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WEEKEND MTGPRICE UPDATE: DEC 12/14

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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. This week, we’re staring at a set of subtle shifts as we hit the seasonal lows for KTK rares and mythics:

5 Winners of the Week

1. Fatestitcher (Shards of Alara, Uncommon): $1.33 to $2.42 (+82%)

Fatestitcher shot up after showing up in Sam Black’s innovative update to the Jeskai Ascendancy combo deck in Modern at Worlds 2014 last weekend. It’s also showing up in Legacy. The card allows Ascendancy players to access the “untap a permanent” part of their combo without dipping into green for mana elves, immediately improving the consistency of the deck. Foils have also been on the move, jumping from $2 to $10 this week. There’s not much juice left here, but if you managed to snag some of those cheap foils, you should almost certainly be selling into the hype.

Format(s): Modern/Legacy

Verdict: Sell 

2. Whip of Erebos (Theros, Rare): $3.15 to $3.73 (+18%)

Whip decks are a major component of the vibrant Standard metagame at present, and good showings at several big tournaments lately have demonstrated the importance of the Whip as a multiple in any deck trying to harness this strategy alongside Sidisi and company. There isn’t much upside left here, with the max price on Whip likely being somewhere in the $5-6 range given upcoming rotation and a lack of play in older formats.

Format(s): Standard

Verdict: Sell

3. Soul of Theros (M15, Mythic): $1.58 to $1.81 (+15%)

This powerful late game card is enjoying a small boost after showing up in the winning mid-range Abzan Standard deck at GP Santiago as a 3-of alongside 3 Hornet Queens for massive late game value. It will need some more big finishes and wider adoption, preferably across multiple decks, to keep moving up, but as a “small set” mythic, Soul of Theros has the potential to hit $5 in the right metagame. It also has longer term casual/EDH applications though a double-up is only likely via Standard success this winter/spring.

Format(s): Standard/Casual

Verdict: Hold/Buy

4. Sliver Hive (M15, Rare): $1.79 to $2.02 (+13%)

The slight bump in price here is purely a result of the increasing casual demand for Slivers in the face of additional additions to the tribe in M15 and some fringe play in Legacy via Counter-Slivers. I’m pretty deep on these, with about 50 copies in the long-term box, as I see it as an easy $5-6 card within a couple of years. Also see foils of Sliver Hivelord if you’re investing in the tribe.

Format(s): Casual/Legacy

Verdict: Buy/Hold

5. Counterbalance (Coldsnap, Rare): $9.94 to $10.80 (+9%)

Miracles continues to put up solid results in Legacy and this pillar of the deck is slowing building value on the low possibility of reprinting and the deck’s lack of ban-able cards. It’s not a good spec target however,  mostly due to limited applications in other formats and it’s usage in but a single deck in competitive play.

Format(s): Legacy

Verdict: Hold

 

5 Top Losers of the Week

1. Glittering Wish (Future Sight, Rare): $16.40 to $13.53 (-18%)

Glittering Wish earned a large price bump this fall when it showed up in early Jeskai Ascendancy builds in Modern. With the deck now moving away from green mana, Wish is seeing less demand. It’s still on my radar as a potential gainer, as it’s unlikely to see a reprint in MM2 and is the kind of card that just gets better as more targets and decks appear. That being said, I’ve been selling into the hype as early as eight weeks ago, with the margins from the recently sub-$5 copies being too good to get greedy on.

Format(s): Modern/Legacy

Verdict: Sell

2. Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker (KTK, Mythic): $19.95 to $17.08 (-14%)

Nothing against the big guy. He’s putting up great numbers, winning tourneys and showing up in plenty of Top 8’s. The simple fact remains that Khans of Tarkir has been opened a ton, and we’re now in the December part of the season where fall standard cards hit their lows. I’ve been scooping these up anywhere I find them under $15, on the bet that Sarkhan finds a $25+ spike somewhere in the next year, possibly in September 2015. Even if you don’t cash them out later, there are few better places to stash some trade value.

Format(s): Standard/Casual

Verdict: Buy/Hold

 

3. Wurmcoil Engine (Scars of Mirrodin, Mythic): $15.57 to $13.44 (-14%)

This card was headed up until it’s recent Commander 2014 reprinting, and I’d stay away until it finds a final bottom in the $10 range later this spring.

Format(s): Modern/Casual/EDH

Verdict: Sell/Trade

 

4. Wingmate Roc (KTK, Mythic) 11.27 to 10.25 (-9%)

As with Sarkhan, the flying wonder twins are only getting more tempting, as copies have been ending south of $10 on Ebay and TCGPlayer lately, and could easily top $15-20 by fall 2015, with two quick hit winter sets, followed quickly by MM2 in late May.

