Hi, I’m Alasdair. I run MTGPrice.com: a site that helps people price, collect and trade Magic cards. I’ve been playing magic since Revised and I’ve played a LOT of tournament magic, including on the Pro Tour (I did terribly 🙂
MTGPrice.com has been around for almost three years and more than 200,000 magic players use it every month to track the value of their collections, look up historical prices, see what cards are currently rising or falling or just to compare prices across different vendors (unlike some other sites that use a single source, we pull prices for everyone from TCGPlayer, eBay and Amazon to ChannelFireball, StrikeZone and ABUGames).
The thing is, we want the app to be really, really good. We don’t just want to repackage our website and call it an app – we want the thing to be native and fast and slick and wonderful – all the things a really great app should be. Thus, we’ve turned to kickstarted to help us get the cash needed to hire a world-class designer and a developer to help us.
What we’re building
We’re building an Android and iOS app with the following features:
1. Fast price lookup with autocomplete. Shows our “Fair Trade Price”, current price at a bunch of stores, historical price graph. We pull prices from many difference sources, not just a single site.
The premium version of the app will also show buylist prices (the cash price a vendor will pay you).
This is our core use-case: the idea is that you’ll be able to pull out your phone and know the price and price history of a card (in any printing) in under five seconds.
2. “My Collection” tool. Track your complete magic collection and its total value. Track the value over time in a graph. See which cards have changed in price recently.
Manage your “wishlist” of cards and receive alerts when we find especially good deals on these cards.
Track multiple collections – perhaps you want to track all the cards you lent a friend, or all the cards in a particular deck.
3. Fair Trade Wizard. Trading with someone at a GP? Just pull out the MTGPrice.com App and you can tally up each side of the trade. The premium version of the app (which you’ll receive if you back us) also has an option to show buylist prices of every card in the trade.
We don’t stop there. The Fair Trade Wizard will log this trade for you, automatically updating your collection and wishlists. It will also let you review these trades in the future so you can see if you’re making good trades over time.
4. Trade Matcher. Want to trade with another app user? Just enter their username (or scan a QR code) and be told all of the things someone wants from you and what you can give them.
The MTGPrice.com app will work out the best possible trade between the two of you, taking into account every single card you have for trade and every card in your wishlist.
The premium version (which all backers receive) will also let you mark specific cards as high or low priority so you can ensure you get those above all others.
5. Trade Locator. Find everyone in the area with the MTGPrice.com App and arrange trades with them!
Imagine being at a GP with four thousand people in the room. You need a foil Snapcaster Mage but can’t find anyone with one to trade. Hit the “Trade Locator” button and see everyone with trades nearby. Type in a card and see any users with that specific card for trade.
(Of course, you can disable this feature whenever you don’t feel like trading.)
6. Price alerts. We’ll give you an alert if a card on your wishlist or in your collection sees a price movement past a particular threshold. We’ll also tell you which cards you don’t own are currently hot and which are drifting downwards.
7. ProTrader features. MTGPrice.com has a service (currently $4.99/month) that provides a TON of extra features for people with larger collections. For example, you can view historical inventory graphs for specific vendors, get daily alert emails showing trending cards and use advanced tools to find the best deals available form each store. (You can read more about ProTrader here: http://www.mtgprice.com/protraderSignup.jsp)
As part of the app, we’ll have additional ProTrader features available for subscribers, including in-app price alerts.
Important Notes
REALLY IMPORTANT: The first $10K will fund an ANDROID version of the app. The next $5K (if we manage to raise it in a stretch goal) will fund concurrent iOS development. If we don’t raise $15K, we will still build the iOS app using our own funds but it will be delayed until the Android app is complete.
Additionally, we have a whole bunch of stretch goals in mind if we can raise above the $15K needed for both platforms. Specifically, we’ll support international vendors, multiple currencies, different card conditions (only NM-M for now), hundreds of different vendors and faster price updates (currently we update daily). We’ll go into more detail if it looks like these stretch goals are reasonable.
