I am going to come out and say it: The five gods of Theros make terrible commanders.

I have been playing EDH for a few years now. I’ve had 15 decks at one point, though I am down to 9 now.  I have a combo deck, an all-creature deck, several tribal decks, goofy theme decks, and foiled-out goodstuff decks. Yet I can’t see myself ever making one of the five gods my general. I would be fine with adding them to some of my decks, certainly, but allow me to explain why they are not very good for what they do.

Each of the gods is cheap, I will give you that. Their static abilities have a constant effect on the game so long as they are in play, they are indestructible, and when you are properly devoted,  they can really shine. 

That is precisely why they are underwhelming as a general: the devotion requirements.

Each of them adds one to your devotion. That means you are likely going to need at least two, more likely three permanents with in play. (Remember that with a God as a commander, you are restricted to a single color.) Two permanents with two of the mana symbol will get you there, and four other single-symbol permanents is the minimum.

I have an unpleasant truth for you: It is going to be the rare game where you get to attack with the God of your choice more than twice. It is too easy to wipe the board in Commander! It is not tough for your opponents to make sure the other permanents you need are not on the field. Let us not overlook how permanents such as Darksteel Forge and Blightsteel Colossus have taught EDH players the necessity of exiling or tucking (putting them on the bottom of your library,) so do not start thinking that indestructibility is truly invulnerability.

You do not want your Commander to be an accessory. Your Commander is the theme, the defining keystone of your deck. When you choose to be mono-color, you are giving up a lot of the color pie, and it needs to be a worthy tradeoff. 

If one chooses to take the thematic path of Zombies, there are a range of legends to use. Thraximundar, Sedris, and Lord of Tresserhorn offer all three colors, Grimgrin is two colors of goodstuff, with Korlash, Heir to Blackblade and Balthor the Defiled providing mono-black choices. Each of those legends has an appeal and offers abilities as well as their colors. I went with Balthor because I like reanimating over and over again, but the deck would surely like to have Rhystic Study and Deadapult. 

To choose one of the legendary enchantment creatures is to focus on one color, and the abilities you get for having those Gods in play are notable, but not overpowering. Erebos, God of the Dead is the best, with the card draw almost always useful and the ‘your opponents can’t gain life’ clause is often not irrelevant. He at least can refill your hand and find more gas, but you are going to be spending a lot of mana and life to get there.

Purphoros is especially frustrating, as red does not have enough ways to take advantage of his ability. Thassa gives you that unblockability and scry, but the scry is underwhelming in a format with fewer upkeeps and rampant card draw. Nylea gives your team trample and a very expensive pump effect, while Helios is basically a more expensive, indestructible Mobilization. 

These are effects that you can put to very good use in Commander, don’t get me wrong. I am planning on adding several of them to assorted decks and kicking some butt. As a general, though, they are not going to be nearly as good as you want them to be.

One quick tip: If you open one of these in foil, don’t be afraid to demand a premium in trade. These are going to be highly sought-after foils, along with their weapons. The card frame in foil is gorgeous, and the casual players who love shiny are going to be clamoring for these cards, so be sure to capitalize on that during trades.

A few weeks back, I posted a list of cards I expected to get low in price, then creep back up as casual demand increased.

Some of those cards did not drop quite as much as I expected, and I want to talk about why I think that is. 

I’m going to focus on Primeval Bounty as one example. While I was right about many of those cards, the Bounty is still $7! Now that we’re in Theros season, less M14 is going to be opened and the price on Bounty might start creeping upwards, which would really run contrary to my expectations. I expected Bounty to bottom out like Ring of three Wishes or Rise of the Dark Realms, and it has not.

So why was I wrong about this? I thought it would hit bulk prices, and it’s been far above that!

In case you don’t know, I’m a teacher and I take this responsibility seriously. After I give a test, if the whole class misses one question, then it is probably my fault. So what are the potential reasons for me to misdiagnose the card this badly?

 

Reason #1: Casual appeal

Demand for Bounty has stayed high enough to keep this price where it is. It’s that good in casual formats, and playing with it is just value all over the place. It gives life, creatures, and counters, all for doing stuff you would do anyway.

