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Legacy Hero #8

Welcome back everyone. I wasn’t planning on being gone this long but a great opportunity came up for me to get out of town and I couldn’t pass it up. I’m a sucker for value.

When we left off in the last article, I said I was going to talk about buy listing in the next article. Before we get to that though, I want to go over the last two trades I made in greater detail. I want you to see that there is a method to my madness.

I’ve already talked about the first trade. I traded some shock lands and a couple of cheap staples for a bigger stack of cheap staples, but for a few different archetypes. Most of you agreed with my end of the trade.

For reference here are the cards I traded for.

side A

I’ve been reading a lot about how discard isn’t as good in Legacy as it was pre Treasure Cruise, but I think that Hymn to Tourach is still worth having in my trade stock. I use cards like Hymn to Tourach, Phyrexian Revoker, and Crop Rotation as throw-ins to balance out a trade. You never know when you might need a Revoker…

The Reanimator deck has been picking up some steam recently in the bigger events. A couple of my local guys have asked me about the deck and if I had any of the cheaper cards for it. Reanimate and Exhume are cheap and easy to trade away to people testing the waters of the format. Trading out $20-$30 of cards to pick up a small stack of cards for an eternal deck you might make is easy to do without regrets if you don’t end up building the deck.

Overall, this trade helped me diversify my trade binder. Having these cheap staples in my trade inventory should help me with my secondary goal of building my local legacy community while helping me with my primary goal of building the deck. A lesson I’m reminded of constantly is that my local trade partners don’t often get the cards I need for the Stoneblade deck. They tend to trade for the cards that they’re going to use in their deck project and not really worry about what they have in the trade binder.

I had a foil Lorwyn Ponder rotting in my binder. I couldn’t give it away. I had put it in my buy list pile. (I’m terrible at buy listing by the way, but I will talk about that more later.) I was checking out what was posted in a couple Facebook buy/sell/trade groups when I came across someone looking for a foil Lorwyn Ponder. He valued it at $50 in trade. That’s pretty good considering I had decided that I was going to buy list it to Channel Fireball for $30 ($39 in store credit) a little while ago. We talked back and forth and he offered a pair of Flooded Strands and a Batterskull for the foil Ponder. That seemed like a perfect trade for me. I get to trade a semi-expensive (it’s a common foil) card that is EXTREMELY hard to move into format staples that I could trade out the same day. After he doubled checked his cards, he let me know that he only had one Flooded Strand. He was using tcgplayer mid price for trade values. At the time (before Christmas) that left me with roughly $17 to snag out of his binder.

I want to take a minute here and say that Dave Meetze is the perfect example of someone you want to trade with. He sent me pictures of his trade binder, the whole binder, to go through to find the difference. He is one of the most professional people I have ever dealt with. He went above and beyond the entire time AND he sent first. Great guy.

Back to the trade though. He had a ton of stuff that I wanted to put into my trade binder but I needed to be efficient here. I had a great opportunity to add cards to my deck and my binder. I didn’t want to be greedy and loose all the value to the deck. I threw in the Sword of Light and Shadow from Modern Masters (I opened in a draft) with the foil Ponder for these beauties.

trade 2 pic 1

So let’s breakdown the numbers here.

  • Supreme Verdict x3 $2.50
  • Baneslayer Angel $12.00
  • Council’s Judgement $8.50
  • Stifle $6.00
  • Thalia, Guardian of Thraben $4.00
  • Flooded Strand $17.00
  • Batterskull $17.00
  • Gaddock Teeg $8.00

Total: $80 (rounding to the nearest $.50)

For my

  • Foil Ponder Lorwyn $50
  • Sword of Light and Shadow $28

Total: $78

Face value it looks like I made $2.00. But if we look at the tcgplayer mid prices today (1-5-15) you will see that I picked up another $10. So I’m up a little over $12 in this trade. The mid price on the Ponder went down $6 and some of the other cards went up a little bit. This is not an example of my awesome trading skills. This is an example of plain old luck by the way, not an example of my awesome trading skills( for the most part at least).