Anyway, what are you waiting for? Help us build the most amazing MTG App in the world!
As the clock struck 8 a.m. PST yesterday, the banhammer fell. In a mighty swoop, not one, nor two, but three cards in Modern became casualties in the latest round of DCI banned and restricted announcement. It was a banning on a scale we have not seen for years, taking out two dominating Modern archetype and resetting the power level of the format to pre-Khans of Tarkir level.
Granted, concessions were made. The good ol’ grave troll were released from the DCI’s prison, but part of me wished that Wizards released the Troll just to indicate that the banned and restricted announcement was just one big trolling attempt.
In the veins of Deathrite Shaman‘s ban last February, yesterday’s banned and restricted announcement aimed at shaking up the Modern format in anticipation of the upcoming Modern Pro Tour in Washington, DC. The ripples of this year’s bannings will definitely be felt as two tier one incumbents were nudged off their seats in the Council of Tier One Modern Decks. Coupled with the unbanning of a popular card, the financial implications could span across a multitude of cards. Travis Allen (@wizardbumpin) would be discussing the changes in his article tomorrow. My article today will focus on a few cards I am very familiar with, a few cards which in my opinion, stand to be the biggest winners of the latest round of bannings. Those cards are related to a particular archetype that was marginalised in the post-Khans Modern landscape.
The Ghost of Jeskai Past
UWR Geist, or Jeskai Geist as the nomenclature goes in 2015 was the first successful tempo deck in Modern. The archetype debut on Magic Online when Larry Swasey, better known as Krazykirby4 on Magic Online took down a Magic Online PTQ in the middle of January 2013 with an innovative new brew. It was at the height of Jund’s dominance, shortly before Bloodbraid Elf fell under the banhammer. To put it in Larry’s own words, that deck was a monster, and it propelled both Larry and his friend Brandon Large who was running the same list, to the finals of that said PTQ. It was a deck capable of attacking efficiently on multiple angles, a hallmark of good modern-day decks as Gerry Thompson encapsulated recently in a very insightful article.
UWR Jeskai Geist garnered widespread attention a week later when Mitchell Manders took down Grand Prix Bilbao with a 75 that was mostly similar to Larry’s masterpiece, dispatching a Jund piloted by the formidable Lukas Jaklovsky. Jeskai Geist was inducted into the hallowed halls of tier one Modern decks. One does not simply disregard a deck that could take on pre-nerf Jund, the fairest of fair decks, in one-on-one combat.
Unfortunately that was exactly what happened. Jeskai Geist faded into obscurity, only to surface again a year later when Vjeran Horvat won Grand Prix Prague with Jeskai Geist in January 2014. Jeskai Geist proponents rejoiced.
I may not be a strategy writer; heck even my strategy credentials are lacking – I do not even have a single PTQ top 8 under my belt. However, I have been playing Jeskai Geist in real life and online pretty much since Larry Swasey took down the Magic Online PTQ in January 2013, and it was my go-to Modern deck up to the point when UR Delver upstarted it thanks to Treasure Cruise. I like to think I have a decent grasp on Jeskai Delver; at least good enough to 4-0 a couple of Modern Dailies. And I like to think that Jeskai Geist was one of the biggest winners from yesterday’s banned and restricted announcement.
Prior to Khans of Tarkir, Jeskai Geist was the de facto tempo deck in Modern. After Treasure Cruise entered the metagame, Jeskai Geist found it difficult to compete with UR Delver’s raw speed and ability to refuel with Ancestral Recall (though Jeff Hoogland did top 4 a StarCityGames Modern 5K with an updated Jeskai Geist list that incorporated two copies of Dig Through Time). When Deathrite Shaman was banned in February 2014, the tier one deck that became the hardest matchup for Jeskai Geist was Birthing Pod.