Verdict: Hold/Buy

 

5. Kozilek, Butcher of Truth (Rise of the Eldrazi, Mythic) $56.46 to $52.82 (-6%)

If you see an Eldrazi coming, you are best off running as fast as possible in the opposite direction. Likewise, if you see Modern Masters 2 (2015 Edition) coming in May, and it’s already confirmed to include Eldrazi (via Emrakul), getting out of the big lugs before reprints kill their value is also a pretty great idea.

Verdict: Sell

Quick Hits:

  • Greg Hatch showed up to the Legacy SCG Invitational this weekend with an ultra-sexy new combo deck making use of Artificer’s Intuition, Altar of the Brood, Salvage Titan, Locket of Yesterday’s, Divining Top and other cheap artifacts to force opponent’s to draw their entire deck in a hurry. Related foils have been experiencing upward pressure despite the deck only amassing an average record. That being said, many of these cards have possible bright futures as similar combos are refined.
  • With MM2 (2015 Edition) confirmed, there are plenty of cards you should likely be dumping (Mox Opal, Emrakul, Phyrexian Obliterator, Goblin Guide) and others that you are now safe to pursue (Snapcaster Mage, Restoration Angel, Cavern of Souls, Abrupt Decay).

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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Legacy Hero #6

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Legacy Hero #6.5

 

This week I’m going to try and answer some questions that have been filling up my inbox. I didn’t think I would be going to writing a mail bag article this soon. I’m going to take that a compliment though. It means that I’ve been doing something right. To keep the powers that be happy I will make sure to have some magic finance content and next weeks article will definitely be more about the numbers. I have some exciting stuff on the speculation front as well as some promising results from a local player that picked up his older brothers cards when he moved out.

Let’s start things off with by addressing the most popular email I’ve been getting. To paraphrase, it goes something like this. “I play in an area with a decent sized magic group. We average 30 players at our FNM events but those are only standard. None of the players at my store play anything older than Modern and even then it is tough to get those events to fire. I really want to play legacy but I can’t get anyone else to even think about it. Do you have any suggestions on how to help popularize legacy?”

At first glance, I thought that this would be an easy question to answer. When I put the pen to the paper, I was wrong. I realized that this would take much more than a quick email response. There are a lot of factors in play here. As always, the first hurdle of legacy is the cost of entry. The cards in the legacy decks are just more expensive. With that expense comes a stigma that you have to be rich to play the game.

Overcoming the expense of getting into legacy is what the base of my entire series is about. I can’t write a step by step guide personalized to everyone thinking about joining the legacy crowd. There are far too many variables.  What I hope to do is give everyone who reads my articles enough information to try the same things I’m trying. By following along I hope that everyone will eventually succeed in getting that deck finished and sleeved up. The part I didn’t really think about is what happens when you finally have your deck sleeved up and you’re ready to play?

It my area here in Michigan, I have at least 6 stores within an hour drive that have a weekly legacy tournament fire with an average of 10-12 people. 4 of those stores have regular IQ events or standalone events that feature a large enough payout to bring out the majority of the legacy ringers out of the woodworks making these events worth driving double that distance or at least that’s what I hear when I go. I’m pretty sure you have seen a few of these people play on camera at the SCG legacy opens. Tom is pretty hard to miss at over 7 feet tall.
Having a legacy community thrive takes a few things. First and foremost, you have to have the players willing to spend  the money at their local store. That money can be for entry fees or the occasional larger purchase from the case.  The store has to do their part as well. The store has to invest in those higher dollar cards for their legacy players and they need to invest in events that are worth the time to play in. How many players are they going to get if they charge $10 and give away packs? Personally, I would rather have one larger event an month with better prize support and more players than a weekly event that is lucky to break 8 players.

I had to submit this article on early Thursday morning because I wanted to get some feedback from a friend of mine. His store is a couple of years old. They average 20-30 people for FNM. They haven’t been able to get a legacy community going over there.  I thought his feedback would offer some insight on the situation.

Here are the important highlights of our conversation:

Me: How many people do you get asking about legacy at the store? Have you guys tried having legacy events at all?

Kyle: 0 yes and me and Jarod were the only ones interested in them

Me: I’m writing a mail bag article and one of the most emailed questions seems to be “How do I get my lgs to support legacy?” So I’m trying to get a store’s feedback on this.

Kyle: Yeah the only two people interested in legacy around the shop are me and Jarod.

Me: So if you guys posted a Duel for Duals, you wouldn’t get any people to show up?

Kyle: We might get a few people like the ones that don’t come to our store for FNM or anything like that. Those kinds of tournaments(Duel for Duals) bring in a lot of people.

