Category Archives: Unlocked ProTrader

James Chillcott, Unlocked ProTrader

Magic 25: Mythic & Rare Possibilities

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It’s hard to believe that I’ve been playing Magic: The Gathering for twenty five years. I still remember my university girlfriend coming home with a small pile of starter decks and the rabbit hole we ended up diving down for the next few months. And while my interest in the game has ebbed and flowed with the years, I’m happy to find myself here on the cusp of this major milestone  fully invested in the game we all know and love.

Now coming off the confusing and disappointing reception of the Iconic Masters set just a few months ago, it would seem that WoTC are on the hot seat to deliver an outstanding set as the flagship product for their 25th anniversary.

From a financial perspective it is a useful exercise to try to forecast which cards might be included in this set so that you can decide what you might need to do about it.

Prior Lessons

In terms of the Expected Value of this set, I am using my modeling for Modern Masters 2017 (and to a lesser extent other Masters sets), as I believe it is likely to be the closest in terms of overall value and composition to M25. My previous modeling tracked the value of the $1+ rares and mythics in MM17 set a month or so before the set was released and for several months thereafter. To predict what may happen with the value of cards included in M25, let’s see what happened with MM17.

In early 2017, the fifteen mythics from MM17 had a market value total of around $470 USD, with an average price tag of $30 USD. By late April of 2017, the value of those cards had dropped to just $280, for a localized loss of about 40%. Fast forward to today, and those same mythics are now back up to $390 or so. This is an interesting figure, because while it still represents a drop of 17% from pre-reprint value, it also represents a gain of about 40% from the post-reprint lows a few months after the set dropped.

What does this tell us? Well, for one, it probably didn’t make sense to sell mythics into the reprint, especially if you needed the cards in question in decks. If you had sold a basket of mythics at $470,(and assuming you could have sold all of them quickly enough) you would have netted about 82% of that after fees and shipping, so perhaps $385, which is just about where your cards would be back up to right now, a year later. Now, if you were really on the ball, which would be tough to pull off practically speaking, you could in theory have taken that $385 and bought the same basket three months later at $280, and netted yourself an extra $100 in value or so. That’s a spare Liliana of the Veil if you’re really hustling, but for many players holding through the storm would have been a more reasonable result.

That being said, buying key cards at the bottom was a strong move in isolation, since 14 of 15 mythics have appreciated at least 10% from that point, with eight of those cards appreciating as much as 75% (LOTV, Cavern of Souls, Snapcaster Mage, Craterhoof Behemoth, Temporal Mastery, Olivia Voldaren, Past in Flames). That’s a pretty good result if you can find the bottom this time around and things play out similarly.

Now what about the rares from Modern Masters 2017?

Well, the if we look at the 25 most pricey rares from the set  (of 54), we note that the pre-reprint cost of that basket of cards was close to $596, or an average of about $24. By April of 2017, that same basket had declined by a whopping 57%, down to just $256. As of today, that same basket is now worth close to $340. That’s still a 43% decline from pre-reprint price, but a 33% gain from the lows.

This is a pretty similar result as with the mythics, but the higher volume of the rare reprints in the market results in a harder crash that is likely worth getting out in front of for cards with soft demand profiles, as well as a softer recovery than with the mythics.

Sum total, the thesis is pretty clear: look for the lows and acquire the cards with the highest demand, preferably mythics, to ride the recovery over 6-18 months. It is also worth noting that many of the cards in question may have further gains still ahead of them since most cards get a few years between reprints these days and we’re still at the front end of that cycle for most cards in MM17.

Fresh Considerations

There are also a couple of additional factors worth considering.  On the one hand, the sweet watermarks they are adding to the cards to signify their set of origin in M25 are likely to be collector bait, especially with foils. On the other hand, if the card quality is similar to the weak card stock of Iconic Masters and the Ixalan sets, that may scare some players off the newer versions of the cards. In cases where the older printings are injured by the reprints in equal measure, this may mean that targeting the older printings is the right move from a speculation perspective. Another factor may be whether WoTC embraced nostalgia to the fullest and used original art for certain cards vs. producing new art in the modern Magic art style. I suspect the latter but we’ll see shortly.