Out of the cards I got in the trade I will be putting a fair amount of them in the deck. Council’s Judgement, Batterskull, and the Flooded Strand. Looking at the other cards, Supreme Verdict, Thalia, Stifle and Gaddock Teeg are all cards I expect to increase in price over the long term. Supreme Verdict and Thalia are under priced in my opinion. Thalia sees a ton of legacy play and I expect to see it in modern eventually. Supreme Verdict is one of the best wrath effects out there. I know Supreme Verdict has been on everyone’s radar as a solid speculation target. Speculation isn’t exactly where I want to be right now. I need to maximize my trade binder’s resources. I can’t afford to sit on specs long term. That being said, I get asked about Supreme Verdict enough that I like having a couple in my binder even if they don’t see a huge price jump. That leaves Batterskull and Baneslayer Angel. I fully expect Batterskull to be reprinted in Modern Masters 2015 and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Baneslayer Angel in there as well. The risk of the reprints is something to think about but not something that would prevent me from picking them up. Batterskull has the grand prix promo and it is still $17. Baneslayer has two core set prints and it is $12. There is some risk but since I plan on using both cards in the deck I’m not really worried about the card loosing value with a reprint. Sure, I could wait and see, then pick one up, but without anything being confirmed I would rather have the cards in hand. Not to mention I prefer the first printings of a card I’m using in a deck. Let me know your thoughts on the trade in the comments. I would love to see what you have to say.

Now we get to talk about buy listing. Couple of quick tips to remember when you’re buy listing. First, always double check how many the store is buying. I’ve made a few mistakes when I first started buy listing. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way. Next is always make sure to squeeze all you can with the cash you’re spending to ship. Sometimes it makes sense to take a little less from a store if you already have a stack of stuff that you’re sending. I can fit a lot of cards in one of the $5.95 priority mail boxes.

Last article I talked about the Titania, Protector of Argoth for $2.99 with free shipping. My budget was able afford 10 copies. I made sure to look at the buy list prices before I pulled the trigger. Channel Fireball was paying $5 and would take over 150 copies. I looked through my stack of cards to see what else I had to ship them.

I came up with this list

  • Champion Lancer $2.50 cash $3.25 credit
  • Blinkmoth Nexus $7.00/$9.10
  • Ichorid $8.00/$10.00
  • Necrotic Sliver $1.50/$1.95 (6 copies)
  • Aether Vial $15.00/$19.50
  • Elspeth, Sun’s Champion $12.00/$15.60
  • Mind Funeral $1.00/$1.30 (2 copies)
  • Chalice of the Void $10.00/$13.00 (4 copies)

Add in the 10 copies of Titania, Protector of Argoth for a total of $145 cash or $189.15 in store credit minus the $6 to ship it.

Let’s look at what I have in the cards to see the actual profit of this venture.

  • Champion Lancer .25
  • Necrotic Sliver x6  .25 each ($1.50)
  • Ichorid $5.00 cash
  • Chalice of the Void x4 $6.00 each ($24.00)
  • Titania, Protector of Argoth x10 $2.99 each ($29.90)
  • Elspeth, Sun’s Champion  Pulled out of a prize pack (3.99)
  • Blinkmoth Nexus, Aether Vial, Mind Funeral x2 were drafted by me ($30)

Total cost of about $95.

Cash profit of $44 after shipping.

Store Credit profit of $88 after shipping.

I love the idea of having $189.15 in store credit just for shipping in 26 cards. Average of $7.27 a card makes me pretty happy. I thought I would’ve moved the Chalice of the Voids by now but I haven’t had any luck. Taking $13 in store credit is close enough to what I would end up with after fees anyway. Stumbling across the Necrotic Sliver and Lancer in a local store’s bulk box helps the total as well. One of my favorite thing to do when I visit a store for the first time is to find these kind of boxes and scour them for these kind of cards. I love value!

What do you think I should get with the store credit? The’re selling a heavy play Revised Tundra for $180 and near mint one for $220. Should I buy some under-priced Modern cards? Leave your suggestions in the comment section so we can go over it next week.

 

I have put the collection I have assembled for the project into mtgprice.com’s collection tracker and it really is great. Being able to glance at your collection and get a quick idea the activity is great. It comes in handy when I go to an event just to trade. I’m working on putting in into a spreadsheet in google docs so I can try and get some additional trades going.

Next week I will be going over the value I have in the deck so far, a few trades I have in the works, the fallout of the Legacy IQ I’m going to play in this weekend, and something else that I don’t want to spoil. Really looking forward to that.


As always, follow me on twitter @somethingsays  email me at mtglegacyhero at the gmail.

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Fate Reforged Mythic Review: Mastering the Elements

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By Guo Heng Chin

One of the perks of being a Magic player is getting multiple Christmases per year. Just as the official Muggle season of gifts came to an end, Magic players were spoiled with a slew of presents in the form of highly anticipated Fate Reforged spoilers.  As of writing, 86 out of the 185 new cards we would be getting in Fate Reforged have been unveiled. But of course, the ones most financially relevant would be the subset of ten mythic rares and a small portion of the thirty five rares. Today I will put the white and blue mythics under my financial microscope to evaluate their financial potential and whether you should pick them up now or stay far far away.