Me: But if you had a tourney like that, do you think it would increase the interest from the locals?

Kyle: Probably not our regulars. They all are into standard pretty much exclusively. Except recently a lot of them have been building puper decks since they are so cheap

Me: What about modern? You guys getting any more action on modern at all? And do you think the new WotC rules about being able to sanction anything will help Legacy at all?

Kyle: Modern fires for FNM but not every week. There are maybe 6 people who exclusively only play Modern and EDH on the side. As for Legacy FNM probably not. The cost to get into Legacy is slightly more than Modern and prices for entry into other formats is what scares people. The reason Standard is so popular is because the initial cost to get into it is relatively cheap compared to Legacy and Modern

Me: Agreed. Just trying to get feedback here.

Kyle: You said this was for your article or something so I was giving you descriptive answers. lol

Me: Thanks!

Kyle: What confuses me is that even after I explain to people the price of the cards I have in my(legacy) deck and what I was able to pick them up for they still refuse to get into Legacy.

Me: Why do you think that is? Are they just blinded by the perceived prices?

Kyle: Force of Will is around 90-ish (90.55 on mtgprice.com) and I picked mine up when they were like 50 or 60. I’ve only made value on them along with a few other cards in the deck like Wasteland. (Note: Kyle is an AVID Merfolk player. No matter how hard I try, he always sticks to fish.)

Me: Your Vendilion clique promo is a good example (He bought it at $60 a couple years back. I didn’t think the price was going to hold. I was wrong.)

Kyle: Yeah basically. People see the price for cards and go holy shit I can’t afford that. Then I destroy their logic when I explain that Standard is actually the most expensive format. Especially since they(WotC) are making standard rotate sooner in the near future

Me: That is one of the major themes I’ve been trying to get across in my article series.

Kyle: At most for Legacy you spend like $20 here or there to update the deck. Not $400 on an entirely new deck every X amount of months

Me:What do your players do at rotation? Do they dump all their rotating stuff on you guys for store credit or what?

Kyle: They trade in things that we don’t have an overload on and then buy a box or two of the newest set out.

Me: And you guys are giving half of scg(selling price) in trade, right?

Kyle: We go off of magiccards.info mid price which I believe is TCG mid price

Me: It is. So they are getting half of tcgmid in store credit on stuff that you guys need. Otherwise, they’re stuck with it?

Kyle: For the most part yeah. I mean there are a few things here and there that see their way into Legacy or Modern that we might give a little more on.

Me:I’m sure they can trade some of the stuff away to other players but I don’t see many of your local players shipping stuff off to CK or Troll and Toad.

Kyle: Exactly. A few of them have been starting to do that Pucatrade thing to get off of things that just rot otherwise

     As you can see from our exchange, his store doesn’t have people asking about legacy so he doesn’t feel like there is any incentive for them to even try and run events. This ties in with the emails that I’ve been getting about the subject.

These problems are why I started writing this series to begin with. I can help you, as an individual, overcome the financial hurdles to build a great legacy deck without burning all of that disposable income but it took all of these emails to realize that having the deck is only one of the hurdle to overcome for what seems to be a lot of people. It takes a group of dedicated people to make a community work.

The best advice I can offer is to keep asking your store for a legacy event. If you get them to run an event, make sure you do everything you can to get everyone involved. There are a lot of budget options for legacy. Pretty much everyone can build a Burn deck.  Manaless Dredge is pretty cheap, but not everyone’s cup of tea. Substituting shock lands for dual lands is certainly an option. Having the allied fetchlands in standard will help with the cost of any legacy deck. You can even try and make a specific legacy budget challenge.  Try setting it up in a way that players are rewarded for taking advantage of the budget options available to them. The store can offer prizes for the player with the cheapest deck with the best record. This actually  reminds me of one of my favorite parts of the Vintage Championship at Eternal Weekend. They they run a bonus prize for the person that has the best record without using any of the power 9, Bazaars, Workshops, and a few other of the expensive cards. I think there was a deck that had 7 wins this year.

The key to all of this is getting as many people on board as possible. It  will showcase the diversity of the format and help your local community grow.  The people that enjoy it will be able to grow with you and gradually put together the top tier decks with all the goodies. These are the people that will make the trek to the bigger events around.  Remember, building a UWr Stoneblade isn’t something that is going to happen overnight, unless of course you have a lot of disposable income or very giving parents.

Writing this article and reading the emails made me realize just how lucky I am to have such a great legacy community, which has definitely made me wake up and rethink a lot of what I’m going to be writing about in future articles. I have to figure out how I’m going to implement my thoughts into positive changes for everyone. but it will be great. I promise that these changes will make for a better Legacy Hero! I’m going to stop here for today and pick things up next week where we left off.