This is a card that people open in an event, realize how powerful it is in play, and immediately run home and add it to a deck. I confess I tried adding it to my two creature-centric EDH decks and it was underwhelming to me. I expect a lot out of cards in my decks, after years of tweaking to get each deck where I want it. I underestimated the appeal of this card.

For someone as focused on casual formats as I am, I might have allowed my personal experience to influence my thinking too much.

 

Reason #2: Standard

There have been decks using this card in Standard, though it is not getting a ton of attention. It has been just popular enough to nudge its price up a few bucks, and I did not see a six-mana enchantment with zero immediate effect being good enough in Standard.

This is likely because I do not play enough Standard to make the assessment of how good such a slow card can be. Next time, I will consult with some other players who can give me a better outlook on the speed and nature of the format.

 

Reason #3: Burnout

Wizards of the Coast does not release specific sales information. We do not know how much of each set gets sold, and that is probably for the best. Specific information on how many copies of a certain card exist would be prime information for speculators and those seeking to artificially raise prices. What we do know is that Magic has been consistently growing and breaking its own sales records, though.

However, the Core Sets are not the biggest sets in terms of sales. Ideally, they should move a lot of product because it’s summertime. Kids and parents have more free time, and many game stores have extended summer hours. The fall blocks usually sell more packs though because of their story lines  flavorful worlds, and unique prerelease experiences. (The Helvault, the Guild Packs, The Hero’s Path, etc.) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This summer there were two factors working in concert to overshadow M14:

1)    Modern Masters came along a month before M14 was released. Not only did that eat into the usual buildup and spoiler season, it took a lot of budgets with it.

2)    Theros was getting teased and spoiled all through the summer, taking attention and excitement away from the Core Set.

Granted, these factors haven’t stopped the Ring of Three Wishes from being a touch over a dollar, or Rise of the Dark Realms from being $2.50. But I do believe that there’s been less M14 opened, and that in conjunction with larger demand than I anticipated, might be enough.

 

Reason #4: Redemption

This was brought to my attention by those who take the time and energy to collect and redeem a full set on Magic Online. It’s gotten significantly more expensive to redeem a set, from $5 up to a whopping $25, which does not even take into consideration the costs to acquire all of the cards. Anyone who runs a trade bot will find it is not too difficult to pick up complete sets, and redeeming them for $5 plus shipping was an easy choice. Now at $25, the margin for profit is much smaller, which likely has led to many less redemptions.

It’s worth mentioning that set redemption for M14 has only been available since the beginning of September. It is possible we haven’t seen the full impact of the MTGO redemptions, which may still reduce the price of M14 cards like Primeval Bounty.

I was wrong about Primeval Bounty, and several other cards in M14. These are four potential reasons that may have occurred, but it may be something I haven’t thought of. It’s not easy to look back and admit when I’m wrong, but it’s a necessary part of making predictions. Self-evaluation is a necessary process for us financial types, as it keeps us credible and gives both us and our readers an opportunity to learn from mistakes.

Theros is here!

It’s felt like a long time coming, but then again, with the sheer number of products Wizards is putting out, and the growth of the game in general, we’re getting more and more Magic product to choose from.

For casual players, Theros is another set full of flavor and themes to build around. I’m going to go over some of the cards I feel will be showing up in assorted Cubes, Commander, and other casual playgroups.

These are cards that will have a certain value for a long time, like Darksteel Plate or Lurking Predators. Some of these will hit the bulk box, others will not dip far in price. I’m here to tell you about their long-term casual appeal.

First of all, anything with Bestow is appealing. Everyone likes getting options and value, and having a creature or an aura is going to see some play. In case you had not noticed, Serra’s Sanctum has gone on a roller coaster ride lately, and as a reserved list card, it will never be printed again. Its price spiked when the enchantment theme was announced but if you need one, grab one now before it happens again.

 

Now, onto the specific cards:

Chained to the rocks – Fantastic flavor and an incredible bargain. I know a lot of people have built Boros decks recently, often combining the two Ravnica blocks, and this will fit right in.