Let’s start with the soon-to-be master of your wallet, master of potentially Standard and maybe even Modern (a big maybe, as I will explain in a bit):

Seeker of the Way finally found it and thus became a master.
Seeker of the Way finally found The Way and thus became a mentor to other seekers.

Young Pyromancer got a big upgrade and discarded his impulsive red alignment. Monastery Mentor is the real deal and is highly likely to end up being one of the chase rares in Fate Reforged. As of writing, eBay completed listings have Monastery Mentor at $27 each and major stores like StarCityGames.com and ChannelFireball.com are preselling Monastery Mentor at $30.

It is pretty obvious that the Mentor is a solid card, but is the Mentor really worth that much? Is Monastery Mentor the next Voice of Resurgence, who broke $50 during the early stages of its existence? Like Voice of Resurgence, Monastery Mentor possesses a Modern-viable casting cost and is capable of generating insane card advantage. Heck, it even takes after Young Pyromancer, an already popular Modern mainstay.

My prediction is no. I do not think Monastery Mentor would become a Modern staple à la Voice of Resurgence and Young Pyromancer. And my arguments are as follows:

Monastery Mentor does not generate card advantage the turn you cast him unless you cast Monastery Mentor with open mana. That is a huge drawback in Modern for a card that costs three to play. Voice of Resurgence was scary because the plucky goat-like elemental assured you card advantage upon resolving and it costs one less. Baaaa.

Brimaz, King of Oreskos, an analog of Monastery Mentor requires two Lightning Bolts to take out (unlike their cat ancestors, leonin do not have nine lives), which is technically card advantage as he trades for two cards from your opponent. I would not consider getting my Brimaz or Voice of Resurgence Path to Exiled to be parity; Path propels your mana one turn ahead, a benefit for decks running Brimaz and Voice of Resurgence as you usually want to cast them on curve rather than hold out for open mana to be available like Monastery Mentor.

Nor does Monastery Mentor protect itself (I really can’t tell if Monastery Mentor is male or female from the low resolution card art, and the Vorthos in me demands that I get my card’s gender right. I am hedging by using it at the moment, at least until Wizards releases a Monastery Mentor wallpaper). I may not be an esteemed deck theorist or brewer, but I have the feeling that the current incarnations of Jeskai in Modern would prefer to run Geist of Saint Traft over Monastery Mentor.

In a format where Lighting Bolt is the most played card, being found in 49% of decks, I would be hard pressed to cast a three mana creature that is vulnerable to a single Lightning Bolt. It’s a huge tempo loss for me if my Monastery Mentor eats a Bolt without generating at least one token. The same applies to Young Pyromancer, but at two casting cost, Young Pyromancer is less of a tempo setback. I could cast Young Pyromancer on turn three with one mana open as opposed to casting Monastery Mentor on turn four. The difference of one mana is huge in a powerful format like Modern, and is amplified for tempo decks that do not run many lands; it is significantly easier to hit your third land drop than your fourth in these decks.

For all of Monastery Mentor’s drawbacks in Modern, Monastery Mentor is chock full of potential in Standard. I have been delving in Standard for the PPTQs and I am very excited to get my hands on my own playset of Mentors and witness new brews emerge from the existence of Monastery Mentor or current archetypes bolstered from some mentoring.

Fate Reforged may be a small set, but it will be drafted more than Dragon’s Maze. Fate Reforged seems choked full with powerful mythics to satiate Spikes and plenty of dragons (dragons at uncommon? It’s been a while) to whet the appetite of the casual crowd. I think Fate Reforged would be cracked in abundance, or at the very least more than Dragon’s Maze. More importantly, there would be more incentive to redeem Fate Reforged, which means that the Voice of Resurgence Effect would not apply to Monastery Mentor.

The Voice of Resurgence Effect is a phenomenon coined by the Brainstorm Brewery crew to describe a mythic spiking to unprecedented heights due to the fact that it is the only financially relevant card in the set. Magic Online redemption is one of the factor driving down card prices for new sets and with little incentive for retailers to redeem online sets, the market supply of Voice of Resurgence is lower than your usual chase mythic, thus its lofty price.

I am aiming to get my playset of Monastery Mentor at $20 per piece at the maximum and that is just so I can grind the PPTQs shall the Mentor turns out to be a consensus upgrade in the Jeskai Tokens I am currently running. I would only reach for $25 if Monastery Mentor becomes a multi-archetype staple like Goblin Rabblemaster.