So far, boxes of M25 have sold as low as $155, and are currently available around $180. This represents a 25% discount under MSRP, but we won’t have a good sense of the value until we see how many of the mythics end up looking resilient to their reprint given enough time. It’s also worth noting that this set is being printed in Japanese (as well as Simplified Chinese) but that the distribution of the foreign versions will be largely limited to Japan and China. As such, Japanese boxes may end up as solid specs if you can get a line on them at a solid price. If you can’t pin down a box, perhaps such smart shopping on the Japanese vendor sites once we hit peak supply will do right by your collection.

Finally, remember that anticipated cards that don’t show up here are likely safe from reprint for a while based on what we know about the product schedule for this year. As such, expect some spikes in the next few weeks, especially on key Modern cards that dodge a reprint.

Prediction Logic

So how does one go about predicting what will be included in M25?

Well, so far we know that the set is about the same size as other Masters sets, at 249 cards, and we can reasonably assume that the set will include somewhere close to 15 mythics and 54 rares.

We also know that the Estimated Value of the set is likely to be tightly modeled by WoTC against the MSRP of $240 USD, and will likely shape up similarly to Iconic Masters or MM17, perhaps with a little extra juice (say 10-15%) vs. those sets. This would lead me to believe that the total value of the mythics will be somewhere between $450 and $600, and that the value of the top half of the rares will be between $550 and $650, with the rest being bulk rares under $1.

So far we aren’t sure to what extent the set is built around specific themes, color pairings or mechanics. All we really know about the set composition is that it is designed to offer the nostalgic kick we were all expecting in Iconic Masters, as well as at least one card from every black bordered set in Magic’s history. That leaves us with a lot of ground to cover, but it also means that, for mythics especially, the presence of a mythic from a specific set likely means that it will be the only one, due to overall space constraints.

The Mythics

First off, let’s cover the cards we already know are included.

Jace, the Mind SculptorPhyrexian ObliteratorAzusa, Lost but Seeking

So right off the bat, that means that mythics from Worldwake and New Phyrexia are taken care of, and almost certainly means that Jace, the Mind Sculptor is the only Jace we’ll see in this set. Asuza is at rare.

In trying to round out the list, I tried to pull together a set of cards that were a) in need of reprint, b) make sense in the EV calculations for the set and c) fulfill the nostalgia/MTG history requirements.

I have further assumed a distribution of 2 slots to artifacts and colorless cards, 2 each for the five colors, 2 gold cards and either a land slot or an extra gold or artifact/colorless card.

Without further ado, here are my picks for the thirteen additional mythics most at risk of reprint in Magic: 25.

Platinum EmperionUmezawa's JitteEmrakul, the Aeons TornElspeth, Sun's ChampionLand TaxGarruk WildspeakerVengevineForce of WillKoth of the HammerScourge of the ThroneDemonic TutorRishadan PortLeovold, Emissary of TrestNicol Bolas, Planeswalker

COLORLESS/ARTIFACTS
We already saw some cool art for one of the artifact creatures in the set on the revealed booster packaging, and from the spiky armor it seems likely that the card in question is either Platinum Emperion or Blightsteel Colossus. Other options include something from Affinity, but my best guess is Emperion. If we get another Artifact card at Mythic, I’m thinking it will either be the most busted Equipment of all time in Umezawa’s Jitte or perhaps Batterskull, especially if Stoneforge Mystic makes it into the set. Ugin, the Spirit Dragon could also occupy one of these slots, as iconic Planeswalkers have a role to play here. Mox Opal needs a reprint, but it may not be an easy fit in this set and an equipment option seem a better fit to represent that aspect of the game. Finally, Emerakul, the Aeons Torn is about as iconic as it gets, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see her show up again now.

WHITE
As the poster child for Theros block, Elspeth, Sun’s Champion is a strong planeswalker that most players will be happy to own a copy of, leaving the Theros Gods to show up as a larger cycle down the road where the theme of the set allows. Land Tax hasn’t seen a reprint since 4th Edition, isn’t on the Reserved List and fits the bill on the nostalgia front, so it seems like a solid pick for the other white slot as a super powerful card that many players wouldn’t necessarily already own a copy of and services the EDH market. If it’s not these two, other options include Baneslayer Angel, Stoneforge Mystic or Ravages of War.

GREEN
There aren’t a lot of obvious options for the green mythic slots here. My gut says we’ll end up with some combination of a nostalgia/story card and a Modern staple, hence my timid tabling of something like Vengevine + Garruk, Wildspeaker as cards that could use the reprint and fit into the EV modeling. Alternatives might include cards such as Food Chain or Berserk, but the former seems better suited for an Eternal themed set down the road, and latter was just in Conspiracy and doesn’t need the reprint despite qualifying on nostalgia. Garruk could just as easily be a different version or a Nissa.