While Jeskai Geist could trade resources on parity with Pod decks, a resolved Birthing Pod often pushed the game out of reach, more so in game one where Jeskai Geist does not have an answer to a resolved Birthing Pod. To make matters worse, Pod decks could sneak a Birthing Pod under Jeskai Geist’s Mana Leak or Remand on turn two if the Pod deck is on the play. Or catch a Jeskai Geist pilot unaware during game one.
Birthing Pod was one of the toughest matchups for Jeskai Geist back when I was grinding Modern Daily Events. With Birthing Pod out of the equation, Jeskai Geist has a good chance to be very well positioned in the metagame. How about Siege Rhino? Siege Rhino is not too much of an issue in my opinion. One of the worse things you could do against Jeskai Geist is attempt to resolve high casting cost spells. Jeskai Geist capitalises on tempo and it is a huge tempo swing for Geist to Remand or Leak a four mana spell, or even just Path to Exile it.
Hopefully by now I have made a convincing argument that Jeskai Geist is the Next Big Thing New Old Big Thing. Let’s have a look at the key components of Jeskai Geist with financial potential.
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Spirited Away
The Geist of Jeskai Past, soon to be the Geist of Jeskai Present.
Geist of Saint Traft is sitting at $14. Let that sink in for a while. $14 is pretty much the lowest ol’ Saint Traft’s spirit has ever been. Geist is probably the frontrunner for potential financial winners from the 19th January Banned and Restricted announcement. Geist barely escaped an upcoming reprint in Modern Masters 2015 and was last year’s WMCQ participation promo. It is highly unlikely to see a Geist of Saint Traft reprint in the near future.
At $14, Geist of Saint Traft can only go up in price. He is already $21 on Magic Online and has started to trend up since the announcement. My speculator’s ears always perk up when I see a digital card being significantly more expensive than its paper counterpart. $14 is a sweet price to pick up a mythic that is a four-of in a potential tier one Modern deck, and also offers hexproof against near-term reprints.
Heavenly Creatures
Dealing out heavenly justice since 2010.
A beauty in the design of Jeskai Geist is the deck’s ability to play both aggro and control roles efficiently. An early Geist of Saint Traft closed games in a quick fashion in tandem with Restoration Angel and the occasional Thundermaw Hellkite. An early Geist backed by a flurry of removals and burn does the job too. After all, Geist was considered to be an honorary red card by no other than Burn maestro Patrick Sullivan. Shall the draws or the matchup demanded that Jeskai Geist plays the long game, the deck could trade removals and out-card advantage the opponent while Celestial Colonnade slowly chipped away at the opponent’s life total, four at a time.
While Colonnade is the other four-of win condition in Jeskai Geist, it is not a good pickup at $18, even though it has been trending down. Celestial Colonnade has a near-certain probability of being reprinted in Modern Masters 2015. I would steer clear of Celestial Colonnade.
Geist of Saint Traft’s other angel. He was quite the Casanova.
The price of Restoration Angel continues to baffle me. The Swiss Army knife of an angel is still a sub-$10 card despite the amount of play she saw in Modern. She was found in all iterations of Pod, in Death and Taxes and also the occasional UWr Flash. Restoration Angel is one of the most versatile value creatures in Modern: she resets your Kitchen Finks, protects your Geist of Saint Traft, rebuys Snapcaster Mage and a plethora of other creatures with enter-the-battlefield effects. Not to mention she combos with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker for infinite angels and is a formidable beater by herself, being a 3/4 flying creature with flash.
I suspect Restoration Angel’s price will suffer a bit of a dip due to the Pod ban if Pod’s value shell proved to be unviable in a post-Pod world. If that scenario happens, it would probably be a short-lived dip as Restoration Angel is not going to be in Modern Masters 2015. Restoration Angel has the versatility to fit easily in plenty of other archetypes and it would only be a matter of time before another archetype picks her up from where Pod left off (on top of the archetypes that are currently running Restoration Angel).
$8 feels too low for a card this powerful and versatile and is unlikely to be reprinted soon. Even if you do not plan to spec on her, it might be prudent to pick up your own playset while she is at $8.
Mother of Dragons
The mother of dragons. Well, the mother of playable dragons.