The Soulfire Master was besotted with illusions of Grandeur.
The Soulfire Master was besotted with illusions of Grandeur.

Everytime I take another look at Soulfire Grand Master my opinion of the card tanked a little. While she possess a unique ability to transfigure your burn spell into Lighting Helixes, I think she might be overrated due to the fact that its an ability that is seeing print for the first time and no one has really tested it out yet in real life. While it may be fun to transform my Lightning Strikes into Lightning Helixes, it comes at a cost of an extra cards that is the Soulfire Grand Master herself. Principle of equivalent exchange eh? I do not hit parity until I reaped the lifelink out of my second burn spell and that is assuming I am not playing against a deck like Abzan Reanimator that can grind me from 60 life to zero (true story) or UB Control where my life total is irrelevant most of the time so long it is not infinite (or one billion, as the competitive REL rules demand a set figure for infinite life gain loops).

Her activated ability is no better; having to pay an extra four mana to imbue a spell with buyback is too inefficient for competitive play and is a bit of a win more clause. The only decks I imagine that could abuse this clause are grindy Jeskai control decks, to cast a burn spell with buyback at the end of their opponent’s turn, three damage at a time to slowly finish off your opponent, or control decks seeking a soft lock with reusable counterspell in the late game. Or reusable Dig Through Time or Treasure Cruise. All those scenarios are enticing, but they spell out c-u-t-e.

Soulfire Grand Master has been closing at $20 – $23 apiece on eBay and $25 at StarCityGames. I am staying away from Soulfire Grand Master and I would be selling any copies I rip at the prerelease and the following weeks as fast as I can find a buyer.

It's a trap.
Few truly make a profit out of these sort of cards.

Treasure Cruise may do a decent impression of Ancestral Recall but Temporal Trespass is definitely no Time Walk. At least Temporal Mastery has synergy with cards that manipulate the top of your library. At three blue, you have to be running a predominantly blue deck to be able to cast it, and outside of Commander, I do not see the card trespassing into any format. Temporal Trespass is going for $5 – $7 on eBay and other major retailers, but I would not be buying my Temporal Trespasses anytime soon. I really only need one for my Narset, the Enlightened Master 1v1 Commander deck, but I will wait until I pop one in the slew of Fate Reforged packs I would be opening.

A lesser known method to cast Torrent Elemental from outside the game is to torrent it.
A lesser known method to cast Torrent Elemental from outside the game is to torrent it.

Torrent Elemental is a contender for control finisher in Standard and is able to do a decent emulation of the mighty Thundermaw Hellkite sans haste and five to the face. The Elemental’s second clause is not easy to abuse in Standard unfortunately and as so, would have a hard time dethroning the temperamental Pearl Lake Ancient as the de facto control finisher. If only Torrent Elemental’s second clause can put it into the battlefield tapped from the bulk bin. If only.

That is all for today’s review. Stay tuned next week for more prodding at Fate Reforged mythics. In the mean time, I am really excited for Fate Reforged. As I was writing this piece, a common dragon was just spoiled!

I am an avid fan of Mark Rosewater’s Drive to Work podcast and one of the recurring design concepts he discussed was that for a theme of a set to truly work, it has to be found in common rarity cards to ensure that even casual players who drafts the set once in a while have the opportunity to encounter the theme (Mark Rosewater put it more elegantly of course, I was just paraphrasing to the best of my memory. For the uninitiated, Mark Rosewater is the head designer of Magic and one of the most well-loved voices in the Magic community). Its no secret that I am a big fan of dragons and I am very excited to see Wizards going full throttle with the dragon theme.

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WEEKLY MTGPRICE.COM MOVERS: JAN 4TH/15

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By James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

Here’s your weekly update on what’s been shifting around in price in the world of paper Magic: The Gathering this week.

5 Winners of the Week

1. Whip of Erebos (Theros, Rare): $4.23 to $5.68 (+34%)

With Whip decks holding down the fort as one of the core pillars of the 2014-2015 winter Standard season, it’s no surprise that this central feature of the recursive mid-range decks has been sliding up. Given that the card was available for as little as $1.25 in late summer 2014, there was some solid profit potential to be realized here if you pushed your chips in on this powerful card ahead of the curve. With relatively little Theros being opened these days, it could perhaps top out at $7-8 in a best case scenario, but I’d be happy to get out now with the inevitable rotation decline on the horizon for early summer.