BLUE
With Jace already a lock, it’s tough to figure that the second slot is also a big money card, but I can’t shake the feeling that the 25th anniversary set is the perfect place to put the most iconic counterspell up beside the most important iconic planeswalker and just own the fact that blue is the best color in the game. Another option is for True-Name Nemesis to show up here as a cheaper mythic that folks are still going to be pleased to open.

RED
Red is a pretty tough slot to fill at mythic generally speaking and the default here is some combination of a planeswalker and a dragon. Koth of the Hammer hasn’t seen a reprint yet outside a duel deck and anchors a low value slot pretty easily here. Alternately, we could get a Chandra, but I had trouble finding one that made sense here. I would expect that we’ll get Shivan Dragon at rare, so perhaps this slot could go in a different direction, but if I had to pick a mythic dragon that hasn’t been reprinted yet, Scourge of the Throne would be a solid candidate from Conspiracy. Through the Breach certainly needs a reprint, but could show up at rare or not at all. Finally, Imperial Recruiter has been floated for this slot, but I’d be surprised to see them throw such a valuable card in here. Recruiter is an odd duck, as it’s value is almost certainly more about supply than demand, but at $240 retail, even if it fell off 70% for the new version, we’re still talking about a $72 mythic that not many people need or want. It does tick the P3K box though, so we’ll see.

BLACK
Since we know we are already getting Phyrexian Obliterator, we likely just have one slot to fill. My guess is Demonic Tutor gets the nod here, as an iconic tutor effect from the early days of the game that has only seen a reprint in a Duel Deck in the modern era. Alternatively, we could see Imperial Seal here, but at $440+ for the original it runs the same risk of destabilizing the set EV unless it crashes utterly on inclusion. A Liliana version is also an option.

MULTI-COLOR
Assuming that the gold cards earn a couple of slots here, options include a multi-color planeswalker or perhaps a key Legendary card. Some version of Nicol Bolas seems likely at either Mythic or Rare given that he is positioned as the key villain in the narrative at present, so we could end up with Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker in this slot or perhaps the original Nicol Bolas at rare. As for legends in need of a reprint, Leovold, Emissary of Trest could end up representing for Conspiracy 2 but their are a plethora of potential alternatives.

LANDS
Rishadan Port is one of the last remaining $100+ cards not on the Reserved List that has never seen a reprint, but it’s relatively modest demand profile leads me to believe that it is going to get hammered like Karakas was should it see a reprint. As such I’m glad to not be holding any of these. It’s also possible that we don’t get a land slot at all at mythic.

Here are the current price tags for these cards, in order of value:

This set of fifteen mythics would give us a grand total of $553, which is about 17% higher than the value of the MM17 mythics heading into spoilers. If they deliberately juiced M25, this is viable. If not, one or two cards over $30 likely need to be swapped for something closer to $10.

In this list, I would be comfortable continuing to hold Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Force of Will, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or Demonic Tutor as cards that are likely to be resistant to permanent value loss. The rest of the mythics would face relatively shallow demand.

The Rares

There are a LOT of ways that the rares can play out in this set, with literally hundreds of viable options on the table. That being the case, we are likely better off just making a list of cards in need of reprint and figuring out whether they are likely to rebound once they crash.

Let’s see what we’re dealing with this time around:

There are several cards on this list that are both important within the history of the game and and are also in need of a reprint. Crucible of Worlds was a fan generated card, and is getting pricey, so I could easily see that here. Dark Confidant, Scapeshift, Through the Breach, Chalice of the Void, Engineered Explosives, Bitterblossom, Meddling Mage, Gaddock Teeg, Collected Company, Kolaghan’s Command, Goryo’s Vengeance, Scapeshift and Glen Elendra Archmage all have a role to play and I would expect at least half of those cards to see inclusion.

Reprints of Chalice, Collected Company, Dark Confidant, Collective Brutality, Thalia and Kolaghan’s Command are likely to slow their growth for a while, and the others have more modest demand overall.

I think we’ll see Birds of Paradise at rare rather than seeing Noble Hierarch again given the all time iconic nature of the card.