Elspeth, Sun’s Champion – I won’t predict how much Standard play this sees, but the ability to get lots and lots of free tokens will be used in many casual decks. Elspeth Tirel is comparable and she’s $10.

Gift of Immortality – Often, a card will gain its casual appeal by being awesome in Limited formats. We open something sweet, it wins games for us, and then we want to build a deck around it at home. This is exactly that sort of card. It’s got some timing issues, but it’s worth noting that this is three mana and can be fetched by Zur the Enchanter decks. (Sigh.)

All five of the Gods – The new card frame makes these and the weapons very desirable foils. I would expect to see people building all sorts of decks to take advantage of these cards. Of special note is cards like Followed Footsteps and Cackling Counterpart which create tokens that are a copy of a creature; these tokens do have a mana cost and aid in your devotion.

Bident of Thassa – I love this Courtly Provocateur or Goblin Diplomats sort of effect. Any time I can make my opponent do something, I’m on board. Giving all your creatures Curiosity is a winner as well.

Curse of the Swine – This is my pick for the casual card of the set. We’ve had Pongify and Rapid Hybridization for pinpoint removal in the past, and this card is going to see play all over the place. It might even be good enough for significant Standard play, when coupled with Jace, Architect of Thought. Even if it doesn’t get played in tournaments, it’ll go into any casual blue deck and do a lot of work.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel – Zombies are one of the top casual tribes, and this is absolutely going into every zombie deck. For me, I’m really going to love using my Balthor the Defiled to bring this and a stack of other zombies back at once, and draining everyone for a bunch.

Hero’s Downfall – Murder saw very little play in Standard, as was the case with Dreadbore. I don’t see this as being much different. However, I can see this being a desirable card to have in most EDH decks and in other formats, where everyone loves options.

Hythonia the Cruel – My all-creature EDH deck is drooling hard, though if you’re playing this, you had better hope no one is playing Chameleon Colossus or other changelings. Do not underestimate the number of all-creature decks out there – demand for this type of card will be higher than you think.

Anger of the Gods – This is a sweeper that will show up in a lot of Cubes. It will be up to the Cube designer whether to play this with or instead of Pyroclasm given that third mana in the cost, but the third point of damage can be worth it.

Hammer of Purphoros – As another Haste enabler, it’s always going to have appeal. The additional ability to turn excess lands into hasty 3/3 tokens is a definite bonus.

Stormbreath Dragon: Yet another mythic dragon; not nearly as good as Thundermaw Hellkite. That said, even terrible mythic dragons tend to keep at least some price because we love our dragon decks.

Polukranos, World Eater – A 5/5 for four mana with no drawback is a good place to start. The fact that he can get monstrous and stomp chump blockers pushes him over the top. I definitely can’t wait to add him to my Experimental Kraj deck and do it more than once.

Ashen Rider – Ashen Rider immediately overrides Angel of Despair as the reanimator target for many sorts of decks, be they Legacy, Cube, or even Modern. I will say I’m a bit surprised that this isn’t an Angel or Demon for Kaalia of the Vast decks though.

Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver – Finally, the mill deck gets a Planeswalker. Oh, wait, they’ve had Jace, Memory Adept for a couple of years now. What we get instead is as grindy as possible, closing out games exactly like Nephalia Drownyard. It’s a bonus that you don’t have to fear Eldrazi triggers reshuffling the library back in, but you’re exiling just three cards a turn. In an EDH deck, you’re looking at 20+ turns. At least at the kitchen table he’s more powerful.

Daxos of Meletis – Lots of words to say what it does, but this sort of ‘play with your opponent’s deck’ effect is always fun, and rare in this color combination too. (See: Praetor’s Grasp)

Medomai the Ageless – Extra turns? Yawn. That’s the last thing UW decks needed more of. Medomai combos end up with someone doing something which triggers this and leads to that and brings back a third thing and then it’s a 20-minute turn where the rest of the table is watching one deck masturbate. Not really fun for anyone. [Well, except maybe for the one doing it…-ed.]

Prophet of Kruphix – Seedborn Muse #2 in so many decks. Sign me up.

Xenagos, the Reveler – I love this card so much. It does everything I want it to; including having an ultimate that is fun and random and something I would try to do multiple times.