Format: Standard/EDH

Verdict: Sell

2. Sidisi, Brood Tyrant (khans of Tarkir, Mythic): $4.74 to $5.54 (+17%)

We’re not yet at peak supply yet for Khans of Tarkir staples, as the set is going to be drafted alongside Fate Reforged for a couple of months before being left behind in the wake of Dragons of Tarkir and Modern Masters (2015 Edition). As such, buying in now on this card may not be ideal, since a early summer lull is likely unless the graveyard decks keep putting up top table performances. That being said, I love the card in both foil and non-foil for the long term as it’s a great casual/EDH card with a unique effect and a palatable casting cost. I’ve been picking up quite a few copies in the $3 range along the way, looking to double up within the year on half the stock and hold the rest long term.

Format(s): Standard/Casual/EDH

Verdict: Hold

3. Shivan Reef (M15, Rare): $7.23 to $7.82 (+8%)

If Standard has proven to have a color combination of near infinite variation this fall and winter, it must be red, white and blue. Between the token, tempo and Jeskai Ascendancy combo variants, this oft-reprinted pain land has been in high demand and is on track to carry on the fine tradition of blue/red dual lands leading the pack on price. If you picked up copies last summer in the $3-4 range, now is a fine time to be trading out or selling off, as they are unlikely to move much higher before rotation.

Format(s): Standard/Casual/EDH

Verdict: Sell

4. Emrakul, The Aeons Torn (Rise of the Eldrazi, Mythic): $52.61 to $56.84 (+8%)

Don’t be fooled by the short-term variability. As a confirmed reprint for Modern Masters (2015 Edition), Emrakul should have nowhere to go but down. You’d be wise to exit on any copies you’re holding while you can.

Format(s): Modern/Legacy/Casual/EDH

Verdict: Sell

5. Lilianna Vess (M15, Mythic): $7.12 to $7.69 (+8%)

The lesser Lilianna is seeing occasional play out of Abzan mid-range decks as a 1-2 of aimed at generating additional card advantadge in the grindy world of mid-range deck on deck violence. She could top $8, but if you got in last summer around $4, or had older copies sitting around, go ahead and get out now while the getting is good since she’s unlikely to increase her presence in the metagame any further before rotating out again next fall and her multiple printings and midling power level make her a poor long term target.

Format(s): Standard/Casual/EDH

Verdict: Sell

5 Top Losers of the Week

1. Coalition Relic (Future Sight, Rare): 6.19 to 4.99 (-19%)

Now normally Future Sight rares are a great place to go looking for cards that could explode in price, but the presence of Chromatic Lantern in the EDH scene and high chance of a further reprint of this lesser card put non-foil copies of Relic far down the list of interesting pickups. The recent downswing doesn’t seem to have a definite source, but I’d stay away just the same.

Format(s): EDH/Casual

Verdict: Hold

2. Zurgo Helmsmasher (Khans of Tarkir, Mythic): $1.19 to $1.04 (-13%)

While his fellow Khan Narset is looking pretty tasty right about now, Zurgo isn’t getting enough love from any format to even consider jumping in. Just accept that he’s going to be hanging out in bulk bins and move on.

Format(s): Um, none.

Verdict: Sell/Trade

3. Omniscience (M13, Mythic): $10.75 to $9.50 (-12%)

This card on the other hand is chock full of broken potential and is really just waiting on a Top 8 showing or two to shift into high gear. It also needs to not see a reprint any time soon, but that’s looking unlikely given that notable reprints are largely about keeping Modern affordable or filling gaps in Standard at present and this card fills neither role. Because it’s already hovering around $10, it’s the kind of card I’m not into hunting until I see it do something drastic on camera, but be ready to pull the trigger fast if that ever happens.

Format(s): Modern/Legacy/EDH

Verdict: Hold

4. Sarkhan, The Dragonspeaker (Khans of Tarkir, Mythic) $16.59 to $15.17 (-9%)

If you’ve been holding copies of Sarkhan since the September 2014 pre-order period, you’ve already gone on quite the ride, with copies peaking in the mid $30’s before steadily declining to half that level due to softening Standard play and literal tons of product being opened. That being said, I’ve been starting to acquire copies under $13 where I can since I fully expect him to have a 2nd coming either due to dragon specific cards this spring or general scarcity next fall. It’s not a spec I plan to go really deep on, but I’ve got a few sets waiting for the bounce.

Verdict: Buy/Trade

5. Fulminator Mage (Shadowmoor, Rare) $41.12 to $38.86 (-5%)

Here’s another card waiting for an excuse to climb a bit more, likely in the form of the banning of treasure cruise and the general rebounding of the value of Jund strategies in Modern. This kind of land destruction isn’t something WOTC seems eager to reprint, but he could still show up in MM2 this summer and wreck all the lovely gains he’s made over the last few years up from as low as $6 in early 2013. If you don’t need your extras, leave some potential and risk on the table and reap the rewards of a sweet spec.