My guess for a potential rare land cycle is the Worldwake creature lands, since Celestial Colonnade and Creeping Tar Pit need a reprint and the rest of the cycle is cheap enough to prevent their inclusion from taking up too much EV. Alternatives include the filter lands, the SOM fast lands or even pain lands. Shocks and fetches feel marked for future handling elsewhere since we seem to be returning to Ravnica in the fall and a Modern focused Masters set is likely inevitable in 2019, whether or not they theme it that way.

Finally at common or uncommon I would expect to see Swords to Plowshares, Terror, Lightning Bolt, Giant Growth, Counterspell and a pile of other nostalgia laden minor inclusions.

Stay tuned this week as the spoilers are unveiled, cutting out options and activating fresh specs. Good luck!

Jason Alt, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: Low Tide

I keep harping on the same concepts in this series and that’s because some methods are tried and true and until something changes substantially, they’re what make me money and I love to pass those ideas on to my readers. I’ll go over this one again because I think it bears repeating so everyone from the long-term reader to the first-time reader knows what I’m talking about. Namely, I want to talk about graph shapes; the U and the reverse-J.

GRAAAAAAPHS

If a card is reprinted and its price never recovers, you’ll see a really sad graph shape. It peaks then declines to a valley and it’s so depressing that I am not even going to try and find an example and post it here. It’s like the stuff in the gore subreddit – no one really wants to see that. Instead, let’s talk about a happier scenario – a price declines after a reprint but Mr. Organic Demand comes along and says “Turn that frown upside down” and you’re on the maglev bullet train to money town, baby, where the money grows on money trees and you can pay someone to harvest the money with all of the money you’re making. That looks like this.

So if you saw the rebound coming and bought in at the floor, you’re feeling good. The rebound was predictable if you look at EDH demand at all and understand which cards are likely to rebound based on the amalgam of all of their factors such as how many decks the card is in, when it was first printed, the likelihood of another reprinting coming along and pantsing it, etc. However, as a financier, telling you that Crypt Ghast must be a good card because it was $3 then it was $1 then it was $3 again is pretty useless information unless I think it will got to $8, which I don’t since it was never $8 when the supply was lower and the demand was the same. U-shaped graphs are neat but they can’t make us much money since the price has already recovered. You want the first half of that U shape. You want what I call the reverse-J shape, because our language doesn’t have a letter that looks like the first half of a U.

I use this graphic every time but it illustrates how much money can be made if the card recovers to its pre-dip price. So why do I bring all of this up? And what does the title of the article refer to?

 

I’m So Glad I Pretended You Asked

A long time ago when I started writing about EDH finance full-time, I thought about how to make money on EDH cards and I decided that when new cards were printed, trying to guess their price was less relevant than looking at the archetypes they were likely to enable and speculating on those older cards. Supply would be lower, upside would be higher since the demand wouldn’t be as easily back-filled with copies at the same price making it spike quickly before anyone could react and every card in the deck would go up – theoretically, a rising tide would lift all boats. Well, today we’re all about Low Tide – the first half of the U. We’re going reverse-J hunting and there is a set that came out recently that is going to be just lousy with those sexy shapes. I think the cards in a certain set are at their floor and we’re going to look at EDH demand to see how likely a recovery is and how much money I think you can make if you buy now. Forget dinosaurs and pirates, let’s think about Benjamins.

Iconic Recovery

Iconic Masters reprinted a ton of sexy EDH cards and I think a lot of them are going to recover. How do we determine the likelihood of recovery? I’m not going to address every factor, but I will do three things.

  • I arbitrarily picked Crypt Ghast because that recovered nicely. I’m going to see how many decks on EDHREC have Crypt Ghast in them and then I am going to compare that number to the number of decks the cards in Iconic Masters are in. If it sounds really simple, it’s because it is. Also, almost no one does this sort of analysis so maybe just thank me for doing it for you even though it’s easy and also reminding you to do it because that’s the actual hard part.
  • I am going to look at how many times the card has been reprinted and which set it was in initially. If it’s older than Crypt Ghast, I’ll say something vague about how the set print runs were smaller back then.
  • I’m going to pretend I have some insight into what they tend to select to reprint and gauge how likely I think a second reprinting to be. Most people are very bad at this. I include myself in that group. We go with our guts a lot – I certainly didn’t see a second Black Market reprinting coming and I all but applauded the first one. If this were obvious to anyone, speculating would be a lot less risky and everyone would do it.