Akroan Horse – It’s got the flavor. Icot’s got the effect. All sorts of casual decks will enjoy this card, not just Zedruu the Greathearted EDH.

Colossus of Akros – What’s not to love about big, trampling and indestructible?

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx – I am nowhere near as high on this card as some others are. It’s certainly no Cabal Coffers, though I understand why the comparison occurs. I’m always leery of ‘win more’ cards and that’s exactly what this is. It doesn’t work with tokens and it’s terrible after the board has been wiped clean.

The Scry lands (RG, BW, UB, UG, RW) – These are the real deal. A Scry 1 is just a peek but it’s so good when it’s free! Powerful cubes with more dedicated and awesome duals won’t take this, but you’d never convince me to leave them out of EDH decks. Best of all, their price is still falling and the set hasn’t even been released yet. I’ll be trading for a lot of these.

I hope your prerelease experience was awesome, and your release day is even better!

 

By Jason Alt

EDITOR’S NOTE – Check out the MTGPrice.com “Free Money” Arbitrage Tool after reading the article!

Confession time- I’ve never really written a finance article.

I came to that realization very recently and it floored me. How is that possible? I’ve been writing articles for Quiet Speculation for almost two years and Gathering Magic for over a year, but I’ve never really written a finance article.

I’m also the cohost of what basically amounts to the only M:tG Finance Podcast in existence and have been doing that for over a year, but when you actually take a look at the work I produce, I’ve never written what I would consider an article about finance. Bear in mind, this occurred to me after I accepted an offer to write a finance article. Make no mistake, I’m comfortable writing articles and M:tG finance is absolutely my wheelhouse. I was just worried that I wouldn’t know what to write about.

I asked Ryan Bushard, who, for those who don’t know is my podcast co-host, an accomplished writer in his own right, and a close friend, “What do people want out of a finance article?” He didn’t think about it for more than a few seconds before he said “People want to know the easiest way to make more money.” I waited for him to elaborate, and when he didn’t, I realized that it was distinctly possible that, truly, that’s all there is to it.  That may sound like an oversimplification, but isn’t it the truth? And if you don’t know how to make money, telling other people how to do so is an impossible task, no matter how simplistic it sounds.

Readers, I do this for a living. I write articles, I podcast and I engage in the business of M:tG Finance. I don’t have another job right now. I’m not sure I want one. Today I restocked the case I rent at my LGS, traded with some friends at another shop, wrote a newsletter and spent some time answering questions on reddit and in the QS forums. I got a lot done, but it’s not exactly what anyone would call “hard work,” but I still put in a full day. Since I don’t have another job, it’s necessary for me to have a lot of revenue streams going at once.

“What about those of us who don’t have as much time to devote to this?”

I’m glad I pretended that you asked that, because those of you who feel that having another job puts you at a disadvantage are actually not as disadvantaged as you may think. You have the luxury of engaging in M:tG Finance for fun. And let’s not kid ourselves- it is fun. Correctly guessing a card’s going to go up and being ready with a binder page full of them, dumping your copies of a card right before it tanks, having your good idea validated feels great. Best of all, I have a few passive revenue streams in place and you can do the exact same things, devoting a few mere hours a week to it and reaping the benefits. I’m going to teach you techniques I’ve had to learn out of necessity and who you how you can apply those to your own situation to meet your financial goals.

My hope for this column is to show you the “tools” I use on an everyday basis to make this children’s card game do some serious work for me. I’m going to avoid talking about individual cards and there is a good reason for that. It’s not because I’m afraid to be proven wrong- Listeners of the podcast and readers of my weekly columns will know that I do quite a bit of naming individual cards each week and absolutely love it if I am wrong about a card but can learn from it. No, the reason I am going to avoid it is because I want to focus on teaching you techniques so you don’t have to wait for my article each week. When the Banned and Restricted list updates, you won’t need me, you’ll know what to do. If you identify something that seems incorrect in the market, you’ll know what to do. If you see an opportunity for arbitrage, you’ll pounce.