I originally posted this deck at 7am without editing it.  I hadn’t slept the night before so I had planned on saving it as a draft, taking a 30 min nap and then editing it when I got into my office for the day. As many of you noticed, it didn’t happen like that. I posted it instead of saving it. I’m sorry for that. I want to give you guys the best product I can. This won’t happen again.

Before I go, I worked out a trade online using one of the many Facebook groups out there for trading. I’m going to show both sides of the trade and I want you guys to vote on which side you would rather be on. Vote here http://strawpoll.me/3167162

Side A:

  • Veteran Explorer x1
  • Reanimate x4
  • Rest in peace x2
  • Ad-Nauseam x1
  • Tendril of Agony x1
  • Dryad Militant x1
  • Swans of Bryn something x2
  • Mental Misstep x2
  • Forked Bolt x1
  • Serra Avenger x1
  • Mind Twist x1
  • Phyrexian Revoker x3
  • Hymn to Tourach x3
  • Exhume x4
  • Crop Rotation x3

Side B:

  • Spell Pierce
  • Daze x2
  • Steam Vents
  • Inquisition of Kozilek
  • Godless Shrine x2

As always you can email me mtglegacyhero on the gmail @somethingsays on twitter.

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Commander Foil: Blue & My Modern Keeps

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By Guo Heng Chin

Blue and I go a long way back. Throughout my competitive Magic life, I was a hardcore blue player. I would never attend a tournament without my arsenal of counterspells and card draw, be it a casual Friday Night Magic or a Pro Tour Qualifier. I still play blue nowadays and card draw spells have yet to cease to excite me but my love affair with blue has been less intense, in no small part due to Wizards pushing Magic’s design paradigm towards more interactivity (read: less counterspells, more creatures). Nevertheless, the majority of my Commander decks still run blue, as the number of design mistakes in blue is too damn high.

Before I begin, yes there was no typo in the title of today’s article. Its Commander Foil: Blue because I only wrote about a single Commander foil today.

My research initially yielded four blue Commander foil to discuss, but the Modern Masters 2015 announcement threw a wrench into my plans. It was no surprise that Helene Bergeot’s announcement before the finals of the World Championship would unveil the next Modern Masters set, however it was beyond my expectation that Modern Masters 2015 would include the blocks from the first Modern Masters( Eighth Edition through Alara Reborn) on top of the new blocks (Zendikar and Scars of Mirrodin).

I made my picks with the assumption that Modern Masters 2015 was going to pick up where Modern Masters left off, and at the very least includes Innistrad with Snapcaster Mage and Liliana of the Veil carrying a hefty price tags today. In retrospect I should have saw the hints: handing out Geist of Saint Traft and Griselbrand as tournament participation promos and Liliana of the Veil as the prize for winning a Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier were Wizards’ attempts to alleviate the price of expensive Modern staples from Innistrad (someone mentioned this in an article or tweet but I could not seem to retrace it. Drop me a comment if you know who it was and I shall add a reference to that person). While I was happy that my Snapcaster Mages shall retain their value for a little longer, and potentially even experience a bump in price, the Modern Masters 2015 announcement meant that three out of four of my undervalued blue Commander foil picks, which were from the original Mirrodin block, were invalidated due to the increased risk of a foil reprint. Oh well, I guess I can’t have the cake and eat it too.

Nevermind that. The announcement of Modern Masters 2015 gave me plenty of writing fodder. Jared Yost wrote a marvelous overview of the cards that could see a reprint in Modern Masters 2015, so I am not going to discuss that that, read his article if you want an overview. The announcement of Modern Masters 2015 made me reevaluate a whole bunch of my Modern stakes, so after discussing the single remaining blue Commander foil, I am going to delve into an in-depth audit of my Modern holdings.

Stealing Spells in Style

First, put your hands together for the Commander foil of the day:

All your spells are belong to us.
All your spells are belong to us.

Gatecrash Foil Price: $1.97

No. of Foil Printings: 1

Gatecrash’s Primordial cycle was blatantly aimed at Commander players, with each Primordial triggering an iconic spell effect in its color upon entering the battlefield. Sylvan Primordial, the green one, was so game-warping that it was banned in Commander. While Diluvian Primordial was not the best Primordial in the cycle, it came pretty close to second. Commander games are full of powerful spells and stealing them and then casting them for free is just plain awesome and makes for many epic moments.