So with Crypt Ghast as a nice comparison, let’s look at some Iconic Masters cards. For reference,

16,672 is a number. We’ll remember that later.

Austere Command

So this is in fewer decks than Crypt Ghast, but not too many fewer. I don’t think it’s significant. It’s in the Top 50 White cards on EDHREC so if you’re playing White, chances are you will use this. It’s at what I would call its floor. Look at the price graph for Iconic Masters.

Dealers don’t seem to think it’s going to get any cheaper. If it gets any cheaper or if dealers raise their buy price any more, you’re going to be able to arbitrage the stupid things. Why do that when you can just wait for the price to double, which is what I think it will do? That question mark was for the “why do that” part of the sentence, I am not questioning whether I think it will double, I do. That wasn’t, like, a Ron Burgundy question mark. We’re getting off track – Buy Austere Commands, nerds.

Austere Command has one more reprinting than Crypt Ghast but Lorwyn and Commander (1? Do we call it Commander 1? Just Commander? The first one, whatever we call that) had pretty low print runs compared to RTR and Commander 2014. Remember I said this paragraph would be vague? I meant it. I don’t see a reason why Austere Command won’t completely recover, which means we’re at the bottom of that reverse J. You could wait any longer but look at the Iconic Masters graph again. Dealers aren’t waiting. Why would you?

Consecrated Sphinx

We should make like an epileptic in an office supply store and pick up staples all day. This card is in lots of decks and the dealer buy price is converging with the sale price. We’re at peak supply for Inconic Masters and the copies are as cheap as they are going to get. Whether you think the price will fully recover (I don’t see why not) or not, if you want copies, buy them now because they will only get more expensive. If you think it’s a slam dunk to buy at $15 or lower a card that has demonstrated it can be $35, you might want to do that. This didn’t get a ton of new supply being printed at Mythic in Iconic Masters and this is a little more than the price of a booster pack right now. I think this is a good pickup.

Dealers aren’t as keen on the non-foil copies of the Iconic Masters version, but you saw the price convergence for the Mirrodin Besieged copies. Sphinx is like $10 for IM right now. If it hits $8 and you bought in at $10, buy the same amount again. Congrats, you bought in at $9. If it hits $7, buy in more. If it hits $6, I will buy a playset, blend it into a smoothie and drink it. It won’t hit $6, not anywhere it’s currently $10. TCG Player low is already $13, snapple any cheap eBay auctions you can and thank me later. This is a $20+ card in a year.

Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger 

This is in half as many decks as Crypt Ghast. Here I am talking about how it’s going to recover as much or nearly as much. Why am I saying that? Don’t I forsee the demand as being half as much as that of Crypt Ghast? Why do I forsee recovery? The answer to that is in a euphemism Wizards of the Coast loves to use and how it’s not always a euphemism.

They don’t bring prices down, they “increase availability” which usually means “bring prices down” but not always. Reprints introduce more copies of a card into the market. That has the effect of lowering prices, generally, since you’re disrupting one half of the supply/demand dichotomy and therefore affecting the other. However, in the case of a card like Vorniclex that was a $30 mythic from a set you can’t buy anymore, people were priced out. People could break off $5 for a Crypt Ghast but $30 for Vorinclex was out of a lot of price ranges. A $13 Vorinclex? Now you’re talking. People who simply didn’t have access before have access now and I think that creates new demand. When a card goes below a certain price threshold, it becomes more available to people and they buy. I think Vorinclex’s price can recover even if it takes longer because when it’s cheap, it stops not being an option for some people. This is almost the same as Sphinx in every way except for number of decks it’s in so I expect it to recover less than Sphinx but I expect it to be in more decks than it used to be in a year. This is a bit more of a casual card than Sphinx so people being priced out is an actual factor. I think this could recover 75-80% of its pre-reprint value in a year or two. If that’s too long to wait, don’t worry because I have other targets.

Rune-Scarred Demon

I don’t feel like I need to say too much about this. It’s practically a bulk rare and this is a card that once flirted with $8. This won’t be $8 again but it’s at its absolute floor and the demand profile is the same as Crypt Ghast, it’s at the same price point, it’s a card that appeals to both casual and competitive EDH players and it’s not super likely to be re-reprinted in the next year or two. I think you can wait and see if this is in Masters 25 before you buy in, but I think you break off $200 or so and you’ll be very happy with how this performs. I could be missing something, but what? This is pretty Crypt Ghasty and unlike Crypt Ghast, this was reprinted in a set with $10 booster packs, not a popular Commander deck series.

