhere close to full size or attendance.

So what’s moving?

• The best buylist price I’ve seen on Tarmogoyf today is $125. Tomorrow will be when it takes the biggest dip, between 6pm and 11pm. That’s around when most players that aren’t in the running for day two will be looking to move the cards from their pools. Buylist numbers could drop into the sub-$100 range at this point in time.
• Many Modern staples will be opened this weekend, but it may not be as many as you think. I’ve seen estimates of roughly 1,500 of a specific mythic, say Goyf, being opened. Assuming this is accurate, that’s about 375 playsets. I’m willing to bet there are more than 375 players in the room of Vegas still looking for a set of Goyfs. Rebounds on MM2015 cards may happen quick.
• I found a single vendor with copies of Cunning Wish in stock, and they wanted $25. Keep an eye out tonight at your LGS for any copies in the display case.
• Playmat redemption is only for five hours Sunday morning; from 7am until Noon. That’s going to make it tough to turn main event mats into the Vendilion Clique mats. I expect not many players will manage to make it in to accomplish this. There will be a lot less Clique mats out there than I had anticipated when they originally made the announcement.

Look for more news from the floor to come, as well as photos of the t-shirt recipients!

By James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

5 Winners of the Week

Dragons of Tarkir continues to shake up standard, but the hype is real for Modern Masters 2015 and the upcoming release is moving prices as well. Let’s have a look at what’s up with the Magic cards that are moving and shaking this week:

1. Collected Company Foil (DTK, Rare): $10.00 to $30.00 (+200%)

Collected Company has been getting a lot of press and a reasonable number of results in Standard, and things are also starting to heat up for the card in Modern. Speculation on the Modern hype tripled the cards price in the last ten days or so. I’ll be outing a few copies to cover my costs around $10/copy and then holding the rest for several months to see how things develop in modern. An important win at the top tables could put this card up above $50, especially if it proves to be viable outside of a single deck.

Verdict: Trade/Buy

Format(s): Modern/Standard

2. Heritage Druid (Morningtide, Uncommon): $7.25 to $11.00 (+51%)

This bad boy uncommon has long been a big contributor to the success of Elves comboing off in Legacy, but as of late some Modern success with the deck has thrust up demand for this single printing money maker. The Elves deck is unlikely to take over the format as numerous answers (such as Anger of the Gods) exist to control it, but kudos to anyone who happened to be sitting on a pile of these when the spike hit this week. There might be a few more dollars left in this but it’s time to ship.

Format(s): Modern/Legacy

Verdict: Sell

3. Dack Fayden (CSP, Mythic): $25.00 to $35.00  (+40%)

The recent spikes on Dack are more speculative/opportunistic than play driven given that Dack is really only played sparsely in Vintage and Casual formats. As a mythic from a low volume set that didn’t sell well, this could easily top $50 a bit down the road, but there’s always a slight chance of a reprint or a replacement, so I’m going to hedge my bets and sell a few now, and a few more later. I was getting in on these around $17-20 near Xmas 2014, so locking in $50/profit per set seems like a solid move now.

Format(s): Vintage/Casual/EDH

Verdict: Hold/Sell

4. Blood Moon (9th Edition, Rare): $20.99 to $26.79 (+28%)

No reprint in MM2015 has all copies of this card on the rise, and even the white bordered versions are on the spike.  This will likely see another reprint at some point, as it’s handy to have something on deck to keep fancy lands in check in Modern and Legacy, but for now it seems safe for a year or more. I’ve got some Dark NM copies I’ll be ready to move at anything over $40 since they were picked up under $20 last year. If you have extras sitting around, cashing out and pushing into a new spec is a solid plan.

Format(s): Standard/Tiny Leaders

Verdict: Sell/Trade

5. Chord of Calling (M15, Rare): $3.95 to $4.73 (+20%)

The recent Modern Elves and Collected Company decks are driving this card higher. It’s been on my list of “undervalued vs. potential” cards all year, as supported by my 60+ copies. Assuming it finds a permanent home in a consistently performing Modern Deck within the year, this is a future $10+ card, which is still a ways off it’s previous high, but a solid double up for those of us who got in under $4.

Format(s): Modern

Verdict: Buy

3 Top Losers of the Week

1. Daybreak Coronet (Future Sight, Rare): $35.59 to $18.99 (-47%)

Daybreak Coronet is the perfect example of a card whose price was propped up by little more than rarity relative to the current player pool. As a card that is basically only played in the Modern Boggles deck, Daybreak was part of the Future Sight value posse, but is dropping like a stone heading into the triple GP weekend for MM2015. I’d steer clear, but look to pick up a few copies around $10-12 if they show up during desperation sales as folks start to try and recoup travel expenses after Vegas via Ebay and TCGPlayer dumps. I got rid of my copies last November as part of my Black Lotus deal, so I’m out of play on this one.

Format(s): Modern/Tiny Leaders

Verdict: Buy (below $15, but there are better targets)

2. Sidisi, Undead Vizier (DTK, Rare): $5.11 to $2.92 (-43%)

This is a great card, with a powerful effect and a strong future in EDH and casual circles, but with all of the high value cards that have emerged for Standard in Dragons of Tarkir, it was inevitable that anything like this that isn’t seeing heavy play was going to drop, especially given the purchasing power being directed towards MM2015 right now. I love this card as a speculative target heading into fall, and a long term middling casual hold, especially if it gets down toward $2. Someday you’ll buylist this around $5 and thank me if you get on the train during summer lows.

Verdict: Buy (Under $3)

3. Narset Transcedant: $29.52 to $18.63 (-37%)

Some day our kung-fu planeswalker will get broken but in the face of limited Standard play, she has rightfully swapped values with Dragonlord Ojutai, and may hit as low as $10-12 heading into summer lows. I’m a buyer at the bottom end of that range, but I’m not in a hurry to pick her up. If foils get equally juicy, I’ll be more motivated on those, since casual and EDH play may help float a potential lack of demand from Eternal formats.  You should have sold your copies when you cracked your box last month, but it’s not too late vs. eventual lows to trade her out for something better.

Verdict: Sell

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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By James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

One of the most common misconceptions about folks involved in MTGFinance is that we are constantly manipulating the market and feeding players misinformation to help fuel achievement of our personal goals.

It has occurred to us at MTGPrice that though we dole out a good deal of advice, most of you ultimately have very little insight into when our writing team actually puts our money where our collective mouths are pointing. As such we’ve decided to run a weekly series breaking down what we’ve been buying and selling each week and why. These lists are meant to be both complete and transparent, leaving off only cards we bought without hope of profit, where appropriate. We’ll also try to provide some insight into our thinking behind the specs, and whether we are aiming for a short (<1 month), mid (1-12 month), or long (1 year+) term flip. Here’s what we were up to this week:

Buying Period: May 10th – May 23rd, 2015

Note: All cards NM unless otherwise noted. All sell prices are net of fees unless noted.

James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

BOUGHT

• 2x Modern Masters 2015 Booster Box (Japanese): $360 per
• 1x Fate Reforged Booster Box (Russian): $123
• 2x Khans of Tarkir Booster Box (Japanese): $105 per
• 1x Dragons of Tarkir Booster Box (Korean): $95
• 1x LOTV: $72
• 1x Rest in Peace (foil): $9
• 1x Sol Ring (Judge Foil): $115
• 1x Dragonlord Dromoka (foil): $13
• 4x Shorecrasher Elemental (Japanese): $3.25 per
• 1x Shorecrasher Elemental (Korean foil): $15
• 1x Collected Company (Japanese foil): $35
• 1x Humble Defector (foil): $10
• 4x Iroas, God of Victory (Korean): $3.25 per
• 4x Athreos, God of Passage (Korean): $5.25 per
• 4x Keranos, God of Storms (Korean): $5.25 per
• 4x Kruphix, God of Horizons (Korean): $2.75 per
• 4x Pharika, God of Affliction (Korean): $2.25 per
• 2x Pharika, God of Afflication: $3.25 per
• 4x Myth Realized (foil): $4.25 per
• 1x Eidolon of the Great Revel (foil): $21 per

SOLD (Pucatrade):

• 1x Stoneforge Mystic @ $31.98 (pack opened)
• 1x Tarmogoyf @ $188.50 ($135 cost)

The last couple of weeks have been pretty active for me. I’ve moved in a bit on choice foreign KTK block boxes that I think have great long term upside and I even picked up a couple of boxes of Japanese MM2 boxes that I expect to have solid mid-term upside due to their relative rarity and their use of normal tamper-proof, quality controlled, booster wrappers.

I also through some money at some nicely priced Korean Theros block gods since a few of them are likely to show up in Modern sooner or later, and the others have great casual/EDH chops. My other purchases were the usual crop of opportunistic late night Ebay snipes.

Pucatrade helped me out another Tarmogoyf at close to full value. I bought a couple at $135USD at GPToronto, so this was an easy $100 increase in value.

Once my latest trades are confirmed I’ll be holding about $1200 in Pucapoints, and on the hunt for Power 9, dual lands and Judge foils. If you have anything like that you want to send my way let me know.

Note: The rest of the guys were quiet so far this week.

Bonus Tips:

• MM2 is turning out to be a dramatic release indeed. First we had the overreaction to the lack of compelling rares and uncommons and widespread misinformation about the EV of the set (hint: it will turn out fine.) Now, with packs being opened across the planet, we’re seeing plenty of evidence of a highly dubious collation process, packages that can be tampered with easily, damage to cards from the new cardboard packaging and foils being replaced by placeholder cards. As the highest profile release of the year, and with packs at $9.99 MSRP, WOTC really should have put more effort into nailing this down. Shame.
• If the quality control of English boxes proves out to be suspect, the value of Japanese boxes (which use normal booster packaging) should increase, since MM1 was English only and Japanese vendors are technically forbidden from selling their boxes overseas. Picking up a couple of these as close to $300 as possible should serve your MTG portfolio well.
• Pricing on key MM2 cards has already started the predictable downward spiral. I recommend holding off for now, and jumping into the fray coming out of the triple GP weekend as mentioned last week.
• With the Euro at a low point against the USD, CardMarket.eu has some intriguing arbitrage opportunities on older, high value targets. Poke around and you may find some stuff you can buy list for a couple of hundred bucks.