Diluvian Primordial also holds the virtue of being in the same color as the dreaded Deadeye Navigator, because stealing your opponents’ spells just once is not good enough. Foils of Diluvian Primordial are going for under $2 as Gatecrash is relatively fresh in the Magic community’s memory, but I doubt its price would remain the same as Gatecrash fades further away in time. Diluvian Primordial is technically a cheat card and as I have described in my article on the Increasing Savagery Theory, these sort of cards increase in potential as more cards are added to Magic’s card pool.

The risk of Diluvian Primordial getting reprinted in future blocks is relatively low; while the Primordial cycle cards have names and creature types that are generic enough to fit into most planes, I doubt Wizards would be keen on reprinting the whole cycle given that Sylvan Primordial is banned in Commander and the Primordial cycle is pretty much geared at Commander players. If the Primordials were to be reprinted, it would most likely be in a supplementary product like the now-annual Commander releases where Wizards has the liberty of printing each Primordial independent of the cycle. The annual Commander releases would not impact the foil price of cards.

A Personal Modern Audit

The cards in my modern portfolio whose fate I was most excited to hear about in Helene’s announcement were these guys:

Snapcaster Mage was not a snap pick in limited, but he made up for it by snapping a few Lightning Bolts in Modern.
Snapcaster Mage was not a snap pick in limited, but he made up for it by snapping a few Lightning Bolts in Modern.

I was watching Worlds at my local game store after their Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier (spoiler: I did not do well with RG Bees) when Helene came on screen. I literally jumped with joy when I heard that Modern Masters 2015 would only cover sets up to and including New Phyrexia.

Those Tiago Chans have been sitting in my folder since Innistrad was legal. Snapcaster Mage’s growth has been slow but steady, sitting at $32 as of writing, slightly less than double my buy-in price. $15 in growth in two years was not a great investment admitedly, but I bought those Snapcasters with the intention to sit on them for a long time, a decision spurred by a thought experiment suggested by @rezaaba which went along the lines of How many Tarmogoyfs would you buy if you can go back in time?

Snapcaster sees more play than Tarmogoyf in Modern, and nearly as much presence as Tarmogoyf in Legacy according to mtgtop8.com. Snapcaster Mage is also played in Vintage. I am not saying that Snapcaster has the potential to reach the hallowed price of Tarmogoyf, and I highly doubt it ever will, but I do expect Snapcaster Mage to see a slow, sustained growth through the years along the lines of Dark Confidant and Vendilion Clique, both cards that saw less play than Snapcaster Mage. Granted those cards came from the pre-mythic era and were from sets with a significantly smaller print run than Innistrad, they were also played much less than Snapcaster Mage.

I am of opinion that Snapcaster Mage would still retain his price even with an eventual reprint, with a multitude of outcomes dependent on a few variables:

Outcome I: Snapcaster is reprinted as a mythic rare in the Modern Masters set after Modern Masters 2015 (lets call it Modern Masters 201X). Assuming the set would still be a limited print run and the boosters retain a premium price tag, Snapcaster Mage’s price would not tank at all. I am hesitant to predict that Snapcaster would follow in the footsteps of Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant and Vendilion Clique as the third Modern Masters edition is unlikely to spur that many new entrants into Modern as with the first Modern Masters.

Outcome II: Snapcaster is reprinted as a rare in Modern Masters 201X. Refer to Cryptic Command’s price trajectory after Modern Masters. It took a dip for a few months following Modern Masters’ release before clawing its way back up to higher heights, like a phoenix. From an economic point of view, I speculate that it is unlikely for Wizards to reprint Snapcaster Mage as a rare in Modern Masters 201X. By the time Modern Masters 201X comes around, Snapcaster Mage’s price would be much higher than his current price, and Snapcaster would be one of the marquee chase card of the set. Putting your marquee chase card as a rare reduces its exclusivity.

Outcome III: Snapcaster is reprinted as Grand Prix or World Magic Cup Qualifiers promo. These two scenarios would probably tank his price the most. However, I am using most in comparing it to the other outcomes, rather than in general. It is hard to predict how much of a hit Snapcaster’s price will take if he is handed out to every Grand Prix participant. Batterskull and Griselbrand, both eternal staple mythics with a single printing, have yet to recover from the dip caused by their Grand Prix promo, as with Geist of Saint Traft who lost half his value over the summer after being handed out as a WMCQ participation promo.

A note on cards with new art: The Modern Masters version of Dark Confidant and Sword of Fire and Ice demand a higher price tag compared to their older counterparts on average, with a more pronounced difference if you look at individual shops. This could be due to the fact that the Modern Masters version perceived to have a lower number of circulated copies. It is hard to predict the financial implications of a new art Snapcaster Mage. There are too many unknown variables here: how well-received will the new art be and how limited the print run of Modern Masters 201X would be. Regardless, I doubt new art would have an effect on the price of the old art version. It is not as if hordes of players would irrevocably reject the old art Tiago in favor a new face.

I am personally keeping my Snapcaster Mages for a few more years at the very least. Yes, I am taking a risk in which  one out of the three outcomes would result in a drop in price. I am willing to bear the risk because a) Snapcaster could not drop any lower than my buy-in price in 2012 and b) Snapcaster has the potential to be so much higher than he currently is it makes the risk tolerable.

Battering opponent's skulls since 2011.
Battering opponent’s skulls since 2011.

Thankfully those three Batterskulls above are my only copies and they are for personal use. A third copy just in case there comes a day when a tier one deck runs three copies of it. One day. Well, at least I do not need to share Batterskulls between my Duel Commander decks!

Tarmogoyf was pretty cheap. It only took three mana to turn it to your side of the board.
Tarmogoyf was pretty cheap. It only took three mana to turn it to your side of the board.

Threads of Disloyalty dodged the reprint bullet the first time around, but I doubt it will dodge it again. After a spike early this year, Threads is now sitting at $21, making it one of the more expensive sideboard cards in Modern and a good target for reprint. I am not sure how much would a Modern Masters 2015 reprint would hit its price in the long term. After all, Blood Moon is now twice its pre-Modern Masters price after taking a dip for a few months post Modern Masters.

Wizards laughed at the sanctity of the price of Modern staples.
Wizards laughed at the sanctity of the price of Modern staples.

See Threads of Disloyalty. Wizards be damned if it cost Modern players $81 just to hedge against Burn decks and discard spells (Three is the usual number of Leylines in the sideboard). Leyline of Sanctity is another card that is best bought a few months after Modern Masters 2015 comes out.

I scryed and I saw a bleak future for the price of Serum Visions.
I scryed and I saw a bleak future for the price of Serum Visions.

As Jared mentioned, Serum Visions is a highly likely candidate for reprinting. Theros had the scry mechanic, but unfortunately the plane does not have serum-producing Blinkmoths and Wizards is edging away from one mana blue cantrips from a design standpoint. Bad Wizards. I too think that there is a high chance we would be opening Serum Visions in Modern Masters 2015, seeing that Wizards chose not to reprint it in any of the supplementary products they could have fit Serum Visions in. I envision my $7 Serum Visions to be worth much less this time next year.

Eating Lighting Bolts since 2011.
Eating Lighting Bolts since 2011.

Another card I am glad that I only kept a personal playset.

Wizards is taking their promise to keep Modern accessible seriously and no Modern staples are safe from reprint. I think the era of insane Modern-induced spikes is coming to an end. That key four-of card in that new breakout deck at that GP/PT/SCG is too expensive? Just wait for the next Modern Masters/supplementary product/block set.

Modern staples are still viable investments but now with a lower profit margin and higher risk. If you want to speculate on Modern cards, do not get too greedy, leave the remaining 10% to the other person as per Corbin Hosler’s advice, be acutely aware of any news of upcoming products, and try your best to stay ahead of impending reprints with compulsive research.

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Legacy Hero #5

Legacy Hero #5

 

 

With all of the commotion from the holiday it was rather difficult to put anything together that was worth reading last week so I took a mini vacation from writing. I hope everyone had a great holiday. I’m excited to get back into the swing of things. I have some great stuff for you guys this week.

 

First things first. I received some feedback about my comment regarding using my job to ship stuff for free. It is not okay to steal stamps from your work, especially to mail out magic cards. I am fortunate to work in a place where I get to take advantage of free postage due to the volume of mail we send out. I won’t do that for this series going forward. It isn’t a fair way to operate when I’m trying to show people how to do something. The actual cost of the stamps may seem trivial when compared to a deck that costs thousands of dollars but I need to operate this series on the same playing field as the majority of the community.

 

I feel the need to throw in my two cents regarding the changes with the way Star City is going to handle their opens in the coming year. I know I’m late to the show here but I want to say my peace. By now, everyone probably knows about the changes but just in case you’ve been living off the grid they are doing away with the current dual open format and condensing them into a single format event styled after the Grand Prixs with larger payouts, and the other formats will be represented on Sundays with $5000 Super IQs without the video coverage. When the changes start we will be reduced to three Legacy Opens, out of the nineteen opportunities. While we will have larger payouts, there won’t be an opportunity to watch Legacy on Sundays like we used to. Personally, I can’t tell you how many times I have the stream open and playing in the background while doing other things. I stumbled across this post on Facebook from Jared Sylva going into a little more detail about the situation.

scg legacy info

I’m not a fan of the changes for selfish reasons but from their perspective it makes business sense to switch things over. I don’t believe that the changes will be the death of Legacy. The changes shouldn’t affect the Legacy prices that much, if at all. There is a lot of talk about the “Legacy Bubble” and this could be the end. I’m not immersed into the finance culture enough to make any sort of calls on the subject. My gut tells me that there is a bubble and it is slowly deflating and prices will settle a little lower than they are now. Volcanic Island looks to be overtaking Underground Sea as the premium dual land but that’s about it.