I didn’t mean to do one card of each color so far but since I was going to do 5 cards, let’s pick a red one and wrap it up.

Sheoldred, Whispering One

Red sucks in EDH

I didn’t do a red card because they’re all either not in very many decks, almost exclusively used outside of EDH or they’re Kiki-Jiki and liable to get reprinted 3 more times. I’m giving you a good pick instead of arbitrarily completing a cycle I didn’t even know could be a cycle until I was 80% of the way through it. You’re welcome.

And you’re welcome for me reminding you to buy a card that has demonstrated the ability to flirt with $30 for like $10. This hits $20 again and you’ll be all “Wow, when did this get expensive again?” except you won’t because you’re reading this article so you won’t be surprised but other people will. I’m not sure where I’m going with this. Anyway, Sheoldred will recover and it’s at its floor now, so fill a shopping cart with them and windmill slam that “check out” button. You’re welcome.

This turned into a long article. If I were a lesser writer I would have given 3 picks instead of 5 but I am not a lesser writer. I am a man who finds you reverse-J-shaped graphs. You’re swell for reading, thanks for doing that. Until next time!

Jason Alt, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: The EDH Implications of the Jace and Bloodbraid Unbannings

There aren’t any.

We good? Any more questions?

Look, if you’re going to insist I write an article this week, we’re going to have to pick a different topic. That’s handy, because I noticed another deck that isn’t new nor are most of the cards in it and I think that’s a good thing. New cards printed in Ixalan block, specifically Rivals of Ixalan have renewed interest in an older Commander because those cards are perfect for an older archetype, though not much else. What happens when cards are printed that are super narrow but seem laser-guided to one established deck? Well, those cards themselves are likely to be pretty worthless financially unless they make an impact somewhere else, but they get people interested in an older deck and that’s worth talking about.

So what’s my thesis today? I’ve been doing this long enough and tracking my older predictions long enough to know what actually happens in cases like this and what happens less often and what happens even less often so I’m going to season my predictions with my experience. I’m going to say “this could go up” less often than I used to because by now I have a little bit better of an idea of what it will take and what has the goods. 50% of the cards we’re going to talk about  are going to likely go up, maybe a little maybe a lot, based on more people building the deck based on it being popular on EDHREC and the cards coming out being so good in it. The other half are cards that were going to go up anyway but I hadn’t really thought about them until I saw people played them in this deck and that reminded me to talk about how the card is at its floor. Both of those are equally valid. You’re partly paying me to think through some stuff for you because you don’t want to understand EDH finance and you’re partly paying me to remind you of cards you might have thought were good pick-ups but forgot about because there’s a lot going on.

 

Let’s get into the money part.

So this has been a commander for a while and it’s being built an OK amount. Per EDHREC’s current sampling data, Sidisi is the 11th-most popular deck so the current number of decks in the database is a little misleading. For reference, there are currently only twice as many deck for Atraxa in our database. This isn’t a problem; remember, we have always used those numbers to establish ratios rather than look at the numbers as absolutes. The numbers help but the more you use them qualitatively and the less you use them quantitatively, the happier you will be because you will get confused by the data less. Yes, I realize I am implying I use “numbers” which have absolute values, qualitatively. Sidisi having 1,880 decks registered on the site is an exact but fairly meaningless amount without context. Quantitatively, that’s about half as many as Atraxa, which has the largest number of decks registered in the database. Qualitatively, we have enough Sidisi decks to bother looking at the cards in it. How’s that grab you? See why we’re not sweating absolute numbers a ton? It doesn’t do us any good. There are only 10 Commanders more popular on the site so let’s assume there are enough Sidisi decks for us to care about it. So what’s new?

Having lots of different data displayed can tell you a lot of information. When you list the most popular decks of all time, Sidisi is 11th. When you look at most popular this month, Sidisi jumps to 9th. When you look at this week, Sidisi jumps to 6th. That means that while Sidisi was always pretty popular, something has changed in the last few weeks. Of the 10 decks more popular than Sidisi of all time, 4 of them haven’t had a new deck registered in the last month and 7 of them were less popular than Sidisi this month or week despite being more popular all-time. Something happened. I submit that the printing of these four cards in Rivals of Ixalan gave the deck quite a boost.

Milling yourself is pretty handy in a Sidisi deck, and giving yourself a chance at a Sidisi trigger every time you attack and bringing your milled lands back from the dead is so useful it feels like World Shaper was tailor-made for this deck. Other decks could use that ability, sure (I personally can’t wait to pants people with Admonition Angel) but World Shaper has been making Sidisi players salivate since it was spoiled.

Journey to Eternity is a great way to keep an important creature alive or just use as a sort of Pattern of Rebirth that gets you a utility land to bring back important creatures over and over. Your graveyard becomes a bigger hand with cards like Journey.

Path of Discovery is another card that seemed tailor-made for Sidisi. In fact, I started tracking how many more people were registering (I don’t have a good way to differentiate between people re-registering an old list or making a brand new one but new interest is new interest) Sidisi decks based on the spoiling of this card. It’s not great elsewhere but it’s dumb here.

Nezahal I could take or leave. What, 3 ridiculous bomb inclusions isn’t enough? It’s enough. Now let’s look at what I think could go up.

Traverse the Ulvenwald

A historical low for a powerful, 1-mana tutor played in Modern and EDH? Okey dokey. Sign me up for all of the copies. I don’t know if this can get any cheaper but I don’t think you worry. Spend what you can and if it does get cheaper, borrow money and buy even more. There are a lot of copies to soak up but this card is just too good and with it doing such a good impression of Worldly Tutor for a few bucks, I expect people will be getting up on this. It has pretty healthy EDHREC metrics, too.

Worried about the glut of copies?

Maybe you shouldn’t be. The foils are almost gone and the price is beginning to flirt with $15. That’s going to be a 10x multiplier soon. This is as good as I can feel about a card. If you have $100 extra bucks, buy those last few foils from eBay or stock up on the non-foil copies. Either way, this card will pop and it will be really obvious in hindsight. Instead of saying “I knew this would happen” in a reddit post like an unhelpful person, I’m telling you what will happen before it does so there is still time to buy copies for yourself. You’re welcome.

Cryptbreaker

Speaking of cards about to bottom out, this is a card that deserves a look. Not as reprintable as typical Zombie staples like Undead Warchief or Cemetery Reaper, this is a shoo-in for Sidisi decks. It’s a discard outlet, Zombie-maker and card-drawing outlet all in one card that happens to be a Zombie itself, so you can tap it to itself.

Foils got a bit crazy last summer but that just means another spike will be harder because dealers are sitting on a lot of copies so there won’t be cheap ones to back-fill demand.  I think this could hit that same value again, albeit getting there slowly but more organically and maintain it. I don’t think this card is a reprint risk and the moderate-to-low risk (if we’re being very conservative) is further mitigated in the case of foils. I realize we’re going back to doing core sets. I also think this is safe even in that case.

Other Sidisi

I stopped paying attention when this hit $4ish then started to crater. I sort of got distracted a little when it hit $2 and that sucks because it has basically doubled up. this demand is organic and the blue line representing dealer buy prices is going up right along with it which means no one thinks this is done growing. No one is out buying Dragon’s Maze of Tarkir packs so what was busted was busted and copies are drying up. This is a good card in its own right both as a Commander for people who love mono-Black decks that can tutor for stuff and creatures that have good abilities and it slots into a ton of black decks. I wish I had noticed this was creeping up last summer but I’m making up for it now. It’s basically removed a lot of the speculation I would have done about whether the demand would be organic. With all doubt removed, get on board. You can’t realize a double up since it already did that, but there will be growth and in the mean time, you have great binder candy.

The foils are a little trickier, having basically grown at a rate that outpaced dealer confidence. I don’t think the price will come down a ton but dealers don’t like it at its current price, which is too bad. Still, with this being a bad set that wasn’t bought a ton, non-foils are probably pretty good given how few copies there seem to be out there. I’m a seller in foil and a buyer in not. If the foils go up some more, whoopie. You would have made more money buying Traverse.

That does it for me. As you can see, the implications of the unbanning of Jace and BBE reach far and wide, even being felt in an EDH deck where card prices are going up for an unrelated reason. As always, check out the page for Sidisi on your own and try and use my method to scope out cards on your own. Got a spec idea I didn’t mention? Run it by me in the comments. Thanks for being a reader. Until next time!

Jason Alt, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: Crossover 2: The Crossovering

2 Comments

Last week I wrote an article.

Nobody made a snide or condescending comment which means I wrote a perfect article. It’s good to know that what I wrote was perfect and helpful to people. That’s excellent. Accordingly, I decided to make it a two-parter by, you know, writing a second part. Unlike a lot of unplanned sequels, this is going to go great. It’s going to be a lot more Godfather 2 than Highlander 2, you dig? If you aren’t familiar with or don’t remember what I did last week, go read it now for free and then we’ll hit the ground running. Less talk, more rock – let’s do this.

 

Gush

Pauper deck – Delver, other Delver, Inside Out combo

2,425 is hardly the largest number of EDH decks a card has ever been in where we later referenced its “demand” but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Gush is played a non-zero amount in EDH and is bannably-good in Pauper.

It’s a stupid-good card in Pauper and if it’s banned, a lot of people are going to eat it. For now, though, with so few printings, the first one being so long ago and with it being banned all of these years meaning there was no real impetus to dig these out of nooks and crannies, Gush’s price, well, gushed.

If you have these, I think you ship them. I don’t think pauper-mania can sustain its current fever pitch and regardless of if it does, I think Gush is one the watchlist. Could this hit $20? It’s possible but I think you just out these.

Distant Melody

Pauper Deck – Elves

Sooner or later, someone else will break some other tribe. In the mean time, Elves is basically the one viable tribal deck and with the use of Birchlore Rangers it can cast Mob Justice or Distant Melody pretty reliably (not bad for a deck with only 9 lands).

If you’ll notice, the interest in this card came way back when Wizards announced that Commander 2017 would be tribal decks. Before anyone even knew what the tribes would be, everyone decided that they knew there would be a blue. They were kind of right. While I don’t think the EDH demand quite justifies this price increase, I don’t think it can maintain its current price either with the new interest from Pauper. If Pauper is for real, expect to see this head upward and if this card survived a reprinting in Commander 2017 (it did; I should have probably said “since” and not “if” but I was doing a literary thing where I mirrored the previous statement… you know what? I don’t owe you an explanation) I expect a reprinting isn’t on the horizon and we could see some real growth from this card. There’s enough supply out there for current demand but as it rises, remember, second spikes are hard because there aren’t cheap, loose copies out there to backfill demand. This hits $3 or maybe even $4 pretty easily.

Having flirted with $15, the set foil is a mere $5 and that could have something to do with there being a competing foil. However, that foil is from a rare premium deck (the Slivers one) and the foiling is ugly. Anyone serious about foiling their pauper deck will get the good one and supply is pretty low.

Fog Frog

Pauper Deck – Abzan Control

Tortured Existence is the MVP of this deck and with its price already at $3 (not bad for a common from Stronghold) and its EDH inclusion being less-than-impressive, I opted to talk about Fog Frog, a card whose stock  can only rise. Rare in the traditional sense of the word because it’s from an old, bad set, Foggity Froggity is nuts in a deck with Tortured Existence.

Pauper fever is catching up. This could easily hit $3 or $4 with sustained demand and the non-zero amount of EDH play it gets will only drag on supply and bolster its growth potential. Lots of people don’t even know this is a pick so be sure to paw through Prophecy bulk if you hit up older shops that have more boxes than customers; there are a lot of them out there.

I wouldn’t worry about getting a foil copy under $40, though. If you do, SHIP.

Gemhide Sliver

Pauper Deck – SLIVERS!

OK, so somehow Muscle Sliver, Sinew Sliver and Predatory Sliver are all common on Magic Online. That means you have a deck with all common creatures that has 12 lords in it. That seems good.

Lucky for us, Gemhide Sliver is going to be in all of the EDH Sliver decks because of course it is. That means if Meathooks gets popular (it’s a cheap deck if you already own Ash Barrens) the demand from the two formats puts a lot of pressure on a card with two printings, one of which was a terribly-foiled premium deck. Oh, and Fog Frog goes in the sideboard of this deck, usually, because despite every creature being a Sliver most of the time, people just call it “GW” because of stuff like Standard Bearer in the board. Maybe if more people knew there was a Slivers deck, they might give Pauper a chance. I mean, I doubt it, but a man can dream. I don’t think you understand how important to me it is that there are Slivers.

I think this should be enough to whet your appetite. It’s a good idea to just look at Pauper decklists to see what is getting played. Anything with cross-format applicability obviously has some upside to it and EDHREC has all of the info you need about how many and which decks jam these paper pauper picks. That does it for me, nerds. Until next time!