Thundermaw Hellkite was the ideal curve-topper for Jeskai Geist and Jund back when Lingering Souls was running rampant in Modern. Jeff Hoogland eschewed Thundermaw for Stormbreath Dragon and Vjeran Horvat mentioned about replacing Thundermaw with another Restoration Angel or Cryptic Command in his post-Khans of Tarkir list that narrowly missed top 8 at Grand Prix Milan. Thundermaw’s position in the deck and the Modern metagame is meta-dependent. If Lingering Souls sees a resurgence in the new meta, Thundermaw would once again be the five-drop king of the sky.
I would not recommend buying as many Thundermaw Hellkites as you can at $9.46. It is quite possible to see Thundermaw reprinted in Magic 2016. It is the perfect foil to Hornet Queen and could appear as a pre-planned safety valve in Magic 2016. Keep an eye on Thundermaw; it might be worth moving in on Thundermaw at under $10 if Lingering Souls is widely played in the upcoming Modern Pro Tour, but don’t spec too many copies or sit on it for too long due to its short-term reprint risk.
Card Advantage is King
The leading cause of unintentional draws.
Both Jeff Hoogland’s list and Vjeran Horvat’s list ran two copies of Dig Through Time as late game card advantage trumps. With Dig Through Time out of the game, Jeskai Geist will probably revert to the old faithful, Sphinx’s Revelation. Sphinx’s Revelation is a good pickup at $6. It is a Modern playable mythic that is unlikely to be reprinted in the near-to-medium-term as Return to Ravnica rotated out less than half a year ago.
Snapcaster tried his best to do an impersonation of Yawgmoth’s Will. He really did.
In the midst of the furore of yesterday’s shocker of an announcement (don’t pretend you were not suprised too), Snapcaster Mage nearly slipped my mind, until Redditor and moderator of the mtgmarketwatch subreddit /u/mtd14 reminded me that Snapcaster is among the winners from the bannings. I could not agree more. Snapcaster’s numbers suffered a decline in the wake of Treasure Cruise, because jamming Ancestral Recalls is plainly better than pseudo-Yawgmoth’s Wills.
Now that we can’t Ancestral Recall in Modern anymore, Snapcaster Mage will probably be present in higher numbers again. A Jeskai Geist resurgence would also increase the demand of Snapcaster Mage as the deck runs a full playset of Snapcaster. More importantly, Snapcaster is the most played creature in Modern being present in 31% of Modern decks in 2014 at 3.2 copies, despite Treasure Cruise suppresing his numbers during the recent months. And he is not going to be reprinted in Modern Masters 2015.
$34 is a rather low figure for the most played creature in Modern (and Vintage) with no reprint in sight for the near future. The only real risk of reprint for Snapcaster before the Modern Masters after Modern Masters 2015 is being minted as a Grand Prix promo, but we could rest assured that it won’t happen until at least December 2015, with Griselbrand being the 2015 Grand Prix promo.
Closing Thoughts
Other cards to consider in the wake of yesterday’s announcement:
Chord of Calling. Kiki-Chord is a potential direction for Kiki-Pod decks. Chord of Calling is just $3.
Domri Rade. Kiki-Pod once ran Domri Rade as an extra value engine. $7 is not cheap, but if he (or she) replaces Pod as the deck’s value engine, I am sure Domri would not be in the realm of single-digit price tag.
Most of the players who started after 2010 have probably never even played with or against this utterly broken value/combo enabler from 1998. In combination with Recurring Nightmare the card makes up a creature tutor/recursion combo that makes Birthing Pod look tame by comparison. Considering it’s only legal in Vintage and busted kitchen table games, Survival of the Fittest has shown surprising gains this week, most likely due to a buyout by MTGFinance folks looking to flip into some hype once they set the higher plateau. If you’ve got some lying around, go ahead and try to unload to free up cash for more valuable targets.