Verdict: Sell/Trade

Quick Hits:

  • January 19th, 2015 is the next Banned & Restricted list announcement and banning of any or all of the following could make big waves and open up new specs: Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, Jeskai Ascendancy, Birthing Pod. Getting rid of all of the above in Modern opens up the format a ton, and it’s possible Cruise gets the axe as far back as Legacy. I don’t want to be caught holding many copies of that card in foil, so I’ve been selling out, but the rest I’ve decided to risk. Make your call and get ready for the fallout.
  • Likely MM2 reprints aren’t falling nearly as fast as they should be and I think too many people are underestimating the print run this time around. Get out while you can…these aren’t cards you want to be holding come June.

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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Holiday Hodgepodge

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By Guo Heng Chin

There are a few topics I would like to write about, but neither had sufficient fodder to be expanded into a full-fledged article. So I combined them together into one article, a sort of holiday hodgepodge of an article. The first part deals with the shifting paradigm in Modern speculation. The second discusses the first trickle of spoilers in the Fate Reforged spoiler season.

Modern Paradigm

Modern used to be a veritable speculator’s heaven. It was a relatively new format with plenty of unexplored deckbuilding space. Breakout cards spiked overnight by order of magnitudes when they received coverage during a major event. Bulk and near-bulk rares shot up to insane heights when a home was found for those once unloved pieces of cardboard wasting away in bulk bins. Modern staples resembled blue chip shares. However, that era is coming to an end.

Wizards stated over and over again that they are serious about supporting Modern as a Pro Tour format. Modern was a non-rotating format unshackled by the reserve list. We passed the era when the power level of the format was being tuned by frequent bannings, and the format has since evolved a distinctively unique flavor – midrange value grinds with a splash of combo – and a plethora of viable tier one decks in the format at any one time. Wizards is currently in the stage of keeping Modern’s entry barrier sufficiently affordable to be inclusive of the majority of the playerbase, while at the same time remain a premier non-rotating format.

From the reprint of in-demand, expensive staples like Remand and Wurmcoil Engine in supplementary products like Duel Decks and Commander decks to reprinting Thoughtseize and fetchlands in normal sets, Wizards made it abundantly clear that they are taking their promise to ensure that Modern staples remain affordable seriously. While Wizards’ dedication is great for the game and playerbase overall, it increased the risk for Magic financiers invested or planning to invest in Modern staples.

I would not have it any other way: I am a player first, a financier second. I got into Magic finance because Magic is an expensive habit. A little speculation here and there helped eased the financial pressure of grinding competitive Magic.  If Wizards goes gung-ho in reprinting Modern staples, that negates some of the cost associated with staying at the forefront of competitive Magic. Every wave of reprints help me get one step closer to completing my gauntlet of tier one Modern decks.

That does not mean I am jumping overboard from the invest-in-Modern ship. I still have a decent amount of vested interest in terms of Modern investment. That just means I have to change my outlook towards investing in Modern cards to fit the new paradigm. Adapt or die.

I. Shorter Hold Time

Thee Modern staples I bought at the inception of the format in 2011 just kept on going up and up. Those $8 Vendilion Cliques I bought on eBay doubled to $20, $40 and then $80. I bought my fourth non-foil Cryptic Command at $35 in January 2014 because I needed it for the Modern side event at Grand Prix Kuala Lumpur. $35 must be the ceiling for a Modern staple reprinted in Modern Masters as a rare, I consoled myself as I mentally punched myself for not completing my non-foil playset back when it was a $15 card. Cryptic Command is now at $60. Don’t even get me talking about the Liliana of the Veils and Scalding Tarns.

Most of my Modern investments remained with me today as I kept on convincing myself that they have more room to grow. The fact that my holdings got more expensive after Modern Masters emboldened the greedy me. My Modern stakes were invincible.

It's got to keep going up. From Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby.
It’s got to keep going up. From Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby.

My approach to Modern speculation was untethered from the realities of Magic finance and investment in general. Even the mighty crude oil eventually fell in price. Earlier this year my Remands took a hit when it was reprinted in Jace vs. Vraska. Fine, Remand was still a double-digit uncommon and I dug them out from my bulk box anyway. But I still held on to them, hoping that they will return to their near-$20 price.