 

Next up, we have the Pucatrade updates. I want to stress how important it is to manage your wants list. I had a nice little stockpile of points going for a while. Unfortunately I had a small incident. I was sitting down after a piece of pumpkin pie, looking up prices of random foils when all of a sudden my point total went tumbling down. I lost over 800 points. Somehow I had added Ancestral Visions to my want list and someone decided to ship one my way. I don’t remember even adding it to my list. Lesson learned. I revised my wants list immediately. At this point, my hope is that it gets unbanned in Modern and blows up to $30 overnight. The only other Pucatrade news is shipping out my foil Kaervek, the Merciless for almost 900 points. I’m glad to be rid of that thing.

 

I know that everyone who has been following this series has been waiting for the trades. You guys want to see how I am going to start getting things together. It’s been pretty tough. One thing I’ve learned from this project so far, is how difficult it can be on the other side of the trade table. I haven’t had to actively look for trades in quite some time. I forgot how brutal it really is out there. When you’re the one looking for the cards, it’s a hard road without cash. The number of wannabe sharks is insane. In my regular store, people know how I operate and how I strive to be fair. The other stores I’ve been trying out don’t see things quite the same way. I feel for you guys. The struggle is real. That being said, I was able to sit down with someone and hash out a deal that should go a long way in deck construction.Finding the trade was a stroke of pure luck. I was at a random store that I’ve been to a couple times before, but it is certainly a long way out of my regular rotation. I had heard through the grapevine that the EDH crowd there was pretty hardcore. Having a hardcore playgroup to trade with can be a very good thing when you’re stuck with a bunch of random things in your binder. In my experience the hardcore EDH/Casual crowd have good quality trades available and usually have a diverse taste for cards. One thing I like to do before sitting down to grind some binders is take a look at the store’s inventory. Identifying what they’re out of stock on and what they’re actively buying helps identify the market you’re in. As an example, my local store’s market is very different than the store I go to to play EDH at. The store I play FNM at pays $5 more (in store credit) for Thoughtseize than the store I play EDH at. Having bits of information like that will go a long way in helping you maximize your card values.

 

Getting back to the trade, as I mentioned, it was pure luck. I was sitting down with some people I haven’t met before, talking about their meta game and trying to get someone to look through my trades when someone asked if I happened to have a foil Savageborn Hydra. As luck would have it, I did. I pulled out my stuff and told him take a look at what I had. Like any normal, sane person he was more than happy too. I told him to just pulling out things he was interested in. Having the other person go through all of your stuff and pull out everything they’re interested in puts you in the drivers seat. I learned this little trick a long time ago. It gives you the opportunity to pick through their cards to match the value they’ve already established. You get to pick and choose the cards that are going to net you the most value while maintaining their interest. If your trade partner is excited about getting a big stack of cards they are usually willing to lose a little value because of the attachment they already have to the cards. When I sold cars just after college I would always let the customer hold the keys after we got back from the test drive. That little token implies ownership. This situation is similar in that your trading partner has already found all of the things they could possibly want from you and you are going to find whatever you can to make the numbers work. You are going to go out of your way to make sure they get to walk away with everything they wanted. The downside that this process can be a huge waste of time if your perspective trade partner just doesn’t have anything. 90% of the time people will be upfront with you and tell you that they don’t have much to trade and they don’t want to waste your time. When those situations come up I will usually tell them to take a look at my cards while I flip through what they have and then see what they have, see if i’m wasting time or not.

 

He spend 20 mins or so digging through my stuff and ended up with this nice little pile.

Trade 1

The picture isn’t the best so here is the list;

Ichorid

Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir x2 (Time Spiral)

Electrolyze x4 (Modern Masters)

Elspeth, Sun’s Champion

Grim Lavamancer (M12)

Aether Vial (Modern Masters)

Thoughtseize (Theros)

Temple of Abandon x4

Temple of Silence x4

Temple of Triumph x4

Temple of Deceit x4

Vesuva

Knight of the Reliquary (Modern Masters)

Academy Ruins x2 (Modern Masters)

Cabal Coffers (Torment)

Foil Savageborn Hydra

 

At this point I hadn’t even looked through his stuff. He had a pretty decent sized binder and a smaller monster binder. A good sign to me. The more expensive cards usually reside in the smaller binder. I thumbed through the stack of card he has set aside and did a little math in my head and estimated about $200 in value. I’m not Rain Man, I just make sure to double check the prices of my cards before heading out for the day. I don’t like to be the guy that pulls out his phone to look up prices. I want my trade partner to be the one to pull out the phone and start looking up prices. The standard pricing tool I run into most of the time seems to be tcgplayer.com mid but there really isn’t an industry standard.

I take my time and go through everything in his binders a couple times before pulling anything out. He has a lot of good stuff that I need for the deck. Force of Will, Tundra, Swords to Plowshares, etc.The first couple cards I pull out of his binder are a pair of Unglued Mountains. I love those damn things. I’m a total sucker for Unglued and Unhinged lands. I know I want to make a play for some bigger cards here. I decide to try and shoot for the Tundra and settle for Force of Will. I also decide to snag the 5 Chalice of the Void he has. It’s been around $6 for a while (at the time I made the trade last week) and I really liked the card for a speculation target. Chalice of the Void has been talked about for a while as an answer to the new Delver deck.

Here is the list I put together from his binder

 

Brainstorm x4 (Mercadian Masques)

Swords to Plowshares x4 (Duel Decks)

Mountain x2 (Unglued)

Ancient Tomb (Tempest)

Sensei’s Divining Top (Champions)

Chalice of the Void x4 (Mirrodin)

Chalice of the Void (Modern Masters)

Tundra MP (Revised)

Force of Will LP x2 (Alliances)

Show and Tell (Judge Promo)

Karakas (Judge Promo)

 

I could probably write an entire article about the psychology involved with trading but that will have to wait for another day. Basically I made sure to grab more value from his binder then mine and the judge foils. Based on my read of him (using what he was telling me about how he built his decks) he liked his foils and he loved his promos. Presenting him with the chance of keeping his promos and still getting all the stuff he wants from me is another subtle advantage for me. The toughest part of this trade was establishing a value for the played cards. The Force of Wills and Tundra were less than mint. I’m not a professional card grader. I always err on the side of caution when grading/pricing my cards and do the same with my trading partner’s cards. He went to eBay closed auctions and used that to try and price the played cards but  wasn’t going to budge from his $200 price on the Tundra. However, he put $65 on the Force of Wills. That number worked well for me! I walked away with this

Legacy Hero Swag

Brainstorm x4 (Mercadian Masques)

Swords to Plowshares x4 (Duel Decks)

Mountain x2 (Unglued)

Ancient Tomb (Tempest)

Sensei’s Divining Top (Champions)

Chalice of the Void x4 (Mirrodin)

Chalice of the Void (Modern Masters)

Force of Will LP x2 (Alliances)

 

The cards he got from me totaled up to $221 and the cards I got from him totaled $215. Why would I give away $5 of value? Let’s take a look at the numbers breakdown.

Cards I’m trading away;

Ichorid     $13

Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir x2 (Time Spiral)     $13 ($26)

Electrolyze x4 (Modern Masters)     $2 ($8)

Elspeth, Sun’s Champion     $20

Grim Lavamancer (M12)     $4

Aether Vial (Modern Masters)     $22

Thoughtseize (Theros)     $22

Temple of Abandon x4     $2.50 ($10)

Temple of Silence x4     $4 ($16)

Temple of Triumph x4     $5 ($20)

Temple of Deceit x4     $3 ($12)

Vesuva     $12

Knight of the Reliquary (Modern Masters)     $5

Academy Ruins x2 (Modern Masters)     $6.50 ($13)

Cabal Coffers LP (Torment)     $10

Foil Savageborn Hydra     $8

Total: $221

And my end of the trade;

Brainstorm x4 (Mercadian Masques)     $1 ($4)

Swords to Plowshares x4 (Duel Decks)     $3 ($12)

Mountain MP x2 (Unglued)     $2 ($4)

Ancient Tomb (Tempest)     $15

Sensei’s Divining Top (Champions)     $20

Chalice of the Void x4 (Mirrodin)     $6 ($24)

Chalice of the Void (Modern Masters)      $6

Force of Will LP x2 (Alliances)     $65 ($130)

Total: $215

 

The condition of the Force of Wills aren’t as bad as he thought. Light Play Force of Will for $65 each? Yeah. That’s a win in my book. Trading out a ton of standard cards for solid legacy staples? Also a win in my book. Getting Chalice of the Void for $6 when (as of  12/1) they are now buy-listing for that price? Another victory.

 

The six Chalice of the Voids that I scored are going to go a long way in helping me refill my trade binder after this. That’s all for this week though. I will have plenty more next week.

 

As always I appreciate feedback.

Follow me on twitter @somethingsays and you can email me at mtglegacyhero@gmail.com

 

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