Oddly Chalice took a while to really gain momentum as it’s role in holding down the overbearing power of Treasure Cruise decks stocked with a ton of single mana creatures, cantrip spells and bolts became more and more important in both Modern and Legacy this season. Now that’s it’s finally peaking we’re just hours away from a banned list announcement that might make it significantly less important to the metagame. That being said, unless we stop printing good spells that cost one mana, this card will keep gaining value pending a further reprint that should be at least a few years off yet. Getting on the train now is definitely late to the party, and I think I’d wait for a trough post the assumed Treasure Cruise banning before acquiring more. Foils have also been doing well, but I exited with good returns on those over the last month looking for fresh targets with more short-term upside.
Format(s): Modern/Legacy
Verdict: Hold
3. Hooded Hydra(Khans of Tarkir, Mythic): $2.15 to $2.62 (+22%)
Hooded Hydra is up another 20%+ this week, adding more gains and hopefully building towards a possible higher plateau. The more I consider the Manifest decks, however, the less inclined I am to believe this deck style ends up doing damage in Standard this winter. On the other hand, I am now more convinced that there are Modern and Legacy applications for Manifest, and that’s its good creatures worth flipping up for cheap and perhaps more specific card selection tools rather than Manifest cards that we need to make it work.
From last week: “If it makes a key deck tech or a top table this month, expect it to hit $5-6 in a hurry but success is nothing more than a guess at this point so don’t sleep on the info if you choose to go deep. Personally, I think this card will get there sooner or later, so I’ve got about 20 copies sitting around acquired under $1.50.”
Soul of Theros was up again this week, and though the advance wasn’t quite as explosive as last week (+91%), this is still a card that’s gone from bulk to nearly $5 in a very short period of time and made some folks money both in paper Magic and online. It remains to be seen whether the 4-color Whip of Erebos brews, where Soul of Theros adds power to value poster children like Siege Rhino and Hornet Queen in the late game, will end up in a top position with Fate Reforged going legal next week, but I suspect it will still be a powerful and consistent deck, look very threatening indeed. You should be selling into this hype because we’re almost certainly within a couple bucks of the top of this hype curve.
Pontiff has been a roller coaster ride lately, spiking to $20 or so a week back on the strength of it’s camera appearances during a prominent Modern tournament in Value Pod, especially against Cruise/Delver/Pyromancer decks. If you didn’t sell immediately, you’ve lost value, but there is still time to get out at a good price if these guys have just been sitting around in your collection or bulk box. What happens after the B&R Announcement today is anyone’s guess, so contextually powerful creatures like this one are not where you want to be placing bets just now.
So long as Whip decks stay good after Fate Reforged goes legal next week, this price plateau is likely to stick. No reason to keep holding. Get out now ahead of rotation doldrums.
Format(s): Standard/EDH/Casual
Verdict: Sell
2. Mana Confluence (Hourney Into Nyx, Rare): $12.29 to $11.18 (-9%)
For this land to recover, your deck needs to be both powerful and desperate to fix your mana at the cost of 5% of your starting life total per use. I’m out, but if you feel like a 4-color or 5-color deck will dominate this spring, you can feel free to make a gamble on a candidate to hit $20 again if it happens. If on the other hand you believe, as I do, that Dragons of Tarkir will have additional mana fixing along different color pairs, this looks mediocre at best.
This kill card is THE SOLUTION almost every time you draw it in the current standard format, except when you’re facing down tokens.dec. The format’s diversity, however, requires a plethora of kill options for different decks, necessitating less than 4 copies of Downfall for many of the decks that want it. As such, there’s not much chance of solid upside heading toward rotation. I’m selling my foreign copies and moving on.
Verdict: Sell
5. Shivan Reef (M15, Rare): $18.62 to $16.67 (-10%)
There is some downward pressure on Jeskai deck popularity, largely being exerted by increased numbers of Abzan players and a bunch of R/W token decks. Regardless, this is still a good place to out assuming you got in on these last summer at $2 or so. Post-rotation that’s the price this will drop back to, so don’t hold too long.