Folks, I don’t need to tell you that we live in an age of Marvels. That device in your pocket that you use for sexting and playing Candy Crush has a more powerful processor than all of the combined processing power in the first manned craft that landed on the moon. M:tG Finance is an up-to-the-minute game, and the internet brings us unprecedented access to cards, to data and to information. The place you connect to the internet is the primary place you’ll be engaging in M:tG Finance, but it doesn’t have to be the only place.

Over the coming weeks I aim to teach you about the ins and outs of all the revenue streams I have established, define some commonly-used (and sometimes commonly-misused) words in the financier’s vocabulary so that everyone is on the same page and to teach you to recognize when there is financial opportunity and pounce before someone else does. I realize that was a pretty long preamble, but I feel like it’s important for you to know what to expect out of me each week.

Since I have your full attention, I would like to start out by defining a term I used earlier and talking a little bit about what it means, how it can work for you, and how you can utilize the software developed by MTGPrice to identify the opportunity for it and cash in before anyone else notices.

The term is arbitrage.

Ar-bi-trage  noun  \ˈär-bə-ˌträzh\

business : the practice of buying something (such as foreign money, gold, etc.) in one place and selling it almost immediately in another place where it is worth more.

Markets are getting more efficient, that is to say they are getting better at correcting by themselves, correcting faster and avoiding discrepancies. However, anyone who has ever been to a Grand Prix or even a large PTQ knows that the more dealers there are, the more chance of mistake, discrepancy or inefficiency there is. Since the price of Magic cards changes by the minute, unless every card priced by every dealer is re-priced every minute, also, prices are going to be wrong at some point. That sounds obvious, and before you pat yourself on the back too much, think about how often you try to exploit that. Is it something you look for? When was the last time you took advantage of a mistake or discrepancy to make money?

When you really sit down and think about it, it seems like it would be very difficult to pull off. The biggest, most obvious discrepancy is the difference in price between the major online retail sites. Some sites sell cards for much more than others, but you could hardly buy cards from a cheaper site and then sell them at the price commanded by the more expensive site. You’re not in a position to do so. You have to play to your outs, and your outs as an individual are limited. Likely you will sell on eBay or TCG Player, you’ll sell to a buylist, you’ll sell at a retail location if you can or you’ll out on Puca Trade or MOTL or something like that.  However, a large enough discrepancy can be noticed and exploited immediately.

The lower in price a card is, the less significant the dealer’s margins are. 40% on a Mox Jet is significant. 40% on a Merfolk of the Pearl Trident is not. If a dealer wants people to sell to their buylist, they’ll pay close to 50-60% of a card’s value in most cases. Sometimes they will pay more than that, and that is where you have arbitrage opportunity. If an established retail price is a certain value, and a dealer decides to pay, let’s say 70% because he wants them in stock, you’ll often be able to find that card for 50-60% of the established value provided the value is a little inflated or the card is underutilized. At the time of writing, but perhaps not the time of publication, there are several cards that have a negative spread. Spread is the difference between the lowest sale price and the highest buy price; the lower, the better. A negative spread indicates an arbitrage opportunity.  The highest buy price is actually higher than the lowest sale price. The best thing about a trusted buylist source is that they will honor the price they were asking when you complete your order and commit the cards to them, even if the market corrects in the mean time. That means you can scoop $0.25 copies of a card and ship them to a buylist who will pay you $0.45. You make twenty cents per copy, which doesn’t sound great. However, that is twenty cents per copy on as many as you can buy quickly and have bought from you, and it is mere seconds of work. What if you only made $10. Was it not worth doing if it took under a minute? I discover and exploit an arbitrage opportunity on a weekly basis, and often I was going to send cards to that buylist anyway.

It’s even easier at a Grand Prix where one dealer is paying a certain high price on a card in order to get them in stock, blissfully unaware that another dealer is selling them for less than that in an attempt to draw customers to his booth. You can make actual money walking copies of a card from one booth to another.

I need to wrap this up. Now that I’ve established who I am and talked a bit about the concept of arbitrage, I hope to return in a week or two where I can discuss how to identify opportunities for arbitrage as well as how to cash in on them quickly before the market corrects or the buylist lowers. I hope you’ll join me.