Late last year Birthing Pod was hovering around $6 – $8. I bought my second playset of Birthing Pods. And traded for a few more. In the post-Bloodbraid Elf era of Modern, Pod decks took down more Grand Prix than every other archetype in Modern. Surely $6 – $8 was way too low for the namesake piece of Pod decks. I was right. Birthing Pod spiked to $18 – $19 spring this year. Yet I was reluctant to liquidate my Birthing Pod holdings. Phyrexian mana cards must surely be hard to reprint. I am sure Birthing Pod has more room to grow as the centerpiece of one of the most important archetype in Modern! I told myself that even though I knew they were printed in the New Phyrexia event deck. The spike did not last long; Birthing Pod dropped to $10 over the summer and with Modern Masters 2015 coming up, I doubt Birthing Pod will be able to break $15 again. Let alone the lofty heights I had hoped for previously.

Modern is no longer a hold and wait game. If you are interested to invest in Modern staples, you must be willing to liquidate them rather than holding onto them like blue chip stocks. Some time ago, Corbin Hosler wrote about liquidating his fetchlands when the blue ones hit $35. When Scalding Tarns broke $100 during spring this year, I thought to myself Corbin could’ve made so much more had he held them just for another year. Every time I considered liquidating my Modern holdings that are already in the profit, I hark back to Corbin’s article and told myself to wait just a little bit more.

Gone are those days when we laughed at the idea of predicting a ceiling for Modern staples. Today, as I write this, I looked back at Corbin’s article as a good paradigm to follow for investing in Modern staples: liquidate once you have made your profit.

Be willing to liquidate your holdings that have grown into profit instead of waiting and hoping for another spike. It took a while for Wizards to go full steam ahead with their promise on reprinting Modern staples due to their multi-year-long development cycle and a conservative approach to prevent Chronicles 2.0, but Wizards seem to have grasped the pace for Modern reprints now. This year alone saw Modern staples like Wurmcoil Engine, Remand, Chord of Calling, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and fetchlands fall in price.

In Bayesian terms,  it is better to liquidate at 130% profit rather than stake out for a 200% profit and risk making a loss instead in the current climate of Modern reprints. As Corbin said, leave the last 10% to others. Expanding on that for contemporary Modern speculation, I would say you have to be willing to even leave the next 20% – 30%.

Set a reasonable exit price for your Modern speculations and adjust existing exit targets. I am no longer holding onto my Snapcaster Mages until they hit Dark Confidant price; I am happy to liquidate them once they hit $50 and take home the $30 in profit rather than risk a reprint while I am gunning for a $60 paycheck.

II. Every Product Spoiler is Relevant.

I used to ignore supplementary product spoilers as they were not relevant to the competitive metagame. I prefer to discover those items at my own pace like shuffling up freshly-unboxed Commander decks with no knowledge of the decklist and finding out myself the surprises R & D had in store for me as I play that deck. It was a pleasant surprise to discover the dragons subtheme in the Daretti Commander deck as I drew dragon after dragon.

Wizards is now willing to reprint expensive Modern mythics in supplementary products like Wurmcoil Engine in the red Commander 2014 deck, Built from Scratch. Keep a close finger on the pulse for Modern reprints.

III. Hit it Low

Look for obviously underpriced Modern staples rather than buying already expensive Modern staples and hope for the next bump. It is harder to predict if another bump would happen with Wizards churning out so many reprints. The increased risk is not worth it.

Hunt for Modern cards no one is looking at because it is not seeing much playing  at the moment or a recent reprint crashed its price. $3.58 Chord of Calling is a good example. You are unlikely to regret buying a Modern staple at this price.

That Time of the Year

One nice thing about being in charge of the column that goes up slightly after midnight on Tuesday is getting to write about the spoilers right away.

The first spoiler that manifested itself was:

Whisperwood Elemental by Raymond Swanland.
Whisperwood Elemental by Raymond Swanland.

Whisperwood Elemental was Mark Rosewater’s preview card on the first day of spoiler season. When I first read through the essay of a card, I was underwhelmed. Mark Rosewater’s spoilers were usually the cream of the crop for the set, the marquee cards of the block designed to whet our appetites and rev up the engines of the hype train. A five mana for 4/4 with no enter the battlefield ability felt a little disappointing.

While Whisperwood Elemental’s triggered-at-your-end-step ability may not always net you the extra value with Hero’s Downfall, Murderous Cut, and Stoke the Flames being popular removals in the format, Whisperwood Elemental rewards you with a snowballing board state if it is left unanswered. Sticking a Whisperwood Elemental on board for a few turns might just put you too far ahead for your opponent to catch up, especially with its second clause that acts as an insurance against board wipes. Financially, I am not (yet) sold on Whisperwood Elemental as it feels fragile in the current state of Standard. It has the making of an expensive rare, but I think Whisperwood Elemental might be more Duskmantle Seer than Wingmate Roc. Okay, maybe better than Duskmantle Seer, but definitely not as good as Wingmate Roc.

The Storm's Fury is not that high up on the Storm scale.
The Storm’s Fury is not that high up on the Storm scale.

Ah dragons. I missed them. Competitively costed? Check. Solid stats? Check. @rezaaba reminded me during our usual flurry of spoiler season discussion that Kolaghan is actually a 5/5 when attacking. I am not sure how relevant Kolaghan’s anthem trigger would be at five mana: Kolaghan could see play as a top-of-the-curve alpha striker in aggressive RB shells. Or perhaps a midrangey Mardu deck that relies on token-makers to create an overwhelming number of creatures to make Kolaghan’s anthem worth the five mana you tap for it. Note that Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker, another key-piece of Mardu midrange tokens,  triggers Kolaghan’s anthem too.

Would Kolaghan be the Thundermaw Hellkite to the contemporary Thragtusk, Siege Rhino? I highly doubt so. The prevalence of reanimator strategies in the current Standard metagame is a twofold obstacle for Kolaghan. The amount of life gained by reanimator decks over the course of a game is too much for aggressive decks to handle, even if they have access to top of the curve beaters like Kolaghan. Second, the number of 1/1 deathtouch bees in the meta is too damn high. Slamming hasty five mana fliers is not something you want to be doing unless its called Thundermaw Hellkite.

I am happy to see a new, potentially competitive dragon being printed, but I doubt its financial potential. Even if Kolaghan sees play, small set rares have a low ceiling unless it is a ubiquitous linchpin of the format. Kolaghan is not a card I am inclined to preorder.

Manifest Destiny

I stole that pun off Twitter.

At first glance, manifest seemed like an underwhelming mechanic designed with limited in mind. For once I was actually excited for limited. Morph is already pretty fun by itself and manifest is going to push limited dynamics to a whole new level. Playing around face-down cards just got a whole lot more complicated (and fun)!

You could now legally have a face-down 'morphed' land.
You could now legally have a face-down ‘morphed’ land.

Upon closer inspection, manifest is a form of card advantage. It takes a card from the top of your library and turns it into a 2/2 creature, regardless of the card type. That extra land on top of your library could be conscripted to bolster your board presence, saving you one dead draw phase. Manifesting a creature from the top of your library is sort of like drawing it, except you do not use up your draw phase.

But enough about strategy, I am writing about Magic finance and there would be plenty of discussion regarding the pros and cons of manifest by other more esteemed Magic strategy writers. What I am concerned about is the financial impact of the mechanic on existing cards, and a card that stands to abuse the manifest mechanic in Standard is no other than:

The most fearsome hydra in the hood, it is always followed by a posse of 1/1 hydra wannabes.
The most fearsome hydra in the hood, it is always followed by a posse of 1/1 hydra wannabes.

Manifesting a Hooded Hydra allows you to turn it face up for just GG to become a 5/5 creature that leaves behind five snake tokens. That is a trip to valueland.

Of course that scenario assumes that Hooded Hydra is on the top of your library when the manifest trigger resolves. Working with the manifest cards spoiled so far, we can assume that manifest will draw from the top card of your library. Barring convoluted ways to get Hooded Hydra onto the top of your library (thereby negating the advantage from manifesting it) your best shot at manifesting a Hooded Hydra would be to run four copies of it and/or manipulate the top of your library with Courser of Kruphix and scry.

I am not saying that Hooded Hydra will shine with the new manifest mechanic. It just has a better chance of finding a home. Hooded Hydra is a card to keep an eye on as the spoilers are rolled out within the next few weeks. If Fate Reforged grants enough tools to build  decks revolving around the manifest mechanic, getting in on Hooded Hydra at under $2 would have a nice payoff as it is one of the prime candidates to be a four-of in manifest decks.

Another card that works well with manifest is Ashcloud Phoenix, which @rezaaba pointed out during our discussion. You get to unmorph the Phoenix at two mana less than its morph cost and still reap the benefits of turning it face up. Ashcloud Phoenix already proved to be a solid, difficult-to-remove card even at a morph cost of six; manifest decks would be inclined to run multiple copies of Ashcloud Phoenix shall those decks exist. Do not buy Ashcloud Phoenix right now, its current price of $4.33 is not a great buy-in. Keep an eye on upcoming spoilers for manifest enablers and just trade for your Phoenices at the moment.