Verdict: Sell
Quick Hits:
My top picks for underrated Uncommon foils from Fate Reforged are Cloudform and Humble Defector. Pick some up.
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. Jan 12th Update: Birthing Pod took down GPOmaha today, but the top 8 and the field were diverse and interesting. If WOTC was looking for signals from this GP, Pod may be safe, and Treasure Cruise didn’t look any more dominant than would be bearable.
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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Almost a year ago, I wrote about the 6:2:1 ratio when it came to the ‘usual’ model of how a three-set block ends up opening lots and lots more of the big fall set and a lot less of the following two expansions. Wizardshasthrownoutthatmodel and Khans block is the last time we’re going to have three sets in a block. (Well, until they do something freaky in a few years)
In case you didn’t know, we’re embarking on a unique set, with Fate Reforged being drafted next to Khans of Tarkir for the next three months, and then with Dragons of Tarkir for three months after that!
I bring this up for a few reasons: First, we’ve got three months of opening two Khans packs ahead of us. Fetches, Sarkhan, Siege Rhino…all of these have not hit their bottom. There’s room for them to go up in price if a deck breaks out, but we’re going to get lots more of the cards you’re already familiar with.
Put another way: Look at the Khans price list. Now take everything below Bloodstained Mire and cut its price by 30% or so. I think the fetches and the planeswalkers will not lose as much value, but the others are going to have their supply increase more than the demand does.
The FRF-DTK-DTK drafts mean that Khans of Tarkir will have the supply cut off abruptly, and prices will bottom out sooner than in most years.
The second point here is that we’re going to get one pack of Fate Reforged in each draft for the next six months. I want to do the math and see where that leads us. We’re going to use the same example of a barely-attended store, which does one draft per week with exactly eight people.
8 people in a draft
3 drafts per month
3 months in a season
3 packs of Khans of Tarkir
24 packs
72 packs
216 packs
8 people/draft
3 drafts/month
3 months/season
1 pack of Fate Reforged
8 packs
24 packs
72 packs
2 packs of Khans of Tarkir
16 packs
48 packs
144 packs
So far, everything is the same. No reason to change anything, but let’s add in the final season of this block:
8 people/draft
3 drafts/month
3 months/season
1 pack of Fate Reforged
8 packs
24 packs
72 packs
2 packs of Dragons of Tarkir
16 packs
48 packs
144 packs
So in our example store, we will have opened 360 packs of Khans, 144 packs of Fate Reforged, and 144 packs of Dragons of Tarkir, a final ratio of 5:2:2.
It’s very noteworthy that Dragons is also going to be a big set, but will be opened less than half as much as Khans was!
So what do we do with this information?
First of all, I’m freezing out Khans singles right now. I’m not trading for them or buying them. We’ve got a lot left to open.
Second, I’m not going after anything too hard from Fate Reforged, especially at pre-order prices. Too many of those are just going to drop and never recover.
Third, I’m already planning on saving my trade and liquid capital to move on Dragons of Tarkir cards. This set will be opened a full 33% less than any other big set, and even if Magic 2016 is a dud to draft, not many stores will go backwards and draft FRF-DTK-DTK.
Finally, a reminder that Khans block is going to rotate out in Spring of 2016, not Fall. That’s six months early, and a topic you’re going to hear a lot more about.
For the Prerelease this weekend:
If you open the foil alternate-art Ugin, hold on to it. This weekend will represent the largest supply of these cards and the lowest price. If Ugin ends up as an awesome card in Modern Tron decks, then the pimp foil has yet another outlet to fetch a high price. Commander players all want the card anyway! (Including me)
Trade away almost everything else. Supply on Fate Reforged this week is at its lowest, and you should sell into the hype. Everything is hyped, so move it all.
The exception to this rule is Whisperwood Elemental. This is an amazing casual card but it’s also pretty great in Standard, as a free source of card advantage. I think it has room to grow, and multiple sites are increasing their preorder price on it.
Good luck to you this weekend!